The Wasatch Front faces drier times and a growing population, threatening the Great Salt Lake.
Bureau of Reclamation
Posted inSeptember 4, 2017: The Elwha, Unleashed
How farmers can help keep salt out of the Colorado River
The solution to a basin-wide problem may fall to individual irrigators.
Posted inJuly 24, 2017: Down the Dark Mountain
Latest: Delta tunnels plan challenged in court
Agencies weigh in on threatened fish — and get smacked with their first lawsuit.
Posted inArticles
Can private money solve public water problems?
As facilities age and public funding declines, private companies may step in.
Posted inArticles
Will a dam save the pallid sturgeon, or doom it?
On the Yellowstone River, farmers and conservationists clash over controversial infrastructure.
Posted inOctober 31, 2016: A Monumental Divide
The fading grandeur of the Glen Canyon Dam
Silt and erosion threaten to clog up the enduring structure.
Posted inArticles
Montana tribe’s water deal clears major Senate milestone
Blackfeet have waited decades to resolve their water claims but Congress is in no hurry.
Posted inArticles
How the feds can ensure Western states get more water in 2016
Key legislation failed in 2015. Will this year be any different?
Posted inOctober 12, 2015: The Rise of Lisa Murkowski
The Colorado River’s desalination plant is on its last legs
The obscure Paradox Valley Unit keeps the Colorado River’s salinity levels in check for farmers, but causes quakes upstream.
Posted inArticles
California drought renews push for water storage projects
A long-standing proposal to enlarge Shasta Dam gets a boost from the Bureau of Reclamation.
Posted inArticles
Lake Mead watch: six inches from the level that triggers cutbacks
If water curtailments go into effect, which states are most vulnerable, and why?
Posted inApril 10, 2015: Strangers in a Strange Land
A wanderer’s guide to Western public lands
Cow patties, extraterrestrials and binoculars can help you figure out where you are.
Posted inArticles
Should the Bureau of Reclamation be abolished?
Former Reclamation Commissioner Daniel Beard tells how defunct water policy, and the bureau itself, contribute to drought.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2015: This Land is Their Land
The Latest: Rio Grande water
A shortfall in water deliveries may lead to more fighting.
Posted inArticles
Cities look to farms for help in Colorado River drought
West’s biggest water agencies finalize a major agreement to boost Lake Mead levels.
Posted inArticles
New Mexico commission votes to divert Gila River
Decision greenlights contentious multi-million dollar diversion project.
Posted inWotr
Las Vegas needs to let the market decide where the water goes
The famous slogan, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” once assured visitors that they were exempt from the wages of sins committed in the city of lights. It was the inspired product of the Las Vegas convention and tourism bureau. Not to be outdone, the local water authority is still promising cheap water in […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Sedimentation is a building problem in the West’s reservoirs
Gary Esslinger, manager of Elephant Butte Irrigation District in southern New Mexico, spends as much time moving silt as he does water. Elephant Butte Reservoir, built in 1915, is fed by the naturally muddy Rio Grande, which drains 28,000 square miles of easily eroded desert in two states. Sediment has claimed 600,000 acre-feet of its […]
Posted inWotr
A federal agency tries to hold on to what it’s built
Western Colorado’s Uncompahgre Valley is a garden artificially created. Corn and alfalfa grow plentifully around Montrose and other towns in this valley, about five hours southwest of Denver, as do apples, pears and cherries. A complicated web of dams, canals and river-depleting diversion projects created this produce bin of the agrarian West. A key piece […]
Posted inGoat
The cost of progress
The Environmental Working Group just released a two-year study focusing on the toxins found in five minority women at the forefront of environmental justice battles. Within each community, these women work tirelessly to protect citizens from various forms of pollution. And within each of these women, scientists found significantly higher amounts of toxins than other […]