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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 […]
Read more »The Colorado River Crisis
August 4th, 2022
Via The New York Times, commentary on the crisis facing the Colorado River: It’s past time to get real about the Southwest’s hardest-working river. About 40 million people rely on the Colorado River as it flows from Wyoming to Mexico. But overuse and climate change have contributed to its reservoirs drying up at such a […]
Read more »Big Water Pipelines, an Old Pursuit, Still Alluring in Drying U.S. West
July 22nd, 2022
Courtesy of Circle of Blue, a look at how large-scale water engineering projects like the Los Angeles Aqueduct ushered in the modern era of the American West. More pipelines and water transfers have been proposed or are under construction in the drying region: As the region’s climate becomes drier, more pipelines are being proposed despite […]
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