Fogbow

One of the worst droughts in memory in a massive agricultural region straddling the California-Oregon border could mean steep cuts to irrigation water for hundreds of farmers this summer to sustain endangered fish species critical to local tribes.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water allocations in the federally owned Klamath Project, is expected to announce this week how the season’s water will be divvied up after delaying the decision a month.

For the first time in 20 years, it’s possible that the 1,400 irrigators who have farmed for generations on 225,000 acres (91,000 hectares) of reclaimed farmland will get no water at all — or so little that farming wouldn’t be worth it. Several tribes in Oregon and California are equally desperate for water to sustain threatened and endangered species of fish central to their heritage.

A network of six wildlife refuges that make up the largest wetland complex west of the Mississippi River also depend on the project’s water, but will likely go dry this year.

Volkonski wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:26 pm Tensions Rise in Water Battle Along Oregon-California Line

https://www.courthousenews.com/tensions ... rnia-line/

One of the worst droughts in memory in a massive agricultural region straddling the California-Oregon border could mean steep cuts to irrigation water for hundreds of farmers this summer to sustain endangered fish species critical to local tribes.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water allocations in the federally owned Klamath Project, is expected to announce this week how the season’s water will be divvied up after delaying the decision a month.

For the first time in 20 years, it’s possible that the 1,400 irrigators who have farmed for generations on 225,000 acres (91,000 hectares) of reclaimed farmland will get no water at all — or so little that farming wouldn’t be worth it. Several tribes in Oregon and California are equally desperate for water to sustain threatened and endangered species of fish central to their heritage.

A network of six wildlife refuges that make up the largest wetland complex west of the Mississippi River also depend on the project’s water, but will likely go dry this year.

Limited access to clean water remains a struggle for millions of Americans. And lack of water access is expected to become an even greater problem in the coming years across the U.S. and around the world.

In West Virginia, many households in McDowell County rely on collecting water from fresh springs, which might freeze over in the winter or run dry in the summer. Bob McKinney is the Appalachia Water Project manager for DigDeep, a nonprofit that works to provide water to Americans who wouldn't otherwise have access. He says he estimates that about half of McDowell's population doesn't have reliable running water in their homes.

Across the United States, about 2.2 million people don't have running water, according to data collected by DigDeep.



"Many of our biggest or most important rivers now run dry, or nearly so, before they reach the river mouth at certain times of the year," said Smith, who is a professor of environmental studies at Brown University. "There are populations with huge dependencies on these rivers and that's why they are running dry."

Gov. Gavin Newsom officially declared a drought emergency Wednesday in one of the driest regions of California, the Russian River watershed in Northern California.

While the governor stopped short of declaring a statewide drought, the move makes various forms of drought assistance available for Sonoma and Mendocino counties and could allow the state to take swifter action on curtailing farmers and others from pulling water from the river.



“As a result of a lack of rain, our region’s two primary reservoirs are at historically low water storage levels,” said Grant Davis, the general manager of Sonoma Water, the agency serving 600,000 residents in parts of Sonoma and Marin counties. “Lake Mendocino here is one of those reservoirs, and is at about 43% capacity. With no additional rain, and continued consumption from water users downstream, we anticipate the very real possibility of not being able to release water from this reservoir by fall.”



Even though Newsom has acknowledged California is “in the second year of these drought conditions,” he’s refused to declare a statewide drought emergency. Such a declaration could translate into sweeping cutbacks in urban water use, including restrictions on watering lawns.

Direct potable reuse (DPR) was labeled the final frontier of water reuse by Tracy Mehan, the executive director for government affairs at the American Water Works Association (AWWA), in an essay written for A Bigger Planet: Forty Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future. The process does away with an environmental buffer and pumps wastewater directly through an advanced treatment train before it is purified and put straight back into the system in a matter of hours.



Additionally, DPR avoids regulations on putting water back into the environment by eliminating the buffer. And finally, DPR can be more reliable and efficient: Jeff Mosher, vice president and principal technologist at Carollo Engineers, a leading firm in engineering water reuse systems, explains that DPR can turn wastewater into drinking water in a matter of hours, faster than IPR or any other method of reuse.

Only two facilities in the U.S. are currently equipped to operate DPR — both are in Texas. Big Spring in West Texas identified DPR as the most feasible way to address an urgent need to diversify the city’s water portfolio and increase its supply reliability for when rains failed to fill the city’s reservoirs — the project now serves around 135,000 people. Wichita Falls in northern Texas, serving 150,000 people, followed Big Spring’s example. Anticipating a water crisis with the city reservoirs at less than 20 percent capacity in 2012, and lacking a groundwater backup supply, Wichita Falls determined DPR was a viable means of urgently meeting potable water demands. The two systems can supply 2 million and 5 million gallons per day, respectively.

Both facilities have been successful and without incident, yet the catalyst for both was an emergency. Such was the water crisis both cities were facing, Texas had to use emergency water regulations in order to build the facilities without formal DPR regulations. DPR is yet to become a mainstream and a trusted water supply system, and it still remains unused outside times of crisis and for larger communities.

Dave from down under wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 5:35 pm I prefer flooding to drought.
(We are on tank water)

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 10:35 pm the Chinese must be digging in from their side of the planet and tapping the US water sources

Amid a devastating drought, Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox (R) declared this Saturday and Sunday a “weekend of prayer,” inviting residents of the Beehive State to join in “collective and collaborative” prayer for rainfall. In a video posted to social media on Thursday, the governor pleaded for “divine intervention,” noting that current rainfall “is not enough.”

The declaration comes after the governor declared a state of emergency on May 13. Last year was Utah’s driest on record, with the statewide average of 7.23 inches of precipitation being nearly an inch below the 1956 record.
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Salt Lake City received 8.98 inches of rainfall last year — its second-lowest on record — and has received only 6.59 inches this year. According to the governor, reservoirs are depleted and the extremely dry conditions are affecting agribusiness and livestock production.

“By praying … [or] asking God or whatever higher power … we may be able to escape the deadliest aspects of the continuing drought,” Cox said.

Volkonski wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 5:33 pm I think he needs a Plan B.

neeneko wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 6:30 pm
Blame environmentalists? Or more likely : Blame the Federal Government. After all, if private people owed all the water, surely that will solve the drought.

Baby Chinook salmon from California’s Central Valley typically have a long swim downriver to the ocean to survive into the next stage of life. This year, they are getting a helping hand in the form of a fleet of tanker trucks set to carry almost 17 million of the fish to the sea.

It’s all part of a flurry of steps across western US states to keep tens of millions of endangered salmon from suffering in a year of historic drought for the region.

This isn’t the first time wildlife managers have trucked salmon downstream, but this year the drought is drying up rivers earlier than usual and making them too hot for the salmon to survive. That means that giant tanker trucks, traveling 50 to 100 miles downstream to the coast around San Francisco, are a lifeline.

“The California department of fish and wildlife is utilizing lessons learned from the past 15 or more years of salmon releases and the last drought to maximize release success,” said Jason Julienne, north central region hatchery supervisor, in a statement.

“Trucking young salmon to downstream release sites has proven to be one of the best ways to increase survival to the ocean during dry conditions.”