There isn’t enough water to sustain the needs of people and wildlife while maintaining a healthy river ecosystem, according to a recent assessment
Rio Grande River
Posted inWater
International water researcher highlights Colorado Basin’s “disappearing” groundwater
Satellite data shows groundwater has dropped faster across the Colorado River Basin than reservoir levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead
Posted inWater
Colorado, Western states propose management deal over beleaguered Rio Grande
Details have not been released, but federal government and irrigation districts that depend on Rio Grande are objecting to states’ deal
Posted inWater
Colorado water officials oppose New Mexico lawmakers’ push for federal action on the Rio Grande
Legislation proposed by New Mexico politicians eyes federal workgroup for Rio Grande
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Outdoors, Wildfire
Priceless seeds, sprouts in New Mexico a key to post-fire future in the West
By Susan Montoya Bryan, The Associated Press A New Mexico facility where researchers work to restore forests devastated by fires faced an almost cruelly ironic threat: The largest wildfire burning in the U.S. was fast approaching. Owen Burney and his team knew they had to save what they could. Atop their list was a priceless […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: The simple, big reason Colorado’s rivers are drying up
Icy beads of water are beginning to form and flow off the San Juan Mountains in southern Colorado. As the droplets merge into tiny trickles, they are pulled on vast journeys to the rivers who carry them to the sea. Along Colorado’s Continental Divide, water droplets may embark on a nearly 1,900-mile journey down the […]
Posted inNews
Colorado ranchers are selling off cattle to survive another year of dried-up grass and parched soil
Janie VanWinkle can hear it in the discontented way her cows call to their calves, the way the dried grass crunches into powder under her boots. It’s the sound of drought. The landscape where her cows graze in Grand Junction doesn’t have a green tint this spring. It’s gray and brown, ugly and parched. “And […]
Posted inArts, Coloradans, COVID, Culture, Environment
In southwest Colorado, high tech plays in the mud to produce ecologically sound architecture — and art
In the middle of Colorado’s San Luis Valley, a progressive architecture and design firm is proving that everything old is new again. Also, that the future is mud. Combining indigenous mud-based building materials with 21st century robotics, California-based Rael San Fratello created the oddly beautiful structures of “Casa Covida,” their “proto-architectures” that connect high- and […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Outdoors, Technology
We know the earth is warming. We know that will stress water in the West. But we don’t know how.
Flavio Lehner was a graduate student working with computer models simulating Earth’s climate at the University of Berne in Switzerland when he had a chance to join a research vessel collecting sea temperatures and measuring ocean currents between Greenland and Svalbard, Norway. “As a lifestyle, field work is very agreeable,” Lehner said. “But for me, […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Outdoors
“You fall in and you are not getting out”: Rio Grande in southern Colorado closed because of high runoff
DEL NORTE – Water is flowing so high and fast that recreational access to the Rio Grande river has been shut down indefinitely from near the headwaters around Creede through Del Norte, down to Alamosa and beyond. The river hit flood stage in Del Norte Wednesday afternoon, a condition that is forecast to persist at […]