Climate change and overuse are causing one of the Colorado River’s biggest reservoirs, Lake Powell, to drop. While water managers worry about scarcity issues, two Utah river rafters are documenting the changes that come as the massive reservoir hits historic low points.
In a letter to President-elect Joe Biden last week, the American Water Works Association urged the incoming administration to prioritize COVID-19 relief for water utilities and investment for the overall water infrastructure sector.
The letter, authored by association president Melissa Elliott, cites AWWA research that revenue shortfalls at U.S. drinking water utilities may reduce economic activity by $32.7 billion and cost 75,000 to 90,000 private-sector jobs. Drinking water utilities are expected to see revenues from customer payments drop by nearly $14 billion, according to AWWA estimates. This is the result of the elimination of water shutoffs for non-payment, increased late payments due to high unemployment, reductions in non-residential water demands, and the addition of fewer new customers due to economic stagnation.
In an average year, Brad Lancaster can harvest enough rain to meet 95% of his water needs. Roof runoff collected in tanks on his modest lot in Tucson, Arizona — where 100 degree days are common in the summer months — provides what he needs to bathe, cook and drink.
Cornwall City Council approved paying $187,273 from the Wastewater Works Reserve to cover damages to the Waste Water Treatment Plant.
On Saturday, May 16, 2020 alarms notified staff at the WWTP that a traveling bar screen was not operating. The lower screen had been blocked and began to back up, which lead to an excess of 2,000 cubic meters of raw sewage spilling out into the St. Lawrence River.
So far this water year that began Oct. 1 has been treating most of Utah like a miserly scrooge, stingy with storms and the accompanying snow. The southern half of the state, as of Monday, was sitting in the 60% of normal accumulation of snowpack, and the Lower Sevier River Basin at 36% of normal is experiencing abysmally dry conditions.
Droughts conjure images of vast expanses of hard, cracked soil and parched plants, but new research suggests that disastrous dry spells can develop over the wettest place of all: the ocean. Low-moisture air masses sometimes form and migrate thousands of kilometers over the sea, similar to the way hurricanes behave.
Twenty years ago, the Colorado River Basin’s hydrology turned persistently dry, reservoir levels plummeted and a river system relied upon by nearly 40 million people, farms and ecosystems across the West was in trouble. So key players across the Basin attacked the problem. The result was a set of Interim Guidelines adopted in 2007 that, according to a just-released assessment, mostly worked to prevent forced water supply cuts. With the guidelines expiring in 2026, that assessment is expected to aid discussions as key players begin writing a new set of river operating rules.
Decades of political conflict over the fate of four obsolete dams on the Klamath River reached a turning point last week with a multi-party, two-state “memorandum of understanding” to remove them in hopes of restoring salmon runs.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, heads of two Indian tribes that depend on the river for sustenance, and an executive of Warren Buffett’s PacificCorp that owns the dams announced agreement on a $450 million removal project.
If you’re worried about your well going dry and who will pay to drill deeper, or about your community having enough safe and clean water, or about your farm’s ability to irrigate, this information is for you.
Mild days and sunny skies should linger through next week across the Bay Area, blanketing the region with pleasant winter days while extending the long statewide drought that has fueled this year’s catastrophic wildfires.
