Monday, June 21, 2021

Severe heat and drought the hallmarks of a changing west

 




LAKE OROVILLE, Calif. – The work had to be done quickly as water vanished to vapor in the early summer heat. Hauling giant houseboats, some 50 to 60 feet long, from this lake became urgent just a few weeks ago.

In all, the Oroville Lake Marinas company removed 130 houseboats; floating recreation palaces such as the Monte-Carol and La Bella Vita now sit in a parking lot on stacks of pasteboard props. The lot stands where the lake’s high water mark would usually be — 900 feet. It is now 700 feet and falling fast.

The man-made lake, which helps to irrigate thousands of acres of crops through the elaborate State Water Project, is now so low that it is impossible for the marina to remove more of the large boats even as dun-colored islands begin to pop up. The launch ramp no longer reaches the water, which will keep disappearing amid a summer of record heat, including the “mega-heat wave” currently scorching much of the West.

“I’ve seen it like this before but only at the end of summer, never this early,” said Aaron Wright, the area’s public safety chief who has worked in and around Lake Oroville — the state’s second-largest reservoir — for that last eight years. “This low will be historic.”

Much of the American West , from parched Northern California through Arizona and New Mexico, is drying out at a record pace.

The onset of this severe drought was far quicker than previous ones — the result of a meager Sierra Nevada snowpack and early seasonal heat that evaporated the runoff needed to fill the reservoirs and rivers.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

A lengthy coverage of the issues by the Washington Post.

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