Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck, Anne Castle, Eric Kuhn, Jack Schmidt, Kathryn Sorensen, and Katherine Tara):
As we await Fridayโs (Aug. 15, 2025) release of the Bureau of Reclamationโs Colorado River 24-Month Study, we need to remember a painful lesson of the last five years of crisis management: whatever you see in Reclamationโs report of the โMost Probableโ reservoir levels for the next two years, we must prepare for things to be much worse.
A year ago, Reclamationโs โMost Probableโ forecast told us to expect Lake Powell to hold 10.36 million acre feet of water at the end of July 2025, with a surface elevation 3,593 feet above sea level. Actual storage in Powell at the end of July was 7.46 maf, 2.9 million acre feet less, and the reservoir is 38 feet lower, than the โMost Probableโ forecast.
Four years ago, one of us (Eric Kuhn) wrote this, which is helpful in understanding what is happening:
“The problem: the assumptions underlying the study do not fully capture the climate-change driven aridification of the Colorado River Basin.”
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
In 2022, a Utah State Center for Colorado River Studies team led by Jian Wang (including one of us, Schmidt) took this on in more technical detail โ Evaluating the Accuracy of Reclamationโs 24-Month Study of Lake Powell Projections. The finding provided technical support for an intuition water managers already had: the 24-Month Study has an optimistic bias.
Produced monthly, Reclamationโs 24-Month Study includes three scenarios: Most Probable, Minimum Probable, and Maximum Probable. The Study includes 18 pages of data and forecasts for twelve Colorado River system reservoirs, from Fontenelle and Flaming Gorge in the north to Mohave and Havasu in the south, projecting things like elevation, storage, inflows, releases, evaporation, and hydropower production each month for the next two years.
“Projections for reservoir elevations during the next few months are based on predictions of reservoir inflow using a widely accepted watershed hydrologic model run by the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center. The input data for that model are observed snowpack in the watershed, soil moisture, and anticipated precipitation and temperature. Projections for reservoir elevations beyond the immediately proximate winter, a year or more in the future (โsecond year projectionsโ), are based on statistical probabilities calculated using analyses of past inflows during a 30-year reference period.”
The resulting model runs represent a wide range of uncertainties, which are captured in three resulting scenarios:
Most Probable: the middle of the range
Maximum Probable: the 90th percentile scenario, meaning that 10% of the model runs predict even wetter hydrology and 90% predict drier.
Minimum Probable: the 10th percentile scenario, meaning that 10% of the model runs predict even drier hydrology and 90% predict wetter.
The problem, implicit in the argument Milly et al. made nearly two decades ago, is that a 30-year reference period is no longer a reliable indicator of what we should expect in the future. It represents a river we no longer have. This is not to suggest any bias or partiality on the part of Reclamation, but merely that the algorithms and modeling used to produce the 24-Month Study have proven in recent years to be skewed more toward the the past than the true-to-life. Our response needs to reflect that reality.
Because of the changing conditions in the Colorado River Basin, the Minimum Probable scenario has become the most valuable in providing a reliable indicator of the future. Actual flows and reservoir levels have been tracking the minimum probable forecast since March of this year. As we enter the fall of 2025, with the weak summer monsoon for most of the Upper Basin coupled with weak La Niรฑa conditions persisting through the fall and early winter, and NOAAโs seasonal outlook pointing to a warmer and drier than average fall, itโs a good bet that this trend will continue at least through mid-winter. The Basin should be prepared for minimum probable conditions, with a clear possibility that actual conditions could be worse than the 10th percentile scenario. The basin community needs to be ready to respond with the necessary water use reductions now to protect the Colorado River system on which we all depend.
Pine River Marina at Navajo Reservoir. Photo credit: Reclamation
From email from Reclamation (Conor Felletter):
August 15, 2025
The Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled an increase in the release from Navajo Dam to 900 cubic feet per second (cfs) from the current release of 850 cfs for Saturday, August 16, at 4:00 AM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Conor Felletter (cfelletter@usbr.gov or 970-637-1985), or visit Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website athttps://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
Reclamation conducts Public Operations Meetings three times per year to gather input for determining upcoming operations for Navajo Reservoir. Input from individuals, organizations, and agencies along with other factors such as weather, water rights, endangered species requirements, flood control, hydro power, recreation, fish and wildlife management, and reservoir levels, will be considered in the development of these reservoir operation plans. In addition, the meetings are used to coordinate activities and exchange information among agencies, water users, and other interested parties concerning the San Juan River and Navajo Reservoir. The next meeting will be held Tuesday, August 19th at 1:00 PM. This meeting is open to the public with hybrid options, in person at the Civic Center in Farmington, NM (200 W Arrington St, Farmington, NM 87401, Rooms 4&5) and virtual using Microsoft Teams. Register for the webinar at this link
Trail building by the Civilian Conservation Corps on Notch Mountain, then a popular destination for its view of the Mount of the Holy Cross and the throngs of religious pilgrims who were drawn to the site in the early days of the Holy Cross National Forest, now part of the White River National Forest. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Editorโs note: This story is the third of a three-part series examining the notion of public lands, both in the United States and in our region. Part one looked at the earliest expressions of the commons in territories that would become the United States. Parts two and three look at the history and legacy of what is now the White River National Forest.
The hunger for land was an insatiable draw to legions of the dispossessed who were on the march across America eager for land ownership. The Utes were simply in the way of an advance that could not or would not be stopped. The tragic story of these first inhabitants of the White River National Forest (WRNF) played out to a violent end amid a rush for land and resources in the Colorado Rockies that had 5,000 people per day pouring into the state by the 1870s.
Native inhabitants had been hunting and gathering here for more than 10,000 years. The Utes โ the โPeople of the Shining Mountains,โ according to the title of a book by Charles Marsh โ ruled a vast and rugged empire of about 225,000 square miles that stretched from the Central Rockies west into Utah and Nevada, south into New Mexico and east onto the Great Plains where they hunted buffalo on horseback. The Utes were among the first Native Americans to acquire the horse from Spanish stock that, it was assumed, had been lost. Horses were key to Ute identity, and equestrian skills were a mark of manhood that provided rapid mobility and warrior status.
White River Ute warrior Gray Eagle and his young bride Honey Dew of the Mountains, on horseback on the western slope of the Wasatch Range in Utah, then roaming their vast territory west of the White River before the White River Agency was established. Circa 1871-1875. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
Broken treaties and war
The advance of Europeans into Ute lands set up a tension that grew with every treaty violation and every trespass. As their domain was carved away, the U.S. government naively assumed the Utes could be transitioned from nomadic hunter-gatherers and cordoned off as sedentary farmers. Indian agents were hired to effect this transition, which, in the long run, proved futile and disastrous. There was no reasonable answer to โthe Ute problem,โ which was the terminology used by Frederick Pitkin, Coloradoโs second governor from 1879-82, to refer to the cultural impasse.
The ensuing drama escalated at the White River Agency near todayโs Meeker in 1879 when Indian agent Nathan Meeker, a naive and misguided minister, attempted to force the Utesโ compliance to โwhite manโs waysโ by denying them their horses, rationing allotments and plowing over their racetrack to plant crops. Meeker and others believed that the Utes were in need of redemption for their spiritual welfare. The Utes, who found spiritual depth in the natural world around them, believed otherwise and clung to their sacred traditions.
The conflict boiled over in the late summer of 1879 when Meeker had a violent altercation with a Ute sub chief. The frightened Meeker sent for the U.S. Army, which advanced from Wyoming and was met by a strong Ute force. When the detachment of 190 troops crossed into Ute territory on Sept. 29, shots rang out, kicking off a grueling six-day battle of attrition that saw 17 U.S. soldiers killed and wounded 44, while the Utes saw 24 killed, in what became known as the Battle of Milk Creek. As the battle raged 17 miles away, Utes also attacked the White River Agency, killing Meeker, 10 men under his employ, and kidnapped women and children, including Meekerโs wife and daughter.
All captives were later released from a Ute camp on Grand Mesa. But the violent outbreak provided ample pretext for the whites to pursue a campaign of ethnic cleansing. In 1881, Pitkin issued an edict stating that the Utes would either be removed to reservations in Utah and southern Colorado or exterminated. Many were marched out of their homelands near the Uncompahgre River at gunpoint, while remaining bands roamed northwest Colorado until an 1887 military campaign known as the Colorow War.
With that Pitkin proclamation, 12 million acres of western Colorado opened for settlement. The White River Timberland Reserve was later created on these former Ute lands, placing them under federal administration. The Utes were compensated about $22 per capita in a settlement for all that they were forced to surrender. However, draws from those payments were taken from Ute hands to fund pensions paid to families of soldiers and agency staff killed during the violence surrounding the Meeker incidents. So ended the empire of the Utes.
Milk Creek Battlefield Park, 18 miles northeast of Meeker, Colorado. Battle of Milk Creek, Sept. 29 through Oct.5, 1879, between the Utes and the U.S. troops, which triggered the Meeker incident. The battle persisted with the Utes surrounding the wagon-circled troops until military reinforcements arrived. Most sources tally 17 whites killed and 44 wounded, along with 24 Utes killed and unknown numbers wounded, while 127 horses and 183 mules of the U.S. troopers died. By Jeffrey Beall – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70937831
Exploitation, waste and destruction
โOne of the most pressing problems facing Colorado in the 1880s and 1890s,โ wrote Justine Irwin, author of the 1990 manuscript โWhite River National Forest: A Centennial History,โ โwas the prevalent exploitation of its natural resources by westward moving pioneers โฆ [who] accepted the waste and destruction that followed as a small price to pay for their dream of prosperity.โ
The prevailing attitude of the day regarded โwildernessโ as a wasteland ripe for the biblical mandate in the Book of Genesis: โIncrease, multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it.โ These newcomers to western Colorado, wrote Irwin, viewed the land with โutilitarian spectacles,โ through which โtrees became lumber, prairies became farms, and canyons became the sites of hydroelectric dams.โ
A dramatic example of the settlersโ creed was the extermination of the native elk herd as meat hunters ignored sustainable yields and fecklessly shot and killed all the native elk in the region, selling their harvest to railroad builders and mine workers. So-called โmarket huntingโ flourished only as long as the herds lasted, and the 6,000 to 8,000 elk estimated to have been in the WRNF region in 1879 were soon extirpated. Hunters took only the hindquarters of the animals, leaving the rest as waste. The selling price for meat was 7 cents a pound for deer, 9 cents for elk, 10 cents for bighorn sheep and bear, and 50 cents for grouse.
Meanwhile, the General Land Office, a real estate branch of the Department of Interior, was busy selling off the commons at $1.25 per acre. The Homestead Act gave land away to qualifying settlers in 160-acre allotments for each adult member of a family. Large families could acquire considerable acreage of public lands. The Timber Culture Act of 1873, the General Mining Act of 1872 and the Railroad Act of 1862 gave away huge swaths of the public domain, all to encourage monetizing the commons and capitalizing on the riches of the continental empire of the United States.
โRanchers, loggers and others invaded railroad lands taking what they wished and giving no thought to the long-range future of the region,โ wrote Irwin, who describes a ruthless lawlessness that discouraged any interference in this land-based free-for-all. But there was change in the air as lawmakers recognized that there were limits to the nationโs natural resources. The giveaways continued, but national parks and designated forests were proposed and gradually established to preserve legacy Western landscapes for future generations in a first glimmer of conservation. The philosophy behind this growing movement was shared by Henry David Thoreau, George Catlin, John James Audubon, John Muir and an influential cadre of preservationists who began to win over advocates in Washington, D.C. The conservation ethic is summed up by author Rod Nash in his โWilderness and the American Mindโ (1967), in which he wrote, โDoesnโt the present owe the future a chance to know the past?โ
Environmental concerns for preserving intact ecosystems to protect valuable and irreplaceable watersheds played a utilitarian role in conservation efforts on Western lands. Forestry management entered the lexicon of policymakers when, in 1875, Section 6 of the Colorado Constitution called for โPreservation of Forests: The General Assembly shall enact laws in order to prevent the destruction of, and to keep in good preservation, the forests upon the lands of the state.โ
Citizen involvement through civic forestry associations amplified the call to protect national assets and save something for the future. In 1889, a timber reserve was called for on the Western Slope of Colorado to safeguard against wildfires, overgrazing and irresponsible timber harvests โ all of which were decimating irreplaceable landscapes. A similar approach to nature aesthetics was winning hearts and minds for preserving the inspiring vistas that were beginning to sensitize America to the natural treasures of which it had taken possession.
In 1891, a groundswell of support led President Benjamin Harrison to enact the General Revision Act, a sweeping mandate to protect Western lands that led Harrison to issue a proclamation establishing the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve, the first binding federal protection for a large expanse of central and northwest Colorado and the second of its scale and scope in the United States, after a forest reserve designated near Yellowstone National Park. Supporters called it a great victory, but detractors โ of which there were many โ impugned the initiative as a โtakingโ of what they considered the entitlement of free land.
The account of a boasting pioneer quoted in โWhite River National Forest: A Centennial Historyโ and who had unconscionably plundered the public domain is a grim tale of misuse without supervision and reasonable limits of what was perceived as an infinite cornucopia: โIn the summer of โ89, I killed about 700 deer and pulled the hides off, just for the hides. That fall, I got 43 bear near Lost Park. I shipped the hides to Chicago and they netted me clear $1.50 apiece. Everybody killed game for the hides and made money that way. Iโll tell you a fact: In โ89 I could ride up anywhere and there would be 40 to 50 bucks lying in one bunch. You could ride up to within a few feet of them. I killed 23 bucks in one day and jerked the hides off.โ
Such carnage became repugnant to many and shameful to a growing number of nature lovers who advocated protective legislation such as the Forest Management Act of 1897 that granted the secretary of the interior power to regulate โoccupancy and useโ of federal lands. Implementation was another thing as new and often-inexperienced forest rangers came up against hardened libertarians who were armed and militant โ namely, loggers and ranchers. Threats against rangers, who lacked policing power, were said to โmake your eyes swell shut and your nose bleed,โ according to โA Centennial History.โ
โA ranger must be able to take care of himself and his horses under very trying conditions; build trails and cabins; ride all day and all night; pack, shoot and fight without losing his head. All this requires a very rigorous constitution,โ read one early Forest Service job posting. A group of White River National Forest rangers are shown here at a 1921 meeting. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Forest rangers bring law to the wilderness
According to Irwinโs manuscript, โthe forest ranger had to become not only a conservationist, a lands manager, a grazing expert, a timber expert, a watershed manager, a wildlife protector and jack-of-all-trades, he also had to become an expert in public relations with a keen understanding of community and national politics.โ Few could match up to these requirements without rigorous training and a deep commitment to the role.
In 1898, Charles W. Ramer of Fort Collins was appointed the first supervisor of the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve, headquartered in Meeker. Jack Dunn, Harry Gibler and Solon Ackley were the first rangers hired to patrol the reserve, which was divided into nine districts. The rangers were assigned to observe that loggers and ranchers kept to their assigned boundaries, to ensure that game regulations were followed and to put out brush fires.
These early rangers faced tremendous personal risks from unruly forest users, as described in an account by ranger William Kreutzer, who faced repeated threats from his efforts to enforce regulations. One night in the early 1900s, wrote Irwin, โas he was returning to his camp from a day patrolling, three men sprang suddenly from the aspen thickets and attacked him. Almost instantly he was struck on the head with something that rendered him unconscious. When he recovered, many hours later, he was lying beside the road, his head ached, his nose was bruised.โ
Early forest rangers faced personal risks from unruly forest users. One account by ranger William Kreutzer, shown here, described facing beatings and attempted shootings from his efforts to enforce regulations.
Another incident from Irwinโs manuscript revealed that Kreutzer boldly confiscated tools from a group of timber cutters felling trees inside the protected reserve. โOne day he was riding a trail and a bullet whizzed by close to his head. He rolled from his saddle and sought shelter behind a large tree. Four more bullets struck near him. The boom that followed each shot told him they had come from a large rifle fired from a spot some distance away. He had only his six-shooter, but ascertaining as best he could the spot whence the shots came, he elevated the barrel of his gun and fired every cartridge. The shots of his assailant ceased. He decided that someone had just tried to scare him a bit.โ
Trophy hunters flocked to hunt in the White River Reserve, the most prestigious of whom was President Theodore Roosevelt whose special train passed through Glenwood Springs in 1901. The Roosevelt party hunted the Danforth Hills near Meeker, killing 14 mountain lions. Although Roosevelt championed conservation of wild lands, he withdrew substantial acreage from the reserve on the advice of his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot, in order to appease complaints from forest users of โlocking up the land.โ
Meanwhile, posted notices advertised the following: โMen Wanted!! A ranger must be able to take care of himself and his horses under very trying conditions; build trails and cabins; ride all day and all night; pack, shoot and fight without losing his head. All this requires a very rigorous constitution. It means the hardest kind of physical work from beginning to end. It is not a job for those seeking health or light outdoor work. Invalids need not apply.โ
Requirements were incredibly demanding, but men equal to the challenge answered the call and were hired only after completing a grueling exam that included saddling a horse, riding a required distance, packing a horse or mule with tools and camping gear, pacing the pack animal over a designated trail, taking bearings with survey tools and more. The annual salary for the few who were able to pass the test was $900 to $1,500, but starting at a lower figure.
The staunchest objectors to enforcement were cattlemen whose livelihood required substantial range. Among them was Roaring Fork Valley rancher Fred Light, who protested the charging of range fees for grazing his stock. Lightโs story traces a reluctant yet gradual progression from vehement protests to acceptance of the principles of forest management.
Trophy hunters around the turn of the 20th century flocked to the newly created White River Reserve, the most prestigious of whom was President Theodore Roosevelt whose special train passed through Glenwood Springs in 1901. The Roosevelt party hunted the Danforth Hills near Meeker, killing 14 mountain lions. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Light of the Roaring Fork
Fred Light (1856-1931) came to the Roaring Fork Valley in 1880. He prospected before locating a homestead on East Sopris Creek where he cut and sold hay in Aspen to feed the many teams required for mining and camp life. Eventually, Light proved up on his land, expanded his operation, and raised cattle and horses. In 1885, he was elected to the Colorado legislature and served two terms. He was a prominent, well-respected rancher who had political savvy โ and clout.
โWe want no forest reserves,โ Light announced to cheers and applause at a meeting of the Stockmenโs Association in 1907. โIf we must have reserves, we want no grazing tax; if we must have reserves and the tax, the cattlemen claim the privilege of saying who will be placed in charge of the reserves.โ
Light gained notoriety when, that same year, he allowed his cattle to drift into the newly formed White River Forest Reserve where grazing was prohibited. Light, like many early ranchers, was resistant to government control over a resource that he and many ranchers took possession of as an entitlement by simply being there first and assuming a right of ownership.
Light was cited, which started a grazing-trespass case with the U.S. Department of Forestry and which eventually reached the Supreme Court. Light lost his case, but he had made a bold statement of rugged individualism that animated the spirit and the myth upon which much of the American West was settled. The decision against him, however, verified the governmentโs legitimacy in charging grazing fees and regulating uses on reserve land. Light accepted the decision and thereafter paid the appropriate fees. He also agreed to the rules and regulations, and he even came to endorse them as he witnessed how competing forest users were beginning to negatively impact the land.
Lightโs story is compelling, but there was a far more sensational and dire event in his colorful life in the Roaring Fork Valley that describes a sad, personal anecdote. The Aspen-Democrat Times reported a dramatic event: An electrical storm, proclaimed โthe worst in the history of this locality,โ killed one person and wounded others in the Capitol Creek area.
According to the July 14, 1909, news story, โEarly last evening an electrical storm set in which surpassed in severity any before experienced in this locality and brought disaster to the household of Hon. Fred Light of Capitol Creek, one of the most prominent and highly respected families of Pitkin County.โ That evening, a bolt of lightning struck a potato cultivator outside the home, jumped to the gable on the homeโs roof and ran down to the basement, where Lightโs five children were packing meat. Lightโs son Ray, 18, was killed with four others rendered unconscious.
Lightโs conversion to the ways of the forest was a sign of progress, but, unfortunately, it did nothing to ameliorate an even more vitriolic conflict. A range war erupted in the early 1900s that pitted cattlemen and sheepherders against one another in a blood feud that resulted in thousands of sheep being slaughtered and a number of men being beaten and killed. The Western tradition of โfirst in time, first in rightโ gave cattlemen the wherewithal to declare the range existed for cattle only. Sheepherders were not forbidden by law or permit, but they took their lives in their hands if they violated the cattlemenโs self-imposed privilege.
Chapman Dam in the Fryingpan River basin, shown here in 1940, was a Great Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps project. CREDIT: WWW.WATERARCHIVES.ORG
Range wars
While the Glenwood Post became amenable to regulations in the White River Reserve by acknowledging the advantages of range protection, increased pasturage and peaceable possession for cattlemen, the advent of sheepherders lit the fuse of a conflict that blew up repeatedly. Irwin describes the George Woolley Sheep Massacre in Routt County when, in 1911, several hundred sheep were โrimrockedโ in a stampede that drove them off a cliff. In 1913, many sheep were killed by strychnine poisoning. Finally, a full-on range battle ensued in 1913 in the Battle of Yellowjacket Pass, between Craig and Meeker, when warring sheepherders and cattlemen fired upon one another, necessitating the calling out of the Colorado State Militia.
Changes in the cattle industry โ such as growing domestic hay for winter feed and breeding more efficient strands of range cattle โ increased weight gain and reduced the desperate need for vast grazing acreage. Forest rangers also played a part as peacemakers and mediators who headed off range feuds. They also took on rapidly expanding responsibilities to regulate timber cutting and supervise road-building, water diversions, irrigation, reforestation, erosion control, trail-building, sign-postage, wild game and fish management, and many other tasks. When elk were reintroduced to the forest in 1912 โ Fryingpan Valley rancher Nelson Downey reportedly killed the last bull elk of the original herd in 1895 โ rangers monitored the habitat and protected the imported elk from over-hunting.
As a more peaceful era settled on the reserve (renamed the White River Forest Reserve in 1902 by Roosevelt), a new use with rapidly growing popularity became evident as people came to the reserve, not to graze animals or cut timber, but to simply enjoy the sublime natural beauty that is in such profusion here. Enter recreation and a new identity for the public commons.
A U.S. Forest Service photo dated between 1910 and 1930 shows a man with a fishing pole near a tent at Snowmass Lake, with Snowmass Peak in the distance covered with snow. Recreation grew in popularity throughout the early 20th century, creating new priorities for the Forest Service. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
For the love of nature
Pinchot, the chief forester, considered recreation to be only an โincidental useโ until 1905, when hotels and sanitariums were introduced to the reserve for popular enjoyment and therapeutic healing. Gradually, roads and trails became part of the White River National Forest (Congress renamed it so in 1907) with the mandate to include all users. This brought commercial use into local cultural and economic equations and began a shift of management priorities.
An annual report on the forest in 1913 stated that natural resources would now be managed to reduce impacts from grazing and logging in order to โpreserve the natural beauty of the location unmarred for the enjoyment of the public.โ A potentially lucrative recreation economy spurred a tangential threat of privatizing public lands for commercial gain as stated in a letter to the U.S. Forest Service from the Denver Chamber of Commerce in 1913: โWe deny that it is right or advisable for the federal government to retain title to and lease the public lands for any purpose whatsoever.โ
The Forest Service was not alone in wariness of privatizing the commons for private development. In a major turnabout from only a decade before, Colorado stock growers shared the alarm: โWe earnestly object to any action by Congress abolishing the national forests or transferring their control or administration from the national government, and we must respectfully urge our congressmen to oppose any measures materially changing the present method regulating grazing on the national forests.โ
Even Light came to the forestโs defense as reflected in a report in the Glenwood Post in 1916: โFred Light was even ready to kiss and forgive the forestry officials. โฆ Mr. Light says he has learned to adapt himself to the forestry regulations and that the officials mean only good to the stockmen.โ
Grazing and logging continued as fundamental to the forest economy, especially during World War I when resources were in great demand, and yet the clamor for private resorts and vacation cabins began exerting influence. Trappers Lake was a sought-after locale for a proposed lodge and several hundred cabins that threatened to commercialize a scenic focal point on this White River National Forest wilderness enclave. In 1919, Arthur Carhart, landscape architect for the U.S. Forest Service, made a survey of the area and later advocated for a new concept in public-lands management โ wilderness โ especially after a meeting with assistant forester Aldo Leopold, Americaโs first conservation biologist.
โHow far shall the Forest Service carry or allow to be carried manmade improvement in scenic territories?โ wrote Carhart. โThe Forest Service is obliged to make the greatest return from the forests to the people of the nation that is possible.โ Carhart acknowledged forest yields in economic terms, but then urged for a higher concept of land use. โThere is a great wealth of recreational facilities and scenic values within the forests,โ he opined. โThere are portions of natural scenic beauty which are God-made and which of a right should be the property of all the people. There are a number of places with scenic values of such great worth that they are rightfully property of all people. They should be preserved for all time for the people of the nation and the world.โ
With that statement, Carhart leaped beyond the utility of conversation via Pinchot into the notion of preservation along the aesthetic and spiritual lines of Muir and Leopold. Carhart concluded: โIf Trappers Lake is in or anywhere near in the class of superlatives, it should not have any cabins or hotels intruding in the lake basin.โ Trappers Lake was preserved, and Carhartโs memo became a strong endorsement of the Wilderness Act of 1964.
The mess tent at a Civilian Conservation Corps work project camp at Maroon Lake,1935. The CCC put the impoverished and the unemployed to work on federal lands to build roads, trails and facilities. CREDIT: ASPEN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
A Civilian Conservation Corps work project camp at Ashcroft, 1938. The workers at the camp were improving Castle Creek Road and building and repairing bridges. CREDIT: ASPEN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The scenic WRNF and the CCC
There is a mountain in the distant West That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
William Henry Jackson wrote that verse after photographing Mount of the Holy Cross (at 14,009 feet) during his wilderness sojourn in 1874 with the Ferdinand Hayden geologic survey team. Located in Eagle County, this dramatic peak became a religious icon in the 1920s when pilgrimages were made to nearby Notch Mountain for the spectacular view. Visitors came from around the world to see the sight, having either to hike there or to travel by horseback. President Herbert Hoover declared the peak a national monument in 1929. In 1950, that status was rescinded after the pilgrim era had tapered down to almost nothing.
Still, the religious influence of this remarkable mountain left an imprint in the American psyche that, for growing numbers, infused scenic lands with sacred status. A tide had turned when Western lands attained a divine countenance that glowed with ethereal majesty and touched the hearts, minds and imaginations of those who saw them. This love of the land became a national balm when, in 1929, the stock market crashed and America entered the Great Depression.
As many Americans suffered economic privation, the forests of the West became sanctuaries, places to escape the grit and grime of depressed cities and breathe fresh air. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, his socially progressive legislative agenda included the formation of a national service component called the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).
Federal dollars put the impoverished and the unemployed to work on federal lands to build roads, trails and facilities. CCC workers, each paid $30 per month, were mostly young men, from all walks and all corners of the nation, who spent weeks, months and sometimes years working in national forests, living in communal camps and recognizing the virtues of public lands.
During the 1930s, there were CCC camps in Woody Creek and at Norrie in the Upper Fryingpan. Gradually, forest access was opened to more users as land improvements mitigated erosion with the planting trees and shrubs, removing invasive or poisonous species, and making the forests prime recreation areas under the multiple-use mandate, which the Forest Service described as โinseparably interwoven into the social and economic future of forest communities.โ
Maintaining the health of the range within the White River National Forest was a constant challenge made more practical by the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, named for U.S. Rep. Edward Taylor, D-Colo., of Glenwood Springs. The act was designed specifically to prevent overgrazing and soil deterioration, and to provide for the orderly use and improvement of public lands, while also stabilizing the livestock industry dependent on the public range. Fundamentally, the act protected the health of the rangelands and the resources they provided.
Members of the 10th Mountain Division climb a slope during a winter training exercise where the troops skied from Leadville to Aspen. This image was likely captured near Mount Champion. After the war, many 10th Mountain veterans were among the legions of young skiers and mountaineers who established the Colorado ski industry that was soon to develop resorts on national forest land. CREDIT: 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION RESOURCE CENTER, DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
World War II and the 10th Mountain Division
Americaโs entering World War II with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 raised demands for resources from the White River National Forest and reduced its workforce as all attention was focused on national defense. A different kind of attack, this one by the Engelmann spruce beetle, saw huge mortality rates throughout the forest, prompting foresters to implement the sustainable yield concept for renewable timber harvests, especially given the decimation from beetle-killed trees. This resulted in the passage, in 1944, of the Sustained Yield Forest Management Act, which found favor with the War Production Board and opened the forest to widespread logging. A deep cold snap in 1951 greatly reduced spruce beetle populations, restored forest health and obviated the need for insecticide applications that had been tested on Basalt Mountain.
The war brought a new user group to the forest when the 10th Mountain Division trained at Camp Hale, near Leadville. After the war, legions of young skiers and mountaineers were attracted to the stateโs Rocky Mountains, where many established the Colorado ski industry that was soon to develop resorts on national forest land. Aspen became a focal point for Coloradoโs identity with skiing, which brought Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke from Chicago to Aspen in 1945. Elizabeth Paepcke, who founded the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES), is described by Irwin as โan ardent conservationist trained by family friend, Gifford Pinchot,โ and later by early wilderness advocate Enos Mills.
A Civilian Conservation Corps work project on Castle Creek Road,1937. Workers camped on public lands near Ashcroft improved Castle Creek Road and built and repaired bridges. CREDIT: ASPEN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
NEPA boosts environmental oversight
As recreation created mounting pressures for land development, the Forest Service recognized the need for greater environmental oversight, leading Congress in 1969 to pass the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This groundbreaking legislation focused initially on the impacts of ski-area design and later became an overarching management tool for all public land uses.
Meanwhile, the White River National Forest became โthe ski-area forestโ as thousands of acres of public lands were permitted for ski runs and resort infrastructure. The town of Vail was incorporated in 1966, where by the end of the 1967-68 ski season, 1 million lift tickets were sold and revenues reached nearly $3 million. General forest visitation had also grown to 171,000 in 1947 from 96,000 in 1946. โFor every two who pitched camp in our forests in 1948,โ wrote a forester in 1950, โthree or more did in 1949.โ The recreation boom had begun.
By the mid-1950s, public demand for designated campgrounds created an ever-growing budget for facilities that could accommodate nature-seeking Americans. The role of the forests became focused on serving visitors in unprecedented numbers. The 1960 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act ushered in a new thrust for outdoor recreation as โmultiple useโ became the law of the land. Along with the explosion in tourism came ambitious water diversions as natural watersheds were impounded to fill dams and regulate flows for human benefit under the Bureau of Reclamation. Transmountain diversions and dams proliferated in the WRNF throughout the upper Fryingpan, Roaring Fork and Lincoln Gulch basins.
William Henry Jackson, who is credited with the image here, first photographed the cross of snow on the northeast face of the Mount of the Holy Cross in 1873, and the peak became one of the Rocky Mountainsโ best known features. It was declared a national monument in 1929, but saw that status rescinded in 1950 as the number of religious pilgrims declined. The 14,009-foot peak has been protected by the Holy Cross WIlderness since 1980. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
The wilderness idea
As human impacts threatened over-development of forest lands, a chorus of wilderness advocates called for a balance by establishing primitive and wilderness areas based on Carhartโs memo urging the preservation of Trappers Lake. The Wilderness Act of 1964 made possible the formation of the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area and many other mountain redoubts with roadless designations and pristine environments. Today, containing eight wilderness areas, the WRNF has 751,900 acres of statutory wilderness, the highest protected landscapes in the country, and 640,000 roadless acres.
The wilderness philosophy calls for preserving the nationโs legacy landscapes, where man is only a visitor. Although a mere 2% of the 48 contiguous states is protected with wilderness designation, these irreplaceable landscapes are sought after more and more frequently. They are fast becoming overcrowded, with many wilderness areas requiring permits merely to set foot in them. A deeper concept of nature has redefined recreation with access to quiet, peaceful settings where visitors may experience a spiritual balm and even a moral grounding for humanity. Lakota Sioux Luther Standing Bear said as much when he wrote at the turn of the 20th century: โThe old Lakota was wise. He knew that a manโs heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon lead to a lack of respect for humans too.โ
By the turn of the 21st century, the WRNF strained to manage for multiple uses of limited resources as competing users seek a balance among development, land conservation, wilderness preservation and environmental oversight. Management pressures are only growing, but under the current Trump administrationโs Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), many forest rangers and administrators have been dismissed, staffing is nearing a critical shortage, and the long-range management goals that have underpinned the health and resilience of the White River National Forest are under grave risks that are likely to impact the quality of our public lands.
A national forest mission statement describes whatโs at stake: โThe White River National Forest provides quality recreation experiences for visitors from around the world. Through strong environmental leadership we maintain a variety of ecosystems, producing benefits of local and national importance. Our success is due to active partnership with individuals, organizations and communities. Our strength is a diverse and highly skilled workforce.โ
A current map of the White River National Forest, in green, which is Coloradoโs largest, containing eight wilderness areas shaded dark green on this map.
The WRNF by the Numbers:
Total Acres of Land: 2.3 million
Wilderness Acres: 751,900
Roadless Acres: 640,000
Miles of System Trails: 2,500
Miles of System Road: 1,900
Miles of Streams: 4,000ย
Ski Resorts/Acres: 12 Resorts, 45,500 acres
Number of Campgrounds/ Picnic Areas: 85
Visitors per year: 9.2 million
This story, and Aspen Journalismโs ongoing coverage of challenges facing local public lands, is supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
After weeks of hot, dry and windy weather across western Colorado, Gunnison County Commissioners received a water-issues update on Tuesday that was filled with โsoberingโ news. In addition to details about Gunnison Countyโs worsening drought conditions, commissioners heard from representatives of the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is once again considering emergency releases from Blue Mesa Reservoir to bolster falling water levels in Lake Powell [in 2026, h/t Sue Serling].
West Drought Monitor map August 12, 2025.
According to drought.gov, approximately 50% of Gunnison County is in โextremeโ drought, compared to just 5% one month ago. Conditions in most of the remainder of the county are rated as โsevere.โ Precipitation for most of the county has been between 25% and 50% of normal for the past 30 days, with little immediate relief in sight.
CWCB representative Amy Ostdiek told commissioners she believes emergency releases will come from elsewhere in the Upper Basin this year, but couldnโt rule out the possibility that Blue Mesa would be included…If current conditions persist, Lake Powell is projected to fall below the critical elevation of 3,525 feet above sea level in the spring of 2026. This would be the second time that has occurred since the reservoir filled in 1980. The other time happened in 2021, precipitating emergency releases from Blue Mesa Reservoir and Flaming Gorge and Navajo reservoirs totaling 180,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot is the volume of water that would cover one acre a foot deep.
As of Aug. 10, Blue Mesa was 61% full and is projected to end the year at 51% of its storage capacity โ without any additional releases. Taylor Reservoir is forecasted to be at 65% of average capacity at the end of 2025. The threshold of 3,525 feet at Lake Powell was agreed to in the Upper Basin Drought Response Operations Agreement as the trigger point for possible releases. The purpose is to prevent Lake Powell from dropping below 3,490 feet, known as โdead poolโ โ the point at which the Glen Canyon Dam can no longer generate electricity. Up to 5 million people across six western states depend on hydroelectric power from the dam. Emergency releases in 2021 were controversial. Critics argued that federal authorities did not properly consult with Upper Basin water users prior to the decision and failed to account for impacts to local economies and communities. Further, many objected on the grounds that water managers had no way of measuring whether the extra water in fact reached Lake Powell.
Jeff Hurd, the U.S. representative from western Colorado, met this week with first responders and residents from a region where multiple wildfires are raging. The Lee Fire had become the fifth-largest wildfire in state history and was threatening the town of Rifle, where officials had to evacuate a state prison in the fireโs potential path.
In a social media post about the visits, Hurd thanked local authorities and community members for their response to the fires tearing across his district, and he vowed to โbe here for the long haul to help recover.โ
But nowhere did he offer the most appropriate gesture: an apology.
Hurd, along with the other three Republican members of Coloradoโs U.S. House delegation, has promoted drill-baby-drill policies as part of a Trumpist โenergy dominanceโ agenda, even though those policies crank up the greenhouse gas emissions that guarantee more megafires in Colorado. The only posture truly available to Hurd when he meets constituents is contrition. The only plausible message is, โI was wrong.โ
Rising global temperatures are increasing the risk and frequency of extreme weather across the globe. The Southwest is being transformed by aridification amid the worst drought in 1,200 years. There is no scientific doubt that the primary cause of climate change is the combustion of fossil fuels.
In Colorado, this means bigger, fiercer wildfires and a fire season that no longer respects warm-month limits. The most destructive wildfire in state history, the Marshall Fire in 2021 in Boulder County, occurred five days after Christmas. The stateโs 20 biggest fires have all occurred since the turn of the century. The three biggest came in 2020, when one of them, East Troublesome, grew so ferocious it leapt over the Continental Divide. A 2021 study found that hotter, drier conditions in the American West are causing fires, such as East Troublesome, to reach high elevations that were previously too wet to burn.
โAnd they are burning at rates unprecedented in recent fire history,โ the authors wrote. โWhile historical fire suppression and other forest management practices play a role in the Westโs worsening fire problem, the high-elevation forests we studied have had little human intervention. The results provide a clear indication that climate change is enabling these normally wet forests to burn.โ
Colorado is especially exposed. A huge part of the state is the site of one of the largest areas of the highest temperature spikes in the lower 48 states. It covers Hurdโs hometown of Grand Junction and much of his district. Either Hurd is oblivious to the science or heโs cynically chosen to side with oil and gas industry interests.
During the freshman Hurdโs campaign last year, he sometimesย seemed to alignย with an โall of the aboveโ energy policy, which at least purports to include renewables, but he also signaled aย strong preferenceย for fossil fuel extraction over wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. He evenย championsย coal, the most damaging of fossil fuels, a position heโsย reinforcedย as recently as April.
Hurd found himself in an awkward spot once he was in the House as MAGA extremism sought to demolish the all-of-the-above plank and demonize renewables. He and U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton were among 21 Republicans who urged colleagues not to eliminate energy tax credits, which support wind and solar jobs and development in Colorado. (The other two House members from Colorado, Lauren Boebert and Jeff Crank, left their names off the letter.) But they both voted to pass the recent Trump megabill, which eliminated the credits.
Hurd insists he believes climate change is real. But this just makes his approach all the more hypocritical. For example, he repeats the pro-carbon talking point that since fossil fuel in other countries is dirtier than Americaโs the U.S. should maximize production.
โIf you genuinely care about reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, then you ought to support getting as much energy out of Colorado as possible. That includes not only the clean coal that we have, but also natural gas,โ he told CPR in September.
But thatโs like saying that since people are going to abuse fentanyl even though itโs deadly, America should manufacture a superior product to preempt Chinaโs more dangerous supply. An immoral practice should be avoided because itโs immoral, not pursued with improvements.
If he has any doubt that prioritizing carbon-based energy is immoral, Hurd should take a closer look at the environmental catastrophe unfolding in his own district. He often cites the jobs at risk in the transition to renewable energy, but this short-sighted perspective ignores substantial state greening efforts to responsibly transition local economies, and it misses the larger risk that whole regions of a cooked Earth will be uninhabitable.
The megafires in Hurdโs district are exposing โenergy dominanceโ as disastrously self-defeating.
Intensifying short-term rainfall shortages led to expanding and intensifying dryness and drought over much of the Lower Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley, Tennessee Valley, Northeast, and parts of the Deep South, southern Plains, central Arizona, and the central Rockies. Meanwhile, a second consecutive week with moderate to heavy precipitation led to areas of improvement in the South Atlantic States from the Carolinas through Florida, across northern reaches of the Rockies and Plains, and over parts of the central Great Plains. The heaviest amounts (8 to 11 inches) doused areas in southeast Wisconsin from central Washington and Ozaukee Counties southward through much of north and central Waukesha and Milwaukee Counties. Meanwhile, 6 to 8 inches were dropped on a broader section of southeast Wisconsin as well as a few patches across southeast South Dakota, the Carolinas Piedmont and adjacent southern Appalachians, the coastal Carolinas, north-central Florida, the central Florida Peninsula, and interior southeast Florida…
Rainfall varied in intensity across the High Plains Region once again this week, with abundant rainfall amounts falling on much of North Dakota, southern Nebraska, and some spots in Kansas leading to improved conditions. Some improvement was also noted in part of the southeast Wyoming High Plains. Meanwhile, less precipitation kept dryness and drought approximately unchanged across South Dakota, and allowed for areas of intensification for the second consecutive week in central and western parts of Colorado and Wyoming. A sizeable swath of northwestern Colorado deteriorated into exceptional drought (D4), and D2 to D3 conditions expanded in other areas over and near the higher elevations in western parts of the High Plains Region. Since early July, USDA indicated that the proportion of topsoils short or very short of moisture increased from 20 to 32 percent in Colorado, and from 52 to 63 percent of Wyoming. In Colorado, 19 percent of the corn crop is in poor or very poor condition (up from just 1 percent in early July) while in Nebraska, one-third of the oat crop is in poor or very poor condition (up from 5 percent in early July)…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending August 12, 2025.
Heavy precipitation (one to locally multiple inches in most areas) prompted significant areas of improvement across northern and part of western Montana as well as portions of northern Idaho. Farther south, a few weeks of deficient monsoonal rainfall and above-normal temperatures prompted deterioration in D1 to D3 conditions across southwestern Montana, several swaths across Utah, and a few areas in Arizona and eastern Nebraska. In addition, conditions deteriorated from moderate to severe drought (D1 to D2) in part of northwestern Washington. In other parts of the West Region, dryness and drought was unchanged compared to last week. Outside the northern tier of the Region, very little precipitation was reported outside several tenths to about an inch in southeastern Arizona. The proportion of rangelands in poor or very poor condition increased in the last 5 weeks from 32 to 49 percent in Utah, from 22 to 44 percent in Washington, and from 10 to 34 percent in Idaho. Over half of the Washington spring wheat crop is in poor or very poor condition compared to just 17 percent in early July. During this period, the proportion of Montana spring wheat in poor or very poor condition increased from 37 to 47 percent. USDA also indicated that 53 percent of the Washington barley crop is in poor or very poor condition, compared to just 14 percent in early July…
Patches of moderate to heavy rain were observed over southernmost Louisiana and adjacent Texas, much of the Red River (south) Valley, the southern Texas Panhandle, and the northern tier of Oklahoma. Other areas saw scattered to isolated showers that did not markedly improve any extant dryness. Similar to conditions in adjacent Mississippi, above-normal precipitation earlier in the summer ebbed beginning in early July, and significant short-term rainfall deficits have accumulated over the past several weeks although multi-month precipitation totals are generally near or above normal. In conjunction with hot summertime conditions, this has led to quickly-depleting surface moisture over much of Tennessee, Arkansas, and portions of Louisiana. As a result, D0 conditions have been introduced and expanded rapidly. Farther west, less widespread short-term moisture deficits led to several patches of new D0 this week in western Arkansas, Oklahoma, and northeastern Texas. Farther south and west, some D0 and D1 expansion was noted in Deep South Texas, but dryness and drought were essentially unchanged across New Mexico and the remainder of Texas. USDA indicated that short or very short topsoil moisture covered 60 percent of Tennessee and 80 percent of Arkansas (up from 18 and 39 percent, respectively, in early July). The proportion of the Tennessee cotton crop in poor or very poor condition increased from 12 percent in early July to 26 percent last week…
Looking Ahead
From August 14 to 18, heavy rain (2 to locally 5 inches) is forecast in the higher elevations and coastal sections of Washington and Oregon, and also from the eastern Upper Mississippi Valley through much of the Great Lakes. At least several tenths of an inch of rain, with isolated totals near 2 inches, in areas commonly affected by the late summer and autumn monsoon in the Southwest and higher elevations of central Colorado. Similar amounts are anticipated in the Lower Mississippi Valley, Gulf Coast states, interior Southeast, South Atlantic States, coastal Northeast, northern Plains, eastern Great Lakes, and lower elevations of Washington and western Oregon. Light to locally moderate amounts potentially approaching an inch are expected in the Ohio Valley and scattered locations across the Rockies. Meanwhile, little or no precipitation is forecast across California, the Great Basin, the northern Rockies, the central and southern Plains, and the Middle Mississippi Valley. The National Hurricane Center is forecasting Tropical Storm Erin to move northwestward while strengthening into a major hurricane by the end of the period. Most guidance keeps the system east of the Bahamas and the East Coast, but there is a lot of uncertainty in any forecast hurricane track 3 to 5 days in advance. Rough surf and high waves may impact the East Coast and the Bahamas even if the storm stays well out to sea. Generally above-normal should prevail from the Appalachians westward through central and northern sections of the Plains and Rockies, as well as the coastal Northeast. Temperatures should average closer to normal over the Southeast, the mid-Atlantic, and southern portions of the Plains and Rockies. Cooler than normal weather should be confined to the Great Basin and West Coast States.
The Climate Prediction Centerโs 6-10 day outlook (valid August 19-23, 2025) features significant uncertainty in the precipitation outlook. Odds for above-normal precipitation exceeding 40 percent are found in much of southern Arizona and the northern High Plains, and nowhere else. There are, however, fairly broad areas with slightly enhanced chances (33 to 40 percent) for wetter than normal wetter; specifically, from the portions of the Southwest typically affected by the late summer and autumn monsoon through the central and northern High Plains, and the northern Great Plains. Similar odds favoring above-normal precipitation also prevail across the southern Great Plains, the Lower Mississippi Valley, the interior Southeast, the Carolinas, the mid-Atlantic, and the coastal Northeast. Wetter than normal weather is also slightly favored across the northern half of Alaska. Meanwhile, odds lean towards below-normal rainfall in the Northwest and the northern Intermountain West, the Great Lakes, and the St. Lawrence Valley and adjacent New England. Drier than normal conditions are also favored along the southern tier of Alaska while near-normal amounts are expected across Hawaii. Meanwhile, warmer than normal weather is favored over the western half and southeastern quarter of the Contiguous United States, with odds reaching 60 to 80 percent in the central and northern High Plains, the Rockies, and the Florida Peninsula. Unusually warm weather is also favored across the southern half of Alaska, and Hawaii. Subnormal temperatures are favored over the eastern Great Lakes, mid-Atlantic, and Northeast.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending August 12, 2025.
Lake Pleasant (pictured), located north of Phoenix, serves as the Central Arizona Projectโs water storage reservoir, as well as being a popular recreational amenity. Water shortages are impacting Colorado River basin reservoirs such as Lake Mead in Nevada and Lake Powell, which stretches across northern Arizona and southern Utah. Environmental changes throughout the Southwest are presenting challenges to maintaining flows. Photo courtesy of Central Arizona Project
Arizona is about to enter a new era when it comes to water rights and distribution.
The stateโs main source of surface water โ the Colorado River โ has been dwindling as a result of climate change and increased water demand.
That means less water for approximately 40 million people in two countries, seven states and 30 Native American tribes. And the rules that govern how states face water cuts are set to expire on Dec. 31, 2026.
The seven states involved have struggled to reach an agreement regarding the future of these cuts. But whatever the outcome may be of negotiations or potential litigation between these seven states, experts say that Valley residents face significant water risks, including:
Arizona could lose up to 40% of its water supply.
The Central Arizona Water Project could be significantly cut and would deliver less water.
The reuse of water will become paramount to the state, including turning wastewater into drinking water.
One Arizona State University expert says not to panic but be prepared to open your wallet.
Rhett Larson, the Richard Morrison Professor of Water Law at ASUโs Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, estimates water prices could significantly increase in some parts of the Valley if Arizona cannot come to an equitable and sustainable agreement with the other six states on how to share in decreased flows of the Colorado River.
โArizona is not running out of water. We are running out of cheap water,โ said Larson, who is also a senior research fellow with the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy. โThis means not just higher water rates, but also difficult choices on economic trade-offs โ for example, higher food prices due to less water for agriculture but lower housing prices with more water for residential growth.โ
ASU News spoke to several water policy scholars to get a behind-the-scenes look at how the seven states are working together on the new agreement, what are some viable options in case of a shortfall, and what Arizonaโs future looks like when it comes to its most precious resource.
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
A ticking clock
Over the past century, the Colorado River’s flow has declined by about 20%. With rising temperatures and declining Rocky Mountain snowpack, scientists have predicted flow reductions of up to 30% by mid-century.
The seven states within the Colorado River basin are under increasing pressure to develop long-term management strategies, as the existing agreements are set to expire at the end of 2026. A significant challenge lies in managing the persistent drought while balancing the requirements of stakeholders, including agricultural interests, urban water consumers, environmental needs and Indigenous rights holders.
In response to a prolonged drought, diminishing storage capacities and increasing demands for Colorado River water, the secretary of the interior issued a directive in May 2005 for reclamation to formulate enhanced strategies aimed at optimizing the coordinated management of the reservoirs within the Colorado River system.
On April 23, 2007, all seven states signed an interim agreement that memorialized the consensus recommendation to the secretary. Those rules have remained in place for the last 18 years, but the flow of recent events demand dramatic action.
โThereโs no way that this ends without lower water supplies in Arizona,โ Larson said. โEven the best-case scenario means that Arizona will have to make do with less water.โ
However, Larson said thereโs been progress as of late. He said there is a proposal on the table where the upper basin states would shift the way the water is measured to align more closely with reality.
โThere have been some promising breakthroughs, but it could also collapse into litigation,โ said Larson, who is representing Arizona in the agreement.
โThereโs a decent chance the states of the basin will sue each other in the United States Supreme Court, and who knows how that will play out?โ he said.
Options on the table
If the seven Colorado River basin states canโt come to an agreement by the deadline, Arizona does have other water options. Some are legal, some are logistical and some are long shots. And they all come with a price tag.
โTrends are pointing to the fact that the Colorado River is becoming drier and I think it would be safe to say that the Central Arizona Project wonโt be as large a provider of water as at present,โ said Enrique Vivoni, ASUโs Fulton Professor of Hydrosystems Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and the director of the Center for Hydrologic Innovations. โSo, if thatโs the case, it means Arizona will have to start thinking about replacing that water supply. That would require investments.โ
Vivoni, whose research focuses on hydrology and water resources, said Arizona has several water augmentation options at its disposal. They include groundwater extraction, water desalination, reservoir expansion, wastewater reclamation and interbasin transfers from other areas.
All these options require complex agreements and investments.
For example, Vivoni said groundwater extraction would require major investment in infrastructure, such as new wells and pipelines to bring water supplies to existing systems. The desalination option could involve paying to build a plant in Mexico in exchange for a portion of their Colorado River water. Expansion of Arizonaโs Bartlett Reservoir capacity will require raising the dam to retain more Verde River water.
โAll of these options require capital expenses and large operations and maintenance costs on an annual basis,โ Vivoni said. โItโs going to require some hard choices. There will be some winners and some losers, and itโs going to require some behavioral changes by individuals, residents, communities, industry and cities.โ
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
Pressure on groundwater
In addition to the costs of tapping groundwater, ASU researchers recently reported that the stateโs unseen groundwater losses have been great as well.
Karem Abdelmohsen, Jay Famiglietti and colleagues used orbiting satellites to measure changes in groundwater from 2002 to 2024 in the Colorado River basin, in comparison to losses in streamflow and reservoir storage.
The satellite study found that groundwater depletion accounted for more than half of the total water storage loss in the upper Colorado River basin and more than two-thirds of losses in the lower Colorado River basin, which is greater than the losses in lakes Powell and Mead.
โThe rate of depletion has actually accelerated over the last decade,โ said Famiglietti, science director for ASUโs Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.
With less access to water from the Colorado River, demand for groundwater will grow. Famiglietti said that the effectiveness of groundwater management varies across the Colorado River basin states, leaving the resource open to overexploitation.
Cautious optimism abounds
If the seven states donโt come to an agreement soon, one possible scenario is that the secretary of the interior would make unilateral decisions on cuts and deliveries. Such actions would likely lead to lawsuits challenging the secretaryโs authority to do so.
โNot having a consensus agreement in place means we could go from relative certainty about the conditions of shortage to total uncertainty,โ said Kathryn Sorensen, who oversees the research efforts of the Kyl Center for Water Policy, serves as a professor of practice at the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions and contributes to the Global Futures Laboratory. โWhat we donโt want is someone making those decisions for us.โ
That lack of certainty could lead to many drawbacks, according to Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy.
โBeing in the dark about this situation could lead to higher (water) prices,โ Porter said. โIt could also lead to a disruption in economic development and the stateโs prosperity. Not having clarity regarding how much water will be available over the long term could impact the stateโs ability to attract industry. If thereโs too much uncertainty about our long-term water supplies, then weโre not a good bet for investment.โ
But water scarcity is not a new issue for Arizona. The state has a history of managing limited resources for collective benefit.
And thatโs reason for hope as the state faces these current challenges.
โIf you look at the history of water management in the Phoenix area, itโs a story of adaptation and overcoming obstacles and finding ways to be innovative,โ Sorensen said. โWe know how to do more with less, and weโre good at it.โ
Weโre also good at problem-solving and finding solutions, Porter said.
โIโm very optimistic about our water future because weโve had over 100 years as a seven-state basin to figure out solutions,โ Porter said. โIโm also optimistic because Iโve seen how creative and dedicated Arizona municipal water managers are โ theyโre resourceful, prepared and have their short- and long-term plans in place.
โI think thereโs going to be water to help us enjoy a good quality of life and a thriving economy for central Arizona for a long time.โ
ASU News reporter Joe Rojas-Burke contributed to this article.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
An undated historic photo shows the U.S. Forest Service ranger near the Mount of the Holy Cross. Before the turn of the 20th century, public lands lacked formal protection. โNowhere has the strength and vitality of America been better reflected in the last 100 years than in the evolution of the National Forest System,โ a forest official wrote in 1990. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Editorโs note: This story is part two of a three-part series examining the notion of public lands, both in the United States and in our region. Part one looks at the earliest expressions of the commons in territories that would become the United States. Parts two and three look at the history and legacy of what is now the White River National Forest.
The evolution of the White River National Forest (WRNF) in just over a century mirrors the settlement of the American West โ from an unregulated, free-for-all wilderness to strategically managed industrial tourism and sustainable, extractive industries. As the WRNF formed, it refined its management purview over user groups as they expanded from traditional timber and ranching to the ski areas, recreation sites and wilderness terrain that define the forest today.
Beginning with its original designation as a forest reserve in 1891, forest management was besieged by militant factions that argued against any management at all. This was an era when user groups included homestead farmers, fiercely independent ranchers and opportunistic loggers. Shrill denunciations and blatant noncompliance often occurred with these original land claimants who argued that public lands should be designated for those who came first and that its uses should be for what was best for them alone. Only as the forest adapted to changing times and needs did the multiuse mandate create opportunities and protections for all.
A prime example was Fred Light, a traditional rancher in the Roaring Fork Valley from the 1880s who at first resented the overlay of federal control over lands where he and other ranchers had grazed their cattle with no oversight and no fees. Light later came to appreciate the forest as it protected his interests from other users who threatened to overrun grazing lands, usurp water from the range or, in other ways, impinge on grazing entitlements. Lightโs shift in temperament and his eventual willingness to follow forest regulations reflected a growing, if reluctant, acceptance that management principles are essential for all forest users to ensure equal access to the public commons.
Lightโs transformation spread to other users as complexities arose around the need for sustainability. As a result, the forest mission grew into the broader interpretation of what is the best and highest use for all. This egalitarian approach required a deep and pragmatic exploration of values and resources that led to accommodating conflicting interests.
In the early days of the WRNF, however, forestry officials were immersed in countless disputes and occasional violent conflicts. Rangers were harassed, beaten and fired upon as they performed their duties according to the evolving directives of forest administrators. Juggling over the ensuing decades the utilitarian and esoteric aspects of this remarkably diverse topography of mountains, valleys, meadows, forests and rock-and-ice alpine splendor has required scientifically based and diplomatically advanced regulations to avoid the impacts of overgrazing, timber clear-cutting, mining, overcrowded recreation and other issues yet to surface.
Through it all, the WRNF remains public land โ 2.3 million acres (3,593.75 square miles) of the most visited national forest in the United States, stewarded by rangers trained with the necessary skills of backwoodsmen, diplomats, defenders, peacemakers, resource managers and ecologists.
The story of the WRNF is therefore a weave of time and place, and of a people for whom the forest is both an economic lifeblood and a battleground for conservation and preservation. For many, the forest is a place of sacred, cherished, iconic and legacy landscapes in which any and all visitors may experience and celebrate the power and splendor of pristine nature.
The White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve, the second federal forest reserve to be created, came into existence in 1891 and has evolved into the White River National Forest we know today as the most visited national forest in the country. Its management purview reflects two centuries of tension between exploitation and preservation for the greater good. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Snowmass Mountain is shown in a historic U.S. Forest Service photo. The architecture of the White River National Forest was determined by vast and nearly incomprehensible geologic forces that shaped the mountain landscapes we see today. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Public lands with no protection
In a foreword to Justine Irwinโs unpublished manuscript โWhite River National Forest: A Centennial History,โ Thomas Hoots, the WRNF supervisor in 1990, led off with a crucial observation: โBefore the turn of the century, the public lands were without a protector.โ The national commons was being plundered and exploited by whoever got there first. Such was the opportunism that was rampant during the fever of westward expansion marked by Manifest Destiny and a willful disregard to impose limits on human agency.
This land hunger was described the following way by Gifford Pinchot, chief of the U.S. Forest Service from 1898 to 1910 and one of Americaโs original wise use conservationists: โThere is no hunger like land hunger, and no object for which men are more ready to use unfair and desperate means than the acquisition of land.โ
Pinchot led a growing advocacy for conservation of national resources against great odds as they lobbied for protection of federal lands from the unbridled influences of capitalistic greed.
Richard A. Ballinger, secretary of the interior from 1909-11, clearly defined a prevailing view: โYou chaps who are in favor of this conservation program are all wrong. In my opinion, the proper course to take with regard to [the public domain] is to divide it up among the big corporations and the people who know how to make money out of it.โ
Thanks to those with clearer vision for a public lands legacy for America, the world and for future generations, Ballingerโs idea did not come to fruition. And yet such has been the message from the transactional Trump administration as the monetization of public lands offers yet again the potential for financial gain.
Thirty-five years ago, Hoots described a different ethic: โThe nationโs leadership recognized this dilemma and so began the long climb towards public land and resource management as we know it today. Nowhere has the strength and vitality of America been better reflected in the last 100 years than in the evolution of the National Forest System.โ
Gifford Pinchot portrait via the Forest History Society
The WRNF is an integral part of that system. It is also a stellar example of a forest that has withstood numerous threats and, despite many compromises toward achieving the multiple-use mandate, has retained the conservation principles that has made it one of the most successful stories of land management in the United States. โThe strength of our nation,โ concluded Hoots on the centennial of the WRNF, โdemands nothing less of the stewards of these public resources.โ
Federal forest management dates to 1876 when Congress created the office of special agent in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. In 1881, the department expanded the office into the Division of Forestry. A decade later, Congress passed the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, authorizing the president to designate public lands in the West into what were then called โforest reserves.โ
Enter what would become the White River National Forest, the preliminary boundaries of which were drawn on federal maps under the direction of administrators in Washington, D.C. These long-distance planners for a realm of national treasures gazed over mountainous regions whose value they could only speculate, but which they reasoned were valuable in ways other than extractive, fast-buck profits measured only in capital gains for the few.
Responsibility for these reserves fell under the Department of the Interior until 1905 when President Theodore Roosevelt transferred their care to the Department of Agricultureโs new division: the U.S. Forest Service. Pinchot led this agency as its first chief, charged with caring for the newly renamed public commons.
The WRNF was created as the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve on Oct. 16, 1891, by President Benjamin Harrison. This reserve was the second oldest in the newly conceived forest system, after a reserve established east of Yellowstone National Park, which two decades earlier became the countryโs first national park. The WRNF would become the largest forest in Colorado when, in 1945, it absorbed the Holy Cross National Forest, created as a reserve in 1905. This newly defined national forest was a priority because it was being exploited with unsustainable resource extraction. It soon earned a place of immeasurable importance in the mosaic of public lands designated across the rugged western United States.
A geologic map of Colorado, produced by the survey team led by Ferdinand Hayden in 1873-74, helped draw prospectors to the mountains. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
Nature laid the foundation
The architecture of the WRNF was determined by vast and nearly incomprehensible geologic forces that shaped the mountain landscapes we see today. Precambrian granite is the bedrock that was heaved up, twisted, broken, eroded and later covered with beds of sandstone and, later still, covered with an inland seaway that stretched from Mexico to Canada.
That seaway propagated plant and marine life-forms that speak to a far-different climate and ecology than today and that would eventually, under enormous pressure, form into huge coal deposits. This Cretaceous Seaway then gave rise to new landscapes as several major uplifts shed the accumulated water into major river systems and began building the mountain peaks rising from the bedrock floor. The uplifting, some from magma upwelling, brought metals and minerals to the surface where they were dissolved in super-heated groundwater and conveyed in solution into bedrock faults and fissures where they precipitated out at concentration. This formed the veins that gold and silver miners would later extract through labyrinthine tunnels and shafts.
Glaciation sculpted the finishing touches on the landscape by paring mountains into ragged escarpments and precipitous arรชtes, and gouging deep U-shaped valleys where glacial runoff cut deeper still in the V-shaped drainages that we see today. Natureโs work is never complete, and so the mountains and valleys continue to be formed by erosion and an almost immeasurable continued uplifting from energies emanating from Earthโs depths.
Then biology stepped in and established an overlay of life, the flora and fauna that we see today inhabiting the niches where they are genetically suited to proliferate and thrive. These are the desert scrublands, grassy meadows, mixed forests and lichen-covered alpine terrain comprising a half-dozen life zones and multiple ecosystems that give the WRNF the diversity that characterizes a healthy and vibrant ecology.
The forest is home to one of the largest mule deer herds and one of the largest elk herds in the nation, as well as bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, mountain lions, snowshoe hare, marmot, porcupine, badger, marten, ground squirrels and chipmunks, hundreds of bird types, and thousands of plant species in a veritable Garden of Eden of biodiversity.
But the human stories are what capture our imaginations, as noted in Irwinโs WRNF Centennial History; the people of the forest have differed greatly in their relationship to it: โSome have loved her, some have abused her, some have hated her, but all have made her what she is today.โ
A map shows the route of the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante expedition, led by two Spanish priests trying to find a way from Santa Fe to California. They reached Utah Lake before turning back, becoming the first Europeans to explore a vast portion of what would later become Colorado and Utah. CREDIT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The first Europeans
The first Europeans to visit the region of the WRNF and enter the traditional homelands of the native Utes were Spanish Franciscan friars Fray Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez. The two explorers and their party left Santa Fe on an ambitious exploratory mission to find an overland route to the Roman Catholic mission in Monterey, in what later became California. They ventured into the Western wilderness in July 1776, the same year the American colonies declared independence from British rule.
After traversing what is now northern New Mexico and southwest Colorado, the party traveled north, eventually passing through the Paonia area and Muddy Creek. They met the Colorado River near Divide and Mamm creeks along the Grand Hogback, a diagonal sawtooth range near Silt and New Castle. With Ute guides, they crossed the White and Green rivers, making it as far as what is now known as Utah Lake along the Wasatch Front, where they encountered a thriving indigenous community. With winter approaching, the party turned back toward Santa Fe and faced starvation as they struggled to cross the Colorado River at a location now flooded by Lake Powell, but all made it back alive.
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 opened the door to more exploration, this from the east where a few adventuresome parties reached Coloradoโs Front Range. The towering Rockies were considered too severe an obstacle to pass through, except for freelancing traders and trappers who knew no bounds and no limits in their pursuit of trade and beaver pelts.
A French trapper, Antoine Robidoux, was perhaps the first Anglo to trap in the White River in 1825, harvesting beaver pelts from Trappers Lake on the north side of the Flat Tops. The Yampa Valley, to the north, became widely visited by mountain men such as Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and Jedediah Smith.
John Fremont, an Army officer and explorer, took part in an 1845 journey that crossed Tennessee Pass from the Arkansas River basin and then followed the White River into Utah. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The seizing of Texas from Mexico in 1836 by Sam Houston stretched the promising Western U.S. boundaries, inviting more visitation as manifest destiny became a divine entitlement for Western settlement and provided a God-given mandate to force out native peoples and exploit the land and its many resources.
In 1845, John Fremont, guided by Carson, crossed Tennessee Pass from the Arkansas Valley and along the White River to Utah. With the announcement that gold had been discovered in California, streams of fortune-seekers flowed west through Colorado, many of whom recognized the grazing potential of verdant mountain valleys well-watered by rolling streams and rivers. After striking out on California gold, some returned to what would, in 1876, become Colorado to farm and raise cattle. The discovery of gold along Cherry Creek, near todayโs Denver, made Colorado a hot new prospect in 1859, popularizing this mostly unmapped territory.
The next year, 1860, Capt. Richard Sopris, for whom Mount Sopris is named, prospected the Roaring Fork Valley with a party of 14. In journals, it was mentioned that they stopped to take in the soothing waters of Yampa Hot Springs at todayโs Glenwood Springs. The Homestead Act was passed by Congress in 1862, encouraging more western migration and providing a relief valve for growing national tensions during the Civil War.
Official U.S. survey teams were sent west to report on resources and tribal relations. Foremost among them was John Wesley Powell, a Civil War veteran who had lost his right arm in the Battle of Shiloh, but it didnโt impede him from exploring the Green, Yampa, White and Colorado rivers. By the early 1870s, cattlemen began grazing their herds in Brownโs Park and the Meeker area in what would become northern Colorado.
As permanent settlements became established, some officials in the federal government became aware that Western lands had no protective management. They garnered congressional funding for a particularly seasoned survey team under the leadership of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, who would later win acclaim for surveying Yellowstone. Haydenโs 1873-74 visits to the Gunnison Country, the Roaring Fork Valley and the White River produced maps that would later draw hordes of mining prospectors into Ute lands in the late 1870s.
The Hayden Survey produced detailed drawings of multiple mountainscapes across Colorado, including these depictions of Pikes Peak, the Sawatch Range and Elk Range. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
Hayden and his โRover Boys,โ including renowned photographer and artist William Henry Jackson and geographer Henry Gannett, for whom the highest peak in Wyoming is named, summited, triangulated, mapped and named most of the major peaks that we know and climb today. The scientific acumen that this team provided was monumental in their understanding of geology, flora and fauna. Hayden correctly referred to the Elk Mountains as an example of an โeruptive rangeโ and a โgeologic jumbleโ for the upheavals he recognized. Described as โtall, slender, with soft brown hair and blue eyes,โ Hayden, a consummate geologist, was given a nickname by the Utes that translated to โcrazy man who runs around picking up rocks.โ
A letter from Rover Boy J.T. Gardner to his daughter in New York state characterized what must have been a crowning moment in history to witness a pure wilderness: โWe are in full tide of successful career camping almost every night at 11,000 or 12,000 feet and climbing peaks 14,000 feet and over, their tops overlooking crested ridges and grand rock-walled amphitheaters where old glaciers were born, I cannot tell you how I am enjoying this wonderful region. โฆ What a sweet sight. โฆ The terrible grandeur around me here where life is represented by the grim bears crawling along the edges of perpetual snow fields or the mountain sheep scaling the shattered crags.โ
In a later letter, Gardner described the partyโs discovery of Mount of the Holy Cross where a horizontal ridge and vertical couloir form a snow-filled cross. โWe are undoubtedly the first who have ever reached this peak. I do not feel in the least over-fatigued and am very well and strong.โ Enduring an early-winter storm, Gardner wrote: โOn this climb I wore four heavy shirts and a thick buckskin coat. The snow blew so that I had to wear spectacles to protect the eyes.โ
Hayden spent 20 days nursing a sick member of the party at the base of Mount Sopris while his party explored the Crystal River Valley, with Jackson photographing it all. Unfortunately for history, Jacksonโs load-bearing mule stumbled and fell into the Crystal River, breaking the glass plate negatives. All photographic documentation from that portion of the survey was lost.
Nonetheless, Haydenโs Atlas of Colorado was published by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1877, featuring six finely drawn resource maps identifying forests, pastures, croplands, and regions of coal, gold and silver. These geologic maps became a spur for treasure-seekers eager to flood into Ute lands. And there lay the age-old conflict between European trespass on the Western Slope of Colorado still controlled by the Utes under treaties, later broken, that were doomed at keeping the peace.
This story, and Aspen Journalismโs ongoing coverage of challenges facing local public lands, is supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
Click the link to read the report on the NOAA website:
Temperature
NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information calculates the global temperature anomaly every month based on preliminary data generated from authoritative datasets of temperature observations from around the globe. The major dataset,NOAAGlobalTemp version 6.0.0, uses comprehensive data collections of increased global area coverage over both land and oceansurfaces. NOAAGlobalTempv6.0.0 is a reconstructed dataset, meaning that the entire period of record is recalculated each month with new data. Based on those new calculations, the new historical data can bring about updates to previously reported values. These factors, together, mean that calculations from the past may be superseded by the most recent data and can affect the numbers reported in the monthly climate reports. The most current reconstruction analysis is always considered the most representative and precise of the climate system, and it is publicly available through Climate at a Glance.
July 2025
July 2025 recorded a global surface temperature 1.00ยฐC (1.80ยฐF) higher than the 20th-century average, making it the third-warmest July since records began in 1850. Only July of 2024 (warmest) and July 2023 were warmer. All ten warmest Julys on record have occurred since 2016. July 2025 also marks the 49th consecutive July with above-average global temperatures.
The global ocean-only surface temperature for July was the third-highest on record, at 0.92ยฐC (1.66ยฐF) above average. This was cooler than July 2023 (warmest) and July 2024. For land areas, the global land-only surface temperature in July tied as the seventh-warmest on record, at 1.20ยฐC (2.16ยฐF) higher than the 20th-century average. This was the smallest July land temperature anomaly since 2019 and the smallest for any month since December 2022 (+1.16ยฐC / +2.09ยฐF).
A smoothed map of blended land and sea surface temperature anomalies is also available.
In July 2025, most of the globe experienced much-warmer-than-average temperatures. The most significant high temperature anomalies, exceeding 1.0ยฐC (1.8ยฐF) above average, occurred over Europe, southern Asia, the northern Pacific Ocean, and parts of North and South America, central-western Antarctica, and the North Atlantic Ocean. Record-high July temperatures were limited to areas within southern and eastern Asia, the Arctic region, the western and southern Pacific Ocean, and parts of the Southern Ocean. Overall, record-high July temperatures were observed across close to 6% of the Earth’s surface.
In contrast, parts of northern North America, the North Atlantic, India, and western and eastern Antarctica had cooler-than-average conditions during July 2025. Notably, no land or ocean areas recorded record-cold July temperatures.
Regionally, Asia and Europe (tied) had their fourth-warmest July on record. The Arctic region, Africa, and the Caribbean region had their seventh-warmest, eighth-warmest, and ninth-warmest (tied) July on record, respectively. North America, South America, Oceania, and the Hawaiian region all had above-average July temperatures, though none ranked among their ten warmest Julys on record. Contrasting with other regions, the Antarctic region had a slightly below-average July temperature departure of -0.02ยฐC (-0.04ยฐF). This was the coldest July for the region since 2016.
July temperature summaries provided by national meteorological services and media reports include:
The average temperature in theย United Kingdom (U.K.)ย for July 2025 was 16.8ยฐC (62.2ยฐF), which is 1.5ยฐC (2.7ยฐF) above average. This ranked as the nation’s fifth-warmest July on record. Minimum (nighttime) temperatures were notably high, with the U.K. experiencing its second-warmest July on record for minimum temperatures, according to the Met Office.
Irelandย experienced its ninth-warmest July on record, and the 12th-warmest month overall in 126 years of record-keeping. The temperature was 1.21ยฐC (2.18ยฐF) above the 1991โ2020 average. Notably, Ireland’s five warmest Julys have all occurred since 2001.
In July 2025, theย Kingdom of Bahrainย recorded an average temperature of 36.1ยฐC (97.0ยฐF). This temperature was 1.0ยฐC (1.8ยฐF) above the monthly average and was the sixth-highest July mean temperature since national records began in 1902. Additionally, it was reported that Bahrain experienced 18 days in July where maximum temperatures surpassed 40ยฐC (104ยฐF).
Australiaย recorded an above-average national temperature in July, at 0.60ยฐC (1.08ยฐF) above normal. However, this did not place it among the ten warmest Julys on record for the country. All of Australia’s states experienced above-average mean temperatures for July. Western Australia’s mean temperature, at 0.07ยฐC (0.13ยฐF) above average, was the lowest since 2016.
Most ofย New Zealandย experienced above-average temperatures during July 2025, resulting in a national average temperature of 9.2ยฐC (48.6ยฐF), or 1.1ยฐC (2.0ยฐF) above average. This was New Zealand’s fourth-warmest July since national records began in 1909. Nine locations had their warmest July on record.
Japan experienced an intense heat wave in July, with maximum temperatures above 35ยฐC (95ยฐF). July 30 became Japan’s hottest day on record with maximum temperatures reaching 41.2ยฐC (106.2ยฐF) in Tamba, Hyลgo Prefecture (Central Japan). This surpassed the previous record from 2018 and 2020 by a narrow margin of 0.1ยฐC (0.2ยฐF). Heat stroke alerts were reportedly issued for 33 of Japan’s 47 prefectures. As a result of the heat, more than 10,800 people were hospitalized with heat-related illnesses. Additionally, July 2025 wasย Japan’sย warmest July on record, with temperatures averaging 2.89ยฐC (5.20ยฐF) above normal. This surpassed the previous record, set in 2024, by 0.73ยฐC (1.31ยฐF). The past three years (2023, 2024, and 2025) are all among Japan’s five warmest years on record.
South Korea experienced a significant heat wave in mid to late July, leading to record-breaking temperatures. Notably, Seoul recorded a new high of 22 tropical nights (minimum temperatures above 25ยฐC / 77ยฐF), surpassing the 1994 record of 21 since records began in 1907. One of these nights saw a record-breaking low of 29.3ยฐC (84.7ยฐF), marking the hottest July night on record. Media reports indicated the extreme heat caused record power demand.
Persistent above-average temperatures affected Greece and Turkey from mid- to late July. Temperatures consistently exceeded 35ยฐC (95ยฐF), with some weather stations recording over 40ยฐC (104ยฐF). In Greece, popular tourist attractions were closed due to lingering extreme temperatures. On July 25, a new all-time national maximum temperature record for Turkey was set in Silopi, reaching 50.5ยฐC (122.9ยฐF). This shattered the previous record from August 2023 by 1.0ยฐC (1.8ยฐF) and marked the first time a temperature of 50ยฐC (122ยฐF) was recorded in Turkey. The extreme heat and drought conditions contributed to the development of dangerous wildfires across the region.
Year-to-date Temperature: JanuaryโJuly 2025
The global surface temperature for JanuaryโJuly 2025 was the second-highest in NOAA’s 176-year record, at 1.18ยฐC (2.12ยฐF) above the 20th-century average. This is just 0.10ยฐC (0.18ยฐF) shy of tying the record set from JanuaryโJuly 2024. A statistical analysis by NCEI scientists indicates a very high likelihood (greater than 99% chance) that the year 2025 will be among the five warmest years on record, with less than a 1% chance of being the warmest year on record.
Separately, both the global land-only and global ocean-only temperatures for JanuaryโJuly were the second warmest on record. For both, only JanuaryโJuly of 2024 was warmer.
A smoothed map of blended land and sea surface temperature anomalies is also available.
During JanuaryโJuly 2025, warmer-than-average temperatures were prevalent across much of the Earth’s land and ocean surfaces. The most significant high-temperature anomalies, 1.5ยฐC (2.7ยฐF) above average or higher, were observed in the Arctic region, northern North America, much of Asia, and western and eastern parts of Antarctica. Record-high temperatures for the JanuaryโJuly period were observed in western Europe, the British Isles and the surrounding North Atlantic Ocean, across parts of the Arctic and western Antarctic regions, southern Asia, southwestern and southern Australia, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the Indian Ocean.
In contrast, based on the percentiles map, cooler-than-average temperatures during this seven-month period were largely confined to central and eastern Antarctica. However, no land or ocean areas experienced record-cold temperatures during JanuaryโJuly.
During JanuaryโJuly 2025, several regions saw notably high temperatures. Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Arctic region each recorded their second-warmest JanuaryโJuly period on record. Africa and the Caribbean region had their fourth-warmest, the Hawaiian region its fifth-warmest, and North America’s year-to-date temperature tied as the sixth-warmest on record. South America’s year-to-date temperature tied as the seventh-warmest on record. Although the Antarctic region had an above-average JanuaryโJuly temperature, it did not rank among its ten warmest on record.
As is typical, precipitation patterns varied globally during July 2025. Drier-than-average conditions were observed across the western, southeastern parts of the contiguous U.S., Alaska and Hawaii, southern Mexico, southern Europe, central parts of Australia, and across parts of western and central Asia. Eastern Asia, however, experienced contrast in precipitation totals, with some locations along the eastern coast and the northeast receiving more than double the monthly average precipitation. Wetter-than-average July conditions were also observed across the northern and northeastern contiguous U.S., northern Mexico, the British Isles, central and northeastern Europe, central and southeastern Russia, and across northeastern and southeastern Asia.
July precipitation summaries provided by national meteorological services and media reports include the following:
Precipitation varied acrossย Australiaย in July; however, the nation as a whole experienced a slightly wetter-than-average month. Regional differences were notable: Queensland, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory had drier-than-average conditions, while New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia had wetter-than-average conditions. According to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, South Australia recorded its wettest July since 1998, and New South Wales and Victoria had their wettest July since 2010 and 2016, respectively.
On July 6, Typhoon Danas, an equivalent Category 3 typhoon, made landfall on Taiwan’s central-western coast. This was reportedly the first typhoon to make landfall in Chiayi County in nearly 120 years. Danas brought heavy rainfall to affected areas, including southern Taiwan, where rainfall totals reached 500โ600 mm (20โ24 inches). The torrential rain caused rivers, including the Gangkou River, to overflow their banks, leading to flash floods that submerged homes, roads, and farmlands, and damaged infrastructure. The storm also disrupted power, water, and communication services.
During mid- to late July, thunderstorms brought heavy rain and flooding to parts of the United Kingdom (U.K.). Several locations in Northern Ireland experienced their wettest July day on record; notably, Killowen received 69 mm (2.7 inches) and Murlough received 61 mm (2.4 inches) on a single day. Across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, the floods caused major property damage and transportation disruption.
The state of Jalisco, Mexico, was affected by heavy rain and flash floods during July 14โ18. Reports stated that over 100 homes were damaged.
From July 16โ21, heavy rain caused devastating floods and deadly landslides across southern regions ofย South Korea. During this six-day period, affected areas reportedly received 600โ800 mm (24โ31 inches) of rain, setting numerous records. More than 10,000 residents evacuated their homes. The floods submerged roads and farmland, damaged or destroyed thousands of homes and buildings, and resulted in the loss of approximately 1.5 million livestock. At least 19 people died, with the death toll expected to rise.
Torrential rain from severe thunderstorms affected parts of northern and central France during July 23โ24. Notably, Bohain-en-Vermandois, Aisne, in northern France received nearly a month’s worth of rain (70โ80 mm / about 3 inches) in just one hour on July 23. This intense rainfall caused floodwater to rise rapidly, inundating homes and streets and damaging infrastructure.
China experienced several heavy rainfall events during July 2025. These events included:
Remnants of Typhoon Dana, in combination with the East Asian monsoon, brought heavy rain to parts of southern and eastern China on July 10, according to reports. This resulted in floods, affecting approximately 10,000 people in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. Reports indicated that 25 rivers exceeded alarming levels, with the Chishui River in Guizhou province reaching its highest recorded level since 1953 and the Xiaocao River reaching a 29-year high. One county in Yunnan province had 227.8 mm (9.0 inches) of rain fall in a 24-hour period โ the highest single-day total since 1958. In addition to floods, the intense rainfall triggered landslides, leading to evacuations and property damage.
Typhoon Wipha made landfall in Guangdong province, southern China, on July 20 as an equivalent Category 1 storm. It weakened as it moved southwest and made landfall in northern Vietnam on July 22 as a tropical storm. Wipha brought heavy rain and strong winds to the affected areas, resulting in uprooted trees, power outages, disrupted travel, damaged infrastructure, and in some instances, triggering landslides.
Storms brought nearly a year’s worth of rainfallโabout 449 mm (17.7 inches)โto Baoding City in northern China within a 24-hour period (July 24โ25). Reports indicate that Baoding’s annual average precipitation is slightly over 500 mm (19.7 inches). The torrential rain triggered flash floods, caused power outages, and damaged bridges and roads. Over 19,000 people were evacuated from the affected regions.
In late July, strong storms brought torrential rain and catastrophic flooding to Beijing and neighboring provinces, affecting over 300,000 people. Beijing’s Miyun district was hard hit, receiving nearly a year’s worth of rain in just a few days. This caused rivers to overflow and resulted in deadly flash floods, which tragically killed at least 31 people at an Elderly Care Center. Reports indicate the Miyun Reservoir reached its highest level since 1959. The floodwaters also damaged roads and infrastructure, disrupting power and communication services.
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Vose, R., B. Huang, X. Yin, D. Arndt, D. R. Easterling, J. H. Lawrimore, M. J. Menne, A. Sanchez-Lugo, and H. M. Zhang, 2021. Implementing Full Spatial Coverage in NOAA’s Global Temperature Analysis. Geophysical Research Letters 48(10), e2020GL090873;ย doi:10.1029/2020gl090873.
Most of the Intermountain West is in a drought, with nearly 20 percent of the region stuck in the most severe, driest conditions, according to a Tuesday presentation from Colorado state climatologist Russ Schumacher and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…The most drought-stricken areas are west of the continental divide โ a scraggly arc of mountain ranges where precipitation eventually drains westward, towards the Pacific Ocean.ย The driest conditions in Colorado are largely concentrated on the Western Slope, while much of the Eastern Plains faces little to no drought, and has seen average or above-average precipitation levels since October…in April, abnormallyย hot and dry conditions rapidly melted snowpackย and began dumpingย less precipitation than average across the West. Southern Arizona is even seeing some of its driest conditions over the last 130 years, according toย data prepared by the Colorado Climate Center.ย Climate change is alsoย accelerating extreme heat conditionsย for the region, which could prolong future droughts. Denver, for instance, is projected to experience 32 days of extreme heat by 2050, compared to just four days on average between 1976-2005,ย according to NOAA data.ย
Click the link to read the article on the Summit Daily website (Ryan Spencer). Here’s an excerpt:
August 9, 2025
Colorado state climatologist says the weather has been hot and the monsoon season weak, with little signs of relief anytime soon
Drought conditions are getting worse on Coloradoโs Western Slope, increasing the risk of wildfires, even as several large fires are already burning, scorching thousands of acres and forcing evacuations. Colorado State Climatologist Russ Schumacher said the extended dry period on the Western Slope contains โechoesโ of the climate patterns in 2020, the worst wildfire season in Colorado history, when the three largest wildfires recorded in the state occurred…Like 2020, this summer has been hot, with above-average temperatures across much of the Western Slope, Schumacher said. The monsoon season has also been lackluster, with little precipitation and hot, dry weather coming on the heels of a winter with a poor snowpack. This June and July were among the 10 hottest on record in the northwestern corner of the state, where some of the largest wildfires are now raging, according to the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University. While the southern mountains got above-average precipitation in June, things remained dry in the northwest, where precipitation was less than 50% of average. In July, precipitation was below-average across the entire Western Slope…Extreme drought is now impacting all of Moffat, Rio Blanco, Garfield, Pitkin, Teller and Delta counties and part of Eagle County, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Severe drought has spread east into Summit, Routt and Lake counties and across the southwestern part of the state…
The Middle Colorado Watershed Council (MCWC), in partnership with Garfield County and state and federal funders, broke ground on the Roan Creek Fish Barrier Project on Tuesday, August 5. This long-anticipated conservation infrastructure project has been five years in the making and aligns directly with MCWCโs Integrated Water Management Plan (IWMP), a framework that dovetails with the larger Colorado Water Plan.
Located in a remote stretch of Roan Creek in western Garfield County, the project will construct a permanent fish barrier to protect one of Coloradoโs most unique native fish assemblagesโincluding a rare genetic strain of Colorado River cutthroat trout, as well as bluehead sucker, Paiute sculpin and speckled dace. These species are increasingly rare across the Colorado River Basin, with cutthroat trout occupying just one percent of their historic range.
The project is primarily funded through the Bureau of Reclamationโs WaterSMART Program, under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Additional support comes from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) , the Colorado River Districtโs Community Funding Partnership and the Trout and Salmon Foundation. In total, the project represents a $1,034,995 investment in watershed health and habitat.
โThis is a win-win for both water users and native fish,โ said Garfield County Commissioner Perry Will, who served more than 40 years with CPW, including as a state wildlife officer and supervisor. โGarfield County is proud to support this project as a Category A partner, helping leverage the funding and collaboration it took to get here. The cutthroat trout in Roan Creek represent an incredibly unique genetic lineageโadapted to survive even in 80-degree waters. Keeping nonnative species like brook and rainbow trout out of this system is essential to preserving that rare genetic makeup and ensuring these fish continue to thrive.โ
The project will also replace outdated irrigation infrastructure, eliminate push-up dams and install a modern concrete diversion with a headgate, fish screen and flow-measuring device โimproving efficiency for water users while benefiting stream function and aquatic habitat.
Early funding from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) supported the 90-percent design phase, completed in 2021 by Wright Water Engineers with guidance from BLM liaison and fisheries biologist Thomas Fresques.
โThe construction of the fish passage barrier on Roan Creek marks a major step toward protecting and sustaining its unique native fishery,โ said Assistant Area Wildlife Manager Albert Romero. โFor more than 15 years, CPW and partnersโincluding the BLM, local landowners and many othersโhave worked extensively throughout the drainage to conserve this vital resource.โ
The Roan Creek Fish Barrier is the result of strong collaboration across local, state and federal partners. Garfield County played a key role as the Category A partner for Bureau of Reclamation funding, helping to secure vital federal support. The Middle Colorado Watershed Council continues to lead grant administration and stakeholder coordination. Wright Water Engineers serves in the project management role, and Kissner General Contractors, Inc. is constructing the structure.
โThe Roan Creek Fish Barrier project is a great example of how targeted, local investments and partnerships can complete projects that support multiple benefits,โ said Melissa Wills, Community Funding Partnership Program Manager at the Colorado River District. โUpgrading this infrastructure brings lasting benefits to both native ecosystems and the agricultural community. Through our Accelerator Grant Program, the River District is proud to have helped secure significant state and federal funding and to be part of the collaborative effort that made this project possible.โ
The outflow at the bottom of Navajo Dam in New Mexico. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
From email from the Bureau of Reclamation (Conor Felletter):
The Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled an increase in the release from Navajo Dam to 850 cubic feet per second (cfs) from the current release of 800 cfs for Tuesday, August 12, at 4:00 AM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Conor Felletter (cfelletter@usbr.gov or 970-637-1985), or visit Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website athttps://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
Reclamation conducts Public Operations Meetings three times per year to gather input for determining upcoming operations for Navajo Reservoir. Input from individuals, organizations, and agencies along with other factors such as weather, water rights, endangered species requirements, flood control, hydro power, recreation, fish and wildlife management, and reservoir levels, will be considered in the development of these reservoir operation plans. In addition, the meetings are used to coordinate activities and exchange information among agencies, water users, and other interested parties concerning the San Juan River and Navajo Reservoir. The next meeting will be held Tuesday, August 19th at 1:00 PM. This meeting is open to the public with hybrid options, in person at the Civic Center in Farmington, NM (200 W Arrington St, Farmington, NM 87401, Rooms 4&5) and virtual using Microsoft Teams. Register for the webinar at this link
From email from the Bureau of Reclamation (Conor Felletter):
On Monday, August 11 at 8pm MT, Reclamation will increase releases from Crystal Dam to 1,700 cfs from the current release of 1,650 cfs. Gunnison Tunnel diversions remain at 1025 cfs. Gunnison River flows in the Black Canyon/Gunnison Gorge, currently ~590 cfs, are anticipated to increase to ~640 cfs.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Aspinall Unit, and to maintain target base flows through the endangered fish habitat along the Gunnison River between Delta and Grand Junction.
Reclamation conducts Public Operations Meetings three times per year to gather input for determining upcoming operations for the Aspinall Unit & Gunnison River. Input from individuals, organizations, and agencies along with other factors such as weather, water rights, endangered species requirements, flood control, hydro power, recreation, fish and wildlife management, and reservoir levels, will be considered in the development of these reservoir operation plans. In addition, the meetings are used to coordinate activities and exchange information among agencies, water users, and other interested parties concerning the Aspinall Unit & Gunnison River. The next Operations Group meeting will be held on August 21, 2025 at 1:00 p.m in Montrose, CO at the Holiday Inn Express (1391 S. Townsend Ave). This meeting is open to the public with a virtual option using Microsoft Teams. Register for the webinar at this link.
Contact Conor Felletter (cfelletter@usbr.gov or 970-637-1985) for more information regarding Aspinall operations or the Operation Group meeting.
An aerial view of Oak Flat in Arizona. Credit: EcoFlight
Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
August 7, 2025
Key Points
The value of the copper beneath Oak Flat drew the attention of a judge hearing arguments to halt a land swap needed to build a huge mine.
The federal judge asked attorneys for Resolution Copper and the federal government what could stop the land exchange, which is required by law.
No timetable was given for a ruling in the case, but the land swap could occur as early as Aug. 19 if a court doesn’t block it.
U.S. District Court Judge Dominic W. Lanza heard arguments from the San Carlos Apache Tribe and a consortium of environmentalists on Aug. 6 as they seek to overturn a disputed land exchange between the U.S. Forest Service and Resolution Copper. Lanza likened the day’s “very complicated exercise” to pounding a square nail into a round hole. Much of the back-and-forth during the five-hour hearing centered around aย 2022 appraisalย of a 766-acre plot at Oak Flat, the Tonto National Forest campground at the heart of the struggle. Roger Flynn, who represented the environmentalists and inter tribal coalition, argued that the appraisal lacked one essential element: the value of the copper underneath the surface. Some estimates say that about 40 billion pounds of copper lie beneath Oak Flat, currently valued at $4.40 per pound…
Attorneys from the federal government and Resolution Copper, which has sought to obtain Oak Flat to mine for copper, squared off with lawyers from the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition and the San Carlos Apache Tribe, supported by the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona and several environmental organizations, including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club. Although there was no set date for Lanza to rule, he said he was cognizant of the need to rule soon as a 60-day review period nears an end. If no judge intervenes, the land exchange could be finalized as soon as Aug. 19.
Click the link to read “This Week in Water” from the H2ORadio website. Here’s an excerpt:
August 10, 2024
Last week, President Trump said he wants to impose a 100 percent tariff on imports of semiconductors and chipsโbut would exempt companies that make them in the United States. Details on a prospective policy were scarceโand also missing in the proposal are plans to address a concern vexing the industryโwhereโs all the water going to come from to manufacture chips in the U.S.?
A single fabrication facility, or fab, can use tens of millions of gallons of tap water per day, which is cleaned to become โultrapureโ by removing any particles or salts that could damage the chips. Currently, the ultrapure water is used only once to make chips. The wastewater is used to cool the buildings, which get very hot, or in scrubbers that โshower offโ gases and other chemical contaminants used in the manufacturing process.
Several U.S. fabs are currently located in water-stressed areas such as Arizona, so can adding more plants in the country be achieved sustainably? Professor Paul Westerhoff at Arizona State Universityโs School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment told H2O Radio that fabs can be sustainable but would require companies to invest in ways to recycle water to continuously bring it back to an ultrapure state to avoid tapping into local supplies.
He and his colleagues are researching what reuse technologies and policies would be necessary to make facilitates โwater neutralโ or at least close to it, some of which would include protecting the watersheds where manufacturers operate.
Another problem in growing the semiconductor industry in the U.S. is climate change. Making semiconductors is energy intensive, so manufacturers would need to switch to renewables instead of fossil fuels to be sustainable. Otherwise, as global temperatures rise and severe droughts increase, the water upon which fabs rely may not be there when theyโre ready.
โThereโs just no water in the system,โ said Cleave Simpson, the general manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. He was talking to us on Tuesday, Aug. 5, about the startling conditions of the Upper Rio Grande Basin that showed a flow of 36 cubic-feet per second at the Alamosa County line. The river was flowing 15 cfs at the Lobatos Bridge.
The warnings about this yearโs dryness go back to February when we saw a string of 60-degree days and then more record heat back in April. Fast forward to August and whatโs been a relatively dry summer with less than an inch and a half of accumulated precipitation and we see very little water in the river.
Much of the Great Basin is under intense fire restrictions.
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
The main topic of the most recent Rio Blanco Water Conservancy meeting was news that despite the recent $2.5 Million repair, the Hydro power unit is not in operation yet. Originally, the hydraulics seized due to solids in the oil, all the oil has been flushed and replaced and the hydraulics are in working order. Currently they are working on the part known as the face seal. It is being refurbished in California and will be delivered and installed asap. Once the face seal is installed then RBWCD will finalize wet testing to verify that it is properly functioning before going fully online with it.
The issue was discovered while the hydro power unit was running during the initial wet testing. They ran the hydro for approximately 12 hours over a couple of days. At this time is when the stuck face seal was discovered. It appears that this part may have been faulty for several years and it is the belief of the contractor, engineer and RBWCD Staff that this fix will help remedy these persistent issues the hydro has been having.
CPW and RBWCD is working on education and prevention for the zebra mussels at Kenney Reservoir. The lake has seen an increase of use due to closures of other lakes in the area due to mussels, capacity restrictions and construction.
The District continues to solicit responses to their Irrigation Study and Recreation Study and intend on using the results to support in NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act) for the Wolf Creek mega reservoir project. According to Executive Director Alden Vanden Brink, they are having better than expected participation. The next survey will be a Rangely Water Needs assessment.
The Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors voted at a July 31 special meeting to immediately enter stage two drought under the districtโs drought management plan due to low water levels in area rivers and other concerns. At the meeting, PAWSD District Engineer/Manager Justin Ramsey explained that drought stages for PAWSD are based on water levels in Hatcher Reservoir, which is used to supply water to the uptown Pagosa Springs area; water levels in the San Juan River, which is used to supply water to the downtown area; and what the state drought stage for the area is. He stated that the heaviest weight in the drought calculation is on the level of Hatcher Lake, the second heaviest weight is on the San Juan River and the third heaviest is on the state drought stage.
Ramsey noted that Hatcher is in โreally good shape…However, Ramsey commented that the San Juan River is โlowโ at 48 cubic feet per second (cfs) as of the day of the meeting and that the state drought stage for the area is stage two, which indicates severe drought.
These days, thereโs a lot that divides the Colorado delegation along party lines. But one thing theyโre all in agreement on is the need for the federal government to release about $140 million itโs holding onto for 15 water projects across the state.
โWe ask you to move forward with obligating the remaining $140 million worth of Bucket 2 projects in Colorado โ not just for the benefit of our state, but for the resilience of the entire Colorado River Basin,โ urges the delegation letter [from Sen. John Hickenlooper, Hurd, Sen. Michael Bennet, and Reps. Jeff Crank, Joe Neguse, Gabe Evans, Brittany Pettersen, Lauren Boebert, Diana DeGette and Jeff Crow].
Among the awards was $40 million to purchase the Shoshone water rights from Xcel Energy and transfer them to the Colorado River District. The other projects deal with watershed restoration, restoring or improving habitats, improving wetlands and improving water health. As the letter points out, Congress allocated $4 billion in Bidenโs signature climate, tax and health care law to deal with theย ongoing drought in the Colorado River Basin.ย The Bucket 2 funding was awarded on January 17, but that was just the first step for money to be distributed to the projects. Typically, contracts or agreements have to be signed before the money is actually obligated and distributed. Still, even if that had been completed before the change of administrations, one of Trumpโs first executive ordersย paused all funding appropriated through the IRA.
During both the Obama and Biden presidencies, Republicans and the fossil fuel industry often accused the administration of waging a โwar on energy.โ It was a demonstrably false allegation. The most either of the Democrats did to attack the energy industry was to incrementally increase common sense regulations and environmental protections, which apparently did little to hamper energy development. The so-called shale revolution, when โfrackingโ opened up huge new reserves of tight oil and gas, began under Obama, and truly came to fruition under Biden, when domestic oil and gas production reached new record highs. Meanwhile, Bidenโs Interior Department approved dozens of utility-scale solar and wind and long-delayed transmission projects on public lands.
But now the Trump administration is, in fact, waging a very real war on energy โ renewable energy, that is, namely wind and solar power. Theyโve frozen and even clawed back funds for projects, killed federal clean energy tax credits, subjected wind and solar projects on public lands to heightened reviews, and eliminated wind energy leasing areas off Oregonโs coast. And theyโve done it all as America is supposedly gripped by an โenergy emergency.โ
Now, the Interior Department has gone even further with a new order that threatens to kill all new renewable power development on federal lands. I know there are some readers out there who might applaud this, since so many of our public lands are not suited for sprawling utility-scale solar or wind developments. But this order โ deceptively and cynically titled, โManaging Federal Energy Resources and Protecting the Environmentโ โ would potentially replace proposed wind and solar projects with coal or uranium mines and/or power plants, oil and gas fields, or other non-renewable energy projects.
The order requires land management agencies, when reviewing proposed solar or wind energy projects, to consider โa reasonable range of alternatives that includes projects with capacity densities meeting or exceeding that of the proposed project.โ
Capacity density is basically the amount of energy a project can generate per acre. According to the Interior Departmentโs calculations (weโll get to the flaws there in a moment), the capacity density (megawatts/acre) for various power sources are:
Advanced nuclear reactor: 33.17 MW/acre
Combined cycle gas plant: 5.4 to 24.42 MW/acre (depending on configuration)
In other words, wind and solar are the big losers, taking up far more space to generate the same amount of electricity as, say, a nuclear plant. According to the new order, this raises the question of โwhether the use of federal lands for any wind and solar projects is consistent with the law.โ
This isnโt a new argument: The specter of โrenewable energy sprawlโ has long been wielded to push back against solar and wind development. And certainly the amount of space a project takes up should be one of many considerations in whether to permit it. But should it really have more weight than the amount of damage the project would inflict? How about pollutants emitted per megawatt, or amount of harm to people, the climate, and the environment per megawatt? Is there consideration for the fact that there is a lot of space between the turbines within a wind facility that is minimally affected? And why doesnโt their chart include hydroelectric, which has the lowest capacity density of all?
Also, the Interior Departmentโs calculations are a bit fishy, or at least incomplete. They say they are based on a 2023 Sargent & Lundy report commissioned by the Energy Information Administration. The report is not on capacity density, but rather the costs of building and operating various power generating technologies. When determining the acreage of the nuclear and fossil fuel plants, they do not take into account the land required for fuel production, which can be extensive.
The supercritical coal plant referenced in the report, for example, would require a mere 600 acres. Yet, the Four Corners coal plant in northwestern New Mexico โ along with its associated Navajo Mine (current mining areas as well as reclaimed areas), Morgan Lake, and coal combustion waste disposal facilities โ covers (and wrecks) some 15,000 acres. That acreage will continue to grow for as long as the plant operates, since the mine and waste dumps will continue to expand. Compare that to the 2,400 acres covered by the nearby San Juan solar plant.
Iโd also argue that if the goal is to get the most energy out of every acre of public land (which is a silly goal, but whatever), then they should figure in the amount of energy the proposed project consumes. Coal mining and oil and gas drilling require large amounts of electricity and petroleum (along with human labor, which is also a form of energy), as does transporting coal and gas by train and pipeline. Uranium enrichment, which is necessary to produce reactor fuel, is extremely power-intensive.
None of this really matters to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, however. Thatโs because he knows weโre not really in an โenergy emergency,โ and that it is merely a fabricated excuse to give more handouts and regulatory relief to his fossil fuel-industry buddies and to get revenge on Trumpโs political opponents by punishing cleaner energy sources.
Proposed utility-scale solar and wind facilities on public lands should by all means be scrutinized and subjected to the same reviews as any other projects, contrary to what the Abundance faction might believe. The projects should be denied if their impacts outweigh the benefits, with bonus benefit-points for solar or wind projects that displace or replace coal or natural gas generation.
But judging the projects based on a virtually meaningless metric is not only spiteful, unfair, and stupid, but it also will needlessly hamper the fight against health-harming pollution and climate change. And thatโs simply irresponsible, at best. [ed. emphasis mine]
โ๏ธ Mining Monitor โ๏ธ
Speaking of fake energy emergencies โฆ In May, the Bureau of Land Management completed its environmental review and approval of the Velvet-Wood uranium mine in Utahโs Lisbon Valley in just 11 days. The rush, sans public input, ostensibly was necessary to get the mine online quickly to address the supposed uranium shortage.
The mineโs proponent, Anfield Resources, apparently doesnโt share the Trump administrationโs sense of urgency. At the end of April, the Utah Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining asked Anfield for more information on its application to commence large mining operations, which was deemed technically incomplete. Anfield has yet to respond. The company is also not rushing forward to get state approval for its water treatment plant permit or to reopen its Shootaring Mill near Ticaboo, where the Velvet-Woodโs uranium would be processed.
In other words, the fast-tracked permitting was merely a ruse, intended to bypass environmental regulations and public input, not to expedite the project, itself.
***
Photo-illustration of the Animas River a few days after the spill from the air. Jonathan P. Thompson photo and illustration.
Itโs the tenth anniversary of the Gold King Mine blowout that affected the Animas and San Juan rivers in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. A few folks have asked if Iโm going to write anything about it โ since I did write a book about it โ but I donโt think thereโs much more to say, really.
The Gold King Mine continues to drain acidic, heavy metal-laden water โ though it is being treated before itโs released into the watershed โ and neighboring mines continue to do the same (though they arenโt being treated). Superfund designation hasnโt been the boon to water quality that some hoped for, nor did it stigmatize Silverton as many feared it would (property values continue to soar into the unreachable zone).
While the event did bring more attention to the problem of abandoned mine sites (even though the Gold King wasnโt technically abandoned when it blew out), and injected โacid mine drainageโ into the publicโs vocabulary, it hasnโt led to mining law reform or any widespread effort to address the issue. That said, Congress finally did pass a Good Samaritan bill, that might clear the way for volunteer groups to do some additional cleanup without being sued for it. Still, they need funding, and thatโs in short supply these days.
If youโd like to read more on it, check out this piece by Peter Butler. And you can check out past stories in the Land Desk for more information (links below, but they are behind the paywall). Better yet, go down to your local bookstore and buy River of Lost Souls.
This image was taken during the peak outflow from the Gold King Mine spill at 10:57 a.m. Aug. 5, 2015. The waste-rock dump can be seen eroding on the right. Federal investigators placed blame for the blowout squarely on engineering errors made by the Environmental Protection Agencyโs-contracted company in a 132-page report released Thursday [October 22, 2015]
An image of the Sharp Fire near Cahone, Colorado, from the Benchmark fire lookout. Source: Watch Duty.
๐ฅต Aridification Watch ๐ซ
Fire season is really heating up, along with the summer temperatures. The relatively dry spring was followed by higher than normal temperatures in July and zero to minimal precipitation in many places, turning low- and mid-elevation forests to kindling. Officials working the Leroux Fire west of Paonia said the relative humidity was just 2%, contributing to rapid fire growth.
The Leroux blaze was just one of many new starts on Coloradoโs Western Slope over the last several days. The Sharp Canyon Fire north of Cahone, Colorado, grew rapidly to 400 acres on Monday, forcing evacuations, but it seems to have quieted down overnight. The Lee and Elk fires in Rio Blanco County blew up to 13,000 and 7,700 acres, respectively, over a couple of days. The Middle Mesa Fire east of Navajo Reservoir and just south of the Colorado-New Mexico line grew to 2,500 acres as of Monday night.
Meanwhile, the Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyonโs North Rim has lived up to its name, reaching 126,445 acres as of Tuesday morning with only 13% containment a month after it ignited.
The situation is probably going to get worse before it gets better. The National Weather Service has issued red flag warnings for parts of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, with extreme heat warnings in parts of Arizona and southern California. The mercury in Moab is expected to reach 100ยฐ F or more every day this week, and thereโs no significant rainfall in sight.
The Colorado River is in trouble: Not as much water flows into the river as people are entitled to take out of it. A new idea might change that, but complicated political and practical negotiations stand in the way.
The river and its tributaries provide water for about 5 million acres of cropland and pasture, hydroelectric power for millions of people, recreation in the Grand Canyon, and critical habitat for fish and other wildlife. Thirty federally recognized Native American tribes assert rights to water from the Colorado River system. It is also an important source of drinking water for cities within the Colorado River Basin, including Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas, and cities outside the basin, such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Denver and Albuquerque.
The 1922 Colorado Compact divided the 250,000-square-mile Colorado River Basin into an Upper Basin โ which includes parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, as well as the northeastern corner of Arizona โ and a Lower Basin, encompassing most of Arizona and parts of California and Nevada. The compact apportions each basin 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the river each year. An acre-foot of water is enough to cover 1 acre in water 1 foot deep, which amounts to approximately 326,000 gallons. According to a 2021 estimate from the Arizona Department of Water Resources, 1 acre-foot is sufficient to supply 3.5 single-family households in Arizona for one year.
Anticipating a future treaty with Mexico for sharing Colorado River water, the compact specified that Mexico should be supplied first with any surplus available and any additional amount needed โborne equallyโ by the two divisions. A 1944 water-sharing treaty between Mexico and the U.S. guarantees Mexico at least 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River water annually.
The compact also specified that the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming โwill not cause the flow of the river โฆ to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of 10 consecutive years.โ
The Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada contend that this provision is a โdelivery obligation,โ requiring the Upper Basin to ensure that over any 10-year period, a total of at least 75 million acre-feet flows to the Lower Basin.
By contrast, the Upper Basin states contend that the language merely creates a โnon-depletion obligationโ that caps their collective use at 7.5 million acre-feet per year in times when additional use by the Upper Basin would cause less than 75 million acre-feet to be delivered to the Lower Basin over a 10-year period.
This disagreement over the compactโs language is at the heart of the differences between the two basins.
Snowfall in Western mountains, including the Flatirons outside Boulder, Colo., is the primary source of water for the Colorado River Basin. AP Photo/Thomas Peipert
A small source area
Nearly all of the water in the Colorado River system comes from snow that falls in the Rocky Mountains in the Upper Basin. About 85% of the Colorado Basinโs flows come from just 15% of the basinโs surface area. Most of the rest of the basinโs lands are arid or semi-arid, receiving less than 20 inches of precipitation a year and contributing little to the flows of the Colorado River and its tributaries.
Rain and snowfall vary dramatically from year to year, so over the course of the 20th century, the Colorado Basin states โ with the assistance of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency of the Department of the Interior responsible for operating federal water and power projects in the U.S. West โ developed a complex system of reservoirs to capture the extra water in wet years so it could be available in drier years. The most notable reservoirs in the system are Lake Mead, impounded by Hoover Dam, which was completed in 1936, and Lake Powell, impounded by Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1966.
Over the past 25 years, the quantity of water stored in Lake Mead and Lake Powell has declined significantly. A primary driver of this decline is a lengthy drought likely amplified by climate change: One study estimated that the region may be suffering its driest spell in 1,200 years.
But human errors are also adding up. The Colorado Compactโs original negotiators made unrealistically optimistic assumptions about the riverโs average annual flow โ perhaps knowingly. In their book โScience be Dammed,โ Colorado River experts Eric Kuhn and John Fleck document how compact negotiators willfully or wishfully ignored available data about the riverโs actual flows. Kuhn and Fleck argue the negotiators knew it would be decades before demand would exceed the riverโs water supply, and they wanted to sell a big vision of Southwestern development that would merit massive federal financing for reservoirs and other infrastructure.
In addition, the current Colorado River system accounting does not factor in the roughly 1.3 million acre-feet of water lost annually from Lake Mead due to evaporation into the air or seepage into the ground. This accounting gap means that under normal annual releases to satisfy the apportionments to the Lower Basin and Mexico, Lake Meadโs water level is steadily declining.
Stabilization efforts
The seven Colorado River states and Mexico have taken significant steps to stabilize the reservoirs. In 2007, they agreed to new guidelines to coordinate the operations of Lake Mead and Lake Powell to prevent either reservoir from reaching catastrophically low levels. They also agreed to reduce the amount of water available to Arizona and Nevada depending on how low Lake Meadโs levels go.
When the 2007 guidelines proved insufficient to keep the reservoir levels from declining, the Colorado Basin states and Mexico agreed in 2019 to additional measures, authorizing releases from Upper Basin reservoirs under certain conditions and additional cuts to water users in the Lower Basin and Mexico.
By 2022, projections for the reservoir levels looked so dire that the states started negotiating additional near-term measures to reduce the amount of water users withdrew from the river. The federal government helped out, too: $4 billion of Inflation Reduction Act funding has helped pay the costs of water-conservation measures, primarily by agricultural districts, cities and tribes.
These reductions are real. In 2023, Arizona, California and Nevada used only 5.8 million acre-feet of Colorado River water โ their lowest combined annual consumption since 1983. The Lower Basinโs total consumption in 2024 was slightly higher, at 6.09 million acre-feet.
Lake Powell, a key Colorado River reservoir, holds only one-third as much water as it is designed to contain. Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
A new opportunity?
With the 2007 guidelines and additional measures expiring in 2026, the deadline for a new agreement looms. As the Colorado River states try to work out a new agreement, Arizonaโs new proposal of a supply-driven approach offers hope, but the devilโs in the details. Critical components of that approach have not been ironed out โ for instance, the percentage of the riverโs flows that would be available to Arizona, California and Nevada.
If the states canโt agree, there is a chance that the secretary of the Interior, acting through the Bureau of Reclamation, may decide on his own how to balance the reservoirs and how much water to deliver out of them. That decision would almost certainly be taken to court by states or water users unhappy with the result.
And the Lower Basin states have said they are fully prepared to go to court to enforce what they believe to be the Upper Basinโs delivery obligation, which, the Upper Basin has responded, it is prepared to dispute.
In the meantime, farmers in Arizonaโs Yuma County and Californiaโs Imperial County cannot be sure that in the next few years they will have enough water to produce winter vegetables and melons for the nation. The Colorado River Basinโs municipal water providers are worried about how they will meet demands for tap water for homes and businesses. And tribal nations fear that they will not have the water they need for their farms, communities and economies.
It was a week with a lot of change noted in areas of dryness and drought across the U.S. Heavy to locally excessive rainfall engendered broad areas of improvement in much of the Southeast, the lower Great Lakes Region, the central and northern Great Plains, and many locations across the High Plains and adjacent southern Rockies. Meanwhile, continued subnormal precipitation and episodes of unusually hot weather, low humidity, and high winds led to large areas of deterioration in the central and northern Rockies. Also, emerging short-term precipitation deficits led to the introduction of scattered areas of abnormal dryness (D0) over parts of the Middle and Lower Mississippi Valley, the Tennessee Valley, and near the western foothills of the western Appalachians. A few spots of deterioration were also introduced in western portions of the Southeast (where typical summer shower and thunderstorm activity has been less robust than usual) and Southwest (where subnormal monsoonal rains have been observed)…
Rainfall varied in intensity across the High Plains Region, with abundant rainfall amounts falling on a large part of the Plains while lesser, subnormal totals were observed in the higher elevations farther west. A similar pattern has been observed periodically for several weeks now, resulting in significantly worse conditions in the western part of the region than farther east. A solid swath of moderate drought (D1) or worse covers most of southern and western Wyoming and the western half of Colorado, with severe drought (D2) covering a large part of this region, and extreme drought (D3) noted in a sizeable portion of west-central and northwestern Colorado. This represents a significant increase in the extend of D2 and D3 coverage compared to last week. In contrast, another wet week led to a continued reduction in the coverage of the abnormal dryness (D0) to locally severe drought (D2) over the Great Plains. A broken pattern of heavy rainfall โ with upwards of 3 inches reported in spots โ prevailed from northern Kansas through much of the Dakotas, although higher amounts were more common in some areas than others. The improvements left severe drought confined to part of south-central Nebraska and adjacent Kansas, southwestern Nebraska, and a small area in south-central South Dakota. Moderate drought (D1) coverage also decreased, mainly across Nebraska and a few adjacent locations in the far eastern sections of Colorado and Wyoming. The USDA reported short or very short subsoil moisture across about one-third of Colorado and two-thirds of Wyoming. In addition, 17 percent of the Colorado corn crop was in poor or very poor condition, and drier weather earlier in the summer has left one-third of the Nebraska oat crop in poor or very poor condition…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending August 5, 2025.
Heavy precipitation prompted significant areas of improvement across the southeastern and northern sections of the West Region, but hot and dry weather has caused dryness and drought to intensify in central parts of the Region, across Utah, eastern Nevada, and northeastern Arizona (similar to the situation in western parts of Colorado and Wyoming). Reports of 2 or more inches of rain were fairly common across southeastern and north-central through northwestern Montana as well as northeastern New Mexico, with lesser amounts in other parts of these states. These rains brought 2-week totals to between 2 and 5 inches in much of New Mexico and Montana, with locally higher totals, especially in north-central Montana and northeastern New Mexico. This prompted broad improvements through both states, but even so, areas that missed most of the rain in these states remained entrenched in drought. Exceptional drought (D4) persisted in part of southwestern New Mexico, and extreme drought (D3) remained across north-central and southwestern parts of the state, along with a significant swath of west-central Montana. Moderate to severe drought still affected a large part of the remainders of these states despite improvements, and only the southeastern quarter of Montana and northeastern New Mexico have completely emerged from any designation of dryness or drought. Farther west, showery weather has occurred periodically for the past few weeks in central and eastern Oregon, leading to a reduction in the coverage of dryness and drought there. Across central parts of the West Region from eastern Nevada through Utah, rainfall has been far less generous, and drought either persisted or deteriorated here. The entire region is experiencing at least moderate drought at this point, with widespread D2 conditions across eastern and western Utah, and adjacent Nevada. Some expansion of extreme drought (D3) occurred in east-central and northeastern Utah, where conditions have been similar to those observed across western parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Elsewhere, no changes were observed, and broad areas of drought remained entrenched. USDA reports that 50 percent of the Barley crop and 48 percent of the spring wheat crop in Washington was in poor or very poor condition, as were 26 percent of the barley crop and 47 percent of spring wheat in Montana. In addition, 90 percent of Nevada rangeland was in poor or very poor condition…
Outside southern and western Texas, not much dryness or drought has been observed across the South Region. But after a few relatively dry weeks, short-term precipitation shortfalls have developed in portions of Arkansas and Tennessee, leading to the introduction of a few patches of abnormal dryness (D0) in areas of significant 30-day rainfall shortages and near- to below-normal 60-day totals. A much larger proportion of these two states report 30-day precipitation deficits, but above-normal 60-day totals precluded more expansive D0 development this week, although the situation will need to be monitored going forward. In Tennessee, some patches of abnormal dryness and isolated moderate drought (D0 and D1) was assessed last week. In the easternmost parts of the state, heavy rains engendered a bit of improvement, but the burgeoning dryness farther west allowed a few additional spots of moderate drought to develop. To the west, rainfall was sufficient to end the fledgling area of abnormal dryness in southwestern Oklahoma, but more widespread and intense drought continued to cover large parts of western and southern Texas. Moderate to heavy rainfall was observed over parts of the drought-affected region, leading to some improvement in the Big Bend and along the northern fringe of the region. Substantial rainfall evaded areas farther to the south, however, allowing for some expansion of D0 and D1 conditions in the southernmost parts of the state. Since early May, rainfall totals exceed 3 inches in portions of south-central Texas, and approach 6 inches in part of the Big Bend. Despite recent improvement in much of the state, however, a small patch of exceptional drought (D4) persisted in upper South Texas, and severe drought continued in adjacent areas as well as parts of the Rio Grande Valley and Big Bend. But despite recent drought improvement, 22 percent of the Texas cotton crop and 48 percent of its oat crop was in poor to very poor conditions, according to USDA.
Looking Ahead
From August 7 to 11, an area of showers and thunderstorms off the Southeastern Coast may develop into a tropical system according to the National Hurricane Center, but this is far from certain. Any organized system is expected to remain off the East Coast, but early in the period the disorganized convection is expected to impact the South Atlantic Coastline. Generally 1 to locally over 3 inches of rain are forecast for coastal sections of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida while similar amounts are forecast along the central and eastern Gulf Coast, and much of the Florida Peninsula. Between 1 and 3 inches are anticipated near a frontal system stretching from the Middle Mississippi Valley into the Great Lakes Region, and amounts in the lower part of that range are forecast in scattered parts of the central and northern Plains. Moderate amounts of several tenths to around an inch should fall in many areas from the Upper Mississippi Valley into the Northern Intermountain West, portions of the central Plains, and areas near the Southeastern and Gulf Coasts. Light precipitation is possible in parts of the central and eastern Four Corners States, the central Ohio Valley, the southern Appalachians, the mid-Atlantic, and upper New England. Other areas are expecting little if any precipitation. Meanwhile a cooler than normal but moderating air mass should allow temperatures to average near or slightly below normal in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic while daily highs should average a few degrees below normal in and around the northern High Plains. In most other locations, temperatures should average a little above normal as above-normal temperatures begin to slowly cover most of the Contiguous States. The greatest positive temperature departures are expected where above-normal temperatures have already settled in, specifically parts of the interior West and the Northeast, where highs will average 6 to 12 deg. F in spots.
The Climate Prediction Centerโs 6-10 day outlook (valid August 12-16, 2025) features significant uncertainty in the precipitation outlook. Odds for above-normal precipitation exceeding 40 percent across most of Alaska outside the northeast and southwest sections, and nowhere else. There are, however, fairly broad areas with slightly enhanced chances (33 to 40 percent) for wetter than normal wetter; specifically, the remainder of Alaska, the northern tier of the Contiguous 48 States, the Sonoran Desert, the eastern Great Plains, the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, the Great Lakes Region, the upper Southeast, the mid-Atlantic, and inland sections of the Northeast and New England. Drier than normal conditions are slightly favored in the Great Basin and adjacent sections of the Rockies and Pacific Northwest. There is more certainty in the temperature forecast, with above-normal temperatures favored across a large part of the Contiguous States, and Hawaii. The best odds (over 70 percent) cover the Northeast and New England while the central West Coast, parts of the Four Corners States, the eastern Great Lakes, the mid-Atlantic, the coastal Southeast, and the Florida Peninsula have 60 to 70 percent chances for unusually high temperatures. Only Alaska and the northern High Plains are not areas where warmer than normal conditions are favored. In fact, subnormal temperatures are favored over most of Alaska, with odds topping 60 percent in northwestern parts of the state.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending August 5, 2025.
Just for grins here’s a slideshow of early August US Drought Monitor maps for the past few years (including 2002).
High winds and extreme drought conditions in northwest Colorado have fueled the rapid growth of two wildfires this week near Meeker in Rio Blanco County, where firefighting crews say theyโre prioritizing structure protection with โlimited resourcesโ on hand.
The Lee Fire, west of Meeker, nearly doubled in size Tuesday and has now burned 22,497 acres, predominantly on Bureau of Land Management land south of Colorado Highway 13. About 20 miles to the east, the Elk Fire is estimated at 8,304 acres in size. Both fires are believed to have been started by lightning strikes on Aug. 2.
Jeramy Dietz, operations section chief with the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team responding to both fires, said in a video update Wednesday that crews are developing plans โbased on our highest values at risk, with our limited resources that we have on hand.โ
With the latest growth, the estimated area burned in Colorado by 11 major wildfires in 2025 now stands at 64,196 acres, according to federal data. That doesnโt include smaller fires suppressed by state and local first responders, but it already makes for the stateโs worst fire year since 2020, when multiple historic blazes burned a record-setting 625,357 acres, according toย National Interagency Fire Centerย data.
Other large Colorado fires this summer include the Turner Gulch Fire, which has burned over 24,000 acres east of Gateway, near the Colorado-Utah border, and is currently 49% contained; and the 4,232-acre South Rim Fire, which has forced the closure of parts of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and is estimated at 52% containment.
Drought conditions classified as โsevereโ or โextremeโ currently extend across the majority of Coloradoโs western half, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. A critical fire weather advisory for western Colorado and several neighboring states has been issued by the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center, a Denver-based branch of the NIFC, and will remain in place through at least mid-August.
โAfter a dry winter with minimal snowpack fuel moistures are well below normal, and much of the region is under severe to extreme drought,โ the agency warns. โExtreme fire behavior marked by rapid spread, torching, and resistance to control is being driven by critically dry โฆ fuels, and drought-stressed brush and trees. As heat intensifies and fuel moistures decline further, fire potential will remain elevated across the area.โ
Colorado public health officials have issued health advisories for wildfire smoke in 17 counties across the state, including the Denver area and the northern Front Range. People โwith heart disease, respiratory illnesses, the very young, and older adultsโ are advised to limit outdoor activities.
Due to climate change, much of Colorado has grown hotter and drier in recent decades, increasing wildfire risk. The three largest wildfires in Colorado history all occurred in 2020, and the stateโs 20 biggest fires on record have all occurred in the past 20 years. Rising levels of greenhouse gases, mostly the result of fossil-fuel combustion, have caused much of the Western Slope to warm by an average of more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels, and the regionโs current โmegadroughtโ is its worst dry spell in at least 1,200 years.
The state could eventually host the nationโs largest uranium production facility to use two different mining methods. Environmentalists worry that expedited permitting in the nuclear sector could threaten โsafety, environmental quality and public trust.โ
Uranium Energy Corp.โs Sweetwater uranium project has become the first mining proposal in Wyoming to be fast-tracked under President Donald Trumpโs March executive order to increase U.S. mineral production.
The company announced Aug. 5 that it planned to expand its uranium mining operations in Wyomingโs Red Desert as a result of the expedited permitting process. The federal government expects to post a permitting timetable for the project by Aug. 15.
Through other executiveorders, the dismantling of environmental regulations and the spending bill congressional Republicans passed in July, the second Trump administration has made it easier for extractive industries to receive permits for mining on public lands. Trump has classified uranium as a โcritical mineralโ for the U.S., which imported 99 percent of its fuel for nuclear energy in 2023, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
John Burrows, energy and climate policy director at the Wyoming Outdoor Council, saw the fast-tracking news as evidence of a pattern in the stateโs nascent nuclear industry.
โAcross the nuclear supply chain weโre seeing permits getting expedited and weโre having concerns around safety, environmental quality and public trust,โ he said.
Last month, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission accelerated its review of an advanced nuclear reactor being built in Kemmerer, Wyoming, with an end-of-year completion goal. TerraPower, the company behind the new technology, was co-founded by billionaire Bill Gates.
Uranium Energyโs Sweetwater permits were fast-tracked by the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council. Trumpโs March executive order required the executive director of the council to publish such projects on a special dashboard.
โI am excited to welcome the Sweetwater Complex to the FAST-41 transparency dashboard in support of President Trumpโs goal of unlocking Americaโs mineral resources,โ said Emily Domenech, the councilโs executive director, in a statement accompanying Uranium Energyโs announcement. โThe uranium that this project can produce would be game-changing for our nation as we work to reduce our reliance on Russia and China, strengthen our national and economic security, and reestablish a robust domestic supply chain of nuclear fuel.โ
The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council was established in 2015 under President Barack Obama and made permanent by President Joe Bidenโs Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021.
Pictorial representation of the In situ uranium mining process. Graphic credit: (source: Heathgate Resources)
If approved, Uranium Energy expects to begin โin-situโ uranium mining within its permit boundaries. The process involves leaching uranium from underground rock and does less surface disturbance than conventional strip-mining methods. The company already operates conventional uranium mines in Wyoming but wants to expand its claim to include nearby areas it says are suitable for in-situ retrieval methods.
โThis will provide the Company unrivaled flexibility to scale production across the Great Divide Basin,โ Amir Adnani, Uranium Energyโs president and CEO, said in an email.
If Uranium Energy receives its permits, which could still take years, the company said its Sweetwater facility will become the largest in the United States capable of processing both conventionally and in-situ-mined uranium. Its current licensed production capacity at the Sweetwater facility is 4.1 million pounds of uranium annually, the company said.
The United Statesโ national parks have an inherent contradiction. The federal law that created the National Park Service says the agency โ and the parks โ must โconserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife โฆ unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.โ
That means both protecting fragile wild places and making sure people can visit them. Much of the public focus on the parks is about recreation and enjoyment, but the parks are extremely important places for research and conservation efforts.
These places contain a wide range of sensitive and striking environments: volcanoes, glaciers, sand dunes, marshlands, ocean ecosystems, forests and deserts. And these areas face a broad variety of conservation challenges, including the effects of climate change, the perils of popularity driving crowds to some places, and the Trump administrationโs reductions to park service staff and funding.
Gray wolves, long native to the Yellowstone area, were reintroduced to the national park in the mid-1990s and have helped the entire ecosystem flourish since. National Park Service via AP
Returning wolves to Yellowstone
One of the best known outcomes of conservation research in park service history is still playing out in the nationโs first national park, Yellowstone.
Gray wolves once roamed the forests and mountains, but government-sanctioned eradication efforts to protect livestock in the late 1800s and early 1900s hunted them to near extinction in the lower 48 states by the mid-20th century. In 1974, the federal government declared that gray wolves needed the protections of the Endangered Species Act.
The return of wolves has not only drawn visitors hoping to see these beautiful and powerful predators, but their return has also triggered what scholars call a โtrophic cascade,โ in which the wolves decrease elk numbers, which in turn has allowed willow and aspen trees to survive to maturity and restore dense groves of vegetation across the park.
Increased vegetation in turn led to beaver population increases as well as ecosystem changes brought by their water management and engineering skills. Songbirds also came back, now that they could find shade and shelter in trees near water and food sources.
Black bear protection in the Great Smoky Mountains
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most biologically diverse park in the country, with over 19,000 species documented and another 80,000 to 100,000 species believed to be present. However, the forests of the Appalachian Mountains were nearly completely clear-cut in the late 1800s and early 20th century, during the early era of the logging industry in the region.
Because their habitat was destroyed, and because they were hunted, black bears were nearly eradicated. By 1934, when Great Smoky Mountains National Park was designated, there were only an estimated 100 bears left in the region. Under the parkโs protection, the population rebounded to an estimated 1,900 bears in and around the park in 2025.
Much like the gray wolves in Yellowstone, bears are essential to the health of this ecosystem by preying on other animals, scavenging carcasses and dispersing seeds.
When Everglades National Park was created in 1947, it was the first time a U.S. national park had been established to protect a natural resource for more than just its scenic value.
With their help, the parks โ and the landscapes, resources and beauty they protectโ can be preserved for the benefit of nature and humans, in the parks and far beyond their boundaries.
Tubers float down the Yampa River in Steamboat Springs on July 23, 2025. A stretch of the river running near downtown can see more than 20,000 tubers through the course of the summer, but city officials sometimes roll out recreational shutdowns to protect the Yampa’s fish. Alex Hager/KUNC
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager):
August 5, 2025
This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West produced by KUNC and supported by the Walton Family Foundation.
On a hot summer day in Steamboat Springs, the Yampa River feels like the beating heart of the city. On a recent July afternoon, its banks teemed with people looking for a cool refuge from the mid-80s temperatures and direct sun.
Local mom Alohi Madrigal was one of them. She and two friends watched their kids jump off the rocks into the Yampaโs clear water. A steady stream of relaxed-looking tubers floated by too, sprawled out on thick, yellow inflatables.
Even at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, this little section of the Yampa looked like a postcard-perfect picture of a summer vacation in the Colorado mountains.
But days like this are a precious commodity in Steamboat Springs. When it gets too hot, the city shuts down this specific stretch of river: a roughly six-and-a-half-mile section that flows through downtown, just steps away from the shops and restaurants. During the driest years, it can be bereft of swimmers, tubers and anglers for weeks at a time.
This year, it was already closed for four days in July, and may close again before the summer is through.
Tubers float down the Yampa River, in the shadow of Steamboat Ski Resort, on July 23, 2025. City officials close the river to recreation when it gets too hot, too low, or lacks oxygen for fish. Alex Hager/KUNC
Itโs part of an uneasy balance struck by Steamboat Springs. The Yampa is the cityโs lifeblood. Its water irrigates nearby farms and ranches. The same river supplies drinking water to homes and businesses all over town. During the summer, it becomes a mecca for vacationers who flock to the resort town for a cool mountain escape. The city estimates that more than 21,000 people took tubes down this stretch of river in 2024.
But itโs also home to fish. When the river is hot and low, too many humans in the water can setress out its fish โ causing lasting damage to their health or even killing them. That could create an unpleasant scene for all of those river users and throw the Yampaโs ecosystem out of whack.
As a result, the city enforces periodic shutdowns to keep the river healthy, even if it means people โ and businesses that can make big bucks on equipment rentals โ will have to avoid it on the days when its cool water beckons the most.
Flows for fish
Itโs easy to look at the Yampa and think about the paddlers and floaters playing on its surface. It’s also easy to forget about the silent, scaly residents beneath. But those fish are at the heart of the riverโs summer closures.
โIt pretty much all comes down to fish health,โ said Emily Burke, conservation program manager at the nonprofit Friends of the Yampa. โFish get super stressed when river temperatures reach a certain level.โ
Recreational closures on the Yampa can be triggered by three things: low water levels, high water temperature or low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water. All three make it harder for fish to survive.
Models of fish that live in the Yampa River are on display at the Steamboat Flyfisher shop in Steamboat Springs on July 24, 2025. When water is low and hot, fish can get stressed and even die. Alex Hager/KUNC
When the river gets low and hot, fish often donโt have enough oxygen to breathe, causing them to get exhausted. That could make them too tired to look for food or stop eating. Already stressed and drained of energy, the extra stress added by humans in the river can cause lasting harm to fish health and โ in some cases โ kill them.
โIf you have a bunch of people splashing around in these deep pools [that] these fish are using as refuge,โ Burke said, โIt’s really stressful for them, and it can sometimes lead to fish die-offs.โ
Measuring stations along the river gather data about its water every fifteen minutes. If the water is hotter than 75 degrees for two consecutive days or flowing lower than 85 cubic feet per second, city officials will roll out a river closure.
โA huge economic driverโ
When the Yampa is teetering on the edge of a shutdown, the people watching closest are often those whose businesses depend on it. Johnny Spillane is one of them. He owns Steamboat Flyfisher, which has a back patio that overhangs the river itself.
On a recent Thursday morning, as people milled in and out of brunch spots and started heading toward tourist activities, Spillane stood behind the counter of his store.
โYou can tell in the shop right now it’s pretty quiet,โ Spillane said. โIf it was a busy, hopping day with people fishing in town, it would be a lot busier right now.โ
The river was still open for swimming, tubing and paddling, but officially shut down for fishing.
โJuly days are our most important days as a business, so losing July days certainly hurts a little bit more,โ Spillane said. โBut at the same time, you know, losing the fish in the river would hurt a lot more than that. For us, protecting the fish, protecting the resource, is far much more important than getting an extra couple days of fishing on the town stretch, or selling a couple dozen extra flies.โ
Johnny Spillane, owner of Steamboat Flyfisher, poses in his shop on July 24, 2025. “Protecting the fish,” he said, “protecting the resource, is far much more important than getting an extra couple days of fishing on the town stretch, or selling a couple dozen extra flies.โ Alex Hager/KUNC
Spillane said the river closure doesnโt affect his business that much. Fewer people come into the store to buy equipment, but the shopโs fishing guides โ who can run more than 200 trips each week โ can take customers 20-30 minutes outside of town to other streams, rivers and lakes that are open for anglers.
Even owners of businesses that are inextricably tied to the Yampaโs โtown stretchโ share Spillaneโs mentality.
Backdoor Sports sits just a short walk downstream from the flyfishing shop. Itโs a powerhouse in the local tube renting scene. Backdoor moves so many rental tubes โ as many as 400 a day during the peak of summer โ that it has a drive-thru-style window to keep customers moving from signup to river in short order. The shop dispatches rental tubes from a literal backdoor, which lies no more than a couple dozen feet from the Yampa.
Stacks of inflatable tubes wait for renters at Backdoor Sports in Steamboat Springs on July 23, 2025. “The closures can be tough at times,” said Mike Welch, the shop’s owner, “But also necessary, because it’s good to protect what we have here.” Alex Hager/KUNC
โThe Yampa River is a huge economic driver for the city,โ said Mike Welch, a co-owner of Backdoor. โWe want to make sure that it stays that way for a lot of years to come. The closures can be tough at times, but also necessary, because it’s good to protect what we have here. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing that we’ve got.โ
While it takes some extra preparation to steel Backdoor against changing river conditions and shutdowns, Welch said communication from city officials makes it easier.
โThe city has done a great job in setting those parameters,โ he said. โSo we know what the water is looking like and where and when those closures are potentially coming. So we can plan for it.โ
People ride a tube through the Yampa River in Steamboat Springs on July 23, 2025. The river is a major draw for tourists and locals alike during the summer. Alex Hager/KUNC
Welch bought the business alongside his brother and sister-in-law this spring. The previous owner, Pete Van De Carr, was a well-known local who died in February following a skiing accident.
Another shop owner, Marty Smith, said Van De Carr played a part in getting the city to specify its plans for reopening the river after a closure.
โEvery day, all the outfitters in town, we would get emails from Pete saying we need to come up with a rule to reopen the river,โ said Smith, owner of Mountain Sports Kayak School. โI think that they definitely listened to Pete.โ
City officials say they are trying to be more transparent about the criteria they use to reopen the Yampa for recreation and communicate directly with outfitters about upcoming changes to closures. The city consults with Colorado Parks and Wildlife before reopening the river. They consider current river conditions, weather forecasts and the amount of stress that fish may already be feeling from hot, dry conditions.
โA tough spot to be inโ
For the city officials who manage closures on the Yampa, itโs all about balance.
โWe hate having to do this,โ said Jenny Carey, the cityโs Open Space and Trails supervisor, โBecause you inevitably will hear from somebody that it’s just ruining their day, their business. And that’s tough. That’s a tough spot to be in. We don’t want to do that.โ
Carey said Steamboat Springs puts up signs and social media posts to inform people about the closures and the reasons for them.
โWe understand that people want to be in the river,โ she said, โAnd so it’s a difficult conversation. We do our best to educate as best we can. I think a lot of our locals are getting used to this, and they understand the reason.โ
While it can be rocky trying to tell out-of-town tourists that they wonโt be able to tube on a hot summer day, locals really do seem to be getting the message. In a 2024 survey of Steamboat Springs residents, 92% of people said โmanagement of the health of the Yampa Riverโ was essential or very important.
Thatโs only five points lower than the fire department. Managing the Yampaโs health ranked as more important than city parks and the police department.
โThe Yampa river is considered one of the most important services that the city provides,โ said Julie Baxter, the cityโs water resources manager. โSo we feel very grounded that we have the support of the local community members that live here in Steamboat Springs.โ
Bears play along the banks of the Yampa River in Steamboat Springs on July 23, 2025. In a survey of city residents, 92% of people said protecting the health of the river was important โ scoring it higher than city parks and the police department. Alex Hager/KUNC
Recreational closures on the Yampa are mandatory for rental shops, but technically voluntary for individuals who want to bring their own tubes or kayaks. But with so many locals on board, few people decide to take a dip.
โIf there is a closure in place and you get in the river,โ Baxter said with a chuckle, โYou will likely have a local yell at you.โ
Alohi Madrigal, who was raised in Steamboat Springs and still lives in town, watched her kids splash in a stretch of the Yampa that may be closed later this summer. She said a shutdown wouldnโt be the end of the world.
โThere’s a million things to do here,โ she said, proceeding to list off a handful of other swimming spots. โWe have to take care of the river, or it won’t be here for long.โ
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
August 5, 2025
Colorado governors of the past and possibly the future gathered in Lamar to pay their respects. His last wishes were that the wheat harvest go on.
When it became clear that John Stulp had little time left to live, he specified that the memorial service would come later, after the wheat had been harvested but before the next planting.
That service was held on Saturday, August 2, at the First Baptist Church in Lamar, in southeastern Colorado, not quite a month after his death. Several hundred people attended, many of us from out of town.
Fittingly, the family had positioned a few large vases fill with bundles of wheat next to the photos of Stulp. One photo was Yuma High School, and another was from a meeting with then-President Jimmy Carter. He got around in his life, but in his heart, he remained a farmer.
Tributes to his life were lavished at the church in Lamar, and from my experiences with him during the last 13 years or so, they were deserved. Responding to my first impressions on Facebook, one individual said this: โA great man.โ Said another: โThese sorts of people make civilization work.โ
Former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter was at the remembrance in Lamar, as was an individual who may possibly become Coloradoโs next governor, Phil Weiser. Neither spoke, and as for Weiser, I saw no evidence he was campaigning. It appeared to me he was simply there to pay his respects after likely arising early in [Denver] to get to Lamar by mid-morning.
This was in addition to former U.S. senator, Ken Salazar, who was in the audience along with Kate Greenberg, the current Colorado commissioner of agriculture, and two of her predecessors, Don Brown and John Salazar. I also recognized various people from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, including at least two former directors of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, Becky Mitchell and James Eklund.
John Hickenlooper, still another former Colorado governor, was not there but had delivered a eulogy from the floor of the Senate shortly after Johnโs death on July 7. โJohn was a good man, a great man by any measure,โ Hickenlooper had said.
What came out again and again was his love of place, his devotion to family and community, his generous heart. And while he was also a notably good listener, it was also said that John was a very good storyteller.
I knew Stulp a bit. In about 2012, I went to Beaver Creek for a water forum, and he was a speaker. I struck up a conversation with him, and he invited me to visit him on his farm south of Lamar the following weekend. Then I didnโt fully realize the irony of his position as the stateโs โwater czarโ for Hickenlooper: his farm south of Lamar was entirely dryland.
When I visited him at that farm, we talked at length before he showed me around his home country. We stayed in touch after that, usually it being a matter of me seeking his perspective about water, energy, and other matters.
John leaned into the future. He saw the tiny details and the big pictures. Several times I consulted him to understand the role of eastern Colorado in our stateโs energy transition. He had been a Prowers County commissioner from 1992 to 2003, and during the latter time he voted for approval of Colorado Green. The wind farm south of Lamar was, when it began operations in 2004, the largest in the country.
John Stulp purchased an electric pickup truck in 2022 and was happy to show it to visitors. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Of late, I was particularly interested in his experience as an early adopter. In his electric pickup he made the rounds between Lamar, a home in Lakewood that I believe he and his wife, Jane, had acquired during his 12 years in his position in Colorado state government, and Yuma, where he had begun life during an intense snowstorm in 1948 and where he still had farming property. Trips often also included Fort Collins, where two of his children lived.
Earlier this year, I was curious whether the growing network of fast-charging stations in eastern Colorado was meeting his traveling needs. By then, he was on oxygen, eight liters a minute, and when in the pickup he needed to draw on the battery. That gave him less margin for error, he said, and no, Coloradoโs fast-charging infrastructure on the eastern plains fell short. He had been forced to return to an internal-combustion engine for trips to the Front Range.
As recently as late June, I had written to him after noticing a letter from him filed in a Colorado Public Utilities docket. It was, I wrote to him truthfully, the most compelling of all the comments I had seen filed in that case.
The main reflection I had after hearing the remarks in Lamar was a reinforcement of my previous opinion. For whatever reason, John put it together early in life. Many of us struggle to figure out our paths. He did not. He must have been a bright boy. By age 4, he was accompanying his aunt to a one-room schoolhouse. He grew up farming, growing corn, and raising cattle and hogs. He went to Colorado State University and became a veterinarian.
After stints as a veterinarian in Windsor and then Las Cruces, N.M., he and his wife, Jane, moved to the Lamar area, where she had grown up on a farm. They had five children, and he assumed new roles in agriculture organizations, his community, and state and national organizations. He was on the board of directors for the State Land Board, for the Colorado Wildlife Commission, and the board of governors of Colorado State University.
In the 1990s, then Colorado Gov. Roy Romer twice asked him to be the state ag commissioner, but he declined, citing the need to be with his family. Bill Ritter made the same request when he was elected in 2006, and this time he excitedly said yes. He served a four-year term.
Governor Hickenlooper, John Salazar and John Stulp at the 2012 Drought Conference
When John Hickenlooper was elected governor in 2010, he asked Stulp to be part of his team but in a different capacity. In his eulogy on the floor of the Senate, Hickenlooper explained what he was up to. Colorado had experienced particularly severe drought in 2011 and even more in 2012.
โI was convinced that we needed a blueprint, a plan of some sort, to address the projected growth and its future water supply, to make sure that we had the supply that could match our needs. I recruited John to serve as my top water policy advisor. We made it a cabinet-level position. He came to all our cabinet meetings. He was our water czar.โ
Wheat harvest was a time of hard work but also joy at the Stulp farm south of Lamar. Photo credit: Allen Best/Bigg Pivots
Stulpโs background in agriculture โ which uses 85% to 90% of water in Colorado โ was key to his choice.
โJohn understood the agriculture community in Colorado better than almost anyone,โ explained Hickenlooper. โMaybe thatโs why, when I first approached him with the idea of a statewide water plan, he wasnโt immediately convinced. Actually, he was far from it. He was, I would say, more than skeptical.โ
Hickenlooper explained that he understood how difficult it would be to get buy-in. โHe didnโt think it was a smart idea for me politically as a new governor to take on an issue that had the potential to be so divisive,โ explained Hickenlooper. โBut he understood that we couldnโt let our rivers and farms be at risk of running dry. We needed him. Colorado needed him. And he set aside his reservations, rolled up his sleeves and went to work.โ
Stulpโs work in achieving consensus was part of the state water plan completed in 2015 (and since updated twice). What has been the result of that plan? Has it actually been a success? Thatโs a much longer story.
In his eulogy, Hickenlooper also added a personal touch.
โIโm not sure there are gradations of โgoodness,โ but I have traveled long distances with John Stulp, and Iโve stayed at his home in Prowers County where he and his remarkable wife, Jane, would cook up a barbecue and get me together with some of their neighbors.โ โHe even loaned my son, Teddy, a .410 shotgun so he could learn how to shoot,โ said Hickenlooper.
โIf I did believe in gradations of โgoodness,โ John and Jane Stulp would be at the very top.โ
Delivering a testament later, once again in response to my Facebook post, was Jackie Brown, who spent 39 yeas in public health, including 22 years in Prowers County. Stulp had recruited her to the position from nearby Baca County.
โJohn was the best example of a good man and a great leader,โ she wrote. โHe was honest, smart, caring, fair and had integrity. His family, community and his employees were his priority. Plus, he had a great sense of humor.โ
The service was held in a church, and it turns out that Stulp was deeply religious. During covid, after his work in Colorado state government, he was confined to his home. He had, he told me, been admonished by one of his sons for venturing out to Walmart. Later, he lost a brother in Yuma to covid.
In this time of isolation, John agreed to take over the Baptist ministerโs daily phone tree that sought to connect people during times of isolation. The pastor, Darren Stroh, said that Stulp had sent more than 200 messages. One of them contained these thoughts:
โIf you were judged โ choose understanding.
If you were rejected โ choose acceptance.
If you were shamed โ choose compassion.
Be the person you needed when you were hurting, not the person who hurt you.
Vow to be better than what broke you -โ to heal instead of becoming bitter.
Act from your heart โ not your pain.โ
At the church on Saturday, his son Jensen told us about the father he knew, the father who relished wheat harvest, where he loved to offer rides in a combine to his grandchildren and others. Harvest on July 4th always produces extra energy amid questions of will it rain and will there be time to watch fireworks.
On this yearโs July 4th, days before he died, the Stulp family gathered around John. With his strength ebbing, he delivered โone of the most meaningful and powerful speeches weโve ever heard,โ said John Stulp III. โIt was a charge to the grandkids. First thing he said, finish harvest. Keep cutting the wheat. That was said multiple times.โ
Then he continued about how he wanted them to comport themselves. Be flexible. The world is better when you are generous. We produce food, and the world is hungry. Care for others. Make sure they know you love them. Jesus wasnโt petty; neither should you be. Live in this moment and live it to the fullest, but plan for the future.
And with those words to his grandchildren remembered we were invited to the fellowship hall and a long table of tasty home-cooked food and an equally long table of desserts. In the middle of each table was a centerpiece consisting of a mementoes of Johnโs life and a small bundle of wheat.
How pervasive toxicity threatensย human and planetary survival
What if one of the biggest threats to our health and planet is invisible, yet found in our air, food, and water?
Our latest report is the first time that a single report has attempted to analyse the broader collective problem and solution spaces of chemical toxicity answering the questions: how and why are toxic chemicals produced, how do they get into our bodies and the environment, and how do they affect the health of humans and other organisms?
Over eight months, we conducted an extensive analysis, including reviewing countless peer-reviewed studies and 50+ interviews with global experts. This research shows that the impacts of chemical toxicity are largely underestimated, contributing to increasing cancer rates, declining fertility, and a surge in chronic diseases, alongside ecosystem damage.
The overarching conclusion is that chemical toxicity is an underestimated risk to society and deserves significantly more attention and resources.
But this report isn’t just about the problem; it’s a call to action for solutions. We highlight critical industry, regulatory gaps and, most importantly, identify key areas for innovation and urgent funding that can put us on the right path to increase our understanding and make positive changes where it’s most needed.
We identified three opportunity areas that demand solutions: pesticides (herbicides and insecticide), food contact materials, personal care products.
Key takeaways include:
Over 3,600 synthetic chemicals from food contact materials are found within human bodies globally.
PFAS have contaminated the entire world, with levels in rainwater often exceeding safe drinking water limits.
Over 90% of the global population is exposed to air pollution exceeding World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.
The impact of pesticide use on cancer incidence may rival that of smoking and is linked to leukaemia, non-Hodgkinโs lymphoma, bladder, colon, and liver cancer. Prenatal pesticide exposure increases the odds of childhood leukemia and lymphoma by over 50%.
To learn more, you can download both the executive summary and the full report below. If youโre curious about how to create an impactful and commercially viable company in this space, weโd love to hear from you!
CPW is developing a Beaver (Castor canadensis) Conservation and Management Strategy. The public scoping period is now open through August 31, 2025. Please provide feedback through the comment form on this page. A recorded presentation with more information is available under Important Links.
Background and Need
As a keystone species, beavers provide essential ecosystem services and increase local biodiversity in ecologically suitable habitats. However, beavers also represent a source of human-wildlife conflict, particularly at the interface of human infrastructure and waterways.
Increasing interest in beavers as an agent for ecological restoration prompted Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) to begin developing formal guidance to inform beaver conservation and management, including such topics as: harvest regulation, restoration, techniques for coexisting with beaver, and relocation. Given the broad reach, complexity, and interrelatedness of these topics, CPW is gathering input from diverse stakeholders to inform a strategy for beaver conservation and management.
How to Get Involved
The public scoping period will be open from July 30 through August 31, 2025. A scoping feedback form will be available at the bottom of this page once the input period opens.
Public input on the draft Beaver Conservation and Management Strategy will be open in Fall 2025.
American beaver, he was happily sitting back and munching on something. and munching, and munching. By Steve from washington, dc, usa – American Beaver, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3963858
Cranes and construction equipment line the shore at Gross Reservoir on June 19, 2025 in Boulder County, Colorado. The construction is part of an expansion project that will supply water to Denverโs residents. (Cassie Sherwood/The Water Desk)
Pieter Strauss used to love hosting stargazing parties at his house in the Lakeshore Park neighborhood up Flagstaff Road southwest of Boulder. The hobbyist astronomer would fire up the barbecue and spend hours showing his neighbors the night sky through his observatory and telescopes.
Straussโs house sits looking directly over Gross Reservoir, which provides water to Denver residents.
But when a project to significantly raise the reservoirโs dam began construction in 2022, those moments of neighborhood tranquility were lost for some residents. For Strauss the biggest impact was the bright construction lights used to keep work moving overnight.
โIt became impossible to sit on the deck before sunrise and after sundown, astrophotography was impossible. They lit up the skies,โ with powerful floodlights, Strauss said.
For over 20 years, residents and various environmental groups have protested the project, which suffered a series of legal blows this year. Construction on the massive dam ground to a halt in April amidst the courtroom wrangling, and subsequent decisions have cast a new level of uncertainty over large-scale water projects that propose to draw on the beleaguered Colorado River.
However, by the end of May, federal courts ruled that construction could continue due to concerns surrounding uncompleted construction and potential flooding possibilities, but that the reservoir could not be filled.
The Gross Reservoir Expansion Project involves raising the height of the existing dam by 131 feet. The dam will be built out and will have โstepsโ made of roller-compacted concrete to reach the new height. Image credit: Denver Water
Raising the dam
Gross Reservoirโs dam is owned and operated by Denver Water. The utility built it in the 1950s, with two other building phases planned to accommodate future water needs. The current dam expansion will raise the height of the dam 131 feet, tripling the current capacity of the reservoir, and providing more water for Denver Water customers.
The construction was spurred by โa combination of demands in our system, as well as concerns about climate and concerns about the needs for greater resilience in our system,โ said Jessica Brody, general counsel for Denver Water.
The need for the expansion is similar to a bank savings account, Brody said. Tripling the capacity of the reservoir is a savings account that can be drawn on in circumstances of an emergency.
โIf we have an extreme drought event, we want to have more water banks that we can help smooth the impacts to our customers,โ Brody said.
When the utility initially announced plans to begin moving forward with a dam expansion, residents of the area were concerned. Environmental threats and the disruptions from the massive construction project topped the list of worries. They attended meetings at town halls with county commissioners. They organized with other residents in and around Coal Creek canyon.
While some residents fought the expansion, others anticipated it. When the dam was initially constructed, the utility planned to expand further down the line.
Since construction began in 2022, residents have experienced noise and light pollution. Five neighbors have moved from the Lakeshore Park neighborhood. Pieter Strauss, at whose house they once held stargazing gatherings, was among them.
Beverly Kurtz, member of TEG, on Pieter Straussโs former porch overlooking Gross Reservoir on June 19, 2025. Once construction began, Strauss was no longer able to host neighborhood stargazing parties due to light pollution. (Cassie Sherwood/The Water Desk)
โThe most valuable thing to all the people who have moved up here is that they had a quiet nature sanctuary. But then when you take that away, is it worth it?โ said Anna McDermott, another resident of the area.
โWe sleep with our windows open. Not one house has air conditioning, so you sleep with your windows open in the summer months,โ she said. โYou hear these giant backup beepers crashing, grinding all night long. Even with earplugs, I canโt sleep.โ
The Environmental Group (TEG) is an organization of residents in the Lakeshore Park neighborhood and surrounding residents, focused on engaging the community in action when environmental issues arise. Along with Save the Colorado, The Sierra Club, and other environmental organizations, TEG has fought the expansion. Beverly Kurtz, former president of TEG, has worked to hold Denver Water and the companies working on the dam, Kiewit Corp. and Barnard Construction Company Inc., accountable during construction.
Heavy duty trucks are required to use a different road to access the dam rather than the paved road up Flagstaff Mountain due to fire concerns. Large semi-trucks have slid off the road due to the steep grade, which can cause traffic jams and road closures.
โAt one point they had one of the two roads down this mountain closed for five months,โ Kurtz said. โIt wasnโt until we called the sheriff out here and he realized the safety concern that they opened the road back up.โ
Legal snares slow construction
In October 2024, two years after construction began, Save the Colorado, along with other environmental groups, won a lawsuit against Denver Water. U.S. District Court judge Christine Arguello found the utilityโs dam construction permit violated the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. At the time, construction was able to continue and Arguello ordered the groups to work out an agreement regarding damages.
In April 2025, the judge ordered a temporary halt on construction. The initial lawsuit argued that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who provided the project permitting, did not fully consider climate change impacts when it approved the damโs expansion.
A month later, Arguello ruled that Denver Water could finish construction on raising the dam, but that the reservoir could not be filled until the Army Corps reissued the permits.
โIf you stop the construction of a dam when it is partially built, the dam doesnโt function as it was ultimately designed to function,โ said Denver Waterโs Brody. โThat was a big concern of ours and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.โ
The utility has also been ordered to not remove any additional trees surrounding the dam until the proper permits are obtained. The project proposes the removal of over 200,000 trees.
Arguelloโs opinion also called into question the underlying water rights Denver Water would rely on to fill the newly enlarged reservoir when construction finished. Gross Reservoir is filled with water from the headwaters of the Colorado River, which has experienced steep declines in water supply amid a long-term warming and drying trend in the Rocky Mountains.
โThe Environmental Impact Statement didnโt even look at the fact that the flows of the Colorado River are in decline. Most of the science suggests they will continue to decline further,โ said Doug Kenney, Western Water Policy Program director at the University of Colorado Boulderโs Natural Resources Law Center. Acquiring new permits will require Denver Water to redefine the projectโs purpose and evaluate the environmental damage, he said.
The case is more than a local water project. Diverting more water across the western slope of Colorado has created concerns for ecosystems throughout the overappropriated watershed and for communities downstream in California, Nevada and Arizona.
โIt makes it more difficult to ensure that thereโs sufficient flow downstream as a result,โ Kenney said. โWe have got to stop this practice of taking more and more water out of the upper reaches of the Colorado River because it just increases the stress on a river that is already under a tremendous amount of stress.โ
By calling into question the projectโs potential to have downstream impacts, the decision could add a new legal hurdle future water development infrastructure will have to clear.
โHistorically, agencies in recent decades have not done enough to consider climate change in decisions,โ Kenney said. Cases like this one need to happen in natural resource law more generally, he said, as they help establish precedents for future projects that could potentially put the environment at risk.
Denver Water is appealing the court decisions that bar the expansion. That could result in a reissue of the permits with a redefined purpose or a dismissal of the court rulings made earlier this year.
โWe think that the district court made some misjudgements or misinterpretations when it found the Army Corps committed these errors,โ Brody said.
Learning to live alongside it
Amid the stops and starts of Gross Reservoir construction, nearby residents are not ready to let go of what they used to have.
Kurtz and McDermott recall their old activities along the reservoirโs north shore. A handful of neighbors would walk their dogs everyday along the hiking trail that connected the reservoir to their neighborhood. The trail has since been widened significantly, to allow for excavating equipment. They would host Memorial Day parties along the waterโs edge.ย
Beverly Kurtz and Anna McDermott, longtime residents of the Lakeshore Park neighborhood pose in front of Gross Reservoir on June 19, 2025. They are members of TEG, an environmental group involved in a lawsuit against Denver Water. (Cassie Sherwood/The Water Desk)
Now they minimize their excursions to the shore as much as they can. At this point theyโre more than ready for construction to be completed, exhausted from the daily disruptions, explosions and drilling.
โNow clearly, when the work is done, the things which negatively impacted my life would go away. But I couldnโt last them out,โ Strauss said. He recently relocated to the Boulder area. โIt was just my bad luck that my golden years coincided with the worst effects of the project.โ
Some residents found that the expansion project has renewed their sense of community in Lakeshore Park.
โIn a weird way a lot of us have gotten even closer because we were in the battle together,โ Kurtz said. โWe feel like at this point we won the battle, but weโve lost the war.โ
โThey will get the permits to eventually fill this reservoir following the expansion,โ she said.
However, federal courts requiring the proper permits to continue construction is a win in her and TEGโs book, as it sets a precedent for any large construction processes that occur in the future. It will ensure that the proper environmental permits are obtained before construction can begin on a project.
โIf nothing else, we hope that precedent still stands. Because it will help somebody else,โ she said.
This story was produced by The Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative at the University of Colorado Boulderโs Center for Environmental Journalism.
Survey work begins in 2018 for the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project on the Navajo Nation. Photo credit: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation via The High Country News
Bidtah N. Becker, chief legal counsel for the Navajo Nation, told St. George News there is an urgency to secure the tribe’s legal rights to the Colorado River in Arizona, calling it their “No. 1 issue.” Becker explained that while the tribe secured water rights settlements in Utah in 2022 and in New Mexico in 2009, members still lack a legal water allocation in Arizona. A proposed bill in Congress, the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act of 2025, seeks to address this gap. The billย involves partnerships with the Hopi Tribe, the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, the state of Arizona and more than 30 municipalities and communities in northern Arizona…The legislation has been delayed due to a lack of agreement from the seven Colorado River Basin states, which are focused on post-2026 guidelines for managing the river. Becker said the Navajo Nation remains hopeful that once those discussions advance, a settlement can gain momentum…
The Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, located in northwest New Mexico, draws its water from Navajo Lake on the San Juan River and moves it through more than 70 miles of main canals and 340 miles of laterals. Approved by Congress in 1962, the project transformed from a small-scale farming initiative into a major agricultural operation. The project holds rights to 508,000 acre-feet of San Juan River water annually, used to irrigate high desert lands south of Farmington, New Mexico…
Beyond agriculture, the Navajo Nation is working to secure municipal water supplies. Becker said one key project underway is the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project. A lateral portion of the project, running along U.S. Route 550, is already constructed; the second lateral section still requires funding to be completed.
…in his second administration, President Donald Trump is not just approaching climate science with skepticism. Instead, his administration is moving to destroy the methods by which his or any future administration can respond to climate change. These moves, which are sure to be challenged in court, extend far beyond Trumpโs well-documented antipathy toward solar and wind energy and his pledges to drill ever more oil even though the US is already the worldโs largest oil producer. His Environmental Protection Agencyย announced plans this weekย to declare that greenhouse gas emissions do not endanger humans, a move meant to pull the rug out from under nearly all environmental regulation related to the climate. But thatโs just one data point. There are many others:
Instead of continuing a push away from coal, the Trump administration wants to do a U-turn; Trump has signed executive orders intended to boost the coal industry and has ordered the EPA to end federal limits on coal- and gas-fired power-plant pollution thatโs been tied to climate change.
Tax credits for electric vehicles persisted during Trumpโs first term before they were expanded during Joe Bidenโs presidency. Now, Republicans areย abruptly ending themย next month.
The administration is also ending Biden-era US government incentives to bring renewable energy projects online, a move that actually appears to be driving up the cost of electricity.
Republicans in Congress and Trumpย enacted legislationย to strip California of its authority to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles beginning in 2035.
Trump is also expected to overturn national tailpipe standards enacted under Bidenโs EPA and is alsoย to challengeย Californiaโs long-held power to regulate tailpipe emissions.
The authors of a congressionally mandated report on climate change were all fired; previous versions of the report, theย National Climate Assessment, which showed likely effects from climate change across the country, have been hidden from view on government websites.
Other countries, large and small, will gather in Brazil later this year for a consequential meeting on how the world should respond to climate change. Rather than play a leading role โ or any role at all โ the US will not attend.
This summer, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe rolled out miles of temporary rubber water lines. The above-ground tubes had one job: carrying water to oil and gas operations on the reservation.
But the pipelines also represent something else: a historic moment in a drawn-out, arduous debate over water in southwestern Colorado.
In May, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe tapped into its water in the controversial Animas-La Plata Project, the first time a tribe has used its water from the project since it was authorized in 1968.
The Animas-La Plata Project has come to encapsulate long-held dreams to develop Western water โ and the decades of debates, environmental concerns, local objections and Congressional maneuvering that almost made the project fail.
At the center of it all were tribal nations and the chance to, once and for all, settle all of the tribal water claims in Colorado. It took until 2011 to fill Lake Nighthorse, the main feature of a heavily scaled-down federal water project located just south of Durango. Then 14 more years for a tribe to be able to use a small slice of its water.
More barriers โ tied to interstate laws, finances and infrastructure โ still stand in the way of tribes and other Animas-La Plata water users taking full advantage of the multimillion-dollar project.
โThis has taken the hard work of many Tribal leaders and Tribal staff over many decades to get to where we are at now,โ the Southern Ute Indian Tribe said in a prepared statement.
All Animas-La Plata Project water users can access water both in the reservoir, Lake Nighthorse, and the Animas River, but they draw from the river first. The reservoir functions like a savings account, said Russ Howard, the general manager for the Animas-La Plata Project.
This year, the tribe used water from the Animas River for oil and gas well completion activities, which wrapped up in mid-July. The tribe declined to provide more details.
It plans to use the revenue from the project to upgrade dilapidated irrigation systems, like the deteriorating federal Pine River Indian Irrigation Project, or other water-related projects, like infrastructure to access its Animas-La Plata Project water.
The Southern Ute Indian Tribe and its sister tribe in Colorado, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, have repeatedly brought up their lack of access to the Animas-La Plata Project in high-level conversations about tribal water access in the broader Colorado River Basin and how to manage the basinโs overstressed water supplies once key management rules expire in 2026.
The Colorado River Basin is the lifeblood of the American Southwest, providing water to 40 million people, cities from Denver to Los Angeles, industries and a multibillion-dollar agriculture industry. The Colorado Riverโs headwaters are in western Colorado, but its water finds its way to faucets, ditches and hoses in every corner of the state.
Tribal nations have federally recognized rights to about 26% of the Colorado Riverโs average flow between 2000 and 2018. Butย theyโre not using all of this water. In some cases, theyโre still going through legal processes to finalize their rights. In others, they are working on finding funding for new pipes, reservoirs and canals to access their water.
In some cases, downstream water users have become reliant on water while tribes are sorting out their water rights. But tribes say they are actively working on ways to put their water to use, which could push nontribal water users down the priority list.
โThe Tribe wants everyone to understand that there currently is a reliance on undeveloped tribal water,โ the Southern Ute statement said. โIt is important for everyone to understand that the Southern Ute Indian Tribe has the right to develop its water resources and plans to do so.โ
A big dream for the Southwest
People have been crafting different versions of an Animas-La Plata Project since at least 1904.
In the 1970s, they were drawing up maps showing a dam across the Animas River, also called El Rรญo de las รnimas Perdidas or the River of Lost Souls, to create the Howardsville Reservoir north of Durango. Other new reservoirs, plus hundreds of miles of canals and ditches, would provide irrigation water for both Native and non-Native farmers. The โAnimas Mountain Reservoirโ would provide drinking water for Durango. There would be plenty of water for irrigation, municipal and industrial users in the Southwest.
It was the age of water development in the West, led by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and anything seemed possible.
Only, none of that happened.
Thatโs according to piles of manila folders, labeled in scrawling cursive, in the archives at Fort Lewis Collegeโs Center of Southwest Studies. There, thousands of pages of documents reveal how, exactly, the big dream fell apart and a small, but vital, version survived.
In the 1960s, lawmakers, like Colorado Democrat Wayne Aspinall, fought in Congress to get the Animas-La Plata Project into the Colorado River Basin Project Act of 1968.
Congress authorized the project alongside others in the Upper Colorado River Basin, like the Dolores Project in southwestern Colorado, and Lower Basin goals, like the Central Arizona Project. They were supposed to be developed on the same timeline to avoid showing favoritism to one basin or another.
The Central Arizona Project came online and started sending water to growing cities, like Phoenix. The Dolores Project launched to help farmers and ranchers.
But the Animas-La Plata Project remained snared in issue after issue.
Decades of challenges
In the 1980s, the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes saw the Animas-La Plata Project as a way to settle their water rights in Colorado.
They agreed to stop 15 years of water-related lawsuits against the federal government โ and to give up water rights claims in other local streams โ in exchange for the Animas-La Plata Project and the tribal water rights that came with it.
The idea turned into the Colorado Ute Indian Water Rights Final Settlement Agreement of 1986. Getting the agreement approved by Congress, however, took two years.
Some farmers supported it: If the tribes pursued their powerful water rights on the streams, their claims would likely have priority over nontribal farmers, meaning they might not get as much water in drier years. And people in the dry Southwest needed the stability of guaranteed water storage.
Drought conditions have at times forced the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Farm & Ranch Enterprise in southwest Colorado to operate on a fraction of the water needed to grow crops, resulting in dormant fields and irrigation systems. On a day in late May [2022] when wildfire smoke obscured the throat of an ancient volcano called Shiprock in the distance, I visited the Ute Mountain Ute farming and ranching operation in the southwestern corner of Colorado. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Rafting companies feared a project would hurt business. Environmentalists said it was one of the last free-flowing rivers in the Colorado River Basin. It didnโt make sense to pump water out of the Animas, over a hill and into a valley to create a reservoir, they said. That valley held protected elk habitat. It also included waste material from uranium mining. (This was eventually removed in a remediation project.)
For years, local groups fought the projectโs costs, the electricity its pumps would require and the burden more irrigation water use would put on the Animas.
โIโll actually tell you a little bit about it,โ said Lew Matis, one of the volunteers organizing railroad photos in the Center of Southwest Studies on a Wednesday in July. โI was involved with the taxpayers against the Animas Project.โ
Matis, a self-described โold fart of old Fort Lewis,โ even wrote to The Durango Herald in the 1980s, saying the $586.5 million price tag was โapproaching pie-in-the-sky aspects.โ
Then there was the classic Colorado River tug-of-war between the Lower Basin and the Upper Basin: The Upper Basin tribes wanted to be able to lease their water off-reservation. Lower Basin states, like Arizona, California and Nevada, said it would conflict with state and interstate laws. Theyโd kill legislation that included leasing. Tribal officials said the states didnโt want to have to pay for tribal water they were already getting for free.
(Whether and how tribes can lease water between the Lower Basin and Upper Basin is still an issue today. It was one of the central problems that held up a $5 billion Arizona-tribal settlement that is languishing in Congress.)
Tribal officials traveled to Washington, D.C., to push for the settlement to pass.
โIโve been moving this Animas-La Plata Project through, the people say well itโs not going to get funded,โ said Leonard Burch, former Southern Ute Chairman, in an interview from the 1980s. โBut we insist.โ
A big dream and a (much) smaller reality
By 1988, Congress approved the settlement agreement with the Animas-La Plata Project at its center.
It solved all the tribal water rights claims in Colorado in one go, something that states like Arizona are still trying to do. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, which also has land in New Mexico and Utah, is still working to finalize some of its water claims.
Then U.S. Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, in a press release from 1988, likened the settlement to โwinning a gold medal.โ (And he would know. Campbell won a gold medal in judo in the 1963 Pan-American Games.)
Then, in the early 1990s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found an endangered fish species, the Colorado pikeminnow, downstream from the potential project site. And the Animas-La Plata Project started to crumble.
The Colorado pikeminnow, renamed to remove a slur, can grow to nearly 6 feet in length and was the main predator in the Colorado River system. But by the late 20th century, it occupied about 25% of its natural range, and federal wildlife officials said dams and river depletions were one of its biggest threats.
The findings opened the door to questions about impacts to other species, like peregrine falcons, rare plants, bald eagles and razorback suckers.
The federal government started to question whether the projectโs costs matched the benefits. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamationโs fervor for enormous Western water projects had waned, and former President Bill Clintonโs administration did not support the larger version of the Animas-La Plata Project authorized in the 1960s.
That project would have cost $744 million and built two reservoirs, 240 miles of pipelines and canals, seven water-pumping plants and 34 miles of electric transmission lines, according to local news coverage from the โ90s. It would also require the careful collection and removal of hundreds of years of cultural artifacts from different Native American bands, which was done for the final project.
After years of intense political maneuvering and fighting among all sides, Congress finally approved the final project: a dam to create a reservoir in Ridges Basin โ now called Lake Nighthorse โ and a pumping plant and pipes to suck up Animas River water and push it into the reservoir.
The La Plata River, which would have received Animas River water in the original version (hence its name), was left alone. The irrigation water โ part of the original goal of the project โ was removed from the agreement. The size of the dam shrank to 217 feet from 313 feet above the streambed. Congress dropped reservoirs and delivery pipelines for tribes. The final cost estimates ranged from $250 million to $340 million.
Looking at a description of the project from the 1980s, the projectโs current manager Howard said hardly any of the plan actually happened.
โItโs unfortunate. That was the vision. Everybody was excited, and everybody supported what it was trying to do,โ he said. โBut ultimately, we ended up with a very, very small portion of what youโre showing in that document.โ
โA whole bunch of work leftโ
The final Animas-La Plata Project did achieve some of its original goals.
It settled water rights in Colorado for the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes. It included about 132,000 acre-feet of water and a new recreation spot for locals. Officials responded to environmental concerns (although some may still argue that point). It secured municipal and industrial water for the Navajo Nation near Shiprock, three New Mexico communities, Durango and rural residents in the Southwest. And tribes had funding to help them develop their water resources.
But โthereโs a whole bunch of work left to do,โ Howard said.
So far, four of the 11 entities that have water rights in the Animas-La Plata Project have been able to put that water to use, he said. The Southern Ute Tribal Council approved the use of up to 2,000 acre-feet annually of its Animas-La Plata Project water, according to the tribeโs statement.
โItโs long overdue,โ said Becky Mitchell, the stateโs commissioner to the Upper Colorado River Commission. She has advocated for tribes in Colorado River negotiations. โTheyโve been trying to get access and infrastructure help and be able to access water that they have rights to. This is a step in that direction.โ
The Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe, which is located farther from the Animas River and Lake Nighthorse, is still looking for ways to access its water. Whether that is new, expensive infrastructure โ pipes and reservoirs that were formerly included in the Animas-La Plata Project โ or other options is still to be determined.
Simple geography is one of the biggest barriers in using their project water, said Peter Ortego, a long-time lawyer for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.
The Animas-La Plata Project is right next to the Colorado-New Mexico border, but it must be used within Colorado. The tribes have too much municipal water for the areaโs population, and too much industrial water for the potential mining uses so close to the border. Hydraulic fracturing, the main oil and gas water use, doesnโt use much, he said.
โWhen it comes to the health of the Tribeโs water system, I think taking the irrigation out of that was really bad,โ Ortego said. โIt hurt the farmers. It hurt the Tribe.โ
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe took a major step forward in December when they finalized their repayment contract with provisions that make it easier to participate in conservation projects and to afford the federal operations and maintenance fees that are triggered upon first water use, he said.
Ben Nighthorse Campbell, now 92 and living about 25 miles from the reservoir that bears his name, still thinks the project was a success. He remembers the bitter fights with environmentalists, recalling a passing car with a bumper sticker that said, โDonโt dam the Animas, damn Campbell.โ
When the project finally passed, it passed overwhelmingly, and that was the thing the opposition hated most of all, he said.
โI donโt like to be vindictive, but I felt like, โGotcha, you bastards,โโ Campbell said in an interview with The Colorado Sun. โIt became kind of personal, you know? They threw so many barbs at me, so many shots, and I was just ready to fight back.โ
CPW sampling on the Colorado River found zebra mussel veligers. The river is now considered โpositiveโ for zebra mussels from its confluence with the Roaring Fork River to the Utah state line. CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF COLORADO PARKS & WILDLIFE
State officials may have solved the puzzle of how zebra mussels got into the Colorado River.
On July 3, Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials discovered a large number of adult zebra mussels in a privately owned body of water in western Eagle County. On Monday, Madeline Baker, an invasive species specialist with CPW, told members of the Colorado Basin Roundtable they believe this private lake is an upstream source of the mussels that have contaminated the Colorado River, the Government Highline Canal, Highline Lake and Mack Mesa Lake.
โWe do believe this to be the primary source, but it could now have created other secondary sources downstream with locations that hold water,โ Baker said. โThere is a lot of speculation of could these veligers survive the journey from Eagle County down to Highline and create a new population there or is there some sort of intermediate population in between. So we still have a lot to figure out.โ
Baker said that the lakeโs owner is collaborating with CPW on a mitigation plan. CPW is not releasing the ownerโs name or specific location of the lake.
โThe property owner is unsure of how this could have happened, but is being cooperative,โ she said.
Baker said there were quite a few dead shells on the shoreline of the private lake, which indicates the zebra mussel population has been there for several years. She said CPW staff found the lake by searching Google maps for bodies of water on private property near the Colorado River and then calling property owners and asking if they could inspect their lakes. An outlet from the lake was bringing zebra-mussel-infested water into the Colorado River, an issue that has since been fixed.
โWeโve done a dye test at the reservoir to be sure that nothing more is flowing into the river, and that dye test showed us that it should be contained at this point, which will allow us to pave a path toward mitigation,โ Baker said.
Zebra mussels are a prolific invasive species that if left unchecked could clog irrigation infrastructure, and strip the plankton and nutrients from the water. Once established, they are nearly impossible to eradicate.
For the last two summers, microscopic zebra mussel larvae, known as veligers, have been found in the Colorado River at several locations. In June, they were found at the boat launch in New Castle, in Highline Lake and Mack Mesa Lake. The Colorado River is now considered โpositiveโ for zebra mussels from the confluence with the Roaring Fork River to the Colorado-Utah border.
CPW staff inspects a boat motor at Highline Lake in 2023. The lake is infested with zebra mussels. CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF COLORADO PARKS & WILDLIFE
Threat to the Grand Valley
The arrival of zebra mussels has been especially alarming for the Grand Valley, which is one of the most important agricultural areas and home to the biggest agricultural water users of Colorado River water on the Western Slope.
โAt least from a Grand Valley perspective, we feel like we are under a very serious threat,โ said Kirsten Kurath, a Grand Valley attorney and vice-chair of the roundtable.
Adult mussels were found in 2022 in Highline Lake near the Utah state line. Officials treated it with a form of copper that kills zebra mussels called EarthTec QZ and drained it for the 2024 boating season. The lake reopened for recreation this year but on June 10, CPW staff found more veligers in Highline Lake, which is now designated an infested body of water. Highline Lake is filled with water from the Government Highline Canal, which pulls water from the Colorado River.
โWe now know that Highline Lake was continuously being reinfested with mussels after the treatment, so itโs difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of the treatment,โ Baker said.
Veligers were also found last year in the Government Highline Canal, which brings water from the Colorado River to Grand Valley farms, vineyards and orchards. Realizing the mussels could be disastrous for commercial peach growers who use micro-drip irrigation, water managers sprang into action last fall, treating their systems with a copper solution that kills the mussels.
An adult zebra mussel found at Highline Lake in 2023. The lake was treated with a copper solution and drained for the 2024 boating season in an effort to eradicate the invasive species. CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF COLORADO PARKS & WILDLIFE
Grand Valley Water Users Association General Manager Tina Bergonzini said the copper treatment was successful โ the irrigation company has not seen any signs of adult mussels in their system โ and the Government Highline Canal has not had any more positive tests for veligers. Still, Bergonzini said GVWUA will probably do the copper treatment again this fall, and that preventing zebra mussels from becoming established is something they will be working on for the foreseeable future.
โI donโt think there is any way around [doing the copper treatment again],โ Bergonzini said. โWe canโt risk our infrastructure. Itโs a financial hurdle for the irrigation companies because itโs very costly, but not as costly as having fouled infrastructure.โ
The discovery of the source pond in Eagle County is a step in the right direction, but it doesnโt mean the fight against zebra mussels is over. CPW will continue sampling and mitigation work, Baker said.
โFinding the source was always the main focus,โ Bergonzini said. โThereโs no way you can win the war if you canโt figure out where they are coming from. So I think discovering that pond was huge. That gives us a really good chance.โ
CPW says cleaning, draining and drying fishing gear, motorized boats and hand-launched vessels like paddle boards is key to preventing the spread of invasive species.
Click the link to read the article on The Land Desk (Jonathan P. Thompson):
August 1, 2025
๐ฅต Aridification Watch ๐ซ
The monsoon is on its way, apparently, but seems to be delivering more lightning than rain to many areas that are grappling with wildfires. Meanwhile, the drought is intensifying and spreading in almost all parts of the West, especially in the deep Southwest.
Streamflows are dropping, too. The Animas River in Durango has fallen to about 200 cubic feet per second, and itโs only at about half that by the time it gets to Farmington, New Mexicoโs, new surfing wave. The Rio Grande already dried up in Albuquerque a couple of weeks ago (but got a good boost from a thunderstorm early this morning). WyoFile reports that the Snake, Wind, and Bear Rivers are all at record low flows for this date, even though the snowpack was about average this winter.
And, of course, the wildfires continue to burn. The Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyonโs North Rim has burned through 112,000 acres so far, with only 9% containment. The Monroe Canyon Fire in southwestern Utah is at 55,642 acres with 7% containment, and is causing power outages in surrounding communities. The Turner Gulch Fire northeast of Gateway is still growing โdue to continuous hot and dry conditions and erratic winds.โ And the Elkhorn Fire north of Durango has settled down a bit at 317 acres, but officials worry forecasted hot and dry conditions could reawaken it.
Below are some satellite moisture index maps, with blue being moist and red indicating dryness. The top image shows Dove Creek and areas south of there. This was dryland farming country for many years (Pinto Bean Capital of the World), but irrigation from McPhee Reservoir on the Dolores River was later extended out to Dove Creek. Problem is, their water rights are junior to the farmers in the Montezuma Valley near Cortez, so when reservoir levels are low, they tend to get less irrigation water. Here you can see the difference between 2023 (on the left), when snow, river, and reservoir levels were high, and this year (right), when they are not. What stands out to me is that some fields are still being irrigated this year, despite the drought, as is indicated by the circles of bright blue. But there are more fallow fields now, and the areas around the fields are especially dry.
Here are two more images showing the Ute Mountain Ute Tribeโs farms south of Ute Mountain in 2023 compared to 2025. Again, some irrigation is still reaching the fields, but apparently far less, given the number of fields that are apparently fallow.
๐ Data Center Watch ๐
The Land Desk is adding another beat to its roster, the Data Center Watch, which is just to say that Iโll be covering data centers and their economic and environmental ramifications a bit more frequently from here on out. Why? Because they currently are proliferating throughout the West: There are 93 data centers in the Phoenix area, 54 in the greater Denver area, and eight in Albuquerque, with many more on their way. And every one of them uses outsized quantities of electricity and water, straining power grids, and throwing utilitiesโ resource planning into disarray.
Cheyenne, Wyoming, is already home to six data centers. That doesnโt count Metaโs $800 million center that is under construction there, or energy firm Tallgrassโs proposed facility that would pull 1,800 megawatts of electricity from new, dedicated natural gas plants and renewable power installations (presumably solar and wind). Down in Tucson, city officials are considering Amazon Web Servicesโ proposed Project Blue, a massive complex that is poised to consume up to 2,000 acre-feet of water per year and become Tucson Electric Powerโs largest single customer.
In Alaska, a company is looking to build a large data center and a dedicated natural gas plant that would run off of oilfield methane. Numerous data centers can be found along the banks of the Columbia River, drawn there in part by the relatively cheap and abundant hydropower. In Montana, a proposed data center would use all of the powergenerated by NorthWestern Energyโs existing resources. And Pacific Gas & Electric expects new data centers in Silicon Valley to drive a 10 GW increase in electricity demand over the next decade, which is about one-third of todayโs forecast peak demand for Californiaโs grid.
The biggest concern with these sprawling warehouses packed with processors is their power consumption. Each one can draw as much electricity as a small city โ the proposed Cheyenne server farm would use more power than all of the stateโs households. As recently as half a decade ago, most utilities werenโt expecting the speed and magnitude of the big data center buildout. Now itโs hitting hard, and coinciding with increased demand from a growing number of electric vehicles and electrified homes, and utilities are scrambling to bring new power sources online to meet the projected demand growth. This includes geothermal, wind, and solar power โ each with impacts of their own โ but also new natural gas plants and even small nuclear reactors. Some utilities are cancelling plans to retire coal plants to keep enough generating capacity online.
In other words, the data center boom is likely to radically reshape the energy landscape of the West, and will spur more debates over the costs of this sort of economic development and the impacts our cyber-world has on the environment and humanity.
๐ Data Dump ๐
In some ways, I guess you could say that as alfalfa is to the Colorado River, data centers are to the Western power grid: they both suck up a lot of the resources. That doesnโt make them bad. Alfalfa mostly goes to dairy cows, which make cheese and ice cream and other really good things. Data centers power annoying AI art, sure, but they also make everything internet possible, including me sending this newsletter to you.
Anyway, itโs worth tracking both โ alfalfa and data centers, I mean. So hereโs a quick update on hay exports from the U.S. (which includes alfalfa and other hay), as well as a look at acreage planted in alfalfa (excl. other hay) over time. Exports seem to have peaked in 2022 and are now in decline. Nevertheless, sending alfalfa and other hay overseas is big business.
๐คฏ Annals of Inanity ๐คก
You might think that our federal agencies under Trump would be content to wreck the environment and trample civil liberties in a quiet, not-so-noticeable way. But no, of course not: Theyโre so proud of their racism and fetishization of fossil fuels that they plaster social media with their proclamations thereof โ they are trolling us, in other words.
Above are just two recent examples. In the first one, the Department of Energy fawns over a sparkling chunk of coal. In the other, the Department of Homeland Security posts an 1872 painting by John Gast titled โAmerican Progress.โ
Both are gross in their own way.
What the hell kind of sexualization of coal โ i.e. โShe is the momentโ โ are they going for in that first one? Frigginโ perverts, if you ask me.
As for the second, it glorifies the crimes the American military and white colonial settlers perpetrated against the Indigenous peoples in order to get more Lebensraum, one might say (it makes sense to use Hitlerโs term given that he was inspired by the U.S.โs policies toward Native Americans). Not only is the use of the word โHeritageโ in this way a dog whistle to white supremacists, but itโs also kind of weird to be talking about defending the โHomelandโ against immigrants when, in the image, the immigrant invaders are the white settlers, and the folks trying to defend themselves and their homeland are the Indigenous people (and wildlife) fleeing from the settlers.
๐ธ Parting Shot ๐๏ธ
I donโt want to leave yโall with that awful taste in your mouth, so here are a couple of nicer images of one of my favorite flowers out there.
On the evening of July 31, 49 years ago, a deadly flooding disaster began in the Big Thompson Canyon in northern CO. Highway 34 cuts through the canyon between Loveland and Estes Park. On that night, an extreme precipitation event resulted in a large wall of water crashing through and killing 144.
n July, the Parachute Town Council adopted a Water Restriction and Conservation Program to help the town respond quickly and responsibly to changing water conditions.ย
The new program allows the town to implement or lift water use restrictions as needed throughout the year, based on water availability, drought conditions and regional coordination.
On July 15, it was announced that Parachute remains at a Stage 1 Water Watch due to low flows on the Parachute Creek. It has remained at Stage 1 partially due to ongoing coordination with other users of Parachute Creek and the communityโs ongoing conservation efforts.
Stage 1 is a voluntary stage that applies to raw water irrigation users only. Parachute has not implemented any mandatory restrictions at this time and potable drinking water customers are not affected.
Parachute is encouraging all irrigation water users to take simple voluntary actions to help conserve water, such as:
Reducing outdoor watering to three to five days a week
Watering in the early morning or late evening to reduce evaporation
Focusing water use on trees, vegetables and essential landscaping only
Avoiding overwatering lawns or irrigating during rainfall
Voluntary conservation is key, as cutting back now could help the community avoid stricter, mandatory restrictions later this summer.
If conditions change, additional stages of the program may be implemented. Higher stages could make the current voluntary measures enforceable or even lead to a ban on all outdoor irrigation, though that has not yet been necessary in Parachute.
Future restrictions will be announced publicly and community members can stay up to date by following the town of Parachuteโs social media accounts, like their Facebook at facebook.com/townofparachute/, downloading the โTown of Parachuteโ mobile app or visiting the townโs utilities page at parachute.gov/o/top/page/utilities.
For more questions on the program or water usage, contact Parachute Town Hall at 907-285-7630.
Colorado River May 2023 swelled from low elevation snow runoff.
Click the link to read the article on the KJCT website. Here’s an excerpt:
July 28, 2025
On Monday, the Colorado Basin Roundtable had a meeting to discuss the state of the Colorado River. The Roundtable discussed the potential Shoshone stream flow acquisition. The area of interest is the 2.4 miles in Glenwood Canyon. It is important for Western Colorado because of its stream flow rate that mimics the current water rates used for hydropower. Wildlife organizations did habitat studies on it, and they show it improves the natural environment.
Another topic of discussion was the basin hydrology. With a limited snowpack this year, there is less water. The biggest concerns people had in the meeting related to that was the stress of many systems struggling from prolonged drought and aging infrastructure. Lindsay DeFrates, Deputy Director of Communications for the Colorado River District, said, โThe Colorado Basin Roundtable is a great example of a room where a bunch of different stakeholders from agriculture, recreation, environment, municipal, industrial, water users all come together to talk about those solutions. Itโs never an easy conversation. And we canโt forget about zebra mussels. Zebra mussel veligers were found at the Silt Boat Ramp and near New Castle.
The International Wastewater Treatment Plant is located along the US-Mexico border fence. Surfrider Foundation and Veriditas Rising
Click the link to read the article on the CNN website (Avery Schmitz,ย Josรฉ รlvarez). Here’s an excerpt:
July 25, 2025
The governments of Mexico and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding on Thursday [July 24, 2025] to fund and expedite several wastewater treatment projects in the Tijuana River basin. Untreated wastewater continually affects residents living along the river, which flows across the border from Tijuana and through several of San Diegoโs southern neighborhoods. Residents living along the river have long battledย severe health issuesย which researchers say stem from the riverโs contamination. One research team based at the University of California San Diego found that trace amounts of waterborne chemicals from tires, personal care products, and even illicit drugs present in the Tijuana Riverย are being introduced into the airย โ exacerbating health concerns for tens of thousands of residents living on its banks…
In Thursdayโs event celebrated in Mexico City, US Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Lee Zeldin and Mexicoโs Secretary of the Environment and National Resources of Mexico Alicia Bรกrcena agreed to a series of actions to be taken by both governments by 2027 to address the deteriorating wastewater treatment crisis. The agreement stipulates that both Mexico and the US will re-commit to funding the construction and renovation of water treatment infrastructure on both sides of the border. The document also accelerates several projects to be completed over the next two years…Former Commissioner of the International Water and Boundary Commission (IBWC) Maria-Elena Giner called the agreement โexcellent newsโ toward reaffirming commitments made by the US and Mexican officials in Minute 328, which outlines how Mexico and the US will share the costs of operating and maintaining water treatment infrastructure on the border.
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
July 22, 2025
This is the final part of a series about four groundwater basins in Colorado. The story was commissioned byย Water Education Coloradoย and benefited from editing by Caitlin that organizationโs staff. It appears in a variant form in theย summer 2025 issue of Headwaters magazine.ย
The San Luis Valley, like the Republican River Basin, has almost no tax base other than irrigated agriculture. โNearly everything in the valley is somehow related to agriculture. Our hospital, our schools โ everything is dependent on agricultureโs existence in the valley,โ says Amber Pacheco from her office in Alamosa. From her office in Wray, Deb Daniel has a parallel observation.
What then constitutes sustainability of the water that is the foundation of agriculture or, in the case of Parker, Castle Rock, and other south metro communities, their economic vitality? What decisions should be made now to foster that vitality through the 21st century?
Smuggler Mine back in the day via GregRulon.com
Thoughts about conservation have shifted over time. When Coloradoโs gold and silver miners arrived, they had no goal of conserving. They either mined the veins to exhaustion, or it became too costly to continue. In a sense, that has happened in the Republican River Basin. The only limits to this groundwater mining are those triggered by the interstate compact. Because the Republican River and its tributaries get most of their water from aquifers, pumping must be limited โ or supplemented.
In the last 20 years, the Republican River Water Conservation District has done some of both. It has or soon will have committed $86 million to pump water from wells expressly to deliver water to the Nebraska state line. One of the directors, Tim Pautler, has called this a strategy of kicking the can down the road. Other directors have started to agree.
โItโs like the clock is ticking when it comes to sustainability,โ said Rod Lenz, the board chair, at the boardโs quarterly meeting in May 2025. โWhat more can we do with the tools we have? Do we dare ask for more tools such [as would be delivered by] statute changes? Do we really want all the groundwater districts in the basin to ask the state engineer to reconsider how much weโre allowed to pump, or do we just stay in compliance until we canโt?โ
San Luis Valley Groundwater
In the San Luis Valley, coming off the century-defining drought of 2002, state legislators went in exactly the opposite direction. They said that the unconfined aquifer was to be managed sustainably. Granted, thatโs easier said if you have a major river flowing nearby, even if that river has been hammered hard by the warming, drying climate of the 21st century.
Water stored in Coloradoโs Denver Basin aquifers, which extend from Greeley to Colorado Springs, and from Golden to the Eastern Plains near Limon, does not naturally recharge from rain and snow and is therefore carefully regulated. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey.
The south metro area falls somewhere between these two extremes. State legislators nearly a half-century ago ordered a โslow sipโ of the groundwater such as to preserve it for a century. In some places, there seems to be sufficient water to slow sip for another 300 years. In other places, the aquifer might have enough water for a few decades. Some water utilities hope for a completely sustainable water supply in decades ahead. Much work has been done. The harder work lies yet ahead.
What we need are aspirations premised not on entitlement and enrichments solely for today, but instead to build economies and cultures that more comprehensively look several generations ahead. That should be the question in all these meetings, all these court cases, all of these individual actions. Based on what we know and understand today, what should we be doing for the kids, grandkids and their grandkids, too? Are we doing better than kicking the can down the road?
We left the Colorado River a couple months ago to explore the Trumpstersโ effort to use the public lands in the river basin to โunleash American energyโ and return us to the glorious age of cheap petroleum โ and why itโs not happening. At that time, the seven states in the riverโs basin were in a stalemate over a management plan to replace the cobbled together โinterimโ management guidelines that expire next year. The Trumpstersโ have not interceded noticeably in this situation, since it appears to require complex and sustained thought.
Unfortunately, the stalemate is still the basic situation. As a couple water mavens put it, weโre all still waiting for the black smoke coming out of the chimney to turn white. The Basinโs state representatives are meeting together regularly though, with input from the First People, and reports from the meetings suggest that the participants have all agreed to โwork with the river we have, not the river we wish we (still) hadโ (if we ever actually did have it) โ the Colorado River Compactโs river. So a little review here today, to remind us where this puts usโฆ.
Members of the Colorado River Commission, in Santa Fe in 1922, after signing the Colorado River Compact. From left, W. S. Norviel (Arizona), Delph E. Carpenter (Colorado), Herbert Hoover (Secretary of Commerce and Chairman of Commission), R. E. Caldwell (Utah), Clarence C. Stetson (Executive Secretary of Commission), Stephen B. Davis, Jr. (New Mexico), Frank C. Emerson (Wyoming), W. F. McClure (California), and James G. Scrugham (Nevada)
CREDIT: COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY WATER RESOURCES ARCHIVE via Aspen Journalism
The Colorado River Compact was created in 1922 for a river that had been, for a couple decades, running flows guesstimated to average 18 million acre-feet (maf) annually. The compact commissioners thought they were being conservative in only dividing 15 maf among themselves, and assumed that โthose men who may come after us, possessed of a far greater fund of informationโ would be dividing up even more water after resolving a share for Mexico and resolution of the Indian rights.
The river then played desert trickster and stopped running those big flows, shortly after Congress passed the Boulder Canyon Act to reconstruct the Colorado River through the subtropical deserts below the canyons. By the end of the 1930s drought that followed, the statesโ water leaders knew the numbers in the Compact division might have been for a river that no longer existed, if it ever really had. But they persisted with the Compact, in the spirit of the unnamed quasi-mythical G.W. Bush administration official: โWe are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.โ The next half century was invested in creating our own imperial reality for the Colorado River โ until we began to run into more โnaturalโ realities than weโd anticipatedโฆ.
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
The unimperial reality today is a river whose annual flow since the turn of the century has dropped to an average around 12.5 million acre-feet (maf), two-thirds the size of the Compactโs river. That is โthe river we haveโ โ and we are aware of the extent to which our superimposed imperial reality on the Colorado River region (and on the whole planet) has caused a lot of this unanticipated loss of water.
Exactly what it means when the basin-wide negotiators say they are working with that โriver we haveโ has not been revealed. One bad sign, however, viewing it from โoutside the box,โ is their persistence in thinking of the river as divided into a four-state Upper Basin and a three-state Lower Basin, a construct destined by a competitive appropriation culture to devolve into chronic conflict โ which it has.
Much of the conflict has revolved around the foggily written Article III(d) of the Compact, stating that the Upper Basin โwill not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of ten consecutive years.โ This could be most rationally interpreted as a warning to the Upper Basin to just be careful to not develop to the point of using more than their 7.5 maf/year (which the four states have not even come close to doing) and cutting into the Lower Basinโs 7.5 maf in dry periods. Or it could be irrationally interpreted as a delivery obligation that the Upper Basin had to deliver regardless of the natural state of the river, even if an extended drought forced the upper states to short themselves in order to deliver the required 7.5 maf.
Looking upstream at the Boulder Dam (now called Hoover Dam) under construction. “Boulder Dam, looking upstream August 31, 1933 2345” is written at the bottom of the photo. Via UNLV
Given a history of tension among the states based on how fast California was growing, the obvious choice between those interpretations was to believe the worst. Their intent in convening the compact commission had been to prevent a โseven-state horse raceโ to appropriate water for their futures; they wanted a seven-state division of the use of the riverโs water that wouldย override interstate appropriative competition. But they didnโt know enough about either the river or their own fantasy-infused futures to do that desired division. The two-basin division has come to be regarded as a stroke of genius, good for all time, when in fact it was just an expedient measure โ one wouldnโt be wrong to call it a โdesperate measureโ โ to cobble together something that would persuade Congress that the states were enough on the same page so Congress could put up the money for a big control structure (Hoover Dam).
But in their haste in pasting together the two-basin compact, they appeared, through Article III(d), to make one basin โjuniorโ to the other, subject to a โcompact callโ in an extended droughtย ย โ or at least that is how everyone chose to interpret it. The 2007 โInterim Guidelinesโ began to address that (perceived) inequity by imposing cuts on the Lower Basin states when Mead and Powell Reservoirs dropped to dangerous levels, but on not the Upper Basin (leaving their shortages up to the erratic river). But interstate โseniorityโ played a big role in the size of cuts for each Lower Basin state, belying the notion that the Compact would protect states from interstate appropriative competition.
So what could todayโs negotiators be doing instead? There is actually a constructive and useful way to divide a desert river into two โbasins,โ based on the nature of the desert river. All rivers are surface water that is leaving โ maybe reluctantly โ the land it flows through; it is leaving the land because the land and its life were not able to put the water to use in support of life or to hold it as groundwater in an aquifer. Even much of the groundwater that doesnโt get used by the plants does not escape leaving the land with the river; isotopic analysis indicates that over the course of a year more than half of all the water in surface streams is groundwater trickling back in.
Ephemeral streams are streams that do not always flow. They are above the groundwater reservoir and appear after precipitation in the area. Via Socratic.org
This is not to say that a river is nothing but a drainage ditch โ an earlier Army Corps of Engineers perspective that messed up a lot of rivers, trying to make the drainage more efficient by straightening channels. All rivers have a much more complex relationship with the land they are flowing through than just โdrainage.โ Most rivers have their origins in highlands โ mountains or other significant uplands โ where steep slopes or fast snowmelts produce too much water to sink into whatever soil there might be; this generates surface flows that become small streams confluing to form larger streams and rivers. Throughย hyporheic exchange,ย surface streams either gain groundwater from the land they flow through when that land has a higher water table than the stream level (aย gaining stream), or they lose water to the riparian areas along the river when the water table there is lower than the stream level (aย losing streamย โ although, since the water it loses nurtures life in the riparian area, I think hydrologists should consider calling it a โgivingย streamโ).
For rivers in humid regions, there is adequate precipitation throughout the riverโs basin so the rivers will usually gain more from the land they pass through than they will lose (or โgiveโ); they are gaining streams that grow from both surface and ground water until they discharge it all into the seas. But a desert river like the Colorado, on the other hand, is a dependable gaining stream only in its highland headwaters, where the Colorado River accumulates 85-90 percent of its entire water supply from the Southern Rockies, Wind River and Wasatch Mountains above ~8,000 feet elevation. This water-producing region is less than 15 percent of the whole basin. (That โdivision contourโ is more accurately an โecotone,โ a blurry edge zone, in the 7,500-8,500 feet range.)
Below the ~8,000 foot elevation, the riverโs tributaries flow first into the high orographic โcold desertsโ (steppes) of western Colorado, southwestern Wyoming and eastern Utah. Most of its tributaries have been โstepping downโ through the mountain region in a series of canyons alternating with floodplains, all of it the waterโs work โ and all of it the beautiful erosion and deposition that draws and holds us here. As they drop into the high desert, they get into a serious canyon-cutting project through the Colorado Plateau, up to a mile deep โ a mystery story in itself thatย Iโve written about before. After more than five hundred miles of canyons winding through the Plateau, the river flows out into the subtropical Mojave and Sonora โhot deserts,โ and thence โ only occasionally now โ emptying whatโs left into the Gulf of California.
Super Bloom along UT-128 during the last road trip with Mrs. Gulch May 2023.
But once they drop out of its headwaters highlands, desert streams and rivers like the Colorado and its tributaries become losing (giving) streams; they get little new precipitation below the ~8,000 foot contour. The occasional exception is the desert cloudburst that manages to penetrate the desertโs heat shield, dumping a huge rain that mostly runs off the desert land in a quick, destructive flood, filling dry arroyos and stream beds for a few dangerous hours. Or a rare winter snowfall that melts and sinks in, activating flora and small fauna that have lain inactive for long periods, instigating pilgrimages from hundreds of miles away just to see the desert in bloom.
The โnaturalโ Colorado River (the river before the 20thย century CE) became a โbig riverโ for two or three months a year, in the May-July period when its mountain snowpack released the majority of the riverโs water into its tributaries and ground storage. But once the snowpack was gone, the natural river became an increasingly modest flow, fed largely by groundwater, and as it wandered through the desert regions, it gave what water it had to riparian life (a process that intensified as humans began โbroadeningโ its riparian areas through irrigation systems), or into desert aquifers โ and a lot of it just evaporated or transpired back into the atmosphere (losses that increased as humans spread more of it out in reservoirs and fields).
There were probably years (like our current water year) in which the last of the natural riverโs water never made it through its lush delta to the sea in the autumn. It is not unusual for a desert stream to completely disappear in its desert; some 40 surface streams and rivers flow into the Great Basin, and most of them just disappear after spreading their limited beneficence en route.
The natural and logical โtwo-basinโ division for a desert river like the Colorado, then, would be into a โwater production regionโ and a โwater consumption region.โ With the exception of mountain mining or resort towns, and the mountain flora and fauna, nearly all the users of Colorado River water live below that ~8,000 foot division. They are all in the same boat, trying to figure out how best to share a โlosing riverโ when its flows drop into the desert regions where they live.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
The Colorado River Compact ignores this natural division of the river. The clumsy division into the four-state Upper Basin and three-state Lower Basin is done according to state boundaries, which have no geographic or hydrographic relevance to the Colorado River Basin.ย ย The state boundaries also include a lot of heavily developed landย outsideย the natural river basin that can lay claim to Colorado River water as part of the state โ and they have population and wealth concentrations that enable them to move that water out of the basin through tunnels. โWe are an empire, and when we actโย et cetera et cetera.
The Compact division is especially problematic for the Upper Basin. A quarter to a third of the Upper Basin area is the riverโs major waterย productionย area, scattered among the mountains of the four states above the ~8,000-foot contour, and the rest of the Compactโs Upper Basin is part of the riverโs waterย consumptionย region. The Compact makes no such distinction, and all the water above the Upper-Lower division point near Leeโs Ferry is presumed to be the Upper Basinโs โ minus the annual โdelivery obligationsโ of 7.5 maf for the Lower Basin and half of the 1.5 maf for Mexico. Given that the riverโs annual flows vary between 5 and 20 maf, this makes the Upper Basinโs Compact allotment of 7.5 maf annually a fantasy.
Acknowledging the desert nature of the Colorado River suggests a rather radical, but common sense two-basin management strategy for the Colorado River, addressing two main challenges: first, to work out an equitable division among all users for the use of the water that flows into the โwater consumption regionโ; and second, for all water consumption region users to collaborate on optimizing (not โmaximizingโ) the flow out of the โwater production regionโ and into the deserts.
And a third challenge (which should be first) would be to transcend (abandon) the Compactโs two-basin division, the artificiality of which just gets in the way of desert-river reality at best, and at worst fosters a competitive rather than collaborative attitude between the two basins.
And thatโs enough for today. We will look more closely at those challenges next time โ unless the negotiators have come up with a brilliant breakthrough to parse out. Donโt hold your breathโฆ.
Colorado River “Beginnings”. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
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
