The World’s Water 2004-2005: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources Edited by Peter Gleick 320 pages, softcover $35. Island Press, 2004. The fourth installment of this annual report covers water issues that span the globe. Gleick — president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security — and other water brainiacs contemplate […]
Water
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
A chemical cocktail pollutes Western water
Traces of pharmaceuticals, pesticides, other compounds turn up in streams and wells
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
The best thing since dams: pouring water underground
The era of dams, it has been widely declared, is dead. So what comes next? In Common Waters, Diverging Streams, William Blomquist, Edella Schlager and Tanya Heikkila argue that the future may lie with “conjunctive management,” or coordinating the use and storage of surface water with water in underground aquifers. When surface water is plentiful, […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
The public pays to keep water in a river
A new wave of ‘takings’ lawsuits could bust the environmental protection budget
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Who owns Klamath water — farmers or the public?
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “The public pays to keep water in a river.” For four years, farmers on the California-Oregon border have battled the U.S. government in the courts for $100 million in damages, after the Bureau of Reclamation withheld irrigation […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
The life of an unsung Western water diplomat
Mark Twain once remarked that in the West, “whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.” But Delphus E. Carpenter, who spearheaded the 1922 Colorado River Compact among seven states, would have disagreed twice over. Carpenter not only abstained from spirits, but believed water problems could be resolved through diplomacy instead of fisticuffs. His life […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
‘Safe dose’ of rocket fuel now larger
Perchlorate, a tasteless, colorless component of solid rocket fuel, has been detected in the drinking water of 26 states. Despite its toxicity, it is not yet regulated. However, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water is considering new drinking water standards for the dangerous salt, following a recent National Academy of Sciences report. The EPA […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Arizona returns to the desert
The worst drought in a century could bring home the true costs of growth
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Peace breaks out on the Rio Grande
Settlement between enviros and Albuquerque puts water in the river
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
A leak-proof fuel tank? No such thing
Leaking diesel taints drinking water on the Idaho-Washington line
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
What’s worse than the worst-case scenario? Real life
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Arizona returns to the desert.” In the early 1990s, the U.S. Geological Survey and several other government agencies funded a little-noticed study of the effect of a major drought on the Colorado River. Researchers were particularly interested in its impacts on Lakes Powell and […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Small tribe in Idaho weighs big water deal
Nez Perce will decide whether a $193 million package does enough for salmon
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Wastewater goes unwatched
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant.” On an average day in Wyoming, energy companies drill nine new wells to pull methane gas out of the state’s coal beds. In 1995, the state had 427 coalbed methane wells. Now, the total is more than 21,000, […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
You, too, can be in the know about California’s H2O
Mention the word “cyborg” in Sacramento, and the name of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pops immediately to mind. It’s easy to forget that the state he governs — part natural waterscape, part ingeniously engineered plumbing system — is a hydraulic cyborg that could probably kick even the Governator’s butt. One number pretty much speaks for […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
Texas water case is ‘takings’ on steroids
Farmers want $500 million in damages from Mexico, but critics say the water wasn’t theirs in the first place
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Everyday objects and extraordinary journeys
The word “relic” conjures up a host of connotations, from human remains to a historic souvenir. It can denote a custom from the past, the remnants of an ancient language, or a fragment of a whole. It can represent the last of a dying species, or an indefatigable survivor. > —Jack Nisbet Northwestern writer Jack […]
Posted inWotr
Let’s not ram more boats through the Grand Canyon
Each year, nearly 5 million people visit the Grand Canyon, most traveling to the South Rim where they spend as much time looking for a parking place as they do looking at the canyon. Only a few venture below the rim on a trail. Another 22,000 people a year see the canyon from the bottom […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
A crisis brews on the Colorado
With water supplies dwindling, states getan order to share the pain
Posted inWotr
Here’s hoping the drought is not over
Since Christmas, an almost continuous stream of Pacific moisture has raced over Colorado and much of the West, dumping rain in the valleys and heavy snows in the mountains. The sun and crystalline blue skies I brag about to my non-Western friends and relatives have only made rare appearances in the narrow seams between storms. […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2004: Where Do We Go From Here?
Californians put their money where their meter is
California reached a conservation milestone in September, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R, signed a bill requiring all homes in the state to use water meters by 2025. Existing California law requires water meters on all houses built since 1992, but most utilities charge a flat rate, rather than using the meters to charge by […]