OLD TOWN – If you were buying sunscreen from the Old Town Walgreens, it was in stock Tuesday – but you might have had to climb over a giant pile of dirt and bricks, then avoid falling into a trench, to get it. A construction crew tore through the convenience store’s floor Tuesday, pulling up… >> Read More
Just two years after California celebrated the end of its last devastating drought, the state is facing another one. Snowpack has dwindled to nearly nothing, the state’s 1,500 reservoirs are at only 50% of their average levels, and federal and local agencies have begun to issue water restrictions. Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a drought… >> Read More
LAKE MEAD, Nevada – People who fish for striped bass and catfish in Lake Mead are seeing their favorite stretches of shoreline transform around them. The reservoir near Las Vegas has been dropping week after week, reshaping the moist, sandy ground where anglers cast their lines into the lapping water. “Every week, it’s further and… >> Read More
The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from dire to catastrophic this week as federal regulators shut off irrigation water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating birds each year. In what… >> Read More
Climate change and increasingly severe weather events will take a toll on aging public utilities, especially water and sewer systems, leading to higher costs, higher debt loads, and rising rates for customers, according to recent research. Events like droughts, wildfires, and storms will continue to challenge utilities, wrote analysts at Moody’s Investors Service in a… >> Read More