Water and energy are interconnected. A frequent term to describe
this relationship is the “water-energy nexus.”
Energy for Water: Energy is needed to store water, get it where
it is needed and also treat it to be used:
* Extracting water from rivers and streams or pumping it
from aquifers, and then conveying it over hills and into storage
facilities is a highly energy intensive process. The State Water
Project (SWP) pumps water 700 miles, including up nearly 2,000
feet over the Tehachapi Mountains. The SWP is the largest single
user of energy in California. It consumes an average of 5 billion
kWh per year. That’s about 2 to 3 percent of all electricity
consumed in California
* Water treatment facilities use energy to pump and process
water for use in homes, businesses and industry
* Consumers use energy to treat water with softeners or
filters, to circulate and pressurize water and to heat and cool
water
* Wastewater plants use energy to pump wastewater to
treatment plants, and also to aerate and filter it at the plant.
Different end uses require more electricity for delivery than
others. Water for residential, commercial and industrial end-use
needs the most energy (11 percent), followed by agricultural
end-use (3 percent), residential, commercial and industrial
supply and treatment (3 percent), agricultural water supply and
treatment (1 percent) and wastewater treatment (1 percent),
according to the California Energy Commission.
Water for Energy: Water is used to generate electricity
* Water is needed either to process raw materials used in a
facility or maintaining a plant,or to just generate electricity
itself.
Overall, the electricity industry is second only to agriculture
as the largest user of water in the United States. Electricity
production from fossil fuels and nuclear energy requires 190,000
million gallons of water per day, accounting for 39 percent of
all freshwater withdrawals in the nation. Coal, the most abundant
fossil fuel, currently accounts for 52 percent of U.S.
electricity generation, and each kWh generated from coal requires
withdrawal of 25 gallons of water.
City leaders voted down a data center in Chandler last week,
but Arizonans can expect to see even more proposed. The state
offers tax breaks for data center projects – significant
incentives, Governor Katie Hobbs says, are “clearly working.”
On Wednesday, she suggested state lawmakers take another look
to find “the right balance.” … Arizona could see
big cuts to its allocation of water from the Colorado
River, which has been diminished by decades of drought
and overuse. Hobbs said she hears the concerns, saying her
administration’s Arizona Energy Promise Task Force is looking
at how to ensure costs don’t hit consumers. … Water is “part
of the conservation, Hobbs said, adding that there’s technology
to help data centers reduce their water consumption.
Surging use of AI has led to a frenzy of construction activity
to build new data centres, particularly in the U.S. Estimates
put the total number of these facilities in operation worldwide
this year at 6,111, with upwards of 2,000 more set to come
online by 2030. There has been a lot of focus on the
implications for power grids, but less on the toll this
unbridled growth will take on a commodity that is in even
shorter supply: fresh water. … Periods of prolonged
drought, an over-allocation of water supplies from the
Colorado River, as well as dwindling
groundwater resources make Phoenix a “severely water-stressed
region”, according to the Ceres report. If all the data centres
now planned come online, the city will experience a 32%
increase in annual water stress.
… [M]etal concentrations in Colorado are increasing over time
as warming summer temperatures thaw previously frozen sites
containing acid-forming bedrock. This result is alarming from
an ecological perspective. If metal concentrations climb too
high, they can kill aquatic species, as evidenced by one
mountain lake that washed up hundreds of dead fish this
summer. But, these increased concentrations may also
present an opportunity. That’s according to Baolin Deng and Pan
Ni, two distinguished researchers at the University of
Missouri’s Missouri Water Center, who are now working to unlock
an efficient process capable of extracting rare earths from
acid rock drainage.
The board of California’s largest agricultural water district
approved a master plan Tuesday to convert over a quarter of the
land in its service area into solar farms, a sign that Central
Valley growers are looking for new business as their water
sources dry up. The board of the Westlands Water District
approved the plan to develop 136,000 acres on the west side of
the Central Valley into solar farms, complete with new
transmission lines and substations at a Tuesday morning meeting
in Fresno. The new master plan, called the Valley Clean
Infrastructure Plan, would allow for the development of up to
20 gigawatts of new solar farms, which taken together would be
the largest solar installation in the world.
… As local and national opposition to data centers
has grown, so, too, have concerns about their environmental
impacts. Earlier this week, more than 230 green
groups sent a letter to Congress, warning that AI and
data centers are “threatening Americans’ economic,
environmental, climate and water security.” … But as the
number of data centers continues to grow across the country —
and as President Donald Trump’s administration rolls back
environmental protections to encourage more development — it’s
worth understanding what, exactly, data centers are using water
for, and how popular estimates are produced. And it’s worth
having a bigger conversation about how and why we’re choosing
to use water to cool data centers in the first place.
The rapid growth and impact of massive data centers, especially
for AI and cryptocurrency companies, this year has had big
economic benefits, especially for construction and design firms
and their workers. … But there’s increasing
blowback to that rapid expansion, with more individual
communities opting against new data center projects because of
their gargantuan need for electricity and
water, which is driving utility rates for residential
customers higher. That blowback is getting more coordinated as
a coalition of more than 230 environmental, tribal and
community groups is calling for a national moratorium on such
construction.
The Chandler City Council unanimously rejected to rezone 10
acres of land for a proposed new data center at their meeting
Thursday night. The project has generated significant public
interest, especially after former Arizona Senator Kyrsten
Sinema spoke in favor of the project at an October Planning and
Zoning Committee hearing. … Representatives for the
project have said the planned facility would use a closed-loop
cooling system, a method they argue requires significantly less
water than traditional evaporative cooling. … However,
experts caution that water usage goes beyond what happens at
the site itself.
Those pushing for a controversial new AI data center in
Chandler … have made big promises about how it would save the
city water. … As Arizona approaches a water crisis —
with dwindling groundwater supplies and looming cuts to its
Colorado River allotment — the pitch sounded almost too good to
be true. The final development agreement, which is up for
a vote by the Chandler City Council on Thursday, tells a
different story. Namely, the agreement and internal city emails
obtained by Phoenix New Times via a public records request show
that the data center development … could suck much more water
out of Chandler’s pipes over the long run than is being used at
the site currently.
Early last year, the hydropower company Nature and People First
set its sights on Black Mesa, a mountainous region on the
Navajo Nation in northern Arizona. … Pumped-storage
operations involve moving water in and out of reservoirs, which
could affect the habitats of endangered fish and require
massive groundwater withdrawals from an already-depleted
aquifer. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which
has authority over non-federal hydropower projects on the
Colorado River and its tributaries, ultimately
denied the project’s permit. The decision was among the first
under a new policy: FERC would not approve projects on tribal
land without the support of the affected tribe. … Now,
Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright wants to reverse
this policy.
States facing drought and dwindling groundwater
supplies are seeking to pull back the curtain on water
use at data centers, in a push for transparency that has
scrambled traditional partisan alliances. Lawmakers from at
least eight states this year introduced legislation to require
data centers to report their water use. … The proposal
in California … would have required data centers to report
estimated water use to their local supplier before applying for
a business license. Companies would have also needed to report
annual use when applying to renew their license. The bill
passed both of California’s Democratic-controlled chambers, but
Gov. Gavin Newsom did not sign it.
A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded
a national moratorium on new datacenters in the US.
… The push comes amid a growing revolt against moves by
companies such as Meta, Google and Open AI to plow hundreds of
billions of dollars into new datacenters, primarily to meet the
huge computing demands of AI. At least 16 datacenter projects,
worth a combined $64bn, have been blocked or delayed due to
local opposition to rising electricity costs. The facilities’
need for huge amounts of water to cool down
equipment has also proved controversial, particularly in drier
areas where supplies are scarce.
Democratic state Sen. Steve Padilla is calling for public
review of a massive data center designed to power generative
artificial intelligence technology that has been proposed in
the heart of the Imperial Valley. … In a letter to
the Imperial County Board of Supervisors this week, Padilla,
whose district includes Imperial County and South San Diego
County, said the public deserved “a complete picture of the
water usage and energy demands” of the nearly 1million square
foot data center project. … The data center would
require 750,000 gallons of water per day for facility
operations. … The concerns over the Imperial Valley data
center come amid a growing fight over the growth of data
centers and how lawmakers should regulate them — in California
and elsewhere.
… The Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center has a sprawling
landmass greater than the city of Denver. It is home to the
largest data center in the US, built by the company Switch. …
The Truckee River supplies the industrial center with water and
also serves as the primary source of water for Pyramid
Lake. … And as data centers continue to proliferate
in water-stressed areas around the globe, which can offer cheap
land and energy as well as low humidity for easier chip
cooling, one of the central concerns in local communities is
what happens if the water runs dry.
Amazon Web Services has pulled out of its long-planned role as
future operator of the Project Blue data center complex on the
Tucson area’s far southeast side, three sources told the Star.
Amazon has left the embattled project because its operations
aren’t compatible with the project’s recently announced plans
to use air cooling instead of water cooling of the data
centers’ servers. … Project Blue officials had pledged
to build a $100 million pipeline to deliver reclaimed water to
the data centers. But outside critics said the city would be
unable to effectively enforce those and other water-related
requirements for the project, including a commitment by the
company to be “water positive.”
… A 2024 federal report found that U.S. data centers consume
17 billion gallons of water a year, but that’s a drop in the
bucket compared to industries like mining or farming, which use
billions of gallons every day. But demand from data centers is
expected to double or even quadruple soon, according to that
report. … By 2027, AI is expected to account for
28% of the global data center market, according to Goldman
Sachs. … This data center boom is not just happening in
northern Nevada. Across the West, including Colorado,
Wyoming and Arizona, states have rolled out major tax
incentives to attract data centers, but rising concern over
their water use is fueling public pushback.
California is taking the first steps in realizing an
idea to save billions of gallons of water each year
and produce enough clean energy to power a city the size of Los
Angeles for nine months annually. The simple but brilliant
concept? Cover as much of California’s roughly 4,000 miles
of irrigation canals with solar canopies as possible.
… Now, after almost a decade of careful study and
planning, the highly anticipated Project Nexus, a
private/public/academic partnership between the California
Department of Water Resources, Turlock Irrigation District, and
Solar Aquagrid — based on research by UC Merced and UC Santa
Cruz — is online.
Data centers are notoriously thirsty. Researchers at Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory have found that, in 2023, the
facilities consumed roughly 17 billion gallons of water for
their operations in the U.S. alone. But that’s only a small
part of the picture: A much, much larger share of data center
water-intensity is indirect, a byproduct of the facilities’
enormous appetites for energy. … However, new research
from Cornell University shows that there’s a way to mitigate
both the climate and water footprints of these
facilities: Build them in places with lots of wind and solar
energy.
Researchers from the University of California, Riverside, found
that health impacts from pollution associated with California’s
computer processing data centers tripled from 2019 to 2023 —
and could rise by another 72% by 2028 unless mitigation
policies are enacted. … From 2019 to 2023, the total
evaporated water — including both direct evaporation for
cooling and indirect evaporation for electricity generation —
used by California data centers increased by more than
96%, reaching 49.9 billion liters, mostly from
indirect evaporation. By 2028, that number could rise to
116 billion liters annually — a concern in a state that
regularly faces drought and water shortages.
In a momentous decision for the Western Slope, state water
officials unanimously approved a controversial proposal to use
two coveted Colorado River water rights to help the river
itself. Members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board
voted to accept water rights tied to Shoshone Power Plant into
its Instream Flow Program, which aims to keep water in streams
to help the environment. The decision Wednesday is a historic
step forward in western Colorado’s yearslong effort to secure
the $99 million rights permanently. But some Front Range water
providers pushed back during the hearings, worried that the
deal could hamper their ability to manage the water supply for
millions of Colorado customers.
Last week, more than a dozen tribes across the U.S. commented
on a new proposal by the Trump administration to let developers
obtain preliminary permits for hydropower projects on
reservations in spite of tribal opposition. This rule would
apply to projects like dams, reservoirs and pump-storage
facilities — all overseen by the independent Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, which, under a Biden-era rule, does not
issue such permits without consent. The regulator is being
asked to change course by Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
When Amazon proposed building its Project Blue data center in
Tucson, Arizona, the company faced intense pushback. Residents
raised concerns about the enormous amounts of water and
electricity that the data center would need—two major ways such
projects impact the environment, especially in a desert
city. … A study published this week in the journal
Nature Sustainability makes that connection even clearer. Led
by researchers at Cornell University, the study analyzed the
environmental impact that data centers could have in the U.S.
as their growth continues, and created a state-by-state look at
where those data centers should go to avoid the worst effects.
California legislators considered dozens of bills related to
artificial intelligence this year. That’s a number that’s
climbed quickly over the last couple years as lawmakers grapple
with the technology’s increasing presence — and possible
negative impacts. And one growing point of concern
involves generative AI’s relationship with state resources as
the technology becomes everyday life for Californians. Experts
say generative AI is driving up energy and water
demands at data centers. But the question is: By
how much?
*IMPORTANT* In anticipation of high demand, the Foundation is limiting tickets to a maximum of 2 per organization. Contact Programs Director Nick Gray via email with any questions.
Explore the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
On this first-ever Foundation water tourwe examined water issues along the 263-mile Klamath River, from its spring-fed headwaters in south-central Oregon to its redwood-lined estuary on the Pacific Ocean in California.
Running Y Resort
5500 Running Y Rd
Klamath Falls, OR 97601
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
Learn the history and challenges facing the West’s most dramatic
and developed river.
The Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River Basin introduces the
1,450-mile river that sustains 40 million people and millions of
acres of farmland spanning seven states and parts of northern
Mexico.
The 28-page primer explains how the river’s water is shared and
managed as the Southwest transitions to a hotter and drier
climate.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
The majestic beauty of the Sierra
Nevada forest is awe-inspiring, but beneath the dazzling blue
sky, there is a problem: A century of fire suppression and
logging practices have left trees too close together. Millions of
trees have died, stricken by drought and beetle infestation.
Combined with a forest floor cluttered with dry brush and debris,
it’s a wildfire waiting to happen.
Fires devastate the Sierra watersheds upon which millions of
Californians depend — scorching the ground, unleashing a
battering ram of debris and turning hillsides into gelatinous,
stream-choking mudflows.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
This 30-minute documentary-style DVD on the history and current
state of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program includes an
overview of the geography and history of the river, historical
and current water delivery and uses, the genesis and timeline of
the 1988 lawsuit, how the settlement was reached and what was
agreed to.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This beautiful 24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this
24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson
River, and its link to the Truckee River. The map includes the
Lahontan Dam and reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming
areas in the basin. Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and
geography, the Newlands Project, land and water use within the
basin and wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant
from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan
Basin Area Office.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch map, which is
suitable for framing, explains the river’s apportionment, history
and the need to adapt its management for urban growth and
expected climate change impacts.
The Water Education Foundation’s second edition of
the Layperson’s Guide to The Klamath River Basin is
hot off the press and available for purchase.
Updated and redesigned, the easy-to-read overview covers the
history of the region’s tribal, agricultural and environmental
relationships with one of the West’s largest rivers — and a
vast watershed that hosts one of the nation’s oldest and
largest reclamation projects.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The construction of Glen Canyon Dam
in 1964 created Lake Powell. Both are located in north-central
Arizona near the Utah border. Lake Powell acts as a holding tank
for outflow from the Colorado River Upper Basin States: Colorado,
New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
The water stored in Lake Powell is used for recreation, power
generation and delivering water to the Lower Basin states of
California, Arizona, and Nevada.
Every five years the California Department of Water Resources
updates its strategic plan for managing the state’s water
resources, as required by state law.
The California Water Plan, or Bulletin 160, projects the
status and trends of the state’s water supplies and demands
under a range of future scenarios.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information
in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the
Groundwater Resources Association of California.
The connection between water and energy is more relevant than
ever. After existing in separate realms for years, the maxim that
it takes water to produce energy and energy to produce water has
prompted a re-thinking of management strategies, including an
emphasis on renewable energy use by water agencies.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at the energy
requirements associated with water use and the means by which
state and local agencies are working to increase their knowledge
and improve the management of both resources.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
desalination – an issue that is marked by great optimism and
controversy – and the expected role it might play as an
alternative water supply strategy.
This printed copy of Western Water examines climate change –
what’s known about it, the remaining uncertainty and what steps
water agencies are talking to prepare for its impact. Much of the
information comes from the October 2007 California Climate Change
and Water Adaptation Summit sponsored by the Water Education
Foundation and DWR and the November 2007 California Water Policy
Conference sponsored by Public Officials for Water and
Environmental Reform.
Hydropower generation is prevalent in the West, where rapidly
flowing river systems have been tapped for generations to produce
electricity. Hydropower is a clean, steady and reliable energy
source, but the damming of rivers has exacted a toll on the
environment, affecting, among other things, the migration of fish
to vestigial spawning grounds. Many of those projects are due to
be relicensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The California power crisis has made international headlines. But
what is the link between water and power in California? How is
the state’s dry spell affecting its hydropower generation? How
has the electric crisis affected water users in the state? These
questions and others are addressed in this issue of Western
Water.
