"Each year Lake Oroville helps water a quarter of the nation’s crops, sustain endangered salmon beneath its massive earthen dam and anchor the tourism economy of a Northern California county that must rebuild seemingly every year after unrelenting wildfires.
But now the mighty lake — a linchpin in a system of aqueducts and reservoirs in the arid U.S. West that makes California possible — is shrinking with surprising speed amid a severe drought, with state officials predicting it will reach a record low this summer.
While droughts are common in California, this year’s is much hotter and drier than others, evaporating water more quickly from the reservoirs and the sparse Sierra Nevada snowpack that feeds them. The state’s more than 1,500 reservoirs are 50% lower than they should be this time of year, said Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis."
Adam Beam reports for the Associated Press June 2, 2021.
SEE ALSO:
"Farmers Are Feeling The Pain As Drought Spreads In The Northwest" (NPR)
"Imagine No Joshua Trees in Joshua Tree National Park" (Los Angeles Times)
"Las Vegas’s New Strategy For Tackling Drought – Banning ‘Useless Grass’" (Guardian)
"Fish Kill Consumes The Klamath River" (Indian Country Today)
"‘Truly An Emergency’: How Drought Returned To California – And What Lies Ahead" (Guardian)
"California's Drought Is So Bad, Farmers Are Ripping Up Almond Trees" (Earther)
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