World food production is undergoing a sweeping transformation in California -- the nation’s biggest agricultural state by value -- driven by a three-year drought that climate scientists say is a glimpse of a drier future. The result will affect everything from the price of milk in China to the source of cherries eaten by Americans. It
Bottled-water drinkers, we have a problem: There's a good chance that your water comes from California, a state experiencing the third-driest year on record. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/why-bottled-water-comes-from-california-which-doesnt-have-much-to-spare/375882/
Once-teeming Lake Mead marinas are idle as a 14-year drought steadily drops water levels to historic lows. Officials from nearby Las Vegas are pushing conservation, but are also drilling a new pipeline to keep drawing water from the lake. Hundreds of miles away, farmers who receive water from the lake behind Hoover Dam are preparing
After months of worsening drought across California, conditions appear to have leveled off, at least for now. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-drought-unchanged-20140814-story.html
Farmers use water to grow our food, a basic need. No water, no farming, no food. Farmers have been stewards of our natural resources for generations, and have provided jobs and commerce. Despite California’s extensive aqueduct system, the current drought has severely strained surface water supplies. As a result, groundwater is being pumped out at
In exchange for blocking flows, the government gave the Miller and Lux group, which was renamed the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors, a guaranteed supply from the delta and, if that wasn't available, first dibs on the water held back by the dam. Jonas Minton, a water policy adviser for the Planning and Conservation League,
California voters will be asked to authorize $7.5 billion to bolster the state’s water supply, infrastructure and ecosystems in November, as lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown this week struck a long-sought deal to move a new water bond to the ballot. An extraordinary drought that has strained California’s water supply spurred a concerted push for a
Three years before the California drought became a crisis, national berry giant Driscoll’s, on the Central Coast, knew it had a major problem with water. It was disappearing. Water rights lawsuits had become commonplace, water rates were rising again and the precious liquid seemed to be vanishing before growers’ eyes. Groundwater, which provides all of
This is a desalination plant -- a pilot project, started up this summer and doing what no similar plant has been able to do yet on the Valley's west side. It's filtering crop drainage water laden with enough contamination to sterilize the ground or foul a river. Underwritten by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the
California has more than 500 natural reservoirs in its underground aquifers, whose total storage capacity dwarfs that of the state's surface reservoirs. Surface reservoirs in California can hold about 50 million acre feet of water. In comparison, the state's aquifers have a combined capacity of about 850 million to 1.3 billion acre-feet. As this drought drags