Facing a future of shortages, California is entering a new phase of water conservation: Cities and towns must meet new mandates ramping down use over the next 15 years — and some will be hit harder than others.
Continuing my comments from last week regarding California’s water supply and conservation, I am reminded of a trip to Chico some 35 years ago. Our family was living through our second drought since moving here in 1973. You may recall a couple of years ago I wrote how this state is subject to recurring droughts roughly every 7 to 10 years. Dry years are nothing new.
Chronic water scarcity in California is indeed the new normal, but it’s not because of climate change. Even if the state is destined to experience lengthier droughts and reduced snowpack, most scenarios also forecast an abundance of years when the state is inundated with a series of so-called atmospheric rivers. That diluvian scenario was experienced by Californians this past winter, and even more so in the winter of 2022–23. Yet water remains scarce.
The US Treasury Department on Friday sanctioned two alleged members of a Russian cybercriminal gang that has claimed responsibility for a slew of hacks against US critical infrastructure providers, including a cyberattack in January that caused a tank at a Texas water facility to overflow.
Another round of significant heat across California’s interior is expected to bring potentially dangerous conditions back to the state, with weather officials warning of “relentless” heat risk over the Southwest beginning this weekend.
The National Weather Service warned of a mid-July heat wave building across the western United States — including the majority of inland California, most of Nevada and parts of Arizona, Oregon and Idaho — with “hazardous heat” expected from Saturday through at least Tuesday.
Add lithium to water in a chemistry lab, and you’ll get an incendiary reaction. The same might be said of opening new lithium mines: The prospect can spark conflicts when it comes to water.
Mining companies and the U.S. government are investing in increased extraction for lithium, which is a critical component in some renewable energy technology, especially electric vehicle batteries and large grid-scale storage batteries.
Set atop a hill on the Italian island of Sicily, Agrigento is a heritage tourist’s paradise. Beneath the archaeological structures and relics of its Valley of the Temples lies an ancient maze-like aqueduct system that still captures water today.
But the aqueduct, and others built in modern times, are running so dry that small hotels and guesthouses in the city and nearby coast are being forced to turn tourists away. They don’t have enough water to guarantee their guests a toilet that flushes or a shower after a day out in the summer heat.
New water restrictions are coming to California. Earlier this month, the state Water Resources Control Board adopted new rules that will phase in cutbacks to water suppliers across the state; the enforcement of those conservation targets is expected to start in 2027.
These new rules have been under consideration for several years, and have gone through different iterations over that time.
A Kings County judge today issued a temporary restraining order against the state that pauses its unprecedented move to crack down on groundwater depletion in California’s agricultural heartland.
The decision by Superior Court Judge Kathy Ciuffini grants Kings County growers a temporary reprieve from a state mandate to monitor and report how much water they pump from heavily over-pumped aquifers. The order will last through a hearing in August, when the judge will consider issuing a preliminary injunction.
A South Texas congressman who is part of a bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers meeting with officials in Mexico City this week says Mexico intends to repay water owed to the United States very soon, Border Report has learned.
U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat from McAllen who is the only lawmaker from Texas on the trip, told Border Report that the current president and president-elect both have promised to pay the water that Mexico owes South Texas.
