How better dirt can conserve water, save farming and help feed the West.
Drought
Posted inArticles
Colorado’s river economy worth $9 billion
Outdoor recreation businesses say state water plan must do more to protect rivers.
Posted inArticles
How the hot and dry West is killing Rocky Mountain forests
A new report summarizes how climate change is accelerating tree death from fires, bark beetles and drought
Posted inSeptember 1, 2014: Lost in the Woods
A dam difficult job
California’s drought through the eyes of a water manager.
Posted inArticles
Shaken and stirred in California’s recent earthquake
How seismic events can make drought impacts worse.
Posted inGoat
Summer rains in a drought-plagued state
How much does a monsoon season relieve drought?
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
The prickly pear as California crop
Can an overlooked succulent help salvage toxic soils?
Posted inGoat
To protect hydropower, utilities will pay Colorado River water users to conserve
Here’s a sure sign that your region’s in drought: you stop paying your utility for the privilege of using water, and the utility starts paying you not to use water instead. Outlandish as it sounds, that’s what four major Western utilities and the federal government are planning to do next year through the $11 million […]
Posted inGoat
Colorado water users gird for first statewide plan
Last year, 14 years into a regional drought, forecasts predicted that as many as 2.5 million Coloradans could be without sufficient water supplies by 2050. And yet the state still had no official plan to deal with its looming water crisis. In response to the troubling situation, Governor Hickenlooper issued an executive order: Colorado needed […]
Posted inGoat
Colorado River Basin groundwater levels drop even faster than reservoirs
When Lake Mead is full it’s the largest reservoir in the U.S., capable of holding two years’ worth of water from the Colorado River. But the Southwest has been trapped in a 14-year drought, and the states Mead feeds – Nevada, Arizona and California – are thirsty. The reservoir is now only about half full […]
Posted inGoat
California gears up to fine water wasters: Should we turn our neighbors in?
Five years ago, when south-central Texas was suffering through its driest year in more than a century, public officials in the city of San Antonio turned in desperation to a new tactic to enforce water conservation: They dispatched the police. From April of 2009 and on through the rest of the year, off-duty officers and […]
Posted inGoat
New Mexico is getting lucky so far this fire season
Southern Californians are currently experiencing a phenomenon they call June Gloom, when the humid, hazy air that usually hangs out just above the ocean blows inland and lingers, trapped by a warm layer above it. Oh, what the good people of New Mexico would have given in recent years for that brand of gloom. Instead, […]
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Rain watch
What to expect from the likely El Niño summer across the West.
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Drought watch
Drought is dehydrating much of the West, with several states in their third or fourth consecutive year. Southern Oregon, California, southern Utah and western Nevada already have extremely low streamflows and will likely get drier in coming months. Nevada and New Mexico reservoirs were at less than a quarter of their normal levels for early […]
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Peak water
Bigger reservoirs and deeper wells won’t end California’s water crisis
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
A long-submerged town becomes visible
Water recedes under drought conditions and reveals a lost California community.
Posted inArticles
Map of Colorado River pulse moving toward Sea of Cortez
Update May 16: The Colorado River has now reached the delta for the first time since the 1990s. Conservationists will study environmental effects of the pulse for years to come. Update May 13 from Karl Flessa: “Image taken Monday May 12. Tidal waters in foreground, Colorado River in background. Connection will likely take place on […]
Posted inGoat
Can cacti help San Joaquin Valley farmers survive a drought?
When I finally got a hold of John Diener, the busy 62-year-old farmer was en route to his organic broccoli field in central California’s San Joaquin Valley. I could picture the scene: a truck bouncing over a dusty track, golden morning sunlight, rows of bright green plants meeting a blue sky. The vision was idyllic. […]
Posted inArticles
Will the Colorado River reach the Gulf of California once more?
Photographs of the historic water pulses.
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
A plague of tumbleweeds
A handy pamphlet on how to dig out from a tumbleweed takeover of sci-fi proportions.