Water in the West has never made sense, thanks to states drawn with straight lines and watersheds that won’t stay put. Then there’s California, where hydrology and demography rebound off each other In opposite directions. Two-thirds of the people live in the south, while two-thirds of the surface water is in the north. This mismatch […]
Water
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Toxic chemical creeping toward Colorado River
CALIFORNIA, ARIZONA Chromium 6, the toxic element made infamous by the movie Erin Brockovich, is back in the news. In Southern California and central Arizona, water officials fear that the chemical might contaminate drinking water for some 20 million people, as it creeps toward the Colorado River from a pump station on a natural gas […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Throwing out the dishwater
Once I lived in a one-room log cabin where I pumped my water from a well and heated it on a wood stove. When I was finished washing my dishes, I carried the dishpan outside and tossed the water on the nearby sagebrush. It seemed natural to me to return the water to the same […]
Posted inWotr
Revisiting “A River No More”
With the five-year drought worsening in the Colorado River Basin, two Western icons are emerging like sore thumbs aching for attention. One is the casino-hotels of Las Vegas, their resplendent fountains and the waterways on which gondolas float and water spurts in time to music. The other is the graceful arch of Glen Canyon Dam […]
Posted inWotr
Throwing out the dishwater
Once I lived in a one-room log cabin where I pumped my water from a well and heated it on a wood stove. When I was finished washing my dishes, I carried the dishpan outside and tossed the water on the nearby sagebrush. It seemed natural to me to return the water to the same […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Water ‘holy war’ rages in central Utah
Will taxpayers foot the bill on a federally subsidized fossil?
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Dam’s price tag skyrockets
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Water ‘holy war’ rages in central Utah.” After decades of rancorous debate, construction is under way on the Animas-La Plata dam project in dusty southwestern Colorado (HCN, 8/27/01: A-LP gets federal A-OK). But anyone who thought the […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Drought forces Las Vegas to reach deeper for water
NEVADA Remember shoving your straw deeper into a pop bottle to slurp out those elusive last drops? Faced with the fifth year of drought, the Southern Nevada Water Authority plans to do something similar in Lake Mead, which supplies drinking water to Las Vegas and surrounding areas. Water officials are hurrying to extend an intake […]
Posted inWotr
Is Glen Canyon Dam pulling the plug on itself?
The engineers have had their say on the Colorado River, plumbing it with dams and diversions, so as the drought continues, we have no choice but to turn to poets. As A. R. Ammons wrote, “If anything will level with you, water will.” Glen Canyon Dam is currently leveling with us. The last time I […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
California scores a goal for perchlorate cleanup
But will the public or the defense industry come out ahead?
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
One national park could tell the truth about the West
The Black Canyon in western Colorado is one of the world’s most splendid examples of the depths to which erosion and uplift can go. A steep gash in ancient granite, nearly 3,000 feet deep — only 40 feet wide at its narrowest, and not a whole lot wider at its rim — the Black Canyon […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
The great Central Arizona Project funding switcheroo
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The New Water Czars.“ Spend enough time in Phoenix, and it’s easy to forget the city sits in a sweltering desert valley that receives less than eight inches of rain a year. Cool misters spray shoppers on the sidewalks of Scottsdale, the ritzy enclave […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
The New Water Czars
A historic water deal could give an impoverished Indian community a path back to its roots — and turn it into one of the West’s next big power brokers
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Persistence frees the Mokelumne: River advocate Pete Bell
California’s Mokelumne River flows from a high mountain lake in the Sierra Nevada, plunging down in a series of cascading waterfalls through a steep forest canyon in the foothills. Dams and diversions have reduced the once free-flowing river to a relative trickle. But that is changing, thanks in large part to the efforts of a […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Tribe defeated a dam and won back its water
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The New Water Czars.“ Unlike the Pima Indians of the Gila River Indian Community, the Yavapai were not traditionally farmers. Instead, they migrated up and down the Verde River, hunting, fishing and gathering. But in 1903, the government settled them on Fort McDowell, a […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Postscript to a water war
Nearly a decade after an attempted water grab in California’s Imperial Valley, the saga takes a strange new twist
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Owens River will finally get its water back
CALIFORNIA A 33-year legal saga that has delayed one of the most ambitious river restorations ever attempted in California is over, thanks to a last-minute lawsuit by the state’s attorney general. Inyo County’s Lower Owens River has been dry since 1913, when it was diverted to supply water to Los Angeles, 250 miles to the […]
Posted inWotr
The next wars may be fought over water
Water has been called the oil of the 21st century. The World Bank predicts that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will not have enough drinking water. With scarcity making water an increasingly valuable commodity, private companies are tempted to corner water supplies and delivery. “We think there’ll be world wars fought about water […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
Clean water changes could sully Western streambeds
Western rivers might be left high and dry — and polluted — if Bush administration officials push through a rule change to the Clean Water Act. In November, a senior government official leaked a draft of the proposed change to the Los Angeles Times. Under the new rule, the Clean Water Act would apply only […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Wilderness deals held hostage in salmon struggle
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Riding the middle path.” How tough do Idaho’s environmental negotiations get? Two months ago, when salmon advocates threatened to take control of the plumbing for southern Idaho’s gigantic farm-irrigation system, Norm Semanko held them off by taking a couple of wilderness deals hostage. Semanko […]