Atmospheric rivers endanger the West
Moab, Utah, gets just eight inches of rain per year, yet rainwater flooded John Weisheit’s basement last summer. Extremes are…
Glen Canyon Dam under construction 1960-63, courtesy USBR
MoreWhat also counts is where the snow falls
This week Writers on the Range explores the possibility of dangerous flooding in the Colorado River Basin. But there’s something…
A girl and her dog sledding at Durango’s off-leash dog park Jan. 20, photo courtesy Dave Marston
MoreWhat a long strange trip to kill four dams
Finally, after a 50-year effort, four massive dams on the Klamath River in northern California and Oregon will start coming…
Copco No. 1 dam Photo Credit Michael Wier
MoreNew Mexico court upholds public access
Every state in the West has some type of law declaring that its waters belong to the public. But what this…
The Los Alamos and Rio Grande in NM, courtesy of Jonah Saleh via Unsplash
MoreThe Colorado River comes alive even as it ebbs
The Colorado River is revealing its secrets. For decades a World War II landing craft lay submerged 200 feet beneath…
MoreHard choices for the Colorado River
The seven Colorado River states – Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming – face a daunting mid-August…
MoreDitches are a vanishing paradise
Annette Choszczyk lives in rural western Colorado these days, but when she was a kid, the Highline Canal in Denver…
Photo of North Fork Valley, Co, courtesy of Kenita Burns Moore
MoreThe Colorado River Compact Hasn’t Aged Well
The Colorado River Compact turns 100 this year, but any celebration is damped down by the drying-up of the big…
The public launch ramp at Antelope Point, late March, 2021
MoreA water-stressed valley needs to curb development
In my drought- and fire-plagued home valley, 40 miles north of San Francisco, a debate has been simmering for decades…
MoreDon’t blame the Upper Basin states
But the Bureau of Reclamation has regularly and faithfully released to the Lower Basin, from Powell Reservoir, the Colorado River Compact and Mexican Treaty allotments –- 8.23 million acre-feet only dropping a little below those allotments half a dozen times since Powell began to fill in the 1960s.
Bryan Egner US Dept. of energy Glen Canyon Dam 2018
MoreA dangerous game of chicken on the colorado river
Central Arizona Project, Arizona, with homes. Image credit US Bureau of Reclamation
MoreStand up for Public access
Eighty-year-old Roger Hill used to go fishing on the Arkansas River in Colorado. But he sometimes had to duck baseball-size…
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