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The Snowmelt Is On – and That’s Too Soon in Colorado, Say Water Watchers

/in , , /by /The Denver Gazetteby Marianne Goodland

The concern over drought over the past couple of years has focused on the Western Slope and much of southern and southeastern Colorado, but water watchers said on April 19 that a lack of precipitation is now a factor for the Eastern Plains, as well, just when farmers are getting ready to plant.

Colorado’s drought situation is a little better than it was a year ago, but warm temperatures, windy conditions in April and almost no precipitation in parts of the state means the snowpack is melting a couple of weeks sooner than most water watchers would prefer.

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Deliveries to Be Cut as Lake Powell Approaches Crisis Level

/in , , /by /Las Vegas Sunby Jessica Hill

Lake Mead’s “bathtub ring” is set to become even more pronounced this year.

The lingering drought is the overriding reason that the lake’s water level will fall again in 2022, but it’s also because less water will be released upstream on the Colorado River from Lake Powell.

This month, the seven Colorado River Basin States — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — agreed with federal officials’ recommendations to institute a 480,000 acre-foot reduction from Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell to reduce the risk of the lake declining below 3,490 feet.

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Manchester Avenue Potable Water Pipeline Replacement Project Completed

/in , , /by /Water News Network

The Olivenhain Municipal Water District recently completed the Manchester Avenue Potable Water Pipeline Project. In total, 3,700 linear feet of aged potable water pipeline was replaced along Manchester Avenue, Rancho Santa Fe Road and Encinitas Boulevard.

The pipelines previously serving water in this area were installed in 1961 and were approaching the end of their lifespan.

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Colorado River States Agree to Federal Request to Hold Back Water in Lake Powell

/in , , /by /The Nevada Independent by Daniel Rothberg

In a letter sent Friday, the seven states that use the Colorado River agreed with the U.S. Department of Interior and recommended that federal water managers take an emergency action aimed at stabilizing a dwindling Lake Powell, one of the main storage reservoirs on the river.

Earlier this month, federal water managers warned the states, including Nevada, that they were considering an emergency action to hold water back in Lake Powell, an attempt to stabilize the reservoir at serious risk of losing the ability to generate hydropower and deliver water to Page, Arizona, a city with roughly 7,500 residents, and the LeChee Chapter of the Navajo Nation.

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What 76 Inches of Sierra Snowfall Looks Like From Space

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Jessica Flores

The recent storm that brought wet weather to the Bay Area last week dumped an “impressive” amount of snow on the Sierra Nevada for the month of April, said the National Weather Service.

The storm dumped 31.1 inches of snow, increasing April’s snowfall total to 76 inches — “almost double what we received January through March,” the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab tweeted Friday.

Snowfall totals also slightly increased California’s snowpack in the last week to 35% of average as of Friday — up from 28% of average on April 15, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

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Bill to Aid Farmworkers Jilted by Drought Effects Advances in Calif. Legislature

/in , , /by /The Sun

A new bill aimed at bringing relief to farmworkers affected by the drought is now one step closer to becoming law.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D–Sanger), aims to provide financial assistance to farmworkers struggling to afford basic necessities. Wednesday it passed in a state senate committee, four to one.

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Long Beach Commission May Further Limit Watering Yards Amid Drought

/in , , /by /Long Beach Postby Jason Ruiz

The Long Beach Water Commission may upgrade the city’s water shortage level next week, which would bring with it new restrictions on when residents can water landscaping.

Updating the city’s water shortage stage comes as California heads toward its third straight year of drought. The proposal to go to Stage 2, which would limit landscape irrigation to two days per week year-round, would take the city back to water conservation rules not seen since June 2016.

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Folsom Lake Levels Improve, Drought Conditions Still an Issue

/in , , /by /FOX 40 (Sacramento)by Julian Tack and Gurajpal Sangha

The latest Spring snowstorms helped increase California’s water supply and lake levels, but the Golden State continues to face drought conditions.

April’s wet weather in northern California have increased water levels at lakes like Folsom Lake.

“The particular storm of this week increased the rain and snow over northern California by about 5-10 percent,” said Meteorologist and forecaster Jim Mathews with the National Weather Service.

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Owens Valley Tribes Honor a Legacy of ‘Beauty and Suffering’ With Historic Site Nomination

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Louis Sahagún

Spirits live here. That’s what Paiute and Shoshone tribal members say about the Owens Lake playa, an arid, eerily flat expanse along the eastern Sierra Nevada range that is prone to choking dust storms.

It is best known as the focal point of a historic feud that began in the early 1900s, when Los Angeles city agents quietly bought up ranch lands and water rights for an aqueduct to quench the thirst of the growing metropolis 200 miles to the south.

L.A. diverted so much water via the aqueduct system that the 110-square-mile lake dried up and it was nearly impossible for local farmers and ranchers to make a living — a scandal dramatized in the classic 1974 film “Chinatown.”

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Why Rural Communities Struggle to Bring in Much-Needed Federal Grants

/in , , /by /High Country Newsby Kylie Mohr and Theo Whitcomb

Bounded by the Bitterroot Mountains to the west and the Sapphire Mountains to the east, Montana’s Bitterroot Valley is home to renowned fly fishing streams and soaring vistas. Its forests, however, are facing the greatest wildfire risk in the entire state, with towns like Florence, Victor and Darby all in the nation’s 98th-plus percentile for risk. Yet houses continue to be built at a rapid clip, many of them in hazardous areas.

Theoretically, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion bill that funds improvements in transportation, water, energy, broadband and climate resilience projects, should be able to help.

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