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The Central California Town That Keeps Sinking
May 28th, 2021
Via The New York Times, an article on Corcoran, California which has been slowly but steadily collapsing, a situation caused primarily not by nature but agricultural use of groundwater: In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the farming town of Corcoran has a multimillion-dollar problem. It is almost impossible to see, yet so vast it takes NASA scientists […]
Read more »First-Ever Colorado River Water Shortage Is Now Almost Certain
May 28th, 2021
Via CNN, an article on new projections that show a Colorado River water shortage is now almost certain: Thousands of people will celebrate Memorial Day this weekend on the water of Lake Mead, just 24 miles east of Las Vegas on the border of Arizona and Nevada. What they may not realize is that the oasis […]
Read more »Amid American West Megadrought, Montana’s Reservoirs Are Running Dry
May 24th, 2021
Via Circle of Blue, an article on the impact of drought in Montana: An extreme megadrought is sweeping across the American West, a consequence of climate change that is threatening urban water allotment, indigenous water security, and ecosystem balance. The pain is now being felt in Montana, where officials worry that a historically dry spring will shrink […]
Read more »Hoover Dam Made Life in the West Possible. Or So We Thought.
May 19th, 2021
Courtesy of The New York Times, an OpEd on water scarcity in the U.S. west: Few things force you to confront hubris and genius at the same time as much as the magnificent harness on the Colorado River that created the largest reservoir in the United States. To build Hoover Dam in the 1930s, an army of […]
Read more »Extremely Dry Conditions Spill Across the American West
May 14th, 2021
Courtesy of Circle of Blue, a report on how drought and climate change are driving drought in the US west: Spring is generally a time of renewal for the watersheds of the western United States. Warmed by the lengthening days, the region’s towering mountain ranges shed their mantle of snow, releasing freshets of water into […]
Read more »Fish or farmers? Drought Declaration Would Trigger New War over California Water
May 6th, 2021
Via The Sacramento Bee, an article on how Governor Newsom’s drought declaration would trigger a new war over California water: When a bipartisan group of state legislators held a press conference last week to demand that Gov. Gavin Newsom declare a statewide drought emergency, they assembled at a withered farm field east of Fresno, complete with piles […]
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