The Friant-Kern Canal has received the approval from the federal government to fix a sag in the canal.
The Bureau of Reclamation gave its approval Tuesday – signing a Record of Decision giving environmental clearance for the project – following action from the Trump administration to invest about $5 million to study and begin pre-construction work on the canal.
The Fallbrook Public Utility District’s professional services contract for the Santa Margarita River Conjunctive Use Project has been amended.
The risks of water shortages continue to grow along the Colorado River, which supplies about 40 million people from Wyoming to Arizona.
Federal water managers released projections Tuesday showing higher odds of shortages occurring within the next five years.
The Colorado River is in the 21st year of a severe drought that’s being compounded by hotter temperatures influenced by climate change, and the river’s flows have increasingly been insufficient to meet all the demands of cities and farms across the region.
The Colorado River’s largest reservoirs are expected to keep struggling over the next five years due to climate change, according to the federal agency that oversees them.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s new modeling projections, which include this year’s record-breaking heat and dryness in some parts of the southwestern watershed, show an increasing likelihood of an official shortage declaration before 2026.
If dry conditions like the Colorado River Basin has seen since 2000 persist, the agency’s model shows an almost 80% chance of seeing an official shortage declaration by 2025. The chance of seeing the reservoir drop to a critically low level is about 20% in that same time period.
For the second time in two years, federal officials are warning that Lake Mead could drop in five to six years to levels low enough to possibly warrant major Central Arizona Project water cutbacks to Tucson and Phoenix.
These warnings were ratcheted up significantly compared to forecasts made earlier this year. That’s due to the severely hot and dry weather that struck most of the West during the summer, including the hottest two months on record in Tucson and Phoenix in August and July, respectively.
A group of residents in a southern Nevada town that sits along the Colorado River are organizing a campaign to oppose a proposed pipeline that would divert billions of gallons of river water to southwest Utah, reflecting intensifying struggles over water in the U.S. West.
Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will again receive less water from the Colorado River next year under a set of agreements intended to help boost the level of Lake Mead, which now stands at just 40% of its full capacity.
The federal Bureau of Reclamation released projections on Friday showing that Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, will be at levels next year that continue to trigger moderate cutbacks in the two U.S. states and Mexico.
Progress continues on the city’s $66.3-million North Pleasant Valley Groundwater Desalter Facility, which has received nearly $5 million in federal funding.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation recommends river runners secure their vessels to withstand changing levels and campers should set up tents in areas out of reach of the river. Officials plan to release higher-than-normal amounts of water from Glen Canyon Dam, possibly without notice, which will cause rapid changes to the Colorado River’s flow.
The Western Area Power Administration says there’s a possibility that Glen Canyon Dam will be needed to augment regional power supplies in the event of a system emergency. Releases could last a couple hours or even longer and the fluctuations will be more noticeable on weekends.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman says she’d like to see more cooperation from California officials as talks aim to resolve a legal dispute over competing biological opinions governing the management of their respective water projects.
