While Arizona cities reliant on the water have backup supplies to cushion them in the short term, talk of cuts leaves long-term picture more uncertain.
Arizona
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Laura Pritchett: Just passing through, sandhill cranes remind us of the peace in wild things
Nuclear forces on high alert. Two million evacuees. Photos of bloody children and haunted eyes. The potential for escalation. The knowledge that humans have the weaponry to end all life, shatter this amazing, spinning blue ball, and that our economies and power structures and governments and egos have put those weapons into the hands of […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Water
First-ever Colorado River water cuts will hammer Arizona farmers
By Felicia Fonseca, The Associated Press CASA GRANDE, Ariz. — A harvester rumbles through the fields in the early morning light, mowing down rows of corn and chopping up ears, husks and stalks into mulch for feed at a local dairy. The cows won’t get their salad next year, at least not from this farm. […]
Posted inClimate, Coloradans, Environment, News
Western states chart diverging paths as Colorado River water shortages loom
By Sophia Eppolito and Felicia Fonseca, The Associated Press/Report for America SALT LAKE CITY — As persistent drought and climate change threaten the Colorado River, several states that rely on the water acknowledge they likely won’t get what they were promised a century ago. But not Utah. Republican lawmakers approved an entity that could push […]
Posted inEnvironment, Growth, News, Politics and Government, Water
After lawsuit from Colorado and other states, Utah asks Trump administration to delay decision on tapping Lake Powell
SALT LAKE CITY — Facing opposition from six states that rely on the Colorado River for water for their cities and farms, Utah asked the federal government to delay a fast-track approval process for building an underground pipeline that would transport billions of gallons of water to the southwest part of the state. Utah cited […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Water
Water shortages in Lake Powell, Lake Mead likelier than previously thought
By Sam Metz, The Associated Press/Report for America CARSON CITY, Nev. — There’s a chance water levels in the two largest man-made reservoirs in the United States could dip to critically low levels by 2025, jeopardizing the steady flow of Colorado River water that more than 40 million people rely on in the American West. […]
Posted inEnvironment, Growth, News, Politics and Government, Water
Colorado, five other states promise lawsuits if feds fast-track approval of Utah’s Lake Powell Pipeline project
For more than 20 years, negotiations among the seven states that rely on the Colorado River have avoided lawsuits, even as drought and population growth threaten the river’s flows. That may change as a promise to rush the environmental review of a diversion project between the Colorado River’s upper and lower basins has six states […]
Posted inEnvironment, Growth, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government, Water
Western U.S. faces reckoning over water, but avoids cuts for now
By Sam Metz, The Associated Press/Report for America CARSON CITY, Nev. — The white rings that wrap around two massive lakes in the U.S. West are a stark reminder of how water levels are dropping and a warning that the 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River face a much drier future. Amid […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, Outdoors, Wildfire
Why planting tenacious tamarisk seemed like a good idea until it wasn’t, and other harrowing tales of Colorado’s invasive species
Tamarisk was brought to the U.S. from Kazakhstan in the early 1800s to shore up riverbanks and railroad beds. It worked. Left to itself, tamarisk multiplies. Left to itself in America, 6,000 miles from natural predators on the Asian steppes, tamarisk goes nuts. Tamarisk is a tenacious shrub whose pinkish flowers look good just enough […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Water
Pocket of severe drought lingers over Southwest U.S., including Colorado
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Drought has yet to give up its hold over parts of the southwestern United States despite a series of storms that have brought rain and snow to the region in recent weeks. The latest federal map shows a pocket of moderate and severe drought centered over the Four Corners region — where Arizona, New Mexico, […]