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Colorado River Users Convene In Las Vegas To Talk Drought Contingency Plan

/in , , /by /Aspen Public Radioby Christin Kay

Nearly 40 million people depend on the Colorado River for their water supply. Last week, a group of stakeholders gathered in Las Vegas for the Colorado River Water Users Association conference to discuss major issues when it comes to sharing and regulating usage.

This year, one topic was the recently-completed drought contingency plan, which has been the focus of negotiations for the last five years. The plan is designed to keep water levels in the Colorado River’s biggest reservoirs from dropping rapidly. 

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California Coastal Waters Rising in Acidity at Alarming Rate, Study Finds

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Rosanna Xia

Waters off the California coast are acidifying twice as fast as the global average, scientists found, threatening major fisheries and sounding the alarm that the ocean can absorb only so much more of the world’s carbon emissions.

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OPINION: Choosing a Backup Battery System in the New Age of California’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs

/in , , /by /PV Magazine USAby Eric Hill

In California this fall, utilities cut power to more than 3 million people to help prevent their power lines from causing wildfires. In the aftermath, the state has seen a rush on requests for battery systems, as many homeowners with solar have realized that their solar panels will not work when the grid is down.

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Report: Sea Level Could Rise At Least 7 Feet Along California’s Coastline by 2100

/in , /by /KPBS Radio San Diegoby Alison St. John and John Carroll

A new report from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office has some sobering news when it comes to sea level rise.

The report found that ocean water could rise by seven feet or more by the end of this century, and it said local governments up and down the state are not doing nearly enough to meet the challenge.

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Santana: Brea’s Secretive Water Agency Draws Court Challenge

/in , /by /Voice of OCby Norberto Santana Jr.

Brea city council members this week will head behind closed doors to debate whether they should continue keeping residents in the dark about city appointees to a secretive water agency, Cal Domestic Water, which provides water for residents citywide.

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Can a Grand Vision Solve the Colorado River’s Challenges?

/in , /by /Water Education Foundation (Sacramento)by Garay Pitzer

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.

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‘The Water Wars Have Begun.’ Some Wonder How Water Plan Will Impact Merced County Farms

/in , , /by /Merced Sun-Starby Abbie Lauten-Scrivner

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.

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Exploring Different Approaches for Solving the Colorado River’s Myriad Challenges

/in , /by /Water Education Foundation (Sacramento)by Jennifer Bowles

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.

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Sky Rivers: A New Scale Categorizes Power of Crucial Atmospheric Flows

/in , /by /Cronkite News by Jordan Evans

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.

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Yes, There’s Microplastic in the Snow

/in , /by /Quartzby Zoë Schlanger

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.

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