In California’s fields, farmers are already facing the impacts of climate change every day. They are heading into yet another potentially devastating fire year, and the third year in a row of drought.
They’ve been part of the American Dream, Southern California style for decades. But verdant lawns are disappearing more and more thanks to shrinking water supplies.
The Golden State is now in its third year of drought. A study published by the journal Nature Climate Change in February found this is the worst drought in what is now the western United States in 1,200 years.
As the West endures another year of unrelenting drought worsened by climate change, the Colorado River’s reservoirs have declined so low that major water cuts will be necessary next year to reduce risks of supplies reaching perilously low levels, a top federal water official said Tuesday.
Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said during a Senate hearing in Washington that federal officials now believe protecting “critical levels” at the country’s largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell — will require much larger reductions in water deliveries.
(Editor’s Note: Sandra L. Kerl, general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, issued a statement on U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton’s testimony today before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on the severity of the drought on the Colorado River and need for near- and long-term innovation and investment: https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/san-diego-county-water-authority-general-manager-issues-statement-on-colorado-river-conditions-and-sustainability/)
A top federal water official told Congress on Tuesday that shortages on the Colorado River system have taken an even grimmer turn, with a whopping 2 million to 4 million acre feet of reduction in water use needed by 2023 just to keep Lake Mead functioning and physically capable of delivering drinking water, irrigation and power to millions of people.
Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton testified early Tuesday to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Committee that levels at the reservoir have dropped to an all-time low of 28% of capacity, with no relief in sight.
“There is so much to this that is unprecedented,” Touton said. “But unprecedented is now the reality and the normal in which Reclamation must manage our system, for warmer, drier weather is is what we are facing.”
A new study finds that the upper Colorado River basin is drying out due to climate change. This means in the future, parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming could more closely resemble Arizona and the desert Southwest.
Research from the Los Alamos National Laboratory predicts that mountain snow will start melting and running into streams and reservoirs much earlier.
The U.S. national drought early-warning information system, called NIDIS, gave a rundown Thursday on when much of the Southwest will experience conditions that heighten the potential for wildfire.
Drought is one of the main drivers because less water means drier soils, drier plants and drier air, all conditions that fuel wildfire.
Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, is Monday. What’s in store for the upcoming season of beach days and barbecues in Southern California?
To start with, it will be dry. That’s not just because California’s Mediterranean climate means rain mostly falls during a few wet winter months, but because the state is in its third year of drought.
California water regulators adopted emergency drought rules Tuesday that increase conservation requirements for water suppliers throughout the state and prohibit the watering of grass that is purely decorative at businesses and in common areas of subdivisions and homeowners associations.
The regulations outlaw the use of drinking water for irrigating “non-functional” grass at commercial, industrial and institutional properties.
Despite being surrounded by water, Bay Area residents are routinely told during dry years to take shorter showers, let lawns brown and slow the rush of water from their taps.
But as climate change prolongs drought and challenges local water supply, regional water managers are warning that none of those actions will be enough. Many say the time has come to invest in technically feasible, though politically and environmentally complicated alternatives like purifying wastewater and sucking salt out of seawater to bolster stores.
As drought and climate change tighten their grip on the American West, the sight of fountains, swimming pools, gardens and golf courses in cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Boise, and Albuquerque can be jarring at first glance.
Western water experts, however, say they aren’t necessarily cause for concern. Over the past three decades, major Western cities — particularly in California and Nevada — have diversified their water sources, boosted local supplies through infrastructure investments and conservation, and use water more efficiently.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
