Look at a map of the original “New West” — the transcontinental West of the post-Civil War period. It’s easy to fixate on what we don’t see. Big dams, open-pit mines, metropolises, freeways — none yet exist. National forests and parks and bombing ranges — not there. On closer inspection, the outdated maps show something […]
Water
Posted inSeptember 9, 2008: Reclaiming the low country
A river runs near it
Western water developers push for kinder, gentler ‘off-channel’ reservoirs
Posted inGoat
Mark Udall’s gonna steal your water!
Two weeks ago, in a move he very quickly came to regret, John McCain told a Colorado reporter that the Colorado River Compact, which governs the river’s allocation between the “upper basin” states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico and the “lower basin” states of Arizona, Nevada, and California, “obviously needs to be renegotiated.” […]
Posted inAugust 25, 2008: Hot Wheels
Riparian repair
How can we put the West’s broken rivers back together again?
Posted inGoat
Agricultural water pollution on the line
The Bush Administration has been trying since 2005 to change Clean Water Act rules so that agricultural interests can dump polluted water into public lakes and streams without obtaining a permit. Each step of the way, Florida environmentalists represented by Earthjustice lawyers have filed lawsuits to block the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) from implementing the […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Measuring Tahoe’s blues
Sediment and pollution obscure lake and light
Posted inGoat
Utah fishermen no longer required to levitate
In Utah, as in many states, the public has a right to use the water in rivers for recreation. But the land underneath the state’s rivers is often privately owned. So what happens when someone touches the bottom? The question floated all the way to the Utah Supreme Court thanks to Kevin and Jodi Conatser, […]
Posted inGoat
Las Vegas offers rural Nevada the dry end of the straw
Las Vegas is a thirsty city in a state that’s entitled to a measly four percent of the Colorado River’s annual in flow. That means that it’s had to be at turns creative and bare-knuckled in getting the water it needs to keep up with explosive population growth. Lately it’s been leaning towards the bare-knuckled […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2008: A fractured party
A pitched battle on the Klamath
It’s refreshing to read an account of our situation on the Klamath that takes the time to tell a complicated but ultimately entertaining and gratifying story (HCN, 6/23/08). As an outreach director for a small nonprofit, my job involves informing the public about what’s happening on the Klamath and what they can do to help […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2008: A fractured party
Watch the river flow
In Colorado, a national park wins a water claim
Posted inArticles
Taos’ return to the acequias
Patricia Quintana takes a break from irrigating and leans on her shovel, watching water from the Acequia Madre del Sur del Rio Fernando flow across her newly planted pasture. Two young men from Taos Pueblo patiently guide the water with intuitive skill, using a gentle pull of the shovel here, a small plug of mud […]
Posted inJune 23, 2008: Peace on the Klamath
Peace on the Klamath
The enemies in the West’s most vicious water war have finally reached a ceasefire. This is the story of how it happened.
Posted inWotr
How not to save salmon
For centuries, killing predators was to fish and wildlife management what leeches were to medicine. By the mid-20th century, even the dullest minds in government had figured this out. But duller minds were yet to come. Enter the administration of George W. Bush. In 2008, it is hawking control of salmon-eating birds, fish and mammals […]
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Rolling on the rivers
In Adios Amigos: Tales of Sustenance and Purification in the American West, Page Stegner revels in striking juxtapositions: the fragile beauty of rivers contrasted with their staggering power to destroy; people working to preserve forests and wildlife alongside a younger generation bent on using nature for self-serving purposes. This absorbing collection of essays stems from […]
Posted inArticles
Primer 4: Water
If you want a glimpse of the unpredictable nature of water in the arid West, pick up a Utah newspaper from late fall or winter of 1983. Almost every story was about flooding. Floods that menaced Interstate 80 and the Southern Pacific Railroad with the waters of the Great Salt Lake. Floods that threatened to […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Seeking the Water Jackpot
For almost a century, the Navajo Tribe has been left out of the Colorado River water game. Now, they’re ready to play their hand.
Posted inMarch 3, 2008: The People of the Sea
I was a closet environmentalist
NAME Roger Muggli Age 59 Vocation Farmer/Feed Plant Operator Elected Position Secretary of the Tongue and Yellowstone Irrigation District (third generation) Handle Water Dog (H2OK9) Home Base Family farm east of Miles City, Montana Life Passion Water He Says “Wouldn’t it be grand if our kids and grandkids could float down the Yellowstone and still […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2008: The People of the Sea
The People of the Sea
California’s Salton Sea could dry up and die, or be fixed and developed. Either way, its renegades, recluses, ruffians and retirees will lose.
Posted inArticles
Lakeside City
“I feel like a lakeside city.” She said this as she lay under the worn sheets of my bed and stared out the window. It was hot and if you were still and watched closely, you could see the pavement melt outside. Telephone wires crisscrossed the pale blue sky, the sun was high, and splotches […]