Water managers announce new measures to deal with dwindling water supply.
Agriculture
In California’s Central Valley, the water is contaminated and solutions are slow
The communities dealing with the carcinogenic water worry and aren’t kept well informed.
Corporations are consolidating water and land rights in the West
With farms, ranches and rural communities facing unprecedented threats, a worrying trend leads to a critical question: Who owns the water?
A federal drought relief program left southern Oregon parched
For two decades, the Bureau of Reclamation incentivized farmers to pump water faster than the resource could recover, despite warnings from its own scientists.
Utah has a water dilemma
Record-breaking drought along the Wasatch Front forces tough decisions about water supply.
Who should pay to fix California’s sunken canals?
Agribusiness and its proponents say repairs will benefit disadvantaged towns. Those residents disagree.
Where is central California’s water going?
Small farmers struggle as ag titans wheel water for profit.
An owl army, a tire-less elk and a minor coup attempt
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
The threat to Colorado’s acequias and the communities that depend on them
In the San Luis Valley, the communal and egalitarian resource offers a way of life.
How New Mexico chiles ended up on the space station
A NASA mission to harvest Hatch green chiles in space just might help farmers on earth adapt their growing methods.
Judge rejects a Trump-era water contract in a win for tribes in California
A bid to benefit agribusiness has stalled again, leaving the Hoopa Valley Tribe hopeful that the next contract follows the law.
Can Hatch green chiles outlast the climate crisis?
Growers of New Mexico’s iconic crop wrestle with drought, water rights and labor shortages.
Hmong Americans in Northern California fight wildfire — and distrust
Wary of local authorities, a community forms an ad-hoc firefighting force to defend its property.
California Farmworkers Union fights to vote by mail in union elections
For a largely unorganized sector, expanded voting access would be a huge win.
A California county spars over water, marijuana law and race
Tasked to map an enigmatic aquifer for future water management, scientists confront political and scientific uncertainty.
Wild rice sues to stop oil pipeline
The White Earth Band of Ojibwe exercised the Rights of Manoomin in a legal effort to halt the Line 3 pipeline.
11 stats on Washington’s problematic so-called ‘murder hornets’
A nest found last week was home to approximately 1,500 hornets.
Anxiety and hope in wildfire-prone Oregon
How might we live in the reality of our climate?
Klamath River issues explained
Confused about what’s happening on the Klamath? Dams, salmon, irrigation and more.
Uncurbed climate change and extreme heat will extract a toll on outdoor labor
A new report forecasts the loss in workdays and wages if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t reined in.
