Day: September 7, 2026

President Trump looks to motorize public lands: Also — Bears Ears/GSENM lawsuits; data center halted — for now; Navajo coal mine approval; More — Jonathan P. Thompson (LandDesk.org)

Debris from the Bright Angel flash flood event in the Grand Canyon. Photo taken the next morning, August 30, 2026. Source: Grand Canyon National Park.

Click the link to read the article on The Land Desk website (Jonathan P. Thompson):

September 4, 2026

🌵 Public Lands 🌲

The Trump administration continues its crusade to make America’s public lands motorized again. This time it’s the Forest Service launching a revamp of its travel management rule by “simplifying regulatory requirements” to “increase access, including for motorized vehicles, e-bikes, and other mobility devices.” The move follows, and is an attempt to implement, President Donald Trump’s rollback this summer of Nixon-era restrictions on off-highway vehicles on public lands. Comments are being accepted on the proposal until Sept. 23.

This rule would bolster the administration’s rollback this summer of the 2001 Roadless Rule, which prohibits roadbuilding and commercial timber operations — with exceptions — on 45 million acres of National Forest lands.

The current action starts the process of developing an environmental impact statement, which will give more specific details. But the notice of intent gives an overall look at what the administration proposes. Most basically, it aims to open the door for individual forests to relax motorized travel restrictions and open currently closed areas to the vehicles. The “public access rule,” as they’re calling it, would:

  • “… establish a presumption that existing roads, trails, airfields, trailheads, and other access routes and points on NFS lands are open to appropriate public use,” unless the closure is required by law (or other specific reasons). This is a switch from the current “closed unless designated open” policy to an “open unless closed” framework, with possibly dramatic effects.
  • “ … establish a requirement to consider new roads, trails, airfields, trailheads, and other access routes and points where appropriate to increase access.” This appears to be aimed at optimizing, if you will, the Roadless Rule rollback by encouraging new roadbuilding.
  • “… establish processes and conditions for authorizing limited off-route motor vehicle and other motorized equipment use for, among other things, downed big-game retrieval, firewood collection, dispersed camping, and for designating areas for over-snow and other motorized recreation.” This one’s pretty scary, because it would open the door to allowing OHVs or snowmobiles to drive just about anywhere in a forest (except in designated wilderness areas).

You have until Sept. 23 to weigh in on the proposal. To do so electronically (preferred)through the Federal eRulemaking Portal, go to https://www.regulations.gov, docket number FS-2026-0100, and look for the COMMENT button. Or send snail mail to: Director, Public Benefits, 201 14th Street SW, Public Benefits Office, Washington, DC 20250.

The arrogance of the off-road vehicle lobby — Jonathan P. Thompson

Upper White Canyon and tributaries and Bears Ears in the clouds. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

Several tribal nations, advocacy groups, and Patagonia have filed lawsuits — and/or revived dormant ones — seeking to block President Donald Trump’s proclamations this summer shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. The legal argument behind the lawsuits is clear and potent: The 1906 Antiquities Act authorizes presidents to establish national monuments, but not to shrink or revoke them. Therefore Trump’s 2017 and 2026 shrinkages are illegal and should not stand.

History backs the plaintiffs. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to revoke the Castle Pinckney National Monument, a former military installation in South Carolina. His attorney general’s analysis, however, determined that the Antiquities Act “does not authorize [the President] to abolish [national monuments] after they have been established.” FDR, respecting the rule of law, let the monument stand. Eventually, Congress, which does have the power to alter national monuments, voted to revoke national monument status for the site.

In 2017, a quartet of legal scholars, including Mark Squillace, of the University of Colorado Law School, published their own analysis in the Virginia Law Review. They, too, found that in 1906 Congress did not delegate to the president the authority to downsize or abolish a national monument or weaken the protections granted by the original national monument proclamation. Furthermore, the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 clarified that only Congress has the power to modify or revoke a national monument.

The cases likely will take years to wend their way through the courts, and may ultimately lead to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the power of the Antiquities Act.

Boaters on the Colorado River a few miles downstream from Glen Canyon Dam. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

🌨️🦦🚣🏽 Water Watch 🌊

While climate change-exacerbated drought most notably diminishes the amount of water in rivers, it also raises the temperature of streams, which is especially problematic for fish and other aquatic life. The Colorado River downstream from Glen Canyon Dam, which includes the long stretch through the Grand Canyon, is warming up fast.

When the river stalls out and becomes Lake Powell, the reservoir’s surface just sits in the sun and bakes, while the deeper waters remain chilly. Some fish, like non-native smallmouth bass prefer the warm water, and stay near the surface. When the reservoir is full, the depth of the water at the penstock intakes — where released water exits the dam — is too cold for the bass, so they aren’t likely to escape the reservoir into the river below. But as the surface level drops, the depth of the water at the penstock intakes on the dam decreases, meaning that the water released through the dam’s turbines and into the river below gets increasingly warmer — and is more likely to include warm-water fish.

Currently, Lake Powell’s surface is a mere 28 feet above the penstock intakes, meaning the released water is warm and includes a lot of bass. This, in turn, warms up the river below, making it more favorable to the invading bass, which prey on and compete with endangered native fish. Meanwhile, the warmer water stresses the trout, potentially harming the recreational fishery between Lees Ferry and the dam.

So in 2024 as it became clear low reservoir levels were chronic, the Bureau of Reclamation began doing “cool-flow mixes.” When the river water temperature downstream of the dam hit 59.9° F, dam operators would begin releasing cooler water from the lower river outlet tubes. This dropped the river temperature enough to help downstream fish, and hurt the bass.

This year, however, the feds halted the cool flow mixes to ensure that all releases go through the turbines and generate hydropower. The Grand Canyon Trust built a nifty online gadget that shows the consequences, which aren’t good: The water temperature at the monitor just below Soap Creek Rapid in the Grand Canyon soared above 70° F during the waning days of August, and has been above the cool-mix threshold for 78 days this year so far. Click on the interactive graph to see how water temperatures have changed over the years — and how well the cool-mix flows worked in 2024 and 2025.

🤖 Data Center Watch 👾

The first data center project on public lands has been halted — for now.

On Tuesday, the Interior Board of Land Appeals granted a stay on the Townsite Solar 2’s planned data center on federal land near Boulder City, Nevada, blocking further development while legal challenges are considered. The order also expedites consideration of the appeals filed by environmental groups and the city.

In 2023, the Bureau of Land Management authorized Townsite Solar 2 to develop a solar-plus-storage installation on public land in southern Nevada. Then, in November 2025, before beginning construction on the solar facility, the firm requested an amendment to its right of way that instead would allow it to develop a hyperscale data center, a 70-megawatt battery energy storage system, a substation, and biodiesel generators on the same site. The BLM approved the amendment without conducting a new environmental review or public scoping after determining that the new project “is substantially the same” as the former one.

Both the Biden and Trump II administrations proposed opening national laboratories and other federal properties to data center development. However, this was the first such project to be approved for BLM land.

Boulder City, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Sierra Club appealed the approval and requested the stay, arguing that the agency failed to adequately consider the data center’s potential impacts. The board’s ruling notes, “Appellants are likely to prevail on that question because the two projects are not ‘substantially the same.’” The board also determined the appellants “demonstrated that permanent and irreparable harm is likely to occur to its members’ aesthetic and recreational interests in the project site.”

⛏️ Mining Monitor ⛏️

Federal regulators on Tuesday approved the Navajo Transitional Energy Company’s proposed Navajo Mine expansion, authorizing the tribal-owned company to extract some 503 million tons of coal over the next 110 years. Yes, you read that right: The coal industry may be in decline, but these folks just got permitted to keep digging up the dirty fuel for over a century more, despite strong opposition from residents and advocacy groups.

The surface mine sits on the Navajo Nation north of Burnham and about 22 miles southwest of Farmington, New Mexico. It was built in the 1960s to serve the nearby Four Corners Power Plant, and remains the facility’s sole fuel provider.

NTEC says it needs the expansion to continue serving the plant until its closure; its primary owner, Arizona Public Service, plans to shutter the facility by 2041. After that the firm, which also owns coal mines in the Powder River Basin, would apparently try to peddle Navajo Mine coal elsewhere.

This has set off alarm bells for anyone concerned about the landscapes and air quality of the Four Corners region. Not only would the mine tear apart another 9,000 acres of land, displace residents and dwellings, and destroy dozens of historic cultural properties, but that coal would also be burned somewhere, releasing climate-warming and health-harming pollutants in the process. Also concerning is the prospect that the Four Corners plant, which has sullied the region’s air for more than 60 years, would continue operating indefinitely.

***

The San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop further exploratory drilling or other development at Faraday’s proposed Copper Creek mining project. The groups accuse the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of failing to consider drilling’s impacts on endangered Mexican spotted owls that are known to inhabit the area.

The mine is proposed for about 78 square kilometers in the Galiuro Mountains east of Mammoth, Arizona, on private, state, and Bureau of Land Management parcels. Last June, the Bureau of Land Management approved Faraday’s plan to construct 67 drill pads, along with associated roads and infrastructure, and the company recently completed the first round of water-intensive drilling.

The complaint also says the BLM failed to consult with the San Carlos Apache Tribe, as required under the National Historic Preservation Act.

The water footprint of Arizona’s copper mines — Jonathan P. Thompson

📸 Parting Shot 🎞️

Desert water and smoky sunset. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

Chasing the water — John Fleck (InkStain.net) #RioGrande #NewMexico

“Game on!” as a friend texted yesterday afternoon. Credit: John Fleck/InkStain

Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck):

September 2, 2026

At 2 p.m. Monday (Aug 31, 2026) the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, along with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and Audubon Southwest, began releasing a pulse of water from Abiquiu Reservoir on the Rio Chama in Northern New Mexico as an experiment – what might a several day pulse of water do to help the aridification-starved riverside forests along New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande?

Here’s Bernalillo County Commissioner Barbara Baca, chair of the ABCWUA board:

As I and others have written previously, we’re seeing extraordinary stress on the riverside trees, the ribbons of green that flank the Rio Grande through New Mexico’s largest city.

The tradeoffs that we talk about every fall semester in the water resources class I teach, tradeoffs among competing and conflicting values, are becoming real. The motivating question I’ve used in my writing on water since my old newspaper days was to ask, as pointedly as I could, “When supplies run sort, who actually doesn’t get water?” 

Two answers have become increasingly obvious in recent years along the Middle Rio Grande. What we’ve come to call the “accordion” of irrigated agriculture is squeezing, as pastures and fields without the super-senior water rights that apply to some of the irrigated lands of New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande (or a supplemental well) go dry.

“The environment” is the other.

The question has never been “What do we say we value?”, but rather “What do we value enough to give up water in some other place?” This is about tradeoffs. More water in one place – an irrigated field or the river channel itself – necessarily means less water in some other place. My “what do we value enough to give up water” formulation shifts this from a question of what we say we value to what we actually value enough to give up water to preserve?

Behind the scenes for the last couple of weeks there has been an extraordinary effort underway to scrounge up some water currently in storage upstream for other purposes, and to rapidly put in place the tools to monitor the results. Nobody’s quite sure how much water will get how far into the bone dry Albuquerque reach of the river, how far downstream the pulse will make it, what the results might be for the riverside forest.

For my whole professional life, long before I shifted from newspapers to writing books, I had a joke when something remarkable happened: “That’ll be great material for my book!” This is that.

Sun’s almost up, I’m off to chase the water.

Rio Grande and Pecos River basins. Map credit: By Kmusser – Own work, Elevation data from SRTM, drainage basin from GTOPO [1], U.S. stream from the National Atlas [2], all other features from Vector Map., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11218868

South Platte River Basin #climate for the week ending September 7, 2026 #SouthPlatteRiver

Below is the Precipitation Accumulation in South Platte graph from the NRCS for September 7, 2026. This morning precipitation, at the SNOTEL stations, is at 76% of the median (up 1% one week), and 72% of the water year median (up 1% one week). There are 23 days left in the water year.

There is a slight chance for thunderstorms today, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms Saturday and Sunday in the central and northern mountains. There is a chance for thunderstorms today then a slight chance for showers and thunderstorms Saturday, and a chance for showers and thunderstorms Sunday, down here about 55 miles from Berthoud Pass, where the Berthoud Pass Ditch brings water to Clear Creek from the Fraser River. From Clear Creek County:

The little stone bridge at the Summit is hard to see, but it is still used both by U.S. Highway 40 and the Berthoud Pass Ditch. When viewed from the north side of the road, and behind the new wetland constructed as part of the U. S. Highway 40 widening project, the bridge can be seen and is the same design as three others on the Grand County side of the Pass. A culvert funnels the water from the Ditch under this bridge and across U.S. Highway 40. The Berthoud Pass Ditch is now owned by the City of Northglenn. The ditch has long been a part of the history of Grand County and Berthoud Pass.

The Berthoud Pass Ditch is now owned by the City of Northglenn. Photo credit: Clear Creek County
Culvert under US-40 that funnels water in the Berthoud Pass Ditch from the Fraser River watershed to Clear Creek. Credit: Clear Creek County

Here’s a look at the 7-Day Colorado precipitation map through September 5, 2026 from the High Plains Regional Climate Center. Precipitation in the South Platte Basin along the Continental Divide of the Americas ranged from 0.10” to 1.20”.

Here’s the 7-Day percent of normal precipitation map through September 6, 2026 from the High Plains Regional Climate Center. Precipitation in the South Platte River Basin along the Continental Divide of the Americas was 25% to 125% of normal.

Below is the 7-day Quantitative Precipitation Forecast for the week of September 7, 2026. Precipitation is anticipated for the mountains of the South Platte River Basin and may total up to 0.50″.

Below are the 8-14 day outlooks from the Climate Prediction Center, issued September 6, 2026, for temperature and precipitation, for the week starting September 14, 2026. The CPC expects above normal temperatures and above normal precipitation for the mountains of the South Platte River Basin.

Below is the Colorado Drought Monitor map from September 1, 2026. There were one class improvements in Douglas, Arapahoe, Adams, Morgan, Weld, and Logan counties. Drought and abnormal dryness covers 93.81% of Colorado. The South Platte Basin is experiencing Abnormally Dry, Moderate, Severe, Extreme, and Exceptional drought conditions.

Below is the Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending September 1, 2026.

Here’s the US Drought Monitor Map from last week along with the one week U.S. change map.

Finally, Peter Goble recently wrote, What Super El Niño Means for Colorado, on the Colorado Climate Center blog. From the post:

Historical correlation analysis shows El Niño is also linked to changes in Colorado weather, where conditions are generally wetter during El Niño years (image 5). This is especially true in fall and spring, when much of the state averages higher precipitation. Furthermore, the Front Range and Eastern Plains are more prone to large spring snowstorms and experience fewer dry and windy spring days (though such days remain frequent regardless). Unfortunately, the link between the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and peak seasonal snowpack levels in Colorado is weak. Southern river basins, such as the San Juan and Rio Grande, show a loose positive correlation between El Niño and snowpack.

Image 5: Statistical relationship between El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and precipitation in Colorado. Green areas tend to be wetter during El Niño and blue areas tend to be wetter during La Niña.