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.
Climate scientist Brad Udall calls
himself the skunk in the room when it comes to the Colorado
River. Armed with a deck of PowerPoint slides and charts that
highlight the Colorado River’s worsening math, the Colorado State
University scientist offers a grim assessment of the river’s
future: Runoff from the river’s headwaters is declining, less
water is flowing into Lake Powell – the key reservoir near the
Arizona-Utah border – and at the same time, more water is being
released from the reservoir than it can sustainably provide.
Happy New Year to all the friends, supporters, readers and tour and workshop participants of the Water Education Foundation! We’re grateful to each and every person who interacted with us in 2021, especially as we continued to pivot our in-person programming to virtual and, in some cases, hybrid platforms.
As we turn the page to 2022, we are cautiously returning to in-person tours and events in mid-March with our Lower Colorado River Tour. While the current COVID-19 strain, omicron, is expected to fizzle out by then, we will be implementing precautions to keep everyone safe.
The Indian Wells Valley groundwater plan got a thumbs up from
the state on Thursday but with a swarm of lawsuits surrounding
the plan, it’s unclear what that approval will mean going
forward. One of those lawsuits seeks a “comprehensive
adjudication” of water rights of the Indian Wells Valley basin,
which could reconfigure who has rights to how much groundwater,
a fundamental underpinning of the groundwater sustainability
plan that was just approved.
After a strong start to the water year, all of the
Bay Area and California have moved out of the exceptional
drought category, with most of the state now in the lesser
extreme or severe drought categories, according to U.S. Drought
Monitor data posted Thursday. The national Drought Monitor
uses a number of drought measurements, including precipitation,
soil moisture and streamflow, to determine which category an
area is in. Exceptional drought is the worst category —
indicating a water emergency. The next category is extreme
drought, which brings with it widespread water shortages and
restrictions.
If it looks like something that could transport you into the
future, in a sense it is. A spaceship-sized hoop suspended from
a helicopter is actually part of an advanced water detection
system. The information it’s gathering, could help determine
the future of California’s water supply – and where we store
it. … For several years, [Stanford professor Rosemary]
Knight has been conducting aerial surveys using an
electromagnetic sensing system. She says the technology is able
to penetrate the ground, yielding vital data on the geology of
natural groundwater basins. 3D maps pinpoint attractive sites,
made up of materials marked in red, like sand and gravel, that
allow water to sink in.
Global warming became local to a new and devastating extent in
2021, with the year ranking as the sixth-warmest on record,
according to new, independent data from NASA, NOAA and Berkeley
Earth. Why it matters: Each year’s data adds to the relentless
long-term trend, which shows rapid warming due overwhelmingly
to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions during the past
several decades in particular. … Four of the top
20 largest wildfires in California history occurred in
2021, as heat waves and drought primed the environment for
massive blazes.
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.
