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California’s Drought Leads to Cutbacks in Marin County but Not in San Diego

/in , , /by /The Wall Street Journal by Jim Carlton Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

At the southern end of California, residents have been assured their water supplies are secure and plentiful despite the state’s severe drought.

In Marin County, 500 miles north, lawn sprinklers are allowed only two days a week, washing a car at home is banned, and decorative fountains can’t be refilled. The orders are part of an effort by the local water district to cut usage by 40% after a precipitous fall in the local reservoirs.

The pain of a two-year drought drying up the American West isn’t being felt evenly across the country’s most populous state.

That is because Southern California water agencies have for decades invested in new ways to diversify their supplies and recycle what they get, say people who study and work with water in the West. In Northern California, meanwhile, a history of more plentiful rain and snow meant many communities were less prepared for the latest drought and now more homes and businesses must cut back.

 

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As Drought Ravages California, Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Could Help Store More Water

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby David Lightman and Dale Kasler

As California and the West suffer through an epic drought, President Joe Biden and Senate Republicans and Democrats have included $5 billion for Western water projects in their infrastructure deal.

The prospect of federal money comes as several big-ticket water projects are on the drawing boards in California — although many are still years from completion and probably wouldn’t get finished in time to help California with the current drought.

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Santa Rosa Orders Residents, Businesses to Reduce Water Use By 20%

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Omar Shaikh Rashad

The Santa Rosa City Council approved mandatory water-use restrictions for its residents and businesses starting Thursday, becoming the sixth city in Sonoma County to cut back on water.

The motion to approve the water-shortage contingency plan — which mandates residents and businesses reduce water use by 20% — passed with five ayes from Council Members Eddie Alvarez, John Sawyer, Tom Schwedhelm, Mayor Chris Rogers and Vice Mayor Natalie Rogers. Council Members Victoria Fleming and Jack Tibbetts were absent.

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Proposed Federal Grant Program Could Bolster Lake Mead Water Levels

/in , , , /by /Las Vegas Review-Journal by Blake Apgar

Water officials in Las Vegas are backing a federal bill that could help pay for a California project that would leave more water in Lake Mead.

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Historic Drought in the West is Forcing Ranchers to Take Painful Measures

/in , , /by /National Geographicby Sarah Gibbens

On Andrew McGibbon’s 90,000-acre cattle ranch south  Tucson, Arizona, the West’s punishing drought isn’t just drying up pastureland and evaporating water troughs.

“We’re having the death of trees like I’ve never seen in my lifetime. Thousands of trees are dying,” he says of species that have adapted to Arizona’s desert landscape, such as oak and mesquite.

Nearly 1,000 miles from McGibbon’s ranch, near Rio Vista, California, the drought on Ryan Mahoney’s ranch feels just as bad.

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Drought Has Pitted Farmers Against Native Tribes Protecting Endangered Fish

/in , /by /NPR

Along the California-Oregon border, the Klamath Basin is in the midst of a record drought, pitting farmers against native tribes with historic water rights who are trying to protect endangered fish.

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Report: Groundwater Overhaul Could Threaten Drinking Water Of More Than A Million Valley Residents

/in , /by /KVPRby Kerry Klein

As drought settles over the San Joaquin Valley, a new report warns of other circumstances that could result in entire communities losing drinking water. More than a million Valley residents could lose their public water in coming decades under the sweeping groundwater legislation known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), according to the paper published earlier this month by the non-profit Pacific Institute. Signed into law in 2014, SGMA aims over the next two decades to reduce California’s groundwater deficit by balancing water pumped out of the ground with the amount replenished.

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It’s Some of America’s Richest Farmland. But What Is It Without Water?

/in , , /by /The New York Timesby Somini Sengupta

In America’s fruit and nut basket, water is now the most precious crop of all.

It explains why, amid a historic drought parching much of the American West, a grower of premium sushi rice has concluded that it makes better business sense to sell the water he would have used to grow rice than to actually grow rice. Or why a melon farmer has left a third of his fields fallow. Or why a large landholder farther south is thinking of planting a solar array on his fields rather than the thirsty almonds that delivered steady profit for years.

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Water Futures Market Fails to Make a Splash with California Farmers

/in , , /by /Reutersby Karl Plume

Former bond trader Alan Boyce is just the type of California farmer expected to dive into the world’s first water futures contract.

Boyce is comfortable navigating financial tools, and he grows irrigated pistachios, tomatoes, alfalfa and other crops in California’s drought-prone Central Valley. But he says the water contract is still too illiquid to benefit him.

Financial exchange operator CME Group launched the contract late last year to help big California water users such as farmers and utilities hedge rising drought risk and give investors a sense of how scarce water is at any given time. The exchange and a United Nations report said this is the first water futures contract in the world.

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Opinion: Is it Time to Start Thinking About the Worst-Case Scenario on Lake Mead?

/in , , /by /Arizona Republicby Joanna Allhands

It seemed like Colorado River basin states were ahead of the curve in 2007 when we enacted a 20-year set of guidelines that spelled out what would happen if Lake Mead were to ever fall into a shortage.

But a decade later, as water levels at the lake plummeted, it was clear that we hadn’t planned nearly enough for shortage. A “stress test” that better accounted for more recent drought conditions revealed that if we didn’t do more to prop up water levels, there was an unacceptably high chance of the lake tanking within a few years.

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