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WATER SECURITYA Water War Is Brewing Over the Dwindling Colorado River
Diminished by climate change and overuse, the river can no longer provide the water states try to take from it.
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WATER SECURITYA Simmering Revolt Against Groundwater Cutbacks in California
In 2014, California legislators, focused on groundwater’s accelerating decline during a prolonged drought, passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. New agencies find making sustainability plans is hard, but easier than persuading growers to accept them.
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DROUGHTSFlash Droughts Becoming Big Concern for Farmers, Water Utilities
Many people are familiar with flash floods – torrents that develop quickly after heavy rainfall. But there’s also such a thing as a flash drought, and these sudden, extreme dry spells are becoming a big concern for farmers and water utilities.
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DROUGHTSDrought Encouraged Attila’s Huns to Attack the Roman Empire, Tree Rings Suggest
Hunnic peoples migrated westward across Eurasia, switched between farming and herding, and became violent raiders in response to severe drought in the Danube frontier provinces of the Roman empire.
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WATER SECURITYThe Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater
In America’s rush to build the nuclear arsenal that won the Cold War, safety was sacrificed for speed. ProPublica has cataloged cleanup efforts at the 50-plus sites where uranium was processed to fuel the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Even after regulators say cleanup is complete, polluted water and sickness are often left behind.
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WATER SECURITYMaintaining Mountain Snowpacks Essential for Preserving Valuable Freshwater Resource
Snowcapped mountains generate mountain water runoff and snowmelt, which flow down to streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans. Around a quarter of the world depends on these natural “water towers” to replenish downstream reservoirs and groundwater aquifers for urban water supplies, agricultural irrigation, and ecosystem support. Carbon mitigation strategies are needed to maintain snowpack throughout the Americas.
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WATER SECURITYManaging Water Resources in a Low-to-No-Snow Future
With mountain snowpacks shrinking in the western U.S., new Berkeley Lab study analyzes when a low-to-no-snow future might arrive and implications for water management.
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WATER SECURITYTexas’ Plan to Provide Water for a Growing Population Ignores Climate Change
Texas’ biggest single solution to providing enough water for its soaring population in the coming decades is using more surface water, including about two dozen new large reservoirs. But climate change has made damming rivers a riskier bet.
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ARGUMENT: IRRESPONSIBLE ENVIRONMENTALISTSRemoving One Dam after Another: Water in the West
Many of the cities of the American southwest would not exist were it not for dams. Dams come with a cost, but removing them without offering alternatives is a folly, Edward Ring writes. If the proponents of dam removal would simultaneously support practical new infrastructure solutions, then rewilding America’s rivers could happen without impoverishing the farms and cities that depend on water,” Ring writes. “There is naïveté, and also nihilism, in fighting to remove the building blocks of civilization without facing the realities of energy and water economics.”
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WATER SECURITYParched California prepares for first-ever Colorado River Cuts
An emerging deal would cut water deliveries to Southern California — but fall far short of federal demands.
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WATER SECURITYAs Colorado River Dries, the U.S. Teeters on the Brink of Larger Water Crisis
The megadrought gripping the western states is only part of the problem. Alternative sources of water are also imperiled, and the nation’s food along with it.
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WATER SECURITYWater Plant Breaks Down in Mississippi’s Capital
Jackson, the capital city of Mississippi, has been left without safe water to drink and for other uses after its long-neglected water treatment plant broke down Monday.
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WATER SECURITYLaredo Confronts Drought and Water Shortage with Minimal Options
A mounting water supply crisis in scorching far-South Texas has left local governments pressed to respond. Two major cities, Brownsville and McAllen, rolled out watering restrictions in recent weeks, but leaders in the South Texas city of Laredo are reluctant to impose substantial restrictions on watering lawns even as water supplies near record lows.
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WATR SECURITYPipe Dreams: Why Far-Fetched Western Water Projects Won’t Go Away
There are at least half a dozen major Western water pipeline projects under consideration, ranging from ambitious to outlandish.most of these projects stand little chance of becoming reality — they’re ideas from a bygone era, one that has more in common with the world of Chinatown than the parched west of the present.
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WATER SECURITYA Water Strategy for the Parched West: Have Cities Pay Farmers to Install More Efficient Irrigation Systems
Unsustainable water practices, drought and climate change are causing this crisis across the U.S. Southwest. To achieve a meaningful reduction in water use, states need to focus on the region’s biggest water user: agriculture.
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The long view
WATER SECURITYThe Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater
In America’s rush to build the nuclear arsenal that won the Cold War, safety was sacrificed for speed. ProPublica has cataloged cleanup efforts at the 50-plus sites where uranium was processed to fuel the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Even after regulators say cleanup is complete, polluted water and sickness are often left behind.