water

In the 30-mile long Zanskar Valley in the Himalayas of northwestern India, the warming climate has lengthened the growing season, giving farmers in the village of Stongde a welcome additional month before the killing frost that heralds alpine winter.

Trustees of the Des Moines Water Works voted at the end of a 60-day warning period to sue drainage districts in three counties in northwest Iowa over high levels of nitrate in the Raccoon River, a source of drinking water for Iowa's capital city.

Snowpack in the Cascades and Sierra Nevada shrank during warm February weather, said the USDA in its third forecast of snow and water conditions in the West.

Some 55.3 million acres of U.S. farmland are irrigated, says the Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey, drawn from USDA's 2012 Census of Agriculture.

"(T)he nation's largest irrigation district is in the wrong place," says the Los Angeles Times in story about the Westlands district of the Central Valley of California and its role as a driving force behind a $25 billion projects to ship water from...

Worrisome pesticide levels in urban streams became far more prevalent in the past decade but declined slightly in agricultural streams, says a study by the U.S. Geological Survey of water samples from 1992-2011. Pesticide levels seldom exceeded human health benchmarks, said a USGS summary. Over 500 million pounds of pesticides are used annually in the United States and "some of these pesticides are occurring at concentrations that pose a concern for aquatic life," it said.

Groups representing soybean, corn and hog farmers in Iowa formed an alliance to encourage farmers in the Hawkeye state to voluntarily reduce nutrient runoff, said DTN.

Farm leaders in Ohio say producers have worked for years to reduce their use of fertilizer and to reduce runoff through using no-till cultivation and planting filter strips near waterways, says AgWeb.

The drought is propelling water prices to record levels, says the Vallejo (Calif) Times-Herald in recounting how prices have quadrupled or more. Water is, it says, "a commodity, like oil or gold, and its prices swing in response to supply and demand, geography and decisions out of Sacramento." So-called traded water is a small part of California consumption but the amount has grown greatly.

The House Appropriations Committee voted to block EPA's proposed "waters of the United States" rule as part of a fiscal 2015 interior and environment spending bill. Members approved the bill on a mostly party-line vote of 29-19. "Republicans have derided the measure as a brazen power grab that could result in the EPA expanding its jurisdiction to ponds, trenches or even dry riverbeds," said The Hill newspaper.

States in the Chesapeake Bay region made progress in controlling water pollution from agriculture and communities but many jurisdictions are short of goals, says the Associated Press in summarizing...

Gov Jerry Brown asked Californians to cut water consumption by 20 percent in the face of widespread drought. Five months later, the San Francisco Chronicle says voluntary conservation has yielded small results in the Bay area.

"California's worsening drought reached a new, ominous milestone this week just as the typical dry season begins for much of the state," says The Weather Channel.

The largest U.S. farm group strongly criticized a proposed clean water rule as "an unlawful expansion of federal regulation to cover routine farming and ranching practices as well as other common private land uses, such as building homes."

Drought in California could idle 78 percent of the state's farm land yet, "A booming population and a sharp increase in lucrative crops like berries and nuts that require more water strain the system" says the New York Times.

The nation's largest water district ramped up its spending on Washington lobbyists as drought deepened in California, says a story by Southern California Public Radio and the Center for Responsive Politics.

"The drought in California affects the whole country's fruits, veggies and nuts," says Mother Jones magazine in presenting a series of maps that show how the severe drought affects...

As part of initiatives related to Earth Day, the Biden administration set "a bold, new national goal to protect, restore, and reconnect 8 million acres of wetlands and 100,000 miles of our nation's rivers and streams" on Tuesday. The initiative could be the overdue response to the Supreme Court decision in 2023 that limited federal protection of wetlands but only seven states are currently taking part, said an attorney active in water law.