For the past three months and change, the Trump administration, in a series of executive orders, has been working to dismantle the administrative state, or the framework of agencies, rules, and regulations designed to protect the nation and its citizens. For the most part, however, the Interior Department โ the sprawling agency that oversees much of the nationโs public lands โ has been relatively (and suspiciously) quiet, refraining from big actions beyond merely repeating some of Trumpโs orders.
That has rapidly changed in recent days as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum โ or perhaps Tyler Hassan, the DOGE minion Elon Musk appointed to reorganize Interior โ set off a figurative bomb that could demolish protections for public lands.
The most alarming move, so far, is the departmentโs implementation of โemergency permitting proceduresโ for oil and gas, uranium, coal, biofuels, and critical mineral projects on federal lands. Under this order, the department will compress the entire environmental review for these projects down to 28 days or less โ even for a full environmental impact statement.
โBy reducing a multi-year permitting process down to just 28 days,โ Burgum said in a press release, โthe Department will lead with urgency, resolve, and a clear focus on strengthening the nationโs energy independence.โ
If youโve ever skimmed through an EIS, you know how insane this concept is.
The Bureau of Land Management will be packing the entire process mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act, and other rules and regulations into an impossibly short timeframe.
By impossibly short, I mean that it is virtually impossible to comply with these laws and requirements โ which include tribal consultation, archaeological surveys and mitigation, environmental and endangered species reviews, socioeconomic impact analyses, and public comment periods โ in four weeks or less. So by radically compressing the timeline, Burgum is essentially telling his staff to skirt the requirements, i.e. violate the law.
Burgum uses President Trumpโs claim that the U.S. is experiencing an โenergy emergency,โ to justify the destructive rubber-stamping, and says fast-tracking project approvals is necessary to address that emergency.
Iโve said it many times, but I will say it again: There is no energy emergency. The U.S. is pumping more crude oil than ever before from the Permian Basin and other fields, it is the largest petroleum producer in the world, it is a net exporter of petroleum products, and liquefied natural gas exports are at an all-time high. The U.S. market is glutted with natural gas and the coal supply has been outpacing demand for nearly two decades. Lithium โ for electric vehicle batteries and grid-scale energy storage โ is so plentiful that prices have plummeted nearly 90% since 2022. Uranium shortage? Nope.
One could certainly argue that the power grid in the West is outdated, its operation balkanized, and that it is not up to the challenges posed by growing data center electricity demand. But aside from geothermal and hydropower (solar, wind, and transmission projects are not included), none of the categories of projects on the fast-track list would do anything to fix the grid. Even if they were, it would not justify truncating environmental reviews so severely โ or at all.
Environmental reviews can take a maddeningly long time, especially for big projects. But the way to speed things up is not to throw the laws and protections in the the trash bin. That will only lead to lawsuits, which likely will delay the projects even more. The only way to truly streamline permitting, while still safeguarding human health and the environment, is to beef up staffing, resources, and expertise. And thatโs exactly the opposite of what Trump and Musk and Burgum are doing.
Pages from the Interior Departmentโs 2026-2030 Strategic Plan Draft Framework acquired and published by Public Domain. Note that one objective is to โrelease federal holdingsโ for housing. And that in the top one they want to โreduce the costs for grazingโ on public land (can it go any lower?), while in the bottom one they want to โincrease revenues from grazing โฆ .โ Uh โฆ okay?
But wait. It gets worse.
We might take some comfort in the fact that national monuments are off-limits to the extractive industries and Trumpโs energy dominance agenda, right? Maybe not for long.
Earlier this week, the folks at Public Domain acquired a copy of the Interior Departmentโs 2026-2030 Strategic Plan Draft Framework. The plan aims to, among other things: โrestore American prosperity,โ โassess and right-size monuments,โ and โreturn heritage lands and sites to the states.โ
The Washington Post, however, is reporting that Burgum is not necessarily waiting until next year to โright-size,โ or shrink, national monuments. From the Post:
If they go through with the shrinkage of any or all of these national monuments, it would open up additional lands to oil and gas leasing and new mining claims, which would then be subject to the fast-tracked permitting.
Baaj Nwaavjo Iโtah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon is especially rich in high-grade uranium deposits, and the White Canyon area in Bears Ears might also be targeted for uranium if the monument were shrunk. Grand Staircase-Escalante includes a large coal deposit on the Kaipairowitz Plateau, but itโs exceedingly unlikely that anyone would be interested in mining it given the faulty economics of coal.
One thing you can be sure of is that none of this will go unchallenged. The tribal nations that proposed the designation of Bears Ears and other national monuments will sue to keep them intact, and advocacy groups and land and water protectors will support them and take the administration to court over its flouting of environmental laws.
A look across Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and into Bears Ears National Monument from the Little Rockies. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
๐ต Public Lands ๐ฒ
For many people, the mention of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area evokes images of Lake Powell and all that entails: boats plying the blue-sky-reflecting waters and the sandstone cliffs and formations that rise up from the murky depths. That makes sense, given that the national park unit was established because the reservoir was there in 1972.
Yet the reservoir makes up just 13% of the 1.25 million-acre recreation area. The remaining 87% contains some of the more remote and spectacular country in the lower 48, shares borders with a half-dozen other national parks and monuments, and makes up the core of the Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor.
So, the manner in which the area is managed matters โ a lot. And for five decades after the recreation areaโs establishment, off-road vehicle travel went virtually unmanaged, allowing for a destructive free-for-all along shorelines and in remote parts of the recreation area. In 2018, the Park Service released a plan that more or less codified the pre-plan anarchy. Environmentalists sued and forced the Park Service back to the drawing board.
This January the Park Service finally issued an amended rule celebrated by conservationists for adding protections to some of GCNRAโs more sensitive areas from motorized vehicle travel (this does not affect boating, by the way). It bars OHV-riding yahoos from roaring around the lakeโs shore unheeded, and restricts motorized travel in the Orange Cliffs area on the north end of the recreation area adjacent to the Maze in Canyonlands.
The off-road vehicle lobby, however, was unhappy with the added restrictions, and they took their victim-complex grievances to the Utah congressional delegation, all of whom appear to have a fetish for fossil-fueled combustion-engines. Now the plan and the recreation area are being put in jeopardy by โ you guessed it โ those same Utah politicians. Sens. John Curtis and Mike Lee, along with Rep. Celeste Maloy, are asking Congress to revoke the rule under the Congressional Review Act and to prohibit the Park Service from implementing similar protections in the future.
๐บ๏ธ Messing with Maps ๐งญ
The National Parks Conservation Association created a nifty map showing active mining claims and mines near national parks and national monuments. It gives a good sense of how vulnerable some areas might be to new mining claims and projects if the Trump administration goes ahead with shrinking the aforementioned national monuments. You can look at the interactive version here.
One note of caution: An active mining claim โ a valid mining claim. An active claim simply means it has been located and filed, and that the claimant has paid their annual maintenance fee. The validity of a claim, on the other hand, depends on the discovery of a valuable mineral deposit there, which must be demonstrated. Rights to mine are only attached to valid claims.
Parting Poem
Hereโs another one from Richard Sheltonโs Selected Poems, 1969-1981.
Click the link to read the article on the Summit Daily website. Here’s an excerpt:
April 26, 2025
As of Friday, April 25, statewide snowpack measurements stood at 66% of the 30-year median,ย according to data from the Natural Resources Conservation Service.ย Thatโs the lowest point for this time of year since the 2014-15 water year. For every major river basin that reports snowpack data, levels are significantly below normal.ย
โIt was a little bit of a warmer year and just not quite the amount of snow and storms youโd like to see for the state as a whole,โ said National Weather Service meteorologist Aldis Strautins.
Unlike the southwestern part of the state, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationโs latest drought projection shows northern and central mountain areas are largelyย expected to be drought-free ย through the end of July.
The agreements propping up Lake Mead and Lake Powell expire in 2026, and negotiations for new agreements have stalled.
The Trump administration’s lack of clear direction and delay in appointing a Reclamation commissioner are exacerbating the crisis.
Arizona will face significant water cuts, potentially deeper than any previous shortages. It needs time to process them.
Many of us have seen this train wreck coming for years, the slow buildup of chronic overuse, coupled with a river that no longer produces as much water as it used to, that is draining Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the nationโs two largest water savings accounts. And if things donโt change soon, 40 million people who rely on this river are about to suddenly realize that decisionmakers squandered every dollar spent on buying time to fix this fundamental problem…The mismatch between supply and demand began emerging around 2000, and by 2007, the feds had created the first set of shortage guidelines, hoping those mandatory cuts would be enough to stave off crisis. But we now know that they werenโt nearly enough to reduce the drag on the lakes. Deeper cuts were made. Billions of dollars were set aside to pay people to temporarily not use water. And weโve stabilized Lake Mead and Lake Powell, for now.
But those rules and agreements expire at the end of 2026…The Trump administration hasnโt said anything about those alternatives. And after dropping an executive order toย nix a longstanding review process, itโs unclear how the feds will evaluate or collect public input, presuming that said alternatives are still on the table…Itโs telling that while state negotiators continue to meet (and make no real progress), no one from the Bureau of Reclamation โ the federal agency tasked with operating Lake Mead and Lake Powell โ has attended those negotiation sessions since the Trump administration took office. In fact, Reclamation stillย doesnโt even have a commissioner. The administration has been dragging its feet on getting the leadership in place to finally break this logjam…Now is not the time to be hands-off. The Trump administration must prioritize naming a Reclamation director who can offer firm, clear and fair direction โ and who isnโt afraid to bust a few heads if state negotiators refuse to budge.
Colorado River “Beginnings”. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
Lake Powell at Wahweap Marina as seen in December 2021. Dwindling streamflows and falling reservoir levels have made it more likely that what some experts call a Colorado River Compact โtripwireโ will be hit in 2027. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
When Colorado convened a working group on water speculation, its members shared stories of times in which theyโd seen or thought they might have seen investment water speculation occurring โ when water rights are purchased with a primary purpose of profiting from the future sale or lease of that water as demand drives up its price. On the list was the notion that buyers with no real interest in agriculture would buy agricultural land and water rights with the primary intention of enrolling in a program that pays water rights holders not to use that water.
The concern, essentially, was that programs that compensate farmers for fallowing fields like the Upper Colorado River Basinโs System Conservation Pilot Program, and nonprofits that fundraise to keep water in streams werenโt sufficiently guarded against abuse, particularly when it comes to an increasingly constrained Colorado River system.
โThe impacts of drought and the risks that drought causes in the Colorado River Basin, just by way of example, attract money to the concept that money can be made from taking water out of production โ conservation,โ says Peter Fleming, general counsel for the Colorado River District.
โWhere do you draw the line in that?โ Fleming asks. โWhich one is a good, socially recognized benefit that the state as a whole should support versus which one is bad because it encourages speculation in water resources, and it makes things more difficult for others, and it has adverse secondary impacts in the local economies when you take water out of production?โ
A few guardrails exist to make real conservation efforts โ those that serve the common good โ clear. But questions remain on whether those protections can really stop investment water speculation before speculation occurs.
Little Cimarron Ranch, where a first-of-its-kind agreement allows water rights to go to irrigation in the spring and summer, and to instream flows to support river health in the summer and fall. Photo courtesy of Mirr Ranch Group
Streamflows for the Public Good
In 1973, Colorado lawmakers legally recognized instream flows, in which water is allocated to the river to maintain flows and habitat as a โbeneficial useโ in parallel with industries, cities and agriculture. That 1973 legislation tried to prevent speculators from prospectively appropriating instream flows and locking up the stateโs water by taking measures like limiting who can operate instream flows to a single state agency, the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
โThere is government oversight for specifically this reason โ to prevent speculation,โ says Josh Boissevain, staff attorney with the Colorado Water Trust, a nonprofit that works to secure water for streams. โInstream flow is a decreed use, so using that water for instream flow is not speculation at all, even though itโs left in the river.โ
When water rights owners work with the water trust to use their water to restore flows, it takes a lot of paperwork and a close look at the web of other users affected. The process can be tedious and time-consuming, and the profits marginal.
โNobody is doing that for the money,โ Boissevain says. โThey do it because they care.โ
Some loopholes have been closed. For example, a 1994 change to Coloradoโs water law prevents conditional water rights holders, who hold onto water rights for unbuilt projects or potential future uses, from transferring those rights to instream flows. That law blocks speculators from selling conditional water rights to the CWCB for a profit.
Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant back in the days before I-70 via Aspen Journalism
Having a perfected water right โ one that is fully established and has been put to beneficial use โ converted to instream flows is fine, Fleming says. The Colorado River District participates in those programs and is working to buy a water right currently used to generate 15 megawatts at Xcel Energyโs aging Shoshone hydroelectric power plant. The River District aims to convert that hydropower right to an instream flow right to ensure that this water continues to flow from the headwaters down through boating hotspots in Glenwood Canyon, regardless of the 115-year-old power plantโs future.
But Fleming, who worked on a 2021 report that reviewed Coloradoโs legal sideboards on speculation, remains concerned that the lines are not clearly enough drawn between those recognizable benefits to the state and local economies, and the place where speculators could start counting on those efforts and โconservingโ to make a profit. At a certain scale, the effects of taking water off farm fields could ripple out beyond bare fields to farm supply stores and gas stations, as well as the local job market in rural communities.
Perhaps the most frightening possibility that could result from profiteering is that water rights bought and steered from use in Colorado will somehow be sold to thirsty fields or towns in Arizona or Nevada. But even if both buyer and seller are willing, specific language in interstate compacts and existing law complicates the likelihood of selling water from one state to a buyer in a different state.
Meanwhile, conservation groups are also concerned about speculators cornering them out of the increasingly expensive water rights market, Boissevain says. To adapt to the current water market, the Colorado Water Trust is exploring a new acquisition model with Qualified Ventures, a consulting company based in Washington, D.C. Through this new approach, the water trust would buy land with water rights through financing from lenders. A conservation easement would protect the land as agricultural, and the tax rebate from that status would partially repay the loan. The water trust would reassess how to profitably farm that land while sharing the water rights between agriculture and environmental flows. Then the land could be sold, potentially at a reduced price, perhaps to a first-generation farmer.
โItโs another way to keep ag in production and keep water on the land,โ Boissevain says. โItโs another step up in the competition against people that might try and buy [irrigated farms] for speculation or maybe even development.โ
Confluence of the Cimmaron and Gunnison rivers. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
The results might resemble a project on the Little Cimmaron River near Gunnison, where the Colorado Water Trust purchased 5.8 cubic feet per second of flow in the McKinley Ditch to return water to a river that was nearly dry in late summer months. The water trust partnered with a land trust to buy the water rights and land, put a conservation easement on the land, then sell the land and water rights to a private landowner. In a first-of-its-kind agreement, the water rights can go to irrigation in the spring and summer, and to the CWCB for instream flow in the late summer and fall when the river needs it most. In a very dry year, all of the water can be left in the stream protected, and in a wet year, all of it can be diverted for agriculture.
This map shows the 15-mile reach of the Colorado River near Grand Junction, home to four species of endangered fish. Map credit: CWCB
Environmental groups contend that for the environment to thrive, the entire river system needs this kind of adaptability, particularly as Colorado River Basin states renegotiate operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead ahead of the current guidelinesโ expiration in 2026.
โWe want to see better, more realistic management of the Colorado River that accounts for climate change and โฆ drastic shifts in hydrology,โ says Matt Rice, Southwest regional director with American Rivers. โItโs all about creating, from our perspective, more flexibility in the system to avoid emergency action after emergency action because weโre collectively afraid to make hard decisions when we need to.โ
With an eye on the prospect of a compact call or other crisis, WaterCard, a Colorado-based company, aims to leverage private market dynamics to promote water conservation in the Colorado River system. It also provides an avenue for companies and individuals to offset their water footprint.
It works like this: A person can buy a WaterCard, which gives them conservation credits linked to a quantifiable amount of water conserved on a Colorado farm or ranch. Itโs like an offset. The WaterCard buyer also receives an NFT digital token as proof of purchase.
In the field, WaterCard funds are used to compensate farmers and ranchers who sign up for the program and voluntarily reduce water usage by fallowing fields for a season, decreasing irrigation, or transitioning to drought-resistant crops.
To demonstrate the concept, WaterCard founder James Eklund, who is also a working water attorney and rancher, is fallowing 66 acres of grass-alfalfa hay at his family ranch in western Coloradoโs Plateau Valley. Introducing a market-based mechanism for water conservation in a headwaters state does not equate to speculation, Eklund says, because buyers are only purchasing credits tied to conserved water, not the underlying water rights themselves.
โThis approach aligns fully with the anti-speculation doctrine, which I strongly support. That doctrine prohibits buying a water right, leaving it unused, and flipping it for profit โ thatโs speculation,โ he says.
WaterCardโs model is designed to work within the Upper Colorado River Commissionโs System Conservation Pilot Program (SCPP) and, Eklund hopes, eventually within a demand management framework. SCPP was designed to explore solutions to low flows in the Upper Colorado River Basin by granting funding to irrigators who voluntarily apply to conserve water for the season. If a demand management program is developed, conserved water could serve as a โsavings accountโ in Lake Powell, helping Colorado meet future obligations to send water to downstream states under the Colorado River Compact.
By piggybacking off of the SCPP, WaterCard benefits from the SCPPโs efforts to verify conservation efforts. Therefore, producers enrolled in WaterCard must also have a project enrolled in the SCPP. WaterCard will simply boost the amount of funding those irrigators receive for conservation efforts, making SCPP participation more appealing. As of early 2025, however, itโs unclear whether the SCPP will continue. Eklund argues that this model allows private entities and individuals to play a meaningful role in preventing water crises, one $3.50 WaterCard โ representing 500 gallons of water saved โ at a time.
Farmers and ranchers who participate can diversify revenue sources while continuing to farm and ranch. Eklund contends that current SCPP payments are insufficient and rejects the notion that fair compensation would cause agricultural producers to abandon their livelihoods.
โThat idea is insulting,โ he says. However, if farmers and ranchers can derive a higher dollar value for conserved water through a market-based system, he says, thatโs not speculation, thatโs โmarket-based capitalism.โ
Independent journalist Elizabeth Miller has written about environmental issues around the American West for publications including The Washington Post, Scientific American, Outside, Backpacker and The Drake.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
The discussion will focus on the Juchem Ditch and the Farmers Highline Canal and review how early settlers dug ditches by hand to support mining and agriculture. The event is free to the public and is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. to noon on May 17 at the Arvada Elks Lodge in Olde Town, at 5700 Yukon St. Panelists will include local historians Ed Rothschild, Tom Fletcher and Bob Krugmire. The event will be moderated by Arvada City Councilmember Sharon Davis. Arvada Historical Society President Judith Denham said the idea for the first History Speaks lecture โ which will potentially be part of a larger series of talks โ came when the organization was planning last yearโs Cemetery Tour, which centered on the early pioneers who built the cityโs ditches.
โWe thought it would be a great idea to expand on this story and find a way to talk more about this crucial part of Arvadaโs history,โ Denham said. โI think people are going to really enjoy hearing about this large piece of Arvadaโs history. Itโs a panel and weโve invited water experts and ditch company representatives to talk about how water influenced Arvadaโs early history.
โTheyโre going to tell us the fascinating stories about how early settlers Wadsworth, Swadley and Jochem dug ditches with hand tools and mules so they could provide water for their farms,โ Denham continued. โAnd add in the stories about the early conflicts over water usage and how that whole complicated system of water rights and water law started.โ
Registration for the event can be completed atย historyarvada.org. The Arvada Press and Colorado Community Media are partnering with the Arvada Historical Society for this project.
Farmers Highline Canal near the Tuck Ditch Headgate April 30, 2019. Day 30 of the #30daysofbiking challenge.
OAA scientist Chris Cox checks an Atmospheric Surface Flux Station, designed and built by PSL and CIRES to collect data that measures all aspects of the exchange of energy between land and atmosphere. By analyzing these measurements, researchers can gain insight into both local and regional weather and climate systems. This unit is sitting on top of two stacked picnic tables buried under the snow. Credit: Janet Intrieri, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
April 25, 2025
Already, the two institutes โ theย Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciencesย at the University of Colorado Boulder and theย Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphereย at Colorado State University โ are preparing for potential layoffs should money held up in new federal approval processes not materialize in the coming weeks…Both institutes for decades have partnered with the federalย National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which provides the majority of the budget for both facilities. The federal agencyโs weather prediction and air and ocean monitoring impact nearly every industry and provide critical severe weather tracking,ย including through the National Weather Service. Its work is advanced by research from a network of 16 cooperative institutes, like those in Fort Collins and Boulder.
Aย memo by the White House Office of Management and Budgetย for the 2026 fiscal year โ which begins Oct. 1 โ proposes reducing funding for NOAA by 27%, effectively eliminating the agencyโs research arm and ending support for the cooperative institutes. The budget reductions are part of a wide-ranging effort by the Trump administration to slash the size of government. Project 2025 โ a conservative think tankโs outline for Trumpโs second presidency โ called for the dismantling of NOAA and for its functions to be privatized. The policy document identified the agency as โone of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, (it) is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.โ The White House plan prompted three of Coloradoโs Democratic congressional leaders โ Rep. Joe Neguse and Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet โ on Wednesday to send a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to urge him not to cut cooperative institutesโ funding.
โCIs are home to experienced researchers and long-standing data collection programs with major impacts on human societies, (and) moreover they are instrumental in training future generations of workers who continue to contribute to societal needs,โ the letter states. โIt is our fear that if sweeping cuts are made, the damage will be irreversible. Even short-term interruptions in their research could threaten the safety and economies of the communities that CIs serve across the nation.โ
Congress would have to approve the White Houseโs plan for the next fiscal year, but cooperative institute leaders also worry about more immediate funding problems. The memo directs NOAA to align its spending through fiscal year 2025 with the priorities in the document. The administration could strangle funding to the cooperative institutes even before the 2026 budget is set, said Waleed Abdalati, the director of CIRES at CU Boulder. Already, institutes are struggling to get money previously approved for research projects.
Selling off federal public lands, once a fringe idea, is now gaining traction among Republicans in Congress, the courts and in the White House. President Donald Trump has proposed using the money from such sales to offset the cost of extending his 2017 tax cuts, which would massively increase the federal budget.
In March, the U.S. Senate narrowly voted down an amendment that would have banned selling public land to balance the federal budget. Around the same time, the House adopted new rules that, opponents say, quietly lowered the bar for disposing of such lands.
โRepublicansโ plans to sell off our public lands to pay for tax handouts for their billionaire donors is an outrageous slap in the face to all of us,โ New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, D, who sponsored the amendment blocking those sales, told High Country News in a statement.
Under the revised rules, legislation authorizing the sale of land managed by agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service would no longer require assigning a dollar value to the property first โ a change that would make it much easier for lawmakers to introduce and pass such bills without triggering fiscal scrutiny. All this comes at a time when recent mass layoffs have further destabilized the agencies tasked with managing public lands.
โThe threats have never been higher,โ said Land Tawney, executive director of American Hunters and Anglers, a nonpartisan network of public-lands advocates. โPoliticians are saying things out loud about divesting our public lands with more vigor and publicly. The threats are real.โ
Canyons surrounding the Owyhee River, Oregon, on BLM land. Bob Wick/BLM
But even as these ideas gain traction in the GOP, most Americans, regardless of their political belief remain largely united in their love for the nationโs public lands, especially in the Western U.S. This has forced some Republicans to break with the national party on the issue, setting the stage for what could become an unusual political alliance.
THE ATTACKS ON public lands began immediately after Trump took office in January. Staffing cuts implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have disproportionately impacted land-management agencies. Critics say these staffing reductions are part of a deliberate strategy to undermine the agenciesโ ability to manage their lands effectively, thereby paving the way for privatization.
โIโm really concerned about what I see as a deliberate effort to set federal land management agencies up to fail. Once they fail, itโs not such a stretch to say, โWell, someone else could do a better job,โโ said Susan Brown, a lawyer at Silvix Resources, a nonprofit legal group that focuses on public lands and environmental governance. [ed. emphasis mine]
The Trump administration โ working with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner โ has launched a joint task force to identify โunderutilizedโ federal lands suitable for residential development, arguing that selling off these acres could help solve the nationwide housing shortage.
Critics argue that this idea is simply an excuse to open the door to privatization, as well as being a poor solution to the housing crisis. A new report from the Center for American Progress found that in the 10 Western states with the most BLM-managed land, less than 1% of that land is located within 10 miles of a population center, and much of it is unlikely to be suitable for sale or development.
Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert of Colorado told HCN that she is trying to strike a balance on the issue. โI stand with the far majority of Coloradans who see and believe in the value of protecting our public lands,โ she said in a statement provided by her office. At the same time, Boebert added that she rejected โthe idea that these public lands must be completely locked up from reasonable economic development and responsible energy exploration.โ Utah Sen. Mike Lee, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, did not respond to HCNโs requests for comment.
Across the West, Democrats and conservation advocates have used the threat of public land transfers to galvanize support. Protests against potential sales have erupted in various state capitols, including Idaho and Colorado, as well as at Arches National Park. Meanwhile, major outdoor brands are trying to rally recreationists around the issue. Earlier this month, more than 70 businesses launched an initiative called Brands for Public Lands, headlined by Patagonia and Black Diamond. The group is helping people contact their congressional representatives and urge them to oppose public land sales.
โThe overwhelming majority (of Americans) want to keep public lands in public hands. Itโs where we hunt, fish, gather berries, mountain bike, hike, float and just go escape,โ said Tawney. โItโs all of our backyards, and I have confidence that the people will stand united.โโ
Workers from Denver Water and contractor Kiewit Barnard stand in front of Gross Dam in May 2024 to mark the start of the dam raise process. Photo credit: Denver Water.
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Denver Water to share information with the environmental groups who successfully challenged a reservoir expansion project in Boulder County, as both sides prepare for a hearing to determine how much additional construction is necessary to stabilize the structure…Days later, Arguelloย allowed for necessary constructionย to temporarily resume, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuitย has since extended that windowย while it reviews Arguello’s order. However, last Wednesday, the groups that challenged the project’s legality asked Arguello to intervene on another issue related to the upcoming hearing about how much stabilizing work is warranted…In response to the groups’ questions about risk management plans, spillway capacity and failure modesย โ plus a request for project documentsย โ Denver Water told the petitioners that disclosure “poses Dam security risks.”
“The fact remains that Denver Water is the only party that currently has available to it extensive documentation that bears directly on the specific safety issues that this Court orderedย allย parties to address at the hearing,” the environmental groups added in their court filing.
The Shoshone hydro plant in Glenwood Canyon. The River District has made a deal with Xcel Energy to buy the water rights associated with the plant to keep water flowing on the Western Slope. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
Pitkin County on Wednesday joined 29 other Western Slope counties, cities and towns, irrigation districts and water providers in financially backing a plan to buy a critical Colorado River water right.
Pitkin County commissioners unanimously approved a resolution supporting the Shoshone Permanency Project and pledging $1 million toward the campaign to keep the water rights associated with the Shoshone hydropower plant in Glenwood Canyon on the Western Slope. Pitkin Countyโs Healthy Rivers Board recommended the $1 million contribution from its fund at its regular meeting April 17.
The Colorado River Water Conservation District plans to purchase the water rights from Xcel Energy for nearly $100 million. The water rights are some of the biggest and oldest non-consumptive water rights on the mainstem of the Colorado River, and ensure water keeps flowing west to the benefit of downstream cities, farms, recreation and the environment.
โFrom our perspective we view this as an opportunity to really create and enhance a partnership that should be incredibly functional in the future,โ River District General Manager Andy Mueller told commissioners on Wednesday. โWeโre committed to working with you to keep the upper Roaring Fork healthy and figuring out creating solutions to bring water into the watershed at the right times of year.โ
About 40% of the headwaters of the Roaring Fork River is diverted across the Continental Divide for use in the Arkansas River basin. Itโs long been Pitkin Countyโs goal to mitigate the effects this has on the health of the Roaring Fork.
In exchange for support of the Shoshone project, Pitkin County will be able to use some water from Grizzly Reservoir, owned by the city of Aspen and the River District, to boost flows in the upper Roaring Fork River.
โOne of the most productive things to come out of this, in addition to the benefits youโve already discussed with the Shoshone project itself โฆ is going to be that the River District has agreed that Pitkin County can now have a voice in working with Aspen and the River District on that Grizzly water,โ said Jennifer DiLalla, an attorney with Moses, Wittemyer, Harrison and Woodruff. DiLalla is the countyโs outside counsel who works on water issues. โThat is one of the only sources of water available upstream of you. Itโs not going to be there all that often, but when it is, itโs a really great benefit for the upper Fork.โ
The $1 million pledge may help the county and the River District repair their rocky relationship after years of being at odds over certain water issues. Pitkin County didnโt initially support the Shoshone campaign because of the complex interaction of the water rights with another big set of downstream irrigation water rights in the Grand Valley known as the Cameo call.
โWeโve come a long way because it used to be not too long ago that we were just going to oppose this, period,โ said Pitkin County Commissioner and River District representative Francie Jacober. โI would say that we are on the road to a new era of cooperation with the River District.โ
Pitkin Countyโs concern was that with Shoshone under new ownership โ and the proposed addition of an instream flow use for the water along with hydropower โ the call for the water through Glenwood Canyon might delay or reduce the need for the Cameo call. Aspenites like to see the Cameo call come on because it forces the Twin Lakes diversion to shut off, which means more water flowing down the Roaring Fork, typically during a time of year in late summer and early fall when streamflows are running low and river health is suffering.
North Star Nature Preserve on the Roaring Fork River just upstream of Aspen experienced high water in June of 2023. Pitkin County is supporting the River Districtโs campaign to buy the Shoshone water rights in exchange for help boosting flows in the upper Roaring Fork. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
Some of the mistrust between the two local governments can be traced to water rights owned by the River District that would have kept alive huge reservoirs on the Crystal River near Redstone. The district eventually abandoned those rights, but not without first being challenged in water court by Pitkin County. Pitkin County also opposed the widely supported River District 2020 tax increase โ ballot measure 7a โ which funds water projects across the districtโs 15-county area.
To secure the Shoshone water rights โ which comprise a 1902 right for 1,250 cubic feet per second and another from 1929 for 158 cfs โ the River District must add an instream flow use to the water rights in addition to their current use for hydropower. That requires working with the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which is the only entity in the state allowed to hold instream flow rights which preserve the environment, as well as getting a new water court decree to allow the change in use.
Despite the support and $1 million pledge, Pitkin County still may oppose the change case in water court. The county hired Golden-based engineering firm Martin and Wood Water Consultants to do an analysis of the Shoshone and Cameo call interaction to see if the Roaring Fork could be harmed. According to Tara Meininger, an engineer with Martin and Wood, there could potentially be an annual impact of 26 acre-feet on average to the upper Roaring Fork.
But a final report is still not complete, said Pitkin County Attorney Richard Neiley, which is why the county reserved the right to oppose the River District in water court.
โItโs an important goal to make sure that change does not result in injury to the Roaring Fork forever,โ Neiley said. โWe havenโt given anything away with respect to being able to argue or oppose the change case on that basis.โ
With Pitkin Countyโs $1 million contribution, the River District has now raised $57 million from local and regional partners. In addition, the project was awarded $40 million in the final days of the Biden administration, but that funding has since been frozen, though River District officials are hopeful that the federal funding will still be realized.
The River District plans to present an agreement on the instream flow water rights to the Colorado Water Conservation Board at its regular meeting in May.
โWeโre about to enter into a process with the Colorado Water Conservation Board where your support will be essential to a successful experience there and then on into water court,โ Mueller told commissioners. โSo we just want to say thank you very much.โ
Colorado transmountain diversions via the State Engineer’s office
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. โ The effort to permanently protect the Shoshone Hydroelectric Power Plantโs water rights gained additional momentum this week as Pitkin County committed $1 million toward the Colorado River Districtโs $99 million purchase agreement with Xcel Energy. This contribution is bolstered by additional funding from middle Colorado River communities, including the Town of New Castle ($100,000), Town of Parachute ($25,000), Town of De Beque ($5,000), and the De Beque Plateau Valley Soil Conservation District ($5,000), which are committed to safeguarding flows vital to the regionโs economy and way of life. Reliable flows in the Colorado River are essential to the health and future of these interconnected communities. By supporting Shoshone, they join a broader coalition of Western Slope entities committed to long-term water security for the region.
โThe Shoshone water rights are essential to the health of our rivers, ecosystems, and communities across the Western Slope,โ said Francie Jacober, Pitkin County Commissioner and Colorado River District Board Member. โThis isnโt just a smart investment, itโs a legacy decision. Pitkin County proudly stands with our neighbors to protect this lifeline for future generations.โ
โThe Town of New Castle recognizes the critical importance of protecting Colorado River water rights on the Western Slope and proudly supports the long-term preservation of non-consumptive flows,โ said New Castle Town Administrator David Reynolds. โThese rights are vital to a strong recreational economy, improved water quality, sustainable agriculture, and consistent stream flows in the upper Colorado River Wild and Scenic Management areas. New Castle fully supports the work of the Colorado River District and the Shoshone Water Rights Preservation Coalition to safeguard the riverโs health and sustainability.โ
The Shoshone Water Rights Preservation Project, led by the Colorado River District, now includes 30 local governments, water entities, and regional partners across the Western Slope. Together, they have committed over $17 million toward the $99 million purchase price. Along with the $20 million pledged by the State of Colorado through the CWCB Projects Bill (HB24-1435) and $20 million from the River Districtโs Community Funding Partnership, more than $57 million has been committed to date.
โFrom headwaters counties like Pitkin to towns along the Colorado River, the West Slope is demonstrating what true collaboration looks like,โ said Andy Mueller, General Manager of the Colorado River District. โThe momentum behind Shoshone Permanency reflects a powerful and unified vision where agricultural producers, recreation economies, and rural communities stand shoulder to shoulder to protect the water resource that sustains us all. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and our region is rising to meet it.โ
The Shoshone hydroelectric plant, located in Glenwood Canyon, holds nonconsumptive senior water rights that date back to 1902. These rights are essential for supporting flows in the Colorado River, benefiting agriculture, recreation, rural economies, and water users across the West Slope.
In December 2023, the Colorado River District entered a purchase and sale agreement with Xcel Energy to acquire and permanently protect the water rights, with plans to negotiate an instream flow agreement with the Colorado Water Conservation Board. This agreement would safeguard the flows into the future, regardless of the operational status of the Shoshone plant itself.
In January 2025, the Bureau of Reclamation awarded $40 million in federal funding through a program authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act. The River District continues to work with the Bureau of Reclamation and remains optimistic that the projectโs broad support and clear public benefit will secure the federal dollars needed to complete this once-in-a-generation investment.
Learn more about the Shoshone Water Rights Preservation Project & Coalition at KeepShoshoneFlowing.org.
Researchers at the University of Utah recently published a first-of-its-kind study that measures the impact dust has on melting snow in the Colorado River basin.
Dust has long been credited to accelerating snowmelt in the Intermountain West. Blowing from arid regions and settling in the mountains, the dust darkens the snow, lowering its albedo โ essentially, darker snow doesnโt reflect the sunlight as well, leading to more heat absorption and speeding up the melting process.
Itโs particularly prevalent in the Colorado River basin, with large mountain ranges like the San Juans, La Sals and Maroon Bells pushed up against dry expanses of desert. As drought continues to impact the region, dust events have worsened, depleting the snowpack at faster rates and complicating an already precarious situation for the Colorado River and the 40 million people who get their drinking water from it.
And while previous papers have recorded the impact dust has on snowmelt, University of Utah researchers are the first to study an area as large as the Colorado River headwaters, which spans multiple states. According to the university, there are no snowmelt models โ streamflow forecasts in mountain basins essential for areas that rely on snowpack for water โ that take dust into account.
โThe degree of darkening caused by dust has been related to water forecasting errors. The water comes earlier than expected, and this can have real world impacts โ for example if the ground is still frozen itโs too early for farmers to use. A reservoir manager can store early snowmelt, but they need the information to plan for that,โ said McKenzie Skiles, associate professor at the universityโs School of Environment, Society and Sustainability. โIf we can start to build dust into the snowmelt forecast models, it will make water management decision-making more informed.โ
Stiles is a co-lead author of the study, which was published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters in March.
Stiles and other researchers analyzed 23 years of satellite images, from 2021 to 2023, to observe snow darkened by dust in the spring months. They found that dust accelerated snowmelt in the Colorado River Basin every spring, even during less-dusty years.
During runoff season, typically between April and May, the snowpack melts about 10 to 15 millimeters each day. According to the study, dust deposition can accelerate snowmelt by 1 millimeter per hour during peak sunlight โ during a โhigh-dustโ year, that can factor out to about 10 extra millimeters each day.
โItโs not just how much dust gets deposited over a season, but also the timing of dust deposition that matters,โ said Patrick Naple, doctoral candidate of geography at the University of Utah and lead author of the study. โDust is very effective at speeding up melt because itโs most frequently deposited in the spring when days are getting longer and the sun more intense. Even an extra millimeter per hour can make the snowpack disappear several weeks earlier than without dust deposition.โ
One of the most comprehensive analyses of dust and snowmelt yet, the university says this research could improve water forecasting and allocation for communities that rely on the Colorado River.
The western boundary of Senator Beck Basin is pictured May 12, 2009, after a dust event. That year was an exceptionally dusty one, with 12 dust events. The basin has experienced five dust events so far this year. CREDIT: COURTESY PHOTO BY THE CENTER FOR SNOW AND AVALANCHE STUDIES
The Lisbon Valley copper mine in southeastern Utah is looking to expand, and now the Trump administration has moved to expedite its permits. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
A little while back I wrote about Trumpโs executive order aimed at making it easier to mine on federal lands. Now itโs becoming a little clearer how that might play out on the ground. The U.S. Permitting Council last week released a list of the first wave of mining projects the administration plans to fast track through the permitting process.
The projects include a few that the Land Desk has covered or mentioned in the past, such as:
The announcement promised there are โmany more projects on the wayโ to the expedited list, though it does not elaborate on what fast-tracking might look like, exactly. The council says it will publish permitting timetables for the projects by May 2. Stay tuned to the Land Desk for updates.
๐ Good News Corner ๐
Prizes, folks. There are prizes for the winners of the Land Deskโs Predict the (spring) Peak Super Contest! Why super? Because itโs not just for one stream, but for five. And that means there could be five winners, and each gets to choose one of these prizes from our merch selection.
Is that enticing, or what? But there is a bit of a catch: Only paid Land Desk subscribers will be eligible to enter the contest, meaning only they can win the prizes. But donโt fear: Sign up now and get 20% off the regular annual subscription price, and get the privilege of entering the Predict the Peak contest.
The idea is to accurately predict the spring runoff peak streamflow (in cubic feet per second) and the date of the peak for any or all of these five stream gages:
So an entry for the Animas might look like this: Animas River, May 17, 2,950 cubic-feet per-second. The winning entry would be the closest streamflow reading to the actual peak, with the date being a tie-breaker if needed. So if someone gets the cfs right, but the date wrong, they would beat out someone with the right date but wrong flow.
Entries will only be eligible if they are entered into the comment section below this post. Donโt email me your entries! They wonโt count! (If you are a paid subscriber but are having problems commenting, let me know at landdesk@substack.com). And they must be entered before Friday, May 16, to be eligible. Winners will be determined after spring runoff has peaked on all of the rivers, which will likely be in late June or early July (or perhaps earlier if spring remains warm).
Iโve prepared the following graphs to help you out. They show this yearโs April 22 snowpack level, along with the snowpack curve and peak flows and dates for 2021 and 2023. Good luck!
Streamflow readings are for the Animas River gage in Durango. Source: NRCS, USGS.
Streamflow readings are for the North Fork gage in Lazear. Source: NRCS, USGS.
Streamflow readings are for the Rio Grande gage at Otowi Bridge. Source: NRCS, USGS.
Streamflow readings are for the San Miguel River gage at Uravan. Source: NRCS, USGS.
Streamflow readings are for the Colorado River gage at the Utah-Colorado state line. Source: NRCS, USGS.
Streamflow readings are for the Colorado River gage at the Utah-Colorado state line. Source: NRCS, USGS.
With Utah facing a drier year, Gov. Spencer Cox issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency in 17 counties due to drought conditions.
The counties covered by the order include southern and rural areas of Washington, Iron, San Juan, Kane, Juab, Emery, Grand, Beaver, Garfield, Piute, Millard, Tooele, Uintah, Carbon, Sevier, Sanpete and Wayne counties.
West Drought Monitor map April 22, 2205.
The governorโs executive order comes after the Drought Response Committee recently recommended he act due to drought conditions.
โWeโve been monitoring drought conditions closely, and unfortunately, our streamflow forecasts are low, particularly in southern Utah,โ Cox said in a prepared statement. โI urge all Utahns to be extremely mindful of their water use and find every possible way to conserve. Water conservation is critical for Utahโs future.โ
Coxโs emergency declaration also comes after he told reporters last week he was working on issuing one due to worsening drought conditions in southern Utah, which has seen a weak snowpack this winter.
Though the governor said last week itโs been a โpretty normal year for most of the state,โ there are some areas that are worse off than others.
Currently, severe drought covers 42% of the state, and 4% is in extreme drought, according to the stateโs website.
This year, Utahโs snowpack peaked at 14.3 inches on March 23, which is equal to the stateโs typical annual peak, according to state officials. However, southwestern Utahโs snowpack was only about 44% of normal. Plus, winter temperatures were 2 degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal.
The stateโs reservoir storage levels are at 84% of capacity, โwhich will help the state weather drought,โ the governorโs office said in a news release. โHowever, drought is unpredictable, and taking proactive measures to prepare is critical.โ
โThe state partners closely with federal agencies to share critical water supply and drought updates,โ Joel Ferry, executive director for the Utah Department of Natural Resources, said in a statement. โProactive planning is essential. We ask all Utahns across all sectors to use less water to help stretch the water supply.โ
Itโs been almost exactly three years since the governor declared a drought declaration. The last time he did so was April 22, 2022, when 65% of the state was in extreme drought, and more than 99% of the state was experiencing at least severe drought conditions.
As part of his order, Cox urged Utahns to watch their water use, both inside and outside their homes.
Wait to water your lawn until temperatures are in the mid-70s for several consecutive days, and check theย Weekly Lawn Watering Guideย for other tips on how to optimize water use.
Fix leaks.
Run full loads for dishwashers and washing machines.
Turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth, shaving, soaping up, doing dishes or rinsing vegetables.
Shorten your shower time by at least one minute.
Participate inย water-saving programsย like water-smart landscaping, toilet replacement, and smart sprinkler controllers.
Vallecito Reservoir expected to fill, but low snowpack means short irrigation season
[Ken Curtis] expects users will receive no more than 50% of their allocated water and could get as little as 25%. Ken Beck, superintendent of the Pine River Irrigation District, which manages Vallecito Reservoir, said heโs optimistic the reservoir will fill to its 123,500-acre-foot capacity. He needs another 31,000 acre-feet of water to get there. Beck thinks heโll get it โ but probably not much more…Snowpack water supply in the northern part of the state is at or above 30-year median levels, but those numbers decline the farther south one goes. The Upper San Juan Basin, which contains Vallecito and Navajo Lake, has 67% of the median snow-water equivalent for this time of year. The Animas basin sits at 76%; the basin containing the Mancos and La Plata rivers is at 65%; and the Dolores basin, which feeds McPhee Reservoir, is at 72%…Water accumulation in the San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan subbasin, which spans much of the southwest corner of the state, typically peaks around April 2. This year, however, it appeared toย peak more than a week early, on March 23. Snow-water equivalent dipped at the end of March but perked up with early April storms.
The dam raise process begins at the bottom of the dam using roller-compacted concrete to build the new steps that will go up the face of the dam. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Denver Water vowed this week to take the high-stakes battle over a partially built dam in Boulder County to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary to defend what it sees as its well-established right to continue construction and deliver water to its 1.5 million metro-area customers.
โIt would be irresponsible not to do that,โ Denver Waterโs General Manager Alan Salazar said in an interview Tuesday as a tense month of legal maneuvering continued.
Senior U.S. District Court Judge Christine Arguello on April 3 put a halt to construction of the $531 million Gross Reservoir Dam raise nearly four months after Denver Water and the river-defending nonprofit Save the Colorado failed to negotiate a settlement that would add new environmental protections to the project. When settlement talks stalled, Save the Colorado asked for and was granted an injunction.
Almost immediately, Denver Water filed for temporary relief from the injunction, saying, in part, that it would be unsafe to stop work as the incomplete concrete walls towered above Gross Reservoir in western Boulder County.
Arguello granted that request, too.
Now the water agency, the largest utility in the Intermountain West, has filed an emergency request with the federal appeals court, seeking to permanently protect its right to continue construction as the legal battle continues.
A decision could come as early as this week as a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals panel considers Denver Waterโs emergency request, according to environmental advocate Gary Wockner. Wockner leads Save The Colorado, a group that has financed and led litigation against Denver Water and many other agencies seeking new dams or river diversions. Wockner said he is ready to continue the fight as well.
โWe are prepared to defend the district courtโs decision,โ Wockner said, referring to the construction halt.
Alan Salazar, who became Denver Water CEO/Manager in August 2023 Photo credit: Denver Water
The high-profile dispute erupted in Denver just weeks after Northern Water agreed to a $100 million settlement with Save The Colorado and its sister group, Save The Poudre, to allow construction of the Northern Integrated Supply Project, or NISP, to proceed.
The money will be used to help restore the Cache la Poudre River, including moving diversion points and crafting new agreements with diverters that will ultimately leave more water in the river. Northern Water, which operates the federally owned Colorado-Big Thompson Project for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, is overseeing the permitting and construction of NISP.
But two years of talks and negotiations between Save The Colorado and Denver Water failed to yield a similar environmental settlement over the Gross Reservoir Dam expansion project. It was after the talks failed that Federal District Court Judge Arguello agreed to halt construction on the dam.
Whether a new environmental deal will be forthcoming now isnโt clear. Both sides declined to comment on whether settlement talks had resumed.
Salazar also declined to discuss whether a deal similar to the $100 million NISP settlement would emerge over the Gross Reservoir lawsuit.
โI donโt want to get into the cost of a settlement,โ Salazar said. โBut the impact on ratepayers would beย significant.โ
Case sets the stage for future water projects in Colorado
Across the state, water officials are closely watching the case play out.
For fast-growing Parker Water and Sanitation, the preliminary injunction to stop construction, though temporary, is worrisome.
Its general manager, Ron Redd, said he wasnโt sure how his small district, which is planning a major new water project in northeastern Colorado, would cope with a similar injunction or a U.S. Supreme Court battle.
โIn everything permitting-wise you need consistency in how you move projects forward,โ Redd said. โTo have that disrupted causes concern. Is this going to be the new normal going forward? That bothers me.โ
Denver Water first moved to raise Gross Dam more than 20 years ago when it began designing the expansion and seeking the federal and state permits required by most water projects.
After years of engineering, studies and federal and state analyses, construction began in 2022. It has involved taking part of the original dam, built in the 1950s, and raising its height by 131 feet to nearly triple the reservoirโs storage capacity to 119,000 acre-feet from 42,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot of water equals 326,000 gallons, enough to serve up to four urban households each year.
The giant utility has said it needs the additional storage to secure future water supplies as climate change threatens stream flows in its water system, a key part of which lies in the Fraser River, a tributary to the Upper Colorado River in Grand County. The expansion was also necessary to strengthen its ability to distribute water from the northern end of its system, especially if problems emerged elsewhere in the southern part of its distribution area, as occurred during the 2002 drought.
And the judge agreed climate change is a factor but she said itโs not clear the water would ever even materialize as flows shrink. She overturned Denver Waterโs permits because she said the Army Corps had not factored in Colorado River flow losses from climate change, and whether Denver would ever actually see the water it plans to store in an expanded Gross. Arguello also ruled the Army Corps had not spent enough time analyzing alternatives to the Gross Reservoir expansion.
Wockner said forcing Denver Water and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to re-analyze water projections under new climate change scenarios, as his group has asked, is critical to helping protect the broader Colorado River and stopping destructive dam projects.
Whether the questions the case raises about permitting and environmental protections ultimately make their way to the U.S. Supreme Court isnโt clear yet.
But James Eklund, a water attorney and former director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the stateโs lead agency on water planning and funding, said Denver Water has the expertise and financial muscle to take it there.
โThey have really sharp people over there,โ he said. โI would say they are not only willing, they would have the facts to present a case they believe would be successful.โ
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
Yellowstone park workers help search for a lost hiker on Eagle Peak in 2024. (Cam Sholly/Yellowstone National Park)
Click the link to read the article on the WyoFile.com website (Angus M. Thuermer Jr.):
April 22, 2025
Oilfield executive takes charge of consolidating workforce of 70,000 at national parks, BLM, Fish and Wildlife Service.
Five days into the Trump administrationโs DOGE takeover of the Department of Interiorโs policy, management and budget, Yellowstone National Park staffing is โhigher than last year,โ an Interior Department spokesperson in Washington, D.C. said Monday.
โโYellowstone Park confirmed the increase. โGoing into this year, we should have a total of 769 NPS employees,โ park spokeswoman Linda Veress said in an email, up from 748 last year. During the parkโs record year for visitation in 2021, the parkโs workforce numbered 693 permanent and seasonal workers.
โWe had an outstanding opening weekend, and it was great to see everyone enjoying the park,โ Yellowstone Park Superintendent Cam Sholly said in an email Monday. โThe plow crews are working hard to clear the remainder of the parkโs roads from snow, and we are on schedule for our normal sequenced opening in the upcoming weeks, including the Beartooth Highway.โ
After personally greeting the seasonโs first visitors at the West Entrance on Friday, Sholly reported the opening weekend drew 8,324 vehicles from there and the North Entrance at Mammoth, the only two entrances that have opened so far. Thatโs an increase of more than 11% from last year and put the weekend rush, unofficially Sholly said, at 21,642.
The staffing and opening weekend updates came as Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum put an oilfield executive in charge of โconsolidation, unification and optimization of administrative functionsโ at the 70,000-person agency last week. Burgum, earlier this year, named Tyler Hassen as assistant secretary for policy, management and budget. Now Hassen will oversee Burgumโs consolidation order as the Trump administrationโs DOGE plan to shrink the size of the federal government advances.
Burgumโs appointment of Hassen and the consolidation order sparked worries in the conservation community, including at the Center for Western Priorities. The Denver-based nonpartisan conservation and advocacy organization accused the secretary of abdicating his responsibilities by not reserving any authority over firings or requiring any reporting by Hassen.
โIf Doug Burgum doesnโt want this job, he should quit now,โ said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of Western Priorities. โInstead, it looks like Burgum plans to sit by the fire eating warm cookies while Elon Muskโs lackeys dismantle our national parks and public lands,โ she said in a statement.
โWarm cookiesโ refers to a report in The Atlantic that Burgumโs chief of staff told political appointees to learn to bake cookies for their boss.
But potential visitors to the worldโs first national park need not worry, said J. Elizabeth Peace, a spokesperson at Burgumโs office.
โVisitors can expect the same great service they had in years past,โ Peace wrote in an email Monday. โ[I]n some National Parks, like at Yellowstone National Park, staffing numbers are higher than last year.โ
Peace made her reassurances as regional business owners fret over the upcoming tourism season in Yellowstone, at neighboring Grand Teton and across Wyoming. Overseas traveler numbers to the U.S. dropped 11.6% in March after Trump tariffs, tariff threats, indiscriminate DOGE firings, resignations and economic turmoil battered expectations.
Oilman
The order Burgum issued Thursday gives Hassen, now an assistant secretary, authority over the departmentโs Working Capital Fund, an office that in 2023 provided $119 million for department functions. Hassen will be able to rewrite manuals outlining employee responsibilities and may transfer funds, programs, records and property, according to the order.
Burgumโs order described his actions as furthering Trumpโs February initiative for โimplementing the presidentโs โDepartment of Government Efficiencyโ workforce optimization.โ
In addition to great service at national parks, Bureau of Land Management lands in Wyoming remain welcoming, Peace wrote. โVisitors to BLM-managed public lands can expect continued access and service across recreation sites, trails and campgrounds,โ her email reads. โWe are implementing necessary reforms to ensure fiscal responsibility, operational efficiency and government accountability.โ
Burgum and DOGEโs โunification effortโ will accelerate technology, enhance the mission to preserve parks and historic sites, serve Native American tribes and manage department holdings in Wyoming, Burgumโs order states. All told, the Department of the Interior manages 2.34 million acres of national park system lands, 18.4 million acres of BLM property and 70,000 acres of Fish and Wildlife Service reserves in the state.
In Wyoming, Interior-managed land accounts for a third of the stateโs area or about 21 million acres.
Hassen, a Deerfield Academy prep and Princeton grad, was CEO of Basin Energy, a Houston-based international oilfield services company, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, he worked for Wenzel Downhole Tools, Basin Power, and served as chairman of the associate board of the nonprofit Cancer Research Institute in New York. He was an associate involved in global energy investment banking at Morgan Stanley in New York and London from 2005-2008, according to his profile.
He emerged on the DOGE scene after the Los Angeles fires in January when President Trump said California Gov. Gavin Newsom compounded the firefighting problem by not diverting water to southern California. Critics said DOGE conflated agricultural diversions, needs of the endangered Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary delta smelt and firefighting.
Unqualified?
Western Priorities said DOGE efforts assign inexpert people to inappropriate positions.
โSince Elon Musk is now effectively in charge of Americaโs public lands, itโs up to Congress and the American people to stand up and demand oversight,โ Rokalaโs statement reads. โDOGEโs unelected bureaucrats in Washington have no idea how to staff a park, a wildlife refuge, or a campground. They have no idea how to manage a forest or prepare for fires in the wildland-urban interface. But Doug Burgum just gave DOGE free rein over all of that.โ
On a picture perfect, late-March bluebird day in the Colorado mountains, Rob Krueger and Jay Joslyn gear up for a unique job at Denver Water โ venturing into the wilderness to measure snowpack.
Boots? Check. Gloves? Check. Hats? Check. Jackets? Check. Very special metal tube and a scale? Check, check. All of it is loaded into their winter travel vehicle, a snowcat.
Denver Water owns a snowcat that is used to access facilities and remote locations during the winter months in Grand County. Photo credit: Denver Water.
โWeโre heading up to Vasquez Creek to one of our snow courses,โ Krueger says as he fires up the Tucker 2000XL and starts rolling. โItโs around 10 miles up to our destination, and it takes about 30-40 minutes in the snowcat.โ
The journey starts at Denver Waterโs Grand County office just west of Fraser and heads into the Arapaho National Forest.
โThe snowcat is kind of like a truck with tank-like tracks on it,โ Krueger said. โWe use it throughout the winter to reach our remote buildings and dams and to get to our snow courses.โ
The journey would be impossible in a regular car or truck. But the snowcat, designed to tackle this type of terrain, easily powers over the snow.
โWeโre a 24/7 operation so we need a vehicle like this in the winter,โ he said. โWhether itโs snowing, sleeting, raining or we have 60-mile-per-hour winds and it’s negative 6 degrees out, we still have to get around. So thatโs what makes the snowcat such an important piece of equipment for us.โ
Rob Krueger drives the snowcat through a snow-covered road near Winter Park. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Krueger drives the snowcat through the trees on a snow-covered U.S. Forest Service road and into Denver Waterโs collection system.
The collection system is the area where Denver Water captures melting snow during the spring runoff. The water then flows through creeks, canals, tunnels and reservoirs to treatment facilities on the Front Range where itโs cleaned for delivery to 1.5 million people in metro Denver.
After reaching their destination, Krueger and Joslyn get ready for their task of measuring the snowpack.
Snowshoes are strapped on and equipment, including a snow measuring tube, is assembled for the trek across Vasquez Creek to reach a โsnow course.โ
โA snow course is basically a preset path where we take samples to measure the snowpack,โ Joslyn said. โWe do these same courses four times over the winter.โ
The courses are set up across Coloradoโs mountains and managed by the U.S. Department of Agricultureโs National Resources Conservation Service, also known as the NRCS, to monitor snowpack. The data from these courses are used by cities, farmers, ranchers, water utilities and recreationists to help predict the amount of water that will flow down the mountains during the spring runoff.
Joslyn and Krueger snowshoe across Vasquez Creek to reach the snow course. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Denver Water partners with the NRCS to do snow courses in Grand, Park and Summit counties where the utility collects its water.
In Grand County, there are five locations where Denver Water samples snow.
The Vasquez snow course starts a few feet from the creek and is surrounded by a canopy of spruce and fir trees. On this trip, the snow on the course ranged from 4 to 5 feet deep.
Joslyn stabs the snow with the measuring tube to collect a snow sample. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Joslyn carries the measuring tube [Federal Snow Sampler], then stabs it into the snow and checks the reading. He calls out โ53,โ which is the depth of the snow in inches. Then he takes a closer look at the slots on the tube and calls out a second number; this one is the length of the snow core captured inside.
Next up, Joslyn uses a handheld scale to weigh the tube with the snow inside. โ42,โ he calls out. This time referring to the weight in ounces.
Krueger records this number, then subtracts the weight of the empty tube from the total, which gives the water content in inches of the snow core sample. They also calculate the density of the snow.
Joslyn weighs the tube with the snow inside. The process is used to determine the water content and density of the snowpack. Photo credit: Denver Water.
The pair does the same process 10 times at 25-foot intervals on the course. On this trip, the snowpack was in good shape, coming in at 118% of normal for the end of March 2025.
โDenver Water has a long history in this valley, and weโve been doing snow courses in Grand County dating back to 1939,โ Krueger said. โWith decades worth of data, we can get a really good idea of how much water weโll see during the spring runoff.โ
The data is sent to Denver Waterโs planning department and the NRCS. Planners combine the snow course information with data from SNOTEL sites and high-tech flights over the mountains to predict how much water will flow into the utilityโs reservoirs where water is stored for customers.
โThe information from the snow courses is critical to our planning, as it gives us boots-on-the-ground information about the snowpack,โ said Nathan Elder, water supply manager at Denver Water. โOur crews in the mountains often have to brave a lot of harsh weather to get the data we need, so weโre thankful for their hard work.โ
Working for Denver Water in Grand County involves a variety of jobs that change throughout the seasons, with the snow courses being one of the most unique.
โThe snow courses are interesting and of course being out in the snow and driving the snowcat is pretty fun,โ Krueger said. โOur work feels valuable to Denver Water as a whole to understand what kind of water resource we have to send to the city.โ
Last week, heavy rain again fell on parts of the Nationโs Midsection along a strong quasi-stationary front. A swath of heavy amounts (over 2 inches) extended from central Texas northeastward through eastern Oklahoma, southeastern Kansas, northwestern Arkansas, much of Missouri, and southern Illinois. The largest amounts (4 to locally 8 inches) covered a band from the Middle Red River (south) Valley into central Missouri. Farther north, 2 to 4 inches also soaked much of southeastern Nebraska, eastern Iowa, and central through southwestern Wisconsin. More widely scattered amounts of 2 to 4 inches affected southeastern Texas, northern Louisiana, and the northern half of Alabama. Existing dryness and drought improved in most areas affected by heavy precipitation, in addition to portions of the central Rockies where less robust precipitation compounded frequently above-normal totals during the past several weeks. Meanwhile, subnormal amounts propelled intensifying drought and dryness along parts of the East Coast, scattered portions of the Southeast. East-central and southern Texas, parts of the central and northern Plains, and both the northern and southern tiers of the Rockies and adjacent lower elevations. In many areas that observed worsening conditions, unusually warm weather (temperatures generally 3 to 6 deg. F. above normal) have prevailed for the past 4 weeks, particularly across the southern half of the Great Plains, the Southeast, and the southern and middle Atlantic States…
Moderate to locally heavy precipitation (over 0.5 inch, with isolated amounts topping 2 inches) fell on some of the higher elevations of Colorado and Wyoming. On the other side of the Region, heavy rains, amounting to several inches in some places, doused southeastern Kansas. Elsewhere, amounts exceeded 0.5 inch in several scattered areas mostly in the High Plains and central Kansas, but most other locales recorded a few tenths at best. Dryness and drought broadly improved by one category across a broad section of southeastern Kansas, and more localized improvement was noted in some of the wetter areas of the higher elevations. Conditions were mostly unchanged across the rest of the High Plains, but a few localized areas worsened enough to increase one category on the map. Extreme drought (D3) continued to affect much of southeastern Colorado and portions of adjacent southwestern South Dakota and western Nebraska. Less than half of normal rainfall was reported over the past 90 days in some areas of west-central and north-central South Dakota, northeastern and southeastern Nebraska, and central through southern Kansas…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 22, 2025.
Moderate to locally heavy rain (generally 1 to 2.5 inches) fell on south-central Montana, but only scattered to isolated moderate amounts approaching an inch were noted elsewhere in the state. In other locations, several tenths of an inch of precipitation fell on and near some of the higher elevations, but most places reported little or none. Despite the moisture observed in part of the state, the eastern and western sections of Montana saw some D0 and D1 expansion, though the more severely affected areas (D2 to D3) were unchanged. Along the southern tier of the region, expansion of the broad-scale severe to extreme drought was noted in parts of New Mexico, southern Utah, and adjacent Arizona. The most intense levels of drought (D3 and D4) now cover a broad area from southeastern California, southern Nevada, and southwestern Utah through much of Arizona, southern and western New Mexico, and the Texas Big Bend into south-central parts of the state…
A few small patches of dryness cropped up in Tennessee and the Lower Mississippi Valley, but widespread, entrenched drought is limited to areas from east-central Texas and central Oklahoma westward, despite heavy precipitation in a narrow band from the Middle Red River Valley into west-central Texas. Significant eastward expansion of dryness and drought was prominent across east-central Texas, with smaller areas of deterioration noted elsewhere. For the past 90 days, precipitation totals have been 4 to 7 inches below normal across a broad area from south-central through east-central Texas (specifically, from Walker, Grimes, and Brazos Counties southwestward through Lavaca County and some adjacent areas)…
Looking Ahead
During April 23-28, 2025, substantial portions of the contiguous United States are expecting at least moderate precipitation (several tenths), with scattered heavy amounts over 2 inches. This includes a swath from northwestern Wyoming across southern Montana and most of the Dakotas, the Upper Mississippi Valley, through much of the Great Lakes and New England. Heavy amounts could be most widespread in the Red River (south) Valley, central Oklahoma, and from the central Plains into Iowa. In addition, most of the central and southern Great Plains should receive several tenths of an inch to near 2 inches, along with the Lower Mississippi Valley, southern and central Appalachians, and the interior Southeast. Elsewhere, several tenths of an inch are expected in the Middle Mississippi Valley, the lower Great Lakes, and from the South Atlantic States into southern New England. In the West, a few tenths to about 1.5 inches of precipitation are forecast for southern Oregon, northern and eastern California, the northern Great Basin, and the swath of higher elevations from central Utah through western Montana and adjacent Idaho. Meanwhile, little or no precipitation is forecast for most of the Four Corners Region, southern sections of the Great Basin and California, southern Texas, the immediate Gulf Coast, most of Florida, and southeastern Georgia. Temperatures are expected to average below normal in the Southwest and California, but above normal over most other portions of the contiguous United States. Daily high temperatures are expected to average 8 to 10 deg. F. above normal over the Northeast and mid-Atlantic Region, parts of the Lower Mississippi Valley and adjacent areas, and many locations in and around South Dakota.
The Climate Prediction Centerโs 6-10 day outlook valid April 29 โ May 3, 2025 favors wetter than normal conditions southeastern Rockies eastward through the Middle and Lower Mississippi Valley, and most of the Eastern States outside eastern New England and southern Florida. Meanwhile, subnormal precipitation is most likely across the northern Plains, central and western Rockies, the Intermountain West, and California. Wet weather is slightly favored in the remaining dry areas in southeastern Alaska and Hawaii. Warm weather should prevail across the contiguous United States outside the southern High Plains and adjacent Rockies. The greatest odds for warmth extend from California and the Great Basin through the northern Rockies and Intermountain West, plus across the lower Mississippi Valley and the Eastern States. Warmth is also significantly favored across Hawaii. Subnormal temperatures are expected to be limited to Alaska.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 22, 2025.
U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo. stopped in Glenwood Springs on the bank of the Colorado River on April 15 for a roundtable with Western Slope water users. Many who spoke were promised federal funding for projects to address environmental and drought issues, which has now been frozen by the Trump administration. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
During a tour of the Western Slope last week, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., said he was frustrated with the pace of negotiations that could determine how the Colorado River is shared in the future and that the Upper Basin states may be pushing back too hard.
A deal should have been reached last summer, he said.
โColorado should have a right to keep the water that we have been using the way weโve been using it, and I donโt think we should compromise that,โ Hickenlooper said. โBut there are a lot of things we could do to give a little to be part of the solution to the Lower Basin and get to a collaborative solution. Again, Iโm frustrated by our lack of progress.โ
The remarks came during a Q&A with reporters April 15 after a roundtable in Glenwood Springs with Western Slope water managers, many of whom spoke about their projects that were promised funding through the Inflation Reduction Act, which was earmarked for environmental and drought issues. That funding has since been frozen by the Trump administration.
Hickenlooper added that Colorado River management decisions should not be coming from Washington and that the only path forward is an agreement among the seven states that comprise the two basins. Hickenlooper has supported conservation efforts in the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming), including the System Conservation Pilot Program, which paid water users to cut back in 2023 and 2024.
The seven states that use water from the Colorado River โ Arizona, California and Nevada comprise the Lower Basin โ have just over a month left to agree on how the nationโs two largest reservoirs would be operated and cuts shared in the future before the federal government may decide for them.
โItโs our understanding from Reclamation that they are going to start the impacts analysis in early June, so they are seeking a consensus alternative by the end of May,โ said Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission.
The current guidelines for the management of the Colorado River expire at the end of 2026, and new ones need to be in place by that August, when reservoir operations for the next water year are set. That means the clock is ticking on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process that will develop and adopt new guidelines. Without an agreement between the basins, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will move forward with its own management plan.
โ[Reclamation] is targeting a record of decision in the summer of 2026 so that it is implementable on Oct. 1, 2026, when the next new water year starts,โ Cullom said.
From left, J.B. Hamby, chair of the Colorado River Board of California, Tom Buschatzke, Arizona Department of Water Resources; Becky Mitchell, Colorado representative to the Upper Colorado River Commission. From left, Colorado River negotiator for California JB Hamby, Arizonaโs Tom Buschatzke and Coloradoโs Becky Mitchell. Water managers from all seven Colorado River Basin states have just over a month left to reach a consensus on how the river will be shared in the future.Credit:ย Tom Yulsman/The Water Desk
Although water managers say coming to an agreement that all seven states can live with is better than the federal government imposing its own rules, the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin remain divided. Talks ground to a halt at the end of last year, but they have since resumed, according to Colorado officials.
Lead negotiator for Colorado Becky Mitchell said in a written statement that Colorado is focused on working with the basin states towards a consensus approach for the post-2026 operations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead that would fit within Reclamationโs timeline for the NEPA process.
โThe basin states share common goals: we want to avoid litigation, and we want a sustainable solution for reservoir operations,โ Mitchell said. โIn light of these goals, I see the basin states working towards sustainable, supply-driven operations of Lakes Powell and Mead that are resilient across a range of hydrologic conditions experienced in the basin.โ
In March 2024, each basin submitted competing proposals to federal officials. In January, the bureau released an alternatives analysis, which outlined five potential paths forward. It did not include either basinโs proposal as an option and instead looked at a โbasin hybridโ option, with elements from each basinโs proposal.
A major sticking point that has not yet been resolved is that Lower Basin water managers say the Upper Basin states must share cuts under the driest conditions. Upper Basin officials maintain they already suffer annual shortages of about 1.3 million acre-feet because they are squeezed by climate change and shouldnโt have to share additional cuts because their states have never used the entire 7.5 million-acre-foot apportionment given to them by the Colorado River Compact. Upper Basin officials, however, have offered to voluntarily conserve up to 200,000 acre-feet of water a year.
โA lot of the difference in the two proposals is that the Lower Basin seems much more comfortable running the system at a lower volume of water in the reservoirs, and we view that as leading to crisis management,โ Andy Mueller, general manager of the Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River Water Conservation District, said at the districtโs regular board meeting April 15. โSo if you keep the system in a constant state of crisis, then itโs one emergency after another, which should feel familiar to anybody whoโs been following the Colorado River for the last 20 years, because thatโs what has been happening.โ
This 2023 diagram shows the tubes through which Lake Powell’s fish can pass through to the section of the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon. Credit: USGS and Reclamation 2023
Of the five potential options in the bureauโs analysis, the โfederal authoritiesโ alternative may be the most likely way forward if a consensus between the two basins is not reached. That alternative includes up to 3.5 million acre-feet of cuts in the Lower Basin, no Upper Basin conservation and a focus on upstream reservoir releases to keep Lake Powell full enough to make hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam.
โWe have to remember that creating your own solution for the consensus is always better than allowing somebody else to create it for you, so we are hopeful that will happen,โ Mueller said.
Adding to the urgency of finding agreement on future river operations is a rapidly diminishing snowpack and spring-runoff forecast that could once again drive reservoirs to crisis levels. Hot and dry conditions have pushed snowpack across the Upper Basin down to 74% of average โ a 27% loss in the past two weeks. Conditions may be beginning to resemble 2021 and 2022, when Lake Powell fell to its lowest point ever, threatening the ability to make hydropower and triggering emergency upstream reservoir releases and calls from federal officials for 2 million to 4 million acre-feet in conservation from the states.
โItโs the opposite of good,โ Cullom said of this yearโs runoff forecast. โNow through the first week of May, either weโll get some replenishment or the snowpack will collapse. My moneyโs on collapsing, unfortunately, similar to 2021.โ
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
With a critical source of funding for Coloradoโs water projects facing an uncertain future, lawmakers want to task a group of experts with providing recommendations for solutions.ย Severance taxes, which are imposed on nonrenewable energy extraction like oil drilling and coal mining, have long served as a key source of revenue for water-related initiatives. The funding stream, however, is also one of the stateโs most volatile due to extreme swings in the energy market. Over the past two decades, tax revenue hasย gone from skyrocketing one year to plummetingย the next. The issue has compounded in recent years due to state budget writers siphoning some of the money to help balance the stateโs spending plan. In response, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is advancing legislation that would commission a study on the future of severance tax revenue and ways the state can better fund its water needs. Senate Bill 40ย [SB25-040] would create a nine-member task force within the Department of Natural Resources to find answers to the question. The measure is sponsored by Sens. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, and Cleave Simpson, R-Alamosa, as well as Reps. Karen McCormick, D-Longmont, and Matthew Martinez, D-Monte Vista.ย Roberts said the group will consider any and all ideas,ย not just around severance taxes, for how to make Coloradoโs water funding more stable. The task force would then submit a final report in July 2026 to help create potential bills or recommendations for the Joint Budget Committee in future legislative sessions.ย
Located in a remote area of the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument (Arizona), White Pocket area is a hidden treasure of swirling, twisting Navajo sandstone. Photo credit: Department of Interior Facebook page
In what came as no surprise to just about anyone, the Trump administration moved this week to rescind the Bureau of Land Managementโs Conservation & Landscape Health Rule. The Public Lands Rule, as it is commonly known, was implemented last year by the Biden administration to put conservation on a par with other federal land uses, such as energy development, grazing, and mining.
The administration announced the intention to revoke the rule quietly at reginfo.gov rather than, as is its wont, with some inanely named executive order, and it doesnโt give any specifics as to how or under what authority it would eliminate the rule. Yet if Trump were to issue a specific order, it might be titled: โMAKING THE BLM THE BUREAU OF LIVESTOCK AND MINING AGAIN!โ
Yet it is not at all clear what effect the rollback might have on the ground, chiefly because the impacts of the rule, itself, remain unclear since there hasnโt even been time to truly implement it yet.
When the rule was first proposed in 2023, it was met with mixed reactions from the environmental community, some of who saw it as largely ineffective, and harsh rebukes from the livestock and energy industries and their political enablers.
The National Cattlemenโs Beef Association called the rule a โcapitulation to the extremist environmental groups who want to eradicate grazing from the landscape,โ and Sen. John Barrasso, the Wyoming Republican, compared the bureaucrats who wrote the โdecreeโ to the tree-spiking eco-warriors of the 1980s.
Yet it is hardly radical. In essence, the rule simply reiterates and reminds us of what Congress intended when it included the multiple-use mandate in the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976, the law that created the modern framework for modern public land oversight (and that endeavored to rid the BLM of the โlivestock and miningโ monicker).
Multiple use, according to the law, is public lands management that โwill best meet the present and future needs of the American peopleโ and allows for โa combination of balanced and diverse resource uses that takes into account the long-term needs of future generations โฆ including โฆ recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and natural scenic, scientific and historical values.โ
So, yes, the BLM is required to accommodate recreation, grazing, and mining, but also, must manage the land for the sake of watersheds, wildlife, and natural values โ i.e. conservation.
The rule aims to carry out this mandate by:
directing the agency to prioritize landscape health in all decision making, which is what itโs already supposed to do when assessing grazing allotments;
creating a mechanism for outside entities โ states, tribes, or nonprofits โ to lease public land for restoration projects, much as a rancher or oil and gas company might lease BLM land (but only on parcels that arenโt already leased/claimed for other uses);
allowing firms to lease land for mitigation work to offset impacts from development elsewhere (again, these would not override existing, valid rights);
clarifying the designation process for areas of critical environmental concern, or ACECs, where land managers can add extra regulations to protect cultural or natural resources; and,
directing the agency to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into decision-making, particularly when considering ACECs.
Really it is more of a tool than a rule. That is, it gives third parties and agency state and field office staffers a mechanism to step up conservation on some lands, but does not create any new restrictions that would interfere with other uses. And thereโs simply no way this tool could be used to โeradicateโ grazing or drilling or any other use, as the hyperbolists claim, even if BLM personnel wanted to โ and history shows they do not. In fact, the mitigation leases could be used to facilitate other development by allowing, say, solar or oil and gas companies to โoffsetโ the damage inflicted by utility-scale arrays or drilling projects.
So rescinding the rule really amounts to tossing a brand new tool out the window before it even got used. On the one hand, weโre not necessarily going to miss the tool. But simply discarding it is also totally senseless and a waste that benefits no one, even Trumpโs oil and gas executive buddies. But as weโve pointed out before, Trumpโs haphazard policymaking is more about spite, vindictiveness, and cruelty than common sense. [ed. emphasis mine]
***
Drill rig and Raplee Ridge. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Last week, a friend sent me an email with the subject line: โnot a fan of bureaucracy, but this is not good.โย In the message, she had cut and pasted this headline fromย National Parks Traveler:
Yes, it is bad. No, itโs not as bad as the headline makes it sound (though the confusion is understandable).
The story came from a brief Interior Department press release announcing it โwill no longer pursue lengthy analysis for oil and gas leasing decisions in seven states.โ That sure sounds like they are dropping environmental reviews for all oil and gas leases in the West. And plenty of news outlets and social media posters interpreted it as such.
Thatโs not the case. At least not yet.
The press release was referring to the revocation of a specific environmental review for 3,244 oil and gas leases that date as far back as the Obama-era. The leases were issued as the result of 74 lease sale decisions between 2015 and 2020. Environmental groups filed multiple lawsuits, saying the original environmental reviews were inadequate. The courts agreed, remanding the decisions back to the BLM for more thorough reviews that included analysis of greenhouse gas emissions, social cost of carbon, and other impacts. .
Trumpโs Interior Department decided the review went against the administrationโs โenergy dominanceโ agenda and related executive orders, so it cancelled the EIS. According to the press release, the BLM is now โevaluating options for compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act for these oil and gas leasing decisions.โ What that means isnโt clear, even to BLM officials, and the industry is confused as well.
If the agency issues the leases without further review, you can bet the same groups that sued โ and won โ the first time will go for a repeat performance. Meanwhile, environmental analyses are ongoing for future oil and gas lease sales (I checked). Thatโs not to say that they will be adequate, however.
๐บ๏ธ Messing with Maps ๐งญ
The Center for American Progress has put together a nice, but disturbing, interactive map illustrating the myriad ways DOGE is slashing federal spending and harming communities across the nation. You can click on a congressional district and get a list of specific grants that have been revoked and leases that have been cancelled.
๐คฃ๐๐ค๐คช
I went down the oddest wormhole the other day when I stumbled upon the Google reviews for none other than the Cholla coal power plant near Joseph City, Arizona. That an industrial facility even has starred reviews is weird enough, and possibly yet another sign of the apocalypse. But this one, I happened to notice in passing, has 138 reviews with an average four star rating. Obviously I had to check them out.
And let me tell you, they are something. Each and every one is really special. I have no idea which ones are sincere and which ones ironic. All I know is that read together, it is an epic poem. You should look at them all, but for now Iโll share some of my favorites.
The April board meeting of the Upper Arkansas River Water Conservancy District featured a presentation highlighting losses of irrigated farmland in Colorado and the Arkansas River Basin. Colorado Department of Agriculture Water Policy Advisor Robert Sakata presented the information and engaged Conservancy District staff and board members in a discussion about water and local agriculture…
He shared key facts about agriculture in Colorado, which relies heavily on irrigation water. The ag sector:
Contributes $47 billion per year to the state economy.
Stewards 30 million acres of land.
Manages more than 80% of the stateโs water.
Employs 195,000 people.
From 1997 to 2022, Sakata said, Colorado saw a 32.2% decrease in irrigated acreage, a 1,085,000-acre reduction. Arkansas Basin statistics reveal a 39% loss from 1998 to 2020 (Given drought conditions in 2020, an increase in water availability may have resulted in an increase in irrigated lands in more recent years.). Sakata said drought has contributed to some of the losses of irrigated land but acknowledged that cities purchasing irrigation water rights and converting them to municipal use is the biggest factor…
โWe donโt want a repeat of Crowley County,โ he said, referring to Coloradoโs poster child for the damage caused by removing water from irrigated farmland, also known as โbuy and dry.โ
Crowley County borders Pueblo County to the east and once boasted more than 50,000 acres of irrigated farmland that produced alfalfa, barley, tomatoes, strawberries, cantaloupes, corn and enough beets to support a sugar factory in Sugar City. Orchards once covered more than 4,000 acres between Olney Springs and the town of Crowley. Local agriculture flourished, irrigated with local water and West Slope water paid for by Crowley County farmers and supplied by the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Company, headquartered in Crowley County (Ordway). In the 1970s, bad weather, bad luck, technology, farm consolidation, and economics created a perfect storm that irreversibly transformed the county for the worse. Front Range cities ended up with 95 percent ownership of the Twin Lakes Canal and Reservoir Co., โthe heart of the systemโ that brought agriculture-based prosperity to Crowley County. Sakataโs presentation showed that, by 2022, Crowley Countyโs irrigated farmland had dropped to 2,000 acres. Once-fertile farmland is now dusty and grows little more than tumbleweeds, which are known to shut down a local stretch of highway on occasion.
From email from the Salazar Rio Grande del Norte Center (Paul Formisano):
Join Colorado attorneys Bill Paddock and David Robbins as they present โElephant Butte Reservoir, the Rio Grande Compact, and Water Administration in the San Luis Valleyโ on Thursday, April 24, 2025, from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in McDaniel Hall 101 at Adams State University.
Paddock and Robbins have worked for many decades protecting water interests in the San Luis Valley and throughout Colorado. Their perspectives will provide timely insights into the 1938 Rio Grande Compact, how it shapes current river management in the San Luis Valley and the broader river basin, and last yearโs Supreme Court ruling on Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado.
These events will be held in conjunction with the Rio Grande Compact Commission meeting on Friday, April 25, 2025 starting at 9:00 a.m. at the Rio Grande Water Conservation District office in Alamosa. This annual meeting brings together officials from Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas to discuss river policy and management. The meeting is free and open to the public.
For more information about the April 24th events, please contact Salazar Center director Paul Formisano, Ph.D., at pformisano@adams.edu.
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
A technician with North American Weather Consultants works on a cloud seeding generator in Ogden, Utah on March 20, 2025. Utah has the nation’s largest program, and nearby states are watching to see how it adds to the water supply. Photo credit: Alex Hager/KUNC
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager):
April 21, 2025
This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
Humans have the technology to literally make snow fall from the clouds. In the drought-stricken Southwest, where the Colorado River needs every drop of water it can get, there are calls to use it more.
Utah, home to the nationโs largest cloud seeding program, is at the crossroads of the technologyโs past and future. The state has become a proving ground for cloud seeding in the West, with water managers, private sector investors, and conspiracy theorists keeping a close eye on their progress. Advocates say the technology works, and now they need to figure out exactly how much.
For a practice that has launched millions of dollars in funding, countless snowflakes and a string of death threats, the technology itself is strikingly uncomplicated.
On an overcast day in the foothills near Ogden, Utah, Jared Smith crunched through a thin layer of spring snow toward a white trailer about the size of a dumpster. Inside, he explained, is a solar-charged battery, a tank of the non-toxic chemical compound silver iodide, a tank of propane, and a few valves and switches that control their flow.
โMost complicated things are just a lot of simple things put together,โ Smith said.
He works for North American Weather Consultants. The company is based in the Salt Lake City area and operates about 200 of these setups across Utah.
With one click of a button, the machine whooshes to life. A small orange flame flickers from the tip of a shiny pipe atop the trailer as tiny particles of silver iodide, invisible to the naked eye, drift off into the sky.
Thatโs pretty much it.
From here, those particles drift into passing clouds and cause ice crystals to form. That process, Smith says, is like those videos of people who put bottles of water in the freezer. When they pull them out, the water is below freezing but still liquid. With a quick whack against a hard surface, it quickly turns to ice.
Clouds hang low behind Salt Lake City’s skyline on March 20, 2025. Boosting snow is pivotal for Utah’s water supply, 90% of which starts as snow in the state’s mountains.
Alex Hager/KUNC
Cloud seeding takes below-freezing water inside a cloud and gives it a silver iodide particle to grip onto, at which point it hardens, turns into a snowflake, and falls to the ground.
One thing cloud seeding does not do, Smith said, is create snow out of thin air. It only works when there are already water-laden clouds in the sky.
โIf we could create the weather,โ Smith said. โI’d probably be retired, owning an island in the Bahamas.โ
Cloud-seeding graphic via Science Matters
Tweaking the tech
While the concept of cloud seeding can sound like the stuff of a distant sci-fi future, the technology has been in use since the 1950s. And since then, it has gone largely unchanged.
In Utah, though, North American Weather Consultants and its parent company are tweaking the way the machines are used, and hoping to blaze a new trail towards more efficient and precise cloud seeding. Theyโre doing that in two ways.
For years, if you wanted to turn on one of those silver-iodide-spouting machines, you had to do it in person. Thatโs not always an easy task, since theyโre often placed where theyโll be the most effective โ in remote mountain ranges buried under deep snow.
Now, they can be turned on from a phone, anywhere in the world.
Instead of asking a person to drive, trudge, or snowmobile to a faraway generator โ often hours before a storm starts in the wee hours of the morning โ they can be turned on from a technicianโs home on the other side of the state at exactly the right moment. That means less propane and silver iodide are wasted and the machines can spend more of the winter fully operational.
โYou’re able to operate in the middle of the night, turn it on for an hour, turn it off without bothering anybody,โ Smith said.
Silver iodide particles emerge from the top of a cloud seeding generator in Ogden, Utah on March 20, 2025. The particles cause ice crystals to form in passing clouds and can increase Utah’s snowpack by more than 10% some years. Alex Hager/KUNC
So far, North American Weather Consultants has switched about 100 of its roughly 200 generators to remote operation, and plans to upgrade the remainder over the next few years.
The company is also testing a new way of getting silver iodide particles into clouds with drones. While theyโre still awaiting permits to use them fully, the company plans to take those particles straight to the source by flying drones that can disperse the compound straight into the clouds.
Measuring the impact
Utahโs cloud seeding program is being closely watched by others around the region. Its efforts cover more ground than any other state in the nation, and it has one of the strongest bases of state funding.
For that reason, other water-short states in the Western U.S. are keeping an eye on how much return on investment Utah is getting from a $5 million annual cloud seeding budget and those efficiency-boosting tech upgrades.
Jonathan Jennings, who runs the cloud seeding program at the Utah Department of Natural Resources, said between the new tech, the funding, and backing from the stateโs legislature, โUtah is climbing its way to one of the best programs in the world.โ
โIt’s a lot of pressure,โ he said, โBecause I do realize that our neighboring states are watching how we spend our money and what comes out of it.โ
What has come out of it, so far, is an amount of snow that would raise the eyebrows of most water managers in states gripped by drought and steady demand. Utah says it is able to boost its snowpack by 6-12% each year through cloud seeding. For states that depend on the Colorado River, about 85% of which begins as mountain snow, that is significant.
Jonathan Jennings browses his collection of decades-old books about cloud seeding in his Salt Lake City office on March 20, 2025. The technology has looked largely the same since the 1950s. Alex Hager/KUNC
โIf you’re able to continue to live in the state of Utah without any worry about water,โ Jennings said, โThat’s part of the cloud seeding program helping.โ
Beyond cloud seedingโs ability to create water, itโs generating buzz because of its ability to do so cheaply.
As policymakers try to rein in the Colorado Riverโs supply-demand imbalance, theyโre considering myriad ways to add more water or cut back on use. Water conservation is often the most cost-effective way to do that, and the reason that governments have spent hundreds of millions on programs that pay farmers to use less.
When it comes to adding to the supply, cloud seeding is less expensive than other trendy water technologies like desalination and wastewater recycling. A 2018 study of Utahโs program found that cloud seeding could create an acre-foot of water for less than $3. The Colorado River basinโs largest desalination plant, by comparison, produces the same amount of water for more than $3,000.
โIf we have a really good return on investment,โ Jennings said, โOther states can look at that and say, โWow, we’re under-funding our cloud seeding program, we need to do this.’โ
Investment from out of state
The Colorado River supplies about 40 million people from Wyoming to Mexico. Its water flows to kitchen faucets in cities like Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and their growing suburbs. It supplies a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy that puts produce on supermarket shelves across the nation. But the river is in the grips of a climate change-fueled megadrought going back longer than two decades, and its supplies are dwindling.
Any technology that can add more water to that stretched-thin system is going to turn heads. Itโs the reason that the main water distributor in and around Los Angeles is pouring billions into a system to turn sewage directly into drinking water.
Itโs also the reason that relatively faraway water agencies are investing in Utahโs cloud seeding program in hopes it could help them โ both in the future and today.
The Colorado Riverโs Lower Basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada send about $1.5 million each year to Utah, Wyoming and Colorado for cloud seeding work, one-third of which goes to Utah.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority, the main supplier for Las Vegas and its suburbs, sent $800,000 to Utahโs cloud seeding program to purchase equipment. Southern Nevada gets about 90% of its supply from Lake Mead, the nationโs largest reservoir, which is primarily filled with melted snow from Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Hoover Dam with Lake Mead in the background December 3, 2024.
The Las Vegas area is a poster child for water conservation. It has spent big money on efficiency programs, making its financial involvement in Utahโs cloud seeding work look like a valuable stamp of approval.
Colby Pellegrino, the Southern Nevada Water Authorityโs deputy general manager of resources, said cloud seeding is unlikely to end the Western water crisis alone.
โI think it’s one arrow in the quiver, one piece of the silver buckshot,โ she said. โBut it’s not going to be the thing that saves us all. We’ve seen enough studies to believe that the costs are low and the benefit we get is enough that it’s worthwhile for us to do.โ
At the same time, the private sector is starting to see the value in cloud seeding too. A California-based startup called Rainmaker recently acquired North American Weather Consultants. Augustus Doricko, the companyโs founder, pointed to a 2017 study called SNOWIE that helped prove cloud seedingโs efficacy, and said the industry has been ripe for expansion since then.
โI think someone just had to do it,โ he said. โI think that this technology has been perceived wrongfully as third wheel crack quackery for decades, and even in the last eight years since SNOWIE, the research community has been spectacular in driving the ball down the field on innovation.โ
Doricko said remote-operated cloud seeding generators have brought down cloud seedingโs logistical complexity by an order of magnitude, and represent a โhuge, huge step in the right direction.โ
Conspiracy theories and death threats
For all of the positive energy around cloud seeding and its future, a small group of detractors is making life difficult for the technologyโs biggest proponents. And this year, it got personal.
Some conspiracy theorists associate cloud seeding with the idea of โchemtrails.โ Itโs a theory that the government is spraying mysterious substances into the air in order to, among other things, control the minds of the people living below. The theory started percolating through internet forums in the 1990s, often concerned with the harmless streaks of water-based vapor and exhaust left behind by large airplanes.
The theory extends to cloud seeding programs and still has ardent believers in 2025. Just ask Jonathan Jennings.
Earlier this year, his personal social media was โcompletely overrun by fanatics.โ They harassed him, publicized his home address and even sent death threats.
โThey took it a step too far,โ Jennings said.
The attacks also extended to other employees of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, including some who had nothing to do with the stateโs cloud seeding program.
Skiers descend Alta Ski Area in Utah on January 12, 2023. Some ski areas see promise in the state’s cloud seeding program as a means of creating more reliable snow on the slopes. Alex Hager/KUNC
The harassment left Jennings frustrated not only because of the personal attacks, but because he has been working on cloud seeding for decades and knows the technology and silver iodide are safe.
โI live here,โ he said, โMy family lives here. All of my friends live here. If we were truly doing something nefarious, I’d be the first to stop that.โ
Jennings does not seem deterred by the attacks, and quoted longtime cloud seeding operator Don Griffith in expressing his commitment to staying the course.
โOnce you get silver iodide in your blood, it’s hard to get it out,โ Jennings said. โThis is a lifelong passion now.โ
โLet’s put some real science and money behind thisโ
Utahโs cloud seeding program and the state governmentโs willingness to fund it, is the envy of its neighbors. In Colorado, where the cloud seeding program operates on a substantially smaller annual budget, the stateโs cloud seeding officials are looking to expand.
โThere’s always advancements to make,โ said Andrew Rickert, who manages Coloradoโs weather modification programs. “I wish we had more funding to throw behind this.โ
Rickert said he sees promise in drone programs like the one Utah is piloting. They could make a significant difference in Colorado, where more than two-thirds of the Colorado River starts as snow.
โLet’s put some real science and money behind this and show people that we can increase our water in a safe and efficient manner,โ he said.
In the meantime, Utah is pressing forward.
โEverybody not only has eyes on Utah,โ Jennings said, โBut they support what we’re doing in hopes that we are widely successful to the point where their states are going to be forced to fund cloud seeding even more than they are.โ
Colorado River officials are debating six options for how to manage the overstressed river after 2026 with the goal of reaching a seven-state agreement by May. Under this yearโs ultra dry water conditions, all of the proposed plans would call for mandatory cuts in the three Lower Basin states with reductions ranging from 1.3 million to 3.2 million acre-feet. The basinโs legal share of the river is 7.5 million acre-feet, although estimates say its actual use is higher.
Under most of the different management options, Colorado and its sister states in the Upper Basin would be asked to voluntarily conserve up to 500,000 acre-feet of water. One acre-foot roughly equals the annual water use of two to three households.
In Arizona, the state that would be hardest-hit, cities, farms and tribes are already making alternative plans, Tom Buschatzke, Arizonaโs Colorado River negotiator, said.
โThe impacts are going to be meaningful,โ Buschatzke, who is also director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said. โThey are going to have some pain attached to them.โ
Itโs been a tough water year for parts of Colorado and the Colorado River Basin. In Colorado, the snowpack on the Western Slope โ where the Colorado River starts โ ended up with a below average peak this winter.
Across the basin, more than 20 major reservoirs and tributaries can expect a lower-than-usual water supply between April and July, according to the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.
Lake Powell, one of the immense reservoirs that provides storage for millions of water users in the basin, will likely receive less than 70% of its normal inflows from the Upper Basin region of Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah.
Itโs the kind of water year that starts to worry officials about late-summer irrigation supplies and wildfire risks, according to fire officials, irrigators and water providers.
With this yearโs conditions, Colorado River states would be conserving or cutting back on their water use under any of the six plans dominating current planning discussions: two competing proposals from basin states โ one from the Upper Basin and one from the Lower Basin โ and four options from the federal government.
The fifth federal option, called the โno actionโ alternative, is theoretical and a required part of the federal planning process. It would not sustainably manage the river, officials say.
The final management plan wonโt be decided until later this year or early in 2026.
Colorado snowpack basin-filled map April 20, 2025 via the NRCS.
How would the Upper Basin manage the river?
If the Upper Basinโs proposal were being used to manage the river basin, the Lower Basin states would be reducing their use by 1.5 million acre-feet this year.
The proposal calculates cuts by taking a snapshot every Oct. 1 of the water level at Lake Powell and the amount of water stored in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. This year, Powellโs surface was 3,577 feet above sea level and the combined storage in both reservoirs was 17.8 million acre-feet on Oct. 1, about 36% of their combined capacity, according to Coloradoโs Colorado River team.
Colorado and the other Upper Basin states would take more voluntary action, like conserving water or releasing water from reservoirs further upstream if needed.
Sticking to voluntary conservation would be a win for the Upper Basin, where officials have said they should not be required to cut their use because their water supply is already unpredictable and limited by each yearโs precipitation.
The Upper Basin, located upstream of the basinโs biggest reservoirs, lakes Mead and Powell, relies on smaller reservoirs to try to pace the flow of water from year to year. The Lower Basin depends on the vast storage in lakes Powell and Mead to pace its water supply, which offers more predictability over a longer time span.
What would cuts look like under the Lower Basinโs plan?
Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico would also cut their use by a total of 1.5 million acre-feet this year if their own proposal were to manage the river basin.
Arizona would cut its use by 760,000 acre-feet; California, by 440,000; and Nevada, 50,000. Lower Basin officials estimated Mexico would have to cut its use by 250,000 acre-feet, but those reductions are being decided in separate negotiations between Mexico and the U.S.
The Upper Basin would not be required to cut its use at all this year under the Lower Basin proposal, Buschatzke said. (If the basinโs water supply was even worse, the Upper Basin would be required to share in the water cuts instead of voluntarily conserving.)
In Arizona, one water project, the Central Arizona Project, would take the brunt of the hit, Buschatzke said.
Central Arizona Project map via Mountain Town News
The 336-mile water delivery system serves cities, like Phoenix and Tucson, and several tribes, including one of the projectโs largest users, the Gila River Indian Community.
Other cities and farms along the Colorado River, like Bullhead City, Lake Havasu City, Kingman and the Cibola Valley Irrigation District, could also take a hit. Thatโs dependent on how Arizona decides to distribute cuts inside the state, Buschatzke said.
โWe will be able to continue to live sustainably within the CAP service area, but itโs going to cost more money,โ he said.
It will mean that creative things, like treating wastewater so it can be used to drink, will have to be developed and deployed, which also means significant infrastructure costs of hundreds of millions of dollars, Buschatzke said.
The state will face tough decisions about how to use water, like choosing between restoring ecosystems along rivers or diverting that water to support other uses.
โWeโve been talking about these things for many, many years, but itโs coming to the fore now where some policy decisions are going to have to be made,โ Buschatzke said.
What would water cuts look like under the federal plans?
The Lower Basin states are ready to face 1.5 million acre-feet in cuts, but some of the federal plans would call for cuts up to 3.2 million acre-feet in a year like 2025, according to an analysis by the Upper Colorado River Commission.
The commission used a federal study of reservoir levels and projected inflows from February to gauge the minimum, maximum and probable water cuts in the Lower Basin. The Lower Basinโs outlook hasnโt changed much since February, Chuck Cullom, the commissionโs executive director, said in early April.
Under water sharing agreements, California can use 4.4 million acre-feet of Colorado River water; Arizona, 2.8 million acre-feet; and Nevada 300,000 acre-feet.
For Colorado and other Upper Basin states, cuts will not be mandatory under the federal plans. Instead, the states would commit to other actions, like voluntary conservation.
Thereโs not enough detail at this point in the negotiations to say exactly how much the Upper Basin would try to conserve based on this winterโs water conditions, Cullom said.
Under a former water conservation pilot project โ the System Conservation Pilot Program โ the Upper Basin has been able to cut its use by a maximum of 37,800 acre-feet. That was in 2023, a very wet year with a much higher snowpack across the Western Slope than in 2025.
โWhat weโve observed is that thereโs greater participation in voluntary programs when thereโs more water in the system. So thatโs what the modeling reflects,โ Cullom said. โThe commitment is that we would develop conservation programs. Theyโre voluntary, so they would be targets to achieve, not requirements.โ
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
September 2013 flooding via AWRA Colorado Section Symposium
Click the link to read the release on Governor Polis’ website (Olga Robak and Shelby Wieman):
April 21, 2025
Broomfield, Colo. โ Today, Governor Polis and the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Drought and Climate Resilience Office (ADCRO) announced new grant opportunities to support climate resilience projects within the state’s agricultural sector.
โIn Colorado we are committed to mitigating the risk associated with climate change, by investing in innovative clean energy technologies, and providing economic avenues for our farmers and ranchers to continue to provide healthy and fresh produce to all Coloradans for generations to come,โ said Governor Polis.
Climate resilience is the ability to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from hazardous events, trends, or disturbances related to climate. The Climate Resilience Grants are designed to provide crucial financial assistance to farmers and ranchers who have experienced adverse effects due to climate change-induced disasters and are seeking to enhance their resilience against future climate-related challenges.
โDealing with extreme weather, resulting from climate change, and an increasingly dry environment is an everyday challenge for Coloradoโs farmers and ranchers,โ said Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture Kate Greenberg. โThis funding will help producers who have experienced these challenges or are at risk for worsening climate disasters to be better prepared to withstand these events now and into the future.โ
This is the first grant opportunity at CDA focused on helping producers who have experienced a disaster. Specifically, this funding addresses a critical need producers have to ensure their operations are resilient and can better withstand future climate pressures.
Climate change affects all sectors of agriculture, from workforce and the supply chain, to livestock and farm and ranch profitability. This funding will help tackle issues throughout the supply chain and invest in leaders around the state, who can later serve as positive examples or resources for their neighbors. Climate-related disasters are only increasing, and this funding can create demonstrations on what it means to recover in a resilient way. CDA will select a few priority climate impacts to focus on each funding cycle, based on needs around the state. This year, priority projects will be those that address impacts of drought, snow events, and wildfire. In future years, CDA will work with partners to determine priorities based on needs. Other disasters that are exacerbated by climate change include flooding, extreme heat, and severe storms.
Farmers and ranchers are eligible, as are producer-facing organizations, tribes, and local governments. Grant applications must demonstrate how producers will benefit, how the grant deliverables will address future climate disasters, and feasibility of the project. Matching funding is not required, though applicants will receive more points if they use matching funds. The maximum grant award is $30,000.
The online application is available on the ADCRO website. Grant applications are due on May 29.
The ADCRO team will hold an informational webinar on Wednesday, May 7, at 2:00 p.m., and interested participants can register via Zoom or find the registration link on the ADCRO website. The informational session staff will present an overview of the eligibility criteria and application process and answer producer questions.
This initiative represents a significant step forward in supporting Colorado’s agricultural sector in adapting to and mitigating the impacts of climate change and fostering a more resilient and sustainable agricultural landscape for the future. These grants also align with CDAโs strategic priorities, especially Direction Three: Environmental Stewardship and Climate Resilience. These grants will work with other CDA programs to create healthy and resilient farms, ranches, and food supply chains.
The Rio Grande at Isleta Blvd. and Interstate 25 on Sept. 7, 2023. (Photo by Anna Padilla for Source New Mexico)
Click the link to read the article on the Source NM website (Danielle Prokop):
April 16, 2025
The federal judge overseeing the lawsuit between New Mexico, Texas and Colorado over Rio Grande water has ordered a 10-day trial in Philadelphia starting June 9 at the request of all the parties, who are also pursuing mediation talks to resolve the lawsuit in the meantime.
The case, officially called Original No. 141 Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado, began more than a decade ago, sparked by escalating legal disputes around Rio Grande water below Elephant Butte between Texas and New Mexico.
The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the federal government โ which operates a network of dams, and nearly 140 miles of irrigation canals to deliver water to two irrigation districts in the region and Mexico โ to enter as a party to the case in 2018.
In the February status hearings, the federal mediator and attorneys for all three parties told United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Chief Judge D. Brooke Smith, who is overseeing the case, that they were still seeking a resolution to the 12-year old case.
Jeffrey Wechsler, the lead attorney representing New Mexico, said setting a trial date would help mediation talks.
โDeadlines help negotiations rather than hinder them,โ Wechsler said, according to transcripts of the hearing.
The New Mexico Department of Justice and other partiesโ attorneys confirmed to Source NM that mediation talks are ongoing as of April, with another mediation session scheduled for April 22, according to NMDOJ Chief of Staff Lauren Rodriguez. โMeanwhile, the trialโfocused on determining liability and establishing a baseline for apportionment under the compactโremains on schedule,โ she wrote in a statement, โif an agreement is not reached by then.โ
Any potential settlement or recommendation from Smith based on a trial would still need approval from the U.S. Supreme Court, the only court that handles interstate waters disputes.
Last year, U.S. Supreme Court justices struck down a deal proposed by New Mexico, Colorado and Texas to end the litigation in a close 5-4 decision. They sided with objections from the federal government that the statesโ deal unfairly excluded the โunique federal interests,โ and sent the case back to the negotiation table and potentially trial.
The alliances between the state and federal government in the case have dramatically shifted since 2022 as the nature of the dispute changed. Initially, Texas and the federal government agreed that New Mexico pumping below Elephant Butte threatened Rio Grande water for both Texas irrigation and treaty obligations to Mexico.
However, since Colorado, New Mexico and Texas proposed a deal to measure Texasโ water at the state line and include transfers of water between New Mexico and Texas irrigation districts to balance out shortfalls, the federal government is going to have to build its own case.
โTexas and the United States are no longer aligned,โ federal attorney Thomas Snodgrass told Smith in February. He said the federal government was still preparing a case that New Mexico should be held liable for groundwater pumping impacts on the Rio Grande since 1938.
The court already held one part of a two-part trial in October 2021, but the proposed settlement delayed the second part indefinitely.
Weschler told Smith in February that if the case does proceed to trial in June, it will be shorter than the three-months set aside for trial in 2021.
โThe case is prepared for trial. In fact, itโs halfway through trial,โ Weschler said. โWeโve completed our discovery, weโve completed disclosures โ thereโs really not much more to do other than to begin.โ
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
Army Corps expedites permit process forย Line 5 oil tunnelย that crosses beneath the Great Lakes.
White Houseย fast-tracks 10 mining projectsย in its quest for domestically produced minerals.
FEMAย cancels grant programย meant to prepare communities for weather hazards, while USDA overhaulsย climate-smart agricultureย grant program.
Federal agencies intend to shrink wildlife habitat protections under theย Endangered Species Act.
Judge sets a trial date forย Rio Grandeย lawsuit between New Mexico and Texas.
EPA extends public comment period for health risk assessment ofย PFAS in sewage sludge.
And lastly, the Justice Department seeks to end an agreement to improve sewage infrastructure in Alabama.
โThe DOJ will no longer push โenvironmental justiceโ as viewed through a distorting, DEI lens. President Trump made it clear: Americans deserve a government committed to serving every individual with dignity and respect, and to expending taxpayer resources in accordance with the national interest, not arbitrary criteria.โ โ Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Departmentโs Civil Rights Division, as reported by Inside Climate News.
Dhillon is referring to a Biden-era civil rights agreement with the state of Alabama that sought to improve sewage infrastructure in the stateโs poorest counties, which are also majority Black. The Justice Department is trying to end that agreement.
The agreement directed Alabama agencies to take a number of actions, such as halting referral of home wastewater violations to law enforcement and expanding a public health campaign about the dangers of raw sewage. It included a sewage system assessment and an infrastructure plan for at-risk areas.
By the Numbers
$882 Million: Funding that FEMA is rescinding from the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which was meant to prepare towns for floods, sea level rise, hurricanes, and heat. FEMA is canceling the grant program, Engineering News Record reports.
$3 Billion: Biden-era funding for the Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities that is being retooled by the Trump administration. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it will reevaluate the program it has rebranded as Advancing Markets for Producers to ensure that less money is spent on administrative costs. Expenditures under the previous grants that were incurred through April 13 will be paid out.
Great Lakes satellite photo via Wikipedia.
News Briefs
Line 5 Tunnel Expedited The Army Corps of Engineers determined that the Line 5 tunnel, a proposal to drill an oil pipeline tunnel beneath the strait that separates lakes Michigan and Huron, is being put on the permitting fast track.
The determination is in response to President Donald Trumpโs declaration of a national energy emergency in order to speed up the permitting and construction of fossil fuel infrastructure.
Carrie Fox, an Army Corps spokesperson, told Circle of Blue that the new permit review procedures and timeline are not known right now.
โWe are coordinating with the applicant, who is Enbridge, and also coordinating with the Council on Environmental Quality, who will assist in establishing the review timeline,โ Fox said. โSo until those steps take place, we donโt have a timeline. And so we wonโt know how exactly itโll change yet. We just know right now that the permit has been placed under emergency procedures, but the timeline is to be determined.โ
Enbridge proposes drilling a 3.6-mile tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac. The existing seven-decade-old pipeline sits exposed on the lakebed. It has been hit by ship anchors and a rupture would be calamitous for Great Lakes ecology, tourism, and water supplies.
Six Great Lakes tribes, after learning in March that the project permitting would likely be expedited, withdrew from the federal review process in protest, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Mining Projects Fast-Tracked The White House put 10 mining projects on the fast-track for regulatory approval, continuing the administrationโs desire for more domestically produced minerals.
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
The list includes the Resolution Copper mine, in Arizona, which would be located on land that is sacred to the Apache people. Tribe members have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the project, the Arizona Republic reports.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the lead permitting agency for the Resolution project, will update the timeline by May 2.
The other mining projects would produce gold, phosphate, copper, lithium, and other critical minerals.
Redefining the Endangered Species Act Two federal agencies that oversee the Endangered Species Act intend to eliminate the definition of โharmโ because it does not fit with the new administrationโs interpretation of a recent Supreme Court ruling.
The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had considered harm to mean habitat destruction. No longer, after the Loper Bright decision that the administration reads as curtailing agency authority in this matter.
The only wrongful actions under the ESA would be those that โtakeโ an animal, meaning to capture, injure, or kill it.
The proposed change would apply only to new permits and would not affect existing actions. Public comments are being accepted through May 19 via www.regulations.gov using docket number FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0034.
Studies and Reports
Army Corps Water Storage Agreements The Army Corps could improve its communication with utilities about the fees it charges them for water storage space in its reservoirs, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
The fees are a portion of the cost to operate and maintain the reservoirs. The Corps had 438 water storage agreements nationwide, as of 2023.
Tile Drainage and Transportation The U.S. Geological Survey published a report describing how drainage from farm fields affects downstream flows.
The only wrongful actions under the ESA would be those that โtakeโ an animal, meaning to capture, injure, or kill it.
The proposed change would apply only to new permits and would not affect existing actions. Public comments are being accepted through May 19 via www.regulations.gov using docket number FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0034.
Studies and Reports
Army Corps Water Storage Agreements The Army Corps could improve its communication with utilities about the fees it charges them for water storage space in its reservoirs, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
The fees are a portion of the cost to operate and maintain the reservoirs. The Corps had 438 water storage agreements nationwide, as of 2023.
View of runoff, also called nonpoint source pollution, from a farm field in Iowa during a rain storm. Topsoil as well as farm fertilizers and other potential pollutants run off unprotected farm fields when heavy rains occur. (Credit: Lynn Betts/U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service/Wikimedia Commons)
Tile Drainage and Transportation The U.S. Geological Survey published a report describing how drainage from farm fields affects downstream flows.
Tile drains, common in the Midwest, move water from beneath fields into ditches.
The report was supported by state transportation departments, which want to build roads, bridges, and culverts that can withstand high water flows.
On the Radar
Future Army Corps Projects The Army Corps is seeking proposals from states, tribes, and regional bodies for projects to be considered for future feasibility studies or improvements.
Proposals are due August 15.
PFAS in Sewage Sludge The EPA is extending the public comment period for its draft risk assessment of two PFAS in sewage sludge, also known as biosolids.
Comments are now due August 14. Submit them via http://www.regulations.gov using docket number EPA-HQ-OW-2024-0504.
In the assessment, the agency evaluated risks to people living on or near lands where these biosolids are applied. The analysis, which looked at PFOA and PFOS, also considered risks for people whose primary consumption of water and food comes from these lands. It is not intended to assess risk for the general public.
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
Rio Grande Lawsuit The lawsuit between Texas and New Mexico over water supply from the Rio Grande will have a 10-day trial starting June 9, Source NM reports.
The parties to the case, which include Colorado and the federal government, are continuing to seek a mediated solution before the trial begins.
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The USGS helps Department of the Interior partners explore possible management decisions to prevent invasive fish from spreading into the Grand Canyon.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.ย View Media Details Learn about how USGS scientists work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Reclamation to protect Grand Canyon ecosystems from invasive smallmouth bass. From modeling fish population growth to forecasting the effects of future dam operations, the USGSโs unbiased, high-quality science helps on-the-ground managers rise to new challenges brought on by climate change. (Click to view the video)
Part 1: The River
The Colorado River is not a naturally flowing river, not anymore. With Glen Canyon Dam upstream and Hoover Dam downstream, the Colorado River in Grand Canyon is one of the most highly regulated water systems in the world. Its flow generates hydroelectricity, irrigates crops and provides water to nearly 40 million people across seven U.S. states, 30 Tribal Nations and two Mexican states.
Graphic via Holly McClelland/High Country News.
Managing the Colorado River Basin is complicated. Federal, state and Tribal agencies balance the needs of many user groups, from anglers to farmers to city municipalities. They also care for the river as an ecosystem, home to rare fish and the foundation of Grand Canyon, one of the Nationโs natural treasures. In an era of heat waves and drought, when there is less water than ever to go around, managers increasingly need high-quality science to respond to emerging challenges.
The USGS provides critical science to resource managers in the Colorado River and Grand Canyon. Our stream gages monitor water quality and flows, our researchers track fish populations and our modelers forecast how resources may respond to future conditions. We help managers anticipate new threats and consider potential outcomes of management decisions.
And on a scorching day in June 2022, the summer Lake Powell reached its lowest water level in five decades, we sprang into action when one of our predictions became suddenly real.
Did you hear what they caught in Lees Ferry?ย
For the first time, National Park Service staff caught baby smallmouth bass in the lower Colorado River, south of the Glen Canyon Dam holding back Lake Powell. While this voracious, predatory fish had previously been caught in very low numbers in the relatively pristine Grand Canyon ecosystem, such captures had been rare, and they had never been observed reproducing.
The finding raised fresh concerns about the future of native fish of the Grand Canyon.
Part 2: The Fish
Smallmouth bass were originally stocked in Lake Powell as a valued catch for anglers and have since established healthy populations throughout the lake. But with low lake levels in recent years, smallmouth bass can be sucked through the dam and spat into the Colorado River. Worse, extended drought means river temperatures are warmer than usual, creating especially hospitable conditions for the warm-water fish to proliferate.
To slow the spread, Eppehimer and USGS research statistician Charles Yackulic worked with academic, state and federal cooperators to develop models predicting when and where the fish might invade, based on projected temperatures and Lake Powell water levels. These models help the National Park Service prioritize locations for smallmouth bass monitoring and eradication.
Adding extra urgency: Smallmouth bass threaten to erase years of conservation gains for the threatened and endangered species of Grand Canyon. Most of the fish in the park today are native species, a hard-fought accomplishment in an era of constant non-native species invasions. And the humpback chub was recently downlisted from โendangeredโ to โthreatenedโ after successful conservation efforts from park staff.
But smallmouth bass are a particularly lethal threat. Laboratory predation trials by the USGS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) show that smallmouth bass eat native fish at all life stages, from small babies to grown adults.
โMost of the sport fish species have big mouths and big teeth and they like to eat native fish,โ says David Ward, fish biologist and assistant project leader for USFWS Conservation Office in Flagstaff, AZ. โWhen you get all those species preying on the chubs at all different life stages, they just donโt get a break.โ
Part 3: The Dam
If managers want to prevent smallmouth bass from becoming a permanent addition to Grand Canyon, they need to act fast. Once a species becomes established, it becomes virtually impossible to eradicate completely.
Smallmouth bass management is a high priority for the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program (GCDAMP) and the Adaptive Management Work Group (AMWG), a Federal Advisory Committee in the Colorado River Basin. Led by the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), this group brings together twenty-five stakeholder and rightsholder groups representing different interests, including states, Tribal Nations, economic sectors, non-profit environmental organizations and hobby groups. Together, they provide recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior for how to manage flows from Glen Canyon Dam.
The USGSโs Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Group (GCMRC) is a fixture of these quarterly meetings, tasked with providing science to help members understand environmental change happening on the landscape and how different management alternatives may perform under future conditions.
A major discussion point for the advisory committee is how water should flow out of the dam โ how often water should be released, how much water at a time, which part of the dam it should be released from, etc. These questions are important, impacting everything from hydroelectricity production to downstream rafting conditions.
Eppehimer, Yackulic and other USGS researchers created models to predict how changes to Glen Canyon Dam flows may affect different systems, including energy production, river hydrology and sandbar formation. Of particular interest: they explored how pumping cold water from the damโs deep bypass jet tubes could impact smallmouth bass viability below the dam. They identified ideal water temperatures for bass to grow and reproduce and modeled how cooling river temperatures using dam flows could impact overall population growth.
Using one of the USGS-modeled alternatives, the Bureau of Reclamation has begun modifying Glen Canyon Dam flows to try to prevent smallmouth bass spawning. When river temperatures reach 60ยฐF (15.5ยฐC) in the Colorado River at the confluence with the Little Colorado River tributary (76 miles downstream from the dam), the BOR releases deeper, cooler flows from Glen Canyon Dam to create less favorable conditions for smallmouth bass growth and reproduction. They began these releases on July 9, 2024, and are now working with the USGS and other DOI agencies to actively monitor the effects on river conditions and smallmouth bass populations.
This work was funded by USGSโs Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (Southwest CASC), Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Mission Area, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The project embodies the USGSโs actionable science model, which prioritizes applied research designed to meet on-the-ground needs.
โIt is an excellent example of partnership-based science,โ says Sarah LeRoy, Research Coordinator with the Southwest CASC. โFrom the very beginning, managers asked a question about what’s going to happen to fish, native and invasive, in the Colorado River Basin, and the scientists answered their questions in a way that helps them better care for the river in the future.โ
Endangered bonytail chub were released into a Colorado River lagoon south of Laughlin, Nev., in spring of 2024 as part of the MSCP. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation)
WESTERN WATER IN-DEPTH: As the 50-year Multi-Species Conservation Program hits the 20-year mark this month, new questions about how to keep it strong hang over its future
Before the construction of Hoover Dam on the lower Colorado River, as well as a slew of smaller sisters downstream, the stretch downriver served as a biological oasis in the middle of the unrelenting Mojave and Sonoran deserts. The marshes and backwaters along the riverโs edge provided sheltered areas for fish to spawn and rear their young, and mesquite and cottonwood-willow forests provided important habitat for numerous species of birds and other animals. But when Lake Mead began filling behind Hoover Dam in 1935, it drastically reduced the amount of water flowing downstream, radically altering the habitat there.
In the decades that followed, the river flow captured by Hoover Dam became a critical source of water for farms and cities across Southern California, Nevada and Arizona โ transforming deserts into some of the nationโs most productive farmland and creating some of the most populous cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas. Today, more than 27 million people in the three states rely on water from the Colorado Riverโroughly two-thirds of the total population that the river serves. Yet even as that dependence on the river grew, a collision between human and environmental needs was brewing.
Historically, the Colorado River was home to more than 30 mostly endemic native fish species. In 1967, a native fish called the pikeminnow and another called the humpback chub were classified as endangered under federal law. They were the first of what are known as the four โbig riverโ fish species to be added to the endangered species list. Thirteen years later, in 1980, came the bonytail chub. Then, in 1991, came the fourth โ the razorback sucker. (An endemic bird called the Yuma clapper rail had also been classified as endangered in 1967.)
For municipal and agricultural water managers who depended on the Colorado, the growing list of endangered species was a wakeup call. It spurred a decade-long effort to craft a multi-party agreement that allowed water agencies to continue delivering water to their users while staying ahead of the mounting endangered species issues. That effort has largely proven successful, but as the program now crosses the 20-year mark, new questions are arising about how to keep it strong for the next three decades in the face of grinding drought, contentious negotiations over the riverโs future, and new uncertainties about the federal governmentโs role in its continued implementation.
A New Approach on Habitat
In November 1994, the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the big Colorado River dams and makes water deliveries, agreed to work together with state and local agencies to mitigate the effects of water and power operations on threatened and endangered species. The effort didnโt come a moment too soon: Four months later, another species โ a bird called the southwestern willow flycatcher โ was also declared endangered.
โWhen the big-river fishes were listed, it was a kick in the pants for folks along the river to put together something broad enough to anticipate most of whatโs going to happen in the next 50 years,โ said Jessica Neuwerth, the executive director of the Colorado River Board of California, which represents the stateโs agricultural and urban users of the riverโs water. โThen the southwestern willow flycatcher kicked it into overdrive.โ
As it happened, a new approach had recently appeared on the horizon that focused on restoring and protecting habitat not just for individual endangered species, but for a broad range of them existing in a particular region. Long-term, large-scale โmultispecies habitat conservation plansโ were taking shape in a variety of places, including Californiaโs San Diego County, southwestern Riverside County and the Coachella Valley.
The four so-called big river fish, from top: razorback sucker, Colorado pikeminnow, bonytail chub and humpback chub. (Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
The new approach was championed by Bruce Babbitt, the former governor of Arizona who, at the time, was Interior secretary under Bill Clinton. โBabbitt was a big advocate for this style of landscape-level species and habitat management,โ said Chris Harris, who preceded Neuwerth at Californiaโs Colorado River Board and was involved in the early discussions. โAnd he really urged all of us to keep our noses to the grindstone and put something together that could work.โ
The effort to create a broad habitat conservation program for the Lower Colorado dragged on for a decade. But it quickly became clear that all the participants would be better off if they tackled the endangered species issue together. Finally, in April 2005, the federal government and non-federal participants signed an agreement that officially launched the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program. Under it, the Bureau of Reclamation, irrigation districts and municipal water agencies committed to a 50-year, $626 million inflation-adjusted program, splitting the cost evenly between the federal government and state parties.
The Lower Colorado River MSCP โis unique in a lot of ways โ partly because it is a federal and non-federal program, where we really havenโt even tried necessarily to disentangle whose impact is whose,โ said Neuwerth. โThereโs so much overlap between what the feds do and what the state or local agencies do that we really are bound together. Weโve blended both the non-federal and federal compliance into one package, and itโs more efficient than everybody going off and doing their own thing.โ
Managed by the Bureau of Reclamation, the program pledged to create 512 acres of marsh and 360 acres of backwaters โ habitat for Colorado River native fish โ as well as 1,320 acres of mesquite woodland and 5,940 acres of cottonwood-willow forest along the river for the imperiled birds. In addition, the program would pay for rearing and stocking more than 660,000 razorback suckers and 620,000 bonytail; fund ongoing maintenance of the newly created habitat; and carry out monitoring and research to adaptively manage restoration efforts based on an
Intended to last over the long term, the MSCP was also designed to be flexible. โThatโs always been the goal,โ said Neuwerth, โto be proactive and make sure that we have this umbrella thatโs going to protect us for a pretty wide range of future conditions.โ
Seth Shanahan, Colorado River Program Manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. (Source: Water Education Foundation)
The program was not designed to recover endangered species populations. But it was, at its root, an insurance program to protect Lower Basin water users and the federal government against potential violations of the Endangered Species Act, or ESA, as they continued their primary mission of delivering water to cities and farms.
โWe couldnโt do what we do on a day-to-day basis without this program,โ said Seth Shanahan, the Colorado River Program Manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA), which supplies water to the Las Vegas metropolitan area. He noted that water agencies are dependent on the Bureau of Reclamationโs ability to store water in Lake Mead and deliver it downstream, as well as to develop plans for when to take shortages and how to share water among themselves to lessen the impacts of drought. โAll of that is enabled by the MSCP.โ
Helping Species Survive and Thrive
In contrast to an endangered-species recovery program, the MSCP isnโt explicitly intended to increase endangered species populations to the point that they can be taken off the endangered species list, or their protection status at least downgraded.
โMSCP is a habitat creation program,โ said Vineetha Kartha, Colorado River programs manager for the Central Arizona Project (CAP), which transports river water to Phoenix, Tucson, farms and tribes. โWe are creating habitat so that species thrive and can still survive under these changed circumstances.โ
Twenty years in, the program has already created roughly 75 percent of the habitat it initially pledged to take on.
โWeโre trying to do the best we can with what is available,โ said SNWAโs Shanahan. โRestoring the functionality of habitat for species is the important part, not necessarily (restoring) it to what was there 500 years ago.โ
Workers plant seedlings of cottonwoods, willows and mesquite trees at an MSCP habitat restoration project south of Blythe, California. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation)
MSCPโs adaptive management, or adjust-as-you-go, approach has helped it adapt to changing conditions and a constantly improving understanding of how to meet the needs of individual species. โFolks early on realized they didnโt know everything. So they gave us an opportunity to modify the course as we learn more information, and thatโs really useful,โ Shanahan said. โWe need to have some space to try different things and see what works.โ
One important part of the program focuses on stocking hatchery-raised razorback suckers and bonytail into their native habitat below Hoover Dam. But because the natural system has been so drastically altered, ensuring their survival hasnโt been easy.
โItโs a tough hand of cards for native fish in this part of the world,โ said Neuwerth, an environmental scientist by training. โWe have dams, we have diversions, we have introduced fish, and thereโs really no way of turning that clock back. Weโre doing the best we can with the system as it is, and weโre trying out new stuff all the time. Anything that can give our fish an edge, weโve looked at it.โ
Giving native fish โ which are raised in hatcheries as far away as eastern New Mexico โ that edge has gone as far as running โfish survival campsโ to teach them the kind of street smarts they need to survive in the modern-day river. At one point, fisheries biologists even used Botox injections to paralyze the jaws of non-native fish and then released them, along with a dose of predator-alarm pheromones, into ponds filled with razorback suckers and bonytail chub to teach them how to recognize and avoid predators.
Outside-the-box experimentation like that has been just one of the ways the MSCP has been able to adapt to changing realities on the river.
Humpback chub swim in the waters of the Lower Colorado River. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation)
โWe always knew that what we were doing was not going to be the be-all, end-all, for the full 50-year term,โ Harris said. To accommodate unanticipated events such as the discovery of new protected species within the MSCP project area, the programโs creators adopted what he called a โplug and playโ approach.
In 2015, biologists discovered the presence of the threatened Northern Mexican gartersnake upstream of Lake Havasu, a key reservoir for Southern California and Arizona, possibly drawn in by habitat improvements made under the MSCP.
โThat wasnโt on our list (in 2005) but then became threatened, and it was found within our program area,โ said SNWAโs Shanahan. โSo we also had to go back and consult on the impacts to that species. But there were mechanisms in the permits that allowed us to do that pretty efficiently.โ
โA String of Pearlsโ
The heart of the MSCP is its commitment to create conservation areas that provide the marshes, backwaters and riverside forest on which endangered species depend. One of the MSCP conservation areas lies on tribal land of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe.
โThe tribe had a strong interest in pursuing a project that would reconnect the tribal people and the larger community back to the river,โ said Brian Golding, Sr., the Quechan tribeโs economic development director. As dams, levees and irrigation projects were developed, โthe river was forgotten. Anything on the river side of the levees essentially became overgrown and invaded by invasive species and became a no-manโs land.โ
Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program
Since 2005, the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program has grown to include 18 habitat conservation areas along the river. The map below highlights the six stretches of the river with MSCP-managed habitat.
In 2004 the tribe, in partnership with the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area, the city of Yuma and the Arizona Game and Fish Department, began restoring wetlands on the tribeโs reservation along the Colorado River, creating a mosaic of marshes and stands of mesquite, cottonwood and willow that benefit an array of endangered species. In 2013, the tribe finalized an agreement with the MSCP to include the 380-acre Yuma East Wetlands within the program in exchange for operation and maintenance funding over 50 years.
That has helped the tribe develop its own ability to restore and maintain natural habitat along the river. Today, six members of the tribe work on habitat restoration and maintenance, along with a tribe member-owned contracting company, and Golding said the tribe is in talks with the MSCP program to restore another 30 to 40 acres of wetlands along the river.
The Yuma East Wetlands are just one piece of the bigger network of conservation areas, which has grown to 18 sites between Hoover Dam and the Mexican border.
When the MSCP first started, โI think people thought this was just a Band-Aid and duct tape approach,โ said Harris. โNow, these conservation areas are really a string of pearls, and theyโre all sort of connected together. Every few miles, thereโs a huge patch of native riparian marsh and aquatic habitat thatโs being managed by the program so the species can travel up and down the riverine corridor โ whether theyโre birds or fish or terrestrial species โ and have these areas of safe haven.โ
Although the MSCP is a stand-alone program, itโs ecologically linked with an ambitious restoration effort taking place across the border in Mexico. There, a coalition of non-governmental organizations including National Audubon Society, Restauremos el Colorado, the Sonoran Institute and Pronatura have been working to restore portions of the Colorado River Delta. โMany of the ideas and techniques that have been developed and utilized in the MSCP have now been applied in the Mexican restoration program,โ Harris said, โso thereโs been a lot of carryover and cross pollination from work done under the MSCP down to the environmental program in Mexico.โ
The Hart Mine Marsh was initially created by historic flood flows from the Colorado River, but as the river system changed, including from water operations, the marsh deteriorated. Reconstruction of the marsh is among the habitat projects undertaken through the MSCP. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation)
Ecologically, both those efforts also tie together with the ongoing initiative to restore habitat at the Salton Sea, Harris said. โIf you can link those three areas,โ he said, โyouโve got a pretty good mosaic now from Lake Mead downstream all the way to the Gulf of California.โ
Julia Morton, Audubonโs Colorado River program manager, said MSCPโs comprehensive approach and its rigorous scientific monitoring program can help improve conditions not just for the species itโs specifically designed to protect, but for the entire ecosystem along the lower reaches of the river. โThatโs a huge improvement over โone-offโ mitigation projects,โ she said.
In late April, the MSCPโs steering committee will vote on a request by Audubon to join the committee โ a move that would only strengthen the synergy between the U.S and Mexican restoration efforts. โThe frameworks and the driving forces of each program are pretty different,โ said Morton, โbut at the end of the day, these programs are both creating quality habitat.โ
The Catch-22 of Historic Drought
Those efforts seem to be yielding positive results. In 2021, for instance, the humpback chub was โdown listedโ from endangered to threatened. But along the way, the MSCP has been forced to contend with a number of unanticipated challenges โ especially drought.
โA lot of thought was put into MSCP,โ said CAPโs Kartha. But when the program was designed, โwe didnโt understand how bad the hydrologies could tank.โ
Vineetha Kartha, Colorado River programs manager for the Central Arizona Project. (Source: Central Arizona Project)
When the MSCP was officially launched in 2005, the Colorado River Basin was already five years into a major drought, which has only gotten worse in the years since. The drought is now dragging into its 25th year, and studies suggest that it could be the worst drought on the river in the past 1,200 years.
โHydrology has been our biggest surprise so far,โ said Kartha. โAnd basically, we have had to move with the times.โ
In 2019, the seven Colorado River states and the federal government agreed to a pair of โdrought contingency plansโ to save water and store it in lakes Mead and Powell, the riverโs two largest reservoirs. In 2024, the Lower Basin states agreed to a follow-on plan to conserve an additional 3 million acre-feet over three years and store that in Lake Mead. Those actions helped the states prop up their water supply, but that also meant somewhere around 1.7 million acre-feet less water was released from Hoover Dam per year.
Those efforts to weather the drought have revealed a Catch-22. For decades, water use contributed to the decline in the riverโs native species. Now, though, using less water potentially harms the environment, because as that conserved water is stored in Lake Mead, less water flows down the lower Colorado River, potentially amplifying damage to habitat.
โWe are in this strange paradox where folks doing the right thing for the system and leaving water behind (in Lake Mead) could potentially have an impact on the river channel,โ Neuwerth said. โSo weโre balancing those two things and trying to avoid getting caught in a situation where weโre penalized for saving water.โ
The 2019 and 2024 drought-protection strategies forced the Bureau of Reclamation to initiate two rounds of โreconsultation,โ a process under which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reviews any new federal actions that may harm endangered species or their habitat. In response, the Fish and Wildlife Service issued a pair of biological opinions that required the MSCP to create another 180 acres of marsh and backwater habitat to offset the potential loss of habitat caused by the reduced flows.
Uncertain Future Federal Role
Questions about water availability, funding and regulatory oversight may only sharpen in the future. The change in presidential administration earlier this year has already raised uncertainty about the federal governmentโs role going forward.
In March, the Bureau of Reclamation declined comment for this story โdue to our on-going mission requirements, the increased workload to accommodate the new administrationโs priorities and awaiting the appointment of the new Reclamation Commissioner and their direction.โ The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also declined comment, using nearly identical language.
The lowland leopard frog, one of the species covered by the MSCP. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation)
Itโs indisputable that the federal government has played a critical role in the success of the MSCP โ and its role in assuring reliable water supplies for some 27 million people in the riverโs Lower Basin states.
โWhen (the non-federal participants) were originally talking about putting together the program, they were considering whether to hire a third party to do the work. But instead, we have Reclamation as the implementing agency, and their workers are the ones that build the habitats and maintain them,โ said Neuwerth. โThatโs really helped us keep the cost down. And I think it just makes a lot of sense to have one of the parties to the MSCP responsible for the actual on-the-ground work.โ
The Trump administration has already signaled its intent to rescind at least parts of both the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). On April 16, it proposed a rule that would strip federal protections for habitat needed by threatened and endangered species to survive. Fully repealing the ESA and NEPA would take an act of Congress, but if that were to happen it would gut the primary drivers behind the creation of the MSCP.
Yet even if federal environmental and endangered species-protection laws were gutted, Californiaโs Endangered Species and Environmental Quality acts (known as CESA and CEQA) โ which are even more stringent than their federal equivalents โ would almost certainly remain in place.
Under California law, โthe California permittees have made certain commitments. If there was no more ESA and there was no more MSCP, those commitments would still exist,โ said Neuwerth. โItโs tough to know exactly how it would all shake out, but I think CESA and CEQA provide a backstop in California that wouldnโt go away if the MSCP did.โ
The Southwestern willow flycatcher, listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (Source: USFWS)
While Arizona and Nevada arenโt subject to similar state requirements, they may not be willing to step away from the program, either. Water agencies would face tremendous uncertainty in their long-term planning with a federal abandonment of the ESA and NEPA and the drawn-out legal challenges sure to follow โ to say nothing of the fact that the MSCP, as originally agreed to by the participants, would still have a quarter-century left to run after the end of the current presidential administration.
โWith the agreements we have in place, I donโt know that it would be all that easy for any administration to reel that back,โ Harris said. โThis program works, and it works well. It gives the feds what they need to be able to optimize their management flexibility for the entire Colorado River system โ and particularly from Glen Canyon Dam downstream. And from a federal perspective, I think thatโs got to be hugely important.โ
โHaving that environmental regulatory compliance package in place,โ he added, โgives all the stakeholders โ whether itโs the agricultural water users, the municipal water users or the federal agencies operating the system โ a pretty significant measure of reliability and certainty for future operations.โ
Regardless of what happens on the regulatory front, the MSCPโs participants are already contemplating potential big changes in how the Colorado River will be managed over roughly the next two decades. The current set of guidelines governing Colorado River operations expires next year, so states and the federal government are scrambling to agree on a new set of post-2026 operating guidelines.
That negotiation has proven particularly contentious and nearly broke down last year, so itโs far from clear what the final guidelines might look like โ but they are nearly certain to include at least an additional 1 million acre-foot per year reduction in river flows below Hoover Dam. Regardless of what the exact numbers are, the MSCPโs steering committee is already anticipating the need to initiate a third, much more significant round of reconsultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Sunrise at the Laguna Division Conservation Area near Yuma, Arizona, where Reclamation has worked on riparian and marsh restoration as part of the Lower Colorado River MSCP. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation)
The 2022 and 2024 biological opinions gave MSCP participants โa pretty wide band of coverageโ through 2028, but โthatโs sort of a short-term patch,โ said Neuwerth.
โWeโd like to make sure that the umbrella going forward is big enough to cover us through 2055, so that requires a little bit of crystal-ball reading of what could be coming down the line,โ she said. โWeโre also struggling with the effects of climate change reducing the amount of water thatโs available, and what does it look like for a recovery program to navigate through that?โ
Despite the uncertainty over the programโs future, Neuwerth said the MSCP has already proven its worth. โWeโve seen over the past 20 years that weโre all pulling in the same direction.โ
Now, at a time when tensions over future operations on the Colorado River are exceptionally high, MSCP โhas provided us a lot of certainty, and itโs allowed us breathing room to do things like (water conservation and drought management) without having to scramble to put together compliance every time something new is happening on the river,โ she said. โThatโs really helped provide stability on the Lower Colorado River, and itโs one less thing to fight over if weโre making changes.โ
Matt Jenkins. Photo credit: Water Education Foundation
In the past an inland sea covered the area of the North Fork of the Gunnison River. Screenshot from The Creation of the Night Owl Forest
A heartwarming story about a love of place and mimicking natural processes to create new life on a small uplands farm outside Paonia, Colorado. Using agroforestry, hugelkultur, and careful observation this short film shows how one woman’s inspiration becomes the Night Owl Food Forest. Thanks to LOR Foundation for making this film possible.
Late-night seeding at Anna Jones-Crabtree’s farm near Havre, Montana. After making plans for the season ahead, she discovered that the federal government froze half of a $100,000 grant the farm was expecting.Courtesy of Anna Jones-Crabtree/Vilicus Farms
Anna Jones-Crabtree and her husband spend sunup to sundown โ plus hours of time before and after โ nurturing 20 crops through tight margins on their dryland organic farm in Montana. Federal grants have long helped ease those tight margins, enabling farmers like Jones-Crabtree to survive and even thrive despite droughts and fires, market swings and crop failures. Itโs the fruit of a philosophy that stewarding large tracts of land benefits not just a country with 340 million hungry bellies and a global food economy but also the clean air and water that people depend on as well as the land wildlife needs to survive.
Other Department of Agriculture money still seemed to be coming through, but she was counting on that $50,000, just like thousands of other farmers and ranchers across the West have been counting on the billions promised through various programs from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But now the Trump administration is trying to end many of these grants using a tool supposedly designed for efficiency that has also caused unpleasant side effects and cost thousands of American jobs.
โWeโre in a tight spot. Combine that with the markets right now,โ she said, โand this is unprecedented. Itโs a perfect storm.โ
The damage done to farmers and ranchers by grants frozen or ended by the Department of Government Efficiency is compounded by the loss of local staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Farm Services Administration (FSA) offices that have traditionally provided on-the-ground support for projects. In fact, the USDA announced Monday that it plans to cancel its grants for the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, though it may approve some of them if they meet the administrationโs priorities.
More than 5,700 probationary employees at the USDA were fired in February, according to Mary Pletcher Rice, an Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary that oversees human resources at the agency. And while Rice testified that they were reinstated following a court order in March, many of the workers say that theyโre still on administrative leave or have taken early retirement or buyouts, while others are anticipating further dramatic reductions in force. One FSA office in Montana where rancher Bill Milton lives, went from five staff to one. Other offices around the rural West shuttered completely. The changes are creating a โdisturbing amount of uncertainty,โ Milton said. The office helps Montana landowners identify grants and file critical paperwork so money funnels into on-the-ground projects. Without enough employees around, deadlines are missed, and farmers are left out to dry.
Milton runs a 15,000-acre ranch in rural Musselshell County. He also works with community-based landowner groups seeking solutions to common problems โ helping young ranchers access land as well as building sustainable ranches and solving watershed issues. Some groups in Montana have had grants of up to $4 million frozen.
โThe squeaky wheel gets the grease, so people are putting pressure on their congressmen to release signed grants,โ he said. โBut everyone has staff. And as soon as grants get frozen, they have cash-flow issues.โ
He and other Western producers acknowledge that there are certainly ways to make the government more efficient. But there is nothing particularly efficient about withholding money needed for repairing fences, hiring agricultural workers or building drought resilience in farms across the Western U.S.
โYouโre cutting things on the wrong end here,โ said Traci Bruckner, chief policy officer for the Western Landowners Alliance. Federally supported local partnerships are, she said, โhow you do conservation right โ from the ground up.โ
And the need is as great now as itโs ever been, said Robert Bonnie, former undersecretary of Agriculture for farm production and conservation under President Joe Biden. When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, it committed nearly $20 billion to agriculture and forestry. While the branding dubbed it โclimate smart agriculture,โ most of the programs involved things that farmers, ranchers, and foresters had been doing for decades through the Farm Bill.
โItโs soil health, improving grazing management, improved forest management to reduce nitrogen,โ Bonnie said. โItโs reducing chances of catastrophic wildfires. And thereโs a huge demand for it.โ
Applications poured in from farmers, ranchers and working groups โ so many, in fact, that within the first three years the federal government had committed all of the IRA money. But billions have yet to be paid. States like Utah are still owed $210 million between now and 2031, according to the University of Illinoisโs Policy Design Lab. Washington is supposed to receive about $304 million, while Montana was set to see even more come through in the form of programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives and Conservation Stewardship programs.
In addition to local grants to improve fencing or build pivots, those dollars were also headed to programs like the USDA Migratory Big Game Initiative, which has supported private-land restoration and paid for easements to keep such land intact for wildlife, including elk, deer and pronghorn.
Federally supported local programs may have seemed like a given, but landowners havenโt always trusted the federal government to follow through on its promises, said Maggie Hanna, a Colorado Springs, Colorado, rancher and director of the Central Grasslands Roadmap Initiative, a 700-million-acre collaborative working on grasslands conservation. And thatโs why sheโs even more concerned.ย
โTo have a producer say, โI would like you, the federal government, to come to the table to be my partnerโ is a big deal, and weโve spent 40 years building that trust,โ Hanna said. โAnd whether or not dollars come out of that scenario now, that trust feels deeply and dramatically eroded.โ
Sheโs a farmer, though, and an eternal optimist. And so she wonders if perhaps pulling the rug out from under producers could ultimately help farmers and ranchers coalesce more and work together, teaching each other how to build fences or use rotational grazing. She doesnโt want to sound โPollyanna-ish,โ she said, but the possibility serves as a light for her in a West darkened by uncertainty.
Meanwhile, calves are being born and seeds being planted even as producers from New Mexico to Washington struggle with the fallout from the economic losses and uncertainty caused by Trumpโs new tariffs.
โThereโs a lot of fear and a lot of stress. Ranching and farming are difficult even when farming is going well,โ Milton said. โBut the most important point Iโm making to people and each other is donโt just wait and see what the hell will happen. Letโs let those who are in rural communities keep doing good, collaborative work. The last thing you want to do is shut that down.โ
Dozens of small towns in Colorado have banded together to protest new wastewater treatment permits that are designed to protect state rivers and streams, saying they contain new rules that are too costly to implement and they havenโt had time to make the necessary changes to comply.
The controversy comes as climate change and drought reduce stream flows and cause water temperatures to rise, and as population growth increases the amount of wastewater being discharged to Coloradoโs rivers.
In response to the townsโ concerns, the water quality control division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has taken the unusual step of holding off on taking enforcement action against at least some of the towns that say they canโt comply with the new regulations. It issued notice of its decision March 24.
โSome smaller communities have faced real technical and financial challenges meeting these new requirements,โ CDPHE spokesman John Michael said in an email. โIn response, we issued a temporary enforcement discretion memo to give systems time to work through compliance barriers without immediate penalties.โ
Now Colorado lawmakers who represent the Eastern Plains have drafted a bill designed to help small communities cope with the new regulatory requirements by extending the time they have to build or upgrade new plants and raise the money to pay for them.
The issue came to a head last month. Akron Town Manager Gillian Laycock, whose town is trying to comply with its new permit, invited dozens of communities facing the same issues to attend a special meeting. Representatives from 64 towns attended along with lawmakers, Laycock said.
But problems have been brewing for years. The water quality control division has been battling a large backlog in wastewater discharge permits, meaning small towns have been allowed to operate their plants under old rules as they waited for their new permits to arrive. Laycock said Akron had been waiting for its new permit for at least eight years.
โWe knew something was coming,โ she said, โbut this has been a shock.โ
In recent years, lawmakers have given the division more money to hire additional people so that the backlog can be reduced and more towns can come into compliance with the new standards.
But Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Republican from Brighton, and Sen. Byron Pelton, a Republican from Sterling, said they are frustrated that the more than $2 million spent to address the problem isnโt helping.
โI told the CDPHE if they continue down this road, the folks out in the rural areas are about ready to tell them to pound sand,โ Pelton said. โThatโs how stressful itโs been for these small municipalities. The regulations just keep coming at them.โ
Under the federal Clean Water Act, entities that discharge fluids into streams, including wastewater treatment plants and factories, must get approval from state water quality regulators to ensure what theyโre putting into the waterways does not harm them.
Towns and water districts can receive either a general permit, which has standard terms and conditions, or individual permits, which take much longer to process, are typically more expensive and are often used by large systems in cities such as Denver.
The general permits were finalized in 2022 to help small towns comply with the stricter regulations quickly and at less cost, said Michael, the CDPHE spokesperson. But many havenโt been issued because of the backlog.
Akron finally received its new permit last October, Laycock said. But the town was unprepared for the strict new limits on what and how much can be discharged, the tight timelines to comply and the costs.
Once the new permit was issued, Laycock said, its old permit expired almost immediately, leaving the town out of compliance with the new regulations, exposing them to potential legal issues and fines.
The regulatory shock is understandable, but could have been avoided, according to Meg Parish, an attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit focused on enforcing air and water pollution regulations. She previously worked for the stateโs water quality control division and helped develop the new general permit that is causing current concerns.
โSome of these towns have really old permits,โ Parish said. Theyโve been allowed to continue discharging under a special administrative permit. In the interim, strict new standards have taken effect.
But she said the new rules shouldnโt have come as a surprise to anyone.
She said the new general permit was finalized after months of public work sessions and outreach meetings.
โWe invited every small discharger in the state to participate. All the terms are on the stateโs websiteโฆ.it literally says โif your (wastewater discharge) flow is this much, this is what your limit is going to be. There is no mystery.โ
But Adam Sommers, an environmental engineer who has several clients trying to obtain new permits, said the process is cumbersome and expensive.
โEach permitting activity has a 180-day review period and if changes are needed, the clock starts over,โ he said in an email.
โThis frequently adds years to the schedule,โ Sommers said. โThe estimates engineers create are time sensitive. If years have passed between when they prepare the budget and when the project is constructed, they face affordability issues.โ
Sens. Kirkmeyer and Pelton are working on a bill that will be introduced shortly forcing the CDPHE to give the towns more time to comply and help them address the financial challenges of the new regulations. It will also set strict deadlines on the permitting process, according to the latest draft of the bill. Kirkmeyer said the CDPHE has been helping with the new legislation.
Kirkmeyer said she was taking the unusual step of running the bill through the Joint Budget Committee because it approves the budget for the water quality control division and she wanted to send a strong message to the regulators.
โI want them to know we are serious about this,โ she said.
Looking ahead, as water quality continues to deteriorate, treatment standards will continue to tighten, Parish said.
โOne of the key realities is that wastewater treatment plants need to upgrade their plants and do better, and pollute less,โ Parish said.
Laycock, the Akron town manager, said she understands the urgency of the problem but she said the stateโs approach needs work.
โWe are agricultural people and we love our land, but how do we as a town afford to meet these requirements? I understand what they are trying to do. But this is not the way to do it.โ
The 40 million or so people who rely on the Colorado River for drinking, bathing, irrigating, cooling data centers or power plants, or filling their swimming pools with have a problem.ย The amount of water being pulled out of the river for all of this stuff exceeds the amount of water thatโs actually in the river โ at least during most years in the last couple decades. And on the rare exception that supply exceeds demand, the surplus does little to dent the deficit, resulting in perennially low reservoir levels and chronically high water-manager stress levels.
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
There is exactly one way out of this mess: The collective users simply need to use less.
Yet while the solution may be simple, itโs not exactly easy to carry out. Thatโs in part because people keep moving to the region, increasing demand. Plus, as the climate warms, we need more water to keep the crops or the grass or ourselves from drying up, making cutting consumption difficult and even dangerous.
An even bigger obstacle to reducing use is the societal urge to try to solve problems by consuming more, building more, and doing more (see the rise of the โAbundanceโ movement among American liberals). Using less goes directly against that urge (see Trumpโs recent executive order titled:ย Maintaining Acceptable Water Pressure in Showerheads). That inclination drives the slew of schemes to try to produce more water, whether its by building dams, throwing dynamite into the sky, seeding clouds, desalinating seawater, or draining the Great Lakes and piping the water across the nation and over mountains to water Palm Springs golf courses. While itโs true that dams have given folks a bit more time to find a solution, building more of them now โ with the exception of stormwater capture basins โ wonโt do any good (since even existing reservoirs are far from full).
But there is one thing we can do more of to help us consume less: recycling. While the idea of recycling water inspires turn-off terms like โtoilet to tap,โ the practice is actually quite common in the Colorado River states. (And, really, if you live downstream from any other community, you are probably drinking the upstream townsโ recycled wastewater, though that isnโt counted as recycling, per se.)
A new report out of UCLAโs Institute of the Environment & Sustainability gives the rundown on wastewater recycling in the Colorado River Basin, and reveals that Arizona and Nevada are way ahead of the Upper Basin when it comes to reusing water, yet still have room for improvement. And it finds that if all of the Colorado River states aside from Arizona and Nevada were to increase wastewater reuse by 50%, they would free up some 1.3 million acre-feet of water per year, which is about one-third of the way to the 4 million acre-feet of cuts deemed necessary.
To be clear, not all water recycling is โtoilet to tap.โ In fact, most is not. In Las Vegas, for example, treated effluent is used to irrigate golf courses, and itโs also returned back to Lake Mead, which is then credited against Nevadaโs water allotment. And in Arizona, treated wastewater from the Phoenix-area is used for steam production and cooling at the Palo Verde nuclear plant (which evaporates a whopping 45,000 gallons of water per minute), and treated effluent is used to โrechargeโ groundwater aquifers (eventually ending up in taps).
While recycled water can be used to irrigate crops, you canโt really recycle irrigation water. That fact, in a way, is why Nevada is the leader in Colorado River water-recycling: Almost all of its allocation from the river goes to the Las Vegas metro area for public supply/domestic use, with virtually none of it going to irrigate crops. That means most of the water eventually goes into the sewer system, making it available for recycling. And that, in turn, makes it easier to slash water use in cities than on farms, further throwing off the balance between agricultural use and municipal use, and putting more pressure on farmers to either sell out or become more efficient, which has. Its own drawbacks.
Water recycling can have unintended side effects, too. While itโs nice that Palo Verde doesnโt rely on freshwater, the 72,000 acre-feet of recycled water it uses per year all evaporates โ it is a zero water-discharge plant โ meaning it does not soak into aquifers or otherwise benefit ecosystems, as it would if it were used to water parks or was discharged back into the Gila River. And, water treatment is highly energy-intensive, so the more water you want to recycle, the more power youโll need.
Ultimately, using less water in the first place is going to be necessary. But recycling what we do use could help.
Senator Beck Basin on March 31. This is near Red Mountain Pass, one of the few SNOTEL sites in the San Juan Mountains that had a near normal snowpack on April 1. Andy Gleason photo.
โ๏ธ Wacky Weather Watchโก๏ธ
In the days following my April 1 snowpack update, the snowpack updated itself, with a nice storm bolstering snow water equivalent levels by up to two inches in some places. But it was closely followed by an unusually warm spell, which erased all of the gains and then some. What that means is a relatively paltry spring runoff for many of the Upper Colorado River Basin streams, with water levels likely peaking earlier and at lower levels than in 2021. How much earlier and lower depends on how warm or cool (and dry or wet) the rest of the spring is, but at this point itโs safe to say it wonโt be a big water year for irrigators or boaters.
Iโm especially worried about the Upper San Juan River and the Rio Grande, both of which have their headwaters in the southeast San Juan Mountains, which are running close to empty, snow-wise. Yes, Wolf Creek got pounded by the April 6-9 storms, but it has also experienced some abnormally high average temperatures over the last several days โ the average temperature in the Rio Grande Headwaters on April 12 was 45.5ยฐ F, compared to the median for that date of 32ยฐ. If that continues, what little snow is left will mostly be gone within weeks.
Meanwhile, the high temperature in Tucson and Phoenix, neither of which have received more than a hint of precipitation during the last eight months, exceeded 100ยฐ F on April 11, setting new daily records and further desiccating the soil.
It may seem a bit early, but I think itโs time to start predicting peak runoffs for Four Corners area rivers. Iโll start with the Animas, which Iโm pessimistically predicting will peak on May 17 at 2,950 cubic-feet per-second, based on previous yearsโ snowpacks and peak runoffs. I say โpessimisticโ because if Iโm right, it would only be the fourth time this century that the Animas peaked below 3,000 cfs. Hereโs hoping Iโm wrong.
Waste rock from the Sunday Mine Complex near Slick Rock, Colorado. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
โ๏ธ Mining Monitor โ๏ธ
Is the uranium mining renaissance upon us?ย I donโt think so. But the industryโs zombified carcass is beginning to twitch โ figuratively speaking, of course. The stirrings include:
A couple of weeks ago, the Energy Information Administration crowed that U.S. uranium production last year was theย highest in six years. That sounds huge, right? Really, itโs not: Production was virtually zero from 2019 to 2023, making last yearโs total of 676,939 pounds look pretty good. But as recently as 2014 โ which was not boom times, by any means โ production was nearly 5 million pounds. The big 2024 producers were in-situ recovery operations in Wyoming and Texas, as well as Energy Fuelsโ White Mesa Mill in southeastern Utah. It should be noted, however, that the White Mesa Millโs production was not from the companyโs mines, but from its โalternate feed program,โ which is to say it extracted uranium from other folksโ waste streams.
Energy Fuels is now producing ore at its Pinyon Plain Mine near the Grand Canyon and hauling it by truck across the Navajo Nation to the White Mesa Mill. The company says it plans on beginning production and shipment at its La Sal and Pandora Mines as well. This represents the first conventional ore production in the U.S. in years.
Western Uranium & Vanadium says Energy Fuels has agreed toย purchase up to 25,000 short tons of uranium oreย from WU&Vโs Sunday Mine complex near Slick Rock, Colorado, in the Uravan Uranium Belt. They plan to begin shipping later this year.
Meanwhile, there is plenty of noise around a potential nuclear renaissance, as tech giants look to promised advanced and small modular reactors to power their electricity-guzzling data centers. But there are no reactors yet. Iย tallied some of that talk for High Country News.
๐ธย Parting Shotย ๐๏ธ
McElmo Car. Jonathan P. Thompson photo-illustration.
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.com website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
April 18, 2025
Key Points
The Trump administration put Resolution Copper’s proposed mine at Oak Flat on a priority list with nine other mining projects, declaring they were vital to the nation’s security.
A day earlier, the administration announced it would re-issue an environmental impact statement required to finish a land swap that would allow the mine’s construction.
Tribes and environmentalists say Trump has clearly decided not to wait for court rulings on the project, putting the sacred site in greater jeopardy.
The Trump administration has now put the Oak Flat copper mine on the fast track for permit approval, a day after moving to push ahead with a land swap. A federal agency that oversees and supports permits for public lands projects addedย Resolution Copper‘s proposed mine east of Phoenix to a new priority list on April 18, along with nine other mining projects. It is part of the administration’s push to increase domestic production of critical minerals through anย executive order issued March 20. The list was posted in the wake of anย announcementย by the U.S. government on April 17 that it would reissue the final environmental impact statement, clearing the way to transfer ownership of Oak Flat, a site considered sacred to Apache and other Native peoples, to Resolution Copper no earlier than June 17…
A petition attempting to stop the land swap is awaiting action at the U.S. Supreme Court. It was filed by grassroots group Apache Stronghold as part of ongoing litigation to stop the mine from turning Oak Flat into a huge crater through its mining process. The Becketย Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing Apache Stronghold,ย filed a letterย April 18 with the Supreme Court calling for the high court to move quickly to accept Apache Stronghold’s case…The latest order put Oak Flat and nine other mining projects โ including the McDermitt and Silver Peak lithium mines in Nevada; the Stibnite open-pit gold mine in Idaho; and the Lisbon Valley copper mine in Utah โ on a faster schedule.
The fate of Arizonaโs proposed Resolution Copper mine rested with the federal courts, but the administration announced Thursday it would move to approve the project before their rulings.
The Trump administration on Wednesday signaled it intends to approve a land transfer that will allow a foreign company to mine a sacred Indigenous site in Arizona, where local tribes and environmentalists have fought the project for decades and before federal courts rule on lawsuits over the project.
Western Apache have gathered at Oak Flat, or Chiโchil Biลdagoteel in Apache, since time immemorial for sacred ceremonies that cannot be held anywhere else, as tribal beliefs are inextricably tied to the land. The tribe believes the landscape located outside present-day Superior, Arizona, is a direct corridor to the Creator, where Gaanโcalled spirit dancers in English, and akin to angelsโreside. The site allows the Western Apache to connect to their religion, history, culture and environment, tribal members told Inside Climate News.
But beneath the ground at the site of Oak Flat lies one of the worldโs largest untapped copper deposits. Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of two of the biggest mining companies in the world, Rio Tinto and BHP, has worked for decades to gain access to the location to utilize whatโs called โblock cave mining.โ
The method, used to access low-grade ore, requires undermining the surface of the land so it collapses under its own weight to reveal the copper. At some point, the proposed mine would create an open pit 1.8 miles wide and 1,000 feet deep, big enough to fit the Eiffel Tower and nearly as large as the local town, according to environmental review documents for the project.
Three lawsuits against the project are still working their way through the courts. Apache Stronghold v. United States, decided by a federal appeals court in favor of the mine, was appealed by plaintiffs more than a year ago to the Supreme Court, which has not yet decided whether to take it up. That case argues the destruction of Oak Flat violates the Apacheโs religious freedom, and is a threat to other religions.
The other two cases are awaiting the Supreme Court decision before they advance through the federal court system.
Environmentalists, local opponents and members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe lambasted the administrationโs decision to move forward without a ruling from the court.
โThe U.S. government is rushing to give away our spiritual home before the courts can even ruleโjust like itโs rushed to erase Native people for generations,โ Wendsler Nosie Sr. of Apache Stronghold, the religious group leading the fight against the mine, and former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, said in a statement. โThis is the same violent pattern we have seen for centuries. We urge the Supreme Court to protect our spiritual lifeblood and give our sacred site the same protection given to the holiest churches, mosques, and synagogues throughout this country.โ
The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Thursdayโs decision to move forward with the Resolution Copper mine is the latest in the Trump administrationโs efforts to boost the U.S. domestic mining industry as part of its โenergy dominanceโ agenda.
Already this year, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to streamline the permitting of mines across the country and make mineral extraction the top use of public lands that hold needed minerals. All mining projects for copper, uranium, potash, gold and any critical mineral, element, compound or material identified by the chair of the new National Energy Dominance Council are included under the order. One public comment period regarding an exploration plan for a lithium mine was already drastically reduced, but a fierce pushback from the public prompted an extension.
Mine Will Bring โDevastation and Pollution,โ Opponents Say
The news about the mine came in legal filings for the three court cases and on the U.S. Forest Serviceโs website for the project, which states that it intends to publish the final environmental impact statement and a draft decision for the land transfer and mine within 60 days.
The filing said that if the Supreme Court declines to hear the religious freedom case, federal authorities will move forward with approval of the project. If the court hears the case and rules against the federal approval, the government will reevaluate how to proceed, it says.
โThe feds are barreling ahead to give Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, even as the Supreme Court considers whether to hear the case,โ Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing Apache Stronghold in its case, said in a statement. โThis makes the stakes crystal clear: if the Court doesnโt act now, Oak Flat could be transferred and destroyed before justice can be served.โ
Minerals like copper are critical to everything from transmission lines to batteries for electric vehicles. And mines for such minerals can bring coveted jobs to rural regions. But they often destroy local lands and waters.
The federal governmentโs initial environmental impact statement for Resolution Copperโs mine concludes that the project will destroy sacred oak groves, sacred springs and burial sites, resulting in what โwould be an indescribable hardship to those peoples.โ It would also use as much water each year as the city of Tempe, home to Arizona State University and 185,000 people. It would pull water from the same tapped-out aquifer the Phoenix metro area relies on, where Arizona has prohibited any more extraction except for exempted uses like mines.
The proposed mine would also leave behind a 500-foot-tall pile of mine tailings filled with 1.5 billion tons of toxic waste that would have to be constantly maintained to prevent the contamination from spreading.
Though Superior town leaders have backed the mine, not every local is supportive of it. Henry Muรฑoz, a lifelong miner who worked at the townโs previous copper mine until it shut down and is now the chairman of the Concerned Citizens and Retired Miners Coalition, said the administrationโs decision is premature but that โmoney talks in Washington.โ
Henry Muรฑoz, a former miner and resident of Superior, Arizona, overlooks a portion of Oak Flatโpart of Tonto National Forest and a sacred site for the San Carlos Apache. Credit: Wyatt Myskow/Inside Climate News
One of the National Mining Associationโs top priorities has been moving the stalled project forward.
โRio Tinto and BHP, they have billions and billions of dollars,โ Muรฑoz said. โThey couldnโt care less about the environment, about the health and safety of people. Money is the motivator.โ
In a statement, Vicky Peacey, general manager at Resolution Copper, said the company was โencouraged to hearโ the Forest Service was proceeding with the project.
โThis world-class mining project has the potential to become one of the largest copper mines in America, adding up to $1 billion a year to Arizonaโs economy and creating thousands of local jobs in a region of rural Arizona where mining has played an important role for more than a century,โ she said. โA decade of feedback from local communities and Native American Tribes has shaped this project every step of the way, and we remain committed to maintaining an open dialogue to ensure the Resolution Copper project moves forward responsibly and sustainably as we transition into the next phase of the permitting process.โ
All of the projectโs impacts, Muรฑoz said, are out in the open, available for the public to read in the hundreds of pages of permitting documents. He likened Resolution Copperโs public messaging of the project to the Devil telling someone not to read the Bible, as it would change how they felt about him. In this case, he said, the public would realize the project is not in the best interest of Americans.
โTheyโre talking a 40-year mine life,โ Muรฑoz said, questioning what will happen to Superior after that time. โWeโre going to be like all the other former mining towns. Weโre going to have that big old toxic toilet on the hill. Weโre going to have that big waste dump, and then weโre going to end up wasting 250 billion gallons of water that was meant for the American taxpayer, for the benefit of two foreign mining companies. Thereโs nothing good for us in this project that I can see. Nothing but temporary jobs. But at the end, devastation and pollution.โ
A Decades-Long Fight
Since the 1950s, Oak Flat has been under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service and listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Legislators for years pushed to have the land made available for mining via a land transfer, where a company typically offers up environmentally important land it owns in exchange for lands better suited for extraction but unavailable for development.
Each attempt failed until 2014, when the late Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake attached a last-minute rider to that yearโs defense bill that required Oak Flat to be transferred to Resolution Copper. The transfer launched one of the countryโs most controversial and high-profile environmental fights, with the San Carlos Apache and environmentalists fighting to stop the transfer and save the sacred land.
The land Resolution Copper would exchange for Oak Flat includes an old-growth mesquite forest located in southern Arizonaโs San Pedro Valley, near the town of Mammoth. Although that 3,000-acre site is treasured by birders, critics of the transfer say the site is not enough to compensate for the loss of Oak Flat, which is also habitat for multiple species listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Outside the town of Mammoth, Arizona, is the site of a mesquite forest owned by the mining company Resolution Copper. The forest is the centerpiece of the companyโs land exchange with the federal government to acquire land outside the town of Superior for a controversial mine that would destroy a sacred site for the Western Apache. Credit: Wyatt Myskow/Inside Climate News
Outside the town of Mammoth, Arizona, is the site of a mesquite forest owned by the mining company Resolution Copper. The forest is the centerpiece of the companyโs land exchange with the federal government to acquire land outside the town of Superior for a controversial mine that would destroy a sacred site for the Western Apache. Credit: Wyatt Myskow/Inside Climate News
The two other lawsuits over the mine that will go through the court system after the Apache Stronghold case reaches its final resolution include one from the San Carlos Apache tribe itself that argues, under a treaty between the tribe and the U.S. government, the land still belongs to the Apache tribe.
The other lawsuit, filed by the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club and the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona, alleged the Forest Service failed to analyze and mitigate the proposed mineโs potential damage to the environment and failed to comply with multiple laws and regulations.
โOnce we destroy this,โ Muรฑoz asked of Oak Flat, โwhat do we have left?โ
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
Working without fanfare, federal scientists at 22 U.S. sites maintain the nation’s agricultural plant species collected since 1898, including crops native to New Mexico. But the Trump administration’s DOGE agency has fired them. The move creates uncertainly for hundreds of crop species that undergird the country’s food system. The U.S. Nationalย ย Plantย Germplasm Systemย safeguards the genetic diversity of agriculturally importantย ย plants. Iago Hale, associate professor of specialty crop improvement at the University of New Hampshire, said the potential loss of these “seed bunkers” should alarm every American.
“If you subsist totally on chicken nuggets and KFC, that’s fine – understand that that comes back to plants grown in the field. The breading on your fried chicken, the French fries that you’re eating – these are all products of crops, and this is how it works,” Iago Hale said.
Hale said the NPGS is central to the nation’s preparedness, because the food system is only as safe as our ability to respond to the next plant disease. Unless dormant seeds are continually cared for and periodically replanted, Hale noted the lines will die, along with their evolutionary history. Hale said potatoes, the fourth-largest crop, require even more care than wheat or corn.
Water from the Colorado River irrigates farmland in the Grand Valley. The state of Colorado is looking into how to fund a program that would pay irrigators to reduce their consumptive use in order to send water downstream to a savings account in Lake Powell.Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
Abby Ortega will represent El Paso County and Mike Bartolo will represent Otero County on the 15-member Board. Returning directors who were sworn in include Matt Heimerich, Crowley County; Greg Felt, Chaffee County; Andy Colosimo, El Paso County; and Seth Clayton, Pueblo County. Terms are for four years. Ortega will fill the term for the seat held by Mark Pifher, who retired in December. The term expires in 2028. Bartolo will take over the seat held by Howard โBubโ Miller, who was recognized for 20 years of service to the Board by President Bill Long at Thursdayโs meeting.
Ortega is a Fremont County native who is General Manager of Infrastructure and Resource Planning for Colorado Springs Utilities, where she manages resources for gas, electricity, wastewater and water services. She has worked at CS-U since 2003 and held various positions in the water resources area.
She holds a bachelorโs degree from Colorado State University-Fort Collins and is a licensed professional engineer. She has served on the Colorado River Energy Distributors Board, the Fountain Valley Authority Board, the Arkansas Basin Roundtable, Colorado Canal and Twin Lakes Reservoir Co. board and the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area Citizen Task Force.
โFostering relationships across the entire spectrum of issues is crucial for collaborative progress,โ Ortega said. โThe SECWCD is positioned to be a leader in the future of water in the Arkansas River Valley and I would like to be part of that as a Board member. I have a history of working with recreation, as well as farmers and ranchers.โ
She and her husband of 26 years, Gabe Ortega, have three children and live in Fountain.
Mike Bartolo via his LinkeIN page.
Bartolo is a native of Pueblo County and grew up on the St. Charles Mesa. He retired as manager of the Colorado State University Research Center at Rocky Ford in 2023 after more than 30 years. Much of his time since then has been spend advocating for agriculture and developing new strains of peppers. In February 2025, Bartolo was inducted into the Colorado Agricultural Hall of Fame.
He has a PhD in plant physiology from the University of Minnesota, a masterโs degree in horticulture from CSU-Fort Collins, and a bachelor’s degree in bioagricultural science from CSU-Fort Collins. He is a member of the Super Ditch Board, the Hilltop Water Company Board and is active in St. Peterโs Church in Rocky Ford.
โI wanted to join the Southeastern Board from a technical aspect to continue learning about water and a concern for agriculture and the communities that rely on agriculture,โ Bartolo said.
Bartolo and his wife, Kyle, have two grown children and live in the Rocky Ford area.
The Southeastern District includes parts of nine counties and has a 15-member Board. Its major purpose is administration of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project in partnership with the ย Bureau of Reclamation, and their top project currently is construction of the Arkansas Valley Conduit.
Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck):
April 12, 2025
My Utton Center colleague Rin Tara and I spent the day out in the field yesterday, a visit to River Mile 60 at the bottom end of New Mexicoโs Middle Rio Grande.
(Disclosure: We took bikes, but โout in the fieldโ sounds fancier than โon a bike ride.โ)
The trip was fodder for a piece Iโm working on looking at the US Bureau of Reclamationโs Middle Rio Grande river maintenance program carried out under the Flood Control Acts of 1948 and โ50. Or possibly itโs a piece about the flooding in the 1920s that doomed the community of San Marcial. Or maybe its a piece about the remarkable geomorphology of a high sediment load river doing river things.
Or maybe itโs just a piece about a breathtaking expanse of desert with a struggling river valley flowing through its heart. Probably all of those things, which is why, dear readers, that you may not see the piece for a while.
The river, as defined by the presence of water, was barely there. Itโs a weird stretch where sediment built up when it was the delta for the high stands of Elephant Butte Reservoir, a quaint reminder of when we had a lot of water. The river is now cutting back down through the debris, and the whole area is a mess from a human water management perspective.
From the riverโs perspective? Meh, itโs just a river doing river things.
At a time when flows should be rising as a result of melting snow, they are declining as a result of the absence of melting snow. We cut the bike ride shorter than I had planned, because it was hot and I am old. But Iโll be back. Itโs a lovely spot, and I have to figure out what to write.
The recently opened PUR Water facility in Oceanside turns blackwater into potable water, or toilet to tap as it was once called, by pumping it into the ground then filtering it through a warehouse full of white filtration tubes. The colored pipes represent the different types of water at different stages. his facility in Oceanside, California turns recycled water into potable water by running it through filtration tubes. TED WOOD
Click the link to read the article on the Grist website (Matt Simon):
April 11, 2025
If you were to drink improperly recycled toilet water, it could really hurt you โ but probably not in the way youโre thinking. Advanced purification technology so thoroughly cleans wastewater of feces and other contaminants that it also strips out natural minerals, which the treatment facility then has to add back in. If it didnโt, that purified water would imperil you by sucking those minerals out of your body as it moves through your internal plumbing.
So if itโs perfectly safe to consume recycled toilet water, why arenโt Americans living in parched western states drinking more of it? A new report from researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Natural Resources Defense Council finds that seven western states that rely on the Colorado River are on average recycling just a quarter of their water, even as they fight each other and Indigenous tribes for access to the river amid worsening droughts. Populations are also booming in the Southwest, meaning thereโs less water for more people.
The report finds that states are recycling wildly different proportions of their water. On the high end, Nevada reuses 85 percent, followed by Arizona at 52 percent. But other states lag far behind, including California (22 percent) and New Mexico (18 percent), with Colorado and Wyoming at less than 4 percent and Utah recycling next to nothing.
โOverall, we are not doing nearly enough to develop wastewater recycling in the seven states that are part of the Colorado River Basin,โ said Noah Garrison, a water researcher at UCLA and co-author of the report. โWeโre going to have a 2 million to 4 million acre-foot per year shortage in the amount of water that weโve promised to be delivered from the Colorado River.โ (An acre-foot is what it would take to cover an acre of land in a foot of water, equal to 326,000 gallons.)
The report found that if the states other than high-achieving Nevada and Arizona increased their wastewater reuse to 50 percent, theyโd boost water availability by 1.3 million acre-feet every year. Experts think that itโs not a question of whether states need to reuse more toilet water but how quickly they can build the infrastructure as droughts worsen and populations swell.
At the same time, states need to redouble efforts to reduce their demand for water, experts say. The Southern Nevada Water Authority, for example, provides cash rebates for homeowners to replace their water-demanding lawns with natural landscaping, stocking them with native plants that flourish without sprinklers. Between conserving water and recycling more of it, western states have to renegotiate their relationship with the increasingly precious resource.
โItโs unbelievable to me that people donโt recognize that the answer is: Youโre not going to get more water,โ said John Helly, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who wasnโt involved in the report. โWeโve lulled ourselves into this sense of complacency about the criticality of water and itโs just starting to dawn on people that this is a serious problem.โ
Yet the report notes that states vary significantly in their development and regulation of water recycling. For one, they treat wastewater to varying levels of purity. To get it ultra pure for drinking, human waste and other solids are removed before the water is treated with ozone to kill bacteria and viruses. Next the water is forced through fine membranes to catch other particles. A facility then hits the liquid with UV light, killing off any microbes that might remain, and adds back those missing minerals.
That process is expensive, however, as building a wastewater-treatment facility itself is costly, and it takes a lot of electricity to pump the water hard enough to get it through the filters. Alternatively, some water agencies will treat wastewater and pump the liquid underground into aquifers, where the earth filters it further. To use the water for golf courses and nonedible crops, they treat wastewater less extensively.
Absent guidance from the federal government, every state goes about this differently, with their own regulations for how clean water needs to be for potable or nonpotable use. Nevada, which receives an average of just 10 inches of rainfall a year, has an environmental division that issues permits for water reuse and oversees quality standards, along with a state fund that bankrolls projects. โIt is a costly enterprise, and we really do need to see states and the federal government developing new funding streams or revenue streams in order to develop wastewater treatment,โ Garrison said. โThis is a readily available, permanent supply of water.โ
Wastewater recycling can happen at a much smaller scale, too. A company called Epic Cleantec, based in San Francisco, makes a miniature treatment facility that fits inside high-rises. It pumps recycled water back into the units for non-potable use like filling toilets. While it takes many years to build a large treatment facility, these smaller systems come online in a matter of months and can reuse up to 95 percent of a buildingโs water.
Epic Cleantec says its systems and municipal plants can work in tandem as a sort of distributed network of wastewater recycling. โIn the same way that we do with energy, where itโs not just on-site rooftop solar and large energy plants, itโs both of them together creating a more resilient system,โ said Aaron Tartakovsky, Epic Cleantecโs CEO and co-founder. โTo use a water pun, I think thereโs a lot of untapped potential here.โ
The Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled a decrease in the release from Navajo Dam from 400 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 350 cfs for Friday, April 18th, at 4:00 AM.ย 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).ย 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. ย The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
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.com website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
April 17, 2025
Key Points
In a new court filing, the Trump administration says it will reissue an environmental impact statement that would allow the government to swap land with Resolution Copper at Oak Flat.
The land swap was put on hold during the Biden administration and the case has been working its way through the courts. The Supreme Court is still deliberating whether to hear the case.
Opponents say the court filing demonstrates that Trump doesn’t care about the land or the people who hold it sacred and only wants to hand Resolution Copper what it wants.
The Trump administration plans to reissue the final environmental impact statement for a long-delayed land swap that would hand over Oak Flat, a site considered sacred to Apache peoples and other Native peoples, to a copper mining company no earlier than June 17,ย according to a filing with the U.S. District Court of Arizona. The government issued the notice on April 17 even as the U.S. Supreme Court continues to deliberate over accepting a 4-year-old court case filed by grassroots group Apache Stronghold to prevent the 2,200-acre site from being obliterated by a copper mine. It’s the latest twist in a more than 20-year-old struggle over the fate of Oak Flat, between the Native communities who hold the site sacred and Resolution Copper, which wants access to one of the country’s remaining large copper deposits. For the leaders of the opposition, the court filing confirmed their worst fears.
โThe U.S. government is rushing to give away our spiritual home before the courts can even rule โ just like itโs rushed to erase Native people for generations,โ said Apache Stronghold leader Wendsler Nosie. โThis is the same violent pattern we have seen for centuries. We urge the Supreme Court to protect our spiritual lifeblood and give our sacred site the same protection given to the holiest churches, mosques, and synagogues throughout this country.โ
[…]
Oak Flat, or Chiโchil Biลdagoteel, “the place where the Emory oak grows,” is at the heart of a dispute over what should happen to the land. In December 2014, Congressย authorized the U.S. Forest Service to trade the 2,200-acre site, currently a campground about 60 miles east of Phoenix, for parcels of environmentally sensitive private land owned byย Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of British-Australian mining companiesย Rio Tintoย and BHP…To obtain the copper ore, Resolution would use a method known asย block cave mining, in which tunnels are drilled beneath the ore body, and then collapsed, leaving the ore to be moved to a crushing facility. Eventually, the groundย would subside, leaving behind a crater about 1,000 feet deep and nearly 2 miles across where Oak Flat and its religious and environmental significance stand.ย
In this detailed computer animation, we take a look into the future of Oak Flat, meticulously illustrating the development of subsidence as a result of the block cave mining process over an extensive period of 40 to 50 years. Crafted with transparency and precision, this video is grounded in the findings of multiple technical studies, aiming to provide as realistic a projection as possible of the landscape changes that Oak Flat will undergo. Block cave mining, a method known for its efficiency and low cost, has significant impacts on the terrain above the extraction zone. Through state-of-the-art animation, viewers will gain an understanding of how and why these changes occur, presenting a clear picture of the subsidence process from start to finish. Join us as we explore the intricacies of block cave mining and its effects on Oak Flat, guided by the latest in animation technology and scientific research. Whether you’re a student, a professional in the field, or simply interested in the future of our landscapes, this video is an invaluable resource for grasping the challenges and considerations of modern mining practices. By offering a visual journey through time, we aim to foster a comprehensive understanding of the complexities involved in mining operations and their environmental impacts. Learn more at http://www.resolutioncopper.com
The city of Denver along with Jefferson County, The Mile High Flood District and the city of Wheat Ridge presented options for potential upgrades to the Clear Creek Trail during an open house in early April at Centennial Elementary School.
A section of the trail near Inspiration Point may get an upgrade for people that bike and walk. Currently, trail-users headed west must cross over West 52nd Avenue and then travel down about 1,100 feet of Gray Street, a residential street, before reaching the trail again.
The new plans unveiled at the open house offered five different options for new routes to avoid going down Gray Street, and all of them included under passes or bridges so trail users wonโt have to cross West 52nd Avenue at grade anymore.
All of the options presented include new bridges or underpasses and involve several different routes that meander between Marshall Street and West 53rd Avenue. All of the proposed routes are west of the residences on Gray Street and south of Interstate 76. A study of the trail is expected to be completed in the fall.
At the meeting, residents were given the option to rank the five options and pick their favorites and least favorites. To learn more and give input on the potential routes, people can visitย https://bit.ly/ClearCreekTrail. A current survey is open until April 18.ย [ed. emphasis mine]
View of Denver and Rio Grande (Silverton Branch) Railroad tracks and the Animas River in San Juan County, Colorado; shows the Needle Mountains. Summer, 1911. Denver Public Library Special Collections
Water and environmental groups in southwestern Colorado have not heard a peep from the federal government since their $25.6 million grant got caught up in a widespread funding freeze, officials say.
Southwestern Water Conservation District pulled together a unique collection of partners in 2024 to tap into an immense stack of federal cash for environmental projects in the Colorado River Basin. The partners were โecstaticโ Jan. 17 when they found out their application to fund 17 projects was accepted, Steve Wolff, district manager, said.
Three days later, President Donald Trump paused spending, and the districtโs partnership has been in limbo ever since. Other Colorado groups are in the same boat with millions of dollars of awarded grant funding on the line.
โEverybody had heard that they were going to be looking at the funding โฆ so it was no big surprise,โ Wolff said March 26. โThe confusion was nobody knew what was in or out of all these freezes, or pulled back, at all. We still have not heard officially anything.โ
The Bureau of Reclamation, which awarded the grant, declined to comment and referred questions to its parent agency, the Department of the Interior. Interior did not respond to questions from The Colorado Sun about the fundingโs status.
โUnder President Donald J. Trumpโs leadership, the Department is working to cut bureaucratic waste and ensure taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently,โ an unnamed Interior spokesperson said in an emailed response from the Bureau of Reclamation. โProjects are being individually assessed by period of performance, criticality and other criteria.โ
The uncertainty has impacted a slew of environmental projects across the Upper Colorado River Basin โ Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Under the Biden administration, the Bureau of Reclamation awarded $388.5 million for water and drought-related projects across the Upper Basin on Jan. 17. Of that, Coloradans secured $177 million.
Coloradans wanted to use that money to help fish find shelter when the stateโs rivers are at their lowest. They wanted to help farmers and ranchers have a more reliable water supply by fixing decades-old irrigation ditches. Some projects planned to remove dams or turn wastewater lagoons into wetlands.
Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant back in the days before I-70 via Aspen Journalism
One award for $40 million to help a Western Slope water district buy an old and powerful Colorado River water right tied to the Shoshone Power Plant.
In southwestern Colorado, the organizations that were awarded funding were wondering if they should try to wait it out to see what happens or seek funding elsewhere.
โItโs incredibly stressful,โ said Danyelle Leentjes with the Upper San Juan Watershed Enhancement Partnership. โItโs really hard to move forward in this landscape. Itโs super, super hard.โ
A new collaboration
Southwestern Water Conservation District started pulling together partners in 2023. Staff knew a load of federal funding was coming down the pike, and they wanted to build collaborations so local groups could access it, Wolff said.
โI donโt think the districtโs ever been involved in anything like this before,โ he said.
Water districts, ditch companies, environmental organizations and others often have small staffs in the rural district, which spans nine counties. The groups have little extra time to take on the application or little experience with federal grants. They might not have extra funding to hire a grant writer. Some, like nonprofits, werenโt eligible to apply for the funding without a governmental agency โ like Southwestern โ to manage the money as a fiscal agency.
Southwestern Water Conservation District and its partners identified 17 projects in their federal funding application in fall 2024. The projects aimed to remove blockages from rivers and irrigation ditches to help fish and farmers; stabilize river banks; turn waste lagoons into wetlands and more. (Southwestern Water Conservation District, Contributed)
โWeโd repeatedly seen places where individuals or small groups didnโt have the capacity to work on federal funding or even state funding,โ Wolff said.
So the conservation district stepped in: It asked organizations to add ready-to-go water projects to a centralized list, dubbed the โpipeline.โ About 30 entities joined the effort. The district got grants from the state of Colorado and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership to hire people to organize the process and write the grant application.
Without the grants, the application never would have gotten off the ground, Wolff said.
โThereโs two of us here. Our plates are full,โ he said, referring to the districtโs full-time staff. โWe couldโve never done it.โ
And when the federal funding application finally opened in fall 2024, the partnership could whip together a successful 17-project application for $25.6 million in weeks.
Wolff didnโt think any of the partnering organizations had applied for a grant that size, he said.
โI was ecstatic we got the full award,โ Wolff said. โIt seemed like the previous 18 months of effort had just paid off.โ
Funding uncertainty
The uncertainty for Southwestern, however, is tied to the funding source for their grant: the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act.
The law included $4 billion to mitigate drought and prioritized the Colorado River Basin, the water supply for 40 million people. Of that total, $500 million was for projects that would address drought impacts or cut water use in the Upper Basin.
One executive order, called Unleashing American Energy, paused spending to give federal agencies 90 days to review whether funded projects aligned with the administrationโs energy policies.
Past regulations have been burdensome and impeded the development of the countryโs energy resources, according to the executive order.
That 90-day period ends April 20, but it was unclear Friday whether that deadline is still in effect or applies to the funding awarded to Colorado. Interior and Reclamation did not respond to clarifying questions from The Colorado Sun.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Colorado Republican, has generally supported the efforts to cut spending at the federal level, according to news reports. He did not respond to a request for comment Friday, but he has called for freeing up funding to purchase the historic Shoshone water rights on the Colorado River.
U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, both Colorado Democrats, have advocated for federal funds meant for Colorado to be released.
โSen. Bennet believes President Trumpโs shortsighted cuts to commonsense Colorado projects jeopardize rural communities, agricultural producers, and businesses across the state,โ Bennetโs staff said in a prepared statement. โGrantees should receive the resources that were appropriated by Congress and promised by the Administration to complete their work.โ
In early March, Southwestern and its partners had an open conversation about what to do with the regional director of Bennetโs office, John Whitney.
The strategy at the time, given the bipartisan support for the funding, was to have quiet conversations with Reclamation and Interior, Whitney told the gathering at the Southwestern Water Conservation Districtโs office in Durango.
โThere may come a time when we have to stand up and raise our hand to be the squeaky wheel, to demand the money be released,โ he said. โWe donโt think thatโs where we stand right now. We think an approach of quiet advocacy and outreach is the best.โ
Mancos and the Mesa Verde area from the La Plata Mountains.
Impacts in southwestern Colorado
Members of the Southwestern partnership have stuck to that strategy so far, but the uncertainty has been hard to bear.
The Bureau of Reclamation awarded $2.2 million to the Upper San Juan Watershed Enhancement Partnership for a project that would clear concrete slabs and steel out of an irrigation ditch to help the agricultural community; fix damage to the Upper San Juan River from a landslide; and plant willows and reshape the river channel to help aquatic ecosystems.
โYou canโt really proceed on anything. You can just hope that it goes,โ Leentjes said.
Leentjes is paid to keep these projects moving forward โ and without funding to make that happen, she spent a month wondering if she needed to look for jobs.
San Juan River Basin. Graphic credit Wikipedia.
It is also one of the first big projects for the Upper San Juan partnership after months of working with community members to identify which priorities should come first.
Their reputation is on the line, she said.
The Webber Ditch Company asked for $2.1 million to finally repair a 113-year-old diversion that sends water from the Mancos River to about 75 farmers and ranchers. The ditch company has been doing quick fixes on the rickety headgate for decades, Mike Nolan, company vice president, said.
โIt could fail us in a season. Thatโs always been our biggest fear. Say we get wild monsoon rains and the river picks up, we could potentially lose that structure,โ Nolan said. โThat could happen at a critical time for our water users. We could Band-Aid it, but thatโs not something we want to happen.โ
The Mancos Conservation District had several projects in mind. Staff wanted to cut back thirsty invasive plants, like Russian olive trees, and improve a river put-in next to a local school in Mancos. They had projects to help with fish passage when the river is low, district executive director Danny Margoles said.
โItโs been a complicated number of months for us,โ he said. The district had to lay off an employee and halt work on a project after the Trump administration canceled a different federal grant that was already contracted, confirmed and paying out.
The organizations were concerned about rippling impacts to state grants. Local organizations often use federal grants to cover their funding โmatchโ for state grants. Now those federal grants are uncertain, and theyโre not sure what the impact will be.
Margoles said he can sense the feelings of stress and uncertainty among his staff.
โEveryoneโs hanging in there,โ Margoles said. โEveryone does believe in the work theyโre doing, so thatโs what is keeping everyone going right now too. But thereโs a lot of uncertainty.โ
During the week of April 8-14, temperatures across the Contiguous U.S. were split into above-normal readings in the western U.S., below-normal readings east of the Mississippi River, and near-normal temperatures in the Mississippi River Valley. Temperatures across the western Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Intermountain West ranged from 3-12 degrees warmer than normal. In the Upper Ohio River Valley and Appalachian Mountains, temperatures from 6-12 degrees cooler-than-normal were widespread. Dry weather occurred over much of the Great Plains and western U.S., except for parts of North Dakota, Montana, northern Idaho and western Washington. Some moderate precipitation amounts, locally exceeding an inch or two, occurred in parts of the eastern U.S., especially in the Mid-Atlantic, though precipitation was mostly light east of the Mississippi River otherwise.
Changes to the U.S. Drought Monitor depiction were somewhat limited this week compared to the last few. Increases in drought coverage occurred in parts of southern Texas, New Mexico, much of Colorado, and parts of Kansas, Nebraska and northern South Dakota. Dry weather and high fire danger continued in south Florida this week, leading to further degradation and the development of localized extreme drought. The higher precipitation amounts in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast led to some localized improvements in ongoing drought and abnormal dryness. Heavier precipitation over the last month has quickly improved conditions in this region, with lessened precipitation deficits and increasing groundwater in many areas…
Across the High Plains, ongoing drought or abnormal dryness mostly stayed the same or worsened after dry weather occurred across the region (excluding North Dakota) and warmer-than-normal temperatures overspread the Great Plains and central Rocky Mountains. Temperatures from 3-12 degrees above normal occurred across the region, with the warmest readings occurring in the western Great Plains and in the Colorado Front Range area. Widespread degradation in drought conditions, due to low snowpack and short- and long-term precipitation deficits, occurred in the central and southern Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Moderate drought expanded in western and east-central Kansas this week, where streamflow and soil moisture dropped amid growing precipitation deficits. Similar conditions existed from south-central into eastern Nebraska, where moderate drought became re-established. Localized degradations to drought conditions occurred in north-central South Dakota amid growing precipitation deficits, though conditions across most of the Dakotas remained unchanged this week. Moderate drought coverage decreased slightly southwest of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming, where precipitation deficits lessened and soil moisture conditions improved…
Colorado Drought monitor one week change map ending April 15, 2025.
A mix of near-, below- and above-normal temperatures occurred in northern Idaho and in Washington. Otherwise, temperatures across the West were warmer than normal this week, with widespread readings of 6-12 degrees above normal in parts of central and eastern California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Mostly dry weather, with a few exceptions in Montana, northern Idaho, western Washington and northwest Oregon, occurred across the West this week. In northern New Mexico, soil moisture levels dropped and short-term precipitation deficits grew, leading to an expansion of severe drought (concurrent with expansions of drought coverage in Colorado). Extreme and exceptional drought grew in coverage in far southwest New Mexico and southeast Arizona, where very dry surface conditions and high evaporative demand continued amid severe precipitation deficits…
Mostly dry weather occurred across the South region this week, aside from eastern Tennessee and scattered light rain amounts in northern Mississippi and central and western Tennessee. Temperatures ranged from 3-9 degrees below normal in areas east of the Mississippi River and in southern Louisiana and southeast Texas, to 3 to locally 9 degrees or more above normal in western parts of Oklahoma and Texas. Given recent very wet weather in the eastern half of the region, no changes occurred in drought or abnormal dryness in the eastern part of the region other than a slight reduction in abnormal dryness in eastern Tennessee after recent rains. In southern Texas, severe drought expanded in a small area between San Antonio and Houston where streamflow and soil moisture decreased and short-term precipitation deficits grew. Exceptional drought grew in coverage from near Eagle Pass to northwest of Del Rio in southern Texas, where short- and long-term precipitation deficits worsened, soil moisture and groundwater levels worsened, and reservoir levels were at or near record-low levels. Stage 3 restrictions were in effect for the San Antonio Water System, and Stage 4 restrictions were present for farmers and pumpers operating in the Edwards Aquifer…
Looking Ahead
Between Wednesday, April 16 and the evening of Monday, April 21, the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center is forecasting widespread heavy rainfall in parts of the central U.S., especially along east and south of the Interstate 44, 35 and 70 corridors in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois and Indiana. Precipitation amounts may reach or exceed 3 inches from eastern Oklahoma northeast through St. Louis into eastern Illinois. The forecast calls for precipitation amounts from 0.25-1 inches in parts of the Rocky Mountains, with locally higher amounts possible, especially from far northern New Mexico north to southern Montana. Precipitation amounts from 0.5-1.25 inches, with localized higher amounts, are forecast from southeast Minnesota east through Wisconsin and Michigan. Farther east, weather along the Atlantic Coast is forecast to be mostly dry.
For the period from April 22-26, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center forecast favors above-normal precipitation in much of the central and southern U.S., especially in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. Warmer-than-normal temperatures are also favored across most of the contiguous U.S., especially in the Southeast. Drier-than-normal weather is slightly favored in northwest California and coastal areas of Oregon and Washington.
In Hawaii, warmer- and wetter-than-normal weather is strongly favored from April 22-26. In Alaska, above-normal precipitation is favored for April 22-26 in most areas outside of the North Slope. Colder-than-normal temperatures are favored in the central and eastern thirds of Alaska, while warmer-than-normal temperatures are likelier in southwest Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.
US Drought monitor one week change map ending April 15, 2025.
A corn crop is harvested in the U.S. Great Plains, where center-pivot irrigation systems draw water from the Ogallala Aquifer. Photo ยฉ Brian Lehmann / Circle of Blue
To save a dying aquifer โ or at least their piece of it โ a group of roughly 60 farmers in northwest Kansas decided on a self-imposed diet.
The move a dozen years ago to voluntarily restrict the water they pumped from the Ogallala Aquifer, the lifeblood of the High Plains, was seen by some as a risky proposition. In the semi-arid region, farmers might have gone bankrupt without water drawn from deep underground. But they were skilled and savvy land managers, and thought they could survive a 20 percent water cut.
Years of scholarship and economic analysis have proved them correct โ in more ways than one.
The farmers in northwest Kansas not only remain profitable. They are practicing irrigated agriculture with a significantly lighter environmental footprint. Fewer carbon emissions, less fossil energy use. Annual groundwater declines of 1.5 to 2 feet before the restrictions are now a half foot or less. In some years, the groundwater level has inched up. Their part of the Ogallala is not quite stable, but a balance between recharge and extraction is closer than it has been in generations.
In light of these successes, the experiment in little Sheridan County is instructive, illustrating a plan of attack for other areas of the planet where agriculture โ the biggest consumer of water โ is exceeding the limits of a finite resource. Northern India, Californiaโs Central Valley, Iran, and the North China Plain โ all are arid and semi-arid farming hot spots and epicenters ofย groundwater depletionย that could learn from Kansas, where four additional groundwater management areas with varying conservation targets have been established following the Sheridan model. For an ag industry that can be leery of untested practices and new methods, the undisputed achievement on the High Plains is a compelling proof of concept.
โI think itโs been pretty transformational, particularly in the area of Kansas water policy and management, but certainly in adjacent states as well, because I think it helped to allay fears of the producers of trying to tackle change,โ said Jean Steiner, an adjunct professor of agronomy at Kansas State University.
McGuire, V.L., and Strauch, K.R., 2022. Data from U.S. Geological Survey.
The importance of the Ogallala Aquifer to the economy of the High Plains is difficult to understate. Spanning eight states from South Dakota in the north to Texas in the south, the Ogallala is North Americaโs largest source of underground fresh water. In a region with few flowing rivers and sporadic rain, its groundwater nurtures vast harvests of cotton, corn, soybeans, and wheat, in addition to some of the nationโs biggest cattle feedlots. All told, the Ogallala supports an agriculture industry worth $35 billion.
Because of limited precipitation, the Ogallala as it has been managed is essentially a finite resource, a bank account slowly being drawn down to produce immense quantities of grain. Some areas on the aquiferโs fringe are already too depleted for irrigation.
Seeing the trend lines and wanting to delay or avoid that fate, farmers in Sheridan County said enough. In 2013, they became the first group in the state to adopt a new conservation tool, called a Local Enhanced Management Area.
The LEMA was locally designed but came with the force of law. It bound farmers in the 99-square-mile management area to a 20 percent cut in groundwater pumping. To help farmers cope, the volume restrictions were paired with more flexible rules for water use. If they did not need a portion of their water allocation one year โ because of sufficient rain or a different crop mix โ farmers could carry it over to the next. The change allowed them to take advantage of a wet year by saving their pumping for a drier period in the future.
What benefits did this bring? Previous studies found that pumping restrictions did not hurt farm profitability. Farmers cut their operational costs โ less money spent on seeds, fertilizer, energy โ or shifted from corn to less water-intensive crops, and were less wasteful with the water they had, producing yields that were a bit smaller than before but not drastically so. The dollars and cents penciled out.
โWe can safely say itโs not economically detrimental to reduce water use,โ said Bill Golden, a Kansas State University agricultural economics professor who conducted the research.
The Ogallala Aquifer crosses eight states and is North Americaโs largest underground source of fresh water. Map: Erin Aigner for Circle of Blue
To the economic gains, now add ecological benefits.
Steiner is a co-author on a new study that is the first to assess the LEMAโs effect on the environment. The study, using computer models that simulated resource inputs and crop outputs, found a host of co-benefits to reducing water use.
Compared to nearby farmland that had no water limits, the Sheridan LEMA came out ahead. Fossil energy use โ natural gas is the most common fuel source for the groundwater pumps โ was 22 percent lower. Greenhouse gas emissions were 20 percent lower. Losses of reactive nitrogen, linked to fertilizer use, were down 1.4 percent.
Because yields were smaller in the LEMA, the numbers were slightly less impressive when measured per unit of grain produced. Reactive nitrogen losses were even a touch higher than the control group without water limits. Still, the benefits were impressive overall, Steiner said.
โReplicating LEMA-type policies more widely across the region can be a viable solution (environmental and economic) to stabilize the Ogallala Aquifer water levels for the next few decades, as demonstrated by this and previous research,โ the study concluded.
Stabilizing the aquifer is a main reason the Sheridan farmers went on their water diet. They wanted to preserve the aquifer for their children and grandchildren. That outcome appears to be happening.
Before the LEMA went into effect in 2013, annual water level declines in the area averaged 1.5 feet, sometimes as much as 3 feet, said Brownie Wilson of the Kansas Geological Survey, which conducts annual groundwater monitoring. Now the declines are roughly a half foot, and some years the water level has increased.
โYou can definitely see a shift in water use and a shift in water level,โ Wilson said.
Shifting behaviors are another measurement of the LEMAโs success. The concept is spreading through the state. Sheridan County farmers have twice extended their LEMA agreement, which now runs through 2027. Four other LEMAs have been established, including all of Groundwater Management District 4, which is the district that contains Sheridan County.
Golden is working on an economic analysis for Wichita County, which established a LEMA in 2021. He is finding similar results as in Sheridan County: no decrease in net revenue.
State officials are also looking for ways to reward this locally driven conservation. Last year representatives from the office of Gov. Laura Kelly and the Kansas Water Authority held public meetings to gather suggestions for a state water infrastructure funding program. The blueprint, published in December, recommends that farmers participating in a LEMA should have top priority for irrigation funding.
The peak in mountain snowpack (the amount of water stored in the snow) is typically in early April in Coloradoโs southern mountains, and later in April in the north. Looking at the conditions right now, weโve almost certainly passed the peak for this year. And the numbers donโt look good, especially in the southern part of the state.
As of April 13, the mountains that feed water into the southern river basins had less than half of the usual snowpack they would usually have on that date. The numbers arenโt as bad in the northern mountains, with 80-90% of average snowpack. But keep in mind that in the northern basins, the average is still going *up* in mid-April, but the snow this year is already starting to decline. So with warm, sunny days and no new snow falling, these numbers are also going to get smaller as April goes on. From the perspective of โsnow droughtโ and water supply for the coming summer, this is not what you want the snowpack map to look like in mid-April.
Snow water equivalent as a percent of the 1991-2020 median for the major river basins in Colorado as of April 12, 2025. Source: USDA/NRCS interactive map.
Since weโre almost certainly past the peak, we can also see how this yearโs peak stacks up compared to past years. In many locations, these numbers make the picture look even worse. This map shows the percentile rank of the peak snow water equivalent (SWE) compared to all past years at each SNOTEL station, focusing on southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. On this map, if you see 50 it means itโs right in the middle of the historical distribution; 100 means the highest on record, and 0 the lowest. Through the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo mountains, many stations are below the 10th percentile, and several had their lowest or 2nd-lowest peak snowpack since they were installed (most were established in the late 1970s or early 80s).
Water year peak snow water equivalent percentile ranking in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Source: USDA/NRCS interactive map.
For example, at the Upper San Juan SNOTEL station near Wolf Creek Pass, itโs the 2nd-lowest peak SWE since the station was established in 1979, worse than even 2018 (which was a terrible drought and wildfire year in southwestern Colorado), though still ahead of the historic 2002 drought year. With record-warm conditions in recent days and sunny conditions that increase sublimation, what snowpack remains is going to continue declining rapidly.
Time series of snow water equivalent at the Upper San Juan SNOTEL station in southwestern Colorado. The 2025 time series is shown in black, with comparison to other very bad snow years of 2018 (magenta) and 2002 (gray). The median peak is shown in green. Source: USDA/NRCS.
In the northern parts of the San Juan mountains, the snowpack numbers arenโt quite as bleak, but overall it is shaping up to be a very poor year for streamflow and water supply in southwest Colorado (and throughout the southwest US). The water supply forecasts from theย Colorado Basin River Forecast Centerย bear this out. The predicted river flows for April through July (when the vast majority of the annual flow occurs) are not so bad in the headwaters of the Colorado River in Colorado, where the projection is for 80-100% of average water supply. But in the southwestern Colorado rivers like the Animas, San Juan, and Dolores, flows will be much lower than average, and Lake Powell is expected to see less than 70% of its average inflow. Lake Powell levels arenโt quite at the historic lows from a few years ago, but the lake is still far lower than its historical average and will likely see further declines this year with poor inflows and continued high demand for water.
The poor mountain snowpack and early melt-out this year align with the trends in Coloradoโs southern mountains over the last 40+ years. Weโve analyzed the trends at the SNOTEL stations that have data back to at least 1979, for both the peak SWE and the date of the peak SWE. If you see opaque circles on the maps below, there is a statistically significant trend over this time period; if the circles are transparent the trend is not significant. In Coloradoโs northern mountains, trends over the last 45 years are fairly modest overall, with some mixed signals. But in the southern mountains, the data make a very clear statement: snowpack is declining, and the peak is happening earlier. At many of the stations in the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo mountains, the peak SWE has declined by 3-5% per decade, and the peak has shifted 2-4 weeks earlier. (When this yearโs poor snowpack gets incorporated, these trends might look even steeper.) A combination of factors are responsible for these trends, including that the 1980s were unusually wet, so the recent declines look even worse; rising temperatures globally and especially in the interior west, and increases in dust-on-snow that reduces the ability of snow to reflect sunlight. Heat waves in April, like the one weโve experienced in recent days, donโt help the situation either, as discussed in this paper about a similar heatwave in April 2021. You might recall that we had one last year too.
Trends in snow water equivalent at Colorado SNOTEL stations from 1979-2024. Trend in water year peak SWE, as a change in the percent of median per decade. Credit: Colorado Climate Center
Trend in the date of the peak SWE, in days per decade. The size of the circles is proportional to the magnitude of the change (i.e., it provides the same information as the color shading). Trends are calculated using the Theil-Sen slope; if the trend is statistically significant at the 95% confidence level, the circle has opaque color shading, otherwise the shading is semi-transparent. Background shading is elevation, with blue and white colors indicating higher elevation. Credit: Colorado Climate Center
The overall downward trend doesnโt mean we canโt still get years with big snowpack โ some of the same locations that are near record lows this year were near record *highs* in 2019 and 2023. But the bad years are outnumbering the good ones over time.
Could there be a โMiracle Mayโ to improve the situation like what happened in 2015? In western US weather and climate, anything is possible! But it does not appear to be very likely. Although La Niรฑa conditions that have been in place through the winter are waning, the NOAA Climate Prediction Center outlook shows high confidence for continued drier-than-average conditions through the spring and early summer. It would be nice if we could find some better news about drought and water in Colorado to share, but right now unfortunately there isnโt much good news to find.
In summary: Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit Wednesday, saying the tariffs hurt โstates, consumers and businesses.โ
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
With the state budget hanging precariously in the balance, Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit today to block President Donald Trumpโs tariff powers.
The lawsuit, which Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta filed in federal court in San Francisco, argues that Trump does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally enact tariffs. Trump cited the United Statesโ large trade deficit to declare a national emergency earlier this month and impose sweeping import taxes on the rest of the world.
Visiting an almond farm in Turlock, which stands to lose export business to retaliatory tariffs, Newsom expressed anger over the โtoxic uncertaintyโ of the presidentโs trade policy. He said the policies are harming California more than any other state and called the tariffs a betrayal of the voters who supported Trump because of his promise to bring down the cost of living.
โThis is recklessness at another level. The geopolitical impacts are outsized. The trade impacts are outsized,โ Newsom said. โNo rationale, no plan, no conscience to what itโs doing to real people.โ
In a matter of days in early April, Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to establish a universal 10% tariff on all countries importing goods to the United States, with even higher reciprocal tariffs on some nations, then abruptly reversed course hours after they took effect, pausing most of the reciprocal tariffs while ratcheting up the import tax on China to 145%.
The chaos tanked the stock market, a huge risk for Californiaโs forthcoming budget, which depends disproportionately on income tax revenue from capital gains earned by the wealthiest taxpayers. The state is also particularly vulnerable to other economic pain from the tariffs, because China is Californiaโs largest trading partner, propping up manufacturing, agriculture, tourism and major ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland.
Other significant potential impacts for California include driving up the cost of construction materials just as Los Angeles begins rebuilding from a series of devastating fires that flattened several neighborhoods in January.
Californiaโs economic outlook is declining
Newsom said today that, anticipating higher inflation and higher unemployment from the tariffs, he has downgraded Californiaโs economic outlook in a revised budget proposal that he plans to unveil next month. Though did not speak to Trump about the lawsuit, he said he gave the White House a heads up.
In a statement, the White House slammed Newsom for undermining Trumpโs efforts to rescue American industry.
โInstead of focusing on Californiaโs rampant crime, homelessness, and unaffordability, Gavin Newsom is spending his time trying to block President Trumpโs historic efforts to finally address the national emergency of our countryโs persistent goods trade deficits,โ spokesperson Kush Desai said.
The state contends that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act specifies many remedies a president can take in response to a foreign economic threat, but tariffs are not among them. Without this specific authorization from Congress, the lawsuit argues, Trumpโs actions are โunlawfulโ and โunprecedented.โ
Joining Newsom in Turlock, Bonta said Trump was โattempting to override Congress and steamroll the separation of powersโ and that his โrogue and erratic tariffsโ must be stopped to prevent further damage to Californiaโs economy.
โTrump has had to resort to creating bogus national emergencies that defy reason,โ Bonta said. โBottom line: Trump doesnโt have the singular power to radically upend the countryโs economic landscape. Thatโs not how democracy works.โ
Alan Sykes, who teaches international trade law at Stanford Law School, told CalMatters that Californiaโs case has merits, but it may be difficult to win.
He said the international powers act is ambiguous about tariffs; they are not explicitly mentioned in the law, though there is language allowing for the regulation of imports and exports. But Congress has also passed other laws over the years giving away their constitutional power to set tariffs. Sykes noted that Trump could shift to citing those statutes instead if his tariffs are struck down.
โCongress has badly over-delegated authority to the president in this regard,โ Sykes said. โI’m not terribly optimistic that the courts are going to rein that in.โ
The lawsuit continues Newsomโs shift back toward a more aggressively confrontational stance against the Trump administration. After the Los Angeles wildfires, the governor sought to reset his relationship with Trump as he lobbied for federal disaster aid.
But even though Congress has yet to approve any further assistance for Los Angeles, Newsom has begun more vocally opposing the presidentโs economic policies in recent weeks.
Newsom was unusually harsh when speaking about Trumpโs tariffs in Turlock, calling them the โposter childโ for stupidity and an example of โcrony capitalismโ because of the presidentโs willingness to exempt products from favored industries such as electronics manufacturing.
โThis is the personification of corruption,โ Newsom said. โHow in the hell are we sitting by and letting this happen?โ
Straight line diagram of the Lower Arkansas Valley ditches via Headwaters Magazine
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
April 6, 2025
Colorado Springsโ latest annexations, now under challenge, have left Arkansas River communities wary
As a worker maneuvered a massive leveler in the fields behind their house, Alan and Peggy Frantz pondered the future of their Rocky Ford farm โ and their larger agricultural community strung along the Lower Arkansas River east of Pueblo. The collapse of it all doesnโt feel too far out, too improbable, Alan Frantz said. Maybe not in their lifetimes, the couple said, but theyโve made sure to send their kids to college in case it all goes away.
โAt some point, the cities just have to stop growing,โ Alan Frantz said. โIf you want a Dust Bowl like the โ30s, go ahead and take all the water, dry this all up.โ
Flood irrigation in the Arkansas Valley via Greg Hobbs
Colorado Springs is one of the cities Frantz and many of his neighbors worry most about โ and now they fear a proposed 6,500-home annexation to that city will increase pressure on its utilities to source more water from the Arkansas. The farmers use the river to irrigate more than 220,000 acres of farmland, the economic backbone of the region. Already, Colorado Springs Utilities estimates it will need 34,000 more acre-feet of water โ or 11 billion gallons โ annually to meet population growth for when the city fully develops inside its current boundaries, estimated to occur around 2070. Every annexation of land into the stateโs second-largest city adds to that future gap. Without water, there is no farming. And without farming, Frantz said, there would be no towns along the Lower Arkansas as it stretches from Pueblo to the Kansas border…
The controversy around the Colorado Springs annexation is the most recent flashpoint illustrating one of the central tensions in the state: Coloradoโs cities do not have enough water to meet projected growth and climate change is shrinking the finite amount of water available. Where should the cities go for more supply? Who will give up their water? The decades-old battle plays out across the state as growing Front Range communities seek new water sources.ย Communities on the Western Slopeย fear more of their water will be routed east across the Continental Divide, especially asย the regionโs largest river shrinks. Farmers and ranchers in the San Luis Valleyย successfully fought off an attemptย by a company to pipe water from the valleyโs depleting aquifer to ever-growing Douglas County.ย Auroraโs $80-million purchase of Otero County water rights last yearย rankled water leaders in southeastern Colorado, prompting threats of litigation.
Colorado transmountain diversions via the State Engineer’s office
