“Some of you have been inconvenienced by our test operations,” the Atomic Energy Commission wrote to residents living near the Nevada Test Site, in Nye County, in 1955. “At times some of you have been exposed to potential risk from flash, blast, or fall-out. You have accepted the inconvenience or the risk without fuss, without […]
Water
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Water overdrafts
To address groundwater situations such as that explored in your recent article, “Death By a Thousand Wells,” Congress must increase funding for the U.S. Geological Survey so it can conduct a comprehensive, nationwide groundwater mapping study (HCN, 10/26/09). As a nation, we are highly reliant on our groundwater. It accounts for 40 percent of our […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Well-grounded fears
While Cally Carswell’s piece might better have been titled “Death by more than a hundred thousand wells,” the issue is not the present number of wells but the potential for the future growth of this phenomenon (HCN, 10/26/09). The exempt or domestic well is increasingly being recognized as the fly in the ointment of prior […]
Posted inRange
Big Ag wins big in California
Depending on who you listen too, sweeping water-related legislation recently enacted in California is either a solution to the states water conflicts, a recipe for increased conflict and the domination of corporate water brokers, or a partial step forward that will succeed or fail depending on future legislative and administrative actions. Here’s how Lester Snow, […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
“Mulroyed”?
Matt Jenkins’ article updating the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s (SNWA’s) pipeline project unfortunately promulgated some myths which SNWA has been pushing in Nevada and Utah (HCN, 10/12/09). Jenkins did hit the target when he linked the negotiations over the Nevada/Utah shared water agreement with the proposed Lake Powell pipeline to St. George. It was the […]
Posted inRange
The Delta Blues
There is a saying in the West that water flows toward money. That saying seems to be playing out in California this fall.The California legislature is currently considering legislation that some say will fix California’s water woes and others say is intended to result in more North State Water going to powerful agricultural corporations and […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
The diplomacy of water
Water and the West: The Colorado River Compact and the Politics of Water in the American West (Second Edition)Norris Hundley Jr.433 pages, softcover: $24.95; hardcover: $60.University of California Press, 2009. Norris Hundley’s book Water and the West has long stood as the classic account of the epic negotiations to divide up the Colorado River’s water. […]
Posted inGoat
Well hell, continued
Watch what you drink in the Yakima Valley. Groundwater contaminated with nitrates and bacteria, which is pumped by private well owners for drinking, is turning the lower valley into “the toilet bowl” of Washington, as one resident puts it. Dirty drinking water is a “widespread and long-standing” problem in the valley, according to the Yakima […]
Posted inGoat
More on that big sucking sound from Vegas
If you’ve enjoyed HCN’s coverage of Las Vegas’ groundwater machinations, you should tune in to this interview. From KUNC, Community Radio for Northern Colorado: In the latest in our occasional series of conversations with the writers at High Country News, Editor Jonathan Thompson tells KUNC’s Kirk Siegler that (massive water pipeline) projects are back under […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
A loophole you can squeeze a feedlot through
Growing up on a dryland wheat farm in eastern Washington, Scott Collin learned at an early age not to waste water. “I got more whippings when I was a boy for running the water well over than anything else,” he says. So Collin took notice last year when Easterday Ranches Inc. proposed a 30,000-head feedlot […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
Death by a thousand wells
Unregulated wells strain short water supplies in Washington’s Yakima Basin and throughout the West
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Water across the Divide
How the failure of an aged ditch got in the way of Wilderness
Posted inArticles
Slideshow: The tiny creatures of the Great Basin
Springsnails, up close and personal
Posted inArticles
Audio: Big threats to small ecosystems
Madeleine Nash talks about the springs of the ‘heart of the American West’
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Vegas forges ahead on pipeline plan
Great Basin pumping project is closer to reality
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Silenced Springs?
Great Basin waters face threats big and small.
Posted inArticles
Water and the National Parks
What you probably won’t learn about America’s best idea
Posted inWotr
The Poudre: A river besieged by thirsty cities
Colorado’s Cache la Poudre River flows east out of Rocky Mountain National Park and through a canyon northwest of Fort Collins. Along the way, like any other Western river, it is diverted to water croplands and fill washing machines. It is a magnet for rafters and fisher-folk, and the people of Fort Collins regard it […]
Posted inGoat
The River Dry
If we keep sucking down Colorado River water the way we have been (likely), and if climate change reduces the amount of water in the system (also likely) there’s a fifty-fifty chance that the system’s reservoirs will hit bottom by the middle of this century. That’s the stark conclusion of a new study released in […]
Posted inGoat
Nestle water plan approved
Last week, Nestle received approval to tap mountain spring water and haul it to Denver for bottling and distribution under its Arrowhead label. The approval came from a unanimous board of Chaffee County Commissioners, following months of deliberations and lengthy hearings. Chaffee County, with about 15,000 residents, sits along the Arkansas River in […]