Some people in California and across the West struggle to access
safe, reliable and affordable water to meet their everyday needs
for drinking, cooking and sanitation.
Join the Water Education Foundation, an impartial
nonprofit, in its mission to create a better understanding
of water issues and help resolve water problems through
educational programs.
State work to improve wildlife habitat and tamp down dust at
California’s ailing Salton Sea is finally moving forward. Now
the sea may be on the verge of getting the vital ingredient
needed to supercharge those restoration efforts – money. The
shrinking desert lake has long been a trouble spot beset by
rising salinity and unhealthy, lung-irritating dust blowing
from its increasingly exposed bed. It shadows discussions of
how to address the Colorado River’s two-decade-long drought
because of its connection to the system.
State work to improve wildlife habitat and tamp down dust at California’s ailing Salton Sea is finally moving forward. Now the sea may be on the verge of getting the vital ingredient needed to supercharge those restoration efforts – money.
The shrinking desert lake has long been a trouble spot beset by rising salinity and unhealthy, lung-irritating dust blowing from its increasingly exposed bed. It shadows discussions of how to address the Colorado River’s two-decade-long drought because of its connection to the system. The lake is a festering health hazard to nearby residents, many of them impoverished, who struggle with elevated asthma risk as dust rises from the sea’s receding shoreline.
In Fort Bragg on the Mendocino Coast, city leaders are rushing
to install an emergency desalination system. In Healdsburg,
lawn watering is banned with fines of up to $1,000. In
Hornbrook, a small town in Siskiyou County, faucets have gone
completely dry, and the chairman of the water district is
driving 15 miles each way to take showers and wash
clothes. So far, California’s worsening drought has been
an inconvenience in big cities. But it’s already imperiling an
alarming number of communities, especially between the Bay Area
and the Oregon border, threatening the water supplies for more
than 130,000 people.
As drought conditions continue throughout Butte County, the
Department of Water Resources is currently projecting that the
surface water level of Lake Oroville could reach an all-time
low of 640 feet above sea level by October or November. As of
Thursday, Lake Oroville’s surface water level was 648.47 feet
above sea level. When full Lake Oroville’s surface water level
is 900 feet above sea level. Water operations manager for the
Department of Water Resources State Water Project Molly White
said precipitation events later this year will determine when
lake levels will begin to rise.
Climate change projections show the Central Valley will see
more hot, dry years like 2021, but also some dangerously wet
years as well. This year has already seen high temperatures,
drought and high fire risk for Central Valley residents, and
Jordi Vasquez, environmental scientist for the California
Department of Water Resources, said climate models show the
Central Valley heating up 6 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit by the end
of the century. … The biggest impact for Central Valley
communities like Hanford will be water management, Vasquez
said.
We’re moving! Please update your contact information for the
Water Education Foundation. Starting Aug. 2, our office will be
located near the confluence of the Sacramento and American
rivers, on the fringe of downtown Sacramento. Our new
address is 2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205, Sacramento
CA 95833.
As part of the historic Colorado River Delta, the Salton Sea
regularly filled and dried for thousands of years due to its
elevation of 237 feet below sea level.
The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when
the Colorado River broke
through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years,
creating California’s largest inland body of water. The
Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130
miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
Drought—an extended period of
limited or no precipitation—is a fact of life in California and
the West, with water resources following boom-and-bust patterns.
During California’s 2012–2016 drought, much of the state
experienced severe drought conditions: significantly less
precipitation and snowpack, reduced streamflow and higher
temperatures. Those same conditions reappeared early in 2021
prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom in May to declare drought emergencies
in watersheds across 41 counties in California.
