For almost two decades, the white band of mineral deposits circling Arizona’s Lake Mead like a bathtub ring, has grown steadily taller, a sign that America’s largest manmade water source is in deep trouble. This week it fell to its lowest level since 1937, when Hoover Dam was completed and the reservoir filled. The record-setting […]
Water
Posted inWotr
My town wasted scarce water for a celebration
I’m still thinking about last February’s “Dew Downtown,” Flagstaff’s third annual ski and snowboard festival, which transformed a steep downtown road into a winter playground of snow-covered runs and what looked like death-defying jumps. In the crowd, scattered among the thousands of families and younger beer drinkers who used words like “shred” and “stoked,” were […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Reflecting on groundwater from the Owens Valley Watershed
Growing up in the high desert, I learned water doesn’t just fall from the sky.
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Divers explore national parks’ underwater treasures
The last frontier of the national parks lies underwater.
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
River of no return
Seattle’s Duwamish has been straightened, dredged and heavily polluted. Can a Superfund cleanup bring it back to life?
Posted inGoat
Why is this guy kayaking the San Joaquin River?
John Sutter is kayaking the San Joaquin River. He’s gone from this: To this: Along the way, Sutter — a journalist who’d never kayaked a river before — has capsized, lost his GoPro camera, been washed through overhanging trees and had his food eaten by raccoons. He’s talked to farmers, migrant workers, biologists, environmentalists and […]
Posted inWotr
Let’s protect all our nation’s water
The Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed a new rule to define the term “the waters of the United States” as used in the federal Clean Water Act. If you care about protecting our nation’s waters and wetlands, and if you care about government efficiency, then you should support this rule. Here’s why. For largely historical […]
Posted inGoat
Is the Clean Water Act under attack?
Big Ag wants rollbacks in fundamental legislation.
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Farmstead photo
Kudos to Michael Hudson for the spectacular image of the abandoned Kansas farmstead (“These were called the High Plains,” HCN, 5/26/14). I’d be pleased to have Julene Bair refer to me as “a grass man” and would be even more pleased if I had been there when Hudson took that sad and glorious photo. Ray […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Duwamish sludge, from source to sink
A little over three miles from the mouth of the Lower Duwamish Waterway (once known as the Duwamish River), there is a small piece of property wreathed with chain-link fence and signs that warn in various languages of various threats to life and limb. This is Terminal 117, or T-117, former home of roofing material […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Which tributaries should be protected like the rivers they feed?
New rules may help regulators enforce an ambiguous law.
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 inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
The Latest: After a long battle, agreement for the Klamath
BackstoryTo protect endangered fish during 2001’s drought, federal officials shut off irrigation water in Oregon and California’s Klamath Basin, costing agriculture millions. The next year, farmers got their water – along with a massive salmon die-off that infuriated Klamath tribes. Tribal members and farmers remained at odds until 2004, when federal rulings prompted dam-owner PacifiCorp […]
Posted inGoat
Congress considers largest dam removal in U.S. history
This week, Congress is looking at a bill that even a few years ago seemed wildly, laughably improbable: an authorization to spend $250 million to implement a reworked version of the historic 2010 Klamath River agreements. The Senate bill is a mere 42 words long, but it seeks nothing less than to seal the fate […]
Posted inWotr
A protected river is still vulnerable to oil spills
In every stage of life, I’ve lived near railroad tracks. The haunting sounds of night trains with their short-blast-long-howl whistles and steady rumble have always been grounding and comforting to me. I used to love watching gritty, graffiti-clad train cars pushing forward to get an important job done somewhere to my east or west. The […]
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Excerpt from “The Ogallala Road”
An author returns to a family farm in Kansas to explore drought and depletion.
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 inGoat
Will big snowpack bring floods to Colorado Front Range?
Planners gird for more woes after major snows.