DOVE CREEK — Running out of drinking water was once unthinkable for Dove Creek, a 600-person town in southwest Colorado. Not anymore. A two-decade drought and years of poor snowpack in the San Juan Mountains have depleted McPhee Reservoir. A canal that delivers water to Dove Creek and growers nearby was shut down months early […]
McPhee Reservoir
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Coloradans, Economy, Environment, News, Water
As drought in the West worsens, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in Colorado faces a dwindling water supply
TOWAOC — In late June, Simon Martinez drove along one of the dirt roads crisscrossing the parched rocky shrubland on the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Farm & Ranch Enterprise, a 7,700-acre agricultural operation owned by the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in the far southwestern corner of Colorado. In normal times, he would be driving past […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Outdoors, Water, Wildfire
Northwest Colorado under “extremely critical” fire warning for first time in 15 years as Western Slope drought worsens
As drought conditions worsened on the Western Slope, the National Weather Service has issued its first “extremely critical” fire danger warning in 15 years for northwest Colorado. The warning, in effect through midnight, covers parts of Moffat and Rio Blanco counties that also are in a state of “exceptional drought,” according to the weekly U.S. […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, News
While Colorado’s eastern half revels in rain, the Western Slope is still stuck in a drought
The Ute Mountain Ute Reservation sits at the lower end of a 40-mile, gravity-fed canal, and waits for whatever water the towering San Juan mountains will give up for the season. By the second week of May, it was clear 2021 will be a bust. The Utes’ farm enterprise has already switched to hopes for […]