You are now in California and the U.S. Home Headline Media Coverage category.

Tribe Becomes Key Water Player with Drought Aid to Arizona

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Felicia Fonseca

For thousands of years, an Arizona tribe relied on the Colorado River’s natural flooding patterns to farm. Later, it hand-dug ditches and canals to route water to fields.

Now, gravity sends the river water from the north end of the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation through 19th century canals to sustain alfalfa, cotton, wheat, onions and potatoes, mainly by flooding the fields.

Some of those fields haven’t been producing lately as the tribe contributes water to prop up Lake Mead to help weather a historic drought in the American West. The reservoir serves as a barometer for how much water Arizona and other states will get under plans to protect the river serving 40 million people.

The Colorado River Indian Tribes and another tribe in Arizona played an outsized role in the drought contingency plans that had the state voluntarily give up water. As Arizona faces mandatory cuts next year in its Colorado River supply, the tribes see themselves as major players in the future of water.

Full Story

‘Nobody’s Winning’ as Drought Upends Life in US West Basin

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Gillian Flaccus

Ben DuVal knelt in a barren field near the California-Oregon border and scooped up a handful of parched soil as dust devils whirled around him and birds flitted between empty irrigation pipes.

DuVal’s family has farmed the land for three generations, and this summer, for the first time ever, he and hundreds of others who rely on irrigation from a depleted, federally managed lake aren’t getting any water from it at all.

As farmland goes fallow, Native American tribes along the 257-mile-long (407-kilometer) river that flows from the lake to the Pacific watch helplessly as fish that are inextricable from their diet and culture die in droves or fail to spawn in shallow water.

Full Story

San Diego County Would Get $97 Million for Transportation, Road Projects in House bill

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Lauryn Schroeder, Anissa Durham

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that would fund more than $97 million in major infrastructure projects in San Diego County.

California would get nearly $1 billion for transportation and infrastructure projects statewide, if the measure passes through the Senate and is signed by President Joe Biden.

Full Story

Scripps Researchers Call for More Collaboration to Combat Local Effects of Climate Change

/in , , /by /Times of San Diegoby City News Service

A team of experts recommended increased effort, coordination and engagement by San Diego agencies and researchers to build climate resilience with attention to disadvantaged communities.

Those areas are particularly susceptible to climate change impacts, according to a report released Thursday.

Full Story

Stunning Drone Photos Show Severity of Drought at Lake Shasta

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Times / Associated Press by Photos: Brian Van Der Brug

Droughts are common in California, but this year’s is much hotter and drier than others, evaporating water more quickly from the reservoirs and the sparse Sierra Nevada snowpack that feeds them.

The state’s more than 1,500 reservoirs are 50% lower than they should be this time of year, according to Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis.

Full Story

Water is Disappearing in the West – and Not Just During the Summer

/in , , /by /CNN by Hannah Gard

Skiers and snowboarders pray for snow so they can shred the slopes. Climatologists and hydrologists have an entirely different and more critical reason to cross their fingers for the “white gold.”

The West’s historic drought has many impacts, including water shortages, more severe wildfire seasons and unprecedented heat waves, to name a few. Intense droughts are a result of many factors, one of which scientists have recently began to analyze with more scrutiny: snow drought.
Full Story

Drier Springs Bring Hotter Summers in the Withering Southwest

/in , , /by /Inside Climate Newsby Judy Fahys

A question has bothered climatologist Park Williams during the decade he’s been probing drought in the Southwest. Like other climate scientists, he knew from research papers and worldwide storm patterns that a warming atmosphere is thirstier and sops up more moisture from oceans and the land.

“But, in the Southwest, we’ve seen the exact opposite happening,” said Williams, an associate professor in the University of California, Los Angeles’ geography department.

Full Story

Fresh Out of Stealth Mode, San Diego Startup FutureProof Pinpoints Financial Risk of Climate Change

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Mike Freeman

FutureProof, a San Diego fintech startup that taps artificial intelligence to project the dollars and cents financial risk of climate change, has come out of stealth mode with a $3 million round of seed funding.

Full Story

Bills Addressing California Water Crisis Advance in Sacramento

/in , , /by /Fox 26 Newsby Liz Gonzalez

A pair of bills addressing the state’s water crisis have now cleared another hurdle in Sacramento.

Senate bill 559 from Senator Melissa Hurtado (14th District- Sanger) would allocate $785 million dollars to repair three canals that move water across the state.

Full Story

Some 200 California Projects May Be Funded by Infrastructure Bill

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Jennifer Haberkorn

The House on Thursday approved an approximately $715-billion transportation infrastructure plan that would build and repair roads, bridges and rail systems around the country.

The bill forms the House’s framework for President Biden’s infrastructure plan. While the proposal is likely to change during negotiations with the Senate as it progresses toward Biden’s desk, the bill includes $920 million specifically targeted to projects throughout California.

The most expensive California project, at $25 million, will be pre-construction work on a transportation hub in San Diego. Major projects in Los Angeles include a Metro transit line through the Sepulveda Pass and improvements to existing transit in the Vermont Corridor.

Full Story