LA PINE, Ore. (AP) — Jack Dwyer pursued a dream of getting back to the land by moving in 1972 to an idyllic, tree-studded parcel in Oregon with a creek running through it.
SARATOGA, Wyo. (AP) — The North Platte River in southern Wyoming has been so low in places lately that a toddler could easily wade across and thick mats of olive-green algae grow in the lazy current.
GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — "Go West, young man,'' Horace Greeley famously urged.
The problem for the northern Colorado town that bears the 19th-century newspaper editor's name: Too many people have heeded his advice.
CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (AP) — A harvester rumbles through the fields in the early morning light, mowing down rows of corn and chopping up ears, husks and stalks into mulch for feed at a local dairy.
The cows won't get their salad next year, at least not from this farm.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials on Monday declared the first-ever water shortage from a river that serves 40 million people in the West, triggering cuts to some Arizona farmers next year amid a gripping drought.
FIREBAUGH, Calif. (AP) — As temperatures recently reached triple digits, farmer Joe Del Bosque inspected the almonds in his parched orchard in California’s agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley, where a deepening drought threatens one of the state's most profitable crops.
SITES, Calif. (AP) — In 2014, in the middle of a severe drought that would test California's complex water storage system like never before, voters told the state to borrow $7.5 billion and use part of it to build projects to stockpile more water.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Baby salmon are dying by the thousands in one California river, and an entire run of endangered salmon could be wiped out in another. Fishermen who make their living off adult salmon, once they enter the Pacific Ocean, are sounding the alarm as blistering heat waves and extended drought in the U.S.
MENDOCINO, Calif. (AP) — Tourists flock by the thousands to the coastal town of Mendocino for its Victorian homes and cliff trails, but visitors this summer are also finding public portable toilets and signs on picket fences pleading: “Severe drought.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Included in the sweeping $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved by the Senate is funding for Western water projects that farmers, water providers and environmentalists say are badly needed across the parched region.
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — With his cattle ranch threatened by a deepening drought, Jim Stanko isn’t cheered by the coming storm signaled by the sound of thunder.
“Thunder means lightning, and lightning can cause fires,” said Stanko, who fears he’ll have to sell off half his herd of about 90 cows in Routt County outside of Steamboat Springs, Colorado if he can’t harvest enough hay to feed them.
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — California officials have nixed a proposal for a $1.4 billion desalination plant but say they're open to growing the state's capacity to turn Pacific Ocean seawater into drinking water to buffer against persistent drought.
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A California coastal panel on Thursday rejected a long-standing proposal to build a $1.4 billion seawater desalination plant to turn Pacific Ocean water into drinking water as the state grapples with persistent drought that is expected to worsen in coming years with climate change.
TURKANA, Kenya (AP) — A top United Nations humanitarian official has raised concern about people going hungry in a remote part of northern Kenya, joining calls for the international community to commit more resources to address the wider region's drought crisis.
The frequency and duration of droughts will continue to increase due to human-caused climate change, with water scarcity already affecting billions of people across the world, the United Nations warned in a report Wednesday.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California's water use jumped dramatically in March, state officials said Tuesday, as one of the driest stretches on record prompted a wave of homeowners to start watering their lawns earlier than usual in defiance of Gov.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Stories about long-departed Las Vegas organized crime figures are surfacing after a second set of unidentified human remains were revealed as the water level falls on drought-stricken Lake Mead.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Las Vegas is being flooded with lore about organized crime after a second set of human remains emerged within a week from the depths of a drought-stricken Colorado River reservoir just a 30-minute drive from the notoriously mob-founded Strip.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California likely will have an energy shortfall equivalent to what it takes to power about 1.3 million homes when use is at its peak during the hot and dry summer months, state officials said Friday.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — U.S. officials announced what they called extraordinary steps on Tuesday to keep hundreds of billions of gallons of water stored in a reservoir on the Utah-Arizona line to prevent it from shrinking more amid prolonged drought and climate change.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The body found inside a barrel on the newly exposed bottom of Lake Mead after the lake's level was depleted amid drought is that of a man who was shot, police said Tuesday.
The killing probably happened between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s because the victim was wearing shoes that were manufactured during that period, said homicide Lt.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A body inside a barrel was found over the weekend on the the newly exposed bottom of Nevada's Lake Mead as drought depletes one of the largest U.S. reservoirs — and officials predicted the discovery could be just the first of more grim finds.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A massive drought-starved reservoir on the Colorado River has become so depleted that Las Vegas now is pumping water from deeper within Lake Mead where other states downstream don't have access.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California's gigantic water supplier has taken the unprecedented step of requiring about 6 million people to cut their outdoor watering to one day a week as an extended drought plagues the state following another dry winter.
Hours from the California coast, surfers are hoping one of the next spots where they can catch a wave is in the desert.
At least four large surf lagoons are proposed for the region around Palm Springs, which is more commonly known for art festivals, mountain hikes and golf, and has no natural waves in sight.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Bulldozers were busy Monday scraping through New Mexico's high country as firefighters scouted more rugged terrain, looking for places where they could wield tools to dig lines that stop what has grown into the largest wildfire burning in the U.S.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Mired in an extreme drought, California lawmakers on Thursday took the first step toward lowering the standard for how much water people use in their homes — a move that won't be enforced on individual customers but could lead to higher rates even as consumption declines.
MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — Devastating floods in South Africa this week, as well as other extreme weather events across the continent linked to human-caused climate change, are putting marine and terrestrial wildlife species at risk, according to biodiversity experts.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A Native American tribe in Oregon said Tuesday it is assessing its legal options after learning the U.S. government plans to release water from a federally operated reservoir to downstream farmers along the Oregon-California border amid a historic drought.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Tumbleweeds drift along the Rio Grande as sand bars within its banks widen. Smoke from distant wildfires and dust kicked up by intense spring winds fill the valley, exacerbating the feeling of distress that is beginning to weigh on residents.
MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — Agricultural workers in the east and Horn of Africa are preparing for their most severe drought in 40 years, as authorities warn that higher temperatures and less than normal rainfall was recorded by weather agencies in March and April this year.
Firefighters scouted the drought-stricken mountainsides around a New Mexico village on Wednesday as they looked for opportunities to slow a wind-driven wildfire that a day earlier had burned at least 150 homes and other structures while displacing thousands of residents and forcing the evacuation of two schools.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Federal officials say it may be necessary to reduce water deliveries to users on the Colorado River to prevent the shutdown of a huge dam that supplies hydropower to some 5 million customers across the U.S.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Farms that rely on irrigation from a depleted, federally managed lake on the California-Oregon border, along with a Native American tribe fighting to protect fragile salmon, will both receive extremely limited amounts of water this summer as a historic drought and record-low reservoir levels drag on in the U.S.