Category: Drought_CN PATA_West_Drought_2022 Politics_International_MN WATER_CN

The strange, barren spots pepper the vast Namib Desert, which stretches from southern Angola to northern South Africa. They are known as “fairy circles,” and for a natural phenomenon with such a whimsical name, scientific debates over their origins have been heated.

Monday marks the first day of the Supreme Court’s new term, and the justices are wasting no time in weighing another challenge to one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws.

Two years ago, a wildfire started burning in Colorado’s Arapaho National Forest. Fanned by high winds and parched conditions, the East Troublesome fire raced up the slopes of the Rocky Mountains, at one point crossing over the Continental Divide amid 12,000-foot-tall peaks. It would become the second largest wildfire in state history, and it happened to start on the same October day that another fire to the northeast, the Cameron Peak fire, would be crowned Colorado’s largest ever fire.

n Jackson, Miss., residents were already boiling their water for a month before their taps ran dry at the end of August. That’s when floodwaters from heavy rain overwhelmed the city’s fragile water treatment system, cutting off water pressure. On Sept. 5 water pressure was restored, but it’s still hard to find a cup of coffee in the city, with Starbucks and other businesses posting signs announcing indefinite closures due to Jackson’s continuing boil-water notice.

Tim Wiedman caught COVID-19 last December. A few days later, he developed bronchitis. A double whammy, he called it. The illnesses sapped his energy so much that, for six weeks, he could barely get off the living room couch in the two-bedroom apartment he shares with his mom in Mesa.
The illnesses sapped his energy so much that, for six weeks, he could barely get off the living room couch in the two-bedroom apartment he shares with his mom in Mesa.

Valeria Contreras’ phone started ringing on a bustling Saturday last February, when she was driving past almond and pistachio orchards on an errand run. Some callers sounded panicked. Others were just upset. “Where’s the water?” they asked her. “How come you guys don’t notify us? I know I’m past due, but did you guys turn off my water?”

California water districts are under growing pressure to shoulder substantial water cutbacks as the federal government pushes for urgent solutions to prevent the Colorado River’s badly depleted reservoirs from reaching dangerously low levels.

An innovative plan to conserve water by covering aqueducts with solar panels is about to undergo testing in drought-stricken California.
Why it matters: Water is becoming more precious by the day in the Golden State and the Western U.S. more broadly, in part due to climate change.

Flash floods, wildfires and hurricanes are easy to recognize as ravages of a fast-changing climate. But now, climate change has also emerged as a growing threat to clean, safe drinking water across the country.

There’s something familiar about the high stakes water use drama playing out in the U.S. Southwest.
The mighty Colorado River serves as an economic artery of the region, powering massive hydroelectric dams and supplying water to farmers and rapidly growing cities across the region. But continued overuse during a massive yearslong megadrought—the driest stretch the area has experienced in more than a millennia—has caused water reservoir levels to fall to unprecedented lows, imperiling water supplies and the operation of crucial power plants.