This U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) week saw continued improvement in drought-related conditions across areas of the Midwest (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota), central and northern Plains (Kansas, Nebraska, Dakotas, eastern Montana), South (Texas), and in the Desert Southwest (New Mexico). During the past week, the most significant rainfall accumulations were observed across areas of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, where they ranged from 3 to 7+ inches. Elsewhere, short-term precipitation shortfalls (past 30 to 60 days) led to continued expansion of Abnormally Dry (D0) areas across the Southeast states including the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama as well as the introduction of isolated areas of Moderate Drought (D1) in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina where agriculture-related drought impacts are being reported. In the South, drought conditions continued to improve in western portions of Texas as well as in areas of eastern New Mexico where monsoonal storms have provided some minor relief to areas experiencing long-term drought. In the West, conditions continued to deteriorate across the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho) and areas of the Intermountain West (Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado), while areas of eastern Montana saw improvement in drought in response to precipitation events during the past few weeks. In terms of reservoir storage in the West, Californiaโs major reservoirs continue to be at or above historical averages for the date (July 29), with the stateโs two largest reservoirs, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville, at 105% and 116% of average, respectively. In the Southwest, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is reporting (July 27) Lake Powell at 32% full (46% of average), Lake Mead at 31% full (51%), and the total Colorado system at 39% of capacity (compared to 44% of capacity the same time last year)…
On this weekโs map, improvements continued from Kansas to North Dakota after another week of scattered shower activity with light-to-moderate accumulations. During the past 30 days, drought-related conditions have improved significantly in northern Kansas, eastern Nebraska, southeastern and southwestern South Dakota, and southwestern North Dakota as evidenced in a variety of drought monitoring products including streamflows, soil moisture, and vegetation health indicators. However, conditions have degraded in other parts of the region, including central South Dakota and northern North Dakota. For the week, average temperatures were generally above-normal average (1 to 6 degrees F) across the region, with eastern portions experiencing the largest departure, while far western portions of the Dakotas observed temperatures 1 to 4 degrees F below normal…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending July 29, 2025.
Out West, generally dry conditions prevailed over much of the region except for some isolated shower activity in northeastern California, northwestern Nevada, eastern New Mexico, eastern Colorado, and Montana. On the map, degradations were made across areas of the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho) and Intermountain West (Utah, Wyoming, Colorado). In the Pacific Northwest, streamflow activity continues to be well below normal levels across the Cascade Range of Oregon and Washington as well as in the mountain ranges of northern Idaho and western Montana. Similarly, poor surface water conditions were present in many streams and rivers of western Wyoming, Utah, western Colorado, central Arizona, and northern New Mexico. For the week, average temperatures were below normal across most of the region, with anomalies ranging from 2 to 10+ degrees F and the greatest departures observed across California and Nevada…
On this weekโs map, improvements were made in areas of South Texas and the Trans Pecos region of Texas in response to above-normal precipitation during the past 30-120 days. In these regions, improvements were made in numerous drought categories (D1-D3). In other areas of the region, degradations occurred in southwestern Oklahoma, northern Mississippi, and central Tennessee, where rainfall has been below normal during the past 30 to 60 day period. For the week, average temperatures were above normal in the eastern and northern areas of the region, with anomalies ranging from 2 to 8 degrees F. Conversely, the western extent of the region, including areas in the southern half of Texas, experienced temperatures ranging from 1 to 4 degrees F below normal…
Looking Ahead
The NWS Weather Prediction Center (WPC) 7-Day Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF) calls for generally dry conditions across much of the western U.S. except for some light shower activity (accumulations generally <1 inch) across areas of the Rockies (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado) and mountain ranges of New Mexico. East of the Rockies, light-to-moderate accumulations (ranging from 1 to 4 inches) are expected across areas of the Plains states with the heaviest accumulations expected in western Oklahoma. In the lower Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, South (Gulf Coast areas), and portions of the Southeast, 1 to 5+ inch accumulations are forecast, with the heaviest accumulation expected along the coastal plains of Carolina and Georgia. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) 6-10-day outlooks call for a moderate-to-high probability of above-normal temperatures across the Desert Southwest, southeastern portions of the Intermountain West, Plains, Midwest, New England, South, and southern portions of the Southeast region. In contrast, below-normal temperatures are forecast for areas of the West, including southern California, the Great Basin, and Pacific Northwest. In terms of precipitation, there is a low-to-moderate probability of above-normal precipitation across the Pacific Northwest, northern portions of the Intermountain West, northern Plains Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast. Elsewhere, below-normal precipitation is expected across the southern half of the western U.S., southern Plains, and Texas.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending July 29, 2025.
Itโs been called the โsummer of flash floodingโ in the US. The worst was the tragic flooding in Texas Hill Country on July 4, which took over 135 lives. But there have also been significant flash floods in other places across the country, from Ruidoso, New Mexico, to West Virginia, to Chicago, to the Washington, DC area, and many other places in between.
Here in Colorado, thankfully we havenโt experienced a lot of flash flooding so far this summer. There have been a handful of flash flood warnings and reports, but no major incidents. However, we are now in the midst of the peak season for flash floods. The last 10 days or so of July and the first week of August are when weโve historically seen by far the most flash flood activity across the state.
Average number of reports of flood, flash flood, or debris flow in Colorado from 1996-2024. The brown line shows the average number of reports on each calendar day; the thick black line is a 15-day rolling average. Data source: NOAA/NCEI Storm Events Database.
One of the worst disasters in state history, the 1976 Big Thompson flood, happened on July 31. The Fort Collins flood of 1997: July 28. The Saguache Creek flood in the San Luis Valley in 1999: July 25. The heavy rain on the Grizzly Creek burn scar that closed I-70 for weeks in 2021: several rounds of storms in late July, especially on the 30th and 31st. And thatโs just a sampling; the list could go on and on!
Itโs not the only time of year at which flash flooding happens in Colorado. The graph above shows another peak in early to mid June, which is when some other historic floods have occurred like the 1921 Arkansas River flood and the 1965 flood on the South Platte in Denver. Thereโs also a big spike in September associated with the Great Colorado Flood of September 2013. Still, itโs remarkable how sharp of a peak there is in late July into early August.
Whatโs so special about late July and early August?
Meteorologically, the end of July through the beginning of August is when atmospheric moisture is at its highest on average. The North American Monsoon regularly transports moisture into Colorado in late summer, and at both Grand Junction and Denver, the precipitable waterโthe total amount of water vapor measured throughout the atmosphereโpeaks right around August 1.
Annual cycle of precipitable water at Denver. The daily average is in the black line, the daily maximum in red, and the daily minimum in blue, with rolling averages also shown. From the NOAA Storm Prediction Center sounding climatology site.
Annual cycle of precipitable water at Grand Junction. The daily average is in the black line, the daily maximum in red, and the daily minimum in blue, with rolling averages also shown. From the NOAA Storm Prediction Center sounding climatology site.
At this time of year, the winds through the atmosphere tend to be pretty weak, as the jet stream is positioned far to our north. That means that when storms do form, they donโt tend to move very quickly, and in some situations can stay over the same location for hours. And they have plenty of moisture to tap into (at least by Colorado standards), leading to large rainfall accumulations.
Flash flooding isnโt just about the rainfall, however. It also matters *where* that rain falls. When slow-moving, heavily raining storms develop over complex terrain, or over wildfire burn scars, that water can quickly turn into runoff or a debris flow. The combination of extreme rain rates in a steep canyon led to the Big Thompson flood. There were many unfortunate parallels between this monthโs tragic flooding in Texas and the Big Thompson flood, including a rapid โwall of waterโ, people visiting the area on a holiday weekend, and challenges with communicating warnings, among others. Eve Gruntfestโs analysis of what people did during the Big Thompson flood remains relevant and will provide a point of comparison for studies of the 2025 Texas hill country disaster.
Schematic depiction of the processes that led to the 1976 Big Thompson Flood. From this 2006 USGS publication, which credits the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research for the original.
What can we expect during flash flood season this year?
Last week, on July 22-24, there were some storms that produced heavy rainfall, and several flash flood warnings were issued across the state, but no significant flash flooding was reported. Then, the moisture moved out, resulting in very hot and dry conditions for late July. But the outlook for the coming week has some reason for concern, in part because itโs our climatological peak in flash flooding, and also because a significant surge of moisture will move into Colorado.
Following the near-record highs and dry conditions on Sunday and Monday, a cold front is expected to move through Colorado sometime on Tuesday, with winds from the east (i.e., upslope flow) and plentiful moisture behind it. This figure from NOAAโs Global Ensemble Forecast System shows the precipitable water at Denver going from extremely low on Sunday (below the climatological 10th percentile) to extremely high (above the 90th percentile) on Wednesday. Anytime the PW gets above 25 mm (~1 inch) it warrants paying attention to for the potential of heavy rainfall.
NOAAโs Global Ensemble Forecast System predictions of precipitable water at Denver, for the forecast initialized early on Sunday the 27th. Each colored line represents a different member of the ensemble, and the thick black line is the ensemble mean. The dashed gray lines show the 10th and 90th percentiles and the solid gray line shows the median, based on historical radiosonde observations.
For the last several years, my research group has developedย tools that use machine learning to identify the probability of excessive rainfall and severe weather. These models have been consistently showing a strong signal for heavy rainfall along the Front Range on Wednesday, July 30th. In fact, for the current version of these models that have been running since 2020, this is the first time that both models (which were trained using slightly different definitions of โexcessive rainfallโ) have had probabilities greater than 20% four days in advance along the northern Front Range. Probabilities are relatively high for Thursday the 31st as well.
Graphics showing the probability of excessive rainfall from the Colorado State University-Machine Learning Probabilities system, issued on Sunday July 27, and valid for (left) Weds July 30 and (right) Thurs July 31. These zoomed in versions are available on this <a href=”https://schumacher.atmos.colostate.edu/weather/“>website</a>, or visit the main <a href=”https://schumacher.atmos.colostate.edu/hilla/csu_mlp/“>CSU-MLP site</a> for more information about the models.
Flash flooding remains extremely difficult to forecast, because it requires predicting both the rainfall itself, and what will happen to that water once it hits the ground. So itโs too early to say exactly what will play out this week. But when forecast models are pointing to the potential for heavy rainfall that lines up with the climatological peak in flash flooding (the last week of July), itโs worth keeping a close eye on. If you live in a flood-prone area, or will be traveling through a beautiful Front Range canyon this week, take a moment to think about how youโll get warnings if they are issued (do you have a NOAA weather radio?), and what you might do in case of a flash flood.
Sign that says โClimb to safety! In case of a flash floodโ, which are seen in many canyons in Colorado.
Big Thompson Flood, Colorado. Cabin lodged on a private bridge just below Drake, looking upstream. Photo by W. R. Hansen, August 13, 1976. Photo via the USGS.
Re-upping this post for July 31, 2025. The flood remains Colorado’s deadliest. Here’s a link to Coyote Gulch coverage mentioning the Big Thompson Flood.
July 31, 1976, Steamboat Springs: I had been wandering around the Flat Tops Wilderness for a week or so with Mrs. Gulch. Drizzle in between downpours during the monsoon. We were holed-up in a hotel to dry out and I phoned my mother to check in.
She asked, “Johnny are you anywhere near the Big Thompson Canyon? There’s been a terrible flood.”
And it was a terrible flood. After the September 2013 floods Allen Best wrote about being part of the disaster response in The Denver Post. It’s a good read on this 40th anniversary. Here’s one passage:
I was at the Big Thompson disaster. I was living in Fort Collins then and was among scores of young men (sorry, women, those were different times) with strong backs who could be summoned in case of forest fires. My only fire was at an old sawmill site in the foothills. The joke was that one of us had set the fire because we were so desperate for minimum-wage work.
Then came July 31. It was hot that night in Fort Collins. It hadnโt rained a drop.
I was living above Geneโs Tavern, just two blocks from the Larimer County Courthouse. When the call came, I was at the sheriffโs office almost immediately. It was 9 p.m.
Being among the first at the command center at the Dam Store west of Loveland, near the mouth of Big Thompson Canyon, I was assigned to a pickup dispatched to look for people in the water near the turnoff to Masonville. Already, the river was out of its banks. From the darkness emerged a figure, dripping and confused. โI went fishing at Horsetooth (Reservoir) and was driving home and then there was all this water,โ he sputtered. He was befuddled. So were we.
Our leader decided weโd best get out of there. From what I saw the next morning, that was an excellent decision. Water later covered the road there, too. I spent the night at the Dam Store as the water rose. Helicopters were dispatched, but there was little that could be done. Our lights revealed picnic baskets, beach balls and propane bottles bobbing in the dark, roiling water that raced past us, but never any hands summoning help.
In the morning, we found those hands. The bodies were stripped of clothing and covered with mud. The first I saw was of a woman who we guessed was 18, not much younger than I was then. This thin margin between life and death was startling in my young eyes.
Eventually, 144 people were declared victims of the flooding that night (although one turned up alive in 2008 in Oklahoma).
Estes Park got some rain, but not all that much. The larger story was partway down the canyon, in the Glen Haven and Glen Comfort areas, where the thunderstorm hovered. In just a few hours, it dropped 10 to 14 inches of water.
Downstream in the canyon, just above the Narrows, some people were unaware that anything was amiss until they went outside their houses and saw the water rising in their yards. It hadnโt even rained there. One cabin I saw a few days later was stripped of doors and windows but stood on its foundations, a mound of mud 5 or 6 feet high in the interior. I seem to recall a dog barking as we approached, protecting that small part of the familiar in a world gone mad.
At the old hydroelectric plant where my family had once enjoyed Sunday picnics, the brick building had vanished. Only the turbines and concrete foundation remained. In a nearby tree, amid the branches maybe 10 or 15 feet off the ground, hung a lifeless body.
The river that night carried 32,000 cubic feet per second of water at the mouth of the canyon, near where I was stationed. It happened almost instantaneously โ and then it was gone. It was a flash flood.
Here’s an excerpt from a look back forty years from Michelle Vendegna writing for the Longmont Times-Call.
Night on the ledge
“We, Terry Belair-Hassig and Connie Granath-Hays, graduated from Berthoud Jr. Sr. High School the month before, and were anxious to begin the summer. We spent the beautiful, sunny day of July 31, 1976, at a Hewlett-Packard company picnic at Hermit Park not far from Estes Park. After the picnic, we drove up to Estes Park and had dinner at Bob and Tony’s Pizza.
The clouds started moving in about 6 p.m., so we began the drive down to Loveland via U.S. 34. Within minutes, Connie had to pull her car over because the driving rain was causing zero visibility. We needed to get home, so she started out again, but we didn’t get too much farther before we were blocked by trees, boulders and debris washing down the canyon sides. We had just passed the Loveland Heights area โ barely three miles since entering the canyon. The closest town, Drake, was miles away.
Connie pulled over to the side of the mountain as far as she could. There were a few other cars in this section doing the same, but we all sat in our cars โ planning to wait out the storm. However, once the river began to rise and the water was hitting the tires, we decided to leave the car and start climbing. Connie’s dad had taught her to always ‘be prepared,’ so she had a tarp and a few extra jackets stored in her trunk. We grabbed them before climbing. It was a dark, treacherous climb.
A small group of people scrambled up the mountain near us. Connie gave one of the men her extra jacket. She also had a flashlight which came in handy later in the evening when the lightning wasn’t lighting up the canyon. The other people were lucky enough to find an overhang of rocks to sit under. We tentatively settled on a ledge out in the open, and wrapped ourselves in the tarp. Of course, the tarp was just an old tarp, not waterproof like the ones are today. It protected us for a while, but with the downpour of rain and runoff from the hillside, it too became drenched.
After only a little while, we watched her car, during the lightning flashes, being lifted up and carried down the river. We decided at this point we should climb higher, so we found a ledge where we spent the long, cold night. We had spent many winters skiing and had never been as cold as we were that night.
We sat on that little ledge (3 foot by 1 foot) with our knees drawn up to keep us from sliding off. We sang, shivered, cussed and did anything we could to keep our minds off of how cold and achy we were. We heard and saw cars, houses and propane tanks floating down the river during flashes of lightning. We thought by now it must be about morning time, but looking at our watch, it was about 10 p.m. We had a long night ahead of us.
The next morning was another blue bird day and we were freezing and soaked to the bone. We decided it would be warmer to take our jackets off and left them on the ledge. The road below us had been washed away, but the river had receded enough that we could get off the ledge and move around a little on the steep mountainside. We heard the helicopters for a long time before we saw one. Finally, we were rescued off the side of the mountain by a four-seat helicopter,and dropped off up river on a section of the highway that had survived. There were several other people there. I remember we were all surveying the canyon in a daze. There wasn’t much conversation. I leaned over and picked up a small piece of asphalt and put it in my pocket.
Click here to read the Fort Collins Coloradoan special about the flood.
On July 31, 1976, during the celebration of Colorado’s centennial, the Big Thompson Canyon was the site of a devastating flash flood that swept down the steep and narrow canyon, claiming the lives of 143 people, 5 of whom were never found. This flood was triggered by a nearly stationary thunderstorm near the upper section of the canyon that dumped 300 millimeters (12 inches) of rain in less than 4 hours (more than 3/4 of the average annual rainfall for the area). Little rain fell over the lower section of the canyon, where many of the victims were.
Around 9 p.m., a wall of water more than 6 meters (20 ft) high raced down the canyon at about 6 m/s (14 mph), destroying 400 cars, 418 houses and 52 businesses and washing out most of U.S. Route 34. This flood was more than 4 times as strong as any in the 112-year record available in 1976, with a discharge of 1,000 cubic meters per second (35,000 ftยณ/s).
Officials on Friday detailed how a Big Thompson River that was flowing at 30 cubic feet per second increased to 30,000 by the time it got to the narrows near Sylvan Ranch and the Dam Store.
The 2013 flood, by contrast was flowing at 16,000 cubic feet per second at the same point. But Bob Kimbrough, from the U.S. Geological Survey, said that number can be misleading. Just because it was flowing at less than half the rate, doesnโt mean the water was half as high as it was in 1976. It could have been a foot or two lower, Kimbrough said.
Further, the 2013 flood lasted longer. Where the 1976 flood dissipated nearly as quickly as it rose, the 2013 flood flowed over saturated ground for days, causing foundation failures and greater erosion than the 1976 flood.
Click here to read the extensive coverage from The Estes Park Trail-Gazette.
A satellite view of Mesa, Arizona, showing a handful of the 91 energy- and water-intensive data centers in the greater Phoenix metro area. Source: Google Earth.
When I first read a recent headline in Matthew Yglesiasโs Slow Boringnewsletter, I assumed it was a sort of joke to rope me into reading. โThereโs plenty of water for data centers,โ it said, reassuringly. โProbably the last worry you should have about either water or AI.โ
Unfortunately, he wasnโt joking. But he opened his piece with a line that should have warned his readers to take everything else he said with a grain of salt:
Before I continue with my rant, Iโd just like to encourage Yglesias to do a little more thinking about water scarcity before writing about it. Oh, and also, maybe consider spending a little bit of time in the water-starved West before committing punditry about it. (This is the same guy who tweeted that Sen. Mike Leeโs proposal to sell off public land was โpretty reasonableโ and an โokay idea on the meritsโ).
Yglesias acknowledges that data centers use water, and that more data centers will lead to more water consumption. But itโs okay, he says, because โWeโre not living on Arrakis, and rich countries are not, in general, abstemious in their water usage.โ
No, we are not on Arrakis, but have you seen the lower reaches of the Colorado River or even the mid-reaches of the Rio Grande lately? Itโs looking pretty Dune-like if you ask me.
Well, sure, Yglesias argues, but even in those places, people are doing frivolous things with water, like filling up their Super Soakers or using it to make ice cubes for their cocktails. Yes, he used those actual examples. Never mind that the potable water used each day by a single Microsoft data center in Goodyear, Arizona, could yield more than 35 million ice cubes or fill about 223,000 Super Soakers. That would be one big, drunken water fight.
Yglesias also notes that agriculture, especially growing alfalfa and other feed crops for cattle, is an even larger water consumer than Big Tech. True, for now. And he writes:
His logic appears to be: People are currently using a lot of water for all sorts of things โ frivolous or otherwise. So, it should be fine to use a lot more water for data centers in perpetuity, since water is โsufficiently plentiful.โ This is the sort of thinking that got the Colorado River Basin into its current mess, in which there actually may not be enough water to drink very soon if its collective users donโt change their ways. Adding a fleet of water-guzzling hyperscale data centers to places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, andย Tucson, where water is anything but โsufficiently plentiful,โ will only exacerbate the crisis.
Researchers have tried various methods to determineย how much water a single ChatGPT query or AI-assisted Google search usesย as compared to, say, streaming a Netflix video or writing a standard e-mail.ย So far the estimates diverge wildly. An early calculation came up with a whopping 500 ml for each AI query, but the estimates have since gone down. The difficulty is due in part to the fact that water use data isnโt always publicly available, and also because data centersโ water use can vary depending on location, as do theirย carbon footprints.
What is clear is this: Data centers use large quantities of both energy and water, no matter where they are. The massive server banks churning away in warehouse-like buildings on the fringes of Phoenix and Las Vegas, and even in rural Washington and Wyoming, each gobble as much electricity as a small city to process AI queries, cryptocurrency extraction, and other aspects of our increasingly cloud-based society. The harder they work, the hotter they get, and the more power and water they need to cool off to the optimum operating temperature of between 70ยฐ to 80ยฐ F.
Evaporative or adiabatic cooling, where air is cooled by blowing it through moistened pads (i.e. high-tech swamp coolers), works well in arid areas like Phoenix, Tucson, or Las Vegas. They use less energy than refrigerated cooling, but also use far more water.
Data centers can also indirectly consume water through their energy use, depending on the power source. Thermal coal, nuclear, or natural gas plants need water for cooling and steam-production (some of this water may be returned to the source after use, except with zero-discharge facilities); natural gas extraction uses water for hydraulic fracturing; and solar installations can require large amounts of water for dust-suppression and cleaning. This explains how Googleโs data centers withdrew 8.65 billion gallons of water globally in 2023 1.
A 2023 study found that a single Chat GPT-3 request processed at an Arizona data center uses about 30 milliliters of water, compared to 12 ml per request in Wyoming. That doesnโt seem like much (itโs less than a shot-glass) until you consider that there are at least 1 billion ChatGPT queries worldwide per day and growing, using a total of some 8 million gallons of water daily, worldwide. And, training the AI at an Arizona data center would use about 9.6 million liters โ or 2.5 million gallons โ of additional water.
Another estimate finds the average data center uses between 1 million and 5 million gallons of water per day, onsite, which would be far more than the aforementioned Goodyear center (56 million gallons/year), but in line with a planned Google data center in Mesa, Arizona. When Google was first planning the facility back in 2019, the city of Mesa guaranteed delivery of nearly 1 million gallons of water per day. If they reach certain milestones they can use up to 4 million gallons daily, or about 4,480 acre-feet per year.
Now multiply those numbers by the more than 90 data centers of various sizes and water and energy intensity in the Phoenix area, alone, which would amount to somewhere between 14 million to 450 million gallons per day. No matter how you add it up, they collectively are sucking up a huge amount of water and power, and enough to strain even Yglesiasโs purported โsufficiently plentifulโ supplies (which do not exist in Arizona, by the way).
The average Phoenix-area household uses about 338 gallons of water per day, or almost 123,000 gallons per year. One of these big data centers, then, could guzzle as much water as some 10,000 homes. And yet housing developments in groundwater-dependent areas on Phoenixโs fringe must obtain 100-year assured water supply certification before they can begin building. The same is not the case for data centers.
According to Open ET maps, a 75-acre alfalfa field in Buckeye (western Phoenix metro area), uses about 156 acre-feet โ or 50.8 million gallons โ per year. Thatโs far less than the 28-acre Apple Data Center in Mesa consumes. Of course, there are the equivalent of about 3,470 alfalfa fields of that same size in Arizona (260,000 acres), meaning the total water consumption of hay and alfalfa is still greater than that of data centers. But it shows that while replacing an alfalfa field with houses would result in a net decrease in water consumption, replacing those same fields with data centers would substantially increase consumption.
And donโt forget that the 75-acre alfalfa field produces about 690 tons of alfalfa per year, which could feed quite a few dairy cows, which in turn would produce a bunch of milk for making cheese and ice cream. Just saying. Maybe itโs time to update the old saying: โIโd rather see a cow than a data center.โ
Data centers arenโt going away. After all, they are the hearts and brains of the Internet Age. Many of us may wish that AI (not to mention cryptocurrency), which are more water- and energy-intensive than other applications, would just up and vanish. But thatโs probably too much to ask for. Besides, AI, at least, does have real value.
So what can be done to keep the data center boom from devouring the Westโs water and driving its power grid to the snapping point? Hereโs where Yglesias had a good point: Policymakers and utilities should adjust water and power pricing for large industrial users, i.e. data centers, to discourage waste, incentivize efficiency and recycling, and push tech firms to develop their own clean energy sources to power their facilities.
Itโs imperative that utilities force data centers to pay their fair share for infrastructure upgrades made necessary by added water or power demand, rather than shifting those costs to other ratepayers, as is usually the case. Arizona should make data centers prove out their water supply, just like they do with housing developments. Plus, states should stop trying to lure data centers with big tax breaks, which ultimately are paid for by the other taxpayers. And local governments and planners should subject proposed data centers to the highest level of scrutiny, and not give in to promises of jobs and economic development if it means sacrificing the communityโs water supply or the reliability of the power grid.
Proper policy isnโt a cure all, by any means. But it could mitigate the impacts of the imminent data center boom. Meanwhile, Mr. Yglesias, I will reiterate that the West, at least, does not have plenty of water for data centers, and I will continue to worry about them guzzling up what little water remains.
๐ Reading Room ๐ง
The Land Desk is reading all of yโallโs great responses to last weekโs open thread about forms of resistance. Check it out and weigh in if you havenโt already.
Len Necefer has had some really strong pieces on hisย All At Once by Dr. Lennewsletter recently, includingย this oneย musing about the opportunities for the Navajo Nation to build a recreation economy on the San Juan River (great idea!). He writes about how strange it is that he, a Navajo Nation citizen, must get a permit from the BLM to raft the river, when it borders his homeland (and is at the heart of Dinรฉ Bikeyah). I also like that he sees boating/recreational opportunities along the entirety of the river, not just from Sand Island to Clay Hills Crossing. Iโve always thought it would be super cool to boat the reaches between Farmington and Bluff (actually, Iโve always wanted to boat from Durango to Farmington to Bluff).ย
Another Substack thatโs been getting my attention isย Time Zero, a podcast and Substack on โthe nuclearized world.โ Theย Wastelandingย series is about the legacy of uranium mining and milling on the Colorado Plateau, the Navajo Nation, and on Pueblo lands. Very powerful stuff.ย
Theย Colorado Sunโs Shannon Mullane has aย good storyย about the Southern Ute Tribe finally getting some of its Animas-La Plata water, which was the whole reason the last big Western water project, as itโs known, was finally built.
1 This is not the same as consumption, which is the amount of water withdrawn minus the amount returned to the source.
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
DENVER – Today, by repealing the 16-year-old “Endangerment Finding,โ which determined that greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution poses a threat to public health and welfare, the Trump administrationโs U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) paved the way for more extreme weather and natural disasters, hurting Colorado communities.
โThis decision flies in the face of decades of data about the negative public health impact of greenhouse gasses including heat exposure and fire risk. Colorado is all too familiar with the impacts of climate change, seeing the three largest fires in our state’s history and the most destructive in the last five years. Despite the EPAโs denial of our reality, Colorado will continue to achieve our ambitious clean energy goals to save people more on energy bills, reduce emissions and improve our air-quality and health,โ said Governor Jared Polis.
Big Thompson Flood, Colorado. Cabin lodged on a private bridge just below Drake, looking upstream. Photo by W. R. Hansen, August 13, 1976. Photo via the USGS.
Heavy rainfall in late July in Colorado’s past caused two of the state’s worst floods, the Spring Creek Flood and the Big Thompson Flood.
The 1997 Spring Creek Flood resulted in five deaths and over $200 million in damages in Fort Collins.
The 1976 Big Thompson Flood led to 144 fatalities and $35 million in damages.
Twenty-eight years ago this week, 14 inches of rain fell on Fort Collins in just over a day, overwhelming the Spring Creek and leading to the deaths of five people.
And 49 years ago this week, more than a foot of rain fell on the Big Thompson River west of Loveland in about four hours, creating a wall of water that swept away and killed 144 people. It’s not a coincidence that both events happened in the same week of July, though they were years apart. It’s flash-flood season in Colorado, and three of the state’s worst floods occurred from mid-July through mid-September, which is also the state’sย monsoon season.
Oak Flat, Arizona features groves of Emory oak trees, canyons, and springs. This is sacred land for the San Carlos Apache tribe. Resolution Copper (Rio Tinto subsidiary) lobbied politicians to deliver this National Forest land to the company with the intent to build a destructive copper mine. By SinaguaWiki – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98967960
Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
July 29, 2025
Key Points
A group of Apache women has asked a court to stop a land exchange that would lead to a huge copper mine at Oak Flat.
The suit is the latest attempt to block Resolution Copper from building the mine on land east of Phoenix considered sacred to the Apache and other tribes.
A judge will hear arguments in a separate lawsuit next week as the date nears for the land swap to take place.
A group of Apache women asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to halt a disputed land exchange at the center of a long battle over plans to build a huge copper mine at Oak Flat. It’s the fourth lawsuit that seeks to stop the U.S. Forest Service from signing over title to the site, held sacred by Apache peoples and culturally significant by other tribes, to Resolution Copper in exchange for other plots of environmentally sensitive land in Arizona. The four women, who all have spiritual and cultural connections to the 2,200-acre campground inย Tonto National Forestย about 60 miles east of Phoenix, filed their suit in theย U.S. District Court for the District of Columbiaย July 24. Nelson Mullins, a law firm based in Washington, D.C., and South Carolina, outlined the case, which asks Judge Timothy J. Kelly, an appointee of President Donald Trump, to stop the exchange until the plaintiffs can have their day in court. The suit claims the exchange violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the plaintiffs’ First Amendment-guaranteed religious rights protections and two environmental laws.
Visualizing Subsidence Through Block Cave Mining — Resolution Copper
Click the link to go to the “Best of the West” page on the Western Governors website. Here’s an excerpt:
July 24, 2025
Redefining Drought:ย Drought is often defined as โdrier-than-normal,โ but if the climate is shifting, whatโs considered the new normal? While a larger sample size reduces uncertainty, it could also create a baseline that isnโt representative of todayโs climate.
For instance, “if you’re in a place where the precipitation is declining, such as far Western Texas or New Mexico, or possibly you’re relying on stream or river flow to irrigate your crop, and that water resource is declining, you want to be able to think ahead and be aware of the average amount of water you have access to,โ said Joel Lisonbee, a senior associate scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, or CIRES, at the University of Colorado in Boulder. In those cases, it may make sense to use a shorter baseline to reflect recent trends, rather than include data from a century ago, when the climate was different.
“What we should be asking is, when should drought be defined using all available data? When should we use the whole climate record?” Lisonbee said. “There’s not one answer, and the correct answer will really depend on why you’re assessing drought in the first place.โ
About 60% of Iowaโs power comes from wind. Farmers can earn extra cash by leasing small sections of farms for power production. Bill Clark/Getty Images
Drive through the plains of Iowa or Kansas and youโll see more than rows of corn, wheat and soybeans. Youโll also see towering wind turbines spinning above fields and solar panels shining in the sun on barns and machine sheds.
For many farmers, these are lifelines. Renewable energy provides steady income and affordable power, helping farms stay viable when crop prices fall or drought strikes.
Wind energy is a significant economic driver in rural America. In Iowa, for example, over 60% of the stateโs electricity came from wind energy in 2024, and the state is a hub for wind turbine manufacturing and maintenance jobs.
For landowners, wind turbines often mean stable lease payments. Those historically were around US$3,000 to $5,000 per turbine per year, with some modern agreements $5,000 to $10,000 annually, secured through 20- to 30-year contracts.
Nationwide, wind and solar projects contribute about $3.5 billion annually in combined lease payments and state and local taxes, more than a third of it going directly to rural landowners.
States throughout the Great Plains and Midwest, from Texas to Montana to Ohio, have the strongest onshore winds and onshore wind power potential. These are also in the heart of U.S. farm country. The map shows wind speeds at 100 meters (nearly 330 feet), about the height of a typical land-based wind turbine. NREL
These figures are backed by long-term contracts and multibillionโdollar annual contributions, reinforcing the economic value that turbines bring to rural landowners and communities.
Wind farms also contribute to local tax revenues that help fund rural schools, roads and emergency services. In counties across Texas, wind energy has become one of the most significant contributors to local property tax bases, stabilizing community budgets and helping pay for public services as agricultural commodity revenues fluctuate.
In Oldham County in northwest Texas, for example, clean energy projects provided 22% of total county revenues in 2021. In several other rural counties, wind farms rank among the top 10 property taxpayers, contributing between 38% and 69% of tax revenue.
The construction and operation of these projects also bring local jobs in trucking, concrete work and electrical services, boosting small-town businesses.
A wind turbine technician stands on the nacelle, which houses the gear box and generator of a wind turbine, on the campus of Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, N.M., in 2024. Colleges in other states, including Texas, also developed training programs for technicians in recent years as jobs in the industry boomed. Andrew Marszal/AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. wind industry supports over 300,000 U.S. jobs across construction, manufacturing, operations and other roles connected to the industry, according to the American Clean Power Association.
Solar energy is also boosting farm finances. Farmers use rooftop panels on barns and ground-mounted systems to power irrigation pumps, grain dryers and cold storage facilities, cutting their power costs.
Some farmers have adopted agrivoltaics โ dual-use systems that grow crops beneath solar panels. The panels provide shade, helping conserve water, while creating a second income path. These projects often cultivate pollinator-friendly plants, vegetables such as lettuce and spinach, or even grasses for grazing sheep, making the land productive for both food and energy.
Federal grants and tax credits that were significantly expanded under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act helped make the upfront costs of solar installations affordable.
However, the federal spending bill signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025, rolled back many clean energy incentives. It phases down tax credits for distributed solar projects, particularly those under 1 megawatt, which include many farmโscale installations, and sunsets them entirely by 2028. It also eliminates bonus credits that previously supported rural and lowโincome areas.
Without these credits, the upfront cost of solar power could be out of reach for some farmers, leaving them paying higher energy costs. At a 2024 conference organized by the Institute of Sustainability, Energy and Environment at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where I work as a research economist, farmers emphasized the importance of tax credits and other economic incentives to offset the upfront cost of solar power systems.
Whatโs being lost
The cuts to federal incentives include terminating the Production Tax Credit for new projects placed in service after Dec. 31, 2027, unless construction begins by July 4, 2026, and is completed within a tight time frame. The tax credit pays eligible wind and solar facilities approximately 2.75 cents per kilowatt-hour over 10 years, effectively lowering the cost of renewable energy generation. Ending that tax credit will likely increase the cost of production, potentially leading to higher electricity prices for consumers and fewer new projects coming online.
The changes also accelerate the phaseโout of wind power tax credits. Projects must now begin construction by July 4, 2026, or be in service before the end of 2027 to qualify for any credit.
Meanwhile, the Investment Tax Credit, which covers 30% of installed cost for solar and other renewables, faces similar limits: Projects must begin by July 4, 2026, and be completed by the end of 2027 to claim the credits. The bill also cuts bonuses for domestic components and installations in rural or lowโincome locations. These adjustments could slow new renewable energy development, particularly smaller projects that directly benefit rural communities.
While many existing clean energy agreements will remain in place for now, the rollback of federal incentives threatens future projects and could limit new income streams. It also affects manufacturing and jobs in those industries, which some rural communities rely on.
Renewable energy also powers rural economies
Renewable energy benefits entire communities, not just individual farmers.
Wind and solar projects contribute millions of dollars in tax revenue. For example, in Howard County, Iowa, wind turbines generated $2.7 million in property tax revenue in 2024, accounting for 14.5% of the countyโs total budget and helping fund rural schools, public safety and road improvements.
In some rural counties, clean energy is the largest new source of economic activity, helping stabilize local economies otherwise reliant on agricultureโs unpredictable income streams. These projects also support rural manufacturing โ such as Iowa turbine blade factories like TPI Composites, which just reopened its plant in Newton, and Siemens Gamesa in Fort Madison, which supply blades for GE and Siemens turbines. The tax benefits in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act helped boost those industries โ and the jobs and local tax revenue they bring in.
As rural America faces economic uncertainty and climate pressures, I believe homegrown renewable energy offers a practical path forward. Wind and solar arenโt just fueling the grid; theyโre helping keep farms and rural towns alive.
On July 22, after months of uncertainty about the impact of federal funding cuts and tariffs, Gunnison City Council received an update on the future of the water treatment plan project. Gunnison Public Works Director Pete Rice addressed the council with a report on funding, design and construction of the proposed plant on the Van Tuyl Ranch. The water treatment plant, estimated to cost $50 million and be one of the largest infrastructure developments in city history, is divided into three projects. The first project covers the construction of a raw water intake and three separate wells at the VanTuyl Ranch. The second and third projects focus on the water delivery system and water treatment facility. With the first project nearing approval from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the city is expected to finalize its design this fall and begin construction before the end of 2025. The treatment plant initiative stems from the 2021 water master plan and a potable water evaluation. Gunnison currently relies on nine wells to source its drinking water. The system is outdated and no longer permitted by the state. Because all of the wells pull water from the same aquifer, drinking water is vulnerable to contamination and extended drought conditions. The proposed plant will allow Gunnison to pull water from the Gunnison River, in addition to the aquifer…
The first project includes the construction of a raw water intake and three separate wells. The proposed intake will be 18-feet deep alongside the Gunnison River, and cylindrical intakes will extend halfway into the river. The first project is expected to be approved by the EPA in the next four weeks, and begin construction this year with well drilling extending into 2026. The project is projected to cost $4 million, with $900,000 covering design, and $3 million going toward construction. The entire construction cost is funded by $1.75 million in congressionally directed spending, and $1.5 million from a Colorado Water Conservation Board grant. Four additional grants covered roughly $850,000 in design costs. The City of Gunnison will pay the remaining $25,000. Once complete, the water intake will have little impact on outdoor recreation, including boating and fishing, Rice said. However, construction will likely disrupt those activities for an estimated two to three months. It is currently unknown if construction can take place in the winter to minimize impact on summer recreation. Project two focuses on a complex network of pipes that will connect the raw water intake and wells, and deliver water directly to the water treatment plan. The third project is the construction of the water treatment plant itself. Rice said the second and third project design is estimated to be completed between winter 2025 and spring 2026, with construction lasting into 2029. The two projects will cost $2.7 million for design, and $40 million for construction. The majority of design costs are already funded by six grants, while the construction costs are set to be discussed at upcoming council meetings.
The continents are rapidly drying out and the earthโs vast freshwater resources are under threat, according to a recently released study based on more than 20 years of NASA satellite data. Here are the reportโs key findings and what they portend for humankind:
Much of the Earth is suffering a pandemic of โcontinental drying,โ affecting the countries containing 75% of the worldโs population, the new research shows.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, examined changes to Earthโs total supply of fresh water and found that nearly 6 billion people live in the 101 countries facing a net decline in water supply, posing a โcritical, emerging threat to humanity.โ
Mining of underground freshwater aquifers is driving much of the loss.
According to the study, the uninhibited pumping of groundwater by farmers, cities and corporations around the world now accounts for 68% of the total loss of fresh water at the latitudes where most people live.
Much of the water taken from aquifers ends up in the oceans, contributing to the rise of sea levels.
Mined groundwater rarely seeps back into the aquifers from which it was pumped. Rather, a large portion runs off into streams, then rivers and ultimately the oceans. According to the researchers, moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the oceans.
Water From Land Has Become a Leading Driver of Sea Level Rise
Most of the water lost from drying regions is from groundwater pumping, which ultimately shifts fresh water from aquifers into the oceans.
Note: Glaciers refer to the parts of the continents covered in glaciers but excludes the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Drying land and aquifers refer to the water lost by the continents in areas not covered by glaciers, including river flow and evaporation. Groundwater loss accounts for 68% of the drying in those places. Credit: Lucas Waldron/ProPublica
As droughts grow more extreme, farmers increasingly turn to groundwater.
Worldwide, 70% of fresh water is used for growing crops, with more of it coming from groundwater as droughts grow more extreme. Only a small amount of that water seeps back into aquifers. Research has long established that people take more water from underground when climate-driven heat and drought are at their worst.
Drying regions of the planet are merging.
The parts of the world drying most acutely are becoming interconnected, forming what the studyโs authors describe as โmegaโ regions. One such region covers almost the whole of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia.
Drying of the Earth has accelerated in recent years.
The study examines 22 years of observational data from NASAโs Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites, which measure changes in the mass of the earth and have been applied to estimate its water content. Since 2002, the sensors have detected a rapid shift in water loss across the planet. Around 2014, the study found the pace of drying appears to have accelerated. It is now growing by an area twice the size of California each year.
The Drying of the Earth Accelerated in Recent Years
The dramatic depletion of groundwater and surface water plus the melting of glaciers between 2014-24 has connected once-separate arid places, forming โmega-dryingโ regions that stretch across whole continents.
Credit: Lucas Waldron/ProPublica
Credit: Lucas Waldron/ProPublica
Credit: Lucas Waldron/ProPublica
Note: Data is for February 2003 to December 2013 and January 2014 to April 2024. The first time period contains seven more months of data than the second.
Water pumped from aquifers is not easily replaced, if it can be at all.
Major groundwater basins underlie roughly one-third of the planet, including about half of Africa, Europe and South America. Many of those aquifers took millions of years to form and might take thousands of years to refill. The researchers warn that it is now nearly impossible to reverse the loss of water โon human timescales.โ
As continents dry and coastal areas flood, the risk for conflict and instability increases.
The accelerated drying, combined with the flooding of coastal cities and food-producing lowlands, heralds โpotentially staggeringโ and cascading risks for global order, the researchers warn. Their findings all point to the likelihood of widespread famine, the migration of large numbers of people seeking a more stable environment and the carry-on impact of geopolitical disorder.
Data Source: Hrishikesh. A. Chandanpurkar, James S. Famiglietti, Kaushik Gopalan, David N. Wiese, Yoshihide Wada, Kaoru Kakinuma, John T. Reager, Fan Zhang (2025). Unprecedented Continental Drying, Shrinking Freshwater Availability, and Increasing Land Contributions to Sea Level Rise. Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx0298
The Shoshone hydro plant in Glenwood Canyon. The Shoshone hydropower plant in Glenwood Canyon. The CWCB will hold a hearing on the water rights associated with the plant in September. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
Front Range asked for Colorado Water Conservation Board neutrality on historic use of Shoshone water rights
In an effort to head off concerns about the stateโs role in a major Western Slope water deal, a Western Slope water district has offered up a compromise proposal to Front Range water providers.
In order to defuse what Colorado River Water Conservation District General Manager Andy Mueller called โan ugly contested hearing before the CWCB,โ the River District is proposing that the state water board take a neutral position on the exact amount of water tied to the Shoshone hydropower plant water rights and let a water court determine a final number.
โAlthough we believe this would be an unusual process, the River District believes it would address the primary concern (i.e., avoiding the state agencyโs formal endorsement of the River Districtโs preliminary historical use analysis) that we heard expressed by your representatives at the May 21, 2025 CWCB meeting regarding the Shoshone instream flow proposal,โ Mueller wrote in an email to officials from the Front Range Water Council.
The River District worked with CWCB staff to draft the proposal, but it may not go far enough to address Front Range concerns.
The River District, which represents 15 counties on the Western Slope, is planning to purchase some of the oldest and largest non-consumptive water rights on the Colorado River from Xcel Energy for nearly $100 million. The water rights, which are tied to the Shoshone hydropower plant in Glenwood Canyon, are essential for downstream ecosystems, cities, endangered fish, and agricultural and recreational water users. As part of the deal, the River District is seeking to add an instream flow water right to benefit the environment to the hydropower water rights.
The effort has seen broad support across the Western Slope. The River District has raised $57 million toward the purchase from at least 26 local and regional partners. The project was awarded a $40 million Inflation Reduction Act grant in the waning days of the Biden administration, but those funds have been frozen by the Trump administration.
โThese water rights are foundational to the Colorado River,โ said Amy Moyer, chief of strategy at the River District. โItโs the number one project for the Western Slope. Itโs the top priority to move forward.โ
Critically, because its water rights are senior to many other water users โ they date to 1902 โ Shoshone can force upstream water users to cut back. The Shoshone call has the ability to command the flows of the Colorado River and its tributaries upstream all the way to the headwaters.
The twin turbines of Xcel Energyโs Shoshone hydroelectric power plant in Glenwood Canyon can generate 15 megawatts. The River District is proposing that the CWCB remain neutral on the issue of the plantโs historic water use. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
Putting a precise amount on how much water the plant has historically used is a main point of contention between the River District and the Front Range Water Council, a group that includes some of Coloradoโs biggest municipal water providers: Denver Water, Colorado Springs Utilities, Aurora Water and Northern Water. These entities take water that would normally flow west, and bring it to farms and cities on the east side of the Continental Divide through what are called transmountain diversions. About 500,000 acre-feet of water annually is taken from the headwaters of the Colorado River and its tributaries to the Front Range.
Estimates by the River District put the Shoshone hydro plantโs average annual use at 844,644 acre-feet using the period between 1975 and 2003 โ before natural hazards in the narrow canyon began knocking the plant offline regularly in recent years.
But Front Range Water Council members say this estimate is flawed and could be an expansion of the historical use of the water right. They have requested a hearing at the September CWCB meeting to hash out their concerns.
โThe preliminary analysis that has been presented appears to expand historic use and creates potential injury,โ Abby Ortega, general manager of infrastructure and resource planning at Colorado Springs Utilities told the CWCB at its May meeting.
Determining past use of the Shoshone water rights is important because it will help set a limit for future use. While changing the use of a water right is allowed by going through the water court process, enlarging it is not. The amount pulled from and returned to the river must stay the same as it historically has been.
As part of the River Districtโs deal to buy the water rights, the CWCB โ which is the only entity in the state allowed to hold an instream flow water right โ must officially accept the water right and then sign on as a co-applicant in the water court change case.
But Front Range water providers said that doing so would amount to an endorsement of the River Districtโs historical use estimate, which would mean taking a side in the Front Range versus Western Slope disagreement.
โIf you agree to accept the right and as I understand it, the instream flow agreement, youโre agreeing to be a co-applicant, which risks you accepting their analysis,โ said Alexandra Davis, an assistant general manager with Aurora Water, at the CWCBโs May meeting.
Some members of the Front Range Water Council have asked that the CWCB remain neutral during the water court change case. In May 9 and June 9 letters to the CWCB from Marshall Brown, general manager of Aurora Water, he said the CWCB shouldrefrain from endorsing any specific methodology or volume of water.
โโฆ [T]he CWCB should remain neutral in the water court proceedings and defer to the courtโs determination of the appropriate methodology and volumetric quantification,โ the May 9 letter reads.
The River Districtโs offer does just that: It proposes that the CWCB should not take a position regarding the determination of historical use of the Shoshone water rights.
โWe heard the issues that are most front and center from these entities,โ Moyer said. โAnd so we are trying to find a path forward that works for everyone.โ
But even if Front Range Water Council members are in favor of the proposal, it is unlikely to result in a cancellation of the hearing. CWCB Executive Director Lauren Ris said in an email that under the boardโs rules, they are required to hold a hearing. And Jeff Stahla, public information officer at Northern Water, said they will still be asking for the hearing to proceed.
Spokespeople from Colorado Springs Utilities, Aurora Water and Denver Water all declined to comment on the River Districtโs proposal because it was marked as confidential.
Some members of the Front Range Water Council have concerns beyond CWCB neutrality that could be addressed at the September hearing.
In a May 14 letter to the CWCB, Denver Waterโs CEO Alan Salazar said the water provider also wants to carry over some provisions from existing agreements like the Shoshone Outage Protocol. This agreement has an exception in cases of extreme drought that allows Denver Water to keep taking water if its reservoirs fall below certain levels and streamflows are low. Denver Water added that by omitting the last two decades of Shoshone water use, the River Districtโs study period is skewed, and that using an upstream stream gauge to measure historical use is improper.
The hearing is scheduled for the next CWCB board meeting Sept. 16-18. The board can approve or disapprove the acquisition of the water rights, or make changes to the proposal and adopt the amended proposal. The board is required to take action at the September hearing unless the River District approves an extension. Pre-hearing statements are due by Aug. 4.
CWCB board members Brad Wind, who is general manager of Northern Water, and Greg Johnson, manager of resource planning at Denver Water, recused themselves from the July 17 CWCB board meeting discussion of the Shoshone water rights and plan to recuse themselves from future Shoshone discussions and decisions.ย
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Engineering students take measurements from a scale model of the dam at Halligan Reservoir in a lab at Colorado State University in Fort Collins on July 15, 2025. Their data will help make the soon-to-be-built dam safer in the real world. Alex Hager/KUNC
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager):
July 15, 2025
This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West produced by KUNC and supported by the Walton Family Foundation.
If youโre going to build a new reservoir, you better be dam sure itโs safe.
Engineers at Colorado State University are doing exactly that by running tests on a giant model of a dam that will soon be built near Fort Collins. In an airy warehouse at CSUโs foothills campus, theyโre sending water through a 24:1 scale mockup of the dam that will hold back an expanded Halligan Reservoir.
โIt just gives us assurances on so many different levels that our design is sound, that it is going to be constructable, and that it is going to perform when itโs built, as expected,โ said Darren Parkin, Halligan Water Supply Project Manager with the City of Fort Collins.
Water flows through a scale model of the area surrounding Halligan Reservoir in a lab at Colorado State University on July 15, 2025. The model was built to precisely mimic conditions at the actual reservoir. Alex Hager/KUNC
The new dam will be built to survive a one-in-ten-million year precipitation event โ or 72 inches of rain โ which is required to get building permits. For comparison, the devastating Spring Creek flood of 1997 was caused by 14.5 inches of rain.
Running that test, even on a dam thatโs a fraction of the size of the real one, requires a huge pulse of water. It tumbles and whooshes through the manmade river with so much force that itโs hard to hear the person standing next to you.
When engineering students switch on the model, a large tank fills behind the dam. First, it spills down the stairstep-like face of the structure with a gentle trickle. Before long, itโs hitting the base as roiling whitewater. Thatโs exactly where most of this teamโs research has been focused.
They built a series of โbafflesโ to slow that water down and prevent it from bashing the dam and eroding its base. They are essentially large blocks that change the speed and direction of water cascading over the dam. The engineers working on the dam say they were able to figure out precisely the best place to put those baffles, how many to install, and how far apart they should be because they were running tests on this model instead of a computer program.
A Colorado State University student monitors data at a scale model of the Halligan Reservoir dam in Fort Collins on July 15, 2025. Alex Hager/KUNC
โWe can easily change things in a physical model,โ said Jeff Ellis, who manages the hydraulics lab where the model is housed. โWe can move things by an inch and just keep on retesting, and it’s really optimizing performance.โ
The City of Fort Collins is nearing construction on the dam, which will enable them to expand Halligan Reservoirโs storage capacity. City officials say that itโs necessary to supply water to the growing city in the future. Work on the new dam, about 25 miles northwest of Fort Collins, is expected to start in early 2027 and finish in late 2029 or early 2030.
Ellis said the project serves another function, too. Itโs giving engineering students a new kind of experience.
โItโs super rewarding,โ he said. โA lot of time in class, youโre doing a lot of theoretical work, itโs not hands-on. Where this, theyโre actually doing design and theyโre helping solve these real world problems.โ
Water tumbles over a model of the Halligan Reservoir dam in a lab at Colorado State University in Fort Collins on July 15, 2025. Students tested different baffles at the base of the dam to help prevent erosion during times of excess flow. Alex Hager/KUNC
Students helped build the intricate model, which is shaped exactly like the area around Halligan Reservoir, and they operate the data-gathering equipment that helps engineers form conclusions from their testing. Catherine Lambert, an undergraduate senior studying Environmental Engineering, said the experience was fun and exciting, but would also help prepare her for a career.
โIt’s really cool to see all of our hard work actually translate into the real world,โ she said, โWe’re very proud of what we do here.โ
Halligan Reservoir aerial credit: City of Fort Collins
Unprecedented continental drying, shrinking freshwater availability, and increasing land contributions to sea level rise. Credit: Science Advances
From the Alamosa Citizen Monday Briefing:
Thisย reportย byย Science.orgย and thisย explainerย from the investigative nonprofit ProPublica on the drying climate puts the San Luis Valley squarely in the camp of a mega-drought region that is dry and getting drier. It also signals the uphill battle irrigators in the San Luis Valley and the Upper Rio Grande face as they implement their own practices to reduce groundwater pumping and efforts to recharge the aquifers of the Valley; few other regions facing the same quandary of overpumping and depleting aquifers have committed to the same. In this case, thereโs a lot others can learn from the Valleyโs way of addressing its drying problem.
Changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) are a critical indicator of freshwater availability. We use NASA GRACE/GRACE-FO data to show that the continents have undergone unprecedented TWS loss since 2002. Areas experiencing drying increased by twice the size of California annually, creating โmega-dryingโ regions across the Northern Hemisphere. While most of the worldโs dry/wet areas continue to get drier/wetter, dry areas are now drying faster than wet areas are wetting. Changes in TWS are driven by high-latitude water losses, intense Central American/European droughts, and groundwater depletion, which accounts for 68% of TWS loss over non-glaciated continental regions. โContinental dryingโ is having profound global impacts. Since 2002, 75% of the population lives in 101 countries that have been losing freshwater water. Furthermore, the continents now contribute more freshwater to sea level rise than the ice sheets, and drying regions now contribute more than land glaciers and ice caps. Urgent action is required to prepare for the major impacts of results presented.
The downtown Salt Lake City skyline is backdropped by fresh snow on the Wasatch Mountains on Monday, January 15, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to slash its presence in the Washington, D.C., area by sending employees to five regional hubs, Secretary Brooke Rollins said Thursday.
The department wants to reduce its workforce in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia from 4,600 to less than 2,000 and add workers to regional offices in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City.
The department will also maintain administrative support locations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Minneapolis and agency service centers in St. Louis; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Missoula, Montana, according to a memorandum signed by Rollins.
The effort, which the memo said is expected to take years, will move the USDA geographically closer to its constituents of farmers, ranchers and foresters, Rollins said in a press release.
โAmerican agriculture feeds, clothes, and fuels this nation and the world, and it is long past time the Department better serve the great and patriotic farmers, ranchers, and producers we are mandated to support,โ Rollins said.
โPresident Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the beltway and into great American cities across the country. We will do so through a transparent and common-sense process that preserves USDAโs critical health and public safety services the American public relies on.โ
U.S. Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, called the announcement โvery exciting news for Hoosiers.โ
โGreat to see these services move outside of DC and into places like Indiana that feed our nation,โ he wrote on X.
Top Ag Democrat critical
U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, slammed the plan, saying it would diminish the departmentโs workforce and that Rollins should have consulted with Congress first before putting it in place.
The move by President Donald Trumpโs first administration to move USDAโs Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture out of Washington, D.C., resulted in a โbrain drainโ in the agencies, as 75% of affected employees quit, Craig said.
โTo expect different results for the rest of USDA is foolish and naive,โ she said Thursday. โSadly, farmers will pay the price through a reduction in the quality and quantity of service they already receive from the department.
She called on the committeeโs chairman, Pennsylvania Republican Glenn โG.T.โ Thompson, to hold a hearing on the issue.
โThat the Administration did not consult with Congress on a planned reorganization of this magnitude is unacceptable,โ Craig added. โI call on Chairman Thompson to hold a hearing on this issue as soon as possible to get answers. We need to hear from affected stakeholders and know what data and analysis USDA decisionmakers used to plan this reorganization.โ
Pay rates
The USDA release also appealed to the planโs cost efficiencies. By moving workers out of the expensive Washington, D.C. area, the department would avoid the extra pay workers in the region are entitled to, the department said.
Federal workers are eligible for increased pay based on the cost of living in the city in which theyโre employed.
Washington has among the highest rates, boosting pay for workers in that region by 33%. Other than Fort Collins, whose workers also earn more than 30% more than their base pay, the other hub cities range from 17% in Salt Lake City to 22% in Raleigh, according to the release.
The plan includes vacating several D.C.-area office buildings that are overdue for large maintenance projects, the department said.
It will vacate the South Building in D.C., Braddock Place in Alexandria, Virginia, and Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland. The George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville will serve as an additional office location during the reorganization, but will also be sold or transferred once the reorganization is complete, the memo said.
Each of USDAโs mission areas will still have a presence in the nationโs capital, according to the release.
But the plan includes consolidating several functions into regional offices in an effort to โeliminate management layers and bureaucracy,โ according to the memo.
Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service, a key USDA agency, will phase out its nine regional offices primarily into a single location in Fort Collins. The agency will retain a small state office in Alaska and an Eastern office in Athens, Georgia, according to the memo.
The Agriculture Research Service will also consolidate from 12 offices to the five regional hubs.
And a series of support functions would be centralized, according to the memo.
Amidst the roar of rapids and the serenity of the Grand Canyon, “About Damn Time” by filmmaker Dana Romanoff, chronicles the journey of trailblazing boatwomen who, guided by legacy and determination, challenge a male-dominated world, protect sacred rivers, and pass the oars to the next generation. Doriesโdelicate, hand-crafted wooden boatsโare known as the ballerinas of the river. They first danced on the Colorado River in the 1970s, introduced by environmentalist Martin Litton to immerse people in the Grand Canyonโs majesty and rally support against damming and destruction. Today, as the fight over Colorado River rights intensifies, river guides carry on this legacy, advocating for the protection of the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River, and its sacred places. Powerful, poetic, and action-packed, About Damn Time takes viewers on an exhilarating journey through churning rapids and serene starry nights. Along the way, it delves into the rich history and inspiring presence of boatwomen who are reshaping the river-running world for generations to come. A Stept Studios, Vault Rentals & Lockt Film presented by OARS Directed & Produced by Dana Romanoff Supported by American Rivers You might also like: A Guide to Fighting for Wild Rivers: โข A Guide to Fighting for Wild Rivers | Pres… Martinโs Boat – A Film by Pete McBride: โข Martin’s Boat – A Film By Pete McBride Dory Land: โข Dory Land | Presented by OARS OARS has been providing whitewater rafting, hiking & multi-sport vacations since 1969 and we learned from decades of experience how to create magical nature-based experiences for you, your family, your friends or your businessโthe beauty of a pristine wilderness setting, combined with real-life adventure and thrills, captivating companionship and the chance to get away from it all. Find out more at our website: https://www.oars.com
Deadlocked for months in tense, closed-door meetings, Colorado River states may be one step closer to an agreement. Representatives from each of the seven Western states have agreed to discuss a new path forward โ one that could more firmly ground Colorado River policy in hydrological reality as snowpack fails to deliver, reservoirs decline and fears mount…The proposal, presented for the first time publicly at a meeting in Arizona on June 17, would base the release of water from Lake Powell on a three-year average of the โnatural flowsโ of the river. Water released from Lake Powell ends up in Lake Mead, the source of roughly 90 percent of Southern Nevadaโs supply…The natural-flow proposal, while details remain sparse, would be a stunning departure from guidelines minted in 2007, which some argue donโt take into account declining water availability.
Barn Pond before developer caused draining in 2024. Photo credit: SaveTwinLakesBarnPond.com
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
June 26, 2025
For decades, the pond in the hamlet of Twin Lakes served as a peaceful lunch spot for travelers, as a wildlife viewing area for locals and as one of the most photographed spots in Colorado. When filled, the pond reflected an old barn and the snowcapped peaks of the Sawatch Range โ an image that adorns postcards and tourism websites…But the pondย dried up last year after a developer altered the path of the stream water that filled it…On Sunday [June 22, 2025], residents gathered to celebrate the restoration of the pond after their collective efforts brought back the water flow. Twenty people โ and four dogs โ gathered near a new sign marking the creek before touring the water infrastructure put in place to restore the pond.
Chuck Mangione, whose limpid fluegelhorn ruled the upper reaches of Billboardโs adult contemporary charts in the 1970s and โ80s with a culture-permeating lilt that helped create the genre known as โsmooth jazz,โ died on Tuesday at his home in Rochester, N.Y. He was 84. His death was confirmed by his family in a statement, which did not specify a cause. Mr. Mangione was a true pop star with an instantly recognizable signature silhouette: bewhiskered, his long hair crowned by a turned-down felt fedora. He was nominated 14 times for Grammy Awards and won twice: in 1976 for best instrumental composition,ย โBellavia,โย and in 1979 for best pop instrumental performance, for the title track from his score to the filmย โThe Children of Sanchez.โ Mangione hits could be grandiose, likeย โLand of Make Believe,โย or lightly funky, like the aptly namedย โFeels So Good,โย a Top 10 hit in 1978. Always melodic, his cotton-candy hooks could bore into listenersโ senses with a mood-elevating rush…
Mr. Mangioneโs smooth jazz borrowed extensively from fusion โ the infusion of electronic instruments into the jazz mainstream that Miles Davis had spearheaded in the late 1960s โ dosing it with gossamer Flamenco-ish guitar and a disco backbeat, the perfect sonic pillow for his lyrical fluegelhorn. The result was a pop-jazz hybrid with enormous commercial appeal…โFeels So Good,โ released in October 1977 as the title track off what quickly became a double-platinum album, made Mr. Mangione a superstar and cemented his style. It was infused with jazzlike licks but light on true jazz improvisation. Still, it brought the notion of jazz to a vast music-buying public that, for at least a decade, had been focused almost exclusively on rock โnโ roll and its offshoots.
Mrs. Gulch’s landscape July 24, 2025. My son’s vegetable garden is shown in the right side background including the heirloom beans on the Cattle Fence Panel serving as a trellis.
This 2023 diagram shows the tubes through which Lake Powell’s fish can pass through to the section of the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon. Credit: USGS and Reclamation 2023
Federal officials reported Tuesday that the water level in Lake Powell, one of the main water storage reservoirs for the Colorado River Basin, could fall low enough to stop hydropower generation at the reservoir by December 2026.
The reservoirโs water levels have fallen as the Colorado River Basin, the water supply for 40 million people, has been overstressed by rising temperatures, prolonged drought and relentless demand. Upper Basin officials sounded the alarm in June, saying this yearโs conditions echo the extreme conditions of 2021 and 2022, when Lake Powell and its sister reservoir, Lake Mead, dropped to historic lows.
The seven basin states, including Colorado, are in high-stakes negotiations over how to manage the basinโs water after 2026. One of the biggest impasses has been how to cut water use in the basinโs driest years.
โYou canโt reduce what doesnโt come down the stream. And thatโs the reality weโre faced with,โ Commissioner Gene Shawcroft of Utah said in the statement. โThe only way weโre going to achieve a successful outcome is if weโre willing to work together โ and not just protect our own interests.โ
Lake Powell is seen in a November 2019 aerial photo from the nonprofit EcoFlight. The Upper Basin states are proposing two pools of stored water in Lake Powell: A Lake Powell protection account and a Lake Powell conservation account. Credit: EcoFlight
Lake Powell, located on the Utah-Arizona border, collects water from Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, part of Arizona and tribal reservations in the Colorado Riverโs Upper Basin. Glen Canyon Dam releases the reservoirโs water downstream to Lake Mead, Native American tribes, Mexico, and Lower Basin states, including Arizona, California and Nevada.
Lake Powell and Lake Mead make up about 92% of the reservoir storage capacity in the entire Colorado River Basin.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamationโs July report, called a 24-month study, shows the potential for Lake Powell to decline below two critical elevations: 3,525 feet and 3,490 feet.
It could drop below 3,525 feet in April 2026, which would prompt emergency drought response actions. Thatโs in the most probable scenario, but the federal agency also considers drier and wetter forecast scenarios. The dry forecast shows that the reservoirโs water levels would fall below this elevation as soon as January.
Lake Powell would have to fall below 3,490 feet in order to halt power generation.
Planning for emergency water releases
In 2021 and 2022, officials leapt into crisis management mode and released water from upstream reservoirs โ including Blue Mesa, Coloradoโs largest reservoir โ to stabilize Lake Powellโs water levels.
The July 24-month study triggered planning for potential emergency releases, called drought response operations, at Lake Powell, and Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo reservoirs, said Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission.
โThe Upper Division States and Reclamation have been monitoring the risks to Lake Powell since January 2025 due to the declining snowpack and runoff, and are prepared to take appropriate actions as conditions evolve through 2025 and spring of 2026,โ he said in an email to The Colorado Sun.
The back of Glen Canyon Dam circa 1964, not long after the reservoir had begun filling up. Here the water level is above dead pool, meaning water can be released via the river outlets, but it is below minimum power pool, so water cannot yet enter the penstocks to generate electricity. Bureau of Reclamation photo. Annotations: Jonathan P. Thompson
At-risk hydropower
Hydroelectric power generation takes a hit with lower water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Reclamationโs dry conditions forecast says Lake Powell could fall below 3,490 feet by December 2026, and Lake Meadโs water level could fall below a key elevation, 1,035 feet, by May 2027. At that point, Hoover Dam would have to turn off several turbines and its power production would be significantly reduced, said Eric Kuhn, a Colorado water expert.
In more typical or unusually wet forecasts, neither reservoir would fall below these critical elevations in the next two years, according to the report.
Lake Powell and other federal reservoirs provide a cheap and consistent source of renewable energy. Without that, electricity providers would have to look to other, more expensive sources of energy or nonrenewable supplies. Some of those costs can get handed down to customers in their monthly utility bills.
Output capacity of the damโs turbines decreases in direct proportion to the reservoirโs surface elevation. As Lake Powell Shrinks, the dam generates less power. Source: Argonne National Laboratory.
Glen Canyonโs hydropower is normally pooled with other power sources to serve customers in Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas and Utah. Its power generation has already been impacted: Fourteen of the lowest generation years at the dam have occurred since 2000.
A strong monsoon season this summer could help elevate the water levels in the major reservoirs, as could a heavy winter snowpack in the mountains this coming winter.
โIf next year is below average, then weโre setting ourselves up for some very difficult decisions in the basin,โ said Kuhn, former general manager of the Colorado River District and author of โScience Be Dammed,โ a book about the perils of ignoring science in Western water management.
Arizona power house at Hoover Dam December 2019. Each of the 17 hydroelectric generators at Hoover Dam can produced electricity sufficient for 1,000 houses. Photo credit: Allen Best/The Mountain Town News
An interstate legal mire
Kuhn has also been tracking the releases from Lake Powell with big, interstate legal questions in mind.
If the riverโs flow falls below a 10-year total of about 82.5 million acre-feet, it could trigger a legal mire. In that scenario, the Lower Basin could argue that the Upper Basin would be required to send more water downstream in compliance with the foundational agreement, the 1922 Colorado River Compact.
Some Upper Basin lawyers disagree about the terms of when states, like Colorado, would be required to send more water downstream. Thatโs a big concern for water users, including farmers and ranchers, who say they already donโt have enough water in dry years.
From 2017 to 2026, the 10-year cumulative flow is expected to be about 83 million acre-feet, Kuhn said.
โWeโre OK through 2026,โ Kuhn said. โBut under the most probable and minimum probable [forecasts], itโs almost a certainty that the flow will drop below 82.5.โ
Lake Powellโs ecosystems feel the strain
Bridget Deemer, a research ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, keeps her eye on how lower water levels impact ecosystems in Lake Powell.
In a recent study, she found that low dissolved oxygen zones grow larger as water levels fall and more sediment gets backed up in the reservoir over time. This sediment can spur more decomposition, which uses up oxygen in the water.
The zones can cut down on fish habitat. Fish donโt want to be in the warm surface waters of the lake, but as they search for their preferred temperature and food source, they can end up in an area with low oxygen, Deemer said.
The effect is greatest right below Glen Canyon Dam. In 2023, there were 116 days when the oxygen was below 5 milligrams per liter, which is the threshold for trout. At 2 to 3 milligrams per liter, the fish can die.
Deemer also studies how these zones are impacted by algae blooms.
Lake Powell researchers noted toxic algae blooms around the Fourth of July and last fall. They donโt know definitively what caused either bloom event, but research does show that warming water temperatures and increased nutrients are two leading causes of harmful algae blooms.
These blooms can impact fish, people, pets or anything that ingests the algae.
โIn general, Lake Powell is doing well,โ she said. โIts waters are really clear without a lot of nutrients and algal growth. These blooms are smaller scale and localized.โ
An idle drill rig with Raplee Ridge in the background near Mexican Hat, Utah, an oil and gas hotspot back in the early 1900s. Jonathan P. Thompson photo
Remember back in the pre-Trump II days, when every six months or so the environmental community would harp on Biden for issuing more oil and gas drilling permits than Trump did during his first term? If so, you probably also remember the Land Desk harping on the greens for making the comparison in the first place, saying it doesnโt really mean anything.
Well, it looks like it does mean something to Trump. And, wanting to demonstrate his fondness for those big fat drill rigs, his administration has been handing out drilling permits at a mind-bending rate. Between Jan. 21 and Jul. 21 of this year, the BLM has issued 2,660 permits, or about 524 per month. And since everyone likes comparisons: That eclipses Bidenโs biggest year of 2023, when he issued 317 per month.
But do you know who likes drill rigs more than Trump? George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who issued a whopping 569 per month in 2007. Yet this is a good example of why these comparisons are not really meaningful.
Most of George W.โs APDs (approved permit to drill) were for coalbed methane wells (which is just natural gas extracted from coal seams) in places like New Mexicoโs and Coloradoโs San Juan Basin, Wyomingโs Sublette County, or Coloradoโs Piceance Basin. They are smaller and lower-producing than the horizontal โfrackingโ wells that sparked the โshale revolutionโ in about 2008, altering the industry and the geography of oil and gas extraction. Most new wells are aiming for oil rather than gas with drilling centered in the Permian Basin. The Farmington office of the BLM has issued just 48 APDs in the past six months, while the Carlsbad office has handed out 2,565.
Whether these permits are ever used is another question altogether. So far this year, the rig count is down from last year. There certainly are not enough rigs operating to burn through all of these new permits anytime soon, meaning the companies will just sit on them until oil prices increase again and then go on a frenzy.
Back in the San Juan Basin, where the natural gas industry pretty much collapsed in 2009 and has stayed that way since, rig activity is beginning to pick up just a bit, according to Hart Energy. But itโs all relative: There are only about six rigs operating in the basin currently, compared to more than 90 in the Permian.
Fresh off legislatively pillaging the public lands โ and so much else โ in the โOne Big Beautifulโ law, MAGA is looking to rub a little bit of acid in those wounds with the Houseโs 2026 fiscal year budget. Last week, they released their appropriations bill for Interior, environment, and related agencies, and it robs the public lands of cash and environmental protections, while handing concessions to the extractive and fossil fuel industries. It is, like so much that this administration and its lackeys do, straight out of Project 2025, the radical right wingโs roadmap for crushing democracy and turning America into a a corporate-run oligarchy.
Basically every public lands and environment related agency is getting its funding cut, not out of some sort of fiscal responsibility (Defense and Homeland Security are getting massive infusions of additional taxpayer funding), but because todayโs GOP is dead set on taking out their resentment on the planet and in offsetting a small portion of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. The only good news is that some of the cuts are less than what Trump asked for. Some examples:
The Bureau of Land Management would take aย $110.4 million cutย below fiscal year 2025โs level, or an 8% decrease.
The U.S. Geological Surveyโs budget will beย slashed by 5.6%, or $82 million.
The National Park Service will see itโs budgetย cut by about $176 million, a 6% decrease.
The Environmental Protection Agency will have its fundingย slashed by $2.12 billion, or a whopping 23%. That includes huge cuts to Science and Technology, Environmental Programs and Management, and State and Tribal Assistance Grants.
The U.S. Forest Serviceโs budget will beย reduced by $16.8 million.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Science will see aย budget cut of $27.9 million, or 35%.
Some good news: The Indian Health Service wouldย get a $182 million increaseunder the bill and the Bureau of Indian Affairs is getting about the same funding as last year, in defiance of Trumpโs request to slash its budget by more than 30%.
Also taking deep cuts under the Interior et al appropriations bill: Smithsonian, National Gallery of Art, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Presidio Trustโs funding will be totally eliminated, after receiving $90 million last year. This could open the way for the Presidio to be developed or become a โFreedom City.โ
But this is more than just about bean counting. Itโs also a way for lawmakers to exert their will over federal agencies by way of funding.
For example, since the Trump administration has yet to shrink or eliminate any national monuments, congressional Republicans are doing some de facto national monument shrinkage of their own. The appropriation bill would freeze funding for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monumentโs new management plan, forcing the relevant agencies to revert back to the February 2020 plan enacted under the previous Trump administration and applying only to the vastly reduced, Trump I-era monument boundaries. This effectively voids Bidenโs restoration of the monumentโs original boundaries and trashes the new management plan and all of the work that went into it.
The GOPโs bill also would suffocate the BLMโs 2024 Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, aka the Public Lands Rule, which aims to put conservation on a par with drilling, mining, and grazing on public lands.
The appropriation bill is also a sort ofย MAGA love letter to the fossil fuel industry, including provisions such as:
Cutting off funding for โ and thereby killing โ the Biden administrationโs Fluid Mineral Leasing rule, which increased oil and gas royalty rates from 12.5% to 16.67% to reflect modern times and give taxpayers a slightly better deal; increased minimum leasing bids to $10 per acre; established an โexpression of interestโ fee for leases; eliminated non-competitive leasing; increased minimum reclamation bonds for oil and gas wells from $10,000 to $150,000 and eliminated blanket nationwide operator bonds. It also directed leasing towards areas with high oil and gas potential and away from more sensitive cultural, wildlife, and recreation resources. In other words: All very common sense, some might say watered-down, provisions.
Cutting off funding for and killing the Biden administrationโs methane fee aimed at incentivizing oil producers to sell natural gas โ a byproduct of oil drilling โ on the market rather than simply venting or flaring the potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. The bill would also eliminate the greenhouse gas reporting system for the oil and gas industry.
Mandating quarterly oil and gas leases on public lands in nine states (WY, NM, CO, UT, MT, ND, OK, NV, AK) and expanding the definition of lands eligible for leasing.
Cutting off all funding for the Biden administrationโs environmental protections in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Cuts off funding for a 2024 coal combustion waste disposal rule that had been in the works for decades as part of an effort to tackle one of the nationโs largest and nastiest solid waste streams.
The GOP isnโt too fond of wildlife. The bill takes aim at numerous endangered species โ from the lesser prairie chicken and grizzly, to the gray wolf, wolverine, and long-eared bat โ and blocks funding for bans or restrictions on lead ammunition, even though thatโs a leading killer of condors and some birds of prey.
Iโve been really curious about how the Trump administrationโs policy chaos might affect visitation at national parks. Would the threat to privatize public lands through various means (from selling it off to turning reservation systems over to private concessionaires) inspire folks to get to their parks while theyโre still around? Would the administrationโs hostility towards non-Americans (tariffs and trade wars, deportations) keep international tourists at bay? Or would the declining value of the U.S. dollar bring more foreign tourists to America?
Weโre six months in to this nightmare โฆ er โฆ administration, and there arenโt any obvious trends in the year-to-date visitation statistics. A lot of parks have actually seen an increase in visitation over the last couple of years so far. Drill down a bit, however, and something else becomes apparent: While visitation was unusually high in the winter and spring in Zion, Grand Canyon, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Chaco Canyon, and other parks, it dropped off relative to previous years in May and June.
This may be due to heat and drought, but it also may be tied to the drop in international tourism into the U.S. Federal data show that incoming international air travel during the first half of the year is down 3.6% from the same period last year. (Meanwhile, more U.S. citizens are flying overseas, despite the weak U.S. dollar. Perhaps they are fleeing something?).
Iโve always been interested in visitation patterns at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, as well. It seems like it used to correlate with water levels: No one wants to visit Lake Powell when many of the boat ramps are high and dry, the shores are mudflats, and Rainbow Bridge isnโt accessible by boat. Or thatโs what I used to think. But more recently it seems that visitation rates are driven by other factors, perhaps because people are coming to the recreation area for different reasons, such as the spectacular landscape that surrounds the reservoir.
That said, visitation this year is down again along with the water levels.
Yes, the Department of Energyโs social media account did tweet this stupidity, Iโm sorry to say.
๐คฏ Annals of Inanity ๐คก
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb โฆ One of the many, many stupid, ugly provisions in the Big Beautiful (I cringe every time I write it) law was a royalty reduction for coal production on federal lands. The rate has been at 12.5% for about a century. If you think of that as the wholesale price that Peabody, Arch, Oxbow, and other corporations have been paying to purchase Americansโ coal, then you could say they are marking the product up by about 800%.
It seems like a pretty good deal for the corporations โ and a crappy one for us taxpayers. But it wasnโt enough, apparently, so the Republicans lowered the royalty rate to a measly 7%. And just so you understand, this isnโt just for new coal leases, itโs for all existing and future coal leases on public lands and for the publicโs coal.
What that means is that all of those coal mines in the Powder River Basin, Colorado, and Utah are now paying the federal government only about 56% as much as they paid before the bill was signed into law. So that means if production levels remain flat and coal prices remain steady โ which is not a given โ then the federal government will bring in about $250 million from coal royalties this year, which is about $200 million less than last year. What about that is fiscally responsible, may I ask?
But hereโs the kicker: The states where the coal is mined get 50% of that royalty revenue back. This means Wyoming will receive something like $50 million less per year from coal royalties, according to aย report by Wyoming Public Radioโs Caitlin Tan. Thatโs My estimates say Wyoming could take an even bigger hit of more like $80 million annually, depending on the price of coal and production levels. Thatโs $50 million to $80 million less for the state to spend on schools, public services, roads, and so forth. Heck, it may even spur Wyoming to finally implement a corporate and individual income tax!
Federal coal royalty revenues from calendar year 2024. This is from a 12.5% royalty rate. Congressional Republicans just dropped it to 7%, meaning the taxpayers are going to be shorted about $200 million per year.
The pushers of this plan claim to be doing it to boost production, which would then offset some of the losses. But thatโs not how it works. Coal mines arenโt going to produce more just because itโs cheaper to do so; they produce more when demand goes up. Production will remain the same or, more likely, drop, since fewer and fewer utilities are interested in burning coal. The corporations will make more profit. Everyone else will get screwed.
Center pivot in the San Luis Valley. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
July 20, 2025
Center, as its name implies, lies at the center of the San Luis Valley. The valley is among the nationโs two most prominent places for growing potatoes. Among the growers is a fourth-generation family operation, Aspen Produce LLC.
Jake Burris married into the family. In addition to spuds, the family grows barley and alfalfa on 3,500 acres. Some neighboring farmers also grow canola. Burris is president of the board of managers of one of six subdistricts in the San Luis Valleyโs Rio Grande Water Conservation District. His subdistrict โ called Subdistrict No. 1 โ was formed in 2006 in response to a declining water table. Whatโs known as the unconfined aquifer supports this area, the most agriculturally productive in the San Luis Valley. With just seven inches of annual precipitation, irrigation in the San Luis Valley is everything. And in Subdistrict 1, much of that water comes from 3,617 wells..
Alfalfa grown is quite thirsty, but potatoes get grown on much larger areas of the Rio Grande Water Conservancy District. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Alfalfa is the thirstiest crop, using 24 to 36 inches of water to get three cuttings. The strong sunshine and cooler temperatures found above elevations of 7,000 feet produce a high-quality hay that draws orders from dairies as far as California. Alfalfa is grown on 21,100 acres in the district. Potatoes cover 51,100 acres. Barley is grown on 28,000 acres. Some have replaced barley with rye. Several thousand acres have together been devoted to canola, lettuce, and other crops. A recent census found about 25,000 acres had been fallowed.
The San Luis Valley has two primary aquifers. Lower in the ground, separated by relatively impermeable beds of clay from what lies above, is the confined aquifer. The first well into the confined aquifer was bored in 1887. Because of the pressures underground, it was an artesian well. No pumping was needed to bring water to the surface. Louis Carpenter, a professor at the Colorado Agriculture College (now Colorado State University), estimated the valley had 2,000 artesian wells when he visited in 1891.
The unconfined aquifer lies above the confined aquifer. The unconfined aquifer existed prior to major water development in the valley but water volumes rose greatly when farms began using Rio Grande water in the 1880s. Four ditches deliver Rio Grande water to the farms and hence to the aquifer. Introduction of high-capacity pumps in the 1950s and center-pivot sprinklers in the 1970s accelerated groundwater extraction. In 1972, the state engineer imposed a moratorium on new wells from the confined aquifer, followed in 1981 by a moratorium on new wells in the unconfined aquifer. These moratoria acknowledge that groundwater drafting had to be limited.
Then came 2002, hot and dry, escalating the challenge. Impact to the unconfined aquifer was drastic with rising temperatures causing growing water demand even as snowpack declined.
The unconfined aquifer โhas been dropping overall since about 2002,โ says Craig Cotten, the Colorado Division of Water Resources engineer for Division 3, which encompasses the San Luis Valley. โWe just have not had a real good series of years as far as the surface water.โ
In 2004, state legislators passed a law that sets the San Luis Valleyโs aquifers apart from those of the Republican River and Denver Basin groundwater stories. That law, SB04-222, explicitly orders both the confined and unconfined aquifers in the San Luis Valley be managed for sustainability. The Colorado law governing the Denver Basin aquifers requires a โslow sipโ but does not imagine sustainability. In the Republican River Basin, no law speaks to sustainability. There, only the interstate compact insists upon limits.
San Luis Valley Groundwater
Hereโs another difference. Water from aquifers create the Republican River and its tributaries. In the south-metro area, surface streams cause little recharge to the Denver Basin aquifers. In the San Luis Valley, the Rio Grande as well as some surface streams coming off the San Juans contribute water to both the unconfined and confined aquifers. The hydrogeology is more complex.
This 2004 law also encouraged the formation of groundwater subdistricts within the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. The thinking was that very local groups of farmers could work together to figure out how to keep their portions of the aquifers sustainable. They could also be more effective in this pursuit by working together than doing so individually.
Six subdistricts have been created in the Rio Grande Water Conservation District and one in the Trinchera Water Conservancy District. Subdistrict No. 1 began operations in 2012 after the state approved its operating plan.
All these groundwater districts have the goal of reducing water consumption as necessary to replenish the aquifers or by introducing water into the aquifer from the Rio Grande or other sources.
Agriculture constitutes nearly the entire economy of the San Luis Valley. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Exactly how much restoration of the aquifers is needed? The state law specified a return to volumes that approximate those of 1976 to 2001 in the confined aquifer. But thereโs some guesswork about how much water the confined aquifer had then. Detailed records on Subdistrict No. 1 were not kept until 1976.
In August 2024 the unconfined aquifer in Subdistrict 1 was estimated to have averaged almost 1.2 million acre-feet less water during the five preceding years than it had in 1976. The rules approved by the Colorado Supreme Court in 2011 in a document called the Plan for Water Management call for the unconfined aquifer recovery within 200,000 to 400,000 acre-feet of where it was in 1976. That would be deemed sustainable, as ordered by the 2004 law.
To achieve this, the state engineer said that Subdistrict No. 1 would need to recover 170,000 acre-feet each year between now and 2031. Initially, Subdistrict No. 1 aimed to take 40,000 acres out of irrigation per year, or about 80,000 acre-feet of annual groundwater pumping, to allow the unconfined aquifer to recover. That goal is unattainable, say water officials, and hence a rethink is needed. Success has occurred, though. In 2024, for example, roughly 176,000 acre-feet were pumped from the confined and unconfined aquifers in Subdistrict No. 1, the fewest since groundwater metering began in 2009. Thatโs about a 30% reduction.
More sustained success will be necessary. โYou donโt recover that unconfined aquifer through single years of good runoff,โ says Ullmann, the state engineer. โThere are difficult decisions that have to be made in order to recover and restore the aquifers, but thatโs what these subdistricts are trying to do.โ
Unlike the Republican River Basin, the unconfined aquifer in the San Luis Valley is fed water diverted from the Rio Grande, seen here at Monte Vista, and into irrigation canals. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
This success is at least partly due to efforts to modify irrigation practices and taking land out of production. Amber Pacheco, deputy general manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, explains that itโs difficult to quantify the reductions.
โSome farmers, for example, have simply reduced the number of alfalfa cuttings (and hence the irrigation required), for example. Or they only irrigate when they need to do so. Others have changed the cover crops planted after a potato harvest to reduce the amount of water needed.โ
As in the Republican River District, local efforts to take land out of production use the foundation of federal programs, particularly CREP, or Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. The subdistrict provides 20% of funds and the federal government 80%.
As did the Republican district in 2022, the Rio Grande district got an additional $30 million allocation of federal money funneled through the state. That money allows $3,000 in payment per acre-foot of curtailed groundwater use.
More must be done to recover the aquifer. The current proposal assembled by Burris and other directors of Subdistrict No. 1, their fourth iteration, would require aquifer recharge as a condition of pumping on a one-to-one basis. Water for recharge would come from water secured from the Rio Grande or native flows into the unconfined aquifer. This new plan allows subdistrict members with surface water credits to pump from the aquifer, because they are resupplying it.
The pumping allowed under the plan would be cut drastically. The Rio Grande district does not have authority to shut down wells, but it does have authority to assess fees for over-pumping. That fee stands at $150 per acre-foot. The plan would elevate that to $500. And, if aquifer recovery is not achieved, it would rise to $1,000.
Ultimately, the state engineer has authority to curtail wells that do not provide replacement water pursuant to an approved groundwater management plan or some other augmentation plan.
Some farmers in the subdistrict disagree with this plan. Opponents banded together as the Sustainable Water Augmentation Group, or SWAG, and filed a lawsuit to block implementation of the plan. A five-week trial has been scheduled for early 2026. Nobody expects that courtโs decision to be the end of it. Whoever loses might well appeal the decision to the Colorado Supreme Court, a process likely to continue into 2028.
Might the problem of the depleted unconfined aquifer be resolved by diverting more water from the Rio Grande? The river has long been over-appropriated. This year, for example, rights junior to 1880 were being curtailed in May. As with the Republican River, water must be allowed to flow downstream as required by the Rio Grande Compact.
For the unconfined aquifer to recover quickly, Mother Nature would need to quickly step up. โIt would take multiple years of above-average flows [in the Rio Grande] to recover to the level that we need,โ says Pacheco. In fact, 19 of the last 20 years have been sub-average as compared to 1970 to 2000. This yearโs runoff in mid-May was forecast to be 61% of the average from 1890 through 2024.
Part IV: โItโs like the clock is ticking when it comes to sustainability,โ said Rod Lenz, chair of the Republican River Water Conservation District, at a recent board meeting. This and other parting thoughts about the three groundwater basins examined in this story. Also, a study is underway to provide a better estimate of the groundwater remaining in Baca County.You can also download the entire story here in a magazine format.
This U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) week saw improvement in drought-related conditions across areas of the Southeast, South, Midwest, central and northern Plains, Intermountain West, and Desert Southwest, where short-term precipitation accumulations (past 30-day period) have helped to improve drought-related conditions. For the week, the most significant rainfall accumulations were observed across northern Kansas and areas of the Midwest including Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana where accumulations ranged from 3 to 10+ inches, with the highest accumulations observed in northeastern Kansas. On the map, improving conditions over the past 30 to 60 days led to reduction in areas of drought in the Plains states, Kansas to North Dakota, as well as across drought-affected areas across the Midwest. Elsewhere, short-term dryness led to widespread expansion of areas of Abnormally Dry (D0) across the Southeast states including the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle. In the South, drought conditions continued to improve in Texas, including in the Trans-Pecos region in western Texas where short and mid-term composite drought indicators are showing improving conditions in terms of precipitation, soil moisture, and vegetation health. In the West, conditions were generally dry regionally, however, some isolated monsoon thunderstorms provided a much-needed boost in moisture (2 to 3 inch accumulations during the past week) to drought-affected areas of east-central and southeastern Arizona as well as lesser accumulations observed in central and northern Arizona. In terms of reservoir storage in the West, Californiaโs reservoirs continue to be at or above historical averages for the date (July 22), with the stateโs two largest reservoirs, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville, at 105% and 117% of average, respectively. In the Southwest, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is reporting (July 21) Lake Powell at 31% full (47% of average for the date), Lake Mead at 31% full (52%), and the total Colorado system (July 20) at 39% of capacity (compared to 45% of capacity the same time last year)…
On this weekโs map, improvements were made in the region, namely in central northern Kansas, southeastern Nebraska, and South Dakota, where shorter-term precipitation (past 30-60 days) was normal to above normal. Additionally, these areas were showing improvements in other drought indicators including soil moisture, streamflow activity, and crop-related vegetation health indices. Conversely, conditions degraded on the map in areas of central South Dakota as well as in northern North Dakota, where dry conditions have prevailed during the past 30 to 60 days. For the week, light-to-heavy rainfall accumulations (ranging from 1 to 10 inches) were observed, with the heaviest amounts impacting northern Kansas and southeastern Nebraska. Below-normal average temperatures (ranging from 1 to 8 degrees F) were logged across most of the entire region…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending July 22, 2025.
Out West, generally dry conditions prevailed over much of the region with the exception of isolated areas of the Four Corners states, which observed monsoon-related thunderstorm activity with accumulations ranging from 1 to 4 inches. The storms led to targeted improvements on the map in Arizona. Likewise, isolated areas of the Pacific Northwest and eastern Plains of Montana and Wyoming observed isolated shower activity with accumulations generally of < 2 inches. On the map, persistent dry conditions led to expansion of areas of drought in southeastern Idaho, western Wyoming, and in eastern and southwestern Montana. For the week, average temperatures were mainly below normal with anomalies ranging from 2 to 10 degrees F and the greatest departures logged were observed in eastern Montana…
On this weekโs map, improvements were made in the Hill Country and Trans-Pecos regions of Texas in response to improving conditions during the past 30-90 days. In these regions, targeted improvements were made in all drought categories (D1-D4). In Tennessee, a mix of degradations and improvements were made on the map in isolated areas of central and eastern Tennessee. For the week, average temperatures were generally above normal in eastern areas of the region, with anomalies ranging from 2 to 8 degrees F. Conversely, the western extent of the region, including much of Texas and Oklahoma, experienced temperatures ranging from 1 to 5 degrees F below normal. Texas reservoirs are reported to be 80% full, with many in the eastern part of the state in good condition (over 90% full), while numerous others in the western portion of the state continue to experience below-normal levels, according to Water Data for Texas (July 23). In terms of streamflow activity (July 23), the U.S. Geological Survey is reporting well above normal streamflows (>90th percentile) across areas of central and eastern Texas, eastern Oklahoma, and north-central Tennessee, while areas of the Texas Gulf Coast and South Texas Plains, northern Louisiana, and southern Mississippi are experiencing below normal levels (1st to 24th percentile range)…
Looking Ahead
The NWS Weather Prediction Center (WPC) 7-Day Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF) calls for relatively dry conditions across the western U.S., areas of the South, and southern Plains. Elsewhere, light-to-moderate accumulations are expected across areas of the central and northern Plains, Northeast, and the Gulf Coast region of the South and Southeast. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) 6-10-day outlooks call for a moderate-to-high probability of above-normal temperatures across most of the conterminous U.S. with the exception of portions of California and Maine where below-normal temperatures are forecasted. In terms of precipitation, there is a low-to-moderate probability of above-normal precipitation across the Pacific Northwest, northern portions of the Intermountain West, central and northern Plains, Gulf Coast region, and much of the Eastern Seaboard…
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending July 22, 2025.
Ozzy Osbourne, who achieved enormous success as a pioneer of two wildly popular entertainment genres, heavy metal music and reality television, died on Tuesday. He was 76. His family announced the death in a statement, which did not say where he died or specify a cause. He had been treated in recent years for a variant of Parkinsonโs disease that he identified as Parkinsonism or Parkin 2, a condition exacerbated by his chronic drug abuse. Although Mr. Osbourne repeatedly announced his retirement over the years โ he called a series of live dates in 1992 the โNo More Toursโ tour and a 2018 series โNo More Tours IIโ โ he gave his final concert this month, at a festival in his hometown, Birmingham, England, in his honor. Seated on a black throne, visibly moved by the enthusiasm of the crowd, he closed out his career by reuniting the original lineup of his heavy metal group Black Sabbath…As the lead singer of Black Sabbath, Mr. Osbourne was one of the inventors of heavy metal. As a solo artist, he became a remarkably durable star, with 13 platinum albums and the nickname โPrince of Darkness.โ But he achieved even wider fame for his rock โnโ roll excess, including an onstage incident in which he bit the head off a bat…
โAll the stuff onstage, the craziness, itโs all just a role that I play, my work,โ Mr. Osbourne insisted in an interview with The New York Times in 1992. โI am not the Antichrist. I am a family man.โ
[…]
Born John Michael Osbourne in Birmingham on Dec. 3, 1948, he was the fourth of six children of John Thomas Osbourne, a toolmaker who worked the night shift at a power plant, and Lillian (Levy) Osbourne, who worked the day shift at an auto-parts factory. The Osbournes were crammed into a small working-class home; when Ozzy was young, it had no indoor plumbing. An indifferent student with undiagnosed dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, Ozzy dropped out of school at age 15 and had a series of short-lived jobs, including 18 months at a local slaughterhouse. After he was fired from that job (for fighting), he had a brief career as a burglar; when he was arrested, his father declined to pay the fine, and Ozzy spent three months in prison, which led him to abandon his criminal ambitions.
Companies feared rules and lawsuits based on the Office of Research and Developmentโs assessments of the dangers of formaldehyde, ethylene oxide and other substances.
Soon after President Donald Trump took office in January, a wide array of petrochemical, mining and farm industry coalitions ramped up what has been a long campaign to limit use of the Environmental Protection Agencyโs assessments of the health risks of chemicals.
That effort scored a significant victory Friday when EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced his decision to dismantle the agencyโs Office of Research and Development (ORD).
The industry lobbyists didnโt ask for hundreds of ORD staff members to be laid off or reassigned. But the elimination of the agencyโs scientific research arm goes a long way toward achieving the goal they sought.
In a January 27 letter to Zeldin organized by the American Chemistry Council, more than 80 industry groupsโincluding leading oil, refining and mining associationsโasked him to end regulatorsโ reliance on ORD assessments of the risks that chemicals pose for human health. The future of that research, conducted under EPAโs Integrated Risk Information System program, or IRIS, is now uncertain.
โEPAโs IRIS program within ORD has a troubling history of being out of step with the best available science and methods, lacking transparency, and being unresponsive to peer review and stakeholder recommendations,โ said an American Chemistry Council spokesperson in an email when asked about the decision to eliminate ORD. โThis results in IRIS assessments that jeopardize access to critical chemistries, undercut national priorities, and harm American competitiveness.โ
The spokesperson said the organization supports EPA evaluating its resources to ensure tax dollars are being used efficiently and effectively.
H. Christopher Frey, an associate dean at North Carolina State University who served as EPA assistant administrator in charge of ORD during the Biden administration, defended the quality of the science done by the office, which he said is โthe poster case study of what it means to do science thatโs subject to intense scrutiny.โ
โThereโs industry with a tremendous vested interest in the policy decisions that might occur later on,โ based on the assessments made by ORD. โWhat the industry does is try to engage in a proxy war over the policy by attacking the science.โ
Among the IRIS assessments that stirred the most industry concern were those outlining the dangers of formaldehyde, ethylene oxide, arsenic and hexavalent chromium. Regulatory actions had begun or were looming on all during the Biden administration.
The Biden administration also launched a lawsuit against a LaPlace, Louisiana, plant that had been the only U.S. manufacturer of neoprene, Denka Performance Elastomer, based in part on the IRIS assessment of one of its air pollutants, chloroprene, as a likely human carcinogen. Denka, a spinoff of DuPont, announced it was ceasing production in May because of the cost of pollution controls.
Public health advocates charge that eliminating the IRIS program, or shifting its functions to other offices in the agency, will rob the EPA of the independent expertise to inform its mission of protection.
โTheyโve been trying for years to shut down IRIS,โ said Darya Minovi, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists and lead author of a new study on Trump administration actions that the group says undermine science. โThe reason why is because when IRIS conducts its independent scientific assessments using a great amount of rigor โฆ you get stronger regulations, and that is not in the best interest of the big business polluters and those who have a financial stake in the EPAโs demise.โ
The UCS report tallied more than 400 firings, funding cuts and other attacks on science in the first six months of the Trump administration, resulting in 54 percent fewer grants for research on topics including cancer, infectious disease and environmental health.
EPAโs press office did not respond to a query on whether the IRIS controversy helped inform Zeldinโs decision to eliminate ORD, which had been anticipated since staff were informed of the potential plan at a meeting in March. In the agencyโs official announcement Friday afternoon, Zeldin said the elimination of the office was part of โorganizational improvementsโ that would deliver $748.8 million in savings to taxpayers. The reduction in force, combined with previous departures and layoffs, have reduced the agencyโs workforce by 23 percent, to 12,448, the EPA said.
With the cuts, the EPAโs workforce will be at its lowest level since fiscal year 1986.
โUnder President Trumpโs leadership, EPA has taken a close look at our operations to ensure the agency is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment while Powering the Great American Comeback,โ Zeldin said in the prepared statement. โThis reduction in force will ensure we can better fulfill that mission while being responsible stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars.โ
The agency will be creating a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions; a report by E&E News said an internal memo indicated the new office would be much smaller than ORD, and would focus on coastal areas, drinking water safety and methodologies for assessing environmental contamination.
Zeldinโs announcement also said that scientific expertise and research efforts will be moved to โprogram officesโโfor example, those concerned with air pollution, water pollution or wasteโto tackle โstatutory obligations and mission essential functions.โ That phrase has a particular meaning: The chemical industry has long complained that Congress never passed a law creating IRIS. Congress did, however, pass many laws requiring that the agency carry out its actions based on the best available science, and the IRIS program, established during President Ronald Reaganโs administration, was how the agency has carried out the task of assessing the science on chemicals since 1985.
Justin Chen, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, the union representing 8,000 EPA workers nationwide, said the organizational structure of ORD put barriers between the agencyโs researchers and the agencyโs political decision-making, enforcement and regulatory teamsโeven though they all used ORDโs work.
โFor them to function properly, they have to have a fair amount of distance away from political interference, in order to let the science guide and develop the kind of things that they do,โ Chen said.
โTheyโre a particular bugbear for a lot of the industries which are heavy donors to the Trump administration and to the right wing,โ Chen said. โTheyโre the ones, I believe, who do all the testing that actually factors into the calculation of risk.โ
ORD also was responsible for regularly doing assessments that the Clean Air Act requires on pollutants like ozone and particulate matter, which result from the combustion of fossil fuels.
Frey said a tremendous amount of ORD work has gone into ozone, which is the result of complex interactions of precursor pollutants in the atmosphere. The open source computer modeling on ozone transport, developed by ORD researchers, helps inform decision-makers grappling with how to address smog around the country. The Biden administration finalized stricter standards for particulate matter in its final year based on ORDโs risk assessment, and the Trump administration is now undoing those rules.
The House budget, though not as severe as the White Houseโs, proposes a 25 percent cut to the main source of federal funding forย local water systems.
Senate approves Trumpโs $9.4 billion in cuts toย public broadcasting and foreign aid.
Otherย water bills in Congressย include tribal water infrastructure funding, sinkhole monitoring, microplastics, and Great Lakes fisheries.
Bureau of Reclamation announces $200 million forย water recycling projectsย in two western states.
EPA delays requirements to monitor groundwater atย coal ashย dumps.
Before taking summer break, Congress will holdย hearingsย this week on fossil fuel pipeline safety, rising electricity demand, FEMA improvement, and NEPA reviews.
And lastly, Congressโs watchdog finds NRCS could improve its dam safety approach.
โWhile requests greatly exceeded the funding available for projects, we did our best to provide some funding for all eligible projects given the impact these dollars will have in communities across the country.โ Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID), speaking about water infrastructure earmarks in his committeeโs 2026 budget proposal.
By the Numbers
$200 Million: Bureau of Reclamation funding announced for two water reuse projects in the western states. Phoenix will receive $179 million for its North Gateway project, which will produce 8 million gallons of recycled water a day. Washington County Water Conservancy District, which encompasses high-growth St. George in southwest Utah, will see more than $20 million for its regional recycled water system. The final cost for that system is expected at more than $1 billion.
News Briefs
House Proposes Water Cuts In its draft fiscal year 2026 budget, a House Appropriations subcommittee proposes a 25 percent combined cut to the state revolving funds, the main source of federal funding for local water systems.
The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund would be funded at $895 million, down from $1.1 billion. The Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which is for sewer and stormwater projects, would be funded at $1.2 billion, compared to $1.6 billion in 2025.
Though not as deep as President Trumpโs proposal of a 90 percent cut, the budget proposal still drew criticism from water utility groups, who would prefer federal assistance be maintained or increased.
Combined, half of the appropriated funds would be redirected as earmarks to specific projects. This action pulls money out of circulation in the revolving funds, which grow as utilities repay interest. Water groups worry that if Congress continues down this path of carving out earmarks from the revolving funds the viability of the funds will be at risk.
Delaying Coal Ash Compliance The EPA granted states and utilities more time to meet federal rules for cleaning up waste pits at coal-fired power plants that pollute groundwater and rivers.
Groundwater monitoring requirements will not be mandatory until August 2029, according to the new timeline. It is a 15-month extension.
Senate Approves Foreign Aid, Public Broadcasting Cuts Joining the House, the Senate endorsed the presidentโs desire to cut $9.4 billion in already approved spending on public broadcasting and foreign aid.
Reuters details the on-the-ground fallout from U.S. foreign aid cuts, documenting 21 water projects that were abandoned before completion.
Other Water Bills in Congress Besides the budget, members introduced bills on microplastics, tribal water access, and sinkholes.
Representatives from Florida and Oregon introducedย a bipartisan billย in both chambers that would require a federal study on the damage to human health from microplastics in food and water.
The House Natural Resources Committee approvedย a billย to reauthorize a federal research program for Great Lakes fisheries.
The House passedย a billย to establish within the U.S. Geological Survey a sinkhole mapping and risk assessment program.
Democrats in the House and Senate introduced theย Tribal Access to Clean Water Act, a bill that would increase funding authorizations for a number of federal programs that invest in water infrastructure and technical assistance on tribal lands. The largest chunk would be directed to the Indian Health Service, authorized at $500 million annually through 2030 for sanitation facilities. Even if the bill were to pass, Congress would still need to appropriate the money.
Studies and Reports
Dam Safety The Government Accountability Office reviewed the Natural Resources Conservation Serviceโs approach to dam safety.
The report found that NRCS could improve in several areas. For one, the agency does not monitor completion of dam inspections with its local project sponsors.
Also, the agency is missing data on the condition of the dams, even those that are rated high-hazard and threaten lives and property downstream if they fail.
NRCS helped to plan, design, and construct nearly 12,000 dams.
On the Radar
Congressional Hearings A few hearings on tap this week before the representatives take summer break.
On July 22, the House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on NEPA reviews, which agencies are beginning to shorten.
That same day, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing on fossil fuel pipeline safety. This week marks the 15th anniversary of one of the nationโs largest inland oil spills. In July 2010, an Enbridge pipeline ruptured near Marshall, Michigan, spilling more than 843,000 gallons of oil into local waterways.
Also on July 22, the House Appropriations Committee will vote on the fiscal year 2026 budget bill for EPA and Interior.
Cybersecurity Webinar for Water Utilities The EPA and the federal governmentโs cybersecurity agency will hold a free webinar for water utilities on cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
The webinar is July 24 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. Register here.
Federal Water Tap is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.
Unlike the sparsely populated Republican River Basin, the south metro area of the Denver Basin has large and still-growing cities. Most of the south metro area lies within Douglas County, whose population ballooned between 1980 and 2025 from 25,200 to nearly 400,000.
Castle Rock, the countyโs largest city, has 87,000 residents. Based on approved development, the city expects to grow to a population of 120,000 to 140,000. Parker, the second largest city, has 68,000 residents and has zoning for 80,000. Utilities serving these two cities in 2005 were almost 100% dependent upon extractions from the underlying Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe and Laramie-Fox Hills aquifers. Both cities as well as other jurisdictions have lessened their dependence, but they have much work to do.
How much water remains? Thatโs not an easy answer to deliver, as a consultant told the Castle Rock City Council in 2005. A council member asked him: โJust how much water remains?โ Perhaps leery of trying to offer easy answers that required a half-hour explanation, he simply smiled and said: โItโs dark down there.โ
That absence of total certainty was at the heart of a Colorado Supreme Court decision handed down in late 2024. Parker Water and Sanitation District, Castle Rock Water and others had squared off in water court beginning in 2021 with the Colorado Division of Water Resources. Parker Water has 33 wells that are 515 to 2,745 feet deep. State-issued permits for the newest five wells limit the volumes to what could be withdrawn during 100 years at a rate of 1% a year. Parker Water and several other south-metro jurisdictions disputed the stateโs authority to attach this stipulation.
The stipulation was premised on a 1973 law in which state legislators ordered a โslow sipโ of Denver Basin aquifers. Later legislation and rulemaking clarified that withdrawals were not to exceed 1% of total recoverable water in that portion underlying the land of the permitteeโs well in any given year.
Castle Rock believes it has underlying water in the Denver Basin aquifers to satisfy its needs for 300 years but is also making efforts to reduce per-capita use while also diversifying sources. It has 87,000 residents now but expects to grow to between 120,000 and 140,000. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
This dispute is about the future. When the cities reach those 100-year limits and the total volumetric limits associated with their wells, will they be able to continue pumping. Must they cease pumping even if water remains in the aquifer?
Aurora, which lies within a half-mile of Parker Water wells, argued its water rights could be harmed if Parker pumped more than the total volume of water found to be available for its wells.
Itโs crucial to understand that water underground knows no property lines, no signs saying โWelcome to Parker.โ Water could, in theory, flow from below Auroraโs land to Parkerโs wells. Underground, there are no fences.
Colorado Supreme Court justices, in their November 2024 majority opinion, warned of a โrace to the bottom of the aquifer, with earlier permittees receiving a significant head start.โ What would happen if Parker Water, Castle Rock Water and others had their druthers? โAbsent a total volumetric limit, a permittee who continues to pump at the maximum permitted rate for more than 100 years would end up pulling water to its well that would not otherwise be underlying its land,โ said the justices in their majority opinion.
In his dissent, Justice Brian Boatright came to the opposite conclusion, siding with the south-metro jurisdictions.
A study by the U.S. Geological Survey published in 2011 used a model that found 1% to 2% of precipitation becomes water in the bedrock aquifers and 7% in the alluvial aquifer. For urban irrigation, such as at the Watercolor subdivision in Castle Rock, 2.5 inches of water makes it back to underlying aquifers each year. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Some south-metro entities may seek state legislation that reflects what they believe is the best policy. As it stands now, a permit-holder that has withdrawn the total volumetric amount identified on a well permit must cease pumping, says Jason Ullmann, the state engineer and director of the Colorado Division of Water Resources. He has authority to notify users in writing of their violations. Could he shut down wells? They would be given โtime as may reasonably be necessary to correct deficiencies,โ he says. But yes, they would be โsubject to enforcement.โ
Just how much water remains in the Denver Basin aquifers? The Division of Water Resources issues well permits, and in doing so, estimates the potential volume of water underlying the applicantโs parcel. But the state agency does not track changes in volume over time, nor does it track the amount of water that wells pump. It requires well owners to maintain pumping records.
When asked how much water remains in Castle Rockโs wells, Mark Marlowe, director of the cityโs water utility, suggested consultation of a hydrogeologist, perhaps from the U.S. Geological Survey. Pressed further, he said Castle Rockโs groundwater supply will last more than 300 years โfrom a legal standpointโ based on current rates of use.
The practical effect of the Supreme Court ruling on Castle Rock? Very little in the short term, Marlowe says. In 2005, Castle Rock set out to create a pathway to dramatically lessen groundwater dependence. โWeโve been headed down this road for a long time,โ he says. So why participate in Parkerโs lawsuit? Because, he replied, the city wants to make long-term use of its investment in groundwater extraction. And as a practical matter, the city commonly extracts less than the 1% allowed annually.
Marloweโs answer is not totally satisfying, but the work done by Castle Rock since 2005 must be acknowledged. It was 100% dependent on groundwater extraction then. It is adding new impoundments to store surface water, pumping water upstream from Chatfield Reservoir, and doubling the daily capacity for treating wastewater. Castle Rock already has lessened its dependence on groundwater to less than 69% over the last four years and Marlowe says heโs confident that by 2050 it will lessen to 25%.
Several of Castle Rockโs successes have involved working with other south-metro jurisdictions, including the Parker Water and Sanitation District. In 2013, when Ron Redd was hired by Parker Water as general manager, the utility was still 90% groundwater reliant. He was given a mission: transition to renewable sources.
A key project has been water reuse. Water introduced into the South Platte River from other basins or from groundwater can be reused. Aurora Water set out to do so in 2003. The $680 million Prairie Waters Project pumps water from the river-side aquifer near Fort Lupton to a reservoir in the southeast metropolitan area. From there, in 2010, Parker Water, Castle Rock and eight other south-metro communities joined Denver Water and Aurora Water in a partnership called WISE (Water Infrastructure and Supply Efficiency) to further manage infrastructure cooperatively and deliver the reclaimed water to their members.
Making this possible was a new 75,000-acre-foot impoundment called Rueter-Hess Reservoir. Completed in 2012, it is a core asset for Parker Water and three other utilities who share its use.
Jim Yahn, left, manager of the Prewitt Reservoir, which might become part of the Platte Valley Water Partnership, speaks with Ron Red, manager of Parker Water and Sanitation District, and Joe Frank, general manager of the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District, which is part of the proect. There is still hope that Prewitt would be part of the plan,โ says Yahn. โThe decree that Parker and Lower South Platte are seeking still has Prewitt Reservoir as a component of the plan.โ Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
The Platte Valley Water Partnership is even more ambitious. Parker Water and Castle Rock Water have joined with the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District.
They plan to detain South Platte River water that currently flows downstream into Nebraska during winter and spring runoff. The South Platte River Compact allows the use of this water. Little excess exists in many years, but when there is, such as in 2023, no place exists to store that water. The project plans to use Prewitt Reservoir and a new reservoir northwest of Akron in the capture and storage of those flows before pumping some of that water 125 miles to Rueter-Hess Reservoir.
Farmers will also have access to a cut of this โnewโ water โ with agricultural users receiving 50% of the captured water and municipalities receiving 50%. Construction is set to begin around 2035, at an anticipated cost of $780 million.
As of mid-July, itโs not clear how the Nebraska lawsuit against Colorado involving water for Nebraskaโs proposed Perkins Canal might affect this project.
A final important component of the path forward for the water utilities who mine Denver Basin aquifers lies in conservation, particularly for outdoor landscaping. The prevailing theme at one time was use as much as you want โ but pay for it. That thinking has shifted to limits and goals of reduced use.
Parker has reduced groundwater dependence to 60% and has goals to reduce it to 25%. Might that be achieved in tapping the aquifers of the San Luis Valley? The idea has provoked outrage for more than 30 years.
โThanks, but no thanks,โ is how Redd describes Parkerโs response to the idea of a lengthy straw sucking water from two river basins away.
โWe have our project, and financially it makes a lot more sense to go that route.โ
For that matter, the San Luis Valley aquifers have their own problems.
Part III: Declines in flows of the Rio Grande parallel those of the Colorado River during the 21st century. There were problems anyway for the potato and other growers around in the eponymously named San Luis Valley farm community of Center. Simply put, less water must be pumped from underground. Easier said than done. You can also download the entire story here in a magazine format.
Click the link to read the article on the High Country News website (Natalia Mesa):
July 1, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Courtโs 2023 decision on Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency dramatically weakened protections for millions of acres of the Westโs essential wetlands and streams. Under the ruling, only bodies of water with a โcontinuous surface connectionโ to a โrelatively permanentโ traditional, navigable water body can be legally considered part of the waters of the United States (WOTUS) and therefore covered by the Clean Water Act.
The courtโs definition excludes wetlands with belowground connections to bodies of water as well as those fed by ephemeral or intermittent streams. In effect, an estimated 60% of wetlands have lost federal protection, according to a National Resources Defense Council report. The language in the decision was ambiguous โ exactly how wet a wetland has to be to fall under WOTUS and qualify protections was left up to federal agencies.
Wetlands are critical to both human and ecosystem health as well as for climate change mitigation. But they are also prime targets for dredging, filling and other disruptions because of their proximity to water and rich, fertile soil.
Under President Biden, the EPA broadly interpreted Sackett, focusing on protecting wetlands adjacent to bodies of water, with no explicit threshold for how often they had to be flooded. In March, however, Donald Trumpโs EPA released a memoindicating that it plans to restrict all WOTUS, although itโs not yet clear by how much.
โThe current EPA seems to be using Sackett as a springboard to find any perceived ambiguities and narrow the definition of WOTUS further,โ said Julian Gonzalez, senior legislative counsel at Earthjustice.
In the absence of federal regulations, state dredge-and-fill permitting programs can protect wetlands, and California, Oregon and Washington all have broad protections for non-WOTUS wetlands and streams. And since the Sackett decision, Colorado and New Mexico have passed laws restoring clean water protections for waters excluded from WOTUS. โItโs a dereliction of duty on the federal governmentโs part by not appropriately protecting the waters of the U.S. and that leaves it up to the states to fill in those protections,โ said Rachel Conn, deputy director of Amigos Bravos, a New Mexico conservation organization.
The result is a patchwork of laws protecting the nationโs wetlands. But if more Western states were to emulate their neighborsโ efforts and take action, millions of acres of wetlands could be saved, even in the absence of strong federal protections.
National Resources Defense Council estimates are based on scenarios in which the federal government adopts two interpretations of Sackett that are supported by industry and some states: one, excluding wetlands adjacent to intermittent or ephemeral streams (bottom of range), and another, excluding wetlands that are not wet or flooded most of the year (top of range). According to legal experts, the EPAโs current guidance suggests that the administration will limit WOTUS significantly, excluding most wetlands. Alaska is excluded from this graph due to lack of data. Credit: Hannah Agosta/High Country News
Arizona
Wetland oversight is primarily conducted through the Surface Water Protection Program (SWPP), administered by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. House Bill 2691, passed in 2021 before Sackett, established the SWPP, which allows the state to protect some waters not covered under the Clean Water Act.
Wyoming
While Wyoming lacks a permitting program, it does bar the discharge of any pollution or wastes into its waters without a clean water permit. In addition, Wyoming established a Wetland Banking Fund before Sackett to encourage individuals and companies to preserve wetlands. It enables entities to bank wetland credits earned from wetland conservation projects and use them later to offset a developmentโs impacts on wetlands, with the goal of achieving โno net loss of wetland function and value in the state.โ
Colorado
Wetland protections are primarily governed by House Bill 24-1379, a law passed in 2024 that aims to restore Clean Water Act protections to state wetlands that lost them owing to Sackett. It establishes a state permitting program.
New Mexico
The Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Act (SB 21), which was signed into law on April 8, gives the state authority to regulate surface waters. It creates a statewide permitting program and addresses polluted groundwater that falls outside federal programs.
How wetlands work
Approximately 40% of species, including half of all federally listed species, rely on wetlands, which act like sponges for excess water, offering billions of gallons of flood protection and storing this water for later use. Their plants, roots and microbes filter pollution from drinking water and also store 20%-30% of the worldโs total soil carbon. But Western states have lost 50% of their wetlands since colonization, and roughly half of the regionโs remaining ones are degraded.
Illustrations by Hannah Agosta/High Country News
SOURCES: From Gold, 2024 in Science/Environmental Defense Fund, National Resources Defense Council, U.S. Fish and Wildlife National Wetlands Inventory, Wetlands International.
Blanca Wetlands, Colorado BLM-managed ACEC Blanca Wetlands is a network of lakes, ponds, marshes and wet meadows designated for its recreation and wetland values. The BLM Colorado and its partners have made strides in preserving, restoring and managing the area to provide rich and diverse habitats for wildlife and the public. To visit or get more information, see: http://www.blm.gov/co/st/en/fo/slvfo/blanca_wetlands.html. By Bureau of Land Management – Blanca Wetlands Area of Critical Environmental Concern, Colorado, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42089248
By measuring the gravitational pull of water for more than two decades, NASA satellites have peered beneath the surface and measured changes in the groundwater supplies of the Colorado River Basin for years 2002 to 2024. Credit NASA
By measuring the gravitational pull of water for more than two decades, NASA satellites have peered beneath the surface and measured changes in the groundwater supplies of the Colorado River Basin for years 2015 to 2024. Credit: NASA
By measuring the gravitational pull of water for more than two decades, NASA satellites have peered beneath the surface and measured changes in the groundwater supplies of the Colorado River Basin. In a recent analysis of the satellite data, Arizona State University researchers reported rapid and accelerating losses of groundwater in the basinโs underground aquifers between 2002 and 2024. Some 40 million people rely on water from the aquifers, which include parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
The basin lost about 27.8 million acre-feet of groundwater during the study period. โThatโs an amount roughly equal to the storage capacity of Lake Mead,โ said Karem Abdelmohsen, an associate research scientist at Arizona State University who authored the study.
About 68 percent of the losses occurred in the lower part of the basin, which lies mostly in Arizona. The research is based on data collected by the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) and GRACE-FO (GRACE Follow-On) missions. The data were integrated with output from land surface models, such as NASAโs North American Land Data Assimilation System, and in-situ precipitation data to calculate groundwater losses.
The conclusions were similar to those arrived at by Arizona State University Global Futures Professor Jay Famiglietti in an analysis of the Colorado River Basin published in 2014, when his team was at the University of California, Irvine. “If left unmanaged for another decade, groundwater levels will continue to drop, putting Arizonaโs water security and food production at far greater risk than is being acknowledged,โ said Famiglietti, previously a senior water scientist at NASAโs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the principal investigator of both studies.
The maps above underscore the accelerating rate of groundwater loss detected by the GRACE missions. In the first decade of the analysis, between 2002 and 2014, parts of the basin in western Arizona in La Paz and Mohave counties and in southeastern Arizona in Cochise County lost groundwater at a rate of about 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) per year. Between 2015 and 2024, the rate of groundwater loss more than doubled to 12 millimeters (0.5 inches) per year. [ed. emphasis mine]
1950 – 2023
Two key factors likely explain the acceleration, the researchers said. First, there was a global transition from one of the strongest El Niรฑos on record in 2014-2016 to a period when La Niรฑa reasserted control, including the arrival of a โtriple-dipโ La Niรฑa between 2020 and 2023. La Niรฑa typically shifts winter precipitation patterns in a way that reduces rainfall over the Southwest and slows the replenishment of aquifers.
Second, there was an increase in the amount of groundwater being used for agriculture. โ2014 was about the time that industrial agriculture took off in Arizona,โ Famiglietti said, noting that large alfalfa farms arrived in La Paz and other parts of southern Arizona around that time. Dairies and orchards in southeastern Arizona likely impacted groundwater supplies as well, he added. Other โthirstyโ crops grown widely in the state include cotton, corn, and pecans. Data from the U.S. Department of Agricultureโs Cropland Data Layer(CDL) shows that these crops are common in several parts of southern Arizona, including Maricopa, Pinal, and Cochise counties.
Irrigated agriculture consumes about 72 percent of Arizonaโs available water supply; cities and industry account for 22 percent and 6 percent, respectively, according to Arizona Department of Water Resources data. Many farms use what Famiglietti described as โvastโ amounts of groundwater in part because they use a water-intensive type of irrigation known as flood irrigation (or sometimes furrow irrigation), a technique where water is released into trenches that run through crop fields. The long-standing practice is typically the cheapest option and is widely used for alfalfa and cotton, but it can lead to more water loss and evaporation than other irrigation techniques, such as overhead sprinklers or dripping water from plastic tubing.
Captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, shows desert agriculture in La Paz and Maricopa counties on July 12, 2025. CDL data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicates that most of the rectangular fields around Vicksburg and Wenden are used to grow alfalfa, while the fields around Aguila are typically used for fruits and vegetables, such as melons, broccoli, and leafy greens. Some of the alfalfa fields in Butler Valley (upper part of the image) have gone fallow in recent years following the termination of leases due to concerns from the Arizona State Land Department about groundwater pumping.
The satellite image above, captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, shows desert agriculture in La Paz and Maricopa counties on July 12, 2025. CDL data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicates that most of the rectangular fields around Vicksburg and Wenden are used to grow alfalfa, while the fields around Aguila are typically used for fruits and vegetables, such as melons, broccoli, and leafy greens. Some of the alfalfa fields in Butler Valley (upper part of the image) have gone fallow in recent years following the termination of leases due to concerns from the Arizona State Land Department about groundwater pumping.
The new analysis found some evidence that managing groundwater can help keep Arizona aquifers healthier. For instance, the active management areas and irrigation non-expansion areas established as part of the Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980 lessened water losses in some areas. The designation of a new active management area in the Willcox Basin in 2025 will likely further slow groundwater losses. โStill, the bottom line is that the losses to groundwater were huge,โ Abdelmohsen said. โLots of attention has gone to low water levels in reservoirs over the years, but the depletion of groundwater far outpaces the surface water losses. This is a big warning flag.โ
NASA supports several missions, tools, and datasets relevant to water resource management. Among them is OpenET, a web-based platform that uses satellite data to measure how much water plants and soils release into the atmosphere. The tool can help farmers tailor irrigation schedules to actual water use by plants, optimizing โcrop per dropโ and reducing waste.
This is the first part of the series from the summer issue of Headwaters Magazine. Click the link to read the series on the Water Education Colorado website. Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
July 20, 2025
To understand the predicament in the Republican River Basin of eastern Colorado, you need to appreciate the volume of water being hoisted from the underlying High Plains Aquifer. The most important component is the Ogallala.
Farmers and the few small towns in the Republican River Basin average 720,000 acre-feet of withdrawals annually. In one hot and dry year, 2012, they pumped 940,000 acre-feet. As a point of reference, Blue Mesa Reservoir, the largest water body in the state, can hold 947,435 acre-feet.
Groundwater mining cannot be sustained far into the future in many areas of the Republican River Basin. Wells in some areas have not declined while wells in other areas have declined 13 feet during the last decade. Pumping at existing rates cannot be maintained. Within 25 years, about a third of land thatโs now irrigated will have no water. In other places, pumps already sputter.
โSustainableโ and โpumpingโ do not belong in the same sentence in this basin. The water of the Republican River Basin in the High Plains Aquifer accumulated from 18 to 4 million years ago.
Far from the snowmelt of the Rocky Mountains, it is recharged by minimal surface water. Based on studies, the Republican River Compact of Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas assumes that 17% of the water on the surface trickles down through the ground to the aquifers. So, only very slowly is the aquifer recharged. Itโs mostly an ancient bank account with now small, almost tiny deposits and fast-and-furious withdrawals.
The Republican River Basin and several other regions of the state rely largely on groundwater. In a 2024 decision, Colorado Supreme Court justices pointed out that it would be difficult to overstate the importance of groundwater given the stateโs population and arid climate. The 285,000 wells poked into the earth across the state deliver 18% of Coloradoโs water.
The Republican River Basin, the San Luis Valley, and the south metro area of the Denver Basin are all, to varying degrees, rethinking water โ both its sources and uses. All three have historically relied heavily on groundwater, and all have made at least limited progress in shifting toward more sustainable groundwater use in the last 20 years. The cities have adopted policies that foster smaller, less water-intensive lawns. They have diversified their sources. Two south-metro water utilities that 20 years ago pulled nearly all their water from wells, today have lessened that dependency to 60% to 65%.
Farmers in the Republican River Basin and San Luis Valley have somewhat different challenges. They have taken action to use less water and to save their communities, but whether those actions match the scale of the challenges they face is another matter. Changes can best be achieved before emergency sirens wail. In the Republican River Basin, some already see a swirl of red lights warning of catastrophe ahead.
Irrigation pipe and corn crop near Holyoke. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Itโs going fast! What needs to be done in the Republican River Basin?
The Republican River Basin consists of 7,000 square miles, an area slightly smaller than New Jersey. It is largely located within a triangle between Julesburg, Limon and Cheyenne Wells. A few businesses cater to travelers but agriculture constitutes nearly all of the basinโs economic foundation.
An average 17 inches of precipitation falls per year across the basin, less in some areas. High-dollar agriculture depends almost entirely upon water drawn from the Ogallala. A 2010 state report found that of the basinโs 600,000 acres then under irrigation, only 1,000 were supplied by surface water. Locals suggest the true number is far, far less.
Dryland farming prevailed until the arrival of high-capacity pumps and rural electrification in the late 1940s. Farmers in the 1950s began converting dryland areas to irrigation, dramatically expanding crop yields. Other farmers arrived to plow hitherto virgin turf. Twice in the 1970s, groundwater extraction exceeded a million acre-feet per year.
Drafting of groundwater via 5,000 wells today produces a bounty of herbaceous crops. Most end up in the bellies of livestock. Two feedlots near Yuma alone can each hold more than 150,000 cattle and several others can accommodate 75,000. The basin also has three hog farms, several dairies, and an ethanol plant.
Republican River Basin map. Credit: Republican River Compact Administration
In 1942, Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas allocated the waters of the Republican River and its tributaries in an interstate compact. The state engineer in 1973 ordered a moratorium on new wells. The most powerful limitation did not come until 1990. Rules were changed, reducing the allowed rate of depletion, effectively precluding new well permits.
Existing wells, however, were drawing down the aquifers in the Republican River Basin. Kansas in the 1990s complained that it was getting shorted by Nebraska. Nebraska in turn blamed Colorado. A 2002 settlement stipulation among the three states represented a new line in the sand. By whatever means, Colorado had to figure out how to deliver water to the downriver states.
Colorado responded by forming the Republican River Water Conservation District. In effect, the state gave farmers and others in the eight-county district responsibility for figuring out how to comply with the compact. To help achieve compliance, legislators gave the district authority to levy fees on irrigators. The fee, originally $5 per acre, has been boosted twice and is now $30 per acre annually.
The Ogallala is plumbed by many wells in the Republican River Basin within Colorado.
This $15 million in annual revenue is used in several ways. An early project was a pipeline to boost the amount of water flowing into Nebraska. The pipeline carries water from eight wells previously used for irrigation. They had been drilled amid hills with sugar-like sand between Wray and Holyoke in the deepest part of the aquifer. The water from these wells flows 12.6 miles through the pipeline and into the North Fork near the Nebraska border. The wells are pumped from October to April, ensuring minimal loss to evaporation or riverine trees or grasses.
This pipeline, since its completion in 2012, has allowed Colorado to meet its compact delivery requirements. The cost of the wells, pipeline, and water rights was $72 million. Faced with declining production from these wells, the district in 2025 is planning four more wells and 9.5 miles of pipe at an estimated cost of $14 million to deliver what the compact pledges to Nebraska.
With members and staff of the Republican River Water Conservation District looking on, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill in May 2023 that allocated $30 million to be used to retire irrigated acreage as necessary to meet a 2029 deadline. Photo/Office of Jared Polis
In another move toward compact compliance, Bonny Reservoir, a 165,238 acre-foot impoundment on the South Fork of the Republican, was drained. Prior to the 2011 draining, Bonny had delighted boaters and anglers but lost too much water to evaporation and seepage. Water now flows more efficiently downstream.
More actions were needed to ensure Nebraska and Kansas received their apportioned water. Beginning in 2006, Colorado removed 30,000 to 35,000 acres from irrigation. A multi-state agreement in 2016 specified that Colorado would remove an additional 25,000 acres in the South Fork drainage by 2029. Dick Wolfe, then Coloradoโs state engineer, was asked at the time how this was to be done. He paused a moment, then likened it to getting a haircut: a snip here, a snip there.
This snipping of irrigated acreage has been encouraged with financial incentives assembled from pots of local, state and federal funds. The money is delivered via two federal programs: the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The latter allows farmers to use the land for dryland farming or grazing.
By early 2025, the Republican River Water Conservation District had retired 17,120 of the 25,000 acres as required by the 2016 settlement. It was a milestone, a time for momentary celebration. The harder work lies ahead. Nearly 8,000 additional acres must be retired to meet the December 2029 deadline. If the goal is not met, the state engineer has authority to shut down wells. Nobody wants that, least of all the state engineer. To help sweeten the incentives in 2025, state legislators appropriated $6 million. This adds $750 to the $4,500 per acre paid to farmers participating in CREP and $750 to the $3,500 per acre in EQIP.
By June 2025, Bonny Reservoir had a forest of trees, but the water that had drawn boaters and anglers was drained in 2011. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Using less water is the paramount challenge. This has been accomplished almost exclusively by taking land out of irrigation. There are other ways, too. Today, corn is king, responsible for about 85% of irrigated acres in the basin. It commonly receives 20 to 22 inches of supplemental water. A growing realization of late has been that less can be more. Planting fewer seeds โ say 18,000 per acre instead of 30,000 โ will save money and require less fertilizer. Fewer seeds will then require only 12 to 14 inches of supplemental water, meaning less pumping and shaving electricity bills. Lower crop yields can counterintuitively produce better profit margins.
Conversations are also underway about water-conserving crop alternatives: milo, millet and wheat, kidney and pinto beans, even black-eyed peas. Itโs partly a matter of developing markets. Deb Daniel, the general manager of the district since 2011, has been toying with how to emphasize productivity strategies with the phrase โcrop per drop.โ
None of this adds up to the scale of the challenge, though.
Above: Most of the water in the Republican River comes from the aquifers, and by Wray, thereโs little in the river. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Republican River in Colorado January 2023 near the Nebraska border. During winter, water is pumped from wells north of Wray for delivery into the North Fork of the Republican at the Nebraska state line. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Kenny Helling, a fourth-generation farmer from the Idalia area of Yuma County, believes more is needed than financial incentives to take land out of production. โContinuing to throw money at the problem wonโt fix the problem,โ he says. Ways must be found to keep land in irrigation, because irrigated land pays more in property taxes. Those taxes are crucial for operating fire departments, schools and other community purposes. โItโs a very big concern to me.โ
The answers? Helling sees value in permits specifying reduced volume of pumped water. He would like to see more crop rotation.
Helling was a member of the Republican River Water Conservation District Board of Directors for nine years. He says the district needs other tools. The true authority for limiting pumping belongs to the eight groundwater subdistricts within the basin. They do not use it. Why?
โEverybody on those groundwater management districts are generally irrigators,โ says Helling. โMost of them are neighbors. A lot of them go to church together. A lot of them might have kids and grandkids in school together. Nobody wants to make anybody mad. And so, unfortunately, the groundwater management districts do not use all the authority they could to restrict the amount of water used.โ
Colorado legislators, he says, need to give the Republican River Water Conservation District more authority. It needs sticks, not just carrots. โWe need to use less water.โ
Tim Pautler told members of the Colorado Groundwater Commission something similar in May 2025. A dryland farmer from the Stratton area, he has served on the Republican River Water Conservation Districtโs Board of Directors for 21 years. He says that the board has accomplished almost no basin-wide conservation. It hasnโt figured out how to substantially reduce water use.
Most landowners who have taken advantage of the incentives have been irrigators who have less groundwater available in their wells. Nearly all in the southwestern portion of the basin, where many wells were already sputtering. He says if reduced water use is the goal, the fees charged to farmers must be based on acre-feet of water pumped and not just on irrigated acres.
Thereโs no pretense of sustainability in the Republican River Basin. The water deposited over millions of years is now being mined. The task is to maximize value of the remaining water, to prolong the availability of the High Plains Aquifer. Few have yet been willing to talk about the gravity of the challenge.
โI hope enough water remains in the hole to sustain society,โ says Pautler. โI hope we donโt go completely dry.โ
Part II: Entering the 20th century, the Denver metro communities of Castle Rock and Parker were growing fast โ and almost entirely reliant upon Denver Basin aquifers. They still are, but they have started diversifying their sources while encouraging conservation of water. You can also download the entire story here in a magazine format.
Climate change is warming the North Pacific Ocean, leading weather patterns that drive drought in the U.S. Southwest to persist decades longer than they have in the recent past.
The drought in the Southwestern U.S. is likely to last for the rest of the 21st century and potentially beyond as global warming shifts the distribution of heat in the Pacific Ocean, according to a study published last week led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.
Using sediment cores collected in the Rocky Mountains, paleoclimatology records and climate models, the researchers found warming driven by greenhouse gas emissions can alter patterns of atmospheric and marine heat in the North Pacific Ocean in a way resembling whatโs known as the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), fluctuations in sea surface temperatures that result in decreased winter precipitation in the American Southwest. But in this case, the phenomenon can last far longer than the usual 30-year cycle of the PDO.
โIf the sea surface temperature patterns in the North Pacific were just the result of processes related to stochastic [random] variability in the past decade or two, we would have just been extremely unlucky, like a really bad roll of the dice,โ said Victoria Todd, the lead author of the study and a Ph.D student in geosciences at UT Austin. โBut if, as we hypothesize, this is a forced change in the sea surface temperatures in the North Pacific, this will be sustained into the future, and we need to start looking at this as a shift, instead of just the result of bad luck.โ
Currently, the Southwestern U.S. is experiencing a megadrought resulting in the aridification of the landscape, a decades-long drying of the region brought on by climate change and the overconsumption of the regionโs water. Thatโs led to major rivers and their basins, such as the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers, seeing reduced flows and a decline of the water stored in underground aquifers, which is forcing states and communities to reckon with a sharply reduced water supply. Farmers have cut back on the amount of water they use. Cities are searching for new water supplies. And states, tribes and federal agencies are engaging in tense negotiations over how to manage declining resources like the Colorado River going forward.
โPlanners need to consider that this drought, these reductions in winter precipitation, are likely to continue, and plan for that,โ said Tim Shanahan, an associate professor at UT Austinโs Jackson School of Geosciences and co-author of the study.
The research began with decades-old sample cores taken from lakes in the Rocky Mountains. Using modern geochemical techniques, Todd was able analyze drought conditions during the mid-Holocene period 6,000 years ago, a period in Earthโs history when the Northern Pacific warmed and the Southwestern U.S. experienced hundreds of years of drought.
But the sample cores suggest the drought was much worse than previously thought by scientists. Through a series of climate models, the researchers found vegetation change in the tropics darkened the Earthโs surface so that it absorbed more of the sunโs heat. That led to a warming of the North Pacific that was similar to the PDO that drives drought in the Southwest, but in this case, the drying lasted for centuries. โAs soon as we saw that, you know, we started thinking about whatโs happening today,โ Todd said.
For the past 30 years, the PDO has been in its negative phase, which leads to drought in the Southwest by reducing winter precipitation and the runoff from mountain snowpack that fills many of the regionโs rivers and recharges groundwater aquifers.
Using an ensemble of historical and future climate models forecasting climate and precipitation patterns until 2100, they found the PDO-like negative phase continues through this century. But unlike the mid-Holocene periodโs warming, which was brought on by vegetation change, todayโs is driven by greenhouse gas emissions. Certain models revealed that the change in the ocean pattern was less about vegetation absorbing solar radiation, Todd said, and more about warming in general.
The study also revealed that current climate models are underestimating drought conditions, Todd and Shanahan said, and they hope to find better ways to approximate aridity going forward.
Drought that continued until the end of the century would have major implications for water resources in the Southwest and how they are managed. The region currently sustains some of the countryโs biggest cities and most productive agricultural areas.
Brian Richter, president of the water research and education group Sustainable Waters and a water researcher not involved in the study, said the research further proves the drought in the Southwest is more intense than previously thought and is not going away any time soon.
โDoesnโt it suck that every time the science improves, the outlook for the climate and water looks worse?โ he said.
In many ways, Richter said, what people are seeing on the ground is outpacing science. Five years ago, he said, farmers would say theyโve been through droughts before, and this one would soon pass. Now, he said, their tone has changed to โThis is a different kind of a drought.โ
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
It's been a bit since I've done a meteorological deep dive, but the devastating flash #flood in central Texas this July 4th/5th deserve a closer look. #TXwxYes remnants of #Barry were involved helping enhance moisture. A remnant MCV from Mexico on 3 July also played a role.Full evolution below โคต๏ธ
Click the link to read the article on the Grist website (Tik Root):
July 21, 2025
The country watched in horror as torrential rain drenched Texas earlier this month, sweeping at least 135 people to their death. Kerr County alone lost 107, including more than two dozen children at Camp Mystic.
From afar, it would be easy, even tempting, to think that the floods like these could never happen to you. That the disaster is remote.
Itโs not.
As details of the tragedy have come into focus, the list of contributing factors has grown. Sudden downpours, driven by climate change. The lack of a comprehensive warning system to notify people that the Guadalupe river was rising rapidly. Rampant building in areas known to flood, coupled with incomplete information about what places might be at risk. โ
These are the same elements that could trigger a Kerr County-type of catastrophe in every state in the country. Itโs a reality that has played out numerous times already in recent years, with flooding in Vermont, Kentucky, North Carolina and elsewhere, leaving grief and billions of dollars in destruction in its wake.
โKerr County is an extreme example of whatโs happening everywhere,โ said Robert Freudenberg, vice president of energy and environmental programs at the Regional Planning Association. โPeople are at risk because of it and thereโs more that we need to be doing.โ
The most obvious problem is we keep building in areas prone to flooding. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, produces readily available maps showing high-risk locales. Yet, according to the latest data from the nonprofit climate research firm First Street Foundation, 7.9 million homes and other structures stand in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area, which designates a location with 1 percent or greater chance of being inundated in any given year.
FEMA Flood Zone Top Ten
Rank
State
Percent of Properties
Number of Properties
1
Louisiana
22.83%
542,756
2
Florida
17.15%
1,581,552
3
Mississippi
12.41%
240,526
4
New Jersey
10.57%
364,098
5
West Virginia
9.29%
126,918
6
Arkansas
7.27%
146,226
7
Texas
6.49%
806,827
8
Iowa
6.32%
154,217
9
New Mexico
6.28%
94,265
10
Nebraska
6.18%
71,235
Source: First Street Foundation
In Louisiana, a nation-leading 23 percent of properties are located in a FEMA flood zone. In Florida, itโs about 17 percent. Arkansas, New Mexico and Nebraska are perhaps less expected members of the top ten, as is New Jersey, which, with New York City, saw torrential rain and flooding that killed two people earlier this month.
Texas ranks seventh in the country, with about 800,000 properties, or roughly 6.5 percent of the stateโs total, sitting in a flood zone. Kerr County officials have limited authority to keep people from building in these areas, but even when governments have the ability to prevent risky building projects, they historically havenโt. Although one study found that some areas are finally beginning to curb floodplain development, people keep building in perilous places.
โThereโs an innate draw to the water that we have, but we need to know where the limits are,โ said Freudenberg. โIn places that are really dangerous, we need to work towards getting people out of harmโs way.โ
Kerr County sits in a region known as Flash Flood Alley and at least four cabins at Camp Mystic sat in an extremely hazardous โfloodwayโ and numerous others stood in the path of a 100-year flood. When the Christian summer camp for girls underwent an expansion in 2019, the owners built even more cabins in the waterโs path.
โItโs an unwillingness to think about what future โ and the present โ have in store for us,โ said Rob Moore, the director of the Water & Climate Team at the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, about Americansโ tradition of floodplain development. โItโs a reluctance to own up to the reality we live in.โ
Many people donโt even know they are in harmโs way. According to NRDC, 14 states have no flood disclosure laws and, in eight, they deem the laws โinadequate.โ FEMA maps are also flawed. For one, they can be politically influenced, with homeowners and communities often lobbying to be excluded in order to avoid insurance mandates and potential building costs. And experts say the science underpinning the maps is lagging too.
โ[FEMA] only maps main river channels and coastal storm surge areas,โ explained Jeremy Porter, the head of climate implications research at First Street Foundation. The agency, he added, specifically doesnโt model heavy rainfall, isnโt great about indicating the risk of urban flooding, and is behind on accounting for climate change.
First Street Flood Zone Top Ten
Rank
State
Percent of Properties
Number of Properties
1
West Virginia
30.25%
413,499
2
Louisiana
26.33%
626,120
3
Florida
19.04%
1,755,363
4
New Jersey
17.32%
596,521
5
Mississippi
15.46%
299,566
6
Kentucky
15.30%
328,283
7
Texas
15.19%
1,888,282
8
Pennsylvania
14.93%
856,889
9
New York
14.27%
771,605
10
Delaware
12.95%
55,535
Source: First Street Foundation
First Street built a flood model that tries to fill in those gaps. It found that 17.7 million people are at risk of a 100-year flood, a number thatโs more than double what FEMAโs hazard area covers.The state rankings also change, with mountainous areas susceptible to inland flash-flooding jumping up the list. West Virginia moves into first, with a staggering 30 percent of properties built in flood prone areas. Kentucky climbs from 19th to sixth.
Texas remains at seventh, but the portion of properties at risk goes to 15 percent. In Kerr County, FEMAโs maps showed 2,560 properties (6.5 percent) in a flood zone. First Streetโs model nearly doubled that.
โThereโs a ton of unknown risk across the country,โ said Porter, who says better maps are among the most important goals that policy makers can and should work toward. First Street has partnered with the real estate website Redfin to include climate risk metrics in its listings.
Rob Moore says political will is essential to making that type of systemic change when it comes to not only flooding, but other climate risks, such as wildfires or coastal erosion. Strengthening building codes and restricting development in high-risk areas will require similar fortitude.
โGovernments and states donโt want to tell developers to not put things in a wetland, not put things in a floodplain,โ he said. โWe should be telling people donโt put them in a flatland, donโt build in a way that your home is going to be more susceptible to wildfire.โ
Until then, hundreds of communities across the country could โ and likely will โ be the next Kerr County.
Grist has a comprehensive guide to help you stay ready and informed before, during, and after a disaster.
Indigenous youths with Rรญos to Riversโ Paddle Tribal Waters program head toward the shore where the Klamath River meets the Pacific Ocean in Northern California on July 11. The young kayakers were joined by a flotilla with dozens of tribe and community members on the final days of their monthlong, 310-mile journey. CREDIT: ERIK BOOMER / COURTESY OF RรOS TO RIVERS
Click through to listen to an audio version of this story, produced for Aspen Public Radio.
In a thick forest along the remote northern California coast earlier this month, a group of mostly young Indigenous kayakers pushed off into the clear-emerald waters of the recentlyย undammedย Klamath River.ย
The 13- to 20-year-olds from more than six tribes in the Klamath Basin, along with several instructors, had been paddling for a month, covering over 300 miles.
In just a few hours, they would reach the Pacific Ocean, making the group among the first in over a century to descend the river from its headwaters in southern Oregon to its mouth in northern California. The expedition began in early June after the largest dam-removal project in history was completed last fall to restore salmon populations, improve water quality and support tribe-managed lands.
In the group was 15-year-old Hoopa Valley tribe member Carmen Ferris, who comes from a long line of fishing people along Californiaโs Trinity River.
โThe Trinity is the biggest tributary to the Klamath,โ she said. โSo I feel like I have a deep connection and ancestry with both of the waters.โ
Carmen and about 40 other Indigenous kayakers had spentย years trainingย for theย expeditionย with the help of Rรญos to Rivers. Founded by Aspen resident Weston Boyles, 38, the nonprofit organization works with Indigenous youths around the world to protect rivers through advocacy, education and exchange programs.ย
Thirteen-year-old Scarlett Schroeder, left, and Coley Miller, 14, who belong to tribes on the Upper Klamath, stand with their paddles on the banks of the Klamath River. The Paddle Tribal Waters group of 13- to 20-year-olds from more than six tribes in the Klamath Basin, along with several instructors, were among the first in a century to paddle the free-flowing river after several major hydropower dams were removed last year. CREDIT: ERIK BOOMER / COURTESY OF RรOS TO RIVERS
Historic paddle
In anticipation of the removal of four of the Klamathโs six dams, Boyles teamed up with local Indigenous youths and kayak instructors to launch theย Paddle Tribal Waters program, with the goal of supporting young tribal members aiming to be the first to paddle the mostly free-flowing river since the first dam was built in 1918.ย
Although Carmen had heard about the dams growing up, it wasnโt until joining the program that she learned the full history of the decades-long effort by tribes and environmentalists, including her own Hoopa Valley people, to remove the dams from the Klamath and restore the salmon that local tribes once depended on.
โI was like, โOh, my God, that is happening, and itโs nearby,โโ she said. โI was in shock, and I learned about the history and what my ancestors and people before me have gone through for these dams to finally come out.โ
Eighteen-year-old Ruby Rain Williams, of the Karuk tribe, and several other kayakers with Paddle Tribal Waters, navigate a section of whitewater on the Klamath River along the California-Oregon border. The group of local Indigenous youths trained for several years with the support of Aspen-based nonprofit Rรญos to Rivers to be among the first in a century to paddle the recently undammed river. CREDIT: ERIK BOOMER / COURTESY OF RรOS TO RIVERS
Carmen spent two years in the Paddle Tribal Waters program โ taking tribe-led classes on river ecosystems, advocacy and cultural knowledge, as well as learning to whitewater kayak both in her own backyard and on exchange trips to Chile.
โI built a love for kayaking,โ she said. โAnd then I was like, Iโm definitely doing the descent, like I canโt stop kayaking now.โ
The journey from the riverโs headwaters to the Pacific Ocean wasnโt easy, from camping in a remote, rugged wilderness to tackling a number of Class 4 rapids on the upper Klamath, including one called โBig Ikes.โ
โI got battered into this hole for a little bit, and if I didnโt know how to roll, Iโd probably swim that day, which wouldnโt have been fun, because there were a lot of rocks,โ she said. โI ended up being OK, but everyone was like, โCarmen, what happened?โโ
Ruby Rain Williams of the Karuk tribe, who turned 18 on the trip, said the paddle group faced other challenges beyond navigating technical and dangerous rapids.
โThere were definitely some hard parts, like getting up every morning around 6:30, and also the flat-water days on the lake with the headwind were quite treacherous,โ Ruby said.
They also learned some valuable river-trip lessons, including the importance of sun protection.
โI remember the first couple days, weโre all like, โOh, we donโt need sunscreen. We never wear sunscreen,โโ Ruby said. โYou know, weโre swimming in the river all day and I put pink Zinc on my face just to look cool and I had polka dots burned all over my cheeks and my ears were burnt, and even my eyes because I didnโt wear sunglasses. It was just gnarly.โ
A map of the Klamath River Basin shows the four hydroelectric dams that were removed last year: Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2, and J.C. Boyle. The two remaining dams in the upper river basin (located west and northwest of J.C. Boyle Dam and depicted as gray dots) are mostly used for farming irrigation.
The recently undammed Klamath River runs through the site of the former Copco Lake reservoir, named for the Copco 1 dam, in Northern California. Restoration efforts have begun at the former reservoir site, but signs of the former reservoir still remain on the landscape. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
The recently undammed Klamath River runs through the site of the former Copco Lake reservoir, named for the Copco 1 dam, in Northern California. Restoration efforts have begun at the former reservoir site, but signs of the former reservoir still remain on the landscape.
CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
Reshaped landscape
Along the river, the young kayakers saw how the dam- removal and restoration effort had started reshaping landscapes and communities as they paddled through former reservoirs and dam sites, including Northern Californiaโs Kikacรฉki Canyon, where for decades the water had been diverted to a power station, leaving a dry stretch of riverbed.
The four recently removed hydropower dams, which were built between 1918 and the mid-1960s, were still producing relatively low amounts of electricity. According to PacifiCorp, which operated the dams and is owned by Warren Buffettโs company Berkshire Hathaway, the sites were producing less than 2% of the operatorโs total power generation โ enough to power about 70,000 homes when they were running at full capacity.
In addition to losing a relatively low amount of power generation, there were other concerns about removing the dams. These included potential impacts of drained reservoirs such as exposed sacred burial sites that had been previously submerged, increased fire risk, loss of tax revenues for nearby counties, and decreased property values for former lakeside homes.
Still, scientists and advocates for dam removal maintained that the dams and their reservoirs worsened water quality in the river and that removing them would reduce the likelihood of sediment buildup, toxic algae blooms and diseases that thrive in warmer, stagnant waters and are harmful to salmon. They also maintained that the dams blocked salmon from returning to their upstream habitat where fish lay eggs and babies grow before migrating to the ocean.
Eventually, local tribes and other dam-removal advocates came to an agreement with PacifiCorp and federal regulators, and in 2022, the four dams on the lower Klamath were approved for removal.
In order to alleviate some of the community concerns, the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC), which helped broker the dam-removal deal, and Resource Environmental Solutions (RES) are now overseeing restoration efforts. These include working with fire officials concerned about the loss of a wildfire-fighting resource once the reservoirs were drained to set up dry-hydrant systems that allow crews to pull water directly from the river.
They also worked with the Shasta Indian Nation to mitigate the risk of damage to newly exposed cultural sites. Last year, the state of California also transferred some of the land near one of the former reservoirs back to the group.
Other restoration projects include excavating sediment that had built up behind the dams and planting billions of native seeds along the riverbanks and former reservoir sites.
The two dams that remain in the upper section of the river in southern Oregon are primarily used to divert water for irrigation and farming. During their monthlong river trip, which began in Chiloquin, Oregon, the Paddle Tribal Waters group carried their kayaks on land and portaged around these remaining dams.
Tribal Paddle Waters youths kayak below the Keno dam, one of the two remaining dams on the upper Klamath. The expedition group carried their kayaks on land and portaged around both of the remaining dams. CREDIT: ERIK BOOMER / COURTESY OF RรOS TO RIVERS
Salmon returning
Brook Thompson, a scientist and Yurok and Karuk tribe member, researches salmon life cycles and water quality, and joined the paddlers for the last few days on the river.
Despite an unexpected salmon die-off after the first of four dams came down last year, Thompson said hundreds of miles of fish habitat on the Klamath and its tributaries have now opened up and dwindling salmon populations are already returning to spawn in greater numbers.
Chinook salmon on the Klamath River, Oct. 16, 2024. Photo: Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife
โWe really did not know what was going to happen with the salmon and if they would return right away, or if it would take years,โ Thompson said. โSo the fact that they immediately started going past where the dam sites were is so exciting for me as a tribal member.โ
Researchers have also found lower rates of disease-carrying parasites and toxic algae since the dams were removed last year, according to Thompson.
Thompson decided to study environmental engineering, water infrastructure and ecosystems after tens of thousands of dead salmon clogged the lower reaches of the river during a major drought in 2002, after a decision by the Bush administration that reversed environmental protections and allowed upper Klamath farmers to divert much of the remaining water.
โWitnessing thousands of fish die on the river firsthand as a 7-year-old really devastated me, personally, because these salmon are not just a food source for my family, they werenโt just our income โ I paid for all my school clothes and supplies through selling fish as a kid โ but theyโre also a connection to family, theyโre my connection to my ancestors and theyโre really the lifeblood of the tribes here,โ Thompson said.
Now that the dams are out, Thompson hopes reconnecting with the river, including through salmon fishing and recreation opportunities, can help address a rise in health concerns such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as mental health challenges faced by tribes in the region, including addiction and suicide.
โWhen you lose out on that culture, youโre having all these issues health-wise, and youโre having people die because of it,โ Thompson said. โI know for me, if Iโm not by the river, and I donโt get a chance to fish and pray and be thankful for this food that feeds my body, that connects me to my ancestors, then I donโt feel as well mentally either.โ
Although the Klamath was once the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast, young people such as Ruby, the Karuk tribe member, had only heard stories about those days.
โMy grandma and my dad always told me how there used to be so many salmon in the river, you used to be able to walk across their backs and almost make it across,โ Ruby said. โThere was such an abundance of them that my grandpa would go spearfishing and be able to see them swimming through the river, because it was so clean and healthy.โ
During a fall scouting trip before their monthlong journey, Ruby and another young kayaker were some of the first to witness the salmon migrate past one of the former dam sites in Kikacรฉki Canyon.
โWe looked down, and then thereโs these salmon just flying up the river, and you could see their heads at the top of the riverโs edge,โ Ruby said. โIโve never seen that before. And to be able to say that I saw some of the first set of salmon make it up above where the dams used to be was incredible.โ
Ma-Kaych McConnell, right, and several of his fellow Paddle Tribal Waters kayakers get ready to push off into the Klamath River on July 10, the day before reaching the Pacific Ocean. About 15 of the young paddlers finished the full, 310-mile descent of the river, and about 30 more met up with the group for the second half of the journey. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
Carmen Ferris, in the red kayak, of the Hoopa Valley tribe, and Ruby Rain Williams, in the blue kayak, of the Karuk tribe, float on a peaceful stretch of the Klamath River the day before reaching the Pacific Ocean. The two young paddlers grew up hearing stories from their elders about a time when the undammed river was plentiful with salmon. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
โOnly the beginningโ
John Acuna, a Hoopa Valley tribe member and Rรญos to Rivers kayak instructor, helped lead the group of young people on the Klamath just a few years after being introduced to the sport.
Despite nearing the end of a long expedition with only a day left on the river, Acuna sees the monthlong descent as the beginning of something bigger.
โThis is the biggest dam removal in history, and kind of the question is โWhat do we do next?โโ Acuna said. โThe hope is that this sets a precedent for other dam-impacted rivers and dam-threatened rivers, and I think our work has kind of just begun.โ
Rรญos to Rivers board member and river guide Jaren Roberson, who grew up in Arizona, agrees โ and he hopes the recent dam-removal can be a model for how his own Dinรฉ (Navajo) and Hopi tribes can have a greater say in how water is allocated in the Colorado River basin.
โIndigenous people should be figures in these resource management areas because theyโre the ones who have been taking care of them and have been living in these places for generations and generations and generations,โ Roberson said.
During the last few days of the trip, Boyles, Rรญos to Riversโ founder, invited Indigenous groups from Bolivia, Chile and New Zealand to join a flotilla with dozens of local tribe and community members, which accompanied the long-distance paddlers as they neared the end of their journey.
Afterward, the visitors were invited to share their experiences with dams in their own communities during a two-day symposium on the Yurok Reservation, near the California towns of Requa and Klamath, where the river meets the ocean.
โIn other basins, the mistakes of building dams, of destroying habitat, destroying culture, can be avoided if we learn from the past,โ Boyles said, addressing the symposium crowd July 12. โAnd thatโs a goal and a vision of ours, is to make sure that folks in river basins that have yet to be impacted or could avoid having the big impacts of dams, can come here to the Klamath and other parts of the world and learn from all of your lived experiences.โ
Paddle Tribal Waters youths run to touch the ocean at the mouth of the Klamath River after finishing their monthlong journey July 11. Some of the young paddlers have already started their own kayak clubs in their communities to help other Indigenous youth reclaim their rivers. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
Young kayakers with Paddle Tribal Waters embrace a loved one on the beach July 11 after completing a 310-mile journey to the Pacific Ocean. Community members welcomed the paddlers home with a traditional prayer ceremony on the beach. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
Reaching the ocean
On July 11, the final day of the monthlong paddle, dozens of community members lined the beach and cheered as the flotilla, with the young kayakers leading the way, emerged from the mist and paddled toward the Pacific Ocean.
Clarence Hostler, of the Hoopa Valley, Yurok and Karuk tribes, and two younger men brought traditional drums to welcome the paddlers.
He grew up swimming on the river as a kid in the 1950s, but he had to stop after he got a rash from the toxic algae.
Clarence Hostler, of the Hoopa Valley, Yurok and Karuk tribes, waits on the shore at the mouth of the Klamath River to greet the young Indigenous paddlers as they reach the ocean. Having grown up on the river in the 1950s, Hostler witnessed decades of violence, protests and legal battles over fishing and water rights before the dams were removed last fall. CREDIT: ELEANOR BENNETT / ASPEN JOURNALISM & ASPEN PUBLIC RADIO
โSo I hadnโt been on the water on the Klamath since 1965, and just a couple of days ago, I joined the paddle group and it was a stretch of river that Iโd never been on because I didnโt want to get that rash again,โ Hostler said. โAnd then being with the group, it settled with me that this was a triumph of a spirit coming back to the river, that we get to live with the river again after so many of us had to stay away from the river because of the contamination.โ
Seeing the young kayakers paddle the river, after experiencing decades of violence, protests and legal battles over fishing and water rights on the Klamath, brought him to tears.
โA lot of the early warriors had to do the difficult work, and there are some of us, older ones, who carry the knowledge of old ways,โ Hostler said. โBut now, some real work starts with these young people who are activists on the water because thereโs more contaminated water yet that needs to be worked on.โ
As Carmen and her fellow kayakers reached the ocean and splashed in the waves, she felt the weight of that history.
โWe shouldnโt be having to do this โ like, there shouldnโt have been dams in the first place โ but we fought a lot for nearly a century, for decades and decades, and now dams are finally out,โ Carmen said.
Even with feelings of sadness and frustration over what her people endured, Carmen is proud of what she and her peers accomplished.
โWeโre making history,โ she said. โThis is something I never thought Iโd ever do, but Iโm doing it today.โ
Now that the dams are out, Carmen and several of the other young kayakers who have already started their own kayak clubs, are looking forward to returning to their communities to help the next generation of young paddlers reclaim their rivers and their ancestry.
This story was produced by Aspen Journalism and Aspen Public Radio, in partnership with The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulderโs Center for Environmental Journalism.
This story was produced through a social justice reporting collaboration between Aspen Journalism and Aspen Public Radio.
In response to last weekโsย dispatchย on a potential new Colorado River sharing deal, Save The Worldโs Rivers! tweeted this compelling โ but, for some, potentially opaque โ tweet:
I say โopaqueโ because at first glance it might seem strange that a 50/50 split of the riverโs waters between the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin would lead to ecological disaster. But it could, if, during a period of extremely low flow years, the 50% sent downstream was so low that it reduced daily flows through the Grand Canyon to a level that could not support fish or the ecology.
Iโve written about the faulty math of the Colorado River Compact many times here. Yet the assumptions of the riverโs flow and the math are hardly the only, or largest, problems with the document. Most egregious was the exclusion of tribal nations from the original negotiations and the compact, itself, even though they collectively are entitled to a significant portion of the riverโs waters. Under the compact, the tribal nationsโ water rights must come out of the respective statesโ allotments โ that reduces tribes to subdivisions of the states, which they are not. They are sovereign nations and their water rights are negotiated with the federal government.
The other very big problem is that the compact never once considers the river, or the ecology that depends upon it. Instead, it apportions all of the water in the river and then some to โbeneficial use,โ which does not include environmental or even recreational uses. The compact also states that โthe use of its waters for purposes of navigation shall be subservient to the uses of such waters for domestic, agricultural, and power purposes.โ If we consider river-running and Lake Powell boating to be navigation, then the compact also deprioritizes those uses, i.e. recreation.
Because all of the Lower Basinโs water must flow through the Grand Canyon, the Lower Basinโs water rights serve as sort of de facto instream water rights through the canyon. In other words, the more water the Imperial Irrigation District and other Lower Basin users demand for irrigating alfalfa, the more water there is for fish and other critters in the Grand Canyon (including river runners). So, if the states were to strike a deal that might allow the Upper Basin to send only a trickle to the Lower Basin, it would also result in a mere trickle flowing through the Grand Canyon.
The thing is, the fish and even the river runners donโt really care much about the annual volume of water in the river, they care more about the daily streamflow. And that is currently regulated by a separate set of rules aside from the Colorado River Compact that were implemented in the 1990s.
But first, letโs go back in time to the years before there was a Glen Canyon Dam. Back then, the Colorado River through Glen Canyon, Marble Gorge, and the Grand Canyon was truly wild. Seasonal streamflow fluctuations were extreme, swinging from as low as 3,000 cubic feet per second in late summer, fall, and winter, to 80,000 cfs or more during spring runoff and late summer monsoonal floods. The water was often laden with orange-red sediment, and in the summer its temperature might reach 80ยฐ F or higher, giving it a viscous, dirty-bathwater feel. It may not have been great for swimming in, but the native fish reveled in it.
The completion of Glen Canyon Dam in 1963 changed all of that. Annual flows were evened out to build up storage in Lake Powell while also meeting Colorado River Compact obligations. Seasonal fluctuations were also no more, and the silt-free, murky green water emanating from the dam was a near-constant 46ยฐ F. Daily fluctuations of streamflow, however, could be erratic and downright manic, depending on the power gridโs need for more juice.
Before there was a Glen Canyon Dam, the Colorado River ran wild and free, often topping out at Lees Ferry at or above 100,000 cubic feet per second, which is ginormous. After the dam was completed, managers withheld flows to fill up the reservoir. Then, in 1983, they withheld too much water, and a massive spring runoff threatened the dam itself, forcing managers to release nearly 100,000 cfs once again and providing a wild ride for Grand Canyon river runners. After the 1996 operations plan was implemented, occasional high-flow releases occurred to help move sediment through the Grand Canyon in an effort to benefit the riparian ecology and build new beaches. But they still pale in comparison with pre-dam high flows. Data source: USGS.
During the first few decades after the dam was completed, the hydropower plant operators had ample leeway to โfollow the loadโ by modulating the flow of water through the turbines. This occasionally caused huge fluctuations in the flow of water through the Grand Canyon. On one July day in 1989, for example, about 3,471 cfs was running through the dam at 5 a.m., a meagre flow by the Coloradoโs standards. By 3 p.m., it had jumped to 29,000 cfsโthe maximum flow through the turbinesโto generate juice to the burgeoning number of air-conditioners on the Southwest power grid. This must have wreaked havoc on river runners in the Grand Canyon, who might have tied up their boats during high flow, only to find them beached out several hours later (or vice versa, depending on how far downriver they were). It probably wasnโt so good for the fish, either.
In the early โ80s, dam operators wanted to maximize the potential for following the load by also installing turbines in the river outlets so they could generate even more power by releasing more water, which likely would have exacerbated daily fluctuations. The proposal was shot down following intense opposition, and sparked an effort to develop a more river-friendly plan for managing the dam.
Congress passed the Grand Canyon Protection Act in 1992, and in 1996 Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed off on the Glen Canyon Dam Operations plan, selecting the โModified Low Fluctuating Flowโ alternative โ a compromise between environmental and power-generating interests โ and creating an adaptive management working group. The annual releases would remain the same (8.2 million acre-feet), but it imposed minimum and maximum release rates and maximum fluctuation rates, along with adding in occasional high-flow events meant to simulate pre-dam seasonal fluctuations. This limited Glen Canyon Damโs flexibility as a hydroelectric plant, but it was far better for the downstream river and its users.
A profile of the Colorado River with potential future dam and reservoir sites. From the 1916 USGS paper โColorado River and its utilization,โ by E.C. La Rue.
Yet in the ensuing three decades, power-generation has often taken precedent over downstream ecological health, and the Grand Canyonโs riparian environment remains imperiled. (As long as weโre talking about ironies: A portion of revenues from Glen Canyon Damโs power sales fund endangered fish recovery efforts.)
Whether a new deal to share the Colorado River becomes an ecological disaster would seem to depend less on the annual volume released from Glen Canyon Dam than it does on the daily and seasonal operations of the dam. And I would add this to the above tweet: It would be the second ecological disaster for the Grand Canyon; the first was the construction of Glen Canyon Dam, itself.
The back of Glen Canyon Dam circa 1964, not long after the reservoir had begun filling up. Here the water level is above dead pool, meaning water can be released via the river outlets, but it is below minimum power pool, so water cannot yet enter the penstocks to generate electricity. Bureau of Reclamation photo.
As long as weโre talking streamflowsย โฆ hereโs a hydrograph of the Animas River in Durango for the last year (July 17, 2024-July 17, 2025) and for the same time period during the previous year. You can see that spring runoff this year was lower, and less drawn-out than in 2024, and that the current streamflow is about 25% lower than it was on this date last year. Hopefully the monsoon will arrive soon and boost flows, at least for a bit.
๐คฏ Trump Ticker ๐ฑ
While everyone is going bananas over the Trump/Jeff Epstein brouhaha, the Trump administration is putting its fossil fuel fetish on garish display. This includes:
Yesterday the Interior Departmentย saidย it would subject proposed solar and wind developments on public lands to elevated scrutiny in an effort to end โpreferential treatment for unreliable, subsidy-dependent wind and solar energy.โ Meanwhile these guys have been eliminating environmental reviews for and public input on oil and gas and mining projects. So whoโs getting preferential treatment now?ย
Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to block the state of Colorado from pushing dirty coal plants to close as part of its effort to reduce air pollution and, well, comply with EPA air quality regulations.ย CPRโs Sam Brasch has theย story, and reports that Coloradoโs not about to take this one lying down.ย
And, the EPA continues to defy its name by extending the deadline for compliance with regulations forย managing coal combustion waste, or CCW. Coal combustion waste is the solid stuff left over from coal burning, like ash, clinkers, and scrubber sludge, and it contains copious quantities of nasty stuff like mercury, arsenic, boron, cobalt, radium, and selenium. This is an enormous waste stream, and is piled up outside coal plants and in coal mines all over the West. Check outย this map from Earthjusticeย to see where the coal waste depositories are near you!ย
And finally, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, in anย Economistย column, wrote that climate change is โnot an existential crisis,โ merely a pesky little โby-product of progress.โ He said he was willing to take the โmodest negative trade-offโ of climate changeโalong, presumably, with the heat waves, wildfires, and devastating floodsโ”for this legacy of human advancement.โ Itโs almost as if they like pollution! It would be funny if it werenโt so tragic.
๐ Good News Corner ๐
Colorado has new wolf pups! Yes, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has confirmed three new wolf families have joined the Copper Creek Pack with new pups, though they have not released the number of pups in each family. This is good news, indeed.
โLike so many Coloradans, Iโm thrilled to hear of new wolf families and puppy paws on the ground,โ said Alli Henderson, southern Rockies director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a written statement. โThe howl of wolves rising once more in this iconic landscape signals real progress toward restoring balance in Coloradoโs wild places.โ
For more background and history on wolves, check out my essay from a little while back on wolves, wildness, and hope. But youโll have to sign up as a paid subscriber to read it, since the archives are behind the paywall!
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots wesite (Allen Best):
July 16, 2025
Four electrical utilities that deliver electricity from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins have a common problem. All have rapidly expanding demand, and all, in turn, need to add new sources of generating capacity.
Can they save money by sharing electricity? Improved transmission would be crucial. The four power providers โ Colorado Springs Utilities, CORE Electric Cooperative, Platte River Power Authority, and United Power โ have agreed to explore potential synergies to achieve common purposes.
Together, the four utilities provide electricity to 1.5 million Coloradans, collectively putting them just behind the 1.6 million customers of Xcel Energy, the stateโs largest electrical utility.
The utilities began talking about this last November, and they are just beginning the work of figuring out how they might collaborate.
โThis is a positive first step in exploring alternative ways for our four utilities to support growth and resiliency across our service territories,โ stated Pam Feuerstein, chief executive of CORE. โAdditional transmission would enable CORE to continue providing affordable and reliable power to our members, now and into the future.โ
One option might be to use existing rights of-way to erect upgraded transmission capacity, similar to going from a two-lane highway to a four-lane highway. In this case, the utilities might decide to create a 345 kV electron highway. Thatโs as large as they get in Colorado right now, except for a new 500 kV line that nicks the stateโs corner northwest of Craig.
โThere could be some commonality where CORE, for example, has a 115kV transmission line, that those rights of way could be used to develop a larger project,โ said Feurstein. โItโs way too early to tell at this stage. This is really just the beginning of us exploring opportunities.
Also an option is to create expanded transmission bypassing metropolitan Denver, in more rural areas served by United Power and CORE.
The electrical utilities share common borders. The service territory of Colorado Springs Utilities, for example, comes close to that of CORE, which serves Castle Rock and Parker and other parts of rapidly growing Douglas and Arapahoe counties.
COREโs expansive service territory โ from 60 miles east of Denver to 65 miles west of Colorado Springs โhas close proximity to Brighton-based United Power, which serves one of Coloradoโs fastest growing areas along the I-76 and I-25 corridors north and east of Denver. Unitedโs service territory extends to Longmont, one of the four municipal members of Platte River.
These four utilities are also defined by what they are not. Unlike Xcel, which provides power for much of metropolitan Denver, they report only to customers, not to private investors.
By banding together, they might be able to avoid charges for sharing electricity over the transmission lines owned by Xcel Energy or possibly Tri-State.
Congestion along the north-south lines has become a growing challenge that limits flexibility as the utilities try to meet rising demand while supporting Coloradoโs ambitious carbon reduction goals.
The analogy again might be to Coloradoโs north-south highways. If time is of the essence, you might want to avoid I-25 by taking an alternative route, including E-470. And in this case, an alternative might provide a way to avoid paying Xcel to use its lines.
But growth in demand undergirds the effort to achieve synergies.
โWe expect our growth to continue, so addressing transmission congestion is critical,โ said Mark A. Gabriel, chief executive of United Power. โUnited Power serves an area that is growing quickly, attracting large residential developments and new businesses alike. A more reliable transmission route would help to stabilize costs and increase reliability for current and future members in the cooperativeโs service territory.โ
United serves 115,000 members across a 900-square mile service territory stretching from the oil-and-gas wells of the Wattenberg Field to the foothills west of Arvada. During the last four years demand in April, to cite just one month, has grown from 350 megawatts to 500 megawatts.
CORE has more members, 170,000, but less demand.
Colorado Springs has 269,000 metered-customers in the city and in surrounding areas and has been growing at a rate of 1% to 2% in demand per year. Travas Deal, the chief executive of the cityโs utilities, suggested that demand could grow much more rapidly from data centers and other businesses if the city had the electrical resources.
The city recently put out a request for proposals for 1,900 megawatts of new generating capacity. The door is open for wind, solar and natural gas and whatever else may come along. Some of that generating capacity might come from individual projects, but Deal says that the electrical generating capacity might be delivered at better prices with larger economies of scale. In other words, through shared demand.
โWe understand the need, we understand the opportunities,โ said Deal.
In a prepared statement, Jason Frisbie, chief executive of Platte River Power Authority, alluded to this shifted dynamic. โAll options are on the table to help improve reliability and reduce costs, including opportunities to enhance transmission capabilities as we move into an organized market,โ he said.
In a complementary move to help manage costs and maintain reliability, Colorado Springs Utilities, Platte River Power Authority and United Power will join the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Regional Transmission Organization on April 1, 2026. CORE is also evaluating market participation, including the SPP.
La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) has signed a new 10-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Ptarmigan Resources and Energy Inc. for locally generated hydropower from the Vallecito Dam, reinforcing the cooperativeโs commitment to clean, reliable, and community-focused energy.
Effective April 1, 2026, through March 31, 2036, the agreement will provide approximately 5.8 megawatts of renewable capacity onto LPEAโs system – enough to power around 2,500 homes per year. Itโs the first time LPEA has been able to purchase power directly from Vallecito, thanks to new flexibility under its evolving power supply strategy.
โThis is a win for our members and our mission,โ said LPEA CEO Chris Hansen. โFor the first time, weโre contracting directly with a local hydropower provider right in our backyard.โ
The hydropower facility at Vallecito Dam, located northeast of Bayfield, has long provided clean energy to the regional grid. However, LPEAโs previous long-term wholesale power contract limited its ability to work with independent producers like Ptarmigan.
โThis project is exactly what we envision for the future of energy for our members: affordable, responsibly generated power produced right here in our community,” said Nicole Pitcher, LPEA Board President. โItโs meaningful that the same water sustaining our ranches and farms and bringing joy to recreationists will also be generating clean energy for homes across our service territory.โ
โSelling power locally is a win-win,โ said Sam Perry, CEO of HydroWest (contracted by Ptarmigan to oversee plant operations). โWith this new partnership, Vallecito can provide consistent, renewable energy and grid stability to LPEA.โ
This PPA follows LPEAโs launch of a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) earlier this year, seeking additional long-term energy resources to serve its load after 2028.
Iโm a little slow getting to this one, thanks mostly to being consumed by the whole public land sale brouhaha, but better late than never.
After years of bickering, wrangling, fighting, and digging in their heels, representatives of the seven Colorado River Basin states may have finally agreed on a โrevolutionaryโ way to split up the riverโs waters: Theyโre going to base it on how much water is actually in the river at any given time.
So, apparently, in this world, โrevolutionaryโ is a synonym for the most common sense, obvious, and, really, necessary way to do things.
More specifically, the Upper Basin would release a percentage of the rolling three-year average of theโnatural flowโ* at Lee Ferry from Glen Canyon Dam, making it available to the Lower Basin. Thatโs opposed to the current model, where the Upper Basin is required to release at least 75 million acre-feet every ten years (or 7.5 MAF per year on average)**
Letโs pause for a moment and use an analogy to reflect on how short-sighted and dumb that original approach was. [ed. emphasis mine] Say someone has a potato farm and they die, leaving the farm to their two children, Upper and Lower, who must determine how to divide the farm and its yield between them. They look back at their parentโs ledgers, and determine that the farm has produced at least 15 tons of potatoes annually during the previous few years.
So they agree to divide it in half, with 7.5 tons going to each of them each year. But Upper will actually live on the farm, and has the keys to the lock on the gate, so they add into their Potato Farm Compact a clause that requires Upper to not prevent Lower from taking 75 tons of potatoes from the farm during every 10 year period.
This works out fine as long as the farm produces 15 tons per year. But what happens if you signed the Compact during an abnormally productive period, and the long-term average yield was far lower than 15 tons? Or what happens as the soil becomes less fertile and the irrigation water becomes more scarce and production drops far below 15 tons per year? Under the agreement, Upper still has to allow Lower to take 7.5 tons annually, leaving Upper with far less, maybe even nothing during a string of bad years. Obviously, this is untenable. And, just as obviously, it would have made far more sense for Upper and Lower to simply divide each yearโs harvest in half and each take 50% of whatever the total might be. Just as obviously, that would have been the smartest way to divide up the Colorado River in the first place. Of course, a river is not a potato crop.
To determine how much potatoes you have, you just put them on a scale. Determining the โnatural flowโ of the Colorado River is far more difficult, and requires inputting:
data from 29 upstream streamflow gauges/gages;
historic outflow and pool elevations from 12 main-stem and 12 off-stream reservoirs;
upstream consumptive uses and losses.
While that doesnโt sound so complicated, gathering all of these inputs โ reservoir evaporation, for example, or the exact amount consumed by agriculture โ can require separate calculations and guesswork of their own.
Note that the would-be signatoryโs of this deal havenโt agreed on what the โfixed percentageโ would be, and that there still would be an unspecified โlower limitโ to the annual release from Lake Powell. Those could both be sticking points in finalizing this plan. Source: Arizona Reconsultation Committee June meeting.
But the states wouldnโt be coming up with this from scratch. The Bureau of Reclamation alreadyย calculates the riverโs natural flowย at Lees Ferry along with Lake Powellโs unregulated inflow. As you can see from the graph below, the river has not consistently delivered 15 million acre-feet per year, forcing the Upper Basin to deplete their savings account (Lake Powell) in order to meet its Colorado River Compact obligations.
This shows the estimated natural flow of the river โ or what it would deliver without any upstream dams, diversions, or human-related consumptive use โ at Lees Ferry, several miles downstream from Glen Canyon Dam. The natural flow is calculated using upstream streamflow gages, consumptive use, and calculated reservoir evaporation. Source: Bureau of Reclamation.
If the supply driven concept is implemented, it will base Glen Canyon Dam releases on a fixed percentage of the previous three-year moving average. For example, the average of water years 2022, 2023, and 2024 was 13 million acre-feet. If the Upper Basin and Lower Basin were to each take 50%, then the Glen Canyon release this year would be 6.5 million acre-feet (plus something for Mexico, presumably, although this isnโt clear. I highly doubt the Lower Basin will settle for just 50%, given that it has far more people, more agriculture, and is just thirstier, overall, but letโs go with that figure since itโs whatโs in the Colorado River Compact, sort of.
The Lower Basin states use far less water now than they did a decade or so ago, thanks in part to forced cuts and in part to general conservation measures. The increase between 2023 and 2024 is probably due to the fact that 2023 was an unusually wet year in most of the Colorado River Basin, meaning farmers and other irrigators needed less water. Source: Colorado River Accounting and Water Usage Report, Lower Basin, Bureau of Reclamation.
That would actually work: The Lower Basin statesโ consumptive use last calendar year was about 5.8 million acre-feet, so theyโd have enough to use, and a little on top for evaporation from reservoirs (which is not included in the Lower Basinโs accounting). It would leave the Upper Basin enough for consumption and some extra for reservoir storage.
But if you go with the previous three years (โ20,โ21,โ22), you end up with an average of just 9 million acre-feet, 50% of which would be a measly 4.5 million acre-feet, forcing downstream users โ namely the Central Arizona Project, since their rights are junior to Californiaโs โ to take deep cuts. And it would leave the Upper Basin just enough to meet their needs, meaning theyโd have to draw down Lake Powell or other reservoirs to fulfill their obligations.
Another tricky scenario would be if three decent water years were followed by an extremely dry year. Releases from Lake Powell could significantly exceed inflows, which might deplete the reservoir enough to bring it down to minimum power pool, which is no bueno.
While this may be the closest the states have come to reaching some sort of consensus on how to run the River beyond 2026, it seems as if there is still many sticky details to work out. How are they going to agree on a fixed percentage? What will the minimum release be? And how will that fly with the Upper Basin during years such as 2002, when the natural flow at Lees Ferry was a mere 5.8 million acre-feet? Timeโs running out.
Now for some more data for your pondering pleasure:
The Upper Basin states use far less water than the Lower Basin, but the Lower Basin has generally been reducing overall use, while the Upper Basin has remained steady or even increased consumption, with Colorado overtaking Arizona in 2023. Note: The Arizona figure only includes the Lower Basin. Arizona also consumes about 13,000 acre-feet of Upper Basin water each year, down significantly from pre-2019, when up to 40,000 acre-feet was withdrawn from Lake Powell for steam generation and cooling at the now shuttered Navajo Generating Station. Source: Bureau of Reclamation.
The Imperial Irrigation District in southern California remains the Riverโs largest single water user, and one of the most senior water rights holders, using most of the water for alfalfa and various food crops. However, it has cut its consumption considerably over the years, in part thanks to state and federal programs that pay farmers not to irrigate. Itโs not clear how long these programs and the payments can last, however. Nevada is included on this list because nearly all of the stateโs Colorado River allocation is drawn from Lake Mead and goes to the greater Las Vegas area. Also note that it is only number 8 on this list. Source: Bureau of Reclamation.
Agriculture has been and remains the biggest single user of Colorado River water, by far. Of that amount, alfalfa and other hay crops take up the lionโs share.
This passage, from David Starr Jordanโsย Fish Commission Bulletin 1889: Report of Explorations in Colorado and Utah During the Summer of 1889,ย remains relevant today:
Uggh. Fire season is getting ugly. The Dragon Bravo Fire blew up and burned the historic Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim. The Deer Creek Fire, burning near Old La Sal, Utah, just west of the Colorado state line, has grown to almost 12,000 acres and exhibited some erratic behavior (see video above). Just northeast of there, the Wright Draw and Turner Gulch fires have forced the closure of Hwy. 141 and numerous evacuations in the Unaweep Canyon area outside Gateway (the community of Gateway is not yet threatened). The South Rim Fire at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison is now at 4,000 acres. The Laguna Fire west of Abiquiu Reservoir in New Mexico has reached 15,200 acres. And the air in the West is basically full of smoke.
Hereโs hoping for rain and lots of it, sans lightning, please.
๐ธ Parting Shot ๐๏ธ
This oneโs from โA notice of the ancient ruins of southwestern Colorado, examined during the summer of 1875,โ by W.H. Holmes. The text is the beginning of the description of the sketch.
The latest Bureau of Reclamation 24-month studies show a clear risk of Lake Powell dropping below minimum power pool in late 2026, with Lake Mead dropping to elevation 1,025 by the summer of 2027. This should be hair on fire stuff.
The โclear riskโ here is based on Reclamationโs monthly โminimum probableโ model runs โ what happens if we have bad snowpacks next year, and the year after? These are probabilistic estimates, not predictions. But the whole point of Reclamation doing this is so that we can be prepared. We need a robust public discussion about what our plan is if we end up on this fork in the hydrologic road.
The warning signs are clearly there in Jackโs analyses. Frustrated by the delay in the traditional metrics we use for measuring and monitoring the Colorado River, Jackโs been doing routine updates on reservoir storage contents. The traditional metrics we use โ the Upper Basin Consumptive Uses and Losses Reports, the Lower Basin Decree Accounting Reports, the Natural Flow Database โ have significant lags. The reservoir data is there in real time, integrating how much the climate system provides and how much humans use. The data here are all public. Jackโs value add is to sum them up and slice and dice the resulting data structures.
The somewhat arcane but incredibly useful framework heโs been using his his recent analyses is the period of accumulation, when reservoirs rise as river flows exceed human uses above them and extractions below them, following by the period of decline, when weโre drawing down the reservoirs. This is a tool, or a way of thinking, that we could use in real time to adjust our behavior, noting bad reservoir conditions and reducing our use. This is not something our water allocation framework is well suited to do.
The Negotiations
For more than a year, those involved in the delicate interstate negotiations over future Colorado River water allocation rules have repeatedly asked that we give them space to have the hard conversations they need to have in private. The results, or lack thereof, have done nothing to earn our trust.
The potential path forward.
When Arizonaโs Tom Buschatzke moved the up-until-then super secret โsupply drivenโ allocation concept into public view a month ago, it seemed like a good sign along two dimensions. First, the idea of basing the amount of water delivered from Upper Basin to Lower Basin past Lee Ferry on actual hydrology, on a percentage of how much water the climate is actually providing, seemed like an eminently reasonable approach. Second, Buschatzke was talking about this in public.
Folks from the Upper Basin followed suit, and a round of positive press followed.
But as this shifts from the brief sunshine of public statements back to the closed door negotiations, any glimmer appears dim indeed.
The problems were already visible in that brief, glorious bit of sunshine of public discussion last month.
There are two critical questions that need to be settled to make this work. The obvious one is the number โ what percentage of the three year natural flow are we talking about shepherding down past Lee Ferry? The second is more subtle: What happens if the Lee Ferry flow falls short of that number?
Speaking to the Arizona Reconsultation Committee, Buschatzke was clear that whatever percentage number they settled on would be an Upper Basin โdelivery obligationโ at Lee Ferry. Becky Mitchell, speaking on behalf of Colorado, (but effectively as the de-facto Upper Basin voice, the role the other Upper Basin states seem to have for all practical purposes ceded to her) said (per Heather Sackettโs excellent reporting) it was in no way to be considered a delivery obligation.
When I suggested in a blog post that Upper Basin states might need to curtail water users in order to ensure the agreed-upon-percentage (whatever that is) is met, I got an angry call informing me that the Upper Basin was considering no such thing.
What this makes clear is that the same disagreement over the irreducibly ambiguous legal question in Article III of the Colorado River Compact โ does the Upper Basin have a Lee Ferry delivery obligation or not? โ is simply being shifted to a new modeling framework.
Never mind the equally intractable question of what the Lee Ferry donโt-call-it-a-delivery-obligation percentage might be. I donโt know anything more than gossip, but the gossip suggests the attempt to settle on a number, or even a range of numbers that Reclamation might model as part of its NEPA analysis, also is not going well.
If I was talking to Alex Hager today, I would no longer describe a glimmer of hope.
The Failure Mode
One of the most useful questions I learned to ask as a reporter covering water involved drilling down to the question of what happens when scarcity finally bites. What is the failure mode? Who actually doesnโt get water? How does that work? [ed. emphasis mine]
The combination of Jackโs analysis and Reclamationโs latest 24-month study suggests that we need to be asking that question in the near term. When Powell approaches minimum power pool, and Mead drops below 1030, whose water use will be curtailed to protect the system? If your answer involves a defense of why your own water supply should not be reduced, youโre doing this wrong. Everyone needs to be realistic about their risk of a legal outcome different from their agency lawyerโs position. But we also need to recognize moral obligations here, to find ways to share in this shrinking river. How are we going to come together, as a community, to respond?
The longer term argument also needs to begin to take this form.
Let us imagine going to the Supreme Court to settle the question of whether the Upper Basin does or does not have a legal delivery obligation under Article III of the Colorado River Compact to deliver 75 million or 82.5 million acre feet per year past Lee Ferry. If you lose that litigation, what is the failure mode? Who actually doesnโt get water? If your groupthink has convinced you that this is not a meaningful question, that youโre sure to win, and the other basin is the one that needs to be thinking about failure modes, you need a second opinion, to get out of your groupthink bubble.
Whatever โbring it onโ enthusiasm for litigation youโre hearing from your groupthinkers needs to be tempered by an honest discussion about what happens to your communitiesโ water supplies if you lose.
Iโll also make a modest pitch here for a need to recognize moral obligations, to find ways to share this shrinking river.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
against the state of Colorado to clear the way for construction of the Perkins County Canal, a contentious proposal to divert water from the South Platte River in Sedgwick County to a storage facility on the Nebraska side of the state line.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday and claims Colorado is threatening Nebraskaโs water supply through โunlawful water diversionsโ that have deprived Nebraskaโs farmers of water.
Nebraskaโs Western Irrigation District, a beneficiary of the compact, was recently forced to shut off the majority of its surface water irrigation due to lack of supply from the South Platte River, according to the lawsuit.
โThese breaches have harmed Nebraska and pose a significant, ongoing threat to Nebraska, from its agricultural economy to the water security of its major population centers,โ the lawsuit said.
Perkins County Canal Project Area. Credit: Nebraska Department of Natural Resources
The complaint also alleges Colorado is obstructing Nebraskaโs efforts to build the Perkins County Canal.
In February, landowners in Sedgwick County, where the river leaves Colorado and flows into Nebraska, received notices of condemnation, giving them 90 days to accept a buyout from the state of Nebraska or face eminent domain.
The letters escalated what was until then a simmering disputebetween the states over enforcement of the South Platte River Compact, an agreement ratified by the governors of Colorado and Nebraska in 1923.
The compact guarantees Nebraska a flow of 120 cubic feet per second from April 1 to Oct. 15 where the South Platte leaves Colorado just northeast of Julesburg. For the other half of the year, the compact allows Nebraska 500 cubic feet per second through a canal that would pull from the river near Ovid. Without a canal, Colorado gets first dibs on the South Platteโs winter flow.
Historically Colorado has sent significant winter water across the state line, but the stateโs rapid development in recent years spooked officials in Nebraska.
The century-old compact permits Nebraska to use eminent domain to build the canal, but is unclear about whether eminent domain can be used in another state.
The lawsuit said the states are at an impasse about key terms in the compact.
Earlier this year, Attorney General Phil Weiser called the move onto Colorado soil โnovelโ and said that he was willing to challenge the move by Nebraska in court.
It appears he will get his chance.
In an emailed statement Wednesday, Weiser said that the lawsuit is โunfortunate and predictable given the misguided effort driving the proposed canal.โ
โNebraska has now set in motion what is likely to be decades of litigation. And if, after decades of litigation, the court allows Nebraska to move forward with its wasteful project, Nebraskaโs actions will force Colorado water users to build additional new projects to lessen the impact of the proposed Perkins County Canal,โ Weiser wrote.
At that point, Weiser started making trips to the northeastern corner of Colorado to brief people about the project, under the impression that it was unlikely to move forward based on the cost, the cross-border dealings and evaluations by a state water engineer.
โI also said I think this feels more like a political stunt. It doesnโt make sense,โ Weiser told The Colorado Sun in February.
Nebraska hopes to complete the Perkins County Canal by 2032.
The Platte River is formed in western Nebraska east of the city of North Platte, Nebraska by the confluence of the North Platte and the South Platte Rivers, which both arise from snowmelt in the eastern Rockies east of the Continental Divide. Map via Wikimedia.
The last seven days was highlighted by dryness over much of the West, a continued active pattern bringing substantial rains to the southern Plains, and a wet week over much of the Mid-Atlantic and portions of the Midwest. Texas again stood out with several rain events that brought with them localized flooding. The long-term drought signal is still holding on in portions of southern Texas as recharge to depleted water systems has been slow, even with the rain in the region. Above-normal precipitation was recorded from eastern Nebraska through Illinois, bringing some much-needed rain to parts of northern Illinois. With the active rain pattern, temperatures over the southern Plains were 2-4 degrees below normal from Texas to Kansas and Nebraska while much of the West was 4-6 degrees above normal, with the greatest departures in Arizona and the Pacific Northwest. Warmer-than-normal temperatures dominated much of the eastern portions of the Midwest and the Northeast, where temperatures were 6-8 degrees above normal…
Temperatures were mixed over the region with the northern and western areas 2-4 degrees above normal while the southern and eastern areas were 2-4 degrees below normal for the week. The wettest areas this week were in southwest Kansas, northeast Nebraska and portions of northeast Colorado, where over 200% of normal rain was recorded. Dryness continued in eastern Wyoming and in areas of the Dakotas as well as in northeastern Kansas. The wetter pattern over Nebraska over the past several weeks has allowed continued improvement to drought in the state. A full category improvement was made over most of central and northeast Nebraska and into portions of southern South Dakota. Moderate drought and abnormally dry conditions were improved over northeast Colorado while abnormally dry conditions expanded over northeast Kansas…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending July 15, 2025.
Temperatures for the week were warmer than normal over the region with departures of 4-6 degrees above normal. The only areas that were at or below normal were coastal areas of California and eastern New Mexico. Much of the area remained dry and there was only some spotty monsoonal moisture over the Southwest. Some areas of Montana did receive some needed rain, but conditions have been dry overall in that region. Degradation dominated the region for changes this week with no areas seeing improvements on the map. Severe and extreme drought were expanded over western Colorado while moderate drought and abnormally dry conditions were expanded over much of central Wyoming. In northern Utah, severe drought expanded while a new area of extreme drought was introduced. Much of the panhandle of Idaho and into central portions of the state had a full category degradation while severe and extreme drought expanded over western portions of Montana. Moderate and severe drought expanded over much of Washington and Oregon and severe drought expanded over northeast Nevada…
The wettest areas of the region were over central and eastern Texas as well as into portions of eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. Dry conditions were mostly over west and southern Texas and along the Oklahoma border in northern Texas. With the rain, temperatures were cooler than normal over much of Texas, with some areas of central Texas 3-5 degrees below normal for the week. Only eastern Arkansas and south Texas were at or above normal for the week. Abnormally dry conditions were improved over southwest Arkansas while much of central Texas had the drought intensities reduced due to the ongoing rains. Some areas of Texas recorded enough rain where a multiple category improvement was made…
Looking Ahead
Over the next five to seven days, it is anticipated that the southern Plains and the West will be dry with only a burst in monsoonal moisture over the Four Corners region. The greatest amount of precipitation is projected over the Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic as well as the central and northern Plains. A tropical disturbance forming over the Gulf is likely to come ashore in and around Louisiana, bringing significant moisture to the coastal and inland areas. Temperatures are anticipated to be below normal over the coastal areas of the West and into the northern Rocky Mountains with departures of 3-5 degrees. Temperatures will be warmest over the central Plains and into the Midwest with anticipated departures of 6-8 degrees above normal.
The 6-10 day outlooks show the greatest likelihood of above-normal temperatures is over the Midwest and into the Ozark Plateau. Outside of the coastal areas of the West, most of the rest of the country is projected to have the best chances of above-normal temperatures. The greatest chances of below-normal precipitation is over the Great Basin as well as in the southern Plains. It is anticipated that the best chances for above-normal precipitation will be along the Gulf Coast into Florida and along the northern tier of the country from Washington to the Great Lakes.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending July 15, 2025.
In early July, Denver Waterโs reservoirs filled nearly to the brim, holding the most water theyโll hold this year.
Nearly full reservoirs are certainly good news for Denver Water and the 1.5 million people who rely on the water stored in them every day. But for the utilityโs water watchers, 2025โs โpeak storageโ moment was a letdown โ and even a warning of sorts.
Dillon Reservoir, Denver Waterโs largest reservoir is a popular spot for recreation. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Why?
Initial forecasts had suggested more water might run downhill, enough to fill the reservoirs and also provide extra water that could spill and boost river flows. But dry conditions in Coloradoโs high country during April, May and June sapped that extra runoff, as drier soils and warmer air soaked up the potential excess.
โWe thought we were going to have some excess water to play with this year,โ said Nathan Elder, Denver Waterโs manager of water supply. โBut as it turned out we just barely saw enough runoff to fill our reservoirs.โ
This yearโs quick turn from abundant supplies to just-enough-to-almost-fill is another reminder that even in years when overall snowpack is reasonably good, such as this past winter, we canโt take water supplies for granted. Thatโs even more apparent in an era of climate change, when warming temperatures and longer dry spells can quickly shrink projected water supplies.
And as the hot summer irrigation season begins on the Front Range, itโs a reminder to residents to be thoughtful with outdoor water use: Adhere to watering rules, turn off irrigation systems during wet stretches, and think about changes to your landscape that, over time, will reduce watering needs.
And, keep in mind, half of Denver Waterโs supply comes from the West Slope, where a dry spring is making supplies tight.
โBack on April 1, we thought we were going to be โfilling and spilling,โโ Elder said. โBut we saw streamflow forecasts really drop and even in the Colorado River Basin, where we had a solid snowpack, it did not translate into the supplies we expected.โ
The Snake River as it flows through Keystone toward Dillon Reservoir. Photo credit: Denver Water.
At least one key reason for the swift turn from a forecast for “filling and spilling” to just enough runoff to fill Denver Waterโs reservoirs was lack of precipitation โ just 50% to 70% of normal โ in April, May and June in the mountainous counties of Park, Grand and Summit where Denver Water collects supplies.
That dry spell helped drive runoff down, especially in the South Platte Basin. The amount of spring runoff flowing to Strontia Springs southwest of Denver has been only 46% of normal, below an already weak forecast of 60%. Inflows into Dillon have also been lower than expected, just 75% of normal after forecasts of 100%.
As a result, Denver Waterโs supply reservoirs peaked July 1, at just 95% of capacity and are now being drawn down as summer watering season gets into full swing. (One caveat: The peak storage number would have been a bit higher, closer to 97%, but for a storage limitation at Gross Reservoir while construction activities continue on the expansion project there.)
Denver Water hopes to see its reservoirs hit 100% of their storage capacity every year. This yearโs shortfall across the reservoir system was about 7,500 acre feet, enough water to supply more than 15,000 households for a year.
โWe missed filling by a relatively small amount, but we never know if this is a short-term situation or the start of the next drought,โ Elder said. โWe have filled up those saving accounts and now our reservoirs only go down from here with the peak of the heat season. So, we ask customers to stick to our rules and water with care.โ
In addition to the lower-then-expected peak storage numbers, Denver Water also faces another โsubstitution yearโ on the West Slope.
That is a technical way of saying Denver Water must release water from its West Slope reservoirs to make up for a shortage of water in the federally operated Green Mountain reservoir downstream from Dillon Reservoir. The water will serve downstream water users on the Colorado River.
Substitution years are uncommon, usually required once or twice per decade. But, at least in recent years, thatโs changing, with such โwater refundsโ from Denver Water required in 2021, 2022 and now, 2025.
โThat is another thing that, like the spring dry-up in the mountains, we didnโt expect this year,โ Elder said.
But other aspects of the stateโs weather in recent months have been more positive.
Big rains in the metro region in May and June kept water usage down and sent a lot of water down the South Platte River to farmers and communities. That supply boost helped reduce calls for Denver Water to bypass additional water, leaving it in the streams, to meet those downstream demands.
โThose storms really helped us out; we havenโt had to run big exchanges and send our reservoir water down to meet those needs,โ Elder said.
The wet weather locally also cut down on outdoor watering, as customers paid attention to weather and shut off sprinklers. June water use in Denver Waterโs service area was just 94% of average, a system-wide water savings of 1,600 acre feet compared to anticipated demands during June.
Finally, as water watchers do every year about this time, we look to the monsoon season to bring helpful afternoon rainstorms in July and August, which can also drive down water demand.
โThe less we can draw on our reservoirs,โ Elder said, โthe better chance we can fill up again next season.โ
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, at center, and Gov. Jim Pillen, at right, announce a lawsuit against Colorado before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to assert Nebraska’s water rights to the South Platte River that crosses state lines. At left is Jesse Bradley, director of the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy and Environment. July 16, 2025. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN, Nebraska โ Nebraska state leaders filed a lawsuit against Colorado on Wednesday seeking to have the U.S. Supreme Court assert the Cornhusker Stateโs century-old water rights to the South Platte River that crosses state lines.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, announcing the legal action at a news conference with Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and other state and local officials, said, โEvery drop of water matters.โ
Pillen and Hilgers accused Colorado officials of siphoning off more and more water every day, even as Nebraska had been โniceโ with Colorado, which has seen increases in housing, agricultural and business development along the waterway.
โWeโre here to put our gloves on,โ Pillen said, to defend what he called a โmulti-generation investmentโ afforded under the South Platte River Compact that took effect in 1926.
โWeโre going to fight like heck. Weโre going to get every drop of water,โ Pillen continued Wednesday. โWeโve been losing to Colorado on this issue for too long. Itโs time we win.โ
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser called Wednesdayโs lawsuit โunfortunateโ and said Pillen and Hilgers โput politics above farming communities and the regional agricultural economy.โ
โThe failure to look for reasonable solutions and to turn to litigation is both unfortunate and predictable given the misguided effort driving the proposed canal,โ Weiser said in a statement.
โThey want everythingโ
Hilgers said his team had exercised all options in communications with Weiserโs office before filing the 55-page complaint before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Governor Clarence J. Morley signing Colorado River compact and South Platte River compact bills, Delph Carpenter standing center. Unidentified photographer. Date 1925. Print from Denver Post. From the CSU Water Archives
The complaint accuses Colorado of violating the interstate compact between Colorado and Nebraska, which was ratified in the states in 1923 and enacted federally in 1926. Under the agreement, Nebraska is entitled to at least 120 cubic feet of water per second each day of the summer, during irrigation season.
State Sens. Kathleen Kauth, Carolyn Bosn, Jana Hughes, John Fredrickson and Dave Murman tour part of what could be part of the proposed Perkins County Canal in western Nebraska on Monday, May 1, 2023. (Courtesy of State Sen. Carolyn Bosn)
Hilgers said itโs hard to say precisely how long more water than allowed has been taken and that itโs getting worse, an assertion Colorado officials denied in 2022. So far this summer, Hilgers said, Nebraska has gotten its mandated water flows about half the time, averaging 75 cubic feet per second of water daily.
Nebraskaโs Western Irrigation District was also recently forced to shut off the majority of its surface water irrigation due to a lack of water from the South Platte River, despite the compact, according to the lawsuit.
Pillen said Colorado is storing more water for its โupstream economy,โ which he said comes at the expense of Colorado and Nebraska farmers, with Nebraskaโs western neighbors having โno interest in anything being fair and just.โ
โThey want absolutely everything, theyโre even stealing the water from their own farmers, for crying out loud,โ Pillen told reporters.
โAll-front warโ
The interstate compact also allows Nebraska to construct the โPerkins County Canal,โ a major water project through Keith County and into Colorado that would allow Nebraska to divert at least 500 cubic feet of water per second in the winter, during non-irrigation season.
Nebraska is also afforded โeminent domainโ over some Colorado land to build the canal, meaning the state could seize private land if needed.
Work on the Perkins County Canal near Ovid, Colorado, began in 1894, but the project halted after running out of money. (Courtesy of the Perkins County Historical Society)
State lawmakers, to the tune of more than $600 million, have approved funding to build a canal up to 1,000 cubic feet of water per second to capture more water flow in above-average water years. Nebraska officials say newly captured water would flow statewide and is not just focused on western Nebraska.
According to the court filing, Nebraska officials in January tried to purchase land from landowners in Sedgwick County, Colorado, at 115% of fair market value, deals that ultimately fell through. Nebraska pledged to take land โonly if the parties failed to reach amicable terms.โ
Hilgers said the situation escalated to an โall-front warโ in the past year, with Hilgers and Pillen accusing Colorado officials of stepping up opposition, including through local Colorado landowners.
Nebraska-Colorado โimpasseโ reached
Hilgers said he and his team have had many conversations with their Colorado counterparts but are at an โimpasse,โ largely over the projectโs scope, including canal size, location and Nebraskaโs eminent domain rights, a provision Weiser has said he is ready to challenge Nebraska on.
The eminent domain provisions are believed to be one of a kind among any interstate compacts in the nationโs history, according to Hilgers.
โThere is no alternative forum capable of fully resolving the claims Nebraska asserts against Colorado, which are of such seriousness and dignity as to justify the exercise of the courtโs jurisdiction,โ the complaint to the Supreme Court states.
Weiser said that if the Supreme Court does greenlight the โwasteful project,โ it will force Colorado water users to build additional projects to lessen the impact of the canal. He encouraged โcollaboration and collaboration, rather than litigation,โ which could lead to a โdurable and thoughtful solutionโ that increases regional resiliency and agricultural strength.
In 2022, a spokesperson for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis called the project a โcanal to nowhereโ and a โboondoggle.โ
Polis on Wednesday called the lawsuit โmeritlessโ and said the state had continued to meet with Nebraska in โgood faithโ despite its efforts to intimidate some Colorado landowners. He reasserted that his state has always complied with the South Platte River Compact.
โThis escalation by Nebraska is needless, and Colorado will take all steps necessary to aggressively defend Colorado water users, landowners, and our rural economy,โ Polis said in a statement.
Pillen, asked whether he had talked to Polis about the canal or lawsuit, said plainly: โNo.โ
โThe bottom line: He and I do not agree one iota. And thereโs no sense in further conversations,โ Pillen said. โIโm not playing goober politics on this. Weโre going to fight for Nebraska.โ
Then-Gov. Pete Ricketts joined other state officials in an unannounced visit in September 2022 to the area of the proposed Perkins County Canal. (Courtesy of Nebraska Governorโs Office)
Former Gov. Pete Ricketts, now a Republican U.S. senator for Nebraska, unearthed and reinvigorated the compact in 2022 with Hilgers, the then-speaker of the Legislature.
Hilgers said it was probably always โinevitableโ that the U.S. Supreme Court would decide the issue. He acknowledged that while a minority of state senators have tried to claw back funding for the Perkins County Canal, he anticipated that future efforts to do so would continue to fail.
โThe future of Nebraskaโ
Jesse Bradley, director of the newly merged Nebraska Department of Water, Energy and Environment as of July 1, said his team would continue to move forward with the project, parallel to the litigation, estimating that permitting and design would finish by 2028 for construction to begin.
The hope is that water will flow through the new canal no later than 2032.
โThis is critical to the future of Nebraska,โ Bradley said. โWe will continue to push forward aggressively.โ
Also joining Wednesdayโs news conference were representatives of the Nebraska Public Power District, Central Platte Natural Resources District, Central Nebraska Power and Irrigation District, Twin Platte Natural Resources District, the Nebraska Western Irrigation District, the South Platte Natural Resources District and the stateโs chief water officer, Matt Manning.
Hilgers estimated the state lawsuit could cost a couple of million dollars, including hiring outside experts or legal counsel, and take three to five years before the Supreme Court decides.
Pillen said Nebraska would not โsave penniesโ on the project and would have the โA Team 100% of the timeโ to win, โnot a shadow of a doubt.โ
Weiser estimated that โwhen the dust finally settles,โ more than a billion dollars would be spent over a possible decade of litigation, and โno one in Nebraska or Colorado will be better off.โ
Hilgers said heโs thankful the U.S. Supreme Court will decide the issue.
โWe could maybe not get everything we want in front of the Supreme Court. But if we donโt file, we will lose. Period, full stop,โ Hilgers said. โAnd what we will lose will so far outstrip the cost of this particular project that will really be a โshame on usโ moment if we donโt actually follow through.โ
Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Aaron Sanderford for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com.
The South Platte River Basin is shaded in yellow. Source: Tom Cech, One World One Water Center, Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Rio Grande looking upstream, taken from Albuquerqueโs Central Avenue Bridge, 2:15 p.m. July 14, 2025
Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck):
July 15, 2025
The โofficialโ call: the Rio Grande went dry in the Albuquerque reach, just upstream of the cityโs wastewater treatment plant (click here for the map), on Sunday evening (July 13, 2025), for only the second time in the 21st century.
โDryโ in this case has a formal definition. The thinning ribbons of water you see in the picture above, taken mid-afternoon Monday (July 14, 2025) have to break. Itโs still a muddy mess; the riverโs subsurface manifestation, the shallow aquifer, still has water in it, the trees (look at their lovely green!) still have access to that part of the river. But if youโre a fish or a turtle, these are sad times.
The fact package
We got an excellent update on river conditions (as we do every month) at the meeting of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, the government agency responsible for river flood control, drainage, and irrigation in New Mexicoโs Middle Rio Grande. Most of what follows I learned by attending that meeting.
The last time the river dried in the heart of New Mexicoโs largest city was 2022. Before that, it hadnโt happened since the 1980s.
Drying is common to the south, between Albuquerque and Elephant Butte Reservoir. Happens most every year. Whatโs new is drying in the heart of this large urban area.
Imported Colorado River water, via the San Juan-Chama Project, delayed the Albuquerque drying. The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District used that water to supplement flows and get water to irrigators from June 16 to July 6, when their San Juan-Chama supplies ran out. (Source: Anne Markenโs report to the MRGCD board)
The Conservancy District is currently operating under the rules of โprior and paramountโ operations, meaning a subset of the lands of the valleyโs six Native American Pueblos get water, while all non-Indian irrigators upstream of Isleta Pueblo are being curtailed. (Source: Marken, if you wanna understand whatโs happening on the Rio Grande, you can do no better than Anneโs monthly report to the board)
As of July 8, the federal government had ~31,545 acre feet of P&P water in storage in El Vado (thereโs a bit of space available despite the damโs problems) and Abiquiu. (Source: USBR report to the MRGCD board)
Downstream from Isleta, once the Pueblos have gotten their P&P water, some irrigation is possible using return flows. Because of the structure of the plumbing, this favors the riverโs east side communities. (Source: Matt Martinez report to the MRGCD board, ditto what I said about Marken: โIf you wanna understandโฆ.โ)
The pumps that have kept water flowing to Corrales in the absence of the rickety old siphon that used to get water there were shut down June 26. (Source: Matt Martinez)
Current flow at the Central Avenue Bridge, as measured by the USGS: is it even worth trying to measure this? What does โ1.78 cubic feet per secondโ mean in a river like the one you see in the picture above?
Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (Jack Schmidt Center for Colorado River Studies, Utah State University):
July 14, 2025
Water stored in the reservoirs of the Colorado River represents the account balance from which we draw water for use. The amount in the account is especially important during dry times when the demand by water users throughout the Basin exceeds income to the account, primarily snowmelt runoff, and is met by account withdrawals.
The annual cycle of reservoir hydrology includes two seasons โ a relatively short season when reservoir storage increases and a relatively long season when storage decreases. In wet years, the season when storage increases typically begins in March or early April and may last until late July. In dry years, this season might not begin until May and end in mid-June. During the rest of the year, the Basinโs reservoirs are progressively depleted.
Snowmelt in 2025 was low, similar to what it was in 2012 and 2013; in early June, the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center predicted that this yearโs unregulated snowmelt inflow to Lake Powell will end up being 54% of the recent 30-yr average. In the 21st century, only 2002, 2018, and 2021 had lower inflows to Powell. Not surprisingly, the amount of water that accumulated in the Basinโs reservoirs during the 2025 snowmelt season was also unusually low. There are a few ways to consider the Basinโs reservoirs. We can consider every reservoir for which data are readily available[1]; we can consider the major reservoirs actively managed by Reclamation[2]; or, we can consider just Lake Powell and Lake Mead (hereafter, Powell+Mead). Considering only Lake Powell or only Lake Mead doesnโt tell us much, because all of the Rocky Mountain snowmelt is first stored in Lake Powell and subsequently transferred to Lake Mead. In 2025, the 46 Basin reservoirs gained only 0.55 million af (acre feet) of water, of which only 0.28 million af accumulated in the 12 federal reservoirs and only 0.11 million af accumulated in Powell+Mead. That is a very small amount, especially compared to 2023 and 2024 (Fig. 1). That accumulation is being quickly consumed. By 1 July 2025, all of the 2025 accumulation in Powell+Mead had been released downstream or evaporated.
Figure 1. Graph showing reservoir storage in different parts of the Colorado River Basin since 1 January 2023. Total storage in March 2023 was the lowest in the 21st century. Storage significantly increased due to 2023 snowmelt, but the accumulation from the 2024 snowmelt was entirely lost. This will also happen in the coming months. On 30 June 2025, active storage in 42 reservoirs upstream from Lake Powell was 8.58 million af, active storage in Lake Mead was 8.05 million af, and storage in Lake Powell was 7.88 million af.
In contrast to previous dry years, however, todayโs account balance is unusually low, about the same as in late July 2021 (Fig. 2). Depending on how you think about the reservoir system, todayโs contents are between 34 and 45% full in relation to their condition at the beginning of the 21stย century (Table 1).
Figure 2. Graph showing reservoir storage in different parts of the Colorado River Basin since 1 January 1999. On 30 June 2025, total basin storage was comparable to what it was in late July 2021
Table 1. Present storage contents of reservoirs in the Colorado River Basin in relation to past conditions.
Storage contents, in million acre feet
on 30 June 2025
Last time storage was as low
Present storage as a percentage of storage in late July 1999
entire Basin (n=46)
26.8
25-Jul-21
45%
federal reservoirs (n=12)
23.64
4-Sep-21
42%
Powell + Mead
15.93
20-Nov-21
34%
The implications for Lake Powell depend on whether Reclamation decides to emphasize water storage in Lake Powell or in Lake Mead, and whether water presently in Flaming Gorge reservoir will be released to supplement storage in Lake Powell. As of June 30, 32% of the reservoir storage in the Basin was in 42 reservoirs upstream from Powell, 30% was in Mead, and 29% was in Powell (Fig. 1). if past management practices prevail, storage upstream from Powell will be quickly reduced, and storage in Powell and Mead will be reduced more slowly. If Reclamation emphasizes storage in Lake Powell by reducing releases to Lake Mead through the Grand Canyon, hydropower production at Glen Canyon Dam will be maintained and the risk of entrainment of smallmouth bass through the turbines will be reduced. But this management approach will cause Lake Mead to fall more quickl, thereby reducing hydropower production at Hoover Dam and perhaps the quality of water withdrawn to southern Nevada. Water storage canโt be maximized in both reservoirs at the same time. Indeed, we are living in dry times!
[2] There are 12 included in Reclamationโs monthly 12-month study reports (Taylor Park, Blue Mesa, Morrow Point, Crystal, Fontenelle, Flaming Gorge, Navajo, Vallecito, Lake Powell, Lake Mead, Lake Mohave, and Lake Havasu).
IN JULY 2020,ย Squeaks left Santa Ana Pueblo. Fitted with a GPS tracking collar by the puebloโs Department of Natural Resources, the subadult male mountain lion made an extraordinary 558-mile journey to Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado. Squeaks crossed the rugged mesa and canyon country of northwestern New Mexico, skirted towns, swam Navajo Lakeโtwiceโand struggled to navigate a maze of highways. Eventually, in late September, Squeaks made his way under US 550 near Cuba and continued north.ย The epic journey highlights a critical issue facing wildlife in New Mexico. Highways effectively work as deadly walls, impeding wildlife movement and decimating animal populations.ย In New Mexico, more than 1,200 wildlife-automobile collisions are reported across the state each year, although the number is considered a serious undercount.ย While firm wildlife-impact numbers are hard to come by, theย New Mexico Department of Transportationย (NMDOT) reported an average of 671 deer and 3,041 elk involved in crashes each year from 2002 to 2018…
Deer have been seen using the underpass on trail cameras. Photograph courtesy of NMDOT.
To address this, New Mexico is implementing aย Wildlife Corridors Action Planย to guide NMDOT and theย Department of Game & Fishย to protect areas vital for wildlife movement and create fresh infrastructure that helps animals safely cross heavily trafficked highways…Over the past decade, the state has built 10 wildlife crossings, including one in Tijeras Canyon east of Albuquerque and at Ratรณn Pass near the Colorado border. Legislators also allocated an additional $50 million for construction of new passages in early 2025. The Wildlife Corridors Action Plan pinpointed 30 collision hot spots across the state with 11 in need of urgent action, including stretches near Silver City, Ruidoso, Glorieta Pass, and in the Sacramento Mountains. Santa Ana Pueblo is working with the state to construct wildlife passages along 19 miles of I-25 and nearly eight miles of US 550…
A bear using the underpass. Photograph courtesy of NMDOT.
The current top priority is a $45 million project on US 550, north of Cuba, to construct underpasses and overpasses with eight-foot-high fencing meant to both keep wildlife from highways and funnel them into the passages. Thatโs because different species have different needs when it comes to wildlife passages. Elk and pronghorn do not like underpasses, preferring a vegetated bridge over the highway. Deer, bear, mountain lions, coyotes, and bobcat are more comfortable with underpasses, provided they are at least 25 feet wide, 12 to 14 feet high, with a length less than 100 feet.
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Caitlin Hayes):
July 10, 2025
In the late 2010s, when Flavio Lehner worked for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, water managers often asked him about the drought in the Southwest. Was the low precipitation simply an unlucky draw in the cycle of long-term weather variations? What role did climate change play? Most importantly, was the drought there to stay?
No one had answers, but Lehner began pursuing them.
Now a study by Lehner and his team, published July 9 in Nature Geoscience, shows that climate change and aerosols have indeed led to lower precipitation in the Southwest and made drought inevitable.
The research is the first to isolate the variables of human-caused climate change and air pollution to show how they directly affect the regionโs precipitation; the study predicts that drought conditions will likely continue as the planet warms.
โWhat we find is that precipitation is more directly influenced by climate change than we previously thought, and precipitation is pretty sensitive to these external influences that are caused by humans,โ said Lehner, the senior author. He is now an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University.
A trend towards lower precipitation in the Southwest started around 1980, with the onset largely attributed to La Niรฑa-like conditions, a climate phenomenon that results in cooler surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean. The new research shows that even if El Niรฑo-like conditions had prevailed instead, the Southwest would not have experienced a corresponding increase in precipitation.
โIn our models, if we see a warming trend in the tropical Pacific, we would expect more precipitation in the Southwestern United States, but thatโs not the case here,โ said first-author and doctoral student Yan-Ning Kuo.
โOn top of the El Niรฑo and La Niรฑa sea surface temperature trends, thereโs a uniform warming trend because of historical climate change, as well as emissions from anthropogenic aerosols, that both create a certain circulation pattern over the North Pacific. Those two factors prevent the precipitation for the Southwestern U.S. from increasing, even under El Niรฑo-like trends.โ
Lehner said the results point to a bigger shift in the connection between the weather in the tropical Pacific and in the U.S., due to climate change and aerosols.
โWhat we call a teleconnection from that region to the Southwestern U.S. is changing systematically,โ he said, โand these external influences really modulate that relationship, so it doesnโt behave exactly how we expect it to behave.โ
There is some good news. Researchers expect that the concentration of aerosols โ which includes the emissions from vehicles and industry โ will drop as China and other countries in East Asia implement policies to improve air quality. But Lehner said warming temperatures may offset those improvements.
โMost experts expect the world as a whole to reduce air pollution, and globally, itโs already going down quite quickly. Thatโs good news on the precipitation side,โ Lehner said. โAt the same time, the warming is going to continue as far as we can tell, and that will gradually outweigh those benefits, as a warmer atmosphere tends to be thirstier, gradually drying out the Southwest.โ
The researchers were able to determine the role of climate change and aerosols by eschewing prevailing climate models that in recent years have not been able to accurately reflect the sea surface temperatures observed in real-time. The team designed their own simulations that allowed them to plug in data from satellites and statistical models to understand the impact of each contributing factor.
Lehner said the research offers new methods for approaching questions about climate changeโs impact on weather patterns, while also specifically helping water managers and other stakeholders in the Southwest plan for the future.
โIn the Southwest, people really depend on what little water there is โ every drop in the Colorado River, for example, is accounted for through water rights,โ he said. โI am excited to go back and show the results to people who need them.โ
Co-authors include Isla R. Simpson, Clara Deser and Adam Phillips from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); Matthew Newman from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); Sang-Ik Shin from NOAA and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences; and Julie M. Arblaster and Spencer Wong from Monash University.
The study was supported by NOAA, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.
