A sprawling $1.5 trillion fiscal 2022 spending deal is awash in cash for water and natural resources projects, including a number of Republican proposals to gird coastal communities against the effects of climate change.
The omnibus package is the first in years to contain congressionally directed spending, also known as earmarks. Lawmakers revived them under tight rules and only for certain parts of the federal budget.
With a geopolitical crisis playing out thousands of miles away, the drinking water sector in the U.S. has doubled its resolve against potential attacks against their digital systems.
Before a drop of treated water in California ever reaches a consumer’s faucet, about 8% of it has already been wasted due to leaks in the delivery system. Nationally, the waste is even higher, at 17%. This represents an untapped opportunity for water savings, according to a study from the University of California, Davis.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, is the first large-scale assessment of utility-level water loss in the United States.
People and companies are competing for the world’s most basic resource – water- in California. We’re in Madera County, California, where a never-ending drought is pitting citizens against corporations.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has declared a state of emergency in Klamath County as southern Oregon remains in an ongoing drought that shows no sign of letting up.
The Monday declaration directs state agencies, including the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Oregon Water Resources Department and the Water Resources Commission, to provide assistance to water users in the region and to seek federal resources to help residents and wildlife, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
3,490 feet is the minimum elevation at which the generators in Lake Powell can run, according to Gene Shawcroft, the general manager for the Central Water Conservancy District and Utah’s Colorado River Commissioner.
He says 3,525 feet was the buffer level, water leaders decided on, to move forward with a plan after witnessing record drought conditions.
The US Bureau of Reclamation announced last month that irrigation districts accounting for farmers across California’s Central Valley would receive a zero-water allocation from the Central Valley Project as early-year dryness weighs on anticipated water supply. No water is allocated for irrigation north and south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta, including off the Sacramento river, according to the 23 February announcement. Additional allocations will be announced in May.
Data is key to better understanding and managing California’s water supply. However, the state reports a lack of compliance by affected water-rights holders, who are required to report the water they divert.
“Even though we initially opposed the regulation, it is the law, so it is very important that people are in compliance,” said Danny Merkley, California Farm Bureau director of water resources. “It protects our existing water-rights system, which was designed for times of scarcity, like we have now, and it works if we get the data.”
High in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, under thin air and bluebird skies, the Colorado River Basin is slowly replenishing its savings account. Craggy peaks become smooth walls of white, and snow piles up against conifer trunks, covering even the deepest, darkest corners of the forest in a glimmering blanket.
Snow that accumulates on the western slope of the Rockies eventually becomes water in the Colorado River. Some of it will flow as far south as Mexico, running through kitchen faucets in cities and suburbs along the way, or watering crops that keep America fed.
Prior to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s State of the State speech, there is one item to examine that serves as a building block for all the issues the governor will address – water.
Despite unexpected storms in late 2021, California is braced for another year of drought.
The water we do have must move throughout the state by way of a complicated system of reservoirs, dams, canals, pipes and treatment plants. That movement is managed by an equally complicated network of federal, state and local officials.
