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The Climate Crisis Is Taking These Farmers’ Most Valuable Resource

/in , , /by /KDRV

The federal government on Monday declared a water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time, triggering mandatory water consumption cuts for states in the Southwest, as climate change-fueled drought pushes the level in Lake Mead to unprecedented lows.

Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US by volume, has drained at an alarming rate this year. At around 1,067 feet above sea level and 35% full, the Colorado River reservoir is at its lowest since the lake was filled after the Hoover Dam was completed in the 1930s.

Lake Powell, which is also fed by the Colorado River and is the country’s second-largest reservoir, recently sank to a record low and is now 32% full.

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Opinion: Climate Change Demands Reorganizing California Policies and Institutions

/in , /by /CalMattersby Lester Snow

In California, our natural resource world has changed and continues to change faster than our policies and institutions can adapt. Temperature records are being set annually, tinder-dry watersheds experience raging wildfire driven by high winds, and reduced snowpack often evaporates without running into rivers. Higher temperatures have put natural systems in a tailspin, and California institutions are too narrow, calcified and cautious to respond with the speed needed to protect us from natural disasters.

We can try to adapt to the floods, droughts, heat waves and sea-level rise now upon us with institutions built for a past regime. Or we can start doing now what we need to do — organize ourselves in new ways to match the speed of change and the size of the challenge.

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Biden Moves to Blunt Trump Water Permitting Rule

/in , /by /E&E Newsby Hannah Northey

EPA today laid out a path for states and tribes to take more time to negotiate and tackle challenges before signing off on water permits — an attempt to defang a controversial Trump-era rule that allows only a year to approve or deny permits for utilities and oil and gas pipelines.

Sources say the move is an attempt by the Biden administration to mitigate the adverse effects of the Trump water rule finalized last year that’s still on the books while showing sensitivity to advocates fighting the proliferation of fossil fuel projects.

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With Drought Worsening, How Close is Southern California to Strict Water Restrictions?

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Times by Hayley Smith, Julia Wick

Unlike other parts of the state, Southern California has avoided the worst of the drought-inspired water restrictions because of ample supplies. But that could be changing.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Tuesday issued a supply alert, calling on the region to conserve vital resources and prepare for continued drought.

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Minnesota’s Drought Reaches Levels Not Seen Since 1988 and the Dust Bowl

/in , , /by /Star Tribuneby Greg Stanley

Entire channels of the Mississippi River are caked dry. Rocks, riverbeds and islands of the St. Croix and Minnesota rivers are visible for the first time in decades. Dozens of streams are at their lowest recorded levels since at least 1988, or even the Dust Bowl.

On Wednesday, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) put much of the state in a “restricted phase” as the drought continues to get worse. That means water utilities and suppliers will need to cut down the total amount of water used to no more than 25% above what they used in January.

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Epa Administrator Announces Nearly $200 Million in Loans to Fix Bay Area’s Aging Water Pipes, Treatment Plants

/in , /by /The Mercury Newsby Aldo Toledo

Three massive loans from the federal government totaling nearly $200 million were announced Tuesday to help fix up aging clay pipes in the East Bay and to fund a new water treatment facility in Redwood City, a sum which Environmental Protection Agency Administrators Michael Regan said could increase if Congress passes the hotly debated trillion-dollar infrastructure bill.

At an event hosted by Silicon Valley Clean Water Tuesday at the agency’s new wastewater treatment plant currently under construction in Redwood Shores, Regan announced two Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loans totaling $143 million to SVCW and $25 million to the Oro Loma Sanitary District supporting projects expected to create more than 2,500 jobs.

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California Enacted a Groundwater Law 7 Years Ago. But Wells Are Still Drying Up — and the Threat is Spreading

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Rachel Becker

Kelly O’Brien’s drinking water well had been in its death throes for days before its pump finally gave out over Memorial Day weekend.

It wasn’t a quiet death at O’Brien’s home in Glenn County, about 100 miles north of Sacramento.

Spigots rattled. Faucets sputtered. The drinking water turned rusty with sediment. In the end, two houses, three adults, three children, two horses, four dogs and a couple of cats on her five acres of land were all left with no water for their sinks, showers, laundry, troughs and water bowls.

As extreme drought spread across the state, O’Brien feared that the water underneath her property had sunk so low that it was out of the reach of her well.

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New Water Cuts Are Coming in the West

/in , /by /The New York Timesby Henry Fountain

In this summer of wildfires, heat waves and drought, there was another bit of bad environmental news out of the West this week. Federal officials declared a water shortage at Lake Mead, the huge reservoir on the Colorado River near Las Vegas, setting off sharp cuts in water to Arizona farmers next year.

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Opinion: Newsom Says Mandatory California Water Restrictions Can Wait Six Weeks. Gee, Wonder Why?

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicle

Surveying the recently scorched earth of Big Basin Redwoods State Park with the nation’s top environmental official this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged that it might be time for mandatory statewide water restrictions — in six weeks or so.

What is he waiting for?

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California Faces Unprecedented Dangers as Record Heat, Dryness Combine With Fierce Winds

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hayley Smith, Lila Seidman, Hailey Branson-Potts

With more than a million acres burned fairly early in the fire season, California is entering uncharted territory as the record dry conditions that have fueled so much destruction will soon combine with seasonal winds that fire officials fear will bring unprecedented dangers.

Officials have attributed warming temperatures and worsening drought to the explosive growth of fires, mostly in the mountains of Northern California, this summer.

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