A new film explores a growing movement to remove dams that have outlived their usefulness.
Colorado River
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
The Latest: Colorado River Delta update
BackstoryOver the last 50 years, the Colorado River has rarely reached its mouth in the Sea of Cortez. The giant dams on its main stem and the water demands of some 35 million people have largely dried out its vast delta, which once sustained cottonwood and willow forests and armies of fish and birds. But […]
Posted inArticles
Map of Colorado River pulse moving toward Sea of Cortez
Update May 16: The Colorado River has now reached the delta for the first time since the 1990s. Conservationists will study environmental effects of the pulse for years to come. Update May 13 from Karl Flessa: “Image taken Monday May 12. Tidal waters in foreground, Colorado River in background. Connection will likely take place on […]
Posted inArticles
Will the Colorado River reach the Gulf of California once more?
Photographs of the historic water pulses.
Posted inGoat
Four women joyride the flood that will revive the Colorado River Delta
The guides warned us, of course. Or they sort of did. It was sometime after the river outfitter’s shuttle van had passed through the latticework of gates and fences that guards the steep, hairpinned road to the boat-launch at the base of the Hoover Dam, and possibly right before we realized that we had left […]
Posted inOctober 28, 2013: Lifeblood of the Delta
New Hope for the Delta
During the worst drought in more than a century, the Colorado River may flow to the sea once more.
Posted inOctober 28, 2013: Lifeblood of the Delta
How does the Colorado River drought stack up?
It’s one of the worst of the millennium.
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Time is running out to get the poster!
We’re in the home stretch of our special referral promotion to enlist friends, family and colleagues to join the HCN community of people serious about the West. More than 125 new readers have stepped up to subscribe and support the work we do here. And their reward? Besides the high-quality journalism we’re known for, they’ll […]
Posted inMay 13, 2013: Right-wing Migration
Another water-short year in the Southwest is taking its toll
On April 14, a Sunday, the Colorado ski resort Vail Mountain celebrated closing day in the invariable way: Skiers and boarders sported neon onesies and mullet wigs. The less modest squeezed into denim short shorts to flaunt calves and quads sculpted over a winter on the slopes. Alcohol was overconsumed and confiscated in lift lines. […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
Spread the word and get an exclusive HCN poster
High Country News launched its first “friends” referral subscription campaign on April 11. And, so far, several of you have stepped up to spread the word about HCN to your friends, family and colleagues. Participating subscribers who recruit two people to subscribe (or give gift subscriptions) will get a top-notch poster of a graphic that […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Grand Canyon floods and native fish
The last time the Colorado River plunged unhindered through the Grand Canyon, swollen by snowmelt to 126,000 cubic-feet per second, was in 1957. Glen Canyon Dam rose soon after, delivering cheap hydropower and reliable water to cities, farms and industry. For native fish, the transformation was debilitating. Most of the river’s sediment — which built […]
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 inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
River Town
I came to Flagstaff, Ariz., to run her river. The river. Flagstaff is a river town, although you’d never know it at first glance. The closest stream that flows year-round is Oak Creek, 30 miles to the south near Sedona. As the crow flies, Flagstaff is 75 miles and 5,000 vertical feet from the Colorado […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
In Navajoland, a contentious water deal divides the tribe
The Navajo Nation sprawls across about one-tenth of the nearly quarter-million-square-mile Colorado River drainage. But ever since the seven states that depend on the river met to divide its water 88 years ago, the tribe has been pushed into the shadows of river politics. About 40 percent of the reservation’s roughly 170,000 residents still don’t […]
Posted inNovember 8, 2010: Dr. No
Draining the tub
On Oct. 17, history was quietly made: The surface elevation of Lake Mead, a huge reservoir on the Colorado River near Las Vegas, dropped below its record low and continued to fall about a tenth of an inch per day over the following days. Those fractions of inches might seem insignificant, but when projected across […]
Posted inWotr
Hoover Dam: marvel and folly
Seventy-five years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt declared Hoover Dam — then called Boulder Dam — “a marvel of the 20th century.” But I predict that when the dam turns 100 in 2035, no one will be celebrating what now appears to be a 20th century folly. The third decade of the 20th century and the […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Net losses
Four endangered fish species currently live in the mainstem of the Colorado River. Several other endangered native fishes — including the woundfin, desert pupfish and Gila topminnow — used to live there but now survive only in the river’s tributaries or in man-made habitats. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with […]
Posted inArticles
Colorado River blues
Photos and audio stories of communities that live along the troubled Colorado River.