Tag Archive for: Drought

La Niña Responsible for Megadroughts in North and South America, Study Finds

/in , , /by /Courthouse News Serviceby Jon Parton

La Niña, the climate event that causes water to be colder than normal in the eastern Pacific, has now been shown by new research released Monday to be responsible for simultaneous megadroughts in the North and South American Southwest over the past 1,000 years.

Megadroughts are extended periods of drought that last at least 20 years. In a study published in the journal Nature, researchers found that these megadroughts occurred simultaneously in the North American and South American Southwest “regularly” and often during a La Niña event.

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Why Water Cuts Are Coming to Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Cordie Qualle

The Bureau of Reclamation, the agency charged with water resources management for the West at the federal government level, announced unprecedented Tier 1 cuts in water deliveries from Lake Mead on the Colorado River to Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico in 2022. The Tier 1 cuts will reduce water deliveries due to historic low water levels in Lake Mead.

California deliveries are not impacted by this announcement due to senior water rights, but they could be coming if water levels continue to drop. The Colorado River watershed and most western river watersheds that feed reservoirs with snowmelt are not producing as much runoff as they have historically due to the warming atmosphere affecting snow elevations and dryer and warmer soil and air temperatures.

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Hopes That Dry Year Will Prompt Action on Water Management and Storage

/in , /by /AgNet Westby Brian German

There is hope that the unfortunate conditions of California’s water supply this year will prompt decisive action on water management and storage. President and CEO of Western Growers, Dave Puglia noted that his conversations with growers have been disheartening. There is significant concern that if California gets another dry year, many farmers will not be able to recover. The dire circumstances of the current water year underscore the imperative need for an updated approach to water management.

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Could Desalination Play a Role in the Future of the Colorado River?

/in , , /by /GreenBizby Sharon Udasin

Shattering the stillness of a frigid January moonlit sky, the sunrise’s amber aura glimmers over the Tinajas Altas mountain range — giving way to a sandscape of semi-succulent shrubs.

The sun’s increasingly insistent rays animate an otherwise desolate desert corridor that links the city of Yuma, Arizona, to the San Luis Port of Entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. White school buses shuttle Mexican agricultural workers to Arizonan farm acreage, home to America’s heartland of winter leafy greens.

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How Drought Pressured California to Mandate Consolidation, Drinking Water for Tooleville

/in , , /by /The Fresno Beeby Jesse Vad

Life in Tooleville wasn’t easy before the latest drought.

Residents of this tiny, two-road farmworker community, tucked into the edge of the Sierra Nevada foothills in eastern Tulare County, have been living on bottled water since 2014 because its two wells are contaminated with hexavalent chromium.

Then in July, one of those wells started to dry up, thanks to plummeting groundwater levels. State Water Resources Control Board officials agree Tooleville’s other well will likely hit sand in a matter of months.

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California Moves Slowly on Water Projects Amid Drought

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Adam Beam

In 2014, in the middle of a severe drought that would test California’s complex water storage system like never before, voters told the state to borrow $7.5 billion and use part of it to build projects to stockpile more water.

Seven years later, that drought has come and gone, replaced by an even hotter and drier one that is draining the state’s reservoirs at an alarming rate. But none of the more than half-dozen water storage projects scheduled to receive that money have been built.

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Running Out of Water, Drought-stricken Communities Find Creative Ways to Conserve

/in , , /by /KSBYby Amanda Brandeis

As unprecedented drought conditions plague much of the West, reservoirs are running dry. Communities reliant on these sources for drinking water are tightening restrictions to preserve adequate supplies.

“This is the first time it’s been this severe,” said Tom Colbert of Healdsburg, California. “It’s disheartening. We’ve had friends move out of California because of the drought and the wildfires.”

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Many California Farmers Have Water Cut Off, but a Lucky Few are Immune to Drought Rules

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ari Plachta

Driving between her northern Central Valley rice fields with the family dog in tow, fifth-generation farmer Kim Gallagher points out the window to shorebirds, egrets and avocets fluttering across a thousand-acre sea of green flooded in six inches of water.

“People say agriculture uses so much water, but if you knew who lived in these areas and if you saw the animals taking advantage of it, you’d think there’s a lot more going on here,” Gallagher said. “This is where you’re going to find a Great Blue Heron. If you don’t want that type of bird then we shouldn’t be growing rice.”

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Water-Starved Colorado River Delta Gets Another Shot of Life From the River’s Flows

/in , , /by /Water Education Foundationby Gary Pitzer

Water is flowing once again to the Colorado River’s delta in Mexico, a vast region that was once a natural splendor before the iconic Western river was dammed and diverted at the turn of the last century, essentially turning the delta into a desert.

In 2012, the idea emerged that water could be intentionally sent down the river to inundate the delta floodplain and regenerate native cottonwood and willow trees, even in an overallocated river system.

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Opinion: How to Make Your Voice Heard on the Future of the Threatened Salton Sea

/in , , /by /Palm Springs Desert Sunby Chuck Parker

The 22-year-long drought in the Colorado River Basin is growing more severe. The levels of Lake Mead and Lake Powell are lower than they have ever been. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has ordered mandatory cutbacks of water deliveries in 2022 with more cuts predicted in the following two years.

Experts are acknowledging that the river has changed fundamentally: “No doubt climate change is real. We’re seeing it on the Colorado River every day,” as an official quoted in an Aug. 17 Desert Sun article said.

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