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Opinion: A Wake-Up Call for Water Resilience in the West

/in , , /by /The Hillby Maurice Hall

As someone working on water issues in the West for more decades than I care to admit, I have found myself repeating the same mantra over and over again: When you’re in a drought, it’s too late to prepare.

Well, we’re in drought, again, and I can’t help feeling a sense of personal failure for how ill prepared we are. This time is worse, however — worse because surely, we should have learned by now to prepare better and worse because record-breaking heat and early wildfires indicate the climate change ratchet has clearly clicked several notches tighter.

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New Water Chief Takes Control at MWD

/in , , /by /NBC4by Conan Nolan

NBC4’s Conan Nolan talks with Adel Hagekhalil, the new head of Metropolitan of Water District. The MWD – the largest in the nation –provides water to 20 million customers all over Southern California. Nolan and Hagekhalil discuss the state of water supply and the controversial vote that got Hagekhalil to power.

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Northern California Is Working To Conserve Water To Have Some Left Over For Crops

/in , , /by /NPR

Drought-stricken reservoirs and rivers in Northern California mean painful water cutbacks for farmers and towns. Some are trying hard to conserve to avoid even worse to come.

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Dealing with Drought: Farmers Challenged as Water Supply Dwindles

/in , , /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby Steve Schoonover

The drought is here, and agriculture is scrambling.

Water regulators have cut the amount that can be taken from lakes, rivers and streams. Farmers who ordinarily get that water either have to forgo planting some of their fields, or pump water from the ground, or a combination of the two. Farmers dependent on wells are also affected.

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Why the Southwest’s Shrinking Water Reservoirs Matter to Colorado

/in , , /by /The Denver Postby Bruce Finley

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has signed off on increased funding for water development projects that state officials regard as critical to meet growing demands. But the state’s plans to secure more water from rivers here are colliding with the hotter, drier climate that’s hammering the Southwest, where Colorado River reservoirs are at record-low levels.

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Governor Declares Drought Emergency for Much of Western Colorado

/in , /by /Sky-Hi Newsby Cuyler Meade and Craig Press

Gov. Jared Polis formally declared a drought emergency Friday for almost two dozen western Colorado counties. Colorado’s Drought Task Force, Agriculture Impact Task Force and Municipal Water Task Force will remain active and responsive to local needs, a release from the Colorado Water Conservation Board states Friday. Moffat, Routt, Jackson, Rio Blanco, Grand, Garfield, Eagle, Summit, Mesa, Delta, Pitkin, Gunnison, Montrose, Ouray, San Miguel, San Juan, Hinsdale, Dolores, Montezuma, La Plata and Archuleta counties are included in the declaration.

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Running Out of Water: How Climate Change Fuels a Crisis in the US West

/in , /by /The Hillby Jeremy Deaton and Briana Flin

Except for a brief stint in the military, Paul Crawford has spent his entire life farming in southern Oregon. First, as a boy, chasing his dad through hayfields and now, growing alfalfa on his own farm with his wife and two kids, who want to grow up to be farmers.

“I wouldn’t trade a day of farming with my wife and my kids for anything. It’s an amazing life,” Crawford said. “It just may end if we don’t figure something out on this water issue.”

The American west is drying out as the region faces an unprecedented drought. Few places are as devastated as the Klamath Basin, where Crawford’s farm sits. Straddling the border between California and Oregon, the watershed spans 12,000sq miles – from agricultural lands fed by Upper Klamath Lake to tribal communities surrounding the Klamath River.

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Opinion: Two Decrees Affect California Water Wars

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Dan Walters

The powerful interests who vie for shares of the state’s ever-changing water supply — dubbed “water buffaloes” — are adept at fending off political and legal assaults by their rivals and the outcomes of their clashes are often stalemates.

That’s why it was surprising in June to see two game-changing decrees out of Washington, one from the new Biden administration and another from the Supreme Court, affecting two of the state’s most prominent water interests, Southern California’s Imperial Irrigation District and the San Joaquin Valley’s Westlands Water District.

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Drought: The End of California’s Groundwater Free-For-All

/in , , /by /The Mercury Newsby Lisa M. Krieger

The water spigots on California farms will soon be twisted tighter.

As the state faces a growing threat from drought, an increasing number of water agencies are planning to require flow meters on agricultural wells, part of a landmark effort to measure and constrain pumping that used to be free and unlimited. It’s a controversial step aimed at protecting water supplies that could change cultivation practices in the Golden State’s thirsty fields.

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Opinion: No, L.A. is Not a Desert. But We are Getting There

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Times by The Times Editorial Board

One of the standard tropes we hear from outsiders about Los Angeles is that it is located in a desert — a dry biome that cannot sustain our millions of people without importing water from somewhere (and someone) else.

And the standard retort from folks like us on the Los Angeles Times editorial board is that, no, it’s explicitly not a desert. To get to the desert, we have to leave town. The difference in climate, flora and terrain between L.A. and, say, Palm Springs or Las Vegas is profound. Deserts get less than 10 inches of rain a year. Las Vegas gets just over four. Los Angeles gets nearly 15.

We’re not a desert. We have a Mediterranean climate, like, say, the South of France. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

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