The fire chief noticed it when he tested hydrants in August — a rare occurrence as Coalinga desperately seeks to conserve water — and the first one shot out a foot-long block of compacted dirt. The second one ejected a can of Axe body spray.
Collaboration among all water users is key to developing solutions for the Colorado River Basin, which is in the midst of a 22-year megadrought. That was one of the common themes during a webinar Thursday, in which water managers and other officials discussed ways to slow or stabilize the rate of decline of the major source of water for seven states and Mexico.
“A Collaborative Approach to Colorado River Management,” was part of the Southern California Water Coalition‘s “What Matters” webinar series. The San Diego County Water Authority, Imperial Irrigation District, Black & Veatch, and Richard Brady & Associates sponsored the webinar.
Webinar participants:
A picture's worth a thousand words… pic.twitter.com/seesz9fYOe
— SoCal Water Coalition (@SoCalWaterComm) October 6, 2022
During the 90-minute discussion, speakers said that drought and climate change impacts on the Colorado River Basin have created “challenging times” and that “unprecedented times require unprecendented management” solutions. Solutions mentioned included sustainable conservation, additional storage, a reduction in demand, and inclusion of all users to ensure the long-term health of the river system.
Sandy Kerl, General Manager @sdcwa, highlights that 2/3's of their supply comes from CO River and her top 3 priorities are
1) Balance impact on users while protecting environment (& Salton Sea)
2) Uphold law of the river and priority rights/QSA
3) Expand Lake Mead surplus program— SoCal Water Coalition (@SoCalWaterComm) October 6, 2022
The Water Authority’s supply portfolio includes high-priority, conserved Colorado River supplies negotiated through the landmark 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement, or QSA. The conserved supplies are the cornerstone of the San Diego region’s long-term water supply diversification strategy.
Chris Harris, Executive Director, Colorado River Board of California, stresses that we need to stop referring to basin conditions as a "drought" – it's aridification. @adelh2o General Manager with @mwdh2o agrees – "We have to adapt to a changing climate."
— SoCal Water Coalition (@SoCalWaterComm) October 6, 2022
The webinar came a day after California water agencies that use Colorado River water supplies, sent a letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, voluntarily offering to reduce their use of water from the river starting in 2023:
“Given dire drought conditions across the region and dangerously low reservoir levels, we firmly believe that all water users within the Basin must take immediate voluntary actions to stabilize water supplies in the Basin’s major reservoirs.
“California water agencies that utilize Colorado River water supplies propose to conserve up to an additional 400,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead each year, beginning in 2023 and running through 2026. This water, which would otherwise be used by California’s communities and farms, will meaningfully contribute to stabilizing the Colorado River reservoir system. While a broad multi-state agreement to conserve water across the Basin has not been reached, the California agencies propose to take voluntary action now to conserve water in coming months.”
Graphic shared October 6, 2022, during the Southern California Water Coalition webinar “A Collaborative Approach to Colorado River Management.”
(Editor’s note: The October 5 webinar was recorded and, when posted, can be viewed/heard here: socalwater.org/podcasts/).
Lake Mead is America’s largest reservoir, supplying water for 25 million people across the southwest. It’s also drying up — a kind of poster child for the ongoing drought in the West. But upstream, a much larger but lesser known source of stored water is also disappearing: mountain snow.
This is how climate change is throwing one of the United States’ most critical sources of water out of whack.
Drought that stretched across three continents this summer — drying out large parts of Europe, the United States and China — was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study.
Drought dried up major rivers, destroyed crops, sparked wildfire, threatened aquatic species and led to water restrictions in Europe. It struck places already plagued by drying in the U.S., like the West, but also places where drought is more rare, like the Northeast. China also just had its driest summer in 60 years, leaving its famous Yangtze river half its normal width.
This story, like many, starts with rejection.
Jose Gruenzweig grew up in the lush, green hills of Switzerland and studied the cold, wet forests of Alaska before settling into his current position as associate professor of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
California cities and farms should brace for little or no water from the state’s big reservoirs in the coming year, a prospect that signals more water restrictions for households and more fallowed fields in the farm belt.
The warning was delivered Monday by state and federal water officials who said they are preparing for the possibility of a fourth year of drought. Both are considering, at least initially, reduced allocations for the many water agencies that contract for reservoir supplies from California’s sprawling water projects.
A climate change panel Wednesday told its small audience about policy changes Orange County has made and where local leadership has fallen short. Scientists, politicians and local first responders gathered at the Orange Coast College planetarium to share ways the county can improve and forthcoming dangers a warmer climate presents.
As California’s 2022 water year ends this week, the parched state is bracing for another dry year — its fourth in a row.
So far, in California’s recorded history, six previous droughts have lasted four or more years, two of them in the past 35 years.
Despite some rain in September, weather watchers expect a hot and dry fall, and warn that this winter could bring warm temperatures and below-average precipitation.
A new study from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) finds that, if global warming persists, blue lakes worldwide are at risk of turning green-brown.
Shifts in lake water color can indicate a loss of ecosystem health. The study presents the first global inventory of lake color.
While substances such as algae and sediments can affect the color of lakes, the new study finds air temperature, precipitation, lake depth, and elevation also play important roles in determining a lake’s most common water color.
The latest measurements from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows the American West is in for another dry La Niña winter, unwelcome news for the West currently struggling to keep flowing its main source of water: the shrinking Colorado River.
“That’s the worry in the present situation is that the odds now are now with La Niña are tilted against a really wet winter, at least in the southern half of California which of course has already been really dry,” said Dan Cayan, a research meteorologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
