You are here: home

Water

  • Writers on the Range

    When dams were young and gardenias a nickel apiece

    Tom Wolf talks to his 90-year-old mother about the Great Depression and the big dams that were built in the West in the 1930s.

  • Editor's Note

    Coming to a farm near you: Los Angeles

    In this issue of High Country News, Matt Jenkins dives into the murky world of L.A.’s water system

  • Feature

    L.A. Bets on the Farm

    The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California – the West’s most powerful water agency – uses a shrewd blend of Wall Street tactics and rural diplomacy to keep the water flowing to L.A. and its environs.

  • News

    A watershed proposal

    Colorado's only wild and scenic river may be harnessed for a water storage project.

  • Related Stories

    Making an effluent market

    How will Westerners pay for – and market – their recycled drinking water?

  • Related Stories

    Take back these drugs – please

    Some communities are trying to keep discarded pharmaceuticals out of the water supply by organizing “take-back programs” for leftover drugs

  • Uncommon Westerners

    He loves nature. And dams.

    Paul Ostapuk is a nature-lover and outdoorsman who loves Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam.

  • Editor's Note

    Effluent, effluent everywhere

    A recent turbidity crisis in Paonia resulted in the issuance of a “boil order,” which reminded us locals how precious clean water is in the arid West.

  • Feature

    Facing the Yuck Factor

    As population growth and climate change stress the region’s water supplies, Westerners think hard about recycling their effluent, although some worry about the possibly harmful endocrine disrupters found in cleaned-up effluent.

  • News

    Pipe dreams

    Leaky irrigation ditches in Washington’s Methow Valley have made the desert bloom, at the expense of endangered salmon.

  • News

    Of politics and the river

    The last free-flowing river in the desert Southwest, Arizona’s San Pedro, is threatened by an expanding Fort Huachuca and a controversial congressman

  • News

    Getting fresh with the West’s groundwater

    A new desalination technology uses the sun and your air conditioner to create fresh water.

  • News

    Utah plans to join the Wild and Scenic Rivers System

    Utah and Nevada are the only Western states without federally-designated "Wild and Scenic" rivers.

  • Writers on the Range

    Water does move uphill toward money

    Lissa James figures that, with so many other get-rich-quick schemers exploiting the West’s need for water, she should have no problem selling her new book, How to Turn Catastrophe into Cash.

  • Book Reviews

    Big dams, big deal

    Big Dams of the New Deal Era: A Confluence of Engineering and Politics is as deep and erudite a tome as it sounds, and yet also a surprisingly good read

Email Newsletter

The West in your Inbox

Follow Us

Follow us on Facebook! Follow us on Twitter! Follow our RSS feeds!
  1. Hard choices for an uncertain future | After seeing a talk by climate activist Tim DeChri...
  2. Two blocks from the Mexican border | The author watches migrants run across the border ...
  3. New Mexico on fire | From wildfire to starving wildlife, the effects of...
  4. The power grid may determine whether we can kick our carbon habit | How the huge and fragile network of wires intertwi...
  5. Wild, free and out of control | Calling out an NBC-TV program for romanticizing wi...
  1. How right-wing emigrants conquered North Idaho | Conservative transplants largely from California h...
  2. The power grid may determine whether we can kick our carbon habit | How the huge and fragile network of wires intertwi...
  3. The latest: Channel Island foxes rebound | A massive restoration effort has helped the tiny f...
  4. Is the Violence Against Women Act a chance for tribes to reinforce their sovereignty? | A new provision lets tribes prosecute non-tribal m...
  5. Two blocks from the Mexican border | The author watches migrants run across the border ...
Subscriber Alert
HCN Classifieds
 
© 2013 High Country News, all rights reserved. | privacy policy | terms of use | powered by Plone | site by Groundwire | design by Ryan Foster

HCN Logo High Country News in your inbox!


Sign up now to receive our weekly email newsletter!

• The best weekly collection of Western environmental news

• An at-a-glance look at our latest news and analysis


This box was designed to only appear once. It uses a "cookie" (a small file stored on your computer) to remember that it has shown the box to you.

If you are seeing this box appear multiple times, then something is not allowing the cookie to be stored properly. Browsers can be set to not allow cookies, and some people choose to disallow cookies for security reasons. If your browser is setup this way, please consider adding "www.hcn.org" as an exception to your no-cookies rule. For information about how to do this, just search the Web for "browser cookie exceptions."

If you're sure this isn't the problem, then it could be related to how your browser has stored information from our site in previous visits. Browsers often "cache" images, text and other website content in order to make them appear faster if you ever go back. Sometimes the browser's cache can be corrupted or become outdated. The simplest fix for this is to try reloading the page. If that doesn't fix the problem, it may be necessary to clear your temporary items from your browser. Again, a web search will provide you with lots of options and instructions.

Either way, we're sorry to hear that this box is getting in the way of your enjoyment of the HCN website. If you continue to have trouble, please contact our Subscriber Services team.