Drought in the Colorado River Basin reveals unseen marvels.
Water
Posted inRange
Green slime – coming soon to a lake near you?
The enemy is out there. It is green. It is slimy. Toxic algae outbreaks are a growing problem on our nation’s lakes, and maybe one you love. I’m lucky to live in a county with more than 150 lakes, including the biggest, cleanest freshwater lake in the western United States. Yet even here, we see […]
Posted inGoat
Could drought and a court case stop water deliveries to the Salton Sea?
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has an unenviable job in a wet year, but in prolonged periods of drought, the task of managing the Colorado River is even harder. The agency is in charge of balancing the water levels in the country’s two largest reservoirs, the serpentine desert lakes called Powell and Mead. Seven Western […]
Posted inGoat
Why flooding on the Front Range is an inevitable disaster
Excuse my language, but: Holy. Shit. That’s what all of us natural disaster-curious Internet voyeurs were thinking last week, our jaws giving in to gravity as we clicked through images from Colorado’s Front Range of people trudging through baseball fields covered hip-high with water, roads sliced apart by whitewater, and cabins transformed into riverine islands. […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2013: Of Sparrows and Sodbusters
Greed overtakes common sense on the Klamath
Your article “Severe Drought forces a moment of truth on the Klamath,” (HCN, 08/19/13) fails to mention that many Basin irrigators brought this situation upon themselves through egregious water use. Around 2000, I was the northwest director for the American Land Conservancy. We had painstakingly put together a package of willing seller buyouts on the […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2013: Of Sparrows and Sodbusters
The elephant in the water world: agriculture
As a polar oceanographer long involved in climate research and a resident of the Yakima River Basin, I have followed closely the development of the Integrated Plan described in Sarah Jane Keller’s article (“Climate-forced water planning,” HCN, 8/5/13). There are a few points in her description that need clarification. First, a major portion of the $5 […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Severe drought forces a moment of truth for the Klamath
Irrigation shutoffs in the river’s upper basin may finally help move a historic water deal on the Oregon-California border.
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
What’s in the water in Woods Cross?
A Salt Lake City suburb weighs environmental risk as it grapples with drinking water contamination.
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Climate-forced water planning in Washington’s Yakima Valley
Prepping for future climate change means fixing past mistakes.
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
A new report says we’re draining our aquifers faster than ever
The startling history of groundwater usage across the West.
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
The end is nigh
I was shocked by the statement of Scott Edwards that, “Drinking water is not a human right … if it costs somebody else money to provide it to you” (“Water Rights,” HCN, 6/24/13). Even the Declaration of Independence states that we are endowed by our “Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and […]
Posted inGoat
A massive water supply plan will benefit fish habitat in Washington state
Last week the Yakama Nation celebrated an event that hasn’t happened in over 100 years. Sockeye salmon hatched in eastern Washington’s Cle Elum Lake returned there to spawn. It was an important moment in the tribe’s restoration program, which began in 2009, to bring back a salmon run that was 200,000 fish strong before irrigation […]
Posted inGoat
Craft beer brewers test the waters of environmental activism
Policy analyst Karen Hobbs of the Natural Resource Defense Council has been on a mission to repeal Bush-era changes to the Clean Water Act for years. But she was looking for a popular ally to help get the word out. Then she discovered beer. Although the original 1972 Clean Water Act left little ambiguity about […]
Posted inGoat
Glen Canyon Dam’s evaporating hydropower
Ever since water levels in Lake Powell started dropping in 1999, the last time the reservoir was near full, I’d heard a lot about the infamous bathtub ring—the white band of minerals and salts that separates the current lake level from the high water mark. So I was looking forward to seeing it for myself […]
Posted inGoat
Massive California water transfer to continue
Ah, San Diego: great weather, a zoo with adorable panda bears, sandy beaches, turquoise swimming pools — and very little water. Unlike other arid Southwestern cities, San Diego doesn’t have an aquifer to draw its drinking water from, so it imports about 80 percent of it. For many years, L.A.’s Metropolitan Water District supplied most […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
California farm communities suffer tainted drinking water
In California’s agricultural hub, the Central Valley, Latino communities fight for clean water.
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
If we build it, rain will come — right?
In the midst of the drought, here in Arizona, the rah-rah development conferences go on, with smooth-talking hucksters claiming that we need to prepare for millions more people who will be moving here (“Dry new world,” HCN, 5/13/13). I’m not sure what will start the inevitable exodus from the Phoenix metro, but the combination of […]