US drought Archives

Dry Boat Ramps, Exposed Rocks at Lake Powell Reveal the Cost of Colorado River Drought

March 1, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Arizona Republicby Brandon Loomis

A small bucket loader scraped Wahweap Bay’s expanding strip of red mud and gravel, its operator smoothing the shoreline where concrete workers were busy chasing a lake in retreat.

To the left, where the bay had long offered kayakers and water skiers a loop around Lone Rock, the monumental slab now rose from dust flats instead of from flat water. To the right, in the channel that leads to Glen Canyon Dam and the Colorado River’s sunken bed, formerly submerged islands and peninsulas mapped out a warming climate’s continuing transformation of one of America’s great water stores and pleasure grounds.

A desert flooded by impounded waters in the last century has visibly reasserted itself in this one.

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Drought is Revealing a Human Security Crisis in Farming Communities

January 19, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Agri-Pulse.comby Brad Hooker

Sweeping cutbacks in water allocations to farms are leading to widespread underemployment in some of California’s most vulnerable communities. Lawmakers are scrambling for policy solutions.

The impact to paychecks has been raising food insecurity and malnutrition issues as food prices soar, while the reduced spending is reverberating through local businesses and economies. And the situation is exacerbating a mental health epidemic already made worse by the pandemic.

“Too often, these human impacts are overlooked,” said state Senator Melissa Hurtado of Sanger, in opening a recent hearing for the new Select Committee on Human Security. “We sometimes miss the impacts that drought has on food security, health, labor and the communities themselves.”

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Why This Viral Map Isn’t the Best Indicator of California Drought

January 14, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /SF GATEby Amy Graff

With a parade of storms sweeping California in December, the federal government’s US Drought map has shown severe drought conditions fade across the state in recent weeks, and on the most recent map released Thursday, “exceptional drought” — the most extreme level of drought — completely disappeared from the map.

The map quickly went viral on Reddit, but Jeanine Jones, the drought manager for the California Department of Water Resources, cautioned that the map isn’t an accurate depiction of the overall picture in the state and said that the drought is far from over.

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Phoenix Among Those Voluntarily Losing Colorado River Water

January 10, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /AP Newsby Felicia Fonseca

The city of Phoenix this week outlined how it will voluntarily contribute water to a regional plan to shore up the country’s largest reservoir that delivers Colorado River water to three states and Mexico.

The river cannot provide seven Western states the water they were promised a century ago because of less snow, warmer temperatures and water lost to evaporation. Water managers repeatedly have had to pivot to develop plans to sustain it for the long-term.

Phoenix, the nation’s fifth-largest city, is among entities in the river’s lower basin that are part of the “500+ Plan” meant to delay further mandatory shortages. All pieces of the plan haven’t been finalized, but farmers and Native American tribes are expected to play a big role.

The Colorado River serves more than 40 million people in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, California, Wyoming, Utah and Mexico. Lake Mead and Lake Powell store the water and are used to gauge the river’s health.

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Water Worries in West Force Sports Teams to Get Creative

December 22, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /AP Newsby Erica Hunzinger

The Arizona Diamondbacks ripped out the grass at Chase Field ahead of the 2019 season, replacing it with synthetic grass. It was a business decision, but it also ended up being a water-conservation measure.

The Phoenix-based major league baseball team thought it would save 2 million gallons a year. In the first season, the savings were closer to 4.5 million gallons, which is roughly the annual water usage of 49 households in the Phoenix area, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

“This challenge has been approaching for years and has been on our radar,” said Diamondbacks President and CEO Derrick Hall, whose team has saved 16 million gallons of water since the turf was installed. “We have tremendous relationships with the state’s legislators and executives, and have had discussions about water for years.”

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Drought Will Force Western U.S. to Rethink Water Use, Experts Say

August 6, 2021/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Newsweekby Troy Albert Schulz, Zenger News

A record hot summer has laid bare a stark new reality for many states on America’s West Coast: Amid rising temperatures and worsening droughts, many will need to systematically rethink the way they manage limited water supplies.

“One of the problems with rising temperatures is how it’s going to affect water management,” said Washington state’s official climatologist, Nicholas Bond. “Simply from an agricultural point of view, generally when it is warmer, the demands of crops for water goes up. At higher temperatures, crops need more to be able to thrive.”

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Without Enough Water to Go Around, Farmers in California Are Exhausting Aquifers

July 26, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /NPRby Dan Charles

The next time you pick up some California-grown carrots or melons in the grocery store, consider the curious, contested odyssey of the water that fed them. Chances are, farmers pumped that water from underground aquifers on a scale that’s become unsustainable, especially as the planet heats up. Facing an ongoing drought that is squeezing surface water supplies, farmers are extracting groundwater at higher rates to continue growing food as usual.

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Intensifying California Drought Promises ‘Very Concerning’ Fire Season

June 10, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The Washington Postby Diana Leonard

California is entering its summer fire season with a high level of flammability. The hottest and most fire-prone months of the year are ahead. Conditions in the state are a striking example of escalating fire potential in the drought-stricken West.

How the season unfolds will depend on a number of factors, including where ignitions occur and the duration of summer heat waves.

But the outlook is poor at this time, given deepening drought, abundant dry fuels and hot early-season temperatures.

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La Niña May Worsen Southwest Drought This Winter

September 11, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The New York Timesby Henry Fountain

Climate forecasters said Thursday that the world had entered La Niña, the opposite phase of the climate pattern that also brings El Niño and affects weather across the globe. Among other impacts, La Niña has the potential this winter to worsen what are already severe drought conditions in the American Southwest.

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Year Starts With New-Average Snow, Storage

January 8, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Ag Alertby Kevin Hecteman

A wet December has left its mark in the mountains, and many of the state’s reservoirs remain at or above average storage levels as 2020 begins.

The state Department of Water Resources took its first snow survey of the year at Phillips Station in El Dorado County last week, and found 33.5 inches of snow and a snow-water equivalent of 11 inches, about 97% of average for the location. Statewide, DWR found a snow-water equivalent of 9.3 inches, or 90% of average.

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