A late-season surge of rain and snow melt made a bad year better for the Colorado River, but it wasn’t enough to lift Lake Mead out of record-low territory. The reservoir that supplies 90 percent of the Las Vegas Valley’s drinking water bottomed out at 1,071.61 feet above sea level on July 1, its lowest level since May 1937, when the lake was filling for the first time behind a newly completed Hoover Dam.
A drive around the north state these days shows how remarkably fast the fragile water picture can change. It can be confusing as well. Just three months ago, at the end of an El Niño rainy season, the state’s two largest reservoirs — Shasta and Oroville — looked blissfully the same. They were full for the first time in years, to the point that houseboats on the lakes could tie up to trees on the bank rather than pound a stake into the dirt bathtub ring.
Water agencies across California are relaxing the water use restrictions they imposed last year. But what does that mean for you? In San Diego County, there was basically enough water despite the drought to meet the region’s demands, but people still obeyed Gov. Jerry Brown’s mandate to cut water use by 25 percent. Now that winter snow and rain prompted the state to ease drought regulations, the biggest benefit may be to homeowners with lawns.
The controversial $15.7 billion plan to build two giant water tunnels in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is moving closer to reality though huge financial and legal challenges loom.
Scientists from two federal agencies are about to overhaul the rules governing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, potentially increasing protections for endangered fish populations and limiting the amount of water pumped to Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley. The National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will re-examine the nearly decade-old environmental regulations covering the Delta water pumps – rules that some experts say have been rendered nearly obsolete by drought and the devastation of endangered species. The old rules will remain in effect during the review, which could take two years or longer.
Ongoing attention to the Colorado River emphasizes its crucial role as the “lifeblood” that sustains millions of Americans across dozens of cities and countless farms in the American West. For the seven states that comprise the Colorado River Basin—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming—the Colorado River has stimulated growth and opportunity for generations. Today it is as important as ever for leaders, residents and visitors to this beautiful and dynamic region of the country.
The American West is in the midst of a serious drought – which compounds the underlying water crisis that stems from overdevelopment, misuse, and political maneuvers carried out long ago. This documentary examines the causes and consequences.
California’s ambitious $15 billion plan to tunnel below the largest freshwater estuary on the West Coast in hopes of fixing its water woes will “minimize” effects on endangered salmon, state officials said Tuesday — though environmentalists doubt it. The California Department of Water Resources said the controversial project will give officials more flexibility in monitoring and controlling water temperatures in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, and protect juvenile Chinook salmon from river pumping stations. The department released its latest biological assessment of the project, which must be approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
California has never been a stranger to environmental justice problems – at one point or another our communities, including farmworkers, families and students have had to fight against the health impacts caused by poisons in pesticides, persistent industrial contaminants produced by refineries, decades of urban oil drilling and toxic battery recycling operating next to their homes and schools, as well as fracking and poor air quality, to name a few..
Water once an abundant necessity is now a scarce and complex commodity. Many efforts have been made to curb excessive water use in the West, but will taking shorter showers and ripping out lawns really make a difference? While recent drought conditions have diminished the once-mighty Colorado River – the source of the vast majority of the West’s water, experts are now wondering whether the most severe shortages have been caused not by weather or consumer choices but by short-sighted policies and poor planning. Did we engineer our way into this crisis? Can we engineer our way out?
