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U.S. Announces More Water Cuts As Colorado River Hits Dire Lows
August 17th, 2022
Via The Washington Post, a report on the new Colorado River shortage triggered by low reservoir levels comes comes as states negotiate how to make major reductions in water use: As the historic drought in the U.S. Southwest pushes the nation’s largest reservoirs to record lows, the Biden administration Tuesday announced that water shortages along the Colorado River had passed […]
Read more »Steep Water Cuts Coming For U.S. Southwest
August 16th, 2022
Via CNN, an article on the steep water cuts are coming for the Southwest as Colorado River shrinks and Lake Mead’s level plummets: An extraordinary drought in the West is drying up the Colorado River and draining the nation’s largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell. And amid the overuse of the river and the aridification of the region, the federal government […]
Read more »In Los Angeles, the Grass Isn’t Always Greener This Year
August 15th, 2022
Courtesy of the New York Times, an article on how Southern California residents are beginning to accept that lush lawns are unsustainable when reservoirs and rivers run low in a drought era: Erin Brockovich made her name decades ago as an environmental activist who exposed corporate wrongdoing that polluted drinking water. So she felt a bit defensive when a television […]
Read more »Arizona and California Farmers, Targets for Colorado River Cuts, Draft Their Conservation Strategy
August 12th, 2022
Courtesy of Circle of Blue, an article on how nearly 1 million acre-feet of compensated water cuts are being discussed by Arizona and California farmers: A plan is circulating among irrigation districts in southern Arizona and California to reduce Colorado River use by as much as 925,000 acre-feet. Such a plan would require billions in […]
Read more »The End of Snow Threatens to Upend 76 Million American Lives
August 9th, 2022
Via Bloomberg, an article on how the disappearing snowpack is accelerating the historic drought across the Western US, and so far government responses haven’t matched the scale of the problem: The Western US is an empire built on snow. And that snow is vanishing. Since most of the region gets little rain in the summer, even […]
Read more »Hard Choices Ahead For Colorado River
August 9th, 2022
Via Writers on the Range, commentary on the challenges facing the Colorado River: The seven Colorado River states – Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming – face a daunting mid-August deadline. The federal government has asked them to come up with a plan to reduce their combined water usage from the Colorado […]
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