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
From email from the Upper Gunnison Water Conservancy District (Sue Uerling):
The Colorado River District and the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District are sponsoring the State of the Upper Gunnison River dinner and presentation.ย This event will be held on April 17, 2025, beginning at 6:00 p.m. at the Fred Field Center.ย The Colorado River District requires that you pre-register for the event using this linkย ย https://form.jotform.com/250417068418154.ย Hope to see you there.
Perkins County Canal Project Area. Credit: Nebraska Department of Natural Resources
Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Politics website (Marianne Goodland). Here’s an excerpt:
April 7, 2025
On or around April 17, six landowners in Sedgwick County will face a decision: whether to sell their land to the state of Nebraska for a canal that will be at least partially constructed in Colorado, or face what is likely to be an unprecedented land grab…The history of the proposed canal dates back more than 100 years, to the compact between Colorado and Nebraska regarding water from the South Platte River. Article VI of the compact states that Nebraska can divert 500 cubic feet per second during the non-irrigation season, as well as any additional available flows, into the canal. That non-irrigation season runs from Oct. 15 to April 1…
However, Nebraska claims that Colorado has increased its own diversions and related water uses during the non-irrigation season, leaving Nebraska with no choice but to construct the canal and claim its non-irrigation season water. The canal would start just east of Ovid, in Sedgwick County, and continue into Perkins County, just across the state line in Nebraska. The 1923 compact allows Nebraska to build the canal, using eminent domain, and to seek it in federal court if necessary.
People work on the Perkins County Canal in the 1890s. The project eventually was abandoned due to financial troubles. But remnants are still visible near Julesburg.
Perkins County Historical Society
For one state to grab the land of another is unprecedented, Attorney General Phil Weiser told Colorado Politics earlier this year. While Colorado agreed to the canal in 1923, that’s not how Weiser sees it now. Weiser sent a letter to the Sedgwick County commissioners in January, stating that he is opposed to Nebraska’s potential action. He wrote that he had advised Nebraska’s attorney general that the project would provide little to no benefit to the state of Nebraska. However, if Nebraska moves forward, Colorado will defend its rights, he added.
Perkins canal drawing showing the Colorado portion, courtesy Nebraska Department of Natural Resources.
Dragline at the Navajo Mine in New Mexico. The Navajo Nation-owned Navajo Transitional Energy Company owns the mine along with two mines in the Powder River Basin. Navajo Nation Buu Nygren was on hand to cheer on Trump as he signed the pro-coal executive orders. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
The News: This week, President Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders that wipe away environmental protections in the name of saving โbeautiful, cleanโ coal from what Trump and his minions call a regulatory โwar on energy.โ The purpose, he says, is to make the grid more reliable and to ensure there is adequate generating capacity to meet AI-powering and cryptocurrency mining data centersโ burgeoning power demand.
The orders:
Designate coal as a โmineralโ so that it qualifies for regulatory relief under Trumpโs pro-mining executive order, and suggest designating coal as a โcritical materialโ due to its use in steel making. (As if thatโs going to do anything?)
Orders the secretaries of Interior, Agriculture, and Energy to identify coal resources on federal lands and any impediments to extracting them, and propose โpolicies to address such impediments and ultimately enable the mining of such coal resources by either private or public actors.โ (Publicย actors? Does this mean what I think it means: The feds are going to start coal mining? Maybe theyโll just nationalize the industry โย Hello comrade Trump!ย โ to wipe away all so-called impediments, of which there are very few, by the way.)
Orders the Interior Secretary to lift barriers to mining coal on federal lands, including definitively ending an Obama-era moratorium on new coal leasing and the Biden-era halting of new leases in the Powder River Basin. (These are only speculative โbarriersโ because existing leases hold enough coal to meet current levels of demand for another 40 years โ and demand is likely to keep dropping, meaning coal companies probably would never be affected by the leasing freeze).
Encourages coal exports. (Umm, yeah, you should have thought about that before all of this tariff talk, dude.)
Looks to identify regions where โcoal-powered infrastructure is available and suitable for supporting AI data centers and assess โฆ the potential for expanding coal-based infrastructure to power data centers โฆ .โ
Exempts some coal power plants from Biden-era Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for two years.
Looks to prevent large power sources โfrom leaving the bulk-power system or converting the source of fuel of such generation resource if such conversion would result in a net reduction in accredited generating capacity.โ (He wants to block utilities from retiring or converting or old coal plants to run on cheaper, cleaner fuels.)
The Context: Letโs just get a couple things straight right off the bat. First, there are no significant regulatory barriers to mining coal. Arch, Peabody, Navajo Transitional Energy Company, and a handful of other companies have leases on and essentially unfettered access to billions of tons of coal at their gargantuan Powder River Basin mines. They could continue tearing apart the earth for decades before needing to lease more land, making Bidenโs freeze on future leasing โ and Trumpโs unfreezing of it โ speculative and symbolic.
In Bidenโs case, it symbolized his desire to do something about the climate crisis and to cement a legacy as an environmentally minded president; for Trump itโs all about fossil fuel fetishization.
Coal mine production has been dropping due to declining demand: Utilities simply arenโt burning as much coal as they used to, in part because itโs dirty, but mostly because the shale revolution โ i.e. โfrackingโ โ has resulted in a natural gas supply glut, bringing the cost of the slightly cleaner-burning fuel below that of coal. More recently, increasingly affordable wind and solar power have also been displacing coal โ and gas โ generation from the grid.
So rolling back regulations on mining is useless if youโre trying to spur production. The only way to do that is get utilities to go against their own financial interests and burn more coal.
Thatโs where some of the other provisions in the orders come in. By exempting coal plants from the MATS rule for two years, Trump is opening the door for facilities such as the Colstrip coal plant in Montana to continue to operate without expensive new pollution control equipment. Colstrip is considered one of the dirtiest facilities in the nation, spewing harmful emissions from its smokestack and in the form of coal combustion waste.
The Cholla coal plant near Joseph City, Arizona. Trump said his executive order would save it from destruction. But its operator has already shut it down and shows no interest in burning coal there. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Trump mentioned the Cholla coal plant near Holbrook, Arizona, as one that he would โsaveโ from โdestruction,โ adding, โWe’re going to have that plant opening and burning the clean coal, beautiful clean coal, in a very short period of time.โ But its operator, Arizona Public Service, said it has already procured cleaner, cheaper replacement generation for the plant, and indicated it has no desire to keep burning coal there. Meanwhile, even before the orders, PacifiCorp backed off on plans to retire some of its coal plants in the next several years, citing projected increased demand and easing regulations.
The big question mark is how the provision aiming to prevent coal plants from shutting down will play out. It seems illegal to force a utility to keep a power plant running, but then that hasnโt gotten in Trumpโs way before. Still, the most all of these efforts can hope to achieve is to slow the decline of the coal industry for a few years. Itโs certainly not going to bring back the Navajo Generating Sation, the Nucla Station, the San Juan Generating Station, the Escalante coal plant, or the Mohave plant from the dead.
Now for the data! Click on the images to see a larger version.
The rise and fall of the U.S. thermal coal industry. For five decades, coal consumption was directly tied to electricity generation, with both peaking in 2007. But the financial crisis slowed electricity demand, and opened the door for burgeoning new supplies of increasingly affordable natural gas to dethrone King Coal from the energy mix, decoupling coal consumption from electricity demand, and itโs been downhill for the industry ever since, with the steepest declines coming during the first Trump administration. Data source: Energy Information Administration. Graphic: Land Desk.
Coal fueled the colonization and industrialization of the Western U.S., but by the 1950s it was in serious trouble as locomotives switched to diesel, homes and businesses chose to cook and heat with natural gas, and utilities opted for hydropower. Government intervention helped spur coalโs revival (see next graph for Wyoming figures and annotations). Source: USGS and EIA. Graphic: Land Desk.
One of the reasons folks like coal is because itโs labor intensive and offers relatively stable, high-wage employment to a lot of people in rural areas without too many other opportunities. But coal industry employment doesnโt always match up with production thanks to automation and efficiency upgrades. Annotations are below. Data Sources: Wyoming State Geological Survey, EIA, Wyoming Workforce Services. Graph: Land Desk.
1920: Wyoming coal industry hits peak employment, with 9,000 employees working in coal mines during a time when less than 200,000 people lived in the state. A few years later, a Wyoming newspaper noted: โNext to food, coal and iron are of first importance to mankind.โ
Drilling for natural gas gets underway in New Mexico and Texas, and the gas is piped into towns for heating and cooking, displacing coal. A 1927ย Steamboat Pilotย headline about a gas pipeline from Texas to Denver, Colorado, read: โNatural gas would injure coal industry.โ
1940: Electro Motive Division of General Motors unveils a diesel freight locomotive, but it is slow to catch on and in 1944 the steam engine still dominated, with the railroad industry consuming 152 million tons of coal per year.
Heightened industrial activity during World War II briefly drove up coal consumption and production.
Late 1940s: Development of high-voltage transmission lines that can carry electricity long distances, which will ultimately be a boon for coal power.
1950s: Coal consumption in the West plummets by 40 percent as highways replace rails, and diesel locomotives replace coal-fired ones. More long-distance gas pipelines are built from Texas and New Mexico oil fields to population centers, making it easier for residents and institutions to ditch coal for heating and cooking. More than half of the Westโs electricity is generated by hydroelectric dams, with coal only providing 10%. The coal industry had made a lot of cash and built up a lot of political power over the years, however, which they used to lean on government to look for new markets for their product.
1952: Bureau of Reclamation releases A Study Of Future Power Transmission in the West, calling for the buildup of large coal-fired power plants in the Interior West, which would then send electricity to faraway population centers. It said, โโฆ the growth of power in the West will be so great that increasing dependence on its main fuel resource, coal, is inevitable.โ
1960: Congress establishes the Office of Coal Research โto encourage and stimulate the production and conservation of coal in the United Statesโฆโ and to โmaximize the contribution of coal to the overall energy market.โ
Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups join with the coal industry and coal-state leaders in opposition to new hydroelectric dams. The Sierra Club actively supports the construction of Navajo Generating Station as a preferable alternative to a new dam in the Grand Canyon. Several other coal-fired plants are built across the West.
The Clean Air Act is passed, actually helping Western coal because itโs low in sulfur, and therefore emits less sulfur dioxide when burned.
Energy Crises erupt, spurring calls for โenergy independence.โ This includes mining for coal and government subsidies to develop synfuels, or gasoline or diesel from coal and other materials, like oil shale.
1977: ARCO opens Black Thunder mine in the Powder River Basin. It will become the largest coal mine in the world and the first to transport 1 billion tons of coal.
1978 Industrial Fuels Power Act more or less kills the construction of new natural gas power plants, locking in coal as the fuel of choice for electricity generation for the long-term.
Even as coal production climbs, the number of employees in the industry drops due to mechanization and the migration of coal-mining from more labor-intensive underground mines to larger, surface strip mines such as those in the Powder River Basin.
Reagan opens up foreign markets, kills subsidies, stops price controls and government prop-ups. Oil, natural gas, and uranium development crash, spreading economic malaise across the West. Coal falters in many parts of the West, including Wyoming, but the mines of the Powder River Basin continue to produce steadily.
1987: The Industrial Fuels Act is repealed, allowing for the buildup of natural gas plants. This doesnโt have an immediate effect on coal because natural gas is still far more expensive, but it sets the stage for utilities to switch fuels in the decades to come.
Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, which limit emissions of acid rain-causing sulfur dioxide, give a big boost to Western coal because of its relatively low sulfur content. Wyoming surpasses Appalachia as the nationโs number one coal producer.
2001: Demand for electricity, and therefore for coal, climbed steadily nationwide for 50 years, experiencing just a few small hiccups in 1982, 1986 and, most dramatically, in 2001, due to a national recession. But it quickly recovered.
2008: The national financial crisis hits, putting a huge dent in consumption of both electricity and coal. At the same time, the price of natural gas plummets when the market is glutted with newly accessed gas from shale formations in Texas, North Dakota and the East.
2011: Wyoming hits peak coal-mine employment, even though electricity demand and coal consumption has yet to rebound.
2012-2016: Although electricity demand has plateaued, coal production goes into freefall as utilities start getting more and more power from natural gas plants and solar and wind. Mass layoffs hit Wyomingโs coal industry, including in the Powder River Basin.
2018: U.S. electricity demand finally bounces back to pre-2008 levels. It doesnโt help coal at all.
2017-2024: Despite the efforts of the Trump administration to prop up the coal industry by meddling in markets and rolling back environmental, public health and worker safety regulations, coal consumption, production and employment continue to fall. Bidenโs โwar on coalโ doesnโt affect the slide.
Wyoming leaders cheered Trumpโs pro-coal executive orders, in part because the industry plays such a large role in its economy. But things are changing, even in the Cowboy State. Construction, retail trade, health care, government work, and leisure and hospitality all outpace mining and drilling in terms of employment numbers. Graphic credit: The Land Desk
๐คฏ Crazytown Chronicle ๐คก
Yesterday, Kathleen Sgamma withdrew her name from consideration to run the Bureau of Land Management. Was it because the oil and gas lobbyist and advocate had a conflict of interest? Nope. Was it because she has spent much of her career battling the very agency she was chosen to helm? Nope.
Sgamma resigned because a watchdog group scandalously revealed that she actually has an inkling of morality. In the days following the Jan. 6, 2021, riots and invasion of the U.S. Capitol, Sgamma wrote that she was โdisgusted by the violenceโ and โPresident Trumpโs role in spreading misinformation that incited it.โ She was hoping for a โresurgence of sanity.โ That right there is enough to disqualify you from serving in this administration.
Iโm anxiously awaiting to see whom Trump picks now.
White House moves to cut funding for keystone federalย climate change reportย and targetsย โunlawfulโ regulations.
President Trump signs an order to relaxย showerhead water efficiency standards.
Another order opposes state laws that impede hisย โenergy dominanceโ visionย and seeks to invalidate them.
Yet another order requires agencies to put maximumย 5-year expiration datesย into existing energy and environmental laws.
EPA says it will review new studies of health outcomes fromย fluoridated drinking water.
Mexico says it will immediately release some water in theย Rio Grandeย basin.
April 1, 2025 seasonal water supply forecast summary. Credit: Colorado Basin River Forecast Center
And lastly, federal forecasts indicate a down year forย Colorado River runoffย and the riverโs already depleted reservoirs.
โThese State laws and policies are fundamentally irreconcilable with my Administrationโs objective to unleash American energy.ย They should not stand.โ โย Executive orderย from President Donald Trump that takes aim at state climate change laws that limit carbon-emitting energy production. The order instructs the attorney general to identify state laws and policies that the Justice Department believes illegally impede energy projects, and then attempt to halt implementation of the laws. The order mentions nearly every type of energy source except solar and wind.
“The attorney general will prioritize investigating state laws that mention one of the administrationโs many ideological bugbears: climate change; environmental, social, and governance initiatives; environmental justice; greenhouse gas emissions; and carbon taxes.:
Any merit to all this? No, says Ted Lamm of UC Berkeley School of Law. Accusations of state overreach in this arena are a โmirage.โ
By the Numbers
67 Percent of Average: Most probable runoff into Lake Powell this year from the Colorado River, according to a federal forecast. The report covers the April-July period. The down year is not good news for Lake Powell (33 percent full) or Lake Mead (34 percent).
4.1 Million Barrels Per Day: U.S. crude oil exports in 2024, a new annual record. Europe is now the biggest export market, after its decision in 2022 to ban Russian imports.
News Briefs
Rio Grande Water Negotiations President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico would carry out โimmediate deliveryโ of some water to the Rio Grande basin, an instance of trade politics influencing water policy, The Hill reports.
Under a 1944 treaty, Mexico is required over five years to deliver 1.75 million acre-feet from its side of the basin. It is far behind in the current cycle, even as deliveries have picked up this year in response to political pressure.
As of April 5, Mexico had delivered 512,604 acre-feet in this cycle.
Eliminating โUnlawfulโ Regulations Recent Supreme Court decisions โ Sackett (wetlands), Ohio (air emissions), Loper Bright Enterprises (deference to agency expertise), among others โ have curtailed the executive branchโs regulatory powers. The White House now wants to institutionalize those rulings.
It will be action by subtraction, quickly.
Trump signed an executive order giving agencies 60 days to draw up a list of current โunlawful and potentially unlawfulโ regulations and devise a plan to repeal them.
The order directs agencies to repeal these rules without public notice and comment periods, which are generally required by law. The order claims that because these unnamed rules are unlawful, getting rid of them merits an exemption from notice and comment.
Pressure Politics Ticking a favored topic, Trump also signed an order to rescind Biden-era water conservation regulations for certain high-end showerheads.
The rule restricted multi-nozzle showerheads to a total flow rate of 2.5 gallons per minute, which has been the federal standard for showerheads since 1992. The flow rate could not apply to each nozzle individually, which would multiply water use.
The Trump administrationโs previous attempt to allow multi-nozzle showerheads to flow at higher rates was criticized by the plumbing industry. IAPMO, a trade group, argued that plumbing systems in new buildings, which are built for conservation, could be undersized if higher water volumes are allowed.
Sunset Provisions Another order seeks to cut existing and future regulations in a different way: by adding โsunset provisionsโ that set an expiration date.
The order directs agencies to insert sunset provisions into bedrock environmental and energy laws such as the Energy Policy Act, Mining Act, Federal Power Act, and Endangered Species Act. The sunset dates are to be between one and five years after the provision is finalized. Regulations can be renewed โas many times as is appropriate, but never to a date more than 5 years in the futureโ if they are deemed worthy.
Studies and Reports
Cutting Climate Research Funding The Trump administration is cutting funding for the federal governmentโs keystone report on climate change in the United States and its impacts, Politico reports.
The White House is cancelling a contract with the firm that oversees the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which conducts the National Climate Assessment. Ending the contract โforever severedโ interagency climate change work, one senior official told Politico.
The National Climate Assessment is mandated by Congress, written by hundreds of academic and federal researchers, and summarizes the most recent science on climate change and its consequences for the country.
Coal Executive Order To assist the dying U.S. coal industry, Trump signed a proclamation that gives coal-fired power plants a two-year reprieve from stricter air pollution standards.
U.S. coal production has fallen off a cliff, down more than half from its peak in 2008, according to government data. The reasons are structural and interrelated: higher production costs, stricter environmental controls, and cheaper competitors.
On the Radar
Fluoride Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, said the agency will review scientific information about the health effects of fluoride as it considers potential regulatory action under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The agency will produce โan updated health effects assessment for fluoride.โ
A federal judge ruled last year that the agency must update its fluoride regulations due to new research into health risks.
Cybersecurity Drill The EPA will host a nationwide drill next month to prepare drinking water utilities for a cyberattack.
Federal Water Tap is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.
Scott Fitzwilliams at White River National Forest supervisorโs office in Glenwood Springs. Fitzwilliams left his job on March 21 after accepting the Trump administrationโs deferred resignation offer. Credit: Courtesy photo
Since his early retirement just over three weeks ago, former White River National Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams has been soaking up his favorite activities on public lands.
โThe public lands are my life,โ Fitzwilliams said. โNot just because I worked there. Thatโs where I get my sense of wellbeing and quality of life.โ
Fitzwilliams, who led the 2.3 million acre White River National Forest for 15 years, left his position in late March as part of the Trump administrationโs deferred resignation program. He said when he left, the White River was down 27 or 28 positions since Jan. 1, 2025, and just over 50 fewer positions in the past 12 months. The cuts account for nearly a third of the forestโs workforce, which by his count stood at 155 positions about a year ago.
โItโs pretty bleak right now,โ Fitzwilliams said.
The Forest Service announced last fall that it would not be hiring any non-fire, seasonal workers for summer 2025 and it saw an additional round of cuts involving thousands of positions nationwide on Feb. 14, led by the Department of Government Efficiency. Even more drastic cuts are expected as the Trump administration moves to consolidate operations.
โPretty much across the country, there will not be any of our normal seasonal workforce that cleans the bathrooms, that clears the trails, that maintains our recreational facilities, that enforces regulations. Across the country, we wonโt have those people this year,โ Fitzwilliams said.
While the current administrationโs cuts have made exceptions for federal firefighters, Fitzwilliams is concerned that firefighting efforts will be hampered by the reduced workforce.
Those Forest Service employees who work out in the field โare also the people that often are the first to spot or respond to a fire,โ Fitzwilliams said.
The organizational structure and support for fighting fires on the White River National Forest has been cut, too; drivers and those who buy supplies and food for firefighters are among the lost positions, Fitzwilliams said.
Local White River National Forest officials declined to comment and requested any questions be sent in writing. Aspen Journalism received a response from an unnamed spokesperson at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
โWildland firefighting positions continue to be exempt from the hiring freeze a (sic) operational readiness is not impacted,โ the statement read. โThe U.S. Forest Service, along with our other federal, state, tribal and local partners continue to prepare for and respond to wildfire incidents as needed.โ
Fighting and preventing major wildfires is often top of mind for those living in the drought-prone, arid West, but itโs far from the only job with which the Forest Service has been tasked. The agency is responsible for managing forests for multiple uses, including wilderness, wildlife, recreation, logging, grazing and clean water.
โOur public lands, when we live amongst them, we do tend to take them for granted,โ Fitzwilliams said. โBut they cannot be anymore.โย
Public lands are where โI get my sense of wellbeing and quality of life,โ says Scott Fitzwilliams, who took an early retirement offer and stepped down last month as supervisor of the White River National Forest after a 15-year tenure. But he fears that actions undertaken by the new administration may lead to neglect of treatured public lands. Credit: Courtesy Scott Fitzwilliams
โPart of the strength of Americaโ at risk
The U.S. Forest Service oversees 193 million acres of land, including the 2.3 million acres of the White River National Forest, with its 11 ski resorts, eight wilderness areas and five ranger districts. And Fitzwilliams thinks the value of public lands far exceeds what can be tracked on paper.
โI believe public lands in America are part of the strength of America,โ he said. โItโs a uniquely American ideal.โ
Fitzwilliams noted that this ideal is not one enshrined in the Constitution; it relies on public engagement.
โPublic lands provide so much to so many and itโs not easy to manage them for all the different uses. National forest management is hard,โ Fitzwilliams said. โYou have to manage for wilderness and logging and grazing and mining and recreation and all these things, and clean water and wildlife โ itโs hard, and so people get frustrated. It may not align perfectly with everyoneโs values.
โBut itโs a system of public lands in the public trust that, thank god, we have the ability to argue over them. Iโm worried that if theyโre dismantled, what appears to be organizationally dismantled, we could lose this incredible part of America.โ
While there are indications that the Trump administration may sell off public lands, Fitzwilliams said heโs more concerned at this point that neglect and a lack of maintenance and staffing will effectively dissolve federal land management organizations.
โI just think itโs a devastating thing to think of a future that we donโt have this system,โ he said.
The Forest Service was facing budget shortfalls prior to the current cuts. The budget for the White River National Forest for this fiscal year is โabysmal,โ Fitzwilliams said.
There are 2,800 miles of roads across the forest. โOur road maintenance budget this year, when I left three weeks ago, was a whopping zero. Zero.โ
There is no funding to support the work that it takes to rebuild culverts when they are blown out by spring thaws, for example. Instead, Fitzwilliams said thereโs a three-person crew with one piece of machinery that can try to address emergencies.
The White River National Forest attracts about 18 million visitors every year; Fitzwilliams said the forest regularly collects more money than it spends through the appropriated budget. Nevertheless, the recreation budget is bare.
โOur recreation budget โ the most profitable, most efficient, most visited forest in the entire country โ I think the recreation budget was $150,000,โ Fitzwilliams said. โThatโs not enough money to pump the toilets this year.โ
The Department of Agricultureโs statement to Aspen Journalism โ received after we sent questions to local forest officials โ acknowledged that โrecreation services and public access are vital to local economies.โ
โThe Forest Service remains committed to ensuring public health and safety while balancing access to recreation areas during this transitional time. โฆ It is our intent to maintain access to recreation opportunities to the greatest degree possible,โ the statement said.
Such a response reflects what Fitwilliams described as an agency directive that requires all interactions with the media to be cleared by top officials in Washington D.C.
โThis is the biggest gag order anyone has ever seen,โ Fitzwilliams said. โIn 35 years, Iโve never seen anything like it.โ
Aspen Journalism also filed a request for information about budget and staff cuts through the Freedom of Information Act in early April and has not received a response.
There are places, Fitzwilliams said, where the Forest Service could certainly improve efficiency and cut costs. He said he shares concerns about the federal debt and would welcome the opportunity to work on efficiency and cost savings.
โIt should be a systematic, collaborative approach, by focusing on mission-critical work first,โ Fitzwilliams said.
Instead, in the mass cuts on Valentineโs Day, the White River National Forest fired 16 people, 15 of whom were permanent part-time workers whose job was in the field, out on the 2,500 miles of trails in the forest. They earned about $19,000 per season, Fitzwilliams said, and six of the positions were paid for by other agencies or governments, like Pitkin or Eagle counties. The rest were funded through fees collected by the White River National Forest.
โThe United States taxpayer saved zero dollars in the initial firings,โ Fitzwilliams said.
Finding ways to reduce spending and become more efficient would involve detailed analysis and hard work, which Fitzwiliams said he would welcome.
โI donโt think the hard work is sending out a note on Valentineโs Day saying a bunch of people are fired, with no analysis whatsoever of who these people were. None. There was none. It was low hanging fruit and they took it,โ he said.
Fitzwilliams had been planning to retire in about a year, but decided to take the buyout offered to federal employees under the deferred resignation program, and receive full pay and benefits through Sept. 30. He sent a letter to White River employees and partners announcing his resignation on Feb. 25.
โQuite frankly, I didnโt have the energy to be part of what is looking more and more like the dismantling of the agency,โ Fitzwilliams said. โThat last month or two at work was โ Iโve never been that stressed out ever. I was feeling hopelessness, having to fire people for no reason and trying to figure out how we would get the work done, serve the public and meet the agreements with our partners. It was stressful.โ
Brian Glaspell, who previously was director of strategic planning for the Forest Serviceโs Rocky Mountain region, is the acting supervisor of the White River National Forest.ย
Scott Fitzwilliams at Hanging Lake. Partnerships with local communities developed under his tenure as White River National Forest supervisor include a reservation and shuttle system to access the popular hike to the lake in Glenwood Canyon. Credit: Courtesy Scott Fitzwilliams
Forest health depends on partnership, public involvement
The White River National Forest is the largest national forest in Colorado, spanning parts of nine counties and bordering communities including Aspen, Glenwood Springs, Vail, Breckenridge and Leadville. Much of the identity and economy of these communities is tied to the forest.
โAspen isnโt Aspen without the forest around it,โ Fitzwilliams said.
These communities rely on the forest in other ways, too, including for a healthy water supply and air quality.
โEvery single community on the West Slope gets its drinking water off of national forest,โ he said. โWe ought to have people taking care of that.โ
In his time with the White River National Forest, Fitzwilliams built partnerships with local governments, nonprofits and other agencies that helped to share stewardship of the forest as recreation numbers boomed in the past decade. For example, Pitkin County has provided funding for forest protection officers at North Star Nature Preserve and works in partnership with the agency on several other properties that share boundaries with the White River National Forest.
โThese partnerships were the epitome of efficiency,โ said Gary Tennenbaum, director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails.
The Forest Service worked with Pitkin County, the city of Aspen and the Independence Pass Foundation to bring more rangers to heavily trafficked areas like Independence Pass, Wildwood, Richmond Ridge, Pearl Pass and the Castle Creek area.
The countyโs public works and open space and trails departments pay for two, full-time seasonal Forest Service employees; for now, those positions remain intact. A third position, paid for by a partnership between Pitkin County, the city of Aspen and the Independence Pass Foundation, has been cut by the Forest Service because the employee was in their probationary period.
Fitzwilliams is proud of his legacy of cross-agency work.
โItโs the part of the job Iโm going to miss the most. We roll up our sleeves and figure out how to solve problems with only one objective: how do we serve the public?โ he said. โItโs a symbiotic, shared stewardship. Weโre doing this work together. Weโre leveraging in a very innovative, creative, efficient way.โ
But heโs concerned that the Forest Service now has less to bring to the table in terms of staffing and funding.
โI donโt know how long we think that local governments can support this, and the scary part that keeps me up at night is then what happens afterwards,โ Fitzwilliams said.
In many respects, the White River National Forest is fortunate and unique in the level of support it receives from surrounding communities. According to a 2019 economic analysis of national forests, the White River contributed more than 22,000 jobs, bringing in $960 million to local communities and workers.
Local organizations, like the Independence Pass Foundation and Roaring Fork Transportation Authority, provide labor, funding and support that enhances public lands management of the White River National Forest as well.
โWeโre fortunate around here, we have those organizations. Thatโs not the case everywhere,โ Fitzwilliams said. โThere is no one to step up and fill the gaps. Thatโs worrisome.โ
The health of the White River National Forest in the upcoming summer season will depend deeply on the partnerships that Fitzwilliams and his colleagues have built over the past decade.
โThis summer, weโre going to need the public to care more than ever about their public lands,โ Tennenbaum said. โPeople need to have an ethic this summer that is very respectful of the land. You come across a campsite, donโt just walk by it. Make sure the campfire is out. Think about how you deal when you have to go to the bathroom. Thereโs going to be some impacts; we have to recognize that and not make it worse.โ
The White River National Forest is not alone in facing a summer season with large numbers of crowds and little ability to manage those crowds to prevent ecological damage. Fitzwilliams notes that public lands are deeply valuable to many Americans, and he retains hope in the publicโs ability to speak up for a national treasure.
โI think the American public, not excluding anyone, theyโre going to stand up for their public lands,โ Fitzwilliams said. โUnfortunately weโre going to see some hurt in the meantime.โ
F Street in Salida February 2025. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
April 8, 2025
Federal funds for climate-change-related projects in Colorado have started arriving in almost perfect concert with the spring thaw.
Among the applications for the hundreds of millions of dollars will be:
energy efficiency work in southwestern Colorado communities,
curbing methane emissions from old coal mines west of Carbondale, and,
preparation of a climate action plan for the Yampa Valley.
Among the smaller grants, $187,605 went to Salida and Chaffee County. The money will fund a staff position shared by the two jurisdictions to create a greenhouse gas inventory, a climate action plan, and then the means to implement what the city and county decide to do.
That grant and seven others for rural Colorado jurisdictions from the U.S. Department of Energy totaling $1.865 million were announced in August 2024. The federal program had received key funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
The awards were temporarily frozen by President Donald Trump.
The money is largely to be used for staffing for climate action planning but also for workforce training in communities where extraction and combustion of fossil fuels has been fading.
โCapacity is an essential component of local climate action, and these new awards will play an important role in enabling this work in Coloradoโs rural and mountain communities,โ Christine Berg, senior policy advisor for local governments in the Colorado Energy Office, said in the August 2024 announcement.
A far larger grant of $200 million to the Denver Regional Council of Governments, or DRCOG, had been announced in July 2024.
That money, a product of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, was to have been used for retrofits of buildings in the nine-county metropolitan area. DRCOG did not respond to repeated requests as to whether the money has been unthawed or is expected to be.
The Colorado Energy Office had been awarded $129 million. A spokesperson confirmed the money has arrived. It will be used:
To deploy advanced methane monitoring technology to produce data that will inform regulatory policy concerning methane emissions from landfills and coal mines, including those in the Redstone-Paonia area.
For energy efficiency and electrification upgrades in large commercial buildings that are otherwise hard to decarbonize.
To help local governments to implement projects that help reduce emissions from buildings, transportation, electric power, waste and other economic sectors. The money is to be administered through a new program, the Local Government Climate Action Accelerator.
Part of the $129 million received by the Colorado Energy Office will be used to work on large commercial buildings that are hard to decarbonize. Photo/Allen Best
What melted the ice?
The Trump administrationโs budget office on Jan. 20 had ordered a pause on previously promised funds if they helped advance the โgreen new deal,โ as the Congressional laws adopted when Joe Biden was president have been called. A federal court issued a temporary restraining order in late January, but the Trump administration seemed to ignore it.
Colorado in early February joined 21 other states and the District of Columbia in asking the court to require the federal agencies to release the money.
Will Toor, the executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, at the time declared that the federal government had signed contracts granting more than $500 million to Colorado through the 2021 and 2022 federal laws. โBy not meeting these contractual obligations, the federal government is inflicting real harm on our state,โ he said in a statement posted on the CEO website.
The Trump administration seemed to ignore the legal requirement, and a federal court judge on March 6 ordered the administration to comply.
Judge John J. McConnell Jr., of the Federal District Court for the District of Rhode Island, said the case amounted to executive overreach. The directive from the White House budget office, he said in a New York Times story, โfundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government.โ Without his action, he said, โthe funding that the states are due and owed creates an indefinite limbo.โ A federal appeals court on March 26 upheld that decision.
On March 28, Colorado Energy Office spokesman Ari Rosenblum reported that the $129 million in funding announced last summer for the state agency has been unfrozen.
โWe are moving forward with work on all projects funded through this grant,โ he wrote in an e-mail in response to a query from Big Pivots. โWe expect to launch the Local Government Climate Action Accelerator this summer.โ
What melted the ice?
The Trump administrationโs budget office on Jan. 20 had ordered a pause on previously promised funds if they helped advance the โgreen new deal,โ as the Congressional laws adopted when Joe Biden was president have been called. A federal court issued a temporary restraining order in late January, but the Trump administration seemed to ignore it.
Colorado in early February joined 21 other states and the District of Columbia in asking the court to require the federal agencies to release the money.
Will Toor, the executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, at the time declared that the federal government had signed contracts granting more than $500 million to Colorado through the 2021 and 2022 federal laws. โBy not meeting these contractual obligations, the federal government is inflicting real harm on our state,โ he said in a statement posted on the CEO website.
The Trump administration seemed to ignore the legal requirement, and a federal court judge on March 6 ordered the administration to comply.
Judge John J. McConnell Jr., of the Federal District Court for the District of Rhode Island, said the case amounted to executive overreach. The directive from the White House budget office, he said in a New York Times story, โfundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government.โ Without his action, he said, โthe funding that the states are due and owed creates an indefinite limbo.โ A federal appeals court on March 26 upheld that decision.
On March 28, Colorado Energy Office spokesman Ari Rosenblum reported that the $129 million in funding announced last summer for the state agency has been unfrozen.
โWe are moving forward with work on all projects funded through this grant,โ he wrote in an e-mail in response to a query from Big Pivots. โWe expect to launch the Local Government Climate Action Accelerator this summer.โ
Projects in rural Colorado
The $1.8 million grant โ this is in addition to the program for local assistance that the Colorado Energy Office created with its $129 million โ funded projects for Salida and Chaffee County and these additional rural communities:
$240,000 for Lake County to support a new position to lead development of the countyโs first climate action plan and implement the countyโs climate initiatives in and around Leadville. These and other similar positions are for three years.
$240,000 to the Colorado River Valley Economic Development Partnership, which has representatives of municipalities from New Castle and Silt on the east and Parachute and Battlement Mesa, as well as parts of unincorporated Garfield County. The project has a strong emphasis on workforce development and new job training in a county that formerly had a strong component of fossil fuel extraction.
$264,100 to the Routt County Climate Action Plan Collaborative. The money is to scale up electrification in Hayden, Oak Creek, Steamboat Springs and Yampa as well as other parts of Rout County. As with the Colorado River communities, there will be a workforce development and job training component as two coal-burning units at Hayden will close in the next several years. The coal for the plant comes from Twentymile Mine.
$240,000 to Pueblo and Pueblo County for a staff position for implementing city and county sustainability projects.
$240,000 to the City of Durango for a staff position to be housed within the Four Corners Office for Resource Efficiency to work with La Plata Electric Association and the city government to implement energy efficiency and so forth.
$191,100 to EcoAction Partners, a consortium of San Miguel and Ouray counties along with the towns of Telluride, Mountain Village, Ophir, and Norward. This money is to provide staffing to assist the 10 jurisdiction members with climate action plan projects and programming implementation.
$262,194 to Larimer County to help with staffing to develop a climate action plan for Estes Park and ensure alignment with Larimer County climate Smart Future Ready plan.
A $240,000 grant was awarded to the City of Durango to work with the a local non-profit group, the Four Corners Office for Resource Efficiency, and La Plata Electric Association on energy efficiency. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Salida tree grant
Salida will also receive another $250,000 to cover the costs of planting trees in a somewhat newer but lower-income neighborhood during the next five years.
The older part of Salida that can be seen along F Street, the townโs older commercial corridor, has many tall shade trees. The townโs southeast corner, though, is an area converted from light industrial and commercial into manufactured and other housing. It has a paucity of trees.
Sara Law, Salidaโs sustainability coordinator and public information officer, explained that Salida expects to get hotter during summer months in coming decades because of accumulating greenhouse gases. The goal was to get medium- to low-tree covers to help provide cooling on those hot days of summer.
Awardees of that grant program, including Salida, are now able to work on their tree projects and submit for reimbursement.
Teddy Parker-Renga, associate director of communications and communities for the Colorado State Forest Service, reported on March 31 that awardees of that particular grant program, including Salida, had become eligible that day to submit reimbursements for their work. The money comes from the U.S. Forest Service and grants are administered by the Colorado State Forest Service.
At an elevation of 7,400 feet, Salida has a climate warm enough to accommodate rattlesnakes. They can be encountered on hiking trails of nearby Methodist Mountain, the northernmost peak in the Sangre de Cristo Range. Salidaโs all-time high temperature record of 102 degrees was set in July 2019.
Releases from the Aspinall Unit will be increased from 1200 cfs to 1500 cfs Monday, April 14th. Releases are being increased to coincide with increasing diversions at the Gunnison Tunnel.
Flows in the lower Gunnison River are currently above the baseflow target of 1050 cfs. After this release change river flows are expected to remain above the baseflow target for the foreseeable future.
Pursuant to the Aspinall Unit Operations Record of Decision (ROD), the baseflow target in the lower Gunnison River, as measured at the Whitewater gage, is 1050 cfs for April through May.
Currently, Gunnison Tunnel diversions are 620 cfs and flows in the Gunnison River through the Black Canyon are around 590 cfs. After this release change Gunnison Tunnel diversions will be around 1050 cfs and flows in the Gunnison River through the Black Canyon will be around 450 cfs. Current flow information is obtained from provisional data that may undergo revision subsequent to review.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. For questions or concerns regarding these operations contact:
— Chinese Embassy in US (@ChineseEmbinUS) April 7, 2025
In November 1999, as the World Trade Organization convened in Seattle, some 50,000 protesters flooded the cityโs streets to push back against globalization and free trade, unfettered capitalism, corporate hegemony, and, well, Starbucks. It was dubbed the Battle of Seattle and is now considered the apex of the anti-globalization movement.
The protesters were a motley mix, from labor organizers to farmers to environmentalists, anarchists, and church leaders. They were opposed to the rising tide of free trade because, on the one hand, it encouraged U.S. corporations to offshore manufacturing, thereby harming U.S. workers, and it also was a form of economic imperialism that allowed the U.S. and other wealthy countries to exploit the workers and environment of developing countries. Outsourcing made things cheaper, feeding the beast of American consumerism, while allowing the U.S. to evade accountability by offshoring its pollution and collective carbon footprint. (Although they may not have been in Seattle, there was also a sort of mirror right-wing movement that also opposed globalism, but for different reasons and in different ways.)
The Battle for Seattle was followed by similar protests around the world. But globalization and all its benefits and ills continued, with the global economy becoming almost seamlessly integrated. The protests waned, Starbucks proliferated, and the movement faded and morphed into other forms. One of the offshoots, if you could call it that, was the degrowth movement โ based on the idea that capitalismโs need for expansion is wrecking the world, and only by squelching the constant craving for more can we save the planet and ourselves.
Both the anti-globalization and degrowth movements have seemed fairly hopeless, given that they are pushing against the established world order. But in the last few weeks, President Donald Trump has โ it seems โ handed both movements victories of sorts: He managed to short-circuit globalization and the U.S. economy in one fell swoop. I mean, he probably didnโt intend to do that, though Iโm not sure anyone really knows what heโs really trying to achieve, even him.
His chaotic tariffs have upended global trade and his administrationโs hostility towards non-citizens has hampered international travel. These policies, if you can call them that, have also injected uncertainty and fear into the markets, causing stocks around the globe to plummet. That, combined with mass federal employee firings, threats to detain and deport millions of workers, and freezing Inflation Reduction and Infrastructure Act funding for clean energy development, manufacturing, and research, will likely โde-growโ the U.S. economy in ways that only pandemics and global financial crises have done in the past. The turmoil has already brought oil prices below $60 per barrel for the first time since the days of COVID, which will almost certainly dampen the oil and gas drilling frenzy (in fact, the U.S. rig count is already dropping). That is, unless Trump goes to war with Iran, which will certainly shoot oil prices right back up again.
Itโs difficult to know what to think about all of this, except that it feels as if we are in Bizarro world. I mean, a Manhattan real estate developer with gold-plated toilets has seemingly adopted the anarchistsโ anti-globalization agenda and become the Degrowth president; Democrats and leftists are reflexively railing against old-school protectionism; Republicans are bashing free markets and free trade and driving the economy into the ditch while looking to push the federal budget deficit higher; the Chinese embassy is posting videos of Ronald Reagan condemning tariffs and praising free trade; and the president of the U.S. Oil & Gas Association is planning to buy an electric vehicle to protest against protesters. Whatโs next? Is Exxonโs CEO gonna start burning down gas stations?
A wise friend put it this way: โSpinozaโs wheel is out of true and the arrow is going backwards.โ Okay, I admit I donโt know Spinoza well enough to totally get that, but I know wheels, and this sounds right to me.
What will become of this chaos is anyoneโs guess. But Iโm going to bet that it doesnโt โmake America wealthy againโ or restore manufacturing to the U.S. anytime soon or stop the flow of Fentanyl across borders or anything else that Trump thinks it might do. Itโs more likely that the wobbly wheel will steer us all right off a cliff. There will be plenty of pain as people lose their jobs and their pensions lose their value. Nations that have rejiggered their economies to sate Americansโ hunger for fast-fashion, electronic devices, and cheap plastic items will descend into a financial slump. Coffee, bananas, avocados, chocolate, imported wine, and tequila will become more expensive.
The best we can hope for is that the economic slowdown and higher prices will stifle American consumerism and slow the environmental destruction it wreaks.
Itโs tough to keep up with the Trump chaos. But a new initiative is making it somewhat easier to track the mayhem.
The Impact Project launched to provide โobjective, transparent, and open-source data to help explain how federal policies, funding, and workforce changes affect our communities.โ Their first tool is the Impact Map, which uses publicly available data, media reports, and first-person testimonials to better understand the impacts of federal layoffs or spending cuts. It also shows how many federal employees are in each county and how many of them are probationary, meaning they were targeted by DOGEโs first round of firings and are more vulnerable to future reductions in force.
Map showing BLM lands within 10 miles of cities. Green denotes conservation areas, red is critical habitat, and yellow is โundesignatedโ BLM land. Source: Center for Biological Diversity.
Last month, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced his plan to build housing on federal lands, and officials said they were targeting 400,000 acres within 10 miles of towns of 5,000 people or more. Now the Center for Biological Diversity has created a map showing all of the land fitting that description, as well as which parcels are in conservation areas, critical habitat, or sage grouse management areas.
While it can be a bit alarming to see where they might want houses, keep in mind that this is still only a vague proposal and the lands on the map are simply the ones that would be eligible for development if the plan were to come to fruition.
A powerful storm system that stalled over states from Texas to Ohio for several days in early April 2025 wreaked havoc across the region, with deadly tornadoes, mudslides and flooding as rivers rose. More than a foot of rain fell in several areas.
As a climate scientist who studies the water cycle, I often get questions about how extreme storms like these form and what climate change has to do with it. Thereโs a recipe for extreme storms, with two key ingredients.
Recipe for a storm
The essential conditions for storms to form with heavy downpours are moisture and atmospheric instability.
First, in order for a storm to develop, the air needs to contain enough moisture. That moisture comes from water evaporating off oceans, lakes and land, and from trees and other plants.
The amount of moisture the air can hold depends on its temperature. The higher the temperature, the more moisture air can hold, and the greater potential for heavy downpours. This is because at higher temperatures water molecules have more kinetic energy and therefore are more likely to exist in the vapor phase. The maximum amount of moisture possible in the air increases at about 7% per degree Celsius.
Search and rescue firefighters check on residents in a neighborhood in Frankfort, Ky., on April 6. Floodwater filled streets downtown and in several neighborhoods in the state capital. AP Photo/Jon Cherry
Warm air also supplies storm systems with more energy. When that vapor starts to condense into water or ice as it cools, it releases large amount of energy, known as latent heat. This additional energy fuels the storm system, leading to stronger winds and greater atmospheric instability.
That leads us to the second necessary condition for a storm: atmospheric instability.
Atmospheric instability has two components: rising air and wind shear, which is created as wind speed changes with height. The rising air, or updraft, is essential because air cools as it moves up, and as a result, water vapor condenses to form precipitation.
As the air cools at high altitudes, it starts to sink, forming a downdraft of cool and dry air on the edge of a storm system.
When there is little wind shear, the downdraft can suppress the updraft, and the storm system quickly dissipates as it exhausts the local moisture in the air. However, strong wind shear can tilt the storm system, so that the downdraft occurs at a different location, and the updraft of warm moist air can continue, supplying the storm with moisture and energy. This often leads to strong storm systems that can spawn tornadoes.
Extreme downpours hit the US
It is precisely a combination of these conditions that caused the prolonged, extensive precipitation that the Midwest and Southern states saw in early April.
The Midwest is prone to extreme storms, particularly during spring. Spring is a transition time when the cold and dry air mass from the Arctic, which dominates the region in winter, is gradually being pushed away by warm and moist air from the Gulf that dominates the region in summer.
This clash of air masses creates atmosphere instability at the boundary, where the warm and less dense air is pushed upward above the cold and denser air, creating precipitation.
A cold front forms when a cold air mass pushes away a warm air mass. A warm front forms when the warm air mass pushes to replace the cold air mass. A cold front usually moves faster than a warm front, but the speed is related to the temperature difference between the two air masses.
The warm conditions before the April storm system reduced the temperature difference between these cold and warm air masses, greatly reducing the speed of the frontal movement and allowing it to stall over states from Texas to Ohio.
The result was prolonged precipitation and repeated storms. The warm temperatures also led to high moisture content in the air masses, leading to more precipitation. In addition, strong wind shear led to a continuous supply of moisture into the storm systems, causing strong thunderstorms and dozens of tornadoes to form.
What global warming has to do with storms
As global temperatures rise, the warming air creates conditions that are more conducive to extreme precipitation.
The warmer air can mean more moisture, leading to wetter and stronger storms. And since most significant warming occurs near the surface, while the upper atmosphere is cooling, this can increase wind shear and the atmospheric instability that sets the stage for strong storms.
Polar regions are also warming two to three times as fast as the global average, reducing the temperature gradient between the poles and equator. That can weaken the global winds. Most of the weather systems in the continental U.S. are modulated by the polar jet stream, so a weaker jet stream can slow the movement of storms, creating conditions for prolonged precipitation events.
All of these create conditions that make extreme storms and flooding much more likely in the future.
Over the last three years, the Colorado River Basin has experienced three relatively healthy winters. But that decent snowpack, after melting, hasnโt filled reservoirs like Lake Mead and Lake Powell as much as water users across the West might like, due to years of drought and overuse. Recent forecasts show Lake Mead and Lake Powell will remain roughly one-third full after snow melts down from the mountains across the West into the Colorado River and its tributaries this year…
April 1, 2025 seasonal water supply forecast summary. Credit: Colorado Basin River Forecast Center
Winter of 2023 brought substantial snow to the parched region,ย with snowpack levels reaching over 150% of the 30-year median. The banner snowpack led toย 10.6 million acre-feet of waterย flowing into Lake Powell over the spring and summer โ a whopping 166% of the average runoff seen between 1991 and 2020. That helped bring Lake Powell up to 38% in July 2023 after the reservoir hit a record low of 22% in February of that year. That was followed by another good snow year for the basin basin, with levels hittingย 113% of the medianย in 2024. But that above-average snowpack translated to a below-average runoff of 83%, or about 5.3 million acre-feet of water reaching Lake Powell. That wasย lower than what forecasters had predictedย earlier in 2024, and the reservoir saw a smaller bump โ reaching 42% full in July.
The discrepancy between snowpack and runoff was largely because soil across the Colorado River Basin was so dry, [Jack] Schmidt said. Dry soil absorbs melting snow, so less water ends up in reservoirs. And this year, soil across most of the Colorado River Basin is drier than normal โ and even drier than it was this time last year.
Douglas-fir beetles killed these trees in southern Gunnison County. The Colorado State Forest Service will conduct treatments in this forest in 2025 to slow the outbreak. Photo by Dylan Eimer, CSFS
Bark beetles and other insects are spreading through Coloradoโs forests, leaving dead and dying trees in their wake โ a cycle that could fuel future wildfires, according to an annual Colorado State Forest Service report released March 26.
Following a wet and cool year in 2023, the shift back to near-record temperatures and below-average precipitation in Colorado last year exacerbated the proliferation of forest pests and weakened treesโ defenses against them.
โTrees in Colorado canโt catch a break as our climate becomes warmer and dryer,โ said Matt McCombs, state forester and director of the Colorado State Forest Service. โThis ongoing trend toward persistent drought and higher temperatures not only makes trees easier prey for insects but increases the risk of large and severe wildfires.
โCouple that with more people living in areas prone to burn, and the state faces enormous challenges,โ McCombs added. โThe good news is we know Colorado is on the right path to address these challenges and foster forests and communities that are resilient to wildfire and forest pests.โ
The 2024 forest health assessment details which insects and diseases are the biggest threats to the stateโs forests and where outbreaks are expanding. The report also describes the state forest serviceโs science-based management practices that are promoting wildfire-resilient forests and healthy watersheds.
The CSFS updates the Colorado General Assembly and residents annually on the health of the stateโs forests based on an annual aerial survey, field inspections and information from forest landowners.
Click the link to read the research article on the AGU website (M. S. Kukal,ย M. Hobbins):
Abstract
Global atmospheric evaporative demand has increased, impacting agricultural productivity and water use. Traditionally, trend assessments have been limited to total evaporative demand, overlooking shifts in daily extremes, which are meaningful for agrohydrological outcomes yet largely unknown. Here, using a fully physical metric of evaporative demand, that is, standardized short crop reference evapotranspiration, we introduce the concept of thirstwavesโprolonged periods of extremely high evaporative demandโand analyze their characteristics during 1981โ2021 growing seasons for the conterminous US. Findings show that long-term mean spatial patterns demonstrated by thirstwave characteristics do not follow that of total or mean evaporative demand. Weighted for cropland area harvested, thirstwave intensity, duration, and frequency have increased by 0.06 mm dโ1 decadeโ1, 0.10 days decadeโ1, and 0.39 events decadeโ1, respectively during 1981โ2021. Statistically significant trends appear across 17%, 7%, and 23% of cropland area for intensity, frequency, and duration. Not only have thirstwaves increased in severity, but the likelihood of no thirstwaves occurring during the growing season has significantly decreased. Our work proposes a novel metric to describe periods of extremely elevated evaporative demand and presents a systematic analysis of such conditions historically for US croplands.
Key Points
Regional hotspots of thirstwaves do not necessarily align with areas of high overall evaporative demand
Intensity, duration, and frequency of thirstwaves have increased significantly (pย <ย 0.05) over 17%, 7%, and 23% of US cropland area, respectively
The likelihood of no thirstwaves occurring during the growing season has significantly decreased
Plain Language Summary
The atmosphere is getting more demanding for water around the world, and this affects water use and farming outcomes. Previously, studies mainly looked at the overall atmospheric demand for water, but little is known about changes in occurrence of very high atmospheric demand for water over consecutive days. In this study, we use introduce the idea of โthirstwaves,โ which are long periods of very high atmospheric demand for water. We looked at these thirstwaves that have occurred during 1981โ2021 in the US and analyzed them for how intense and how frequent they were and how many days they lasted. We found that the worst thirstwaves happened in places that do not see the highest demand. Over time, all aspects of these thirstwaves have gotten worse. It has also become much less likely that a growing season will pass without any thirstwaves. These findings suggest that in addition to monitoring overall atmospheric demand for water, it’s important to track, measure, and report thirstwaves to those managing agriculture and water resources.
.This U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) week saw widespread improvement in drought-related conditions across areas of the South, Southeast, and Midwest, where a series of strong storms delivered heavy rainfall, damaging winds, and severe flooding. The multi-day storm event saturated soils leading to inundation of rivers, and severe flooding in low-lying areas from Arkansas to Ohio. Storm totals from the multi-day event ranged from 4 to 18+ inches, with the highest accumulations observed across central Arkansas, southeastern Missouri, and western portions of both Tennessee and Kentucky. In addition to heavy rainfall, the storm system sparked dozens of tornadoes as well as strong gusty winds in other areas, causing widespread power outages. Elsewhere, improving conditions over the past 30 to 60 days, led to reduction in areas of drought in the Northeast, from New York to Maine, as well as in areas further south including New Jersey and Virginia. In the Midwest, this weekโs rainfall event pushed rainfall totals well above normal levels for the past 30-day period, leading to improvements across the Midwest in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. In the Upper Midwest and portions of the Plains, drought-related conditions improved on the map across areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, where precipitation has been above normal for the past 30-90-day period and soil moisture monitoring products are showing normal to above-normal levels. In the West, above-normal springtime temperatures are causing a rapid melting of high-elevation snowpacks across the entire region. Looking at the current snowpack conditions out West, deep seasonal snowpack deficits remain across the ranges of southwestern Colorado, New Mexico, northern Arizona, and southwestern Utah. Elsewhere in the region, areas of the Great Basin and Intermountain West saw improvements on the map including parts of northeastern Nevada, Wyoming, and northwestern Colorado. In terms of reservoir storage in the West, Californiaโs reservoirs continue to be at or above historical averages for the date (April 8), with the stateโs two largest reservoirs, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville, at 116% and 120% of average, respectively. In the Southwest, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is reporting (April 6) Lake Powell at 33% full, Lake Mead at 34% full, and the total Colorado system at 41% full (compared to 42% full at the same time last year)…
On this weekโs map, improvements were made in the region, namely in northern Kansas, northern Nebraska, and South Dakota, where shorter-term precipitation (past 30-60 days) is normal to above normal. Additionally, these areas were showing improvements in other drought indicators including soil moisture, streamflow activity, and satellite-based vegetation health. In western North Dakota, areas of Extreme (D3), Severe (D2), and Moderate (D1) drought expanded on the map in response to a combination of factors, including numerous recent impact reports from the agricultural sector, below-normal precipitation (past 30 days), and low streamflow and soil moisture levels. For the week, generally dry conditions prevailed across western portions of the region, while eastern portions received modest accumulations of <1.5 inches (liquid). In terms of temperatures, below-normal average temperatures (ranging from 2 to 10+ degrees F) were logged across the entire region…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 8, 2025.
Out West, generally dry conditions prevailed over much of the region, including areas of California, the Great Basin, the Intermountain West, and the Desert Southwest (southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico). However, some mountain locations in the Pacific Northwest and the Rocky Mountains received light-to-moderate precipitation accumulations. On the map, areas of Extreme (D3) drought were introduced in southeastern Arizona, where precipitation deficits existed at both short- and longer-term time scales. Similarly, ongoing below-normal snowpack conditions (snow water equivalent at NRCS SNOTEL stations ranging from 6 to 55% of median) in the Nacimiento, San Juan, and Sangre de Cristo ranges of New Mexico, led to the introduction of areas of Extreme (D3) drought. Elsewhere, some improvements were made on the map in drought-affected areas of northeastern Nevada, northeastern Utah, northwestern Colorado, and Wyoming. Looking at the regional snowpack, the NRCS SNOTEL network is reporting (April 8) the following region-level (2-digit HUC) SWE levels: Pacific Northwest 102%, Missouri 97%, Upper Colorado 89%, Great Basin 104%, Lower Colorado 69%, and Rio Grande 46%…
On this weekโs map, widespread improvements were made in response to very heavy rainfall accumulations observed across parts of the region, with the highest totals (ranging from 5 to 15+ inches) observed in northeastern Texas, eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, western Tennessee, and southern Mississippi. The multi-day storm event led to catastrophic flooding in parts of the region as well as tornadic activity, widespread power outages, and loss of life. However, the deluge of rains also led to significant improvements in drought-related conditions, with multiple category improvements made on the map. For the week, average temperatures were above normal in eastern areas, with anomalies ranging from 3 to 12 degrees F. Conversely, the western extent of the region, including much of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, experienced temperatures ranging from 3 to 12 degrees F below normal. Looking at Texas reservoir conditions, statewide reservoirs are reported to be 75.7% full, with many reservoirs in the eastern part of the state in good condition (over 90% full), while numerous reservoirs in the western portion of the state continue to experience below-normal levels, according to Water Data for Texas (April 9). In terms of streamflow activity (April 9), the U.S. Geological Survey is reporting well above normals streamflows (>90th percentile) across northeastern Texas, southeastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and western Tennessee, while areas of central and southern Texas are experiencing below normal levels (1st to 24th percentile range)…
Looking Ahead
The NWS Weather Prediction Center (WPC) 7-Day Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF) calls for relatively dry conditions across the conterminous U.S., except for light-to-moderate accumulations across areas of the Pacific Northwest, northern Plains, Lower Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and the Northeast. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) 6-10-day Outlook calls for a moderate-to-high probability of above-normal temperatures across the Western U.S., Plains, and areas of the South, while below-normal temperatures are expected across eastern portions of the Midwest and portions of the Northeast. Elsewhere, near-normal temperatures are favored. In terms of precipitation, there is a low-to-moderate probability of above-normal precipitation across New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma as well as areas of the Upper Midwest. Elsewhere, below-normal precipitation is expected across most of the West, Southeast, and Mid-Atlantic.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 8, 2025.
With the snow accumulation portion of the 2025 water year drawing to a close, snowpack in much of the region was near average, except for southern Colorado, southern Utah and northeastern Wyoming where snowpack ranged from 50-80% of average. Above average precipitation in northern Utah and much of Wyoming added to snowpack during March and caused the removal of drought conditions from the Wasatch Front and northern and central Wyoming. A late-March rain/snow event produced record precipitation along the northern Front Range and Eastern Plains and alleviated drought. Seasonal streamflow volume forecasts vary from much below average in southern Utah and southwestern Colorado to near average forecasts for more northerly river basins such as the Colorado headwaters, Yampa, North Platte and Bighorn River Basins. The streamflow volume for Lake Powellโs inflow is forecasted at 67% of average.
March precipitation was near-to-above average in Wyoming and much of Utah. Below average March precipitation fell across much of Colorado and southeastern Utah. In northern Utah, March precipitation was 130-200% of average and large areas of Wyoming received 130-300% of average March precipitation. Parts of southern Colorado and southeastern Utah received less than 50% of average March precipitation, further worsening drought conditions. Six long-term weather monitoring sites in eastern Colorado received record-low March precipitation.
March temperatures were mostly above average. In Utah and southwestern Colorado, March temperatures were within two degrees of average. March temperatures in other parts of Colorado and Wyoming were two to six degrees above average.
April 1 snow water equivalent (SWE) was near average for much of Wyoming, northern Colorado and northern Utah, ranging from 90% in the Lower Green to 110% in the Upper Snake River Basins. In southern Colorado and southern Utah, April 1 SWE was below to much below average, ranging from 44% in the Virgin to 80% in the Gunnison River Basins. On a statewide basis, SWE was near average in Utah (92%) and Wyoming (100%), but below average in Colorado (84%). In southwestern Utah, eight Snotel sites at elevations ranging from 6,000-8,900 feet have completely melted, which is 14 to 34 days earlier than average.
Spatial estimates of SWE on March 31, provided by INSTAAR at the University of Colorado, show lower estimates of SWE relative to average for all river basins except Wyomingโs Bighorn, Snake and Yellowstone Basins. The lower percent average SWE from spatial SWE estimates compared to Snotel-derived SWE is largely due to the inclusion of low elevation snowpack in the spatial SWE estimates which is not well-represented in the Snotel network. Snowpack at elevations below Snotel sites was generally low in 2025 due to higher snow levels and periods of warm sunny weather in March. The entire Spatial SWE report for 3/31/25 can be downloadedย here.
April 1 seasonal (April-July) streamflow volume forecasts were near-to-below average across the region. In general, seasonal streamflow volume forecasts were near average in the North and below or much below average in the South. In the Upper Colorado River Basin, near average streamflow volumes are forecasted for the Colorado Headwaters (90%) and the Yampa (94%); below average streamflow volumes for the Upper Green (80%), Lower Green (80%) and Gunnison (85%); and much below average streamflow volume for the Dolores (55%) and San Juan (48%). Seasonal streamflow is forecasted at 67% of average for Lake Powell. In the Missouri River Basin, near average seasonal streamflow volumes are forecasted for the Bighorn and North Platte River Basins, and below average streamflow is forecasted for the Arkansas, Cheyenne, Powder, South Platte and Tongue River Basins. Note: both NRCS and the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC) provide seasonal streamflow forecasts for the Upper Colorado River Basin and these forecasts occasionally differ due to differences in streamflow forecasting models. For example, the April 1, 2025 seasonal streamflow forecast for the Upper Green River at Flaming Gorge is 80% from the CBRFC and 94% from the NRCS.
On April 1, drought conditions covered 54% of the region, a 2% regional decline from February 25. Significant expansion of drought in Colorado during March was offset by the removal of drought conditions along the Wasatch Front in northern Utah and in northern and central Wyoming. Extreme drought conditions were removed from the Snake and Powder River Basins and the area of severe drought contracted during March. Drought conditions expanded and became more severe in western Colorado and drought conditions emerged in both central and southeastern Colorado during March.
Pacific Ocean temperatures were near average in March, ENSO is currently in a neutral phase, and there is a greater than 50% probability of ENSO-neutral conditions continuing through early fall. The NOAA monthly outlook for April suggests an increased probability of below average precipitation and above average temperatures across most of Colorado and Utah. The NOAA Seasonal Precipitation Outlook (April-June) indicates an increased probability of below average precipitation for the entire region, especially in Utah and western Colorado. There is also an increased probability of above average temperatures for Colorado, Utah and southwestern Wyoming during April-June.
Significant weather event: Record Front Range precipitation.ย After a dry January-March, record precipitation fell across the northern Front Range and Eastern Plains of Colorado on March 29-30. Rain fell for most of the event at lower elevations with wet snow accumulating in the foothills. Daily precipitation records were set on March 29 in Boulder (1.41โ), Brighton (0.46โ), Eastonville (0.70โ), Greeley (0.60โ), Longmont (0.66โ) and Winter Park (0.76โ) and two-day precipitation records were set on March 29-30 at 11 locations with more than 50 years of data. Notably, more rain fell on March 29-30 than in all of 2025 at 18 locations. The late March rain and snow event caused a one-category improvement in drought conditions, including the removal of all drought and abnormally dry conditions across a large swath of northeastern Colorado. An area of extreme drought was also removed from Larimer County.
Click the link to read the release on the NRCS website:
April 8, 2025
As Colorado approaches the seasonal peak of its snowpack, data as of April 1 show statewide snow water equivalent at 85 percent of median, down from 112 percent this time last year. March delivered 105 percent of median precipitation across the state, improving snowpack totals in many basins.
As of April 1st Coloradoโs snow water equivalent (SWE) is at 85 percent of median, compared to 112 percent on this date last year. Statewide monthly precipitation for March reached 105 percent, while water year to date (WYTD) is at 92 percent of median. March brought increased storm activity, bolstering precipitation and snowpack values, especially across western, northern and central basins. The southern half of the state remains below average, reflecting the extended period of below average precipitation from December through February. However, 30-day precipitation totals through March show improvements. The Gunnison, Arkansas, Upper Rio Grande (URG) and combined San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan (SMDASJ) basins each record above to near average precipitation for the month, with values reaching 108, 77, 86 and 117 percent, respectively. Even with the recent increase in March precipitation, snowpack remains below median in the Gunnison, Arkansas, Upper Rio Grande and combined SMDASJ basins which are at 81, 74, 56 and 63 percent of median, respectively.
Throughout the final week of March, all basins in the state experienced snowmelt, most notably in the southern half of the state where accelerated melt occurred at many sites. In the Upper Rio Grande basin snowmelt is particularly pronounced with several sites showing both lower than average peak SWE and faster than normal melt rates. Statewide median peak SWE typically occurs April 8th, although actual timing varies basin to basin. The Headwaters of the Rio Grande sub-basin are days away from peak with the median date around April 11th. Following a storm over the first weekend of April the Headwaters of the Rio Grande sub-basin records a modest boost in SWE, now holding 73 percent of median and ranking in the 17th percentile.
Coloradoโs northern river basins all have near to above median snowpack ranging from 93 to 103 percent. As of April 1st, the South Platte is at 98 percent of median snowpack, the Laramie and North Platte at 103 percent, Colorado Headwaters is at 96 percent and the Yampa-White-Little Snake at 93 percent. Each of these basins have reached approximately 84 to 91 percent of median peak SWE, with room to grow before their median peak dates in mid to late April.
While April has the potential to deliver meaningful snowpack accumulation, itโs worth noting that many sites in southern basins have likely already passed their seasonal peak. Median peak SWE dates in these basins range from April 2nd to April 8th. To date, the Arkansas, URG and SMDASJ reached their highest SWE around March 23-24. Current SWE as a percent of median ranges from 47 to 71 percent in southern basins. These values reflect a notably below average snowpack and while not all sites are record breaking, there are some sites among the lowest on record or near record at several locations. Of the 198 SNOTEL and snow course sites in Colorado, 40 sites (20% percent) currently fall withing the lowest 15th percentile for their respective period of records. โThese values reflect how far off some sites are from their typical accumulation and highlight the larger picture of below normal snowpack in the southern basins,โ says Nagam Gill, NRCS hydrologist. SNOTEL records in this group span 9 to 47 years, while manual snow course surveys extend from 42 to 88 years of data.
Statewide reservoir storage is at 92 percent of median and 58 percent of total capacity. While this is slightly below last yearโs 100 percent of median at this time, most major reservoir across the state observe near 30 year medians. Dillon Reservoir is at 97 percent of median and 80 percent capacity and Lake Granby holds 101 percent of median at 58 percent capacity. Pueblo Reservoir is at 109 percent of median and 71 percent of capacity. The streamflow forecast at Pueblo Reservoir Inflow project 370,000 acre-feet for the April โ September period or 94 percent of median and has stayed consistent from last months projections. Blue Mesa is at 96 percent of median and 60 percent of capacity. Notably below average is McPhee Reservoir at 76 percent of median and 56 percent of capacity.
April 1ย volumetric streamflow forecasts reflect snowpack and precipitation conditions across Colorado at 86 percent of median. Forecasts are near to above average for northern basins and below to much below average for the southern half of the state. Statewide, 40 percent of forecast points are at 75 or less of median and 27 percent of those points fall in the lower 25thย percentile. Navajo Reservoir Inflow forecasts a 325 kaf median departure from the period of record (POR) median. McPhee Reservoir Inflow is at 64 percent of median with a 91 kaf departure. Forecast volumes in the Colorado Headwaters, Yampa-White-Little Snake, Laramie and North Platte, and South Platte are at 96, 95, 102 and 93 percent of median seasonal streamflow volumes, respectively. In contrast, the Gunnison, Arkansas, URG and combined SMDASJ basins are forecast at 86, 87, 63 and 60 percent of median, respectively. These outlooks reflect the considerable differences in peak SWE and melt out trends already underway in the southern portion of the state. Compared toย March 1ย outlooks, forecast volumes decline by roughly 12 to 15 percentage points in the URG and SMDASJ basins, driven by accelerated snowmelt during late March. The variability of forecasted volumes means that relying solely on the 50% exceedance forecast may not fully capture the uncertainty in future weather. A critical consideration when reviewing these forecasts is theย full suiteย of exceedance probabilities.
“The problem is becoming tougher to deal with and more acute,” one Western water lawyer told Denver7.
…this time of year has water experts wondering what the snowpack levels will mean for runoff into the Colorado River, a critical resource.
“Right now is exactly when we start being concerned about what our runoff is going to look like,” said James Eklund, who is a Western water lawyer. “It’s starting to get warmer, and so all that snow that everybody skied on and snowboarded on over the winter is going to start melting off and go into our rivers and our reservoirs.”
“Right now, we’re showing about 67% of average runoff, and that’s really remarkable, because our snowpack is right around 100% of average,” Eklund explained. “Even though we’ve got pretty good precipitation, and we did have really good skiing conditions in many parts of the state over much of the ski season, it’s not translating to as much runoff as we had hoped.”
Sixty-seven percent of average runoff is “not where you want to be,” according to Eklund, who considers this to be a “below average year.”
The construction site at the bottom of Gross Dam with equipment used to place concrete and build the new steps. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
April 7, 2025
The stateโs largest water utility will have two weeks to complete any necessary work on its $531 million dam expansion project before a court-ordered construction halt takes effect, a federal judge ruled Sunday. The granting of a temporary window for construction followsย an order late Thursdayย by U.S. District Court Judge Christine Arguello blocking Denver Waterโs expansion of Gross Reservoir outside Nederland and barring further construction work to raise the height of the dam…In response to the order, Denver Water asked the judge to allow dam construction to continue while the utility appealed her decision.
โDenver Water faces enormous irreparable harm from the order stopping ongoing project construction, which may threaten the safety of the half-constructed dam; require Denver Water to quickly lay off hundreds of construction workers; impose millions in additional materials and equipment costs on Denver Water and its ratepayers; and increase the risk of water shortages,โ lawyers for the utility wrote in their request.
Arguello denied the utilityโs request to allow construction to continue during the appeal but granted the 14-day stay on her order blocking all construction. After a yet-to-be-scheduled hearing, she will decide exactly how much more construction to allow to make the existing dam structurally sound…Arguello in her Sunday order reiterated herย criticism of Denver Waterโs decision to start constructionย even though it faced challenges to the legality of the project.
โThe financial concerns argued by Denver Water do not outweigh the irreparable injury of environmental harm,โ the judge wrote. โDenver Water took a calculated risk when it decided to move forward with construction despite the lawsuit.โ
Click the link to read the report on the UCLA website (Noah Garrison, Lauren Stack, Jessica McKay, and Mark Gold). Here’s the executive summary:
The impacts of climate change and prolonged drought on water scarcity in the Western United States have accelerated since the end of the 20th century. The Colorado River has been strained by a history of excessive withdrawals and long-term drought. Increasingly less water is available across the seven Colorado River Basin statesโArizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyomingโfor natural ecosystems and the 40 million people that rely, in part or in whole, on its diverted flows to cities and farms. Faced with this challenge, the importance of recycled water at a large scale has never been greater. Water recycling of treated municipal wastewater is a cost-effective source of reliable, sustainable water supply; people shower, flush toilets, and wash clothes and dishes on a regular basis even in times of fluctuating water availability, and these waste flows go to publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) in urban areas.
To assess the current state of water recycling across the Colorado River Basin and its affected states, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, in partnership with Natural Resources Defense Council, has investigated water recycling progress and policy development across the seven states in the basin. We analyzed the amount of water entering municipal wastewater treatment plants treating an average of greater than 1 million gallons per day across the 2022 calendar year, the amount these plants reclaim or reuse, and the amount they discharge back into the environment. Our analysis demonstrates that while individual treatment facilities, cities, or even regions may be making substantial progress toward water sustainability, most basin states are falling well short of their potential to reuse wastewater. Overall, the Colorado River Basin states are missing opportunities to ensure a safe, sustainable, climate-resilient supply of water in a hotter, drier future.
While across the Colorado River Basin, an average of 26% of municipal wastewater from POTWs was recycled, there are striking differences between states that are prioritizing reuse and those that are falling behind. Arizona (reusing 52% of treated wastewater) and Nevada (as much as 85%) deserve accolades for their efforts to develop the recycled water supply. California, which produces by far the largest volume of wastewater, only recycled 22% of its treated wastewater in 2022. Of the remaining four states, New Mexico recycles a similarly modest 18%, and Colorado (3.6%), Utah (less than 1%), and Wyoming (3.4%), for a variety of state-specific reasons, have made little to no progress to date on reusing meaningful volumes of treated wastewater. Further and distinct breaks appear to exist between efforts and progress made by states in the lower Colorado River Basin (Arizona, California, and Nevada) and those of the upper basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming). In 2022, the upper basin states as a whole recycled less than 5% of their assessed influent, as compared to more than 30% for the lower basin. (See Figure EX-1 for state-by-state results of our analysis.)
Figure EX-1. Volume of municipal wastewater effluent vs. current reuse by state across the Colorado River Basin for 2022. Totals include figures for the whole state, not only for wastewater generated in the Colorado River watershed. Credit: UCLA
In addition to the lack of progress on wastewater reuse, the overall lack of data on wastewater recycling, including volume, level of treatment, and end use of the recycled water is also glaring. California maintains the most comprehensive database of recycled water, including its end uses, through the California Open Data Portal (see SWRCB, 2022). While we were able to gather data directly from individual wastewater treatment facilities in other states, determining how much water is being recycled was a significant challenge, and determining how much recycled water is ultimately directed to municipal, agricultural, or industrial users was often limited to qualitative description, if information was available at all.
All of the state results have been achieved in the absence of strong federal recycled water policy or any federal regulation. The lack of federal support for or consistency among state programs has hampered efforts and stands as a significant impediment to further growth of recycled water use. Promoting consistent and growing national water reuse will require action at both the federal and state level.
To this end, through our investigation we have developed a set of recommendations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal and state partners and stakeholders. Additional detail and guidance for these recommendations is presented in the main report body and conclusions. These recommendations include the following:
Within two years, EPA, working with state partners, water agencies, and nongovernmental organizations, should develop a model state program and ordinance for recycling of municipal wastewater with minimum elements.
EPA should improve data acquisition and management, including developing guidance for standardized facility-level reporting and state data sharing, to ensure availability of information and comparability of data between states.
EPA should further develop and disseminate the latest science and technical information on treatment processes and pathogen risk assessment for different sources of water and reuse applications.
In partnership with the states, EPA should develop wastewater reuse goals and timelines.
EPAโworking with other federal agencies including the Bureau of Reclamation and the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, and Defenseโshould develop and implement funding strategies beyond those already in existence, including furthering the Pilot Program for Alternative Water Source grants.
In addition, our analysis uncovered that, across the Colorado Basin states, inconsistency between programs and overall lack of state-level oversight or even awareness of wastewater recycling efforts in several states is alarming. Recommended improvements needed at the state level for those states without these programs include:
Work with local water reclamation or reuse agencies to develop funding strategies to meet targets for 30%, 40%, or 50% goals.
Work with EPA to establish numeric targets for wastewater reuse for each state, with timelines and interim goals. Figure EX-2 provides a breakdown of the total water supply that would be made available for each state with targeted goals of 30%, 40% or 50% reuse by 2040, a number already exceeded by two of the basin states.
Improve data acquisition and management, as well as reporting requirements where applicable, for wastewater treatment facilities and wastewater reuse operations.
Conduct assessments of current state legal and regulatory requirements to identify barriers to wastewater reuse and develop formal state policies for overcoming those barriers.
Overall, substantial action needs to be taken to achieve sustainable water management across the Colorado River Basin. Better use of climate modeling, water pricing that does not encourage waste and unreasonable use, stronger water conservation and efficiency programs and requirements for agricultural and urban users, enhanced stormwater capture, greater and longer-term cutbacks in Colorado River water withdrawals, and, critically, a substantial increase in water reuse all must be embraced as climate resiliency solutions.
Figure EX-2. Recycled water volume created for each state at targeted reuse percentage of 30%, 40%, and 50%of the stateโs total wastewater influent, with net increase in overall potential available water supply. Credit: UCLA
As shown in Figure EX-2, if the Colorado Basin states other than Arizona and Nevada were to increase wastewater reuse to even 40% of treated influent it could increase current recycled water availability by nearly 900,000 acre-feet per year (AFY) over current efforts. Reuse of 50% of influent would increase water availability by nearly 1.3 million AFY. This represent a significant percentage of the projected shortfall on the Colorado River, and a rsolution that should be pursued aggressively to ensure sustainable management of the river.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Milkweed, sweet peas, and a plethora of other flora billow from Farmerโs Ditch in the North Fork Valley of western Colorado. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
โI was standing there looking at a trickle running down a very large ditch thinking, โMan, itโs going to be hard to irrigate with that,โโ said Jesse Kruthaupt of Trout Unlimited. โIt was the summer of 2012, and I was visiting with a ranch manager about options to improve his irrigation system and water delivery, while also improving flows in Ohio Creek. As many remember, the snowpack that winter was pretty lean, and by the middle of June, there wasnโt much water left in many streams or ditches in western Colorado.โ
It is situations like the one above that are at the core of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy Districtโs grant program. Since 2009, the program has provided funds to address many of the issues facing basin water users, including drought resiliency. The districtโs board of directors initiated the program in 2009 with a budget of $100,000. That year, only two grant applications were awarded for a total of $45,000. Since it was brand new and many of our constituents didnโt have a good grasp of what the program was all about, we were pretty excited to see the two applications then and happy to fund a pond lining project and ditch rehabilitation project. Since then, thanks to the success of many projects we have funded, the great outreach efforts of Jesse Kruthaupt and other consultants and the districtโs education efforts, triple the amount of funding is available. The grant program continues to be hugely supportive of a variety of water projects. I am pleased to see that a number of projects have been dipping into available technology to achieve the best possible results and better water management. The number of applications and the requested funding amounts have grown steadily over the past 15 years. In 2025, we received 14 applications with a whopping $470,420 in requests, and $1.94 million in total project costs (applicants are required to contribute matching funds).
The $2 billion pumped hydroelectric project proposed on private land located some 7 miles southeast of Craig would include an upper reservoir at Buck Peak. This view from the peak shows Craig Station visible in the distance. rPlus Hydro/Courtesy photo
Agency leaders and stakeholders have until May 26 to submit comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, regarding the โpre-application documentโ for a proposed $2 billion pumped-hydro-storage clean energy project that could be built southeast of Craig.
On March 27, around 40 people attended or listened remotely to a meeting hosted at Colorado Northwestern Community College that provided updated information on the project proposed by Salt Lake City-based rPlus Hydro. The presentation at the joint agency meeting included an overview of the project and operations and a review of information in the FERC pre-application document. The meeting outlined proposed studies to be conducted by rPlus Hydro for the FERC licensing process and provided agency representatives and stakeholders the opportunity to give feedback. A smaller group attended an afternoon tour at the proposed site…
Shapiro said water use from the Yampa River would not be extensive at 4,000 acre-feet of initial fill for the projectโs lower reservoir, plus some 600 acre-feet of water annually to account for evaporation and seepage from two new reservoirs on 170 acres. The goal would be to use a portion of the water rights already owned by the coal-fired power plants, Shapiro said…
The majority of the pumped-hydro system would be located underground, including a below-ground powerhouse with three pump-turbine units with generation capacity of 200 megawatts each. The project would consist of one upper and one lower reservoir joined by 2.5 miles of underground water tunnels, an above-ground switchyard, access tunnel, tailrace surge chamber and accessary facilities.
An electric transmission line from the project would run either 11 miles to Craig or less than 2 miles to a Western Area Power Administration line, Shapiro said. Target completion of the licensing process is estimated for 2028, with construction from 2029 to 2033, Shapiro said.
The Northern Integrated Supply Project, currently estimated at $2 billion, would create two new reservoirs and a system of pipelines to capture more drinking water for 15 community water suppliers. Credit: Northern Water project pages
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
March 5, 2025
Two new bodies of water in northern Front Range will boost water supplies for 15 communities
Plans for a $2 billion water supply project in northern Colorado will move forward after the communities supporting it agreed to pump $100 million into improving the health of the Cache la Poudre River โ a settlement ending decades of dispute over the water infrastructure plans. Leaders from theย Northern Integrated Supply Projectย and the nonprofit environmental groupย Save the Poudreย finalized the settlement on Friday, clearing the way for two new reservoirs. The deal will funnel $100 million over 20 years into a fund to sustain 50 miles of the river from the mouth of the Poudre Canyon, northwest of Fort Collins, to the riverโs confluence with the South Platte. The Poudre River Improvement Fund will pay for projects to enhance the riverโs flows, water quality, ecosystem and recreational opportunities. The settlementย ends Save the Poudreโs 2024 lawsuit alleging the Army Corps of Engineers did not adequately consider the environmental impacts of the Northern Integrated Supply Project when itย issued a Clean Water Act permit for its construction. Environmentalists with the group have opposed the project for decades because it would drain the river and damage its ecosystems…
Northern Water, the utility thatโs spearheading the project, and other water suppliers haveย pursued the water infrastructure improvements since 1980,ย stating they are critical to meeting the needs of the growing region. When complete, the Northern Integrated Supply Project will include Glade Reservoir northwest of Fort Collins, Galeton Reservoir northeast of Greeley, 50 miles of buried water pipelines and five pump plants. The project will send more than 40,000 acre-feet of water annually to the participating water suppliers in Boulder, Weld and Larimer counties โ enough water for about 80,000 households.
โThis is a milestone day for the communities participating in the project,โ Northern Water General Manager Brad Wind said in a news release. โThe settlement agreement will close the permitting process for the project, open the door to constructing a project that will deliver much-needed water supplies to vibrant communities, and allow for dozens of large-scale riverine investments in and along the Poudre River.โ
Construction of Glade Reservoir is expected to begin in 2026. It will hold about 170,000 acre-feet of water from the Poudre River โ a capacity slightly larger than that of Horsetooth Reservoir, according to Northern Waterโs release. Construction of 45,600-acre-foot Galeton Reservoir will begin after the first reservoir is complete, and it will store water from the South Platte. An acre-foot of water is enough to support two Colorado households for a year. The project will support water supplies for 15 towns and water districts in northern Colorado, including the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, the Left Hand Water District, Fort Morgan and Erie.
If a river running through your town is overused and underloved, it might be in line for a first-of-its-kind statewide restoration program, designed to assess and improve a riverโs health, its recreational assets, and its safety.
In March, Great Outdoors Colorado and the Colorado Water Conservation Board approved a combined $417,000 in seed money to launch the program, according to Emily Olsen, regional vice president of Trout Unlimited. The fish advocacy group is helping lead the initiative, known as Colorado Rivermap, along with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
The project will launch this year with the selection of a technical team to identify the river segments that are most in need of help, according to Doug Vilsack, Colorado state director for the BLM.
โThis is getting the big thinkers together and using the seed funding to see which reaches of rivers need our attention and how much funding we will need,โ Vilsack said.
Theyโll be looking for parks and river access points that are rundown and in need of repair and restoration. Theyโre on the hunt for stretches of river that have no access points, and those that have been used so heavily that streambanks are eroding.
Once the inventory is complete, the mapping group will turn to advocacy groups and agencies like Great Outdoors Colorado to ask for funding to make the improvements.
Colorado Rivermap has received letters of support from several local governments and counties, including Chaffee and Grand counties. And Olsen said local communities that want to be involved will be key to making sure there is main-street involvement in the work.
โWe are going to think hard about where we can add value and find things local communities can support,โ she said.
Other backers that will provide funding for the initiative include the Foundation for Americaโs Public Lands, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and American Whitewater, Olsen said.
Colorado has eight major river basins. The waterways are a backbone of the stateโs thriving tourist economy. (Colorado Water Conservation Board)
Colorado is known for its scenic waterways and is home to eight major river basins, from the South Platte on the Front Range, to the Yampa River Basin in the northwestern corner of the state, to the headwaters of the Colorado River, in Grand County.
The rivers help lure millions of tourists to the state, intent on rafting and fishing in their waters and camping along their shores.
In 2023 the state saw record-high visits, with tourist numbers hitting 93.3 million and visitors spending $28.3 billion, according to reports by visitor research firm Longwoods International.
But the stateโs soaring popularity has also begun to wear on its iconic streams. The waterways, Vilsack said, โwill be in tougher shape if we donโt do this.โ
The initial survey of the rivers comes as Colorado launches a statewide recreation strategy, said Chris Yuan-Farrell, programs director for Great Outdoors Colorado.
โWe are planning what we need for outdoor recreation, habitat and natural resources health. Rivers are obviously a big component of this,โ Yuan-Ferrell said.
Initial steps include formation of the technical and mapping team. Olsen said they also plan to dramatically expand the team to include state and federal governments and private businesses with a stake in Coloradoโs recreation economy. Vilsack said they expect this work to be completed within two years.
Anyone interested in the project can contact Olsen at emily.olsen@tu.org.
Last August, I wrote an incredulous and somewhat tongue-in-cheek story about then-candidate Donald Trumpโs plan, as outlined a year and a half earlier on his Agenda 47 website, to build 10 โFreedom Citiesโ on โemptyโ public lands in the West.
I didnโt take it seriously. Maybe I should have. Trump hasnโt said much about Freedom Cities since being elected, but other people have taken the idea, spiffed it up a bit, and run with it. One enigmatic group, for example, wants to convert the Presidio Trust in San Francisco into a Freedom City. And the American Enterprise Institute has incorporated Freedom Cities into its audacious Homestead 2.0 plan to โmake housing affordable again.โ
Indeed, the cities and similar efforts to hand over federal land to housing developers may be the very tool Western right-wing activists have been looking for to finally transfer public land out of the American publicโs hands.
Efforts to privatize the public domain have flared up for over a century. In the early part of the 20th century, Sen. Albert Bacon Fall, of New Mexico, urged his colleagues to turn over forest reserves to states and private interests. In the 1940s, Western lawmakers and the livestock lobby attempted to transfer all Bureau of Land Management lands to private ownership. And in the late 1970s, the Sagebrush Rebellionโs legal arm, the League for the Advancement of States Equal Rights, endeavored to convey federal lands to the respective states, at which point they could be sold off to the highest bidder.
These movements were echoed in the 1990s, the 2000s, and in the 2010s. But each conflagration was ultimately doused. Proponents realized that mining, grazing, and drilling federal lands was much cheaper than doing so on state or private lands, and that they had no support outside of a handful of Western counties.
Over the last few years, the embers have been rekindled in the form of lawsuits, state-level legislation, and far-out campaign proposals. While I certainly have taken note of and written about these bids, I also havenโt taken them all that seriously: They, too, would collapse as it became clear that their flimsy legal grounding couldnโt stand up to public opposition.
More recently, however, Iโve begun to have my doubts.
No, I donโt think Utah will ever win its land grab lawsuit, nor will the Wyoming Freedom Caucusโs bid to seize control of all federal land within its borders โ even national parks โ succeed, even in the state legislature. But the growing number of proposals from both Democrats and Republicans to use federal land for housing and for siting data centers and associated power generating facilities โ while also using proceeds of land sales to offset tax cuts for the wealthy โ seem set to come together and make the Sagebrush Rebellion fantasy a reality.
The thing that got me thinking about all of this was a video of a recent AEI conference, in which the right-leaning*, free-market think tank introduced its Homesteading 2.0 plan. In a nutshell, the plan โ which is broken up into the Home Sweet Home and Freedom Cities phases โ looks like this:
The Bureau of Land Management would sell off 850 square miles, or about 544,000 acres, of developable public land in or near existing metro areas. About 250 of those square miles would fall under the Home Sweet Home phase, with the remaining 600 square miles devoted to 20 Freedom Cities around the West. They say this would generate $100 billion for the U.S. Treasury, which would mean the land would sell for an average of about $183,000 per acre.
Under the Home Sweet Home phase, a total of 1.5 million new homes would be built on that newly privatized land within existing metro areas on the current urban fringe.
Another 1.5 million homes would be built in Freedom Cities, which would lie outside โ but not far from โ existing metro areasโ peripheries.
Screenshot from the AEI video showing developable BLM land north of Bend, Oregon.
After getting this far, I was ready to shut off the video and go back to watching reels of mountain biking wipeouts. Thereโs no way that such a grandiose plan could garner the necessary support to actually occur, even if it had been stripped of Trumpโs nuttiest embellishments. No matter how these folks spin it, 544,000 acres is a lot of public land to transfer, especially given the fact that high profile Republicans such as Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Ryan Zinke have come out strongly against large-scale public land transfers.
But under our current bizarro political regime, anything is possible, especially the zany and grandiose. I wouldnโt be surprised if the AEI folks threw in the Freedom Cities just to spice up their Home Sweet Home plan and to grab Trumpโs attention. Because if you get Trumpโs support, you automatically gain the backing of 95% of the Republicans in Congress. Get Elon Musk on board and itโs a slam dunk, especially if it raises $100 billion to offset tax cuts to the wealthy. (Zinke and Daines will back down from their stances instantly if bullied by Trump to do so).
Screenshot from AEIโs Homesteading 2.0 video.
AEI senior fellow Ed Pinto said the initiative would gain access to the land via the existing authority of the Interior Secretary to dispose of public lands, plus the congressional reconciliation bill, and โemergencyโ presidential powers. โWeโre talking basically undesignated BLM areas,โ Pinto said, โsome of it may be designated as conservation areas, some of it may be ranch land โฆโ (So much for the โundesignatedโ part).
One thing that struck me was the similarity between these right wing policy folksโ arguments and those made by YIMBY progressive housing advocates. Both blame the housing affordability crisis on a lack of supply, both say the solution is to build more housing, and both agree that the best way to do that is to reduce bureaucratic red tape and to up-zone land. Thatโs when state and local governments encourage density and multiple use by getting rid of or reducing minimum lot sizes and abolishing sprawl-friendly single-family-only zoning laws. โZoning gets in the way of the highest and best use of land,โ said Pinto.
This could help get Democrats and progressives on board with the plan, even if it means transferring public lands. After all, while almost anyone on the left eagerly pushes back against Big Oil or Big Beef land grabs, they may be far less enthusiastic about fighting Big Housing.
While progressive housing advocates are more likely to combine up-zoning with government subsidies and support, AEI is adamant about letting the market do its thing. โWeโre gonna add supply, not with subsidies,โ said AEI senior fellow Ed Pinto in the video. โThis land is going to be sold at market rate โฆ Weโre making it more affordable the old fashioned way: build smaller houses on smaller lots and the price goes down.โ Pinto added that he is not necessarily on board with Interior Secretary Doug Burgumโs similar plan to use public lands for affordable housing, because Burgumโs very vague plan is not laissez faire enough.
AEI is shooting for 13 houses per-acre, which is about twice as dense as Las Vegas currently. Yet itโs not clear how the plan would ensure that developers built the small homes AEI is looking for. Also a big question mark is who the hell is going to pay for the infrastructure for these developments, especially in Freedom Cities, which are mostly way out beyond the existing utilities and roads.
BLM lands around Las Vegas targeted for AEIโs Home Sweet Home (the multicolored parcels) and Freedom Cities initiatives (the dark green blobs).
Pinto indicated that the Freedom Cities wouldnโt be as much of a reach as they might sound. He pointed to giant master-planned communities as models, including Columbia, Maryland; Reston, Virginia; Villages, Florida; and Sun City/Georgetown, Texas. But his main example was Teravalis, a planned new city on nearly 60 square miles of land in Buckeye, about an hourโs drive outside of Phoenix, where Howard Hughes Holdings hopes to build 100,000 homes and over 50 million square feet of commercial development.
That brings up an important point that the AEI folks barely touched upon before brushing it off: water, and the increasing lack thereof. Teravalis has received its land-use approvals for the whole project. But the state has issued the required 100-year assured water supply certification for just 8,500 of the developmentโs homes. In 2023, Arizona halted new certifications for groundwater-reliant areas on Phoenixโs fringe, throwing the future of Teravalisโs remaining 91,500 planned homes into doubt. A new Freedom City in the same region would run up against similar limits. And the 1.27 million new homes these guys are planning for Southern Nevada? Umm โฆ hello! They donโt have any more water, folks.
But that seems to be of no concern to the AEI folks or, for that matter, various Nevada leaders who are pushing similar, if less ambitious, plans.
U.S. Rep. Susie Lee, a Nevada Democrat, recently introduced legislation that would make 25,000 acres of BLM land in Clark County, i.e. the Las Vegas area, available for housing over the next 50 years, while also setting aside other public land as wilderness, following the model of similar legislation Congress passed in 1998. It mirrors Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Mastoโs bill introduced last year. Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei forwarded a similar bill for the northern part of the state. And last year Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican introduced his Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter โ or HOUSES Act โ that would allow state and local governments to nominate tracts of โunderutilizedโ (meaning not actively being drilled or grazed to death) public land for purchase.
These bills and Burgumโs plan lack details. The AEI plan, on the other hand, is more than just an abstract concept. The think tank has actually mapped out specific BLM parcels that would be targeted for development. Itโs worth checking out the map to see for yourself, but some of the sites that stand out include:
Three potential Freedom City sites north of Grand Junction, stretching from Clifton to the Utah border;
Another one that would cover Mormon Mesa near Mesquite, Nevada, not far from the iconic land art, Double Negative;
And yet another at Fredonia, Arizona.
This whole Homesteading 2.0 thing, and especially the Freedom Cities part, is a long-shot, maybe even a pipe dream. But these days, anythingโs possible.
On April 1, Gov. Jared Polis and the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) announced $7.04 million in wildfire mitigation grants.
In total, the CSFS will award the $7.04 million to 37 projects in 26 counties across Colorado.
Included in the funding is Wildfire Adapted Partnership for community fuels reduction in Southwest Colorado
Coloradoโs diverse forests cover more than 24 million acres, and they provide crucial benefits, including clean air and water, habitat for wildlife, outdoor recreation and more.
All of these values that Coloradoโs forests provide are at risk of wildfire. Since 2018, the state of Colorado has provided funding to assist communities and groups across Colorado to reduce their wildfire risk and promote forest health through the Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation (FRWRM) grant program, administered by the CSFS.
โPreventing wildfires is an all-hands-on-deck effort in Colorado. Wildfires continue to be a serious threat to Colorado communities, and investing in fire mitigation initiatives and helping communities create defensible spaces helps all Coloradans and firefighters to be better prepared in the event of a fire emergency. This $7.04 million in wildfire grants will provide the essential resources that are crucial to continue building resilience to wildfires across Colorado,โ Polis said.
The FRWRM grant program has a matching requirement, either through cash or in-kind contributions.
Award recipients in areas with fewer economic resources, as defined by the social vulnerability index layer within the Colorado Forest Atlas, must match 25 percent of the project total, and all other award recipients must match 50 percent of the total project cost, amounting to nearly $9 million in match.
With these matching funds included, communities and groups across Colorado will invest about $16 million in efforts dedicated to forest restoration and wildfire mitigation. The projects awarded in this funding cycle will also build capacity for wildfire mitigation projects through staffing and equipment purchases.
The funding for this round of FRWRM awards will help Coloradans complete the following activities:
Build community capacity to address wildfire.
Reduce the risk of wildfire to people, property and infrastructure.
Promote forest health and restoration.
Encourage the use of wood from forest health and fuels reduction projects.
โAddressing forest health and wildfire mitigation at the local level is the most efficient and effective way to make Coloradoโs forests more resilient,โ said Matt McCombs, state forester and director of the CSFS. โThis funding is crucial each year to protect our homes, critical infrastructure and our way of life.โ
For the 2024-2025 round of FRWRM grants, the CSFS received 95 eligible applications requesting nearly $25 million. Since $7.04 million was available for this round of grants, 58 projects totaling nearly $15.4 million could not be funded. In addition, of the 37 awarded projects, the CSFS could only partially fund six of them, leaving about $2.5 million of their original requests unfunded.
โThe Colorado State Forest Services FRWRM grant is a critical element in our overall state efforts to improve forest health and reduce the risk of wildfires on our landscapes, and creating fire-adapted communities,โ said Dan Gibbs, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. โColorado is one lightning strike and one unattended campfire away from our next wildfire. With about half of all Coloradans living in the wildland-urban interface, these grants provide important capacity for locally and regionally driven wildfire prevention efforts.โ
The CSFS will announce the next round of funding assistance through the FRWRM grant program in the fall. For information about the program, visit the CSFS website.
The next time a water exportation project is pitched to move water from the San Luis Valley โ and there will be a next time โ the speculator will learn the value of that water to the six-county region measures into the billions of dollars.
A new report by American Rivers and senior economist Claire Sheridan of One Water Econ captures for the first time the economic value of the water that runs through the San Luis Valley. It was a study prompted in 2022 by the threat of water exportation from the Upper Rio Grande Basin by Renewable Water Resources.
As part of its proposal to export and sell 20,000 acre-feet of water every year from the Valley, RWR offered to establish a $50 million community fund that it argued would fairly compensate the Valley for its water. The study, โThe Economic Value of Water Resources in Coloradoโs San Luis Valley,โ pegs fair compensation of the RWR proposal at around $1.3 billion per year. (More on that figure below)
โItโs a really complex question to answer. What is the value of water in the San Luis Valley?โ said Heather Dutton, manager of the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District. โThe value of water in the San Luis Valley is so much greater than a one-time payment of $50 million.โ
Dutton, Sheridan from One Water Econ, and American Riversโ Emily Wolf presented the findings of the report at the annual Rio Grande State of the Basin Symposium held March 29 at Adams State.
The study goes beyond putting a dollar value to water for the Valleyโs agricultural purposes. It also examines the value of water as it relates to the Valleyโs outdoor recreation industry and wildlife and natural habitat surroundings.
Boat ramp on the Rio Grande. Credit: The City of Alamosa
And it looks at โwater-dependentโ industries that are key to the Valleyโs economy and their reliance on water for their customers and sanitation services. Those โwater-dependentโ industries like San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center and Adams State University account for approximately 21 percent of total direct economic output and 23 percent of employment in the Valley, according to the study.
โCapturing the value of water as it is used in homes, businesses, and for environmental purposes can add important information to conversations about the future of the Valley and its water resources,โ noted the studyโs authors.
The study puts into perspective how valuable water in the Upper Rio Grande Basin is when you apply it to the Valleyโs economy and livelihood. According to the report, the San Luis Valley economy generates $4.5 billion in total annual economic output, largely driven by hospitals, electric power companies, insurance, crop farming and cattle ranching. Alamosa and Rio Grande Counties account for 60 percent of the population and 67 percent of total economic output in the region.
Sandhill Cranes
Other insights from the report:
Agriculture in the San Luis Valley, including cattle ranching, generates 10 percent of all output in the region (although this varies significantly by county) and makes up 39 percent of Coloradoโs total agricultural output.
Agriculture is the single largest private employer in the SLV, and irrigated agriculture employs 8 percent of the total workforce (an estimated 2,322 jobs per year). Approximately 64 percent of these jobs are in the category of all other crop farming (which represents alfalfa and grass hay) and 34 percent are in vegetable farming (mostly potatoes).ย
The agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting sector generate over 4,000 jobs each year. This sector also leads in economic output, generating $566 million annually.ย
The value of clean drinking water in the San Luis Valley is estimated to be over $3,600,000 per day.
The analysis also found that water-related habitat in the Valley is valued at more than $49 million annually and the annual Crane Festival generates $4 million in direct revenue from visitor spending.
โItโs just apparent that just as water flows through this community, so do the dollars that are generated from that water,โ said economist Claire Sheridan.
Sheridan did the math for the audience at the Rio Grande Symposium in explaining how far under value RWRโs $50 million community fund pitch was when considering the value of water to residents of the Valley.
She used a model FEMA goes by in its emergency management work that factors in two components in creating a value for water to a community: One component is a willingness to pay for clean and safe drinking water. โIf you go to your tap and turn on your water, what are you willing to pay to make sure that you can drink that water? What is that worth to you?โ The other component is โavoided replacement costโ that factors in costs if a resident has to go buy water.
For the San Luis Valley and its estimated population of 46,600, those two components combined come out to about $77.23 per person, per day, said Sheridan. When you apply $77.23 to the Valleyโs population, the value for clean drinking water in the San Luis Valley is about $3.6 million per day or $1.3 billion annually.
1869 Map of San Luis Parc of Colorado and Northern New Mexico. “Sawatch Lake” at the east of the San Luis Valley is in the closed basin. The Blanca Wetlands are at the south end of the lake.
