Tag Archive for: Climate Change

California Unveils Water Strategy, Planning for Greater Scarcity

/in , /by /Reutersby Daniel Trotta

California Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled a new water strategy on Thursday that plans for a future with 10% less water and shifts the emphasis from conservation to capturing more water that otherwise flows out to sea.

Climate change has contributed to more severe drought but has also set the stage for more intense flooding when rain does fall, as was demonstrated last week in California’s Death Valley, one of the hottest, driest parts of the United States.

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Seven Stats That Explain the West’s Epic Drought

/in , , /by /The Hillby Zack Budryk

It’s difficult to capture the scale of the drought facing the western U.S., the worst the region has seen in 1,200 years.

The dry period began around 2000 and shows no signs of slowing down, with tens of millions Americans facing shrinking reservoirs and potential power outages amid extreme heat. The most-affected area stretches from Texas to Oregon.

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Bill Would Provide Relief to Farmworkers in Drought-Stricken California

/in , /by /Yale Climate Connections

About a quarter of the nation’s food is produced in California’s Central Valley. And for decades, people have come to the region to find jobs in agriculture.

State senator Melissa Hurtado says her parents immigrated there from Mexico.

“They came to the Central Valley in search of the American dream. What they had heard is that the Central Valley was the place where you can make that happen,” she says. “And this region provided that to them.”

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California’s Megadrought is Worse Than You Think

/in , , /by /E&E Newsby Anne C. Mulkern

When Maria Regalado Garcia tried to wash the dishes in her California home one recent morning, only a trickle of water emerged from the kitchen faucet. Other taps in her Tooleville house in rural Tulare County ran similarly dry.

The lack of water meant Garcia, 85, couldn’t brush her teeth properly or fill a swamp cooler that pumps out chilled air — a necessity with temperatures topping 100 degrees in her central California town. So Garcia fled to her granddaughter‘s home in Exeter, a few minutes away, to have a place cool enough to sleep.

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Lake Mead Water Level Falls to 1,040ft, Dead-Pool Level Inches Closer

/in , , /by /Newsweekby Robyn White

Lake Mead’s water levels have fallen to 1,040 feet, inching ever closer to dead-pool level.

Lake Mead, a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, has been drying up because of the ongoing drought in the western United States. It stretches across Nevada and Arizona.

According to new data from Lakes Online, as of July 28 at 4 a.m local time, Lake Mead had fallen to 1,040 feet. At the beginning of 2022, the Lake was at 1,066 feet.

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Water Woes Are Biggest Worry for Californians as Drought Drags On

/in , , /by /The Mercury Newsby Marisa Kendall

As the drought punishing California drags on, water is a top — and growing — worry for residents of our parched state, outpacing wildfires and climate change, according to a new poll about environmental issues.

With reservoirs and snowpack shrinking, Californians listed the state’s water supply as their number one environmental worry, with 68% of adults saying it’s a big problem — up from 63% a year ago.

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Agriculture Industry Rushes to Adapt to Oncoming Climate Challenges

/in , , /by /Sacramento Business Journalby Emily Hamann

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.

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Tightening Water Restrictions Lead More San Diegans to Replace Their Lawns

/in , , /by /KPBS-FM/TVby John Carroll / General Assignment Reporter & Anchor Contributors: Roland Lizarondo, Mike Damron / Video Journalist Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

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.

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Major Water Cutbacks Loom as Shrinking Colorado River Nears ‘Moment of Reckoning’

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

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/)

 

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Feds Float Drastic Measures to Stanch California’s Water Crisis

/in , , /by /Palm Springs Desert Sunby Janet Wilson

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.”

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