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To Tackle Groundwater Overuse, Nevada takes New Approach: Buying Back Farmers’ Rights
October 17th, 2023
Via The Nevada Independent, a report on Nevada’s plans to issue $25 million in grants to retire groundwater rights in places where use exceeds what is sustainable: The Pershing County Water Conservation District’s headquarters in Lovelock sits off Interstate 80 a few miles before the Humboldt River disappears into a desert sink. Farmers here have […]
Read more »Texas’ Water Demands Could Outpace Supply in Some Areas by 2070
October 16th, 2023
Via Texas.gov, a report on the state’s water demand forecast: The rapidly growing Texas population will require more water — but the supply isn’t projected to keep up with demand. In its 2022 State Water Plan (SWP), the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) projects the Texas water supply (PDF) to decrease by 18 percent by 2070 and water […]
Read more »Tensions Rise in the Rio Grande Basin as Mexico Lags in Water Deliveries to the U.S.
October 14th, 2023
Via Inside Climate News, a look at rising tensions in the Rio Grande basin where – in 2020 – rebellious Mexican farmers occupied a dam in parched Chihuahua state to prevent the federal government from sending its reservoir water to Texas under a 1944 treaty: By late August, the usual monsoon rains had scarcely materialized […]
Read more »Hydro Dams Are Struggling to Handle the World’s Intensifying Weather
October 14th, 2023
Via Wired, a look at how climate change is robbing some hydro dams of water while oversupplying others—forcing managers to employ new forecasting technology and clever strategies to capitalize on what they have: IT’S BEEN ONE of the wettest years in California since records began. From October 2022 to March 2023, the state was blasted by 31 atmospheric […]
Read more »A Dam Waste In the Age of Megadrought
October 14th, 2023
Via TruthDig, commentary on how Colorado’s Gross Dam illustrates the folly of impounding water to feed unsustainable economic and population growth in the American West: Mining explosions and summertime thunder can sound remarkably similar. In my rural Colorado neighborhood, 10 miles southwest of Boulder, the smaller blasts that clear ground for the expansion of Gross Dam […]
Read more »The Colorado River Wars Are Based on Bad Math
October 12th, 2023
Via Mother Jones, a look at how faulty assumptions have brought the Colorado “Law of the River” to a breaking point: California and Arizona are currently fighting each other over water from the Colorado River. But this isn’t new—it’s actually been going on for over 100 years. At one point, the states literally went to war about […]
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