Posts

Climate Change Batters the West Before Summer Even Begins

/in , , /by /The New York Timesby Brad Plumer, Jack Healy, Winston Choi-Schagrin and Henry Fountain

A heat dome is baking Arizona and Nevada, where temperatures have soared past 115 degrees this week and doctors are warning that people can get third-degree burns from the sizzling asphalt.

At Lake Mead, which supplies water for 25 million people in three southwestern states and Mexico, water levels have plunged to their lowest point since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s. In California, farmers are abandoning their thirstiest crops to save others, and communities are debating whether to ration tap water.

Full Story

Colorado River at ‘Critical’ Levels, Water Deliveries to Mexico in Doubt

/in , , /by /BorderReport.com by Salvador Rivera Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

Water levels in the Colorado River are a lot lower than normal reducing the water coming into Lake Powell and Lake Mead, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. The level of water in the lake determines how much water will be delivered in the region.

“The reclamation who oversees the operation for the river is forecasting a shortage on the river for next year,” said Kelly Rodgers with the San Diego County Water Authority. “They are predicting a shortage in 2022.”

Rodgers said states such as Arizona and Nevada will see the difference, but not as much in California because agencies such as SDCWA have taken steps to diversify their water supply and have built storage reservoirs and other facilities.

 

Full Story

Mega-Dairies, Disappearing Wells, and Arizona’s Deepening Water Crisis

/in , /by /The Guardianby Tony Davis

The Sunizona community, in the south-western US state of Arizona, is just a speck on the map. A few hundred homes dot the landscape along dirt roads and for a few miles along a state highway that leads to the foot of the Chiricahua mountains near the New Mexico border.

Cynthia Beltran moved to Sunizona with her seven-year-old son last autumn even though the area lacks functional drinking water wells, because it was all she could afford. She cannot afford the $15,000 (£10,000) cost of deepening her well, which dried up last year, and had been paying for a local firm to deliver water in a tanker. But at $100 a week it became too expensive, so now she will be relying on a friend to help her fetch water from her mother’s well.

Full Story

The Colorado River is Facing an Alarming Water Shortage for the First Time Ever

/in , , /by /The Hillby Christian Spencer

Between Las Vegas and Arizona, Lake Mead, the body of water that is fed by the Colorado River, dropped below 1,075 feet on Tuesday. The low water marks are signaling what could be the first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River, CNN reports.

The lake’s levels show a continuing decline, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), and any hope of recovery won’t happen until at least the end of 2022.

Full Story

Arizona’s Current Historic Drought May Be ‘Baseline for the Future’

/in , , /by /Cronkite Newsby Alyssa Marksz

Arizona and other Western states just lived through the driest year in more than a century, with no drought relief in sight in the near future, experts told a House panel Tuesday.

The period from last April to this March was the driest in the last 126 years for Arizona and other Western states, witnesses said. It caps a two-decade stretch that was the driest in more than 100 years that records have been kept – and one of the driest in the past 1,200 years based on paleohydrology evidence, one official said.

Full Story

Arizona’s Continuing Population Growth Puts Pressure On Water Supply

/in , , /by /ABC 15 Arizonaby Cameron Polom

Millions of people are betting on Arizona. They’re buying homes, starting businesses, and families. The future of how we use our water resources may dictate the future of their success. “We don’t want to put consumers and businesses at risk when they built and there was a hundred years of water but what happens 80 years from now, is there still 100 years of water left,” said Haley Paul, a regional director for the Audubon Society. That question was addressed four decades earlier with the Groundwater Management act of 1980. The idea was the law would ensure when water was taken out, just as much was put back in, creating what they called a safe yield goal by 2025.

Full Story

Arizona Lawmakers Float Idea of Piping Water From The Mississippi River

/in , , /by /KJZZby Ron Dungan

The drought has some members of the Arizona Legislature wondering if the state should look for a new source of water: the Mississippi River. Conservationists wonder if lawmakers should try a different approach. As Arizona braces for a drought contingency plan to kick in, the Legislature has floated the idea of damming the Mississippi and piping the water here. The idea received overwhelming support among lawmakers, though it is unclear if the project is viable. Sandy Bahr, with the Sierra Club, told KJZZ’s The Show last month the state needs to adjust its thinking about water, especially in times of drought.

Full Story

Here’s how Arizona is Preparing for 1st Cuts to Colorado River Allocation

/in , , /by /AZ Big Mediaby Ted Cooke

Arizona is gearing up for the first-ever “Tier 1” shortage on the Colorado River in 2022, which will trigger significant cuts to the state’s annual allocation from its most important water resource. As daunting as it sounds, the vast majority of citizens and businesses will not be affected, state water leaders said during a Colorado River Preparedness briefing last week.

Full Story

Gov. Doug Ducey Signs Historic Water Protection Legislation

/in , , /by /KTAR News Arizona

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a landmark water protection bill Wednesday to ensure clean water in nearly 800 Arizona streams, lakes and rivers that are critical for everyday use.

The legislation will preserve water quality, list protected Arizona waters and develop management practices that will protect the waterways.

Full Story

Arizona Positioned to Take on Cuts in Colorado River Supply

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Felicia Fonseca

Water officials in Arizona say they are prepared to lose about one-fifth of the water the state gets from the Colorado River in what could be the first federally declared shortage in the river that supplies millions of people in the U.S. West and Mexico.

Arizona stands to lose more than any other state in the Colorado River basin that also takes in parts of Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Nevada and California. That’s because Arizona agreed long ago to be the first in line for cuts in exchange for federal funding for a canal system to deliver the water to Arizona’s major metropolitan areas.

Full Story