You are now in California and the U.S. category.

In Arizona, water scarcity is like the background hum of conversation in a popular restaurant: unrelenting. But even in this desert state, the ever-present strain on water supplies could soon be felt more acutely. As soon as 2019, the water level in Lake Mead on the Colorado River could drop below an elevation of 1,075 feet. That will trigger mandatory cutbacks in water diversions from the reservoir under an agreement negotiated between the federal government and three lower-basin states that rely on the river: Arizona, California and Nevada. 

When President Trump nominated David Bernhardt for the No. 2 spot at the Interior Department, the administration cited his extensive expertise.

What the announcement failed to mention was that much of that experience was lobbying and doing legal work to elude or undermine Interior Department policies and protections.

As a partner in one of the nation’s top-grossing lobbying-law firms, Bernhardt has represented major players in oil, mining and western water – all areas that fall under the purview of Interior agencies that Bernhardt would oversee if confirmed as the department’s deputy secretary.

Water will stop flowing from Oroville Dam’s badly damaged spillway on Friday, in the hopes it’s the last time it will be used before the next rainy season. Even with a heavy snowpack waiting to melt in the mountains above Lake Oroville, state officials say they’ve drained the reservoir down to the point where they can manage its level through the dam’s primary powerplant outlet. The lake was at 74 percent of its total capacity Wednesday.

California’s largest lake, the Salton Sea, is an accident. It was created in 1905 when a levee broke on an irrigation canal, flooding a giant desert playa. Today it has become a sticking point in negotiations between three states over the future of the Colorado River. The three states – California, Arizona and Nevada – are in the midst of negotiating a drought contingency plan (DCP).  It would commit each state to reducing diversions from the Colorado River in order to prevent Lake Mead from shrinking to disastrously low levels.

The drought is officially over in California, but our water crisis is not. Eyewitness News investigates the proposed solutions to help our water supply for the long haul. “What’s interesting from last year is we were simultaneously in a drought emergency and we were in a flood emergency, and so it was kind of an interesting thing for Californians to try to wrap their head around,” Harry Starkey, district manager for the West Kern Water District said. Starkey said California will always have its dry years, and then we are going to have some wet years.