Last year, fishermen on the West Coast who trawl for groundfish — species like cod and sole that live on or close to the sea floor — started fishing by a new set of rules. The National Marine Fisheries Service introduced a system that, to date has succeeded in reducing the number of discarded fish […]
Water
Posted inGoat
Mutualism on the Colorado River
Cross posted from the Last Word on Nothing. This story, I promise, will end with giant deep-sea tubeworms like the beauties above. Please bear with me while I get there via the Colorado River. I’m one of the nearly 40 million people who depend on the Colorado for water, and for most of my adult […]
Posted inGoat
Documenting drought from the ground up
While her neighbors in Nebraska water their lawns, Denise Gutzmer pages through thousands of online articles about crop loss, wild fires and water shortages. As a climate scientist specializing in drought impacts, the waste bugs her. “I have a different sense of the importance of water than my neighbors do,” she said. But aside from […]
Posted inGoat
Getting serious about fresh water with Jay Famiglietti
Editor’s note: High Country News will occasionally cross post items from Chance of Rain, a blog by Emily Green, who writes frequently on water in California and the West. Her latest story for High Country News covered Los Angeles County Flood Control District’s bulldozing of old-growth oak forests. Unfortunately, Jay Famiglietti isn’t running for office, unfortunate because […]
Posted inGoat
Pipeline plans
Moving water from one part of the West to another – it’s a time-honored tradition, a way to channel the bounty of rivers in less populated areas to drier regions with greater populations. We’ve reported on many of these projects, like the San Francisco Bay/Delta that supplies southern California, and the Central Arizona Project that’s […]
Posted inJune 11, 2012: The Darkest Shade of Polygamy
Learning a landscape by tracking its rivers
I follow a blue thread on my atlas. The line labeled “Clark Fork” appears to end at Lake Pend Oreille. To confirm it, I turn from my atlas to my computer and consult Google, Wikipedia, the Clark Fork Coalition’s website. I feel guilty; it seems like cheating to use a computer screen to learn about […]
Posted inRange
Water to the people
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House I hadn’t realized until I got an (en masse) email from Senator Mark Udall recently, that we’re celebrating water in Colorado this year. He and Sen. Michael Bennet introduced a resolution in May recognizing 2012 as the “Year of Water.” The declaration piggybacks on governor Hickenlooper’s “Colorado Water 2012” initiative which, […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
Kayaking memories on the White Salmon River
I almost missed my chance to kayak the White Salmon River before it changed forever. After dropping off the kids at school, packing, making last-minute phone calls and sending last-minute emails, I left the house an hour later than planned. With a five-hour drive and only the afternoon of a late October day ahead of […]
Posted inGoat
Selling water to the highest bidder
At some point, the way Colorado River water gets divvied up is going to have to change. As we’ve noted in past writings, the lower basin states of Arizona and Nevada frequently push close to the limit of using the amount of water they are allocated use more water than they’re allowed to under the […]
Posted inGoat
The Colorado River and Big Daddy drought
It’s not news to any of us that most of the West is in drought, that we’re using more water each year than snowfall and rain replenish, that one of our biggest watersheds, the Colorado River Basin is overallocated and its reservoirs are slowly silting up. Now, Utah’s Deseret News has published a thorough, informative […]
Posted inApril 30, 2012: A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
Balancing fish and farms on a Washington estuary
In late summer last year, a small but enthusiastic crowd gathered in northwest Washington to witness the rebirth of a waterway — the result of years of negotiation, compromise and patience. Those present heard about the project’s importance, not only for Pacific salmon, but also for the local community’s livelihood. It sounds a lot like […]
Posted inApril 30, 2012: A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
Bravo, Bob!
Bravo for Bob Rawlings, the “Water Warrior,” and for the Pueblo Chieftain for their battle to keep their river water in their valley (HCN, 3/19/12). The situation where we are headed is grim. When all the agricultural water is gone to the thirsty, growing cities and agriculture is left high and dry, city people will […]
Posted inGoat
Friday new roundup: froze-to-death hot springs
Back in 2010, as an employee of the Forest Service, I watched fire line explosives obliterate a dead cow to the dust that flies eat. It’s not uncommon forestry work, though it is spectacular. And White River National Forest employees might get the same opportunity this spring near Aspen, Colo. A small herd of cows […]
Posted inArticles
Lost and found waterways
How is it that, in a region where we allocate and litigate many rivers down to their last drops, others are entirely forgotten? In this episode of West of 100, we explore waterways in Los Angeles and Tucson that have fallen into obscurity, despite the fact that they’re largely responsible for those cities existing where […]
Posted inApril 16, 2012: The Other Bakken Boom
At the boiling point
Thanks for Matt Jenkins’ article on the “water warrior” and the woes of interbasin water transfers that affect so many regions of Colorado and the West (HCN, 3/19/12, “Water Warrior”). It is also time to think about how we are boiling our water away in order to create electricity in the steam-generating plants that dominate […]
Posted inApril 16, 2012: The Other Bakken Boom
Diverters be damned
HCN‘s story about Bob Rawlings is a classic tale of one influential man’s moral conflict and hubris, yet the story is incomplete (HCN, 3/19/12, “Water Warrior”). Like Rawlings, the author disregards the damaging consequences of the original water diversion. Rawlings will be remembered for maintaining a distinct tribal myopia for decades, and perhaps for overlooking […]
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: Water’s the word in Western news
While the perennial news of the West remains it’s drying, it’s drying, it’s drying, this week brought us a welcome respite: thunder and rain storms. The air smelled fresh, the fields greened and the cars went another week without washing. Water related news also poured down through the intertubes too: read on. Salmon chroniclesAbout […]
Posted inArticles
Could doing chores save the world?
A version of this essay originally ran in Sage Magazine, a publication run by students at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. On the day I arrive at Lama, N.M., it takes me a few minutes to find the people. When I find them, they are all holding hands around a large octagonal […]
Posted inRange
Lessons From the Musselshell: small steps toward recovery
Editor’s note: This is the fifth blog in a series by contributor Wendy Beye, chronicling a restoration effort on Montana’s Musselshell River. While the Musselshell River’s rampaging waters were still receding and ranchers were just beginning to assess the extent of the damage thus revealed, Musselshell Watershed Coalition (MWC) members met to address immediate needs […]
Posted inWotr
Conserving water makes more sense than moving it around
Across the West, proposed high-stakes projects to tap new water supplies are generating well-deserved controversy. It’s well-deserved because these projects ignore cheaper alternatives that make a lot more sense in the long term. The building proposals also share extremely large price tags that place uncertain but likely onerous levels of financial burden on present and […]