The situation playing out along the Muddy River is not unique across the Southwest and in the Colorado River Basin. As climate change and overuse reduce water supplies, the gap between “paper water” (the legal right to use water) and “actual water” (what’s available) is widening.
The devastating wildfires raging across the western United States are a wake-up call for anyone who continues to doubt the financial and economic implications of climate change.
Last month, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission published a comprehensive report on the risks climate change poses to U.S. financial markets, stating in clear terms that “a world wracked by frequent and devastating shocks from climate change cannot sustain the fundamental conditions supporting our financial system.”
Dozens of House lawmakers asked the Trump administration yesterday to demand protections against per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, in school drinking water.
A federal judge on Monday ruled that a sprawling collage of salt ponds in Redwood City is subject to protections under the Clean Water Act — going against a previous decision by the Environmental Protection Agency that would have eased development along the bay.
State and local officials are sounding the alarm on water pollution and potential long-term impacts to water caused by ongoing wildfires. As wildfires rage, vegetation and soil are scorched and ash is pushed into Colorado rivers and streams.
“A lot of that ash will get into the water and can change the pH levels,” said Jason Clay with Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
We need it. We need it really, really badly. With wildfire after wildfire battering California since late summer, burning record acreage and killing at least 30 people in less than two months, weather experts have repeatedly said conditions conducive to critical fire risk probably won’t begin to subside until the first significant rainfall of autumn.
For more than a month after a wildfire raced through his lakeside community and destroyed his Napa County home, Kody Petrini couldn’t drink the water from the taps. He wasn’t even supposed to boil it. And, worried about harming his 16-month-old, Petrini wouldn’t wash his youngest son Levi with it.
Poseidon Water’s long, winding road to building a desalination plant in Huntington Beach could face its biggest obstacle yet if opponents prevail in the upcoming election.
Mo Mohsin has been trying to bring clean drinking water to the residents of the Cobles Corner mobile home park ever since he bought the property back in 2003. The struggle, however, has been all uphill.
Californians are understandably focused on the wildfires that have charred more than 3 million acres and darkened our skies – forcing us to find masks that protect us from both COVID-19 and smoke. But Californians should also pay attention to the multiple hurricanes that have devastated the Gulf Coast this season.
