Media Highlights

The historic drought in California could be made worse as water levels fall in the state’s reservoirs. Officials say accelerated evaporation is to blame, the good news they say is one records heatwave is not enough to do serious damage. 

Agriculture – mainly alfalfa – consumes 80% of the Colorado River’s dwindling water supply, prompting calls for conservation

Southwest of Sacramento, the branching arms of waterways reach into a patchwork of farm fields and pastures. Canals and wetlands fringed with reeds meet a sunbaked expanse of dry meadows.

The head of Britain’s Environment Agency said this week that people need to be “less squeamish” about where their drinking water comes from since part of the response to prolonged droughts is reprocessing water from sewage treatment for use in residential taps.

Thousands of dead fish are piling up across the Bay Area. From the concrete outer edges of Oakland’s Lake Merritt to the sandy beaches of San Francisco’s Fort Funston and the pebbled banks of Oyster Point in San Mateo County, the carcasses of fish likely poisoned by a harmful algal bloom — more commonly known as a red tide — are washing ashore.

As the extreme drought continues across much of the western U.S., farmers have no choice but to cut back on crops. Farmers let their land fallow, ranchers culled cattle, and other farms simply planted less. Because of this, it means higher prices in the grocery stores. 

Experts say yes, but the region must continue finding new water savings and supply.

Two hundred miles north of New Orleans, in the heart of swampy Cajun country, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1963 cut a rogue arm of the Mississippi River in half with giant levees to keep the main river intact and flowing to the Gulf of Mexico. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom today unveiled a broad strategy for bolstering the state’s water supply that includes targets to recycle more water, expand reservoir storage and collect more data on the amounts farmers use.

Recent satellite images from NASA show the dramatic water loss that has occurred over the last 22 years at drought-stricken Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir and a lifeline for California, neighboring states and Mexico.

When it comes to slaking Southern California’s colossal thirst for water, more and more local governments are searching their own sewer lines for a solution.

The Colorado River is approaching a breaking point, its reservoirs depleted and Western states under pressure to drastically cut water use.