Dear Deeply Readers,
Welcome to the archives of Water Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on November 1, 2018, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on water resilience. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors and contributors.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
Exploring the impacts of drought on farmers, farmworkers and food.
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Many food and beverage companies operating in the West are preparing for water risks. In our latest Water Deeply talk, Tara Lohan speaks with three experts about water security challenges and benefits.
In Sandra Postel’s new book ‘Replenish,’ she writes about an initiative that helped inspire farmers to put more water back in Arizona’s Verde River and how downstream users in Phoenix are also getting involved.
An agreement to address a decades-old problem of toxic drainage on agricultural fields in the San Joaquin Valley could fall apart without congressional action.
The state’s biggest urban supplier hopes to divert water from farms in the Palo Verde Valley by encouraging conservation. But the move may endanger an existing water-sharing deal that has become a model of cooperation.
California’s State Water Board recently passed new policies that will regulate water impacts from marijuana growing operations. Erin Ragazzi and Scott Couch of the Water Board discuss the challenges.
A decade ago, the state passed up a chance to embrace a cheaper, single water diversion tunnel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Now a groundbreaking vote by a Silicon Valley water agency could turn the tide.
The remote town of Nipton in the Mojave Desert has been bought by the United States’ largest publicly traded marijuana company, which will rely entirely on groundwater to develop a new cannabis-themed resort.
Urban and agricultural water districts have begun to take sides on whether they’ll fund the $17 billion Delta tunnels project, and it’s looking like economic concerns and not just environmental impacts could hamper it.
Decades after it was first proposed, Southern Nevada Water Authority is still pushing for a pipeline to send rural groundwater to the Las Vegas area. But others are questioning whether the project is really needed.
No one yet knows how big the legalized recreational marijuana business will become. But as it grows, water consumption is sure to become a concern in the arid West. Brandy Keen gives one industry leader’s point of view.
The state proposes to amend hundreds of water rights to help endangered salmon in the San Joaquin River, as well as other species. But there’s lots of disagreement about how much water the fish need to thrive.
In our last video in the ‘Toxic Taps’ series, we visit Southern California’s Imperial Valley, where thousands of rural residents rely on untreated water used to irrigate crops.
Many mobile home parks in the eastern Coachella Valley do not meet health and safety codes. In the latest ‘Toxic Taps’ video, we look at what’s being done to fix water and sanitation problems and improve living conditions.
A sprawl of mobile home parks house 10,000 people in Southern California’s Coachella Valley, but their drinking water is chronically contaminated. Now some solutions are in sight.
John Bezdek Attorney in Private Practice, Washington, D.C.
Dan Keppen Executive Director, Family Farm Alliance
A recent federal audit over a water-banking program in the Klamath Basin lacks an understanding of the on-the-ground reality in the region, writes attorney John Bezdek and Family Farm Alliance’s Dan Keppen.
In the Imperial Valley, nearly 3,000 homes are dependent on raw canal water for showering, washing and other household uses. State regulators sanction the arrangement, but others are concerned about health risks.
The state’s governor declared a drought disaster across 20 counties while a National Weather Service official acknowledged a long-range forecast missed the mark.
The state has a long-term plan to clean up nitrate-contaminated groundwater, but farmers say more research is still needed and environmental groups think the proposal isn’t strong enough.
Researchers hope to stave off subsidence in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta with a solution farmers might like: planting rice. But a pilot project has yielded mixed results.
A dozen water storage proposals are officially in the running for state bond funds. The tricky task now becomes analyzing their claimed “public benefits,” a new requirement to receive taxpayer support.
Cannabis cultivation in California – legal and illegal – can come at a cost to local water and wildlife. Water Deeply talks to experts about the impacts and upcoming state regulations.
It will take decades to slow nitrate contamination in groundwater from industrial agriculture in parts of the state of California, so communities are taking matters into their own hands to get clean drinking water.
Kirsten James Oversees the California Policy Program, Ceres
A coalition of diverse interests is backing Senate Bill 623, which would create a fund to help pay for clean drinking water projects needed by the state’s rural communities, writes Ceres’ Kirsten James.
Diamond Valley in rural Nevada has a critically overdrafted aquifer that supports its farming economy. Some irrigators want to shift to a market-based system to limit pumping, but the community is divided.
High Country News: As the climate changes, dams face new challenges for water rights and releases. In Idaho, a fight over surplus water in wet years is now before the state Supreme Court.
A bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives would loosen restrictions on Delta water diversions, halt restoration projects and weaken the Endangered Species Act.
A pioneering program in California aims to sequester carbon, improve water resources and boost plant growth, by treating the soil beneath farmers’ and ranchers’ feet as part of a living system.
In the third video in our “Toxic Taps” series, we traveled to Sacramento, where San Joaquin Valley residents rallied to support Senate Bill 623, which would create a fund to clean toxic drinking water sources.
Agriculture and environmental justice advocates are supporting legislation to create a fund for clean drinking water projects. But disputes over key components of the bill could derail it.
Ted Kowalski Senior Environment Program Officer, Walton Family Foundation
Innovative projects are key to improving the resilience of water supplies in the basin’s seven states, writes Ted Kowalski of the Walton Family Foundation’s Colorado River basin initiative.
An innovative project would see seven Tulare County towns plagued by polluted wells sharing a water treatment plant, but political infighting stalled the proposal days before a funding deadline.
The state plans to boost streamflows in the troubled San Joaquin River by amending hundreds of water rights. It hopes settlement deals will avoid a showdown, but will they produce enough water to help imperiled salmon?
The state’s proposal to build twin tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta cleared another hurdle last month, but opponents still believe that better options exist.
Small, cash-strapped water districts don’t have the financial, political or technological resources to treat some of the United States’ most contaminated drinking water.
Drought conditions continue for thousands of rural residents in the San Joaquin valley who rely on groundwater. And the race to dig deeper wells is a losing game for small communities and those on private wells.
In the second video in our “Toxic Taps” series, we meet residents of San Joaquin Valley towns struggling with contaminated drinking water from community water systems and private wells.
More than 1 million people in the region have been exposed to unsafe drinking water in recent years from pesticides, arsenic, nitrate and uranium. And many communities also face multiple environmental health threats.
It’s too risky for tens of thousands of children in the San Joaquin Valley to drink water at their schools due to chronic contamination by chemicals, pesticides and other toxins.
The epicenter of the state’s drinking water catastrophe is in the San Joaquin Valley, where 200,000 people have struggled to obtain clean, safe water for decades.
In the first video of our “Toxic Taps” series, we hear from the people who are running small water systems in the San Joaquin Valley and the challenges they face treating contaminated water with limited resources.
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