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COLORADO RIVER: Lake Powell, Lake Mead, and Southern California’s Water Dilemma

/in , /by /Maven's Notebook

Two years ago, the Colorado River Lower Basin states united to conserve an extra 3 million acre-feet of water by 2026, aiming to stabilize Lake Powell and Lake Mead while crafting the post-2026 guidelines for managing the river. With last year’s near-normal snowpack and conservation efforts ahead of schedule, success seemed within reach.  However, over the last few months, this year has become anything but normal, and the system is looking to be anything but stabilized.

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California Lawmakers Approve Last-Minute, Sweeping Rollbacks of Environmental Law

/in , /by /Cal Mattersby Alejandro Lazo and Rachel Becker

California lawmakers today approved one of the most substantial rollbacks of the state’s signature environmental review law in decades, including a controversial exemption that would allow high-tech manufacturing plants to be built in industrial zones with no environmental review.

The changes to the California Environmental Quality Act were embedded in a last-minute budget bill that sailed through the Senate and the Assembly. The new law exempts nine types of projects from environmental reviews: child care centers, health clinics, food banks, farmworker housing, broadband, wildfire prevention, water infrastructure, public parks or trails and, notably, advanced manufacturing.

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California Fire Season Is off to a Furious Start, and Experts Say It’s Just the Beginning

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Grace Toohey

Wildfire season in Southern California got off to an ominous start this weekend, with several fires sparking across Riverside and San Bernardino counties’ parched landscapes, elevating concerns that conditions are ripe for a fiery year across the Golden State.

Experts have been warning that the Southland’s below-average rainy season is likely to set the stage for a particularly bad stretch of fires this summer and fall — and the recent spate of blazes appears to be a sign of what’s to come.

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OPINION: The Cost of State Inaction – The Future of California’s Water Supply

/in , /by /OC Registerby Jay Lund, Josue Medellin Azuara and Alvar Escriva Bou

California’s weather whiplash has left the Golden State in a place of severe uncertainty about its diminishing water supply and increasing human and environmental demands for water.

Research that my colleagues and I published last year, “The Magnitude of California’s Water Challenges” showed that Californians can expect their water supply to shrink 12 to 25% by 2050, up to 9 million acre-feet, or equal to one to two Lake Shastas.

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John Griffith on Strains Facing the US Water Supply

/in , /by /Bloombergby Open Interest

John Griffith, CEO of American Water, joins Open Interest to talk about the need to invest capital in our water infrastructure.

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Officials Turn to Innovative Method to Address Longstanding Emblem of Water Crisis: ‘Difficult Projects Are Possible’

/in , /by /The Cool Downby Jamie Speka

The Salton Sea has long been a worrying emblem of California’s water crisis. Based in the parched, desert-like lands, the decades-long project to bring new wetlands back to the scorched dirt is finally underway. In the midst of the Salton Sea’s years of evaporation, the waters have grown progressively saltier, killing native fish that acted as a food source for dozens of migrating birds like white pelicans, double-crested cormorants, and eared grebes — all of which have faced significant population declines.

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For the Future of Water Conservation, Look to … Los Angeles?

/in , /by /New York Timesby Michael Kimmelman

You’ve probably come across more stories about water woes in California than you can recall, so you may feel you’ve had enough for a while. I understand. There’s no easy or permanent fix. The protagonists don’t divide neatly into good and evil. Water in the state often isn’t where the people are — or, as with the recent fires, isn’t there at all.

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Like Electric Lights, Water Reuse Is Destined to Become a Necessity

/in , /by /Fast Companyby Aaron Tartakovsky

Indoor toilets were once considered a health hazard. Electric lighting sparked fears of deadly fires. Air conditioning was dismissed as an unnatural threat to human health. It seems absurd now, but each of these technologies—now fundamental to modern buildings—was initially met with widespread skepticism and resistance.

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Forever Chemicals Are in Your Drinking Water: Here’s How Worried to Be—And What to Do About It

/in , /by /Fortuneby Ani Freedman

It’s not uncommon nowadays to fill a glass of water from your tap and wonder what chemicals and contaminants may be lurking in there. That’s because research has increasingly revealed that heavy metals, radioactive substances, and harmful PFAS (“forever chemicals”) are present in our water systems.

“It turns out millions of people have PFAS in their drinking water,” Tracey Woodruff, director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California, San Francisco, tells Fortune.

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OPINION: The Grand Water Bargain

/in , /by /The California Globeby Edward Ring

For the last few decades in California, the conventional wisdom has been that farmers and urban water consumers have to improve efficiency and reduce consumption. To the fullest extent possible, rain and snow falling on watersheds must proceed unimpaired from the mountains to the ocean, and if water is reserved in reservoirs, releases of the stored water must prioritize maintaining flow in the rivers over diversions for agriculture or urban consumption.

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