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Bureau of Reclamation
Posted inArticles
Should the Bureau of Reclamation be abolished?
Former Reclamation Commissioner Daniel Beard tells how defunct water policy, and the bureau itself, contribute to drought.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2015: This Land is Their Land
The Latest: Rio Grande water
A shortfall in water deliveries may lead to more fighting.
Posted inArticles
Cities look to farms for help in Colorado River drought
West’s biggest water agencies finalize a major agreement to boost Lake Mead levels.
Posted inArticles
New Mexico commission votes to divert Gila River
Decision greenlights contentious multi-million dollar diversion project.
Posted inWotr
Las Vegas needs to let the market decide where the water goes
The famous slogan, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” once assured visitors that they were exempt from the wages of sins committed in the city of lights. It was the inspired product of the Las Vegas convention and tourism bureau. Not to be outdone, the local water authority is still promising cheap water in […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Sedimentation is a building problem in the West’s reservoirs
Gary Esslinger, manager of Elephant Butte Irrigation District in southern New Mexico, spends as much time moving silt as he does water. Elephant Butte Reservoir, built in 1915, is fed by the naturally muddy Rio Grande, which drains 28,000 square miles of easily eroded desert in two states. Sediment has claimed 600,000 acre-feet of its […]
Posted inWotr
A federal agency tries to hold on to what it’s built
Western Colorado’s Uncompahgre Valley is a garden artificially created. Corn and alfalfa grow plentifully around Montrose and other towns in this valley, about five hours southwest of Denver, as do apples, pears and cherries. A complicated web of dams, canals and river-depleting diversion projects created this produce bin of the agrarian West. A key piece […]
Posted inGoat
The cost of progress
The Environmental Working Group just released a two-year study focusing on the toxins found in five minority women at the forefront of environmental justice battles. Within each community, these women work tirelessly to protect citizens from various forms of pollution. And within each of these women, scientists found significantly higher amounts of toxins than other […]
Posted inArticles
Return of the Teton Dam?
Updated April 7, 2008 Almost 32 years ago, the Teton Dam in southeastern Idaho failed against the force of a 17-mile long, 270-foot deep reservoir. Eight months of stored stream flow and snowmelt crashed down the valley in less than six hours, swallowing the communities of Rexburg, Teton, Newdale and Sugar City. Eleven people died […]
Posted inWotr
When dams were young and gardenias a nickel apiece
My mother at 90 prefers the distant past to the present. When she sees the Tournament of Roses parade on television, she recalls coming of age during the Great Depression. When she hears that the nation might be sliding into recession, she tells me what hard times were really like. Her job during the 1930s […]
Posted inApril 17, 2006: The War on Wildfire
Dam removal considered for Klamath
As salmon suffer, truce settles on river
Posted inApril 3, 2006: Land of Disenchantment
The Latest Bounce
A week after U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton announced her resignation, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner John Keys announced that he will resign on April 15. The 34-year veteran of the Bureau says he’s ready to spend more time with his family in Moab, Utah. Both resignations come at a critical time, as the […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Glen Canyon Dam will stand
Glen Canyon Dam isn’t coming down. That’s the final word from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on calls to dismantle the dam, drain Lake Powell and release the waters of the Colorado (HCN, 12/22/03: Being green in the land of the saints). Under orders from Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the agency must develop a drought-management […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
‘Water bank’ drags river basin deeper into debt
‘Win-win’ water solution only worsens tension over scarce resource
Posted inAugust 22, 2005: A Military Town Fights for its Life
Super-sized dam could be a cash register for California farmers
New federal contracts give water districts more than they need
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Follow-up
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden announced he plans to order the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to release water from its dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers to help endangered salmon and steelhead (HCN, 6/13/05: “For salmon, a crucial moment of decision”). Although NOAA Fisheries, the agency charged with protecting the fish, […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
So-called ‘peace treaty’ won’t save the Rio Grande
HCN’s story, “Peace breaks out on the Rio Grande,” suggests that the agreement between environmentalists and Albuquerque marked an end to wrangling over water in the Middle Rio Grande (HCN, 3/21/05: Peace breaks out on the Rio Grande). Don’t we wish. For reasons best understood by the city of Albuquerque, two separate legal proceedings are […]
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