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Case Closed An interstate compact allocating supplies from the Red River does not allow Texas to pull water from within Oklahoma’s borders, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously last week. Writing for the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argues that if the drafters of the Red River Compact meant for Texas to be able to draw [...]
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Pipe Schemes U.S. water utilities will need to spend $US 384 billion between 2011 and 2030 to maintain adequate drinking water service, according to an Environmental Protection Agency infrastructure report to Congress. Prepared every four years, the report is used to allocate money to the states from a federal loan program for drinking water projects. [...]
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Farmers in regions of the U.S. facing a higher risk of drought are more likely to enroll in federal land and water conservation programs, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture study. The Conservation Reserve Program pays farmers not to plant on land that is easily eroded, and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program promotes farming [...]
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Roughly one in every six structures in the Army Corps of Engineers dams database is rated as “high hazard,” meaning a dam failure would kill people, according to a recent update. Since 2009, the number of high hazard dams has increased by six percent, to 14,726. Three-fifths of the high hazard dams have an emergency [...]
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The Bureau of Land Management’s revised regulations for hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking, on federal lands pleased almost no one outside of Congress. The proposal has three prongs: disclosure of chemicals in the fracking fluid, quality-control for well construction, and wastewater disposal. The BLM’s goal is to streamline the reporting process “without introducing unnecessary new procedures [...]
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NASA and the California Department of Water Resources are collaborating on a project to provide a near real-time assessment of mountain snowpack. The three-year pilot study of watersheds in California and Colorado began last month. The lasers and spectrometers on the Airborne Snow Observatory, carried aboard aircraft that fly below the cruising altitude of a [...]
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The Environmental Protection Agency will allocate $US 569 million dollars to New Jersey and New York for water and sewer facilities damaged by Hurricane Sandy last October. The money, authorized by Congress, will go into the states’ revolving loan funds for water infrastructure projects. Up to 30 percent of the money can be given away [...]
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The justices on the United States Supreme Court pondered water law last week, as Oklahoma and a Texas water district presented arguments about water allocations under the Red River Compact. The justices asked many questions about the compact’s language and the intent behind an equal rights provision. They also dipped into matters of engineering, state [...]
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Steam-generating electric power plants, the biggest source of industrial water pollution in the United States, will have several options to reduce the amount of toxic substances in their wastewater, under a proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule released on Friday. EPA estimates that the rules would lead to a 15 percent reduction in pollutants discharged to [...]
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The most severe drought in 117 years of recordkeeping on the Great Plains came quickly, without warning, and without any dominant cause, according to an analysis by university and government scientists. It was largely not a result of climate change, they claim, and it was not the result of the drought conditions in Texas from [...]
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The most comprehensive study of water resources ever in the United States is proceeding slowly, according to a U.S. Geological Survey progress report. A substantial amount of new data are required for the project, which will be “an ongoing and continuous activity,” the report states. The most detailed studies, of streamflow ecology, will require most [...]
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As oceans climb because of climate change, utilities that pull drinking water from rivers near the coast could see their supplies getting saltier, according to new research from the U.S. Geological Survey. The USGS used climate models and observational data to look at the interaction between river flows, sea-level rise and tidal changes along the [...]
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Only one of every five miles of river in the United States is ecologically and biologically healthy, according to a first-of-its-kind assessment of national water quality. The Environmental Protection Agency used random sampling to estimate river and stream health in the lower 48 states. Based on data from 1,924 sites monitoring rivers, streams and ponds, [...]
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Yesterday Barbara Boxer (D-California) and Senate colleague David Vitter (R-Louisiana) submitted a new Water Resources Development Act. Last session of Congress, Boxer circulated a draft version of the bill, but it was not introduced. The act is a major piece of legislation. It authorizes billions in projects for the Army Corps of Engineers and sets [...]
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The numbers dribbled out in a weekly Bureau of Reclamation update. Then they were splashed on a regional map. The conclusion is the same: the Colorado River runoff forecast is dry and getting drier. In fact, that is the case for most of the states west of the Rocky Mountains. They rely on a deep [...]
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The Environmental Protection Agency’s science advisory board will hold a public teleconference March 29 to discuss a draft report on methods for establishing a national drinking water standard for perchlorate, a chemical used in explosives. To get details about the call, contact Angela Nugent at nugent.angela@epa.gov. EPA Science Advisory Panel The EPA wants experts in [...]
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The section of pipeline that would funnel tar sands oil from the U.S.-Canada border to the Kansas-Nebraska border would cross more than 1,000 water bodies and half of its length would cut through soils classified as highly erodible, according to a State Department environmental review released Friday afternoon. The review, which stretches more than 3,600 [...]
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From the Ground The average decline in water levels across the entire Ogallala Aquifer, which spans eight plains states and is a key source of irrigation water, measured 4.3 meters (14.2 feet), from 1950 to 2011, according to new figures from the U.S. Geological Survey. Changes in the water table ranged from an increase of [...]
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Climate Change Risk The U.S. government’s internal watchdog added two new items to its list of high-priority risks to the federal government: financial risk from climate change-related catastrophes and insufficient data from weather-monitoring satellites. The Government Accountability Office’s high-risk list – which emphasizes areas vulnerable to fraud, waste or mismanagement, or areas in need of [...]
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Today, just after the lunch hour, NASA launches the eighth version of Landsat. The earth-observing satellite will carry two instruments that will, among other things, measure water quality and quantity. NASA will cover the launch of the satellite live online. Liftoff is scheduled for 1:02 p.m. eastern standard time. Water Themes for Congress Federal spending [...]
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