States that use water from the Colorado River are drawing nearer to an important deadline for negotiating the river’s future. A new report from the federal government shows states are aiming to agree on a plan to cut back on water, but still remain divided about how to share the shrinking supply that flows to tens of millions across the Southwest.
As the Biden administration kicks off a years-long negotiation process to divvy up the shrinking water supply of the Colorado River, there are finally some signs of optimism after several bleak years.
A record-breaking winter snowpack last year halted a precipitous downward spiral on the river and raised water levels at the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lakes Mead and Powell.
Escondido City Council approved new water rate increases set to begin Jan. 1 and will increase each year for the next five years.
Residents had been outspoken about the possibility of a nearly 20% increase next year alone.
“It is by far the highest hike proposed over the past 12 years,” Sandra Otteson said.
The halfway point is in the rear view for the Colorado River Drought Task Force. Now it’s crunch time.
Task force members have until December to take their ideas on how to address Colorado’s top water issues and turn them into a written recommendation to the Colorado General Assembly.
Arizona, stressed by years of drought, has declared its housebuilding boom will have to be curbed due to a lack of water but one of its fastest-growing cities is refusing to give up its relentless march into the desert – even if it requires constructing a pipeline that would bring water across the border from Mexico.
On Tuesday night, the Redding City Council unanimously voted to sign a letter of opposition regarding water regulations that have been approved for the state of California.
City council voted to take a stand against “Making Conservation A Way Of Life” a strategy approved by the State Water Board in early 2023 and now officially in effect.
Climate scientists and weather forecasters suspect this winter could be as wet or wetter than last year’s torrential downpours. But just how wet will this winter become?
The answer isn’t quite as simple as forecasters pumping various inputs into computer models that then spit out what we can definitively expect.
New projections show Lake Mead dropping about 9 feet between now and October of 2024 — but keeping an extra 2.57 feet compared to forecasts from just a month ago.
The 24-month study for October 2023 from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is the first forecast of the 2023 water year, which runs from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024.
Gov. Gavin Newsom last week passed on a chance to limit the use of the so-called “forever chemicals” in legions of plastic products when he vetoed a bill that would have banned them in synthetic lawns.
His veto of an environmental bill that overwhelmingly passed the Legislature underscores California’s convoluted guidance on the plastic turf that some homeowners, schools and businesses use in place of grass in a state accustomed to drought.
There was a time when meteorologists could predict whether winter would be mild, moderate or severe. That information helped emergency managers plan ahead and get resources ready to fit the forecast and try to avoid a disaster.
Now, it’s difficult to predict the weather for more than 10 days at a time, said Stephen Rea, assistant director for the San Diego County Office of Emergency Services at a regional Winter Weather Workshop for local jurisdictions Tuesday in Kearny Mesa.
