The Colorado River is arguably one of the hardest working rivers on the planet, supplying water to 40 million people and a large agricultural economy in the West. But it’s under duress from two decades of drought and decisions made about its management will have exceptional ramifications for the future, especially as impacts from climate change are felt.
Agricultural and urban groundwater users in Merced County may soon have to sacrifice for the future, if a new state-mandated sustainability plan that limits consumption moves forward.
Every other year we hold an invitation-only Colorado River Symposium attended by various stakeholders from across the seven Western states and Mexico that rely on the iconic river. We host this three-day event in Santa Fe, N.M., where the 1922 Colorado River Compact was signed, as part of our mission to catalyze critical conversations to build bridges and inform collaborative decision-making.
You may have heard of the Pineapple Express – not the 2008 buddy comedy about marijuana, hit men and corrupt cops – but the long, narrow “river in the sky” that brings tropical moisture from Hawaii to the West Coast.
Atmospheric rivers, which have been studied for nearly two decades, are flowing areas of water vapor in the upper atmosphere driven by areas of low pressure over an ocean. They are the source of most of the West Coast’s heaviest rains and floods.
This is the year we found microplastic in the snow.
Although microplastics have been popping up everywhere from the waters of Antarctica to our table salt, the idea that it could blow in the wind or fall as precipitation back down to Earth is extremely new. The main mode of microplastic transport, as far as we knew as recently as last year, was water. It had already shown up in drinking water a few years prior. But microplastic in snow suggests something different: Microplastics carried by wind, and settling out of the air along with the frosty flakes.
Federal water managers are starting to review a crucial 2007 agreement for seven Western states to share drought-diminished water supplies from the Colorado River ahead of talks about revising and renewing it beginning in 2026, U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said Friday.
Bernhardt called for a report next December, ahead of a deadline set in the older deal, which established a schedule of strict water cutbacks to states if levels keep falling at the key Lake Mead and Lake Powell reservoirs.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — States in the U.S. West that have agreed to begin taking less water next month from the drought-stricken Colorado River got praise and a push for more action Thursday from the nation’s top water official.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman told federal, state and local water managers that abiding by the promises they made will be crucial to ensuring that more painful cuts aren’t required.
The river supplies 40 million people in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming as well as a $5 billion-a-year agricultural industry.
After three major dams collapsed in the 1970s, leaving a total of 175 people dead, safety precautions, inspections and regulations were put in place. But a two-year investigation by The Associated Press found that at least 1,680 dams in the country are currently a risk for the communities living below the deteriorating structures.
The news outlet reported that hundreds of dams were in “poor or unsatisfactory condition.”
A new storm from the West will spread snow, ice and rain through parts of the central and eastern states into early next week.
The energy from this next storm will move into the West Coast by Saturday. It will then spawn a low pressure system in the Southern Plains, which will track toward the eastern states early next week.
There will likely be snow and some ice where the moisture pulled in by the low overlaps with cold air supplied by high pressure to its north. Rain and thunderstorms are expected in the South.
The new United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement reached Tuesday commits the federal government to provide $300 million for the Border Water Infrastructure Program to address pollution on the U.S.-Mexico border, including the Tijuana River Valley region, where millions of gallons of raw sewage, heavy metals and other contaminants regularly flow from Tijuana to San Diego.
The funding likely represents the most significant federal commitment to the problem in decades, elected officials said.
