Water facilities

INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTIONHow Hackers Attack Municipal Water Systems – and Why the Utilities Are So Vulnerable
By William Akoto
There are about 152,000 public drinking water systems in the United States. Many utilities operate with small staffs, so remote connections allow an employee to monitor a distant pump or tank, receive an alarm after hours or let a vendor diagnose equipment without traveling to every site. Remote control reduces site-management cost, but increases vulnerability to hacking.
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DAMSWhat Should America Do with Its Aging Dams?
By Rob Jordan
Aging dams pose growing safety and economic challenges. Two Stanford water experts discuss the safety, economic, and environmental tradeoffs driving debates over dam removal.
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WATER SECURITYU.S. Supreme Court to Hear Colorado-Nebraska Water Dispute
By Liam Hibbert, The Center Square
Nebraska has set aside $600 million for a new canal that would start along the South Platte River in the northwest corner of Colorado. But the state alleged Colorado has sought to impede the effort, in violation of its compact with Nebraska.
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WATER SECURITYRiver Authority’s Budget Woes Are Another Blow to Water-Needy Corpus Christi
By Rachel Denny Clow, KRIS 6 News
The Corpus Christi region, in the midst of an ongoing water crisis, has experienced another setback: Design work has halted on a pipeline that’s supposed to deliver water to communities across the state because the tiny river authority that promised to develop the project hasn’t offered a renewed contract.
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DROUGHTAs Drought Worsens, Western States Brace for Wildfires, Water Shortages
By Alex Brown
From the Rockies to the Cascades to the Sierra Nevada, mountainsides across the West are sparsely covered by the snow that usually blankets the high country well into the summer. That snowpack is like a savings account that the West draws on when the hot, dry months arrive, but this yearWestern states are heading into the summer with a desperately low balance — threatening wildfires, drinking water, crops, electricity and more.
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WATER SECURITYTexas Needs at Least $174 Billion to Avoid Water Crisis, State Says
By Carlos Nogueras Ramos and Colleen DeGuzman
Texas communities will need to spend $174 billion in the next 50 years to avert a severe water crisis. That new amount is more than double the amount predicted four years ago. The new forecast comes as supply is already drying up.
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WATER SECURITYWhy Colorado River Negotiations Stalled, and How They Could Resume with the Possibility of Agreement
By Karen Schlatter and Sharon B. Megdal
The seven U.S. states that make up the Colorado River basin are struggling to agree on how best to manage the river’s water as its supply dwindles due to climate change and a period of prolonged drought.
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WATER SECURITYFeds Demand Compromise on Colorado River While States Flounder Amid Water Shortage
By Jeniffer Solis
Western states that rely on the Colorado River have less than two months to agree on how to manage the troubled river – and pressure is mounting as the federal government pushes for a compromise and a troubling forecast for the river’s two biggest reservoirs looms.
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WATER SECURITYColorado Adopts First-of-Its-Kind Water Protections in U.S.
By Liam Hibbert, The Center Square
In a bipartisan move, Colorado environmental leaders approved landmark water protections in reaction to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that they believed weakened regulations in Western states.
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WATER SECURITYHow a Billionaire’s Plan to Export East Texas Groundwater Sparked a Rural Uprising
By Bekah Stolhandske McNeel
As fast-growing cities and suburbs scramble for new water sources, farmers in East Texas are turning to government regulation to keep their wells from running dry.
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WATER SECURITYWill Texas Actually Run Out of Water?
By Alejandra Martinez and Jayme Lozano Carver
You asked our AI chatbot about Texas’ water supply. We answered some of the questions that it couldn’t.
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WATER SECURITYTexas’ Congressional Delegation Wants Trump to Punish Mexico for Missing Key Water Deadline
By Berenice Garcia
The state’s citrus industry is at risk, farmers say, after Mexico failed to deliver water it owes Texas as part of a 1944 treaty.
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WATER SECURITYTexas Voters Have Final Say on $20 Billion Package to Secure State’s Water Supply
By Alejandra Martinez
No new taxes would be collected for the package that would give the state’s water department $1 billion to spend on projects like cleaning salty water, flood control and reservoirs.
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WATER SECURITYGroundwater Is Drying Out, Heating Up, and Causing Sea Level Rise
By Rebecca Egan McCarthy
Overuse has created zones of “mega-drying” around the world —and caused more sea level rise than Greenland’s ice sheet.
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WATER SECURITYClimate Models Reveal How Human Activity May Be Locking the Southwest into Permanent Drought
By Pedro DiNezio and Timothy Shanahan
A new wave of climate research is sounding a stark warning: Human activity may be driving drought more intensely –and more directly –than previously understood. One example: The southwestern United States has been in a historic megadrought for much of the past two decades, with its reservoirs including lakes Mead and Powell dipping to record lows and legal disputes erupting over rights to use water from the Colorado Rive.
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