Several years ago, I followed a group of creek defenders down to a little stretch of habitat in Compton, Calif. – yes, that Compton, like Straight Outta Compton – where blue herons alighted on the lightpoles above a natural softbottom creek, a tributary of the Los Angeles River. My guides, from Southern California’s influential nonprofit […]
Water
Posted inRange
Going by the law
With production supposed to start soon, I’ve encountered even more criticism of the Nestle bottled-water operation in Colorado’s Chaffee County, where I live. To make up for the water taken to the bottling plant, water that would have otherwise flowed down the Arkansas River to other users with senior water rights, Nestle made a deal […]
Posted inRange
Pacific Salmon’s Deranged Geographies
Not long ago, Pacific salmon geographies of harvest, consumption, and reproduction were conterminous. Forten millennia, where fish spawned was also where they were caught and eaten, but in the last two centuries industrial fishing techniques launched harvestersdownstream and out to sea, while salting, canning, and freezing technologies expanded consumption across time and space. We now […]
Posted inGoat
A Grand Disappointment
This May, National Geographic Press published Running Dry: A Journey from Source to Sea Down the Colorado River. It’s by Jonathan Waterman, who lives on 20 acres near Carbondale, Colo. As someone who follows water issues, I wanted to like this book. But I couldn’t. That’s because I ran across so many errors at […]
Posted inJune 21, 2010: Immersed in the Wild
Rapid runoff
On April 1, it looked like this would be a banner water year for Colorado’s San Luis Valley, which receives just six to eight inches of precipitation annually and relies on snowmelt to fill streams and irrigate crops. Heavy spring storms had bumped the snowpack in the surrounding mountains to 113 percent of the historic […]
Posted inRange
A new chapter in Klamath River Water Wars
Two years ago High Country News’ cover boldly proclaimed Peace on the Klamath. The reference was to the Klamath River, where a collection of federal and state agencies, irrigators, fishing organizations and environmental groups had announced an agreement which the article claimed would end the river’s water wars and result in a future characterized by […]
Posted inBlog
The summer the dam almost didn’t
“We could as well have been sticking two chewing gum companies together, or merging an anti-vivisection group with a professional society of biology teachers,” wrote the new staff in the Sept. 5, 1983 issue of High Country News, the first published from its new home in Colorado. Click for larger version Ed and Betsy Marston, […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
A boring diagram
Lake Mead — Las Vegas’ primary water supply — has been drawing down like a leaky tub over the past decade, thanks to prolonged drought in the Colorado River Basin. The reservoir’s now at 43 percent of capacity and about 100 feet below full — just 45 feet above one of two main water intakes. […]
Posted inBlog
Water thieves or water saviors?
If you missed Paul VanDevelder’s essay “This house of thieves” in the March 1st HCN go to your recycling stash now, reclaim that issue – it’s the one with the machine gunner on the cover – and read the essay. Or you can read it online. In the article VanDevelder explores the settlement agreement that […]
Posted inWotr
Removing four dams is worth some compromise
Most days, I move ahead with a strong conviction that supporting the settlement to remove four dams in Oregon and California and shift the balance of flows in the Klamath River basin is the right thing to do. The science supports it, and in the big picture, it makes sense, because in spite of our […]
Posted inWotr
Floyd Dominy, the colossus of dams, dies at 100
Former Bureau of Reclamation commissioner built Glen Canyon dam
Posted inGoat
Next stop: water on tap
This weekend, thousands of Navajos will pile their trucks with 55-gallon drums and drive to the nearest watering station. If they’re lucky, the lines will be short, the coin-operated water pipes will work, and they’ll return home with enough to drink, wash and cook for another week. Hauling water is a common chore in the […]
Posted inGoat
Limiting Las Vegas
The conclusion of a new report by the Sonoran Institute—that Las Vegas’ water supply can’t keep up with its interminable appetite for growth—isn’t particularly surprising. But it is timely. The recent pummeling Las Vegas took from the recession presented the ballooning city with an opportunity to catch its breath. As the Las Vegas Sun puts […]
Posted inRange
Feinstein and Westlands – who’s running whom?
There has been an interesting development in the ongoing story of Big Ag v fish in the Great Central Valley of California. Back in January HCN featured an article by Matt Jenkins on that conflict and in particular on the part played by the powerful corporate farmers of the Westlands Water District on the West […]
Posted inRange
Tribes and Enviros mixed on Klamath Agreement
In a refreshingly cordial ceremony on February 18, three Native American tribes, the federal government, the states of Oregon and California, and an electric utility signed two agreements that promise to restore the Klamath Basin to health and end decades of rancor among the region’s stakeholders. The documents were signed in the echoing rotunda of […]
Posted inGoat
The scope of a pipeline
Water entrepreneur Aaron Million’s world may course with “Wild Turkey, fast horses and gunfire.” But his proposed Regional Watershed Supply Project — a massive pipeline that would dogleg 250,00 acre feet of water from Wyoming’s Green River across the Rockies, and south to Pueblo, Colorado — may not be flowing toward completion at quite the […]
Posted inRange
The 2008 Farm and Ranch Survey is out!
The USDA has released the results of the 2008 Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey. The survey is taken every five years nationwide. Much of the regional information below is based on comparison of the 2003 and 2008 surveys. Nationwide the number of irrigated acres increased over the five year period from 52.5 million acres in […]
Posted inArticles
Audio: Water wonk
Matt Jenkins talks about the complex politics of the West’s most precious resource
Posted inJanuary 11, 2010: Breakdown
‘The Cadillac of California irrigation districts’
Westlands has more than a tiny fish to blame for its troubles.