The last two years have been California’s most destructive fire seasons. Thirty-six people lost their lives, and more than 14,000 structures were destroyed or damaged. In addition, more than 7.3 million acres burned in California, which is larger than all of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties combined. To put it simply, California’s forest lands are in crisis.
Since 2014, SOURCE Global has been aiming to provide clean drinking water to thousands of people across the world.
The company has reached 53 countries. Now, they are looking to help the Central Valley.
“I think it is very important to avoid ingesting contaminants like uranium, arsenic and nitrates that are very common in the Central Valley,” says Clara McBane, Senior VP or SOURCE Global.
No rain or snow in January and February certainly added to the drought in California. L.A. Times reporter Ian James reported on Feb. 24 that many farmers in the federal Central Valley Project will not receive water from the federal system this year. In mid-February, the federal Bureau of Reclamation announced a zero-water allocation for many irrigation districts that supply farmers throughout the Central Valley. Makes one wonder: Where our food will be grown?
Away from the lights and fountains of the Las Vegas Strip, bulldozers are working overtime as the suburbs of Sin City are bursting out of their seams.
Las Vegas is growing at a staggering rate. Clark county, where the city is located, is home to roughly 2.3 million people, but forecasts predict the population could go beyond 4 million by 2055.
Attracted by the lure of cheaper costs of living, lower taxes, and newly built homes, more than half a million people are expected to flock to southern Nevada in just the next 15 years.
Farming is in 30-year-old Jace Miller’s blood.
“I love my job, it’s the greatest way of life,” Miller said. “It’s the best profession in the world, in my opinion.”
His great great grandfather came to Arizona in 1917 and started a farm in Gilbert. Four generations later, Jace is still doing it. But that 100-year run is at risk of ending — Triple M Farms, named for the three Miller generations that work there today — is losing access to its most important resource: water.
Spring is beginning sooner in the United States, with 97 percent of 242 locations across the country experiencing temperature increases since 1970, according to a new analysis from Climate Central.
The analysis showed that close to half of the 242 locations have warmed by at least 2 degrees F. Reno, Nevada saw the greatest increase of any city, warming by 6.8 degrees F, followed by Las Vegas, Nevada and El Paso, Texas, which warmed by 6.2 degrees and 5.9 degrees, respectively.
As the pressure on California’s water supply grows more intense this summer, another urban area could begin the process of producing their own. The California Coastal Commission is set to vote later this spring on what would be the state’s second major coastal desalination plant in Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles.
Glenn Farrel is with the industry group, CalDesal.
California just notched its driest January and February on record, sounding alarms about a third year of record drought.
Across the Pacific Ocean, thousands are fleeing record flooding in Australia. Officials in Brisbane reported 31 inches of rain in six days, and Jonathan Howe, a government meteorologist quoted by the Associated Press, called the amount of rainfall “astronomical.”
Meanwhile, in the eastern Horn of Africa, prolonged drought is raising the frightening specter of famine for millions.
Not since Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800 A.D. has the American West been so dry. A recent study in Nature Climate Change found the period 2000 to 2021 was the driest 22 years in more than a millennium, attributing a fifth of that anomaly to human-caused climate change. The megadrought has meant more fires, reduced agricultural productivity, and reduced hydropower generation. Last summer, the United States’ two largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell — reached their lowest levels ever, triggering unprecedented cuts in water allocations to Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico.
Bad news on the drought front Tuesday as state water officials measured the snowpack up in the Sierra with ominous results for continued drought conditions in 2022.
It’s been a strange year.
There was the now-infamous October storm followed by a historically dry January and February. When the California Department of Water Resources measured the snowpack at the start of March, the number was bleak. Only 63% of normal water content.
