โItโs a really scary time to be living in the basin and trying to help with water management at a time where thereโs so much fear and stress,โ she said.
Directing the Colorado River Program, Hawkins will lead teams working within seven U.S. states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. Programs range from on-the-ground conservation projects to basinwide policy issues and interstate negotiations.
Colorado water officials announced Wednesday a rough plan to figure out how the state would handle an unwelcome specter in the Colorado River Basin: forced water cuts.
Mandatory water cuts are possible under a 103-year-old Colorado River Compact in certain circumstances, mainly if the riverโs 10-year flow falls too low. Itโs a possibility that is one or two โbad yearsโ away, some experts say.
Colorado, however, does not have a clearly defined plan, or regulations, for how exactly it would handle such forced water cuts. Itโs time to start preparing, according to state engineer Jason Ullmann, Coloradoโs top water cop.
Over the years, Coloradans on both sides of the Continental Divide have asked about these โcompact administration regulations,โ Ullmann told state lawmakers during the Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee hearing Wednesday in Steamboat Springs.
โWeโve heard those questions,โ Ullmann, director of the Division of Water Resources, said as hundreds of water professionals listened at the Colorado Water Congress Summer Meeting.
If the riverโs flow falls below a 10-year rolling average of about 82.5 million acre-feet, the Lower Basin states โ Arizona, California and Nevada โ could demand that the Upper Basin send more water downstream based on the 1922 Colorado River Compact. In the water world, this is often called a โcompact call.โ
The Upper Basin states โ Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming โ argue that the trigger is actually 75 million acre-feet because of a difference in legal opinions about how the basin states should meet their obligations to share Colorado River water with Mexico.
That 10-year average flow was forecast to be about 82.8 million acre-feet by September 2026. If the flow falls below the tripwire, it would cause a legal mire that could take years to sort out.
State officials said Colorado is in compliance and expects to remain so in the future. If a compact call ever happened, it would be a historic first for the Colorado River Basin.
Colorado officials would need to be able to send more water downstream. But the state doesnโt have regulations to say who cuts back, where the water comes from, when cuts happen or how it would track the water to make sure it would end up where it needed to go.
State officials have debated whether they should even have these discussions in light of larger basin negotiations over water use. Some people wanted to focus the stateโs resources on the negotiations. Others feared that finding water supplies that could be cut would weaken the stateโs stance that it has no extra water to spare.
Based on Ullmannโs remarks, the state is shifting its next course of action: many, many feedback meetings with communities.
This is pretty big news, said state Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat, asking for more details about the timeline.
This winter and spring, state officials will reach out to key water user groups to host small listening sessions to hear their thoughts on the need for compact administration regulations, Ullmann said.
After that, the state will hold broader public meetings to get more input.
โItโs not something that we intend on doing in a vacuum,โ Ullmann said. โItโs important for everybody in the state of Colorado that this would be a very transparent question.โ
The state has already started on another key task when it comes to managing mandatory water cuts: improving how the Western Slope measures its water diversions.
โYou canโt manage what you canโt measure,โ Ullmann said.
Western Slope water users do already measure their use, but the measurements are not as advanced or consistent as in other river basins where Coloradans already curtail their use to meet interstate water sharing obligations, he said.
The state has already made progress on improving measurement rules and requirements in northwestern Colorado, southwestern Colorado and the Gunnison River area. Water diversions along the Colorado River in western Colorado are next up, a process that will wrap up in November.
Colorado could also adapt to the prospect of forced cuts by creating a โconservation pool,โ like a savings account that could be tapped in the event of a compact call, according to other water experts who spoke to lawmakers.
Some pinned their hopes on the stateโs Colorado River negotiators who have been charged with reaching a seven-state agreement for how to manage the basinโs major reservoirs after the current operating rules expire in 2026.
โWeโre not going to have a compromise unless they [the Lower Basin] waive compact compliance threats. We just canโt enter into any agreement with that,โ said Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River District.
Those negotiations have been stalled over fundamental issues like how to cut back on water in the basinโs driest water years.
Coloradoโs Colorado River Commissioner, Becky Mitchell, told lawmakers Wednesday that the discussions continue to be challenging. Negotiators have until November to share more information about a seven-state agreement with the federal government.
โWhether or not we reach a seven-state consensus, all of us will be forced to deal with this reality in one way or another,โ Mitchell said. โBut today, what weโre hearing from our counterparts is they may be unwilling to reduce their uses in some dry years. It appears they believe that this gap should somehow be filled by the Upper Basin water, using any means necessary.โ
Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Politics website (Eugene Buchanan). Here’s an excerpt:
Tribal leaders are pushing for a seat at the negotiating table, where allocation and management of the Colorado River will be determined.ย The representatives from tribal nations joined a panel discussion called โColorado River: The Emerging Role of Tribes in the 2026 Negotiations,โ moderated by the Nature Conservancyโs Western Colorado Water Project Director Celene Hawkins, at the Colorado Water Congress in Steamboat Springs. During the panel, water executives from several of the 30 tribes relying on the Colorado River Basinโs water talked about their challenges and successes in managing the precious resource. While Native American Tribes hold significant water rights in the Colorado River Basin, their role in the systemโs management is limited. Key hurdles, they said, include funding to implement water programs, infrastructure improvements, and water accountability…
โIn the past, tribes have been treated as an afterthought when it comes to water issues and negotiations,โ said Lisa Yellow Eagle. โBut now weโre having open, honest dialogue.โ
Native America in the Colorado River Basin. Credit: USBR
The Colorado River Water Conservation District spans 15 Western Slope counties. Voters across the district are considering a mill-levy increase that would raise the River Districtโs budget by $5 million, funding a variety of water-related projects.
Colorado River District/Courtesy image
The Colorado River District Board of Directors unanimously approved and adopted a new five-year strategic plan at its quarterly meeting on July 15โ16, 2025. The new Strategic Plan outlines a clear vision and action-oriented roadmap for advancing the Districtโs mission to lead in the protection, conservation, use, and development of the water resources of the Colorado River Basin for the benefit of West Slope water users.
The newly adopted plan is the product of a year-long collaborative effort between the Board, staff, and strategic consultants. Through surveys, interviews, retreats, and intensive staff workgroup sessions, the plan identifies focused priorities and initiatives aligned with the evolving water challenges facing the West Slope.
โThis plan is the result of close collaboration between our Board, staff, and consulting team, and it charts a strong course for the next five years,โ said Marc Catlin, Board President of the Colorado River District. โIt positions the River District to act as a leader, respond quickly to change, and deliver real, lasting benefits to West Slope communities.โ
The new Strategic Plan is built around three key focus areas: Community Protection, Trusted Resource, and Recognized Leader on Colorado River Matters. It outlines goals and actionable steps to address the water needs of western Colorado in a hotter, drier future, protect water resources for agriculture and local communities that rely on them, and reinforce the River Districtโs role as a trusted, data-informed voice in water policy across the district and the basin. The plan also includes efforts to support core organizational services and retain staff, ensuring that essential day-to-day work continues alongside new strategic priorities.
โThe Strategic Plan is a collaborative, working strategy that affirms our commitment to our constituents and communities,โ said Amy Moyer, the Districtโs Chief of Strategy. โImplementation is already underway, and weโre building internal structures to ensure that the initiatives are aligned with the realities of Coloradoโs water future.โ
To support implementation, the River District plans to develop internal workgroups for each focus area and track progress through regular updates to the Board each July, with quarterly updates embedded into staff reports throughout the year. The River District extends its gratitude to the Board and all who contributed to the planning process. The complete 2025-2030 Strategic Plan is available at ColoradoRiverDistrict.org.
Between Aug. 13โ19, 2025, dry and drought conditions were widespread, driven by hotter-than-average temperatures and below normal precipitation across much of the country. Temperatures across the country were mostly 1 to 5 degrees above normal, while isolated areas of North Dakota, Minnesota and California saw below-normal temperatures. Areas in the central High Plains and Midwest, Arkansas, along the Ohio River, central Pennsylvania and New York saw temperatures of 5 to 10 degrees above normal. Precipitation was mostly near to slightly below normal for much of the country. Along the Pacific Northwest coastline, rainfall was 1 to 3 inches above normal. The Southeast also saw areas of 1 to 3 inches above normal precipitation where thunderstorms dropped heavy precipitation. A series of storms brought above normal rainfall from South Dakota to Lake Michigan, with areas of eastern South Dakota, southern Minnesota and northeastern Illinois recording 2 to 5 inches. Storms that brought decent moisture saw improvements across the northern Intermountain West, central High Plains and the western Great Lakes region. In the West, severe to exceptional drought (D2โD4) remained widespread across California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, while hot, dry weather pushed drought to expand in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. These conditions also fueled large wildfires, particularly in California and the Southwest, where dry vegetation and gusty winds created dangerous fire behavior. The High Plains also saw abnormal dryness and drought intensify across Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas as above-normal temperatures and limited rainfall added stress to crops and rangeland. A few localized showers, however, offered minor improvements. In the South, scattered storms brought limited relief to parts of Texas and south-central Tennessee. Along the Tennessee and mid-Mississippi River valleys, flash drought conditions led to widespread intensification and expansion of abnormal dryness (D0) and moderate drought (D1)โparticularly in southern Missouri, western Kentucky and Tennessee, northwestern Mississippi and Arkansas. Areas of the Midwest that received heavy rains saw steady or improved conditions in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, while continued dryness led to worsening drought in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. The Southeast saw mostly stable conditions, though moderate drought and abnormally dry areas persisted in Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Meanwhile, the Northeast continued to dry up, with the expansion of abnormal dryness (D0) and moderate drought (D2) across New England…
The High Plains saw a mixed pattern of drought changes between Aug. 13โ19. North Dakota improved the most, as widespread storms erased nearly all dryness, leaving only a small pocket in the northeast. South Dakota had patchy outcomes, with rainfall trimming drought in some central and southern counties while western areas remained dry. Nebraska also showed contrasts with severe dryness expanding in the Sandhills, especially in Cherry and nearby counties, while parts of the east improved after storms. Kansas slipped slightly drier, with abnormal dryness spreading into the southwest. Conditions were most concerning in Colorado and Wyoming, where persistent heat and limited rainfall drove drought deeper. In Colorado, drought expanded along the Front Range and southwest into northern New Mexico, while Wyoming saw new extreme drought in the northwest and broader expansion of abnormally dry conditions across central counties. These worsening conditions have fueled wildfire activity, most notably Coloradoโs Lee Fire, which has already burned more than 137,000 acres, ranking among the stateโs largest, while Wyoming has faced smaller but fast-moving rangeland fires…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending August 19, 2025.
Hot, dry weather dominated much of the West, fueling widespread drought expansion. Arizona and New Mexico saw severe to extreme drought spread north and east as monsoon rains largely missed these areas. In Utah, drought expanded in the south and along the borders of Colorado and Wyoming. Idaho worsened, with severe (D2) and extreme (D3) drought spreading in the southeast and north. Montana was mixed: heavy rains in the northeast allowed drought to ease, but hot, dry weather in the southwest caused drought to intensify. Oregon and Washington saw smaller changes, with some localized improvement in southeast Oregon but worsening conditions in northern Oregon and southern Washington. California remained locked in extreme (D3) to exceptional (D4) drought in the southern regions with no major change. The dry conditions have fed several large wildfires: Arizonaโs Dragon Bravo Fire has burned over 145,000 acres and Californiaโs Gifford Fire about 130,000 acres. A record-breaking heat wave, with temperatures above 110ยฐF in desert areas and red-flag warnings across California, has heightened fire danger…
The South saw widespread drought expansion over the week, despite scattered thunderstorms that brought brief, localized relief. Texas saw some improvements due to heavy rains and flooding in south-central counties earlier in the month that continued to ease drought there. Temperatures across the region stayed hot and humid, with heat index values topping 100ยฐF in Texas and Oklahoma. Fire danger also crept higher in Oklahoma and Texas, where persistent heat and dry rangelands created favorable conditions for grassfires. Abnormal dryness (D0) formed in the Panhandle and north-central Texas. There was widespread expansion of abnormal dryness (D0) and moderate drought across much of Oklahoma under hot, windy conditions. Arkansas is experiencing a flash drought with conditions deteriorating quickly, with nearly the entire state now abnormally dry (D0) or worse and pockets of severe drought (D2) developing in the northeast and central counties, along with the expansion of moderate drought (D1). Louisiana also saw abnormal dryness (D0) expand in the northwest and in the southeast and into Mississippi. Mississippi saw moderate drought (D1) expand in both the south and northwest, while Tennessee recorded broad expansion of drought in the west, despite some trimming in the south-central counties. Overall, the South ended the week with worsening drought almost everywhere, reinforcing the strain of prolonged heat and limited rainfall…
Looking Ahead
From Aug. 21 to 26, the heaviest precipitation is forecast along the East Coast, especially from North Carolina through the Mid-Atlantic and into southern New England, where amounts may exceed 5 inches, likely tied to a coastal storm system. Pockets of heavier rain are also expected in parts of the central Rockies, High Plains and southern Texas, with localized totals between 2 and 4 inches. Much of the Midwest, Southeast and Southwest are forecast to receive lighter but widespread rainfall, generally between 0.5 and 2 inches. By contrast, the Pacific Northwest and much of California show little to no precipitation expected. Overall, the forecast highlights a wet period for the East Coast and scattered parts of the interior U.S., while the West Coast remains mostly dry.
The Climate Prediction Centerโs 6-10 day outlook (valid Aug. 26-30) shows much of the central and eastern U.S. is expected to be cooler than normal, with the greatest chance for well-below-average temperatures across the Midwest and Ohio Valley. In contrast, warmer-than-normal conditions are favored along the West Coast, especially in the Pacific Northwest and northern California, as well as in Florida, parts of Alaska and Hawaii. Rainfall patterns show a split across the country: wetter-than-normal conditions are likely in the central and southern Rockies, the Southwest and the central Plains, along with parts of Alaska. Drier-than-normal conditions are forecast for the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and portions of the interior Northeast. The Southeast, Gulf Coast and parts of the interior West are generally expected to see near-normal precipitation. Overall, the late-August outlook points to a cool and damp stretch for much of the central U.S., warmer weather along the West Coast and in the far South, and a drier setup in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending August 19, 2025.
There was a very interesting session on Day 2, “Tools and Techniques in Agricultural Water Conservation“. During the session Eaโmon OโToole (Ladder Ranch) made this point: There needs to be a streamlined process for storage less than 15,000 AF. Let’s construct storage high in the mountains so the conserved water doesn’t evaporate from Lake Mead. He also mentioned that there is no way to shepherd conserved water downstream.
In defense of the irrigation methods on his ranch he added: I create habitat with flood irrigation. For me the ducks, etc. are just as important as my crop.
Oak Flat, Arizona features groves of Emory oak trees, canyons, and springs. This is sacred land for the San Carlos Apache tribe. Resolution Copper (Rio Tinto subsidiary) lobbied politicians to deliver this National Forest land to the company with the intent to build a destructive copper mine. By SinaguaWiki – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98967960
Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
August 20, 2025
Key Points
Hours after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a land swap for a copper mine at Oak Flat, President Donald Trump called the mine’s critics “Anti-American.”
Tribal leaders reacted quickly, reminding the president that they are the first Americans and are trying to protect their sacred lands.
Trump reportedly met with mining executives at the White House and, in his Truth Social post, argued that the United States needed to protect its copper reserves.
Arizona tribal leaders struck back after President Donald Trump called opponents of a planned copper mine at Oak Flat “anti-American,” suggesting they were allied with other copper-producing countries like China. Trump posted comments on Truth Social on Aug. 19, hours after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appealsย temporarily halted a land exchangeย that would allow Resolution Copper to build the mine on a site east of Phoenix held sacred by the Apache people and other Indigenous communities. “Those that fought (the mine) are Anti-American, and representing other Copper competitive Countries,” Trump wrote, while claiming that the 9th Circuit Court is “a Radical Left Court.” He did not include any evidence to support his claims…Currently,ย 10 of the judges on the 9th Circuit’s panel are Trump appointees;ย another three are Republican-appointed justices, while the remaining 16 judges in the circuit court are Democratic appointees, according to the legal news outlet Daily Journal. The president also said the U.S. needs copper now…
In aย Facebook postย on Aug. 20, San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler hit back: “As first Americans, the San Carlos Apache Tribe agrees on the importance of protecting Americaโs interests,” he said, but “the Presidentโs comments mirror misinformation that has been repeated by foreign mining interests that want to extract American copper.” Rambler also pointed out that a Chinese company, Chinalco, is the largest shareholder of Rio Tinto and BHP, the two British-Australian firms that jointly own Resolution Copper. “Of course their interest is in mining this copper and shipping it to China.” With just three smelters in the U.S., and one of those currently non-functional, mines have been shipping crushed ore to China for processing for years.
The San Carlos Apache Tribe and a coalition of environmental groups have fought for years against the Resolution Copper mine, which would become one of the countryโs largest at the cost of a site revered by the tribe.
Just hours before the deal was set to go through, a federal appeals court temporarily blocked a land transfer in Arizona on Monday that would ultimately lead to the destruction of a site sacred to Western Apache people.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appealsโ temporary restraining order is the latest in a long-running saga in which the U.S. Forest Service has planned to transfer the land to a mining company, Resolution Copper, while the San Carlos Apache Tribe and a coalition of environmental groups have fought to protect the sacred site of Oak Flat, or Chรญโchil Biลdagoteel in Apache.
The company has worked for two decades to gain access to the 2,200 acres of land in Tonto National Forest that contains both the sacred site and one of the worldโs largest untapped copper deposits. The restraining order halts the land transfer until the court can rule on two consolidated cases, which have argued in lower courts that approval of the land transfer and mine violates the National Environmental Policy Act and failed to adequately consult with the tribe.
โThe Apache people will never stop fighting for Chรญโchil Biลdagoteel,โ said San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler in a statement. โWe thank the court for stopping this horrific land exchange and allowing us to argue the merits of our pending lawsuit in court.โ
A spokesperson for Resolution Copper said in a written statement that the order is โmerely a temporary pause so that the court of appeals can consider plaintiffsโ eleventh hour motions,โ and that the company is โconfident the court will ultimately affirm the district courtโs well-reasoned orders explaining in detail why the congressionally directed land exchange satisfies all applicable legal requirements.โ
U.S. District Judge Dominic W. Lanza on Friday denied the tribe and environmental groupsโ challenges, which had cleared the way for the land transfer to go through. In his order, he acknowledged the mine would destroy the sacred area and use a massive amount of the regionโs scarce groundwater. But he noted that the transfer was signed into law in 2014 by President Barack Obamaโmandated by Congress in a rider attached to a defense billโand that the Supreme Court declined to hear another case challenging the mine.
A spokesperson from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, declined to comment on the latest court order, but said the bill authorizing the land transfer aligns with the Trump administrationโs efforts โto strengthen domestic mineral and energy production, advancing the nationโs economic and strategic goals.โ
In April, the Trump administration signaled it would approve the project. A years-long religious freedom case brought by Apache Stronghold, an Apache religious group, was denied by the Supreme Court in May. Then, the U.S. Forest Service postedthe final environmental impact statement and draft record of decision for the Resolution Copper project, setting the stage for Oak Flat to be transferred to the mining company by Aug. 19.
Since then, the proposed mine has become one of the most high-profile environmental battles in the U.S. The 9th Circuitโs order requires the tribe and environmental groups to file their opening brief by Sept. 9, with answering briefs from the Forest Service and Resolution Copper due by Sept. 29.
โWeโre thankful that the court has paused this ill-conceived land exchange that would destroy Oak Flat and all that makes it special, including the old Emory oak trees, endangered hedgehog cactus, and its significant cultural and recreational values,โ said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Clubโs Grand Canyon Chapter, in a statement. The Sierra Club is one of the plaintiffs. โThere is still a lot to do to save this special place, but we remain committed to doing everything we can to ensure Oak Flat is here for future generations.โ
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Yesterday was a hoot. The workshop “Pathways to a Pool – How to Make Voluntary Conservation Add Up” was a firehose of information and ideas as to how Colorado can work to shore up storage on the Colorado River and keep agriculture whole. Another highlight was Governor Polis’ recap of what the state has accomplished during his time in office and his introduction of ColoradoRiver.com.
Save The Poudre will not appeal a judge’s ruling allowing Thornton’s pipeline project to proceed.
The environmental advocacy group focused on the Poudre River contends Colorado water law, created more than 100 years ago, is not in line with public values today.
Save The Poudre urges Thornton to take a more active role in protecting and restoring the Poudre River
In announcing the decision not to appeal the judge’s ruling, Save The Poudre Executive Director Gary Wockner said Colorado’s water law gives agencies the right to drain rivers, and it doesn’t seem like a wise use of resources to appeal when a challenge would likely fail…
Todd Barnes, communications director for the city of Thornton, noted the deadline to appeal is still ahead, on Aug. 21. He said Thornton doesn’t plan to issue a statement about the development as of now…Thornton and Northern Water have planned to co-locate a few miles of their pipelines to reduce disruption. But Barnes said Thornton has heard nothing concrete from NISP. Regardless, he said, the city will follow through with all of the requirements of its permit, which includes co-location.
The Yampa River Core Trail runs right through downtown Steamboat. Photo credit City of Steamboat Springs.
I’m hopping on my bicycle for the ride up the Yampa River to the Steamboat Grand for Day 1 of the Colorado Water Congress Summer Convention. Today starts with workshops and then the general sessions kick off after lunch. Here’s the agenda and Timeline: https://coloradowatercongress.growthzoneapp.com/ap/CloudFile/Download/rX4NKmlr
Visitor volume to Las Vegas in June was down 11.3% from the previous year, according to local statistics. Visitation to Southwestern national parks is also lagging. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Last month I took a look at national park visitation numbers for the first half of the year to try to get a sense of how a drop in international travelers is affecting Western gateway communities. It wasnโt all that conclusive: Most parks were seeing numbers similar to in the past, though they were beginning to dip in June.
Now July figures are available for many parks, and they show that the June slump was no anomaly. Media reports indicate the tourism sectors across the West is starting to feel the pain.
The Moab Times-Independentreported that community resort taxes for April were down 11% from the previous year. And that was even before visitation had started dropping off at national parks. Moabโs figures for June and July arenโt available yet, but local business owners told the Times-Independent that theyโve seen fewer international tourists this year. A Colorado Sunstory by Jason Blevins records the same phenomenon on Coloradoโs Western Slope, where visitation and tourist spending has dropped since last year.
The World Travel & Tourism Council predicted the U.S. will lose about $12.5 billion in international spending this year and is the only nation it tracks that is seeing a decline in tourism. Visitation from the U.K., Germany, South Korea, Canada, and other European countries is down significantly.
โThis is a wake-up call for the U.S. government,โ said Travel & Tourism Council President Julia Simpson in a written statement. โWhile other nations are rolling out the welcome mat, the U.S. government is putting up the ‘closed’ sign.โ That is to say, Trump administration policies and actions are generally hostile toward the rest of the world, which understandably is dampening the desire to travel to the U.S.
The good news is the crowds are ebbing slightly at some of the Westโs most popular national parks. This, of course, isnโt so good for the economies of nearby communities that have come to rely almost entirely on tourism.
Some numbers:
Zion National Park had 529,798 visitors in July, a huge number, yes, but also the third lowest in the last decade (with only 2018 and COVID-affected 2020 lower).
Canyonlands had its second slimmest visitation in July since 2014.
Capitol Reef saw 111,183 visitors in July, which is higher than in 2022 (107,562), but lower than during any other year since 2014.
Lake Mead NRA saw 1.18 million visitors this June and July combined, the second lowest (after 2023) number for those two months since 1981. This jibes with tourism statistics for Las Vegas, where total visitor volume in June was down a whopping 11.3% from last year.
Itโs a similar story at Bryce Canyon, Natural Bridges National Monument, Mesa Verde, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Joshua Tree, Great Sand Dunes, and the Grand Canyon (there is a huge fire burning there, after all, but the South Rim remains open).
The downward trend does not seem to have spread further north. Glacier, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton national parks are doing fine so far this year.
Hoover Dam, at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, where visitation is down significantly from past years. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
๐ฅต Aridification Watch ๐ซ
The good news: As I write this, there is a flash flood watch for parts of the Phoenix area and on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
The bad news, climate-wise: Just about everything else.
This yearโs dry and hot spell continues, manifested in trickling streams and smoky skies and heat-related death. The current โspellโ is a continuation of the quarter-century-long megadrought that is the worst to hit the Southwest in 1,200 years. And a new study finds the aridification likely will continue well into the future.
Letโs start with the study.
University of Colorado researchers have found that the Colorado River Basinโs megadrought is linked to the Pacific decadal oscillation climate pattern, in which the oceanโs water temperatures fluctuate and move around in two-decade-long cycles. Or at least thatโs whatโs supposed to happen. But since the early 1990s, the oscillation has been stuck in its negative phase, causing a reduction in precipitation in the Southwest.
While the oscillation is natural, the researchers found that it can also be influenced by external forces, and since the middle of the last century, greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions have had an increasing impact and have been responsible for a good part of the megadrought. What this means, researchers say, is that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at current levels โ which they almost undoubtedly will, given the societal reticence to give up fossil fuel burning โ then the drought will continue for decades to come.
Meaning this yearโs desiccation is, indeed, part of the new normal, which is damned frightening.
The ongoing aridification can be seen in very concrete ways in the streamflows โ or lack thereof โ in my home river, the Animas in southwestern Colorado (which I choose because its flow through Durango is largely unregulated, given there are no dams or large diversions upstream).
Today, the flow through Durango dropped below 150 cubic feet per second, putting some sections into the boat-bottom-dragging territory, and prompting rafting companies to consider shutting down operations early. But thatโs bountiful compared to whatโs happening downstream: The river below Aztec and through Farmington has come perilously close to drying out altogether. Check out the charts of the last month compared to last year:
The blue line is this yearโs streamflow in cubic feet per second (149 cfs and falling) compared to last year (in the kahki/olive green color). Last year, flows didnโt even drop below 200 cfs before the monsoon came, pushing it back up into the 600s. This year it dropped below 200 cfs in early August, and with no significant rainfall in sight is likely to continue dropping.
Float downstream (if you can) a few dozen miles, and past more diversion points, and things look really grim. The Animas below Aztec dropped below 8 cfs for a moment before jumping back up on Aug. 14. While the increase looks like the result of a heavy downpour it was not (there was no rain in the area, and the gage at Cedar Hill, just 11 miles upstream, didnโt show the same spike. That leads me to believe it was the result of a big diversion, probably one of the upstream irrigation ditch withdrawals, being shut off. While it put some water back in the river, itโs still just a trickle.
Hereโs another visual, sent to my by David Fosdeck. It shows the new surf wave infrastructure on the Animas as it runs through Farmington. Surf is not up, needless to say.
Farmingtonโs new surf wave, sans surf. Source: David Fosdeck.
Lake Powellโs surface level has now dropped down to 3,552 feet above sea level, almost exactly what it was on this date in 2021.
And now for a quick update on the current fire situation:
The Lee Fire in Rio Blanco County, Colorado, has reached 134,000 acres, making it theย fifth largest blazeย on record in the stateโs history. It is only 10% contained, meaning thereโs a damned good chance it will jump up to the third largest before long.
The Stoner Mesa Fire in the southwest corner of the state has grown to 7,400 acres.
The Middle Mesa Fire east of Navajo Reservoir and just south of the Colorado-New Mexico line is now 92% contained.
The Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyonโs North Rim is up to 145,000 acres, but is 56% contained.
The other day, I was chatting with the venerable Sammy Roth of the Los Angeles Times for his Boiling Point podcast. We were talking about how fire season has changed in my lifetime, and I remarked that up until 2002, the Lime Creek Burn โ which in 1879 charred forests south of Silverton โ was the largest blaze in the stateโs recorded history.
When I told Roth that the blaze was a mere 26,000 acres, he looked a little befuddled. Thatโs because in this age of megafires, a 26,000-acre wildfire is relatively small. In fact, the Lime Creek Burn no longer makes the stateโs top 20 largest blazes โ all of which have occurred since 2002. Even the 70,000-acre Missionary Ridge Fire, which seemed gargantuan when it blew through forests north of Durango in 2002, is now only number 7, er, 8 (because the Lee Fire slotted in above it).
Climate change: United Nations โข Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.
The lack of a good monsoon so far has also meant the lack of cooling afternoon rains in the hottest parts of the Southwest. And that has exacerbated the danger posed by the heat. Phoenix has suffered through an unusually hot August so far, with daily average temperatures reaching 11 degrees higher than normal. If current trends continue, this could end up being the hottest August on record for the city.
And itโs taking its toll on the people of Phoenix, as Maricopa Countyโs heat-related mortality report shows. So far this year the heat has killed or contributed to the deaths of 35 people, but another 369 cases remain under investigation (at the end of the year, most of these tend to end up in the heat-caused or heat-contributed category).
๐ธย Parting Shotย ๐๏ธ
Dragonfly in Natural Bridges National Monument. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Coyote Gulch on the Yampa River Core Trail August 2022 during the Colorado Water Congress Summer Conference.
I’m heading over to Steamboat Springs for the CWC 2025 Summer Conference “Conservation: Meeting Demands, Managing Responsibly”. Follow along on my BlueSky feed: https://bsky.app/profile/coyotegulch.bsky.social. I also hope to get a few posts up here at Coyote Gulch.
As of Tuesday, the Animas River was running noticeably low โ at 35% normalcy for this time of year, according to a recentย SnoFloย report. According to U.S. Geological Surveyย data, the streamflow on Tuesday was at 153 cubic feet per second, and its gauge height was measured at 2.17 feet. Last week, the flow sat around 199 cfs, with the water height resting near the 2.24-foot level, representing a small piece of a larger decline seen historically across the riverโs history…
Aquatic wildlife can be impacted by low river levels, said John Livingston, spokesman with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. One effect of low water levels is an overgrowth of riverbed vegetation. Algae, in an attempt to get closer to the sun, may grow thicker and taller than usual, Livingston said. In the Animas River, blue-green algae blooms, also called cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms, are the most likely culprits of this overgrowth, he said.
Late light on Glen Canyon rock formations. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
August 1, 2025
When I was in college and my friends all went to study abroad, I attended a field study program run by The Sierra Institute, an outpost of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Over the course of an academic quarter, we learned about four California ecosystems by studyingย inย them: the Mojave Desert, the Big Sur coast, the High Sierra and the Klamath Mountains. Along the way we hiked and camped and read and wrote and took turns with cooking, cleanup, fire tending and latrine duty.ย
โNature, Philosophy and Religionโ was the course title and our area of inquiry. We studied the thinkers and spiritual traditions that have been concerned with the splendor of nature, the sustenance humans get from it, and our mutual symbiosis. We considered our own obligations as individuals and as a species. Rather than a distant place and foreign language, we immersed ourselves in the ways that humans live with, steward and find holiness in the natural world.
These are not values I see reflected in todayโs political discourse. Our government is working to cancel any programs aimed at sustainability. Elected and appointed officials are erasing climate data and defunding climate action. They are seeking to sell and develop public land and ignoring, at great risk, the ways humans depend on healthy natural systems. They have no interest in the ethics of their policies: who or what will be impacted, and how. Any deference to the land and its creatures โ canceled!
Jennifer Sahn, editor-in-chief. Photo credit: High Country News
If everyone could do an extended field study program, could be exposed to natural wonder and experience close-knit community, perhaps the idea of having a responsibility toward the Earth, each other and future generations would be more widely understood and accepted. If youโve havenโt learned why itโs important to respect and preserve natural systems, how would you understand that you have a choice, at this very moment, to be on the side of life โย allย life โ and against the denigration and desecration of habitats and wild places, the last refugia where humans are required to show restraint. Atย High Country News, we side with life.
Sadly, after 40 years of running field programs in the backcountry, The Sierra Institute closed in 2015. A post on its Facebook page read, โIt is something of a mystery as to why over the last decade the programs became more and more difficult to fill, but it is likely due to a broader cultural change than merely a miscalculation of how to advertise and promote.โ The broader cultural change we so desperately need is one in which people believe in the value of nature because they have experienced it and want to continue experiencing it, and because they want those experiences to be available to future generations.
Colorado River water flows through La Paz County, Arizona on August 6, 2025. The Central Arizona Project is among the agencies facing cutbacks on water supply while the river is under shortage conditions. Alex Hager/KUNC
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager):
August 15, 2025
This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
The latest projections for the Colorado River are out, and they paint a picture of more dry conditions and dropping reservoirs.
The river supplies water to nearly 40 million people across the Southwest, and itโs stretched thin by climate change and steady demand. New data from the Bureau of Reclamation shows low inflows and dropping water levels at the nationโs two largest reservoirs โ Lake Powell and Lake Mead. This is just the latest bad news in the midst of a megadrought going back more than two decades.
Projected Lake Mead end-of-month physical elevations from the latest 24-Month Study inflow scenarios.
Projected Lake Powell end-of-month physical elevations from the latest 24-Month Study inflow scenarios.
The river will enter 2026 in a โTier 1 Shortage,โ under which Arizona and Nevada will face mandatory cutbacks to their water supply. While they put some water users in an uncomfortable pinch, those cutbacks arenโt raising the same alarm bells they once did. Dry conditions and water reductions have become a sort of new normal. Shortage conditions for the lower Colorado River basin were first declared in 2021, and have been in place since.
On the ground, the agencies that have to deal with these cutbacks seem to be adapting. Major water users tout their conservation efforts. The towns and cities that are most likely to face permanent reductions to their water use are putting hundreds of millions of dollars into systems that will steel them against smaller water deliveries in the future.
This 2023 diagram shows the tubes through which Lake Powell’s fish can pass through to the section of the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon. Credit: USGS and Reclamation 2023
Meanwhile, further upstream, dropping levels at Lake Powell are creating a near-term crisis. The new federal water data shows the reservoir ending this year only 27% full. If it drops much lower, the reservoir could fall below the pipes which allow water to flow through hydropower generators inside the dam โ jeopardizing electricity generation for about five million people across seven states. The new data shows that could happen as soon as November 2026.
The back of Glen Canyon Dam circa 1964, not long after the reservoir had begun filling up. Here the water level is above dead pool, meaning water can be released via the river outlets, but it is below minimum power pool, so water cannot yet enter the penstocks to generate electricity. Bureau of Reclamation photo. Annotations: Jonathan P. Thompson
Policymakers who can shape the regionโs long-term response to dry conditions have been facing mounting calls for action. They are under pressure to come up with new rules for managing the river in the long-term before the current guidelines expire in 2026.
Cynthia Campbell, who directs a water policy research center at Arizona State University, said instead of urgently working on a long-term plan, those policymakers seem to have spent the past few years โgamblingโ on the idea that water might come back and reverse the crisis at major reservoirs.
โIf they were betting on that,โ she said, โThen they’re losing, because it is continuing to march on. Mother Nature is continuing to march on, and we’re continuing to see declines in the system.โ
While some small glimmers of hope have emerged from negotiations, water managers from the seven states that use the Colorado River seem stuck at an impasse.
โWe have yet to see any courage in the sense of making choices that will bolster long-term system reliability,โ said Campbell, who formerly served as a top water lawyer for the city of Phoenix. โThere seems to be an unwillingness on the collected parties to do that, and that is not good news.โ
Climate scientists say the riverโs dry conditions are unlikely to turn around anytime soon. A warming, drying climate is sapping the region of its water at every turn, and significant reductions to demand are likely the only solution to that new reality.
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
August 15, 2025
Drought and long, hot summer days are sucking Western Coloradoโs rivers dry, parching farm fields and fueling the massive wildfires proliferating across the region. A chunk of northwestern Colorado in the last week plunged into exceptional drought โ the most dire category recorded by the U.S. Drought Monitor. The swath of affected land represents 7% of the state and covers most of Garfield and Rio Blanco counties, as well as parts of Moffat, Mesa, Delta, Routt and Pitkin counties…Exceptional drought is expected to occur once every 50 years, [Russ] Schumacher said. So far this summer, the afternoon monsoon rains that provide relief have been largely absent from the Western Slope. The higher-than-normal temperatures and a lack of rain have sapped the rivers in the Western half of Colorado. Streamflows statewide are at only half of the median recorded between 1991 and 2020,ย according to National Water and Climate Center data. The lack of water has limited fishing and rafting opportunities, reduced agricultural irrigation and threatened river environments…Nearly half of Colorado is experiencing some level of drought, according to newย data released Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor. More than 1.4 million people live in that drought-impacted area, which encompasses the entire western half of the state, parts of metro Denver and some areas of southern Colorado…
This summer has been one of the driest on record for the stateโs critical Colorado River basin, similar to 2018 and 2021, said Calahan of the Colorado River District. Drought in those years made the Colorado River look more like a creek than a river and promptedย a 120-mile-long fishing banย on its mainstem…Streamflow in the basin is worst on its western flank and best on its eastern side near the headwaters, he said…The [Colorado River] district is speaking weekly with irrigators across the region to best divvy up the water that remains. Low flows are being supplemented by releases from reservoirs…A lack of water in the Eagle River near Vail prompted local water authorities to warn of a potential coming water shortage. Flows on the river near Avon were about half of normal โ and the third-lowest recorded on the stream gaugeโs 26-year record, said Siri Roman, the general manager of theย Eagle River Water and Sanitation District…Thirteen of the 14 stream gauges with historic data in the Upper San Juan basin were reporting flows below or extremely below normal on Wednesday.ย The Animas River in Durangoย was flowing at 153 cubic feet per second โ a fraction of the median of 499 cfs for the day across 113 years of data, and close to the historic low for that date of 137 cfs…Several stream gauges in the basin were recording record daily lows, like the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs and on Vallecito Creek…On the opposite side of the state, the Yampa River basin, too, is struggling. The river above Stagecoach Reservoir was flowing at less than half of the 36-year median.
As wildfire crews battled the Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyonโs North Rim in July 2025, the air turned toxic.
A chlorine gas leak had erupted from the parkโs water treatment facility as the building burned, forcing firefighters to pull back. The water treatment facility is part of a system that draws water from a fragile spring. Itโs the only water source and system for the park facilities on both rims, including visitor lodging and park service housing.
The fire also damaged some of the areaโs water pipes and equipment, leaving fire crews to rely on a fleet of large water trucks to haul in water and raising concerns about contamination risks to the water system itself.
By mid-August, Dragon Bravo was a โmegafire,โ having burned over 140,000 acres, and was one of the largest fires in Arizona history. It had destroyed more than 70 structures, including the iconic Grand Canyon Lodge, and sent smoke across the region.
A National Park Service worker assesses a split in an exposed section of the Grand Canyonโs fragile water lines in 2014. The water pipeline, installed in the mid-1960s, feeds water from Roaring Springs, located approximately 3,500 feet below the North Rim. Grand Canyon National Park via Flickr
Wildfires like this are increasingly affecting water supplies across the U.S. and creating a compounding crisis that experts in water, utilities and emergency management are only beginning to wrestle with.
A pattern across the West
Before 2017, when the Tubbs Fire burned through neighborhoods on the edge of Santa Rosa, California, most research on the nexus of wildfire and water had focused on issues such as drought and how climate change effects ecosystems.
The Tubbs Fire destroyed thousands of buildings and also melted plastic water pipes. After the fire, a residentโs complaint about the taste and odor of tap water led to the discovery that the fireโs damage had introduced contaminants including benzene, a carcinogen, into parts of the public water system.
It quickly became obvious that the damage discovered at the Tubbs Fire was not unique.
In southern Oregon, the 2020 Almeda Fire damaged water pipes in buildings, leaving water to flow freely. That contributed to low system pressure just when people fighting the fire needed the water.
Water meters and pipes are vulnerable to damage during a fire. Andrew Whelton/Purdue University, CC BY
In Colorado, the 2021 Marshall Fire burned through urban water lines, damaging six public drinking-water systems along with more than 1,000 structures in the Boulder suburbs. All six systems lost power, which in some cases led to a loss of water pressure, hampering firefighting.
As firefighters worked on the Marshall Fire, water system operators raced to keep water flowing and contaminants from being transported into the water systems. But tests still detected chemical contamination, including benzene, in parts of the systems a few weeks later.
Then, in January 2025, the Los Angeles fires supercharged concerns about water and wildfire. As firefighters raced to put out multiple fires, hydrants ran dry in some parts of the region, while others at higher elevations depressurized. Ultimately, over 16,000 structures were damaged, leading to insured losses estimated to be as high as US$45 billion.
Water supplies are crucial to fighting fires. In cities, fire crews like this one battling the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles in January 2025 can often rely on hydrants. But water systems can lose pressure and potentially the power to run their pumps during fires. AP Photo/Etienne Laurent
Water infrastructure is not merely collateral damage during wildfires โ it is now a central concern.
It also raises the question: What can residents, first responders and decision-makers reasonably expect from water systems that werenโt designed with todayโs disasters in mind?
Addressing the growing fire and water challenge
While no two water systems or fires are the same, nearly every water system component, ranging from storage tanks to pipelines to treatment plants, is susceptible to damage.
The Grand Canyonโs Roaring Springs system exemplifies the complexity and fragility of older systems. It supplies water to both rims of the park through a decades-old network of gravity-fed pipes and tunnels and includes the water treatment facility where firefighters were forced to retreat because of the chlorine leak.
Many water systems have vulnerable points within or near flammable wildlands, such as exposed pump houses that are crucial for pulling water from lower elevations to where it is needed.
A stand pipe at Zorthian Ranch in Altadena, Calif., failed during the January 2025 fire there, making it even more difficult for Alan Zorthian to fight the flames sweeping across his property. He used a pump drawing water from a swimming pool to try to fight the flames, but numerous structures were destroyed. Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
In addition, hazardous materials such as chlorine or ammonia may be stored on-site and require special considerations in high fire risk areas. Staff capacity is often limited; some small utilities depend on a single operator, and budgets may be too constrained to modernize aging infrastructure or implement fire mitigation measures.
As climate change intensifies wildfire seasons, these vulnerabilities can become disaster risks that require making water infrastructure a more integral part of fighting and preparing for wildfires.
Prioritizing fire-resistant construction, better shielding of chemicals and, in some cases, decentralizing water systems can help protect critical facilities, particularly in high-risk zones. Having backup power supplies, mobile treatment systems and alternate water sources are essential to provide more security in the face of a wildfire.
Emergency command protocols and interagency coordination are most effective when they include water utilities as essential partners in all phases of emergency response, from planning to response to recovery. Fire crews and water operators can also benefit from joint training in emergency response, especially when system failure could hinder firefighting itself.
Longer term, protecting upstream watersheds from severe fire by thinning forests and using controlled burns, along with erosion control measures, can help maintain water quality and reduce water pollution in the aftermath of fires.
Smaller and more isolated systems, particularly in tribal or low-income communities, often need assistance to plan or implement new measures. These systems may require technical assistance, and regional support hubs could support communities with additional resources, including personnel and equipment, so they can respond quickly when crises strike.
Looking ahead
The Dragon Bravo Fire isnโt just a wildfire story, itโs also a water story, and it signals a larger, emerging challenge across the West. As fire seasons expand in size and complexity, the overlap between fire and water will only grow.
The Grand Canyon fire offers a stark illustration of how wildfire can escalate into a multifaceted infrastructure crisis: Fire can damage water infrastructure, which in turn limits firefighting capabilities and stresses water supplies.
The question is not whether this will happen again. Itโs how prepared communities will be when it does.
The latest US Drought Monitor (released August 14) highlights big changes to the current drought situation in western Colorado, including the introduction of โexceptionalโ or โD4โ conditions to some locations. Exceptional drought represents the most severe category of drought and is frequently tied to widespread hydrologic and agricultural impacts.
Colorado Drought Monitor map August 12, 2025.
Historical context and current impacts
Exceptional drought hasnโt been seen in Colorado since May 2023, when a very small fraction of the southeast corner of the state (Baca County) was classified under such conditions. And the last time that exceptional drought conditions were realized in the western half of the state was nearly four years ago in October 2021, when parts of Moffat County were included in the D4 category. The current exceptional drought area covers a larger fraction of the state than either of those two recent examples (roughly 7% of it) and includes portions of Moffat, Routt, Rio Blanco, Garfield, Eagle, Pitkin, Gunnison, Delta, and Mesa counties.
Coloradoโs โhigh and dryโ climate makes it no stranger to drought, and some part of the state will be experiencing some degree of drought at any nearly any given time. However, long-livedexceptional drought tends to be rarer. Since the inception of the US Drought Monitor, there have been four widespread and persistent periods of exceptional drought, with the most recent being 2020-2021.
Time series showing the percent of Colorado that has been classified under D4 or exceptional drought conditions from 2000-present.
Current impacts to water, soils, and vegetation in the most drought-afflicted areas help capture the current severity of the situation. For example, streamflow along the White River at Meeker is in the 1stย percentile among its 121-year record, and current flow is very close to the stationโs all-time record low. Many other streamgauge sites, including those along the Yampa, Colorado, Animas, and Dolores rivers, show streamflow below the 10thย percentile, indicating well below-normal flow conditions.
Left: Hydrograph showing 7-day averaged streamflow for 2025 (black line) compared to previous years and various percentiles for the White River near Meeker. Right: USGS streamgauge sites in Colorado. [Source: USGS]
The multiple wildfires currently burning across western Colorado are evidence that there is stress on vegetation and soils in the drought-afflicted areas. This includes the Lee Fire (near Meeker, CO), which at over 127,000 acres is now firmly Coloradoโs fifth-largest wildfireย on record. Satellite-based drought products show severe vegetation stress and soil moisture percentiles below the 5thย percentile, further confirming that surface conditions are extremely dry in western Colorado.
Left: Active wildfires and perimeters across western Colorado. Data are from August 14. [Source: NIFC] Right: Vegetation Drought Response Index valid August 10. [Source: NDMC/USGS]
How did we get here? A look back at Water Year 2025
With only about a month and a half left in Water Year 2025, it is worth looking back at how the drought landscape has changed in Colorado since last October. Water years run from October 1 to September 30 and are designed to capture the movement of water from the time that streamflows are generally at their minimum (in the fall), through the build up of the water supply as snowpack during the winter, to the annual runoff in the spring and summer. Keeping track of drought and precipitation over the course of a water year is helpful for tracking and managing water resources.
At the start of the Water Year 2025, nearly everywhere west of the Continental Divide was drought-free, while the Front Range, Urban Corridor, and parts of the Eastern Plains were experiencing moderate to severe drought conditions. That pattern has switched in many ways, with most areas east of the Divide now currently drought-free, while nearly everywhere west of the Divide is being impacted by at least D1 drought conditions. The class change map comparing the drought monitor at the start of Water Year 2025 to the current drought monitor highlights this shift well:
Left: US Drought Monitor from October 1, 2024. Right: US Drought Monitor class change map from October 1, 2024 compared to the latest US Drought Monitor (August 12, 2025).
The current drought in western Colorado did not immediately unfold at the onset of the new water year. In early winter, drought was largely avoided in this area in part thanks to a major snowstorm in early November (refresh your memory with our blog post here). That event brought drought relief to much of the Eastern Plains and gave an early boost to the winter snowpack for most of the rest of the state.
However, the snow largely ceased across southern Colorado in December and January, and substantial high country snowpack deficits became apparent by the end of February, with the snowpack in several basins standing at only ~2/3rds of average. At the beginning of March, most of southwestern Colorado and the lower elevations of the West were experiencing D1-D2 drought conditions according to the US Drought Monitor.
While the stateโs northern river basins were spared from significant snowpack deficits for most of the winter, March and April ended up being drier than normal. For this part of Colorado, the spring months are typically the wettest on average, and they are crucial months for amassing snowpack to accommodate warm season water needs (in the form of runoff). While deficits remained in better shape compared to southern Coloradoโs basins, snowpack peaked earlier than normal across much of the state. This below-average winter snowpack has undoubtedly played an important role in the current drought situation across the western half of the state.
This brings us to mid-Mayโthe last time we wrote a blog post about drought. By that time, most areas west of the Continental Divide were experiencing some level of drought, including D3 or โextremeโ drought conditions over parts of the West Slope and San Juans. Aside from a decent precipitation event in early June, conditions in western Colorado have been abnormally hot and dry. Northwest Colorado has seen some of the quickest drought development in the state, with some locations going from D0-D1 conditions in Mid-May to D3-D4 conditions just three months later. June-July 2025 was among the top-10 hottest and driest on record for most of that area.
Left: US Drought Monitor from May 13, 2025. Right: US Drought Monitor class change map from May 13, 2025 compared to the latest US Drought Monitor (August 12, 2025).
While areas east of the Divide saw some drought development in the spring as well, much of that was alleviated thanks to widespread and persistent thunderstorm activity throughout the summer. This regular rainfall has also continued to help ward off major drought development (though some locations that have missed out on recent precipitation, such as the Denver Metro, have begun to slip back into drought conditions). Locations west of the Divide have not been as fortunate. These areas typically benefit from the North American Monsoon (NAM), which (when active) provides increased moisture and precipitation throughout July and August. The lack of relief from the NAM combined with the below-average snowpack from last winter have brought us to the current drought situation.
What can we expect in the coming weeks/months?
First, letโs briefly talk precipitation climatology (stay tuned for more on this in an upcoming blog post). For much of the West Slope, August-October tends to be the time of year that this area receives its greatest amounts of precipitation. Seeing that weโre only about halfway through August, there is plenty of time remaining in this wetter time of year. However, this seasonality does not guarantee โdrought-bustingโ precipitation, nor should we expect our weather patterns to perfectly follow climatology.
Percent of average annual precipitation that falls between August-October. [Data from PRISM]
Still, there is a little hope in the medium-range outlook for precipitation in the western half of the state. The 8-14 day precipitation outlook from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center suggests elevated chances for above-average precipitation towards the end of the month, with the greatest likelihood spanning the western and central parts of the state. At the same time, above-average temperatures are expected to persist over this time frame, which could work against precipitation driven drought relief (warmer temperatures are connected to increased evaporative demand, or potential water loss from the Earthโs surface).
8-14 day precipitation (left) and temperature (right) outlooks from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center, issued August 13.
Looking even further ahead, the Climate Prediction Center 3-month outlook (August-October) that was released in mid-July does not inspire much optimism for drought relief as we head into fall. Their predictions call for elevated chances of below-normal precipitation across most of Colorado. Additionally, it is becoming increasingly likely that La Niรฑa conditions will develop in late fall to early winter. While there is some evidence thatย La Niรฑa favors wetter conditions over parts of north and central Colorado during the winter months, it favors overall drier conditions statewide, especially during the fall (though the correlations between ENSO phase and precipitation are relatively weak compared to other locations).
(Left) seasonal precipitation outlook for August-October and (right) El Niรฑo Southern Oscillation (ENSO) probabilities through May 2026. [Source: NOAA Climate Prediction Center]
To summarize:ย poor snowpack during the winter teed up western Colorado for drought heading into summer, and the dry, hot conditions over the past few months have exacerbated conditions. These factors have lead to the widespread extreme to exceptional drought conditions that are currently depicted in the US Drought Monitor. There are a couple reasons to remain optimistic about precipitation in following weeks and months, but many uncertainties remain, and *a lot* of precipitation will be needed to alleviate drought conditions in western Colorado.
When I was a kid, I collected pinback buttons, political and otherwise. Most of you probably know what that is, but for the youngs out there, itโs basically an analog meme you pin to your clothing to let folks know which political candidate or other cause you might support.
Iโm pretty sure I had a โJohn Anderson for Presidentโ button. My parents supported the Independent candidate in the 1980 election because he had been a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War. Jimmy Carter, while championing environmental preservation, had supercharged the fossil fuel industries in the West, which ravaged landscapes and economies, losing their support. I had a couple of buttons from the early Snowdown celebrations in Durango, and one from Wolverton Mountain Days, a funky event held at the Durango nordic center whose motto was: โTrack, Telly, Twinkie,โ or something along those lines. Maybe the little collection included a โGilbert Slade for County Commissioner,โ that I would have picked up at one of Sladeโs Democratic Party goat roasts out on the Dryside.
But perhaps the most intriguing one was small, dark blue or black, with a bold white typeface declaring: โFight Blight / Burn a Billboard Tonight.โ I probably had to ask an adult what blight meant, though the second part I understood. It was, perhaps, my first encounter with the concept of monkey-wrenching, or sabotaging equipment or structures or billboards as a form of protest, usually with environmental motivations.
This would have been shortly after Edward Abbeyโs The Monkey Wrench Gang was published (50 years ago this month), in which Doc Sarvis and Bonnie Abbzug did some billboard burning of their own before joining up with Seldom Seen and George Hayduke and moving on to bigger acts of sabotage. But the buttonโs text preceded the novel. The slogan was a favorite of David Brower, according to John McPheeโs โEncounters of the Archdruid,โ which ran in the New Yorker in 1971.
Though I wouldnโt find out until much later, it turns out my father lived out the slogan during his younger days in Silverton, Colorado.
***
Up until the 1950s, Silverton was a full-on mining town, with a little bit of tourism on top. Following World War II, however, the last big mine, the Shenandoah-Dives, shut down. The local economy, sputtered and gasped, ushering in what Silvertonians would come to call the โBlack Decade.โ
Desperate, the townsfolk turned to tourism, capitalizing on a Hollywood-fueled, global fascination with the Wild West of American mythology. The Durango-to-Silverton stretch of railroad switched from hauling ore to carrying sightseers, and almost overnight Silverton morphed from mining town to a facsimile of a Hollywood version of a place that never existed. In order to lure motorists, some local businesses installed billboards along Highway 550 as it dropped into town from Molas Pass.
My parents arrived in Silverton in the 1960s. Mining had come back in force, with Standard Metalsโ American Tunnel facilitating the re-opening of the fabled Sunnyside Mine. Yet the tourism industry and its cheesy theatrics persisted, much to the disgust of my parents and their peers, who were members of a sort of rural Western intelligentsia, drawn there by the mountains, the wildness, the culture, the history, and perhaps most of all, the authenticity of the community. They saw the tchotchke-peddling economy as the antithesis of the richer, more real mining culture.
In July 1963, Terry Marshall summed up the sentiment in a Silverton Standard editorial on the surreal scene that unfolded every day at โtrain time.โ
Ultimately, the town would pass statutes and rules that reined in the carnival atmosphere. Yet the billboards on 550 remained and fell into disrepair, and efforts to have the highway department take them down apparently went nowhere. One day in the late 1960s โ the story goes 1ย โ my father was telling his cousin about his frustration with the situation, not just at how ugly the billboards were, but at the powerlessness to do anything about it. This relative (who will remain nameless), suggested in his sanguine way: โLetโs just burn it.โ
And so, on one dark night, thatโs exactly what they did, with my mother possibly driving the get-away car, nearly a decade before the fictional George Hayduke sabotaged the equipment building the road through Comb Ridge. My father and accomplices were never caught. Indeed, the billboard was so damned ugly that maybe nobody cared.
***
People who knew or knew of my father might find it incredible that he would go to this extreme. He was a diplomat and uniter, someone who could bring together disparate factions to benefit the community. He also had a strong moral compass and cared deeply about this land and its communities, and would do what he could to defend it โ within reason โ even if it may have skirted the law just a little bit.
I know this because when I was maybe 12 or 13, I went camping with my dad and his friend and the friendโs kid. It was way up near Raplee Ridge, in southeastern Utah, looking down into the San Juan River, on a dusty two-track. On the way to the campsite, we noticed some survey flags sticking up from the sparse and rocky earth.
This would have been the early 1980s, when the Carter-era quest for โenergy independenceโ was still in full-force, and miners and drillers were ripping apart the Western landscape for whatever uranium, coal, oil and gas, or oil shale they could find. My young heart ached at the realization that the stakes marked a future extraction site, that soon the bulldozers and the drill rigs would show up and tear the earth apart and suck out whatever minerals dwelled down there.
On the way back, the adults stopped the car near the site, told us kids to stay put, got out, walked over to the stakes, methodically pulled them out of the ground, and threw them over the edge of the cliff. Then they got back in and we drove away, without saying anything else about it. It was a soothing site to witness, even from the remove of the old car.
The site was never developed or drilled or mined, though Iโm guessing that had less to do with this little act of sabotage than with the fact that the energy booms all faded shortly thereafter. For them, however, it was a significant act of resistance, and perhaps of love for the Place. Maybe just as importantly, they were defying the powerlessness we feel in the face of the churning gears of progress and greed, apathy and cruelty.
***
The Monkey Wrench Gang is often considered monkey-wrenchingโs literary debut. Itโs not. Two years before Abbey published his book, there was Jim Harrisonโs A Good Day to Die, which followed a trio on a Florida-to-Idaho road trip in a quest to blow up a dam.
Harrisonโs protagonist is named Tim, a Hayduke-esque guy just back from a couple tours in Vietnam, scarred in more ways than one and with a hankering for booze and pills to ease the pain. The storyโs narrator, a bit of a cad with relationship issues, is on a fishing trip and escapist odyssey in Floridaโs Keys when he encounters Tim. During a drinking session, the narrator tells Tim offhandedly that thereโs a dam in the Grand Canyon, or at least they are planning one, pushing Tim into a melancholic slump. โJesus Christ,โ he says, โit will fill up with water.โ
Tim is immediately fixated by the idea, noting that he has never seen the Grand Canyon. The narrator โhad seen Glen Canyon years ago before it was literally drowned and liked it better but any comparison was absurd with such splendors.โ After a little more thought, he notes, casually: โWe probably ought to blow up the goddamn thing.โ
Tim takes the idea and runs with it, though it isnโt entirely clear what his motives are. Is he truly looking to defend the environment and free the Colorado River? Is he seeking to punish those who deigned dam up something as sacred as the Grand Canyon? Or is he merely lashing out at the general injustice of the world, hoping to be heard among all the cruel noise?
Whatever it is, the narrator gets caught up in it, too, maybe just to have a bit of purpose beyond baking in the sun and waiting for the fish to bite. When Tim suggests a trip West, the narrator hesitates and says only if they return quickly. But as the story progresses he becomes more invested in the act, even if it is only a means for pursuing the alluring Sylvia, Timโs on-again-off-again girlfriend.
When they discover there is no dam in the Grand Canyon, the narrator refuses to abandon the mission, and suggests they instead decommission an earthen dam on a tributary of the Clearwater in Idaho, โwhere a wealthy rancher ruined a good steelhead stream โฆ out of greed and contempt for the natural world.โ Once the new target is picked, the narrator feels โstrong and clean and very moral. Heroic, in fact.โ 2
***
A Good Day to Die may have preceded and even inspired the Monkey Wrench Gang, but the latter was far more widely read and influential. Abbeyโs classic was published 50 years ago this month, inspiring many acts of low- and high-level eco-sabotage in the decades that followed. And in 1985, Bill Haywood and Dave Foreman published a manual for Abbeyโs acolytes called Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching.
Monkeywrenchers pulled up survey stakes by the dozen, spiked trees to halt logging projects, cut commercial fishing drift nets, dumped sand and corn syrup into bulldozersโ gas tanks and crankcases, vandalized ski-lift supports, cut power to uranium mines, and plotted to topple transmission towers carrying electricity from nuclear plants. Some were caught. Others were not.
In the late 1990s, factions of the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front took it up a notch by torching a Bureau of Land Management wild horse captivity facility in Burns, Oregon. Then, in 1998, they burned down several structures at the Vail Ski Resort in an effort to block the ski area expansion and its deleterious effects on lynx habitat.
The ski area recovered and expanded, despite an estimated $24 million worth of damage. Direct environmental action, however, took a hit as federal law enforcement (and corporate interests) began throwing around the term โeco-terrorist,โ the connotations of which became far more grim after 9/11 3. The FBI then declared monkeywrenching to be one of theย nationโs leading domestic terror threats, surpassing even right-wing militia groups, despite the fact that the saboteurs only damage property and make a point of not harming humans or other living beings.
This put quite a damper on environmental direct action, since even pulling up a few survey stakes might get you labeled a terrorist and tossed in the clink โ or even Guantanamo Bay โ for years. Monkeywrenching, however, did not die. In 2016, for example, a crew of โValve Turnersโ managed to shut down several major oil pipelines in an attempt to slow fossil fuel burning and bring attention to the climate crisis (Michelle Nijhuis wrote a terrific piece on this in 2018). Otherwise there have been very few high-profile direct-action eco-sabotage cases, at least from what I can gather.
***
Monkeywrenching is on my mind not because itโs MWGโs half-century birthday or even because the White House, Congress, and the courts have been occupied by authoritarians, oligarchs, and their enablers, who value profit over everything else, especially the environment. Iโve actually been pondering it for several months, since long before Trump was elected.
A couple of things sparked this line of thought. First, it seems as if thereโs a bit of a literary revival of monkeywrenching. Itโs one of the methods employed by climate activists in Stephen Markeyโs excellent novel The Deluge. And it is the main theme of the film, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, which is a fictional rendering of Andreas Malmโs non-fiction treatise of the same name.
I began to write that these books and films are Monkey Wrench Gangs for the global warming age. But I donโt think thatโs quite right. The tone of the newer book and film is far different โ more urgent and somber โ than MWG or a Good Day to Die. And the motives of the protagonists are also more serious and deep, if you will. Pipelineโs characters, for example, mostly were direct victims of the fossil fuel industry, making their sabotage a form of self-defense, while the Delugeโs eco-saboteurs see themselves as warriors fighting for the planetโs very survival.
Itโs not surprising that eco-sabotage is experiencing a revival, even if itโs only fictional. The urgency of a warming climate is becoming acute, and yet the powers that be are diddling their thumbs. More and more people are frustrated and fed up with the lugubrious process of fighting climate change and environmental destruction in legal and legitimate ways. Even when the Democrats control the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, they rarely are able to take more than a half-step forward policy-wise, only to see their incremental progress obliterated by Trump, the MAGA-dominated Congress, and a runaway Supreme Court within weeks after taking power.
Now the Trump administration is even precluding public input for major mines, oil and gas drilling, and other developments on public lands, all in the name of a bogus โenergy emergency.โ They are literally blocking the publicโs legal avenues for making a difference, leaving concerned citizens with little choice but to take more direct action.
What is surprising to me is that a new wave of eco-sabotage has not made it from the screen and page to real life. 4ย Instead, climate activists areย throwing soup, paint, and other stuff at prominent artworks, hoping to bring attention to their cause. They are gluing themselves to the road and disrupting bicycle races, from theย World Championshipsย in Scotland to theย Tour de France, and Just Stop Oil even defaced Charles Darwinโs graves.
The activists and their supporters claim that these actions raise public awareness. That may be so, but awareness of what, exactly? How does disrupting a bike race, of all things, reduce fossil fuel combustion? How does defacing a painting โ even if only โsymbolicallyโ โ relate to environmental destruction? And whatโs with targeting Darwinโs grave? While I appreciate the zeal, I canโt help but wonder: If youโre going to vandalize something and risk jail time, why not do something that makes a direct and immediate difference โ even if only temporarily?
When the narrator in a Good Day to Die decides to get rid of the dam in Idaho, he is hit with a moment of moral clarity. I suspect it has to do with the directness of his planned action. He sees a problem, a fish-harming dam, and sets about to solve it in the most logical and direct way possible: blowing it up โ preferably without harming anybody. Heโs not looking to send a message, to make a symbolic gesture, or raise awareness. Heโs just trying to fix something thatโs wrong, not unlike burning an atrocious billboard or surreptitiously removing some survey stakes from a remote area or destroying a pipeline that defiles the land and carries planet-killing fossil fuels.
Donโt get me wrong. Iโm not suggesting that anyone go out and do anything illegal. Iโm just saying that when a personโs home โ whether thatโs a house, a community, a Place, or the entire planet โ comes under attack, it shouldnโt be surprising that they would go to extreme lengths to defend it.
Four Corners Power Plant. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
For the last several years, the coal industry in the Western U.S. has been suffering from what I call the Big Breakdown โ as opposed to the Big Buildup of the 1960s and 1970s, when coal power plants and mines popped up all over the Colorado Plateau and beyond. Now, it appears that the proliferation of energy-intensive data centers is stalling the Breakdown, maybe even reversing it. Last week, Arizona Public Service announced it would keep the Four Corners coal plant in northwestern New Mexico running โ and polluting โ for another seven years beyond its scheduled 2031 retirement.
The coal-burning extension is part of the stateโs largest utilityโs plan to shift its climate goal from becoming zero carbon by 2050 to carbon neutral. While that sounds like a mere semantic switch, its on-the-ground effects will be significant. Along with the coal plant news, APS and the stateโs other largest utilities are going in on a new natural gas pipeline from the Permian Basin so it can increase fossil fuel generation rather than pivoting entirely to solar, wind, battery energy storage, and other carbon-free sources.
APS officials say the shift is necessary to meet growing power demand. While population growth and increasingly hot temperatures play a role in the ever-larger load on the grid, the crop of new energy-intensive data centers sprouting in the Phoenix area is a principle driver. The utility is also likely reacting to the Trump administrationโs fondness for fossil fuels and disdain for renewables.
The Four Corners plant and its accompanying Navajo Mine were constructed about 15 miles west of Farmington in the early 1960s by a consortium of utilities led by APS and Utah Construction & Mining Co, a subsidiary of Kennecott, a global mining firm. It was the flagship of a much larger fleet that would include the San Juan, Navajo, Mojave, Cholla, Coronado, and Escalante plants. Mojave was shuttered in 2005, with the other big plants closing down more recently (Coronado will be converted to natural gas). That leaves just Four Corners, which was supposed to be shuttered in 2031, or even sooner, if Public Service Company of New Mexico were able to get out of its 13% stake before then.
But over the last few years, utilities have been second-guessing plans to decommission the aging behemoths as data centers have sprouted across the region, significantly increasing demand on the power grid. Over the last week, both Salt River Project and APS have set new peak power demand records as both residents and data centers crank up the coolers to offset extreme heat. Demand is projected to grow significantly over the next decade, mostly due to new data centers. Itโs the Big Buildup all over again, only this time itโs high-tech server farms sprouting all over the place, with power generating sources struggling to keep up.
1 *I didnโt hear this story until after my father died, so this is all second-hand and the details may be a bit off.
2 I wonโt tell you what happens. If you read the book, you should be warned that reviewers of the time sneered at it for being too macho, too crude, having too much drug and alcohol use, โadolescent,โ and so forth. Maybe thatโs all true, but I liked it the first time I read it decades ago, and I still liked it when I read it again recently.
3 * The term was apparently coined in the 1980s by Ron Arnold, the founder of the anti-environment Wise Use Movement.
4**ย Right-wing nationalist attacks on the power grid are not, in my mind, a form of monkeywrenching. Their goal is to disrupt and harm society, including humans, not to stop environmental damage or even make a political protest.
The 24-Month Study projects future Colorado River system conditions using single-trace hydrologic scenarios simulated with the Colorado River Mid-term Modeling System (CRMMS) in 24-Month Study Mode. The Most Probable and Probable Minimum 24-Month Studies are released monthly, typically by the 15th day of the month. The Probable Maximum 24-Month Study is released alongside other 24-Month Studies in January, April, August, and October.
Initial Conditions: The 24-Month Study is initialized with previous end-of-month reservoir elevations.ย
Hydrology: In the Upper Basin, the first year of the Most Probable inflow trace is based on the 50thย percentile of Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC) forecasts and the second year is based on the 50thย percentile of historical flows. To represent dry and wet future conditions, the Minimum Probable and Maximum Probable traces use the 10thย and 90thforecast percentiles in the first year and the 25thย and 75thย percentiles of historical flows in the second year, respectively. The Lower Basin inflows are based only on historical intervening flows that align with the Upper Basin percentiles.ย
Water Demand: Upper Basin demands are estimated and incorporated in the unregulated inflow forecasts provided by the CBRFC; Lower Basin demands are developed in coordination with the Lower Basin States and Mexico.ย
Policy: 2007 Interim Guidelines, 2024 Supplement to the 2007 Interim Guidelines, Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan, and Minute 323 are modeled reflecting Colorado Riverย policies. For modeling purposes, simulated years beyond 2026 assume a continuation of the 2007 Interim Guidelines including the 2024 Supplement to the 2007 Interim Guidelines (no additional SEIS conservation is assumed to occur after 2026), the 2019 Colorado River Basin Drought Contingency Plans, and Minute 323 including the Binational Water Scarcity Contingency Plan. With the exception of certain provisions related to ICS recovery and Upper Basin demand management, operations under these agreements are in effect through 2026. Reclamation initiated the process to develop operations for post-2026 in June 2023, and the modeling assumptions described here are subject to change.
Reclamation will continue to carefully monitor hydrologic and operational conditions and assess the need for additional responsive actions and/or changes to operations. Reclamation will continue to consult with the Basin States, Basin Tribes, the Republic of Mexico and other partners on Colorado River operations to consider and determine whether additional measures should be taken to further enhance the preservation of these benefits, as well as recovery protocols, including those of future protective measures for both Lakes Powell and Mead.
For more detailed information about the approach to the 24-Month Study modeling, see the CRMMS 24-Month Study Modepage. All modeling assumptions and projections are subject to varying degrees of uncertainty. Please refer to this discussion of uncertainty for more information.
Projections
The latest 24-Month Study reports for each study can be found at the links below:
WASHINGTONโฏโ The Bureau of Reclamation released the August 2025 24-Month Study, reaffirming impacts of unprecedented drought in the Colorado River Basin and pressing the need for robust and forward-thinking guidelines for the future. The study provides an outlook on hydrologic conditions and projected operations for Colorado River reservoirs over the next two years and sets the 2026 operating conditions for Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
โThis underscores the importance of immediate action to secure the future of the Colorado River,โ said Reclamationโs Acting Commissioner David Palumbo. โWe must develop new, sustainable operating guidelines that are robust enough to withstand ongoing drought and poor runoff conditions to ensure water security for more than 40 million people who rely on this vital resource.โ
Lake Powellโs elevation on Jan. 1, 2026, is projected to be 3,538.47 feetโapproximately 162 feet below full pool and 48 feet above minimum power pool. This places the reservoir in the Mid-Elevation Release Tier, with a planned release of 7.48 million acre-feet of water for water year 2026, October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2026. If hydrologic conditions worsen, the water year release volume may be reduced in accordance with the 2024 Record of Decision for the Supplement to the 2007 Interim Guidelines.
Lake Mead is projected to stay in a Level 1 Shortage Condition, with an expected elevation of 1,055.88 feetโ20 feet below the Lower Basin shortage determination trigger. This condition necessitates significant water reductions as indicated by the 2007 Interim Guidelines and the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan in the United States and Minute 323 and the Binational Water Scarcity Contingency Plan in Mexico. This calls for Arizona to contribute 512,000 acre-feet, about 18% of its annual apportionment, Nevada to contribute 21,000 acre-feet or 7%of its annual apportionment, and Mexico to contribute 80,000 acre-feet or 5% of its annual allotment.
Current guidelinesโincluding the 2007 Interim Guidelines, 2019 Drought Contingency Plans, and international agreements Minutes 323 and 330โare all set to expire at the end of 2026, leaving a critical void that must be filled with comprehensive strategies that address current and future challenges.
โAs the basin prepares for the transition to post-2026 operating guidelines, the urgency for the seven Colorado River Basin states to reach a consensus agreement has never been clearer. We cannot afford to delay,โ said Department of the Interiorโs Acting Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Scott Cameron. โThe health of the Colorado River system and the livelihoods that depend on it are relying on our ability to collaborate effectively and craft forward-thinking solutions that prioritize conservation, efficiency, and resilience.โ
In June, Cameron called on the seven Colorado River Basin states to submit the details of a preliminary operations agreement by mid-November and share a final seven state agreement on that proposal by mid-February 2026, with the goal of reaching a final decision next summer to begin implementation in the 2027 operating year.
In the meantime, near-term operating guidelines approved last year provide additional strategies to reduce the risk of reaching critical elevations at Lake Powell and Lake Mead. These short-term tools, available through 2026, include conserving 3 million acre-feet or more of water in the Lower Basin and the potential to reduce release from Lake Powell. Under the Drought Contingency Plan, Upper Basin drought response operations could also include sending additional water to Lake Powell from upstream reservoirs.
โThese short-term tools will only help us for so long,โ Cameron emphasized. โThe next set of guidelines need to be in place. We remain committed to this effort and will continue to invest in infrastructure improvements and system water reuse and conservation efforts as we move forward toward viable solutions.โ
The Department and Reclamation continue meeting regularly with the basin states and Tribal Nations to collaborate on the Post-2026 Operating Guidelines as part of their continued commitment to ensuring water security and promoting long-term sustainability in the Colorado River Basin. For more information on the August 2025 24-Month Study, visit https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/riverops/24ms-projections.html.
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
From email from Western Resource Advocates (John Berggren):
August 15, 2025
Western Resource Advocates released the following statement in response to the August 24-Month Study by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which determines reservoir operations and Lower Basin shortages for the coming Water Year, and projects future conditions in the Colorado River system for the next two years.
“This study confirms what weโve known for decades: the Colorado River is overallocated with demands outpacing supplies. We face continued shortages, emergency measures, and the limits of our current agreements, all which are set to expire in the next 12 months. It further sounds the alarm that the Colorado River is drying out and Western states need to act now to protect this vital waterway and its tributaries.”
– John Berggren, Ph.D.
The Colorado River provides drinking water for one in ten Americans and after years of persistent drought, declining snowpack, and rising temperatures, the river continues to face a historic and growing imbalance where demand overwhelms available supply. It is operating under extreme stress and at the edge of a critical management transition.
โThis is not just a crisis. Itโs also a call to action to use remaining time wisely to replace our current reactive, emergency-based management framework with new, long-term solutions. We canโt litigate our way out โ we must collaborate forward. A negotiated agreement among all the Colorado River sovereigns and stakeholders will be more comprehensive, more adaptable, and more responsive to our communities throughout the Basin.โ
Change is the only constant on the Colorado River. Its water carved the Grand Canyon, its flows fluctuate seasonally, its path is altered by a network of dams and pipelines, and its water is dwindling as climate change dries out the West. The River is a dynamic and living system with real limits, yet early agreements treated it like a simple water delivery pipeline.
“Going forward, itโs essential for all water stakeholders and decision makers to take an honest look at the Basinโs hydrology and accelerate coming together around a set of proactive solutions to keep the river healthy.ย Decisions made in the coming months will determine whether we can meet the needs of our communities and protect the river for future generations and for the fish, wildlife, and recreationists that depend on it. The time to lead is now.”
Thank you for fighting climate change in the West with us.
Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck, Anne Castle, Eric Kuhn, Jack Schmidt, Kathryn Sorensen, and Katherine Tara):
As we await Fridayโs (Aug. 15, 2025) release of the Bureau of Reclamationโs Colorado River 24-Month Study, we need to remember a painful lesson of the last five years of crisis management: whatever you see in Reclamationโs report of the โMost Probableโ reservoir levels for the next two years, we must prepare for things to be much worse.
A year ago, Reclamationโs โMost Probableโ forecast told us to expect Lake Powell to hold 10.36 million acre feet of water at the end of July 2025, with a surface elevation 3,593 feet above sea level. Actual storage in Powell at the end of July was 7.46 maf, 2.9 million acre feet less, and the reservoir is 38 feet lower, than the โMost Probableโ forecast.
Four years ago, one of us (Eric Kuhn) wrote this, which is helpful in understanding what is happening:
“The problem: the assumptions underlying the study do not fully capture the climate-change driven aridification of the Colorado River Basin.”
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
In 2022, a Utah State Center for Colorado River Studies team led by Jian Wang (including one of us, Schmidt) took this on in more technical detail โ Evaluating the Accuracy of Reclamationโs 24-Month Study of Lake Powell Projections. The finding provided technical support for an intuition water managers already had: the 24-Month Study has an optimistic bias.
Produced monthly, Reclamationโs 24-Month Study includes three scenarios: Most Probable, Minimum Probable, and Maximum Probable. The Study includes 18 pages of data and forecasts for twelve Colorado River system reservoirs, from Fontenelle and Flaming Gorge in the north to Mohave and Havasu in the south, projecting things like elevation, storage, inflows, releases, evaporation, and hydropower production each month for the next two years.
“Projections for reservoir elevations during the next few months are based on predictions of reservoir inflow using a widely accepted watershed hydrologic model run by the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center. The input data for that model are observed snowpack in the watershed, soil moisture, and anticipated precipitation and temperature. Projections for reservoir elevations beyond the immediately proximate winter, a year or more in the future (โsecond year projectionsโ), are based on statistical probabilities calculated using analyses of past inflows during a 30-year reference period.”
The resulting model runs represent a wide range of uncertainties, which are captured in three resulting scenarios:
Most Probable: the middle of the range
Maximum Probable: the 90th percentile scenario, meaning that 10% of the model runs predict even wetter hydrology and 90% predict drier.
Minimum Probable: the 10th percentile scenario, meaning that 10% of the model runs predict even drier hydrology and 90% predict wetter.
The problem, implicit in the argument Milly et al. made nearly two decades ago, is that a 30-year reference period is no longer a reliable indicator of what we should expect in the future. It represents a river we no longer have. This is not to suggest any bias or partiality on the part of Reclamation, but merely that the algorithms and modeling used to produce the 24-Month Study have proven in recent years to be skewed more toward the the past than the true-to-life. Our response needs to reflect that reality.
Because of the changing conditions in the Colorado River Basin, the Minimum Probable scenario has become the most valuable in providing a reliable indicator of the future. Actual flows and reservoir levels have been tracking the minimum probable forecast since March of this year. As we enter the fall of 2025, with the weak summer monsoon for most of the Upper Basin coupled with weak La Niรฑa conditions persisting through the fall and early winter, and NOAAโs seasonal outlook pointing to a warmer and drier than average fall, itโs a good bet that this trend will continue at least through mid-winter. The Basin should be prepared for minimum probable conditions, with a clear possibility that actual conditions could be worse than the 10th percentile scenario. The basin community needs to be ready to respond with the necessary water use reductions now to protect the Colorado River system on which we all depend.
Pine River Marina at Navajo Reservoir. Photo credit: Reclamation
From email from Reclamation (Conor Felletter):
August 15, 2025
The Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled an increase in the release from Navajo Dam to 900 cubic feet per second (cfs) from the current release of 850 cfs for Saturday, August 16, at 4:00 AM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Conor Felletter (cfelletter@usbr.gov or 970-637-1985), or visit Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website athttps://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
Reclamation conducts Public Operations Meetings three times per year to gather input for determining upcoming operations for Navajo Reservoir. Input from individuals, organizations, and agencies along with other factors such as weather, water rights, endangered species requirements, flood control, hydro power, recreation, fish and wildlife management, and reservoir levels, will be considered in the development of these reservoir operation plans. In addition, the meetings are used to coordinate activities and exchange information among agencies, water users, and other interested parties concerning the San Juan River and Navajo Reservoir. The next meeting will be held Tuesday, August 19th at 1:00 PM. This meeting is open to the public with hybrid options, in person at the Civic Center in Farmington, NM (200 W Arrington St, Farmington, NM 87401, Rooms 4&5) and virtual using Microsoft Teams. Register for the webinar at this link
Trail building by the Civilian Conservation Corps on Notch Mountain, then a popular destination for its view of the Mount of the Holy Cross and the throngs of religious pilgrims who were drawn to the site in the early days of the Holy Cross National Forest, now part of the White River National Forest. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Editorโs note: This story is the third of a three-part series examining the notion of public lands, both in the United States and in our region. Part one looked at the earliest expressions of the commons in territories that would become the United States. Parts two and three look at the history and legacy of what is now the White River National Forest.
The hunger for land was an insatiable draw to legions of the dispossessed who were on the march across America eager for land ownership. The Utes were simply in the way of an advance that could not or would not be stopped. The tragic story of these first inhabitants of the White River National Forest (WRNF) played out to a violent end amid a rush for land and resources in the Colorado Rockies that had 5,000 people per day pouring into the state by the 1870s.
Native inhabitants had been hunting and gathering here for more than 10,000 years. The Utes โ the โPeople of the Shining Mountains,โ according to the title of a book by Charles Marsh โ ruled a vast and rugged empire of about 225,000 square miles that stretched from the Central Rockies west into Utah and Nevada, south into New Mexico and east onto the Great Plains where they hunted buffalo on horseback. The Utes were among the first Native Americans to acquire the horse from Spanish stock that, it was assumed, had been lost. Horses were key to Ute identity, and equestrian skills were a mark of manhood that provided rapid mobility and warrior status.
White River Ute warrior Gray Eagle and his young bride Honey Dew of the Mountains, on horseback on the western slope of the Wasatch Range in Utah, then roaming their vast territory west of the White River before the White River Agency was established. Circa 1871-1875. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
Broken treaties and war
The advance of Europeans into Ute lands set up a tension that grew with every treaty violation and every trespass. As their domain was carved away, the U.S. government naively assumed the Utes could be transitioned from nomadic hunter-gatherers and cordoned off as sedentary farmers. Indian agents were hired to effect this transition, which, in the long run, proved futile and disastrous. There was no reasonable answer to โthe Ute problem,โ which was the terminology used by Frederick Pitkin, Coloradoโs second governor from 1879-82, to refer to the cultural impasse.
The ensuing drama escalated at the White River Agency near todayโs Meeker in 1879 when Indian agent Nathan Meeker, a naive and misguided minister, attempted to force the Utesโ compliance to โwhite manโs waysโ by denying them their horses, rationing allotments and plowing over their racetrack to plant crops. Meeker and others believed that the Utes were in need of redemption for their spiritual welfare. The Utes, who found spiritual depth in the natural world around them, believed otherwise and clung to their sacred traditions.
The conflict boiled over in the late summer of 1879 when Meeker had a violent altercation with a Ute sub chief. The frightened Meeker sent for the U.S. Army, which advanced from Wyoming and was met by a strong Ute force. When the detachment of 190 troops crossed into Ute territory on Sept. 29, shots rang out, kicking off a grueling six-day battle of attrition that saw 17 U.S. soldiers killed and wounded 44, while the Utes saw 24 killed, in what became known as the Battle of Milk Creek. As the battle raged 17 miles away, Utes also attacked the White River Agency, killing Meeker, 10 men under his employ, and kidnapped women and children, including Meekerโs wife and daughter.
All captives were later released from a Ute camp on Grand Mesa. But the violent outbreak provided ample pretext for the whites to pursue a campaign of ethnic cleansing. In 1881, Pitkin issued an edict stating that the Utes would either be removed to reservations in Utah and southern Colorado or exterminated. Many were marched out of their homelands near the Uncompahgre River at gunpoint, while remaining bands roamed northwest Colorado until an 1887 military campaign known as the Colorow War.
With that Pitkin proclamation, 12 million acres of western Colorado opened for settlement. The White River Timberland Reserve was later created on these former Ute lands, placing them under federal administration. The Utes were compensated about $22 per capita in a settlement for all that they were forced to surrender. However, draws from those payments were taken from Ute hands to fund pensions paid to families of soldiers and agency staff killed during the violence surrounding the Meeker incidents. So ended the empire of the Utes.
Milk Creek Battlefield Park, 18 miles northeast of Meeker, Colorado. Battle of Milk Creek, Sept. 29 through Oct.5, 1879, between the Utes and the U.S. troops, which triggered the Meeker incident. The battle persisted with the Utes surrounding the wagon-circled troops until military reinforcements arrived. Most sources tally 17 whites killed and 44 wounded, along with 24 Utes killed and unknown numbers wounded, while 127 horses and 183 mules of the U.S. troopers died. By Jeffrey Beall – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70937831
Exploitation, waste and destruction
โOne of the most pressing problems facing Colorado in the 1880s and 1890s,โ wrote Justine Irwin, author of the 1990 manuscript โWhite River National Forest: A Centennial History,โ โwas the prevalent exploitation of its natural resources by westward moving pioneers โฆ [who] accepted the waste and destruction that followed as a small price to pay for their dream of prosperity.โ
The prevailing attitude of the day regarded โwildernessโ as a wasteland ripe for the biblical mandate in the Book of Genesis: โIncrease, multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it.โ These newcomers to western Colorado, wrote Irwin, viewed the land with โutilitarian spectacles,โ through which โtrees became lumber, prairies became farms, and canyons became the sites of hydroelectric dams.โ
A dramatic example of the settlersโ creed was the extermination of the native elk herd as meat hunters ignored sustainable yields and fecklessly shot and killed all the native elk in the region, selling their harvest to railroad builders and mine workers. So-called โmarket huntingโ flourished only as long as the herds lasted, and the 6,000 to 8,000 elk estimated to have been in the WRNF region in 1879 were soon extirpated. Hunters took only the hindquarters of the animals, leaving the rest as waste. The selling price for meat was 7 cents a pound for deer, 9 cents for elk, 10 cents for bighorn sheep and bear, and 50 cents for grouse.
Meanwhile, the General Land Office, a real estate branch of the Department of Interior, was busy selling off the commons at $1.25 per acre. The Homestead Act gave land away to qualifying settlers in 160-acre allotments for each adult member of a family. Large families could acquire considerable acreage of public lands. The Timber Culture Act of 1873, the General Mining Act of 1872 and the Railroad Act of 1862 gave away huge swaths of the public domain, all to encourage monetizing the commons and capitalizing on the riches of the continental empire of the United States.
โRanchers, loggers and others invaded railroad lands taking what they wished and giving no thought to the long-range future of the region,โ wrote Irwin, who describes a ruthless lawlessness that discouraged any interference in this land-based free-for-all. But there was change in the air as lawmakers recognized that there were limits to the nationโs natural resources. The giveaways continued, but national parks and designated forests were proposed and gradually established to preserve legacy Western landscapes for future generations in a first glimmer of conservation. The philosophy behind this growing movement was shared by Henry David Thoreau, George Catlin, John James Audubon, John Muir and an influential cadre of preservationists who began to win over advocates in Washington, D.C. The conservation ethic is summed up by author Rod Nash in his โWilderness and the American Mindโ (1967), in which he wrote, โDoesnโt the present owe the future a chance to know the past?โ
Environmental concerns for preserving intact ecosystems to protect valuable and irreplaceable watersheds played a utilitarian role in conservation efforts on Western lands. Forestry management entered the lexicon of policymakers when, in 1875, Section 6 of the Colorado Constitution called for โPreservation of Forests: The General Assembly shall enact laws in order to prevent the destruction of, and to keep in good preservation, the forests upon the lands of the state.โ
Citizen involvement through civic forestry associations amplified the call to protect national assets and save something for the future. In 1889, a timber reserve was called for on the Western Slope of Colorado to safeguard against wildfires, overgrazing and irresponsible timber harvests โ all of which were decimating irreplaceable landscapes. A similar approach to nature aesthetics was winning hearts and minds for preserving the inspiring vistas that were beginning to sensitize America to the natural treasures of which it had taken possession.
In 1891, a groundswell of support led President Benjamin Harrison to enact the General Revision Act, a sweeping mandate to protect Western lands that led Harrison to issue a proclamation establishing the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve, the first binding federal protection for a large expanse of central and northwest Colorado and the second of its scale and scope in the United States, after a forest reserve designated near Yellowstone National Park. Supporters called it a great victory, but detractors โ of which there were many โ impugned the initiative as a โtakingโ of what they considered the entitlement of free land.
The account of a boasting pioneer quoted in โWhite River National Forest: A Centennial Historyโ and who had unconscionably plundered the public domain is a grim tale of misuse without supervision and reasonable limits of what was perceived as an infinite cornucopia: โIn the summer of โ89, I killed about 700 deer and pulled the hides off, just for the hides. That fall, I got 43 bear near Lost Park. I shipped the hides to Chicago and they netted me clear $1.50 apiece. Everybody killed game for the hides and made money that way. Iโll tell you a fact: In โ89 I could ride up anywhere and there would be 40 to 50 bucks lying in one bunch. You could ride up to within a few feet of them. I killed 23 bucks in one day and jerked the hides off.โ
Such carnage became repugnant to many and shameful to a growing number of nature lovers who advocated protective legislation such as the Forest Management Act of 1897 that granted the secretary of the interior power to regulate โoccupancy and useโ of federal lands. Implementation was another thing as new and often-inexperienced forest rangers came up against hardened libertarians who were armed and militant โ namely, loggers and ranchers. Threats against rangers, who lacked policing power, were said to โmake your eyes swell shut and your nose bleed,โ according to โA Centennial History.โ
โA ranger must be able to take care of himself and his horses under very trying conditions; build trails and cabins; ride all day and all night; pack, shoot and fight without losing his head. All this requires a very rigorous constitution,โ read one early Forest Service job posting. A group of White River National Forest rangers are shown here at a 1921 meeting. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Forest rangers bring law to the wilderness
According to Irwinโs manuscript, โthe forest ranger had to become not only a conservationist, a lands manager, a grazing expert, a timber expert, a watershed manager, a wildlife protector and jack-of-all-trades, he also had to become an expert in public relations with a keen understanding of community and national politics.โ Few could match up to these requirements without rigorous training and a deep commitment to the role.
In 1898, Charles W. Ramer of Fort Collins was appointed the first supervisor of the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve, headquartered in Meeker. Jack Dunn, Harry Gibler and Solon Ackley were the first rangers hired to patrol the reserve, which was divided into nine districts. The rangers were assigned to observe that loggers and ranchers kept to their assigned boundaries, to ensure that game regulations were followed and to put out brush fires.
These early rangers faced tremendous personal risks from unruly forest users, as described in an account by ranger William Kreutzer, who faced repeated threats from his efforts to enforce regulations. One night in the early 1900s, wrote Irwin, โas he was returning to his camp from a day patrolling, three men sprang suddenly from the aspen thickets and attacked him. Almost instantly he was struck on the head with something that rendered him unconscious. When he recovered, many hours later, he was lying beside the road, his head ached, his nose was bruised.โ
Early forest rangers faced personal risks from unruly forest users. One account by ranger William Kreutzer, shown here, described facing beatings and attempted shootings from his efforts to enforce regulations.
Another incident from Irwinโs manuscript revealed that Kreutzer boldly confiscated tools from a group of timber cutters felling trees inside the protected reserve. โOne day he was riding a trail and a bullet whizzed by close to his head. He rolled from his saddle and sought shelter behind a large tree. Four more bullets struck near him. The boom that followed each shot told him they had come from a large rifle fired from a spot some distance away. He had only his six-shooter, but ascertaining as best he could the spot whence the shots came, he elevated the barrel of his gun and fired every cartridge. The shots of his assailant ceased. He decided that someone had just tried to scare him a bit.โ
Trophy hunters flocked to hunt in the White River Reserve, the most prestigious of whom was President Theodore Roosevelt whose special train passed through Glenwood Springs in 1901. The Roosevelt party hunted the Danforth Hills near Meeker, killing 14 mountain lions. Although Roosevelt championed conservation of wild lands, he withdrew substantial acreage from the reserve on the advice of his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot, in order to appease complaints from forest users of โlocking up the land.โ
Meanwhile, posted notices advertised the following: โMen Wanted!! A ranger must be able to take care of himself and his horses under very trying conditions; build trails and cabins; ride all day and all night; pack, shoot and fight without losing his head. All this requires a very rigorous constitution. It means the hardest kind of physical work from beginning to end. It is not a job for those seeking health or light outdoor work. Invalids need not apply.โ
Requirements were incredibly demanding, but men equal to the challenge answered the call and were hired only after completing a grueling exam that included saddling a horse, riding a required distance, packing a horse or mule with tools and camping gear, pacing the pack animal over a designated trail, taking bearings with survey tools and more. The annual salary for the few who were able to pass the test was $900 to $1,500, but starting at a lower figure.
The staunchest objectors to enforcement were cattlemen whose livelihood required substantial range. Among them was Roaring Fork Valley rancher Fred Light, who protested the charging of range fees for grazing his stock. Lightโs story traces a reluctant yet gradual progression from vehement protests to acceptance of the principles of forest management.
Trophy hunters around the turn of the 20th century flocked to the newly created White River Reserve, the most prestigious of whom was President Theodore Roosevelt whose special train passed through Glenwood Springs in 1901. The Roosevelt party hunted the Danforth Hills near Meeker, killing 14 mountain lions. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Light of the Roaring Fork
Fred Light (1856-1931) came to the Roaring Fork Valley in 1880. He prospected before locating a homestead on East Sopris Creek where he cut and sold hay in Aspen to feed the many teams required for mining and camp life. Eventually, Light proved up on his land, expanded his operation, and raised cattle and horses. In 1885, he was elected to the Colorado legislature and served two terms. He was a prominent, well-respected rancher who had political savvy โ and clout.
โWe want no forest reserves,โ Light announced to cheers and applause at a meeting of the Stockmenโs Association in 1907. โIf we must have reserves, we want no grazing tax; if we must have reserves and the tax, the cattlemen claim the privilege of saying who will be placed in charge of the reserves.โ
Light gained notoriety when, that same year, he allowed his cattle to drift into the newly formed White River Forest Reserve where grazing was prohibited. Light, like many early ranchers, was resistant to government control over a resource that he and many ranchers took possession of as an entitlement by simply being there first and assuming a right of ownership.
Light was cited, which started a grazing-trespass case with the U.S. Department of Forestry and which eventually reached the Supreme Court. Light lost his case, but he had made a bold statement of rugged individualism that animated the spirit and the myth upon which much of the American West was settled. The decision against him, however, verified the governmentโs legitimacy in charging grazing fees and regulating uses on reserve land. Light accepted the decision and thereafter paid the appropriate fees. He also agreed to the rules and regulations, and he even came to endorse them as he witnessed how competing forest users were beginning to negatively impact the land.
Lightโs story is compelling, but there was a far more sensational and dire event in his colorful life in the Roaring Fork Valley that describes a sad, personal anecdote. The Aspen-Democrat Times reported a dramatic event: An electrical storm, proclaimed โthe worst in the history of this locality,โ killed one person and wounded others in the Capitol Creek area.
According to the July 14, 1909, news story, โEarly last evening an electrical storm set in which surpassed in severity any before experienced in this locality and brought disaster to the household of Hon. Fred Light of Capitol Creek, one of the most prominent and highly respected families of Pitkin County.โ That evening, a bolt of lightning struck a potato cultivator outside the home, jumped to the gable on the homeโs roof and ran down to the basement, where Lightโs five children were packing meat. Lightโs son Ray, 18, was killed with four others rendered unconscious.
Lightโs conversion to the ways of the forest was a sign of progress, but, unfortunately, it did nothing to ameliorate an even more vitriolic conflict. A range war erupted in the early 1900s that pitted cattlemen and sheepherders against one another in a blood feud that resulted in thousands of sheep being slaughtered and a number of men being beaten and killed. The Western tradition of โfirst in time, first in rightโ gave cattlemen the wherewithal to declare the range existed for cattle only. Sheepherders were not forbidden by law or permit, but they took their lives in their hands if they violated the cattlemenโs self-imposed privilege.
Chapman Dam in the Fryingpan River basin, shown here in 1940, was a Great Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps project. CREDIT: WWW.WATERARCHIVES.ORG
Range wars
While the Glenwood Post became amenable to regulations in the White River Reserve by acknowledging the advantages of range protection, increased pasturage and peaceable possession for cattlemen, the advent of sheepherders lit the fuse of a conflict that blew up repeatedly. Irwin describes the George Woolley Sheep Massacre in Routt County when, in 1911, several hundred sheep were โrimrockedโ in a stampede that drove them off a cliff. In 1913, many sheep were killed by strychnine poisoning. Finally, a full-on range battle ensued in 1913 in the Battle of Yellowjacket Pass, between Craig and Meeker, when warring sheepherders and cattlemen fired upon one another, necessitating the calling out of the Colorado State Militia.
Changes in the cattle industry โ such as growing domestic hay for winter feed and breeding more efficient strands of range cattle โ increased weight gain and reduced the desperate need for vast grazing acreage. Forest rangers also played a part as peacemakers and mediators who headed off range feuds. They also took on rapidly expanding responsibilities to regulate timber cutting and supervise road-building, water diversions, irrigation, reforestation, erosion control, trail-building, sign-postage, wild game and fish management, and many other tasks. When elk were reintroduced to the forest in 1912 โ Fryingpan Valley rancher Nelson Downey reportedly killed the last bull elk of the original herd in 1895 โ rangers monitored the habitat and protected the imported elk from over-hunting.
As a more peaceful era settled on the reserve (renamed the White River Forest Reserve in 1902 by Roosevelt), a new use with rapidly growing popularity became evident as people came to the reserve, not to graze animals or cut timber, but to simply enjoy the sublime natural beauty that is in such profusion here. Enter recreation and a new identity for the public commons.
A U.S. Forest Service photo dated between 1910 and 1930 shows a man with a fishing pole near a tent at Snowmass Lake, with Snowmass Peak in the distance covered with snow. Recreation grew in popularity throughout the early 20th century, creating new priorities for the Forest Service. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
For the love of nature
Pinchot, the chief forester, considered recreation to be only an โincidental useโ until 1905, when hotels and sanitariums were introduced to the reserve for popular enjoyment and therapeutic healing. Gradually, roads and trails became part of the White River National Forest (Congress renamed it so in 1907) with the mandate to include all users. This brought commercial use into local cultural and economic equations and began a shift of management priorities.
An annual report on the forest in 1913 stated that natural resources would now be managed to reduce impacts from grazing and logging in order to โpreserve the natural beauty of the location unmarred for the enjoyment of the public.โ A potentially lucrative recreation economy spurred a tangential threat of privatizing public lands for commercial gain as stated in a letter to the U.S. Forest Service from the Denver Chamber of Commerce in 1913: โWe deny that it is right or advisable for the federal government to retain title to and lease the public lands for any purpose whatsoever.โ
The Forest Service was not alone in wariness of privatizing the commons for private development. In a major turnabout from only a decade before, Colorado stock growers shared the alarm: โWe earnestly object to any action by Congress abolishing the national forests or transferring their control or administration from the national government, and we must respectfully urge our congressmen to oppose any measures materially changing the present method regulating grazing on the national forests.โ
Even Light came to the forestโs defense as reflected in a report in the Glenwood Post in 1916: โFred Light was even ready to kiss and forgive the forestry officials. โฆ Mr. Light says he has learned to adapt himself to the forestry regulations and that the officials mean only good to the stockmen.โ
Grazing and logging continued as fundamental to the forest economy, especially during World War I when resources were in great demand, and yet the clamor for private resorts and vacation cabins began exerting influence. Trappers Lake was a sought-after locale for a proposed lodge and several hundred cabins that threatened to commercialize a scenic focal point on this White River National Forest wilderness enclave. In 1919, Arthur Carhart, landscape architect for the U.S. Forest Service, made a survey of the area and later advocated for a new concept in public-lands management โ wilderness โ especially after a meeting with assistant forester Aldo Leopold, Americaโs first conservation biologist.
โHow far shall the Forest Service carry or allow to be carried manmade improvement in scenic territories?โ wrote Carhart. โThe Forest Service is obliged to make the greatest return from the forests to the people of the nation that is possible.โ Carhart acknowledged forest yields in economic terms, but then urged for a higher concept of land use. โThere is a great wealth of recreational facilities and scenic values within the forests,โ he opined. โThere are portions of natural scenic beauty which are God-made and which of a right should be the property of all the people. There are a number of places with scenic values of such great worth that they are rightfully property of all people. They should be preserved for all time for the people of the nation and the world.โ
With that statement, Carhart leaped beyond the utility of conversation via Pinchot into the notion of preservation along the aesthetic and spiritual lines of Muir and Leopold. Carhart concluded: โIf Trappers Lake is in or anywhere near in the class of superlatives, it should not have any cabins or hotels intruding in the lake basin.โ Trappers Lake was preserved, and Carhartโs memo became a strong endorsement of the Wilderness Act of 1964.
The mess tent at a Civilian Conservation Corps work project camp at Maroon Lake,1935. The CCC put the impoverished and the unemployed to work on federal lands to build roads, trails and facilities. CREDIT: ASPEN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
A Civilian Conservation Corps work project camp at Ashcroft, 1938. The workers at the camp were improving Castle Creek Road and building and repairing bridges. CREDIT: ASPEN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The scenic WRNF and the CCC
There is a mountain in the distant West That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
William Henry Jackson wrote that verse after photographing Mount of the Holy Cross (at 14,009 feet) during his wilderness sojourn in 1874 with the Ferdinand Hayden geologic survey team. Located in Eagle County, this dramatic peak became a religious icon in the 1920s when pilgrimages were made to nearby Notch Mountain for the spectacular view. Visitors came from around the world to see the sight, having either to hike there or to travel by horseback. President Herbert Hoover declared the peak a national monument in 1929. In 1950, that status was rescinded after the pilgrim era had tapered down to almost nothing.
Still, the religious influence of this remarkable mountain left an imprint in the American psyche that, for growing numbers, infused scenic lands with sacred status. A tide had turned when Western lands attained a divine countenance that glowed with ethereal majesty and touched the hearts, minds and imaginations of those who saw them. This love of the land became a national balm when, in 1929, the stock market crashed and America entered the Great Depression.
As many Americans suffered economic privation, the forests of the West became sanctuaries, places to escape the grit and grime of depressed cities and breathe fresh air. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, his socially progressive legislative agenda included the formation of a national service component called the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).
Federal dollars put the impoverished and the unemployed to work on federal lands to build roads, trails and facilities. CCC workers, each paid $30 per month, were mostly young men, from all walks and all corners of the nation, who spent weeks, months and sometimes years working in national forests, living in communal camps and recognizing the virtues of public lands.
During the 1930s, there were CCC camps in Woody Creek and at Norrie in the Upper Fryingpan. Gradually, forest access was opened to more users as land improvements mitigated erosion with the planting trees and shrubs, removing invasive or poisonous species, and making the forests prime recreation areas under the multiple-use mandate, which the Forest Service described as โinseparably interwoven into the social and economic future of forest communities.โ
Maintaining the health of the range within the White River National Forest was a constant challenge made more practical by the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, named for U.S. Rep. Edward Taylor, D-Colo., of Glenwood Springs. The act was designed specifically to prevent overgrazing and soil deterioration, and to provide for the orderly use and improvement of public lands, while also stabilizing the livestock industry dependent on the public range. Fundamentally, the act protected the health of the rangelands and the resources they provided.
Members of the 10th Mountain Division climb a slope during a winter training exercise where the troops skied from Leadville to Aspen. This image was likely captured near Mount Champion. After the war, many 10th Mountain veterans were among the legions of young skiers and mountaineers who established the Colorado ski industry that was soon to develop resorts on national forest land. CREDIT: 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION RESOURCE CENTER, DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
World War II and the 10th Mountain Division
Americaโs entering World War II with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 raised demands for resources from the White River National Forest and reduced its workforce as all attention was focused on national defense. A different kind of attack, this one by the Engelmann spruce beetle, saw huge mortality rates throughout the forest, prompting foresters to implement the sustainable yield concept for renewable timber harvests, especially given the decimation from beetle-killed trees. This resulted in the passage, in 1944, of the Sustained Yield Forest Management Act, which found favor with the War Production Board and opened the forest to widespread logging. A deep cold snap in 1951 greatly reduced spruce beetle populations, restored forest health and obviated the need for insecticide applications that had been tested on Basalt Mountain.
The war brought a new user group to the forest when the 10th Mountain Division trained at Camp Hale, near Leadville. After the war, legions of young skiers and mountaineers were attracted to the stateโs Rocky Mountains, where many established the Colorado ski industry that was soon to develop resorts on national forest land. Aspen became a focal point for Coloradoโs identity with skiing, which brought Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke from Chicago to Aspen in 1945. Elizabeth Paepcke, who founded the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES), is described by Irwin as โan ardent conservationist trained by family friend, Gifford Pinchot,โ and later by early wilderness advocate Enos Mills.
A Civilian Conservation Corps work project on Castle Creek Road,1937. Workers camped on public lands near Ashcroft improved Castle Creek Road and built and repaired bridges. CREDIT: ASPEN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
NEPA boosts environmental oversight
As recreation created mounting pressures for land development, the Forest Service recognized the need for greater environmental oversight, leading Congress in 1969 to pass the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This groundbreaking legislation focused initially on the impacts of ski-area design and later became an overarching management tool for all public land uses.
Meanwhile, the White River National Forest became โthe ski-area forestโ as thousands of acres of public lands were permitted for ski runs and resort infrastructure. The town of Vail was incorporated in 1966, where by the end of the 1967-68 ski season, 1 million lift tickets were sold and revenues reached nearly $3 million. General forest visitation had also grown to 171,000 in 1947 from 96,000 in 1946. โFor every two who pitched camp in our forests in 1948,โ wrote a forester in 1950, โthree or more did in 1949.โ The recreation boom had begun.
By the mid-1950s, public demand for designated campgrounds created an ever-growing budget for facilities that could accommodate nature-seeking Americans. The role of the forests became focused on serving visitors in unprecedented numbers. The 1960 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act ushered in a new thrust for outdoor recreation as โmultiple useโ became the law of the land. Along with the explosion in tourism came ambitious water diversions as natural watersheds were impounded to fill dams and regulate flows for human benefit under the Bureau of Reclamation. Transmountain diversions and dams proliferated in the WRNF throughout the upper Fryingpan, Roaring Fork and Lincoln Gulch basins.
William Henry Jackson, who is credited with the image here, first photographed the cross of snow on the northeast face of the Mount of the Holy Cross in 1873, and the peak became one of the Rocky Mountainsโ best known features. It was declared a national monument in 1929, but saw that status rescinded in 1950 as the number of religious pilgrims declined. The 14,009-foot peak has been protected by the Holy Cross WIlderness since 1980. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
The wilderness idea
As human impacts threatened over-development of forest lands, a chorus of wilderness advocates called for a balance by establishing primitive and wilderness areas based on Carhartโs memo urging the preservation of Trappers Lake. The Wilderness Act of 1964 made possible the formation of the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area and many other mountain redoubts with roadless designations and pristine environments. Today, containing eight wilderness areas, the WRNF has 751,900 acres of statutory wilderness, the highest protected landscapes in the country, and 640,000 roadless acres.
The wilderness philosophy calls for preserving the nationโs legacy landscapes, where man is only a visitor. Although a mere 2% of the 48 contiguous states is protected with wilderness designation, these irreplaceable landscapes are sought after more and more frequently. They are fast becoming overcrowded, with many wilderness areas requiring permits merely to set foot in them. A deeper concept of nature has redefined recreation with access to quiet, peaceful settings where visitors may experience a spiritual balm and even a moral grounding for humanity. Lakota Sioux Luther Standing Bear said as much when he wrote at the turn of the 20th century: โThe old Lakota was wise. He knew that a manโs heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon lead to a lack of respect for humans too.โ
By the turn of the 21st century, the WRNF strained to manage for multiple uses of limited resources as competing users seek a balance among development, land conservation, wilderness preservation and environmental oversight. Management pressures are only growing, but under the current Trump administrationโs Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), many forest rangers and administrators have been dismissed, staffing is nearing a critical shortage, and the long-range management goals that have underpinned the health and resilience of the White River National Forest are under grave risks that are likely to impact the quality of our public lands.
A national forest mission statement describes whatโs at stake: โThe White River National Forest provides quality recreation experiences for visitors from around the world. Through strong environmental leadership we maintain a variety of ecosystems, producing benefits of local and national importance. Our success is due to active partnership with individuals, organizations and communities. Our strength is a diverse and highly skilled workforce.โ
A current map of the White River National Forest, in green, which is Coloradoโs largest, containing eight wilderness areas shaded dark green on this map.
The WRNF by the Numbers:
Total Acres of Land: 2.3 million
Wilderness Acres: 751,900
Roadless Acres: 640,000
Miles of System Trails: 2,500
Miles of System Road: 1,900
Miles of Streams: 4,000ย
Ski Resorts/Acres: 12 Resorts, 45,500 acres
Number of Campgrounds/ Picnic Areas: 85
Visitors per year: 9.2 million
This story, and Aspen Journalismโs ongoing coverage of challenges facing local public lands, is supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
After weeks of hot, dry and windy weather across western Colorado, Gunnison County Commissioners received a water-issues update on Tuesday that was filled with โsoberingโ news. In addition to details about Gunnison Countyโs worsening drought conditions, commissioners heard from representatives of the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is once again considering emergency releases from Blue Mesa Reservoir to bolster falling water levels in Lake Powell [in 2026, h/t Sue Serling].
West Drought Monitor map August 12, 2025.
According to drought.gov, approximately 50% of Gunnison County is in โextremeโ drought, compared to just 5% one month ago. Conditions in most of the remainder of the county are rated as โsevere.โ Precipitation for most of the county has been between 25% and 50% of normal for the past 30 days, with little immediate relief in sight.
CWCB representative Amy Ostdiek told commissioners she believes emergency releases will come from elsewhere in the Upper Basin this year, but couldnโt rule out the possibility that Blue Mesa would be included…If current conditions persist, Lake Powell is projected to fall below the critical elevation of 3,525 feet above sea level in the spring of 2026. This would be the second time that has occurred since the reservoir filled in 1980. The other time happened in 2021, precipitating emergency releases from Blue Mesa Reservoir and Flaming Gorge and Navajo reservoirs totaling 180,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot is the volume of water that would cover one acre a foot deep.
As of Aug. 10, Blue Mesa was 61% full and is projected to end the year at 51% of its storage capacity โ without any additional releases. Taylor Reservoir is forecasted to be at 65% of average capacity at the end of 2025. The threshold of 3,525 feet at Lake Powell was agreed to in the Upper Basin Drought Response Operations Agreement as the trigger point for possible releases. The purpose is to prevent Lake Powell from dropping below 3,490 feet, known as โdead poolโ โ the point at which the Glen Canyon Dam can no longer generate electricity. Up to 5 million people across six western states depend on hydroelectric power from the dam. Emergency releases in 2021 were controversial. Critics argued that federal authorities did not properly consult with Upper Basin water users prior to the decision and failed to account for impacts to local economies and communities. Further, many objected on the grounds that water managers had no way of measuring whether the extra water in fact reached Lake Powell.
Jeff Hurd, the U.S. representative from western Colorado, met this week with first responders and residents from a region where multiple wildfires are raging. The Lee Fire had become the fifth-largest wildfire in state history and was threatening the town of Rifle, where officials had to evacuate a state prison in the fireโs potential path.
In a social media post about the visits, Hurd thanked local authorities and community members for their response to the fires tearing across his district, and he vowed to โbe here for the long haul to help recover.โ
But nowhere did he offer the most appropriate gesture: an apology.
Hurd, along with the other three Republican members of Coloradoโs U.S. House delegation, has promoted drill-baby-drill policies as part of a Trumpist โenergy dominanceโ agenda, even though those policies crank up the greenhouse gas emissions that guarantee more megafires in Colorado. The only posture truly available to Hurd when he meets constituents is contrition. The only plausible message is, โI was wrong.โ
Rising global temperatures are increasing the risk and frequency of extreme weather across the globe. The Southwest is being transformed by aridification amid the worst drought in 1,200 years. There is no scientific doubt that the primary cause of climate change is the combustion of fossil fuels.
In Colorado, this means bigger, fiercer wildfires and a fire season that no longer respects warm-month limits. The most destructive wildfire in state history, the Marshall Fire in 2021 in Boulder County, occurred five days after Christmas. The stateโs 20 biggest fires have all occurred since the turn of the century. The three biggest came in 2020, when one of them, East Troublesome, grew so ferocious it leapt over the Continental Divide. A 2021 study found that hotter, drier conditions in the American West are causing fires, such as East Troublesome, to reach high elevations that were previously too wet to burn.
โAnd they are burning at rates unprecedented in recent fire history,โ the authors wrote. โWhile historical fire suppression and other forest management practices play a role in the Westโs worsening fire problem, the high-elevation forests we studied have had little human intervention. The results provide a clear indication that climate change is enabling these normally wet forests to burn.โ
Colorado is especially exposed. A huge part of the state is the site of one of the largest areas of the highest temperature spikes in the lower 48 states. It covers Hurdโs hometown of Grand Junction and much of his district. Either Hurd is oblivious to the science or heโs cynically chosen to side with oil and gas industry interests.
During the freshman Hurdโs campaign last year, he sometimesย seemed to alignย with an โall of the aboveโ energy policy, which at least purports to include renewables, but he also signaled aย strong preferenceย for fossil fuel extraction over wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. He evenย championsย coal, the most damaging of fossil fuels, a position heโsย reinforcedย as recently as April.
Hurd found himself in an awkward spot once he was in the House as MAGA extremism sought to demolish the all-of-the-above plank and demonize renewables. He and U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton were among 21 Republicans who urged colleagues not to eliminate energy tax credits, which support wind and solar jobs and development in Colorado. (The other two House members from Colorado, Lauren Boebert and Jeff Crank, left their names off the letter.) But they both voted to pass the recent Trump megabill, which eliminated the credits.
Hurd insists he believes climate change is real. But this just makes his approach all the more hypocritical. For example, he repeats the pro-carbon talking point that since fossil fuel in other countries is dirtier than Americaโs the U.S. should maximize production.
โIf you genuinely care about reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, then you ought to support getting as much energy out of Colorado as possible. That includes not only the clean coal that we have, but also natural gas,โ he told CPR in September.
But thatโs like saying that since people are going to abuse fentanyl even though itโs deadly, America should manufacture a superior product to preempt Chinaโs more dangerous supply. An immoral practice should be avoided because itโs immoral, not pursued with improvements.
If he has any doubt that prioritizing carbon-based energy is immoral, Hurd should take a closer look at the environmental catastrophe unfolding in his own district. He often cites the jobs at risk in the transition to renewable energy, but this short-sighted perspective ignores substantial state greening efforts to responsibly transition local economies, and it misses the larger risk that whole regions of a cooked Earth will be uninhabitable.
The megafires in Hurdโs district are exposing โenergy dominanceโ as disastrously self-defeating.
Intensifying short-term rainfall shortages led to expanding and intensifying dryness and drought over much of the Lower Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley, Tennessee Valley, Northeast, and parts of the Deep South, southern Plains, central Arizona, and the central Rockies. Meanwhile, a second consecutive week with moderate to heavy precipitation led to areas of improvement in the South Atlantic States from the Carolinas through Florida, across northern reaches of the Rockies and Plains, and over parts of the central Great Plains. The heaviest amounts (8 to 11 inches) doused areas in southeast Wisconsin from central Washington and Ozaukee Counties southward through much of north and central Waukesha and Milwaukee Counties. Meanwhile, 6 to 8 inches were dropped on a broader section of southeast Wisconsin as well as a few patches across southeast South Dakota, the Carolinas Piedmont and adjacent southern Appalachians, the coastal Carolinas, north-central Florida, the central Florida Peninsula, and interior southeast Florida…
Rainfall varied in intensity across the High Plains Region once again this week, with abundant rainfall amounts falling on much of North Dakota, southern Nebraska, and some spots in Kansas leading to improved conditions. Some improvement was also noted in part of the southeast Wyoming High Plains. Meanwhile, less precipitation kept dryness and drought approximately unchanged across South Dakota, and allowed for areas of intensification for the second consecutive week in central and western parts of Colorado and Wyoming. A sizeable swath of northwestern Colorado deteriorated into exceptional drought (D4), and D2 to D3 conditions expanded in other areas over and near the higher elevations in western parts of the High Plains Region. Since early July, USDA indicated that the proportion of topsoils short or very short of moisture increased from 20 to 32 percent in Colorado, and from 52 to 63 percent of Wyoming. In Colorado, 19 percent of the corn crop is in poor or very poor condition (up from just 1 percent in early July) while in Nebraska, one-third of the oat crop is in poor or very poor condition (up from 5 percent in early July)…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending August 12, 2025.
Heavy precipitation (one to locally multiple inches in most areas) prompted significant areas of improvement across northern and part of western Montana as well as portions of northern Idaho. Farther south, a few weeks of deficient monsoonal rainfall and above-normal temperatures prompted deterioration in D1 to D3 conditions across southwestern Montana, several swaths across Utah, and a few areas in Arizona and eastern Nebraska. In addition, conditions deteriorated from moderate to severe drought (D1 to D2) in part of northwestern Washington. In other parts of the West Region, dryness and drought was unchanged compared to last week. Outside the northern tier of the Region, very little precipitation was reported outside several tenths to about an inch in southeastern Arizona. The proportion of rangelands in poor or very poor condition increased in the last 5 weeks from 32 to 49 percent in Utah, from 22 to 44 percent in Washington, and from 10 to 34 percent in Idaho. Over half of the Washington spring wheat crop is in poor or very poor condition compared to just 17 percent in early July. During this period, the proportion of Montana spring wheat in poor or very poor condition increased from 37 to 47 percent. USDA also indicated that 53 percent of the Washington barley crop is in poor or very poor condition, compared to just 14 percent in early July…
Patches of moderate to heavy rain were observed over southernmost Louisiana and adjacent Texas, much of the Red River (south) Valley, the southern Texas Panhandle, and the northern tier of Oklahoma. Other areas saw scattered to isolated showers that did not markedly improve any extant dryness. Similar to conditions in adjacent Mississippi, above-normal precipitation earlier in the summer ebbed beginning in early July, and significant short-term rainfall deficits have accumulated over the past several weeks although multi-month precipitation totals are generally near or above normal. In conjunction with hot summertime conditions, this has led to quickly-depleting surface moisture over much of Tennessee, Arkansas, and portions of Louisiana. As a result, D0 conditions have been introduced and expanded rapidly. Farther west, less widespread short-term moisture deficits led to several patches of new D0 this week in western Arkansas, Oklahoma, and northeastern Texas. Farther south and west, some D0 and D1 expansion was noted in Deep South Texas, but dryness and drought were essentially unchanged across New Mexico and the remainder of Texas. USDA indicated that short or very short topsoil moisture covered 60 percent of Tennessee and 80 percent of Arkansas (up from 18 and 39 percent, respectively, in early July). The proportion of the Tennessee cotton crop in poor or very poor condition increased from 12 percent in early July to 26 percent last week…
Looking Ahead
From August 14 to 18, heavy rain (2 to locally 5 inches) is forecast in the higher elevations and coastal sections of Washington and Oregon, and also from the eastern Upper Mississippi Valley through much of the Great Lakes. At least several tenths of an inch of rain, with isolated totals near 2 inches, in areas commonly affected by the late summer and autumn monsoon in the Southwest and higher elevations of central Colorado. Similar amounts are anticipated in the Lower Mississippi Valley, Gulf Coast states, interior Southeast, South Atlantic States, coastal Northeast, northern Plains, eastern Great Lakes, and lower elevations of Washington and western Oregon. Light to locally moderate amounts potentially approaching an inch are expected in the Ohio Valley and scattered locations across the Rockies. Meanwhile, little or no precipitation is forecast across California, the Great Basin, the northern Rockies, the central and southern Plains, and the Middle Mississippi Valley. The National Hurricane Center is forecasting Tropical Storm Erin to move northwestward while strengthening into a major hurricane by the end of the period. Most guidance keeps the system east of the Bahamas and the East Coast, but there is a lot of uncertainty in any forecast hurricane track 3 to 5 days in advance. Rough surf and high waves may impact the East Coast and the Bahamas even if the storm stays well out to sea. Generally above-normal should prevail from the Appalachians westward through central and northern sections of the Plains and Rockies, as well as the coastal Northeast. Temperatures should average closer to normal over the Southeast, the mid-Atlantic, and southern portions of the Plains and Rockies. Cooler than normal weather should be confined to the Great Basin and West Coast States.
The Climate Prediction Centerโs 6-10 day outlook (valid August 19-23, 2025) features significant uncertainty in the precipitation outlook. Odds for above-normal precipitation exceeding 40 percent are found in much of southern Arizona and the northern High Plains, and nowhere else. There are, however, fairly broad areas with slightly enhanced chances (33 to 40 percent) for wetter than normal wetter; specifically, from the portions of the Southwest typically affected by the late summer and autumn monsoon through the central and northern High Plains, and the northern Great Plains. Similar odds favoring above-normal precipitation also prevail across the southern Great Plains, the Lower Mississippi Valley, the interior Southeast, the Carolinas, the mid-Atlantic, and the coastal Northeast. Wetter than normal weather is also slightly favored across the northern half of Alaska. Meanwhile, odds lean towards below-normal rainfall in the Northwest and the northern Intermountain West, the Great Lakes, and the St. Lawrence Valley and adjacent New England. Drier than normal conditions are also favored along the southern tier of Alaska while near-normal amounts are expected across Hawaii. Meanwhile, warmer than normal weather is favored over the western half and southeastern quarter of the Contiguous United States, with odds reaching 60 to 80 percent in the central and northern High Plains, the Rockies, and the Florida Peninsula. Unusually warm weather is also favored across the southern half of Alaska, and Hawaii. Subnormal temperatures are favored over the eastern Great Lakes, mid-Atlantic, and Northeast.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending August 12, 2025.
Lake Pleasant (pictured), located north of Phoenix, serves as the Central Arizona Projectโs water storage reservoir, as well as being a popular recreational amenity. Water shortages are impacting Colorado River basin reservoirs such as Lake Mead in Nevada and Lake Powell, which stretches across northern Arizona and southern Utah. Environmental changes throughout the Southwest are presenting challenges to maintaining flows. Photo courtesy of Central Arizona Project
Arizona is about to enter a new era when it comes to water rights and distribution.
The stateโs main source of surface water โ the Colorado River โ has been dwindling as a result of climate change and increased water demand.
That means less water for approximately 40 million people in two countries, seven states and 30 Native American tribes. And the rules that govern how states face water cuts are set to expire on Dec. 31, 2026.
The seven states involved have struggled to reach an agreement regarding the future of these cuts. But whatever the outcome may be of negotiations or potential litigation between these seven states, experts say that Valley residents face significant water risks, including:
Arizona could lose up to 40% of its water supply.
The Central Arizona Water Project could be significantly cut and would deliver less water.
The reuse of water will become paramount to the state, including turning wastewater into drinking water.
One Arizona State University expert says not to panic but be prepared to open your wallet.
Rhett Larson, the Richard Morrison Professor of Water Law at ASUโs Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, estimates water prices could significantly increase in some parts of the Valley if Arizona cannot come to an equitable and sustainable agreement with the other six states on how to share in decreased flows of the Colorado River.
โArizona is not running out of water. We are running out of cheap water,โ said Larson, who is also a senior research fellow with the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy. โThis means not just higher water rates, but also difficult choices on economic trade-offs โ for example, higher food prices due to less water for agriculture but lower housing prices with more water for residential growth.โ
ASU News spoke to several water policy scholars to get a behind-the-scenes look at how the seven states are working together on the new agreement, what are some viable options in case of a shortfall, and what Arizonaโs future looks like when it comes to its most precious resource.
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
A ticking clock
Over the past century, the Colorado River’s flow has declined by about 20%. With rising temperatures and declining Rocky Mountain snowpack, scientists have predicted flow reductions of up to 30% by mid-century.
The seven states within the Colorado River basin are under increasing pressure to develop long-term management strategies, as the existing agreements are set to expire at the end of 2026. A significant challenge lies in managing the persistent drought while balancing the requirements of stakeholders, including agricultural interests, urban water consumers, environmental needs and Indigenous rights holders.
In response to a prolonged drought, diminishing storage capacities and increasing demands for Colorado River water, the secretary of the interior issued a directive in May 2005 for reclamation to formulate enhanced strategies aimed at optimizing the coordinated management of the reservoirs within the Colorado River system.
On April 23, 2007, all seven states signed an interim agreement that memorialized the consensus recommendation to the secretary. Those rules have remained in place for the last 18 years, but the flow of recent events demand dramatic action.
โThereโs no way that this ends without lower water supplies in Arizona,โ Larson said. โEven the best-case scenario means that Arizona will have to make do with less water.โ
However, Larson said thereโs been progress as of late. He said there is a proposal on the table where the upper basin states would shift the way the water is measured to align more closely with reality.
โThere have been some promising breakthroughs, but it could also collapse into litigation,โ said Larson, who is representing Arizona in the agreement.
โThereโs a decent chance the states of the basin will sue each other in the United States Supreme Court, and who knows how that will play out?โ he said.
Options on the table
If the seven Colorado River basin states canโt come to an agreement by the deadline, Arizona does have other water options. Some are legal, some are logistical and some are long shots. And they all come with a price tag.
โTrends are pointing to the fact that the Colorado River is becoming drier and I think it would be safe to say that the Central Arizona Project wonโt be as large a provider of water as at present,โ said Enrique Vivoni, ASUโs Fulton Professor of Hydrosystems Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and the director of the Center for Hydrologic Innovations. โSo, if thatโs the case, it means Arizona will have to start thinking about replacing that water supply. That would require investments.โ
Vivoni, whose research focuses on hydrology and water resources, said Arizona has several water augmentation options at its disposal. They include groundwater extraction, water desalination, reservoir expansion, wastewater reclamation and interbasin transfers from other areas.
All these options require complex agreements and investments.
For example, Vivoni said groundwater extraction would require major investment in infrastructure, such as new wells and pipelines to bring water supplies to existing systems. The desalination option could involve paying to build a plant in Mexico in exchange for a portion of their Colorado River water. Expansion of Arizonaโs Bartlett Reservoir capacity will require raising the dam to retain more Verde River water.
โAll of these options require capital expenses and large operations and maintenance costs on an annual basis,โ Vivoni said. โItโs going to require some hard choices. There will be some winners and some losers, and itโs going to require some behavioral changes by individuals, residents, communities, industry and cities.โ
By measuring the gravitational pull of water for more than two decades, NASA satellites have peered beneath the surface and measured changes in the groundwater supplies of the Colorado River Basin for years 2015 to 2024. Credit: NASA
Pressure on groundwater
In addition to the costs of tapping groundwater, ASU researchers recently reported that the stateโs unseen groundwater losses have been great as well.
Karem Abdelmohsen, Jay Famiglietti and colleagues used orbiting satellites to measure changes in groundwater from 2002 to 2024 in the Colorado River basin, in comparison to losses in streamflow and reservoir storage.
The satellite study found that groundwater depletion accounted for more than half of the total water storage loss in the upper Colorado River basin and more than two-thirds of losses in the lower Colorado River basin, which is greater than the losses in lakes Powell and Mead.
โThe rate of depletion has actually accelerated over the last decade,โ said Famiglietti, science director for ASUโs Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.
With less access to water from the Colorado River, demand for groundwater will grow. Famiglietti said that the effectiveness of groundwater management varies across the Colorado River basin states, leaving the resource open to overexploitation.
Cautious optimism abounds
If the seven states donโt come to an agreement soon, one possible scenario is that the secretary of the interior would make unilateral decisions on cuts and deliveries. Such actions would likely lead to lawsuits challenging the secretaryโs authority to do so.
โNot having a consensus agreement in place means we could go from relative certainty about the conditions of shortage to total uncertainty,โ said Kathryn Sorensen, who oversees the research efforts of the Kyl Center for Water Policy, serves as a professor of practice at the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions and contributes to the Global Futures Laboratory. โWhat we donโt want is someone making those decisions for us.โ
That lack of certainty could lead to many drawbacks, according to Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy.
โBeing in the dark about this situation could lead to higher (water) prices,โ Porter said. โIt could also lead to a disruption in economic development and the stateโs prosperity. Not having clarity regarding how much water will be available over the long term could impact the stateโs ability to attract industry. If thereโs too much uncertainty about our long-term water supplies, then weโre not a good bet for investment.โ
But water scarcity is not a new issue for Arizona. The state has a history of managing limited resources for collective benefit.
And thatโs reason for hope as the state faces these current challenges.
โIf you look at the history of water management in the Phoenix area, itโs a story of adaptation and overcoming obstacles and finding ways to be innovative,โ Sorensen said. โWe know how to do more with less, and weโre good at it.โ
Weโre also good at problem-solving and finding solutions, Porter said.
โIโm very optimistic about our water future because weโve had over 100 years as a seven-state basin to figure out solutions,โ Porter said. โIโm also optimistic because Iโve seen how creative and dedicated Arizona municipal water managers are โ theyโre resourceful, prepared and have their short- and long-term plans in place.
โI think thereโs going to be water to help us enjoy a good quality of life and a thriving economy for central Arizona for a long time.โ
ASU News reporter Joe Rojas-Burke contributed to this article.
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
An undated historic photo shows the U.S. Forest Service ranger near the Mount of the Holy Cross. Before the turn of the 20th century, public lands lacked formal protection. โNowhere has the strength and vitality of America been better reflected in the last 100 years than in the evolution of the National Forest System,โ a forest official wrote in 1990. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Editorโs note: This story is part two of a three-part series examining the notion of public lands, both in the United States and in our region. Part one looks at the earliest expressions of the commons in territories that would become the United States. Parts two and three look at the history and legacy of what is now the White River National Forest.
The evolution of the White River National Forest (WRNF) in just over a century mirrors the settlement of the American West โ from an unregulated, free-for-all wilderness to strategically managed industrial tourism and sustainable, extractive industries. As the WRNF formed, it refined its management purview over user groups as they expanded from traditional timber and ranching to the ski areas, recreation sites and wilderness terrain that define the forest today.
Beginning with its original designation as a forest reserve in 1891, forest management was besieged by militant factions that argued against any management at all. This was an era when user groups included homestead farmers, fiercely independent ranchers and opportunistic loggers. Shrill denunciations and blatant noncompliance often occurred with these original land claimants who argued that public lands should be designated for those who came first and that its uses should be for what was best for them alone. Only as the forest adapted to changing times and needs did the multiuse mandate create opportunities and protections for all.
A prime example was Fred Light, a traditional rancher in the Roaring Fork Valley from the 1880s who at first resented the overlay of federal control over lands where he and other ranchers had grazed their cattle with no oversight and no fees. Light later came to appreciate the forest as it protected his interests from other users who threatened to overrun grazing lands, usurp water from the range or, in other ways, impinge on grazing entitlements. Lightโs shift in temperament and his eventual willingness to follow forest regulations reflected a growing, if reluctant, acceptance that management principles are essential for all forest users to ensure equal access to the public commons.
Lightโs transformation spread to other users as complexities arose around the need for sustainability. As a result, the forest mission grew into the broader interpretation of what is the best and highest use for all. This egalitarian approach required a deep and pragmatic exploration of values and resources that led to accommodating conflicting interests.
In the early days of the WRNF, however, forestry officials were immersed in countless disputes and occasional violent conflicts. Rangers were harassed, beaten and fired upon as they performed their duties according to the evolving directives of forest administrators. Juggling over the ensuing decades the utilitarian and esoteric aspects of this remarkably diverse topography of mountains, valleys, meadows, forests and rock-and-ice alpine splendor has required scientifically based and diplomatically advanced regulations to avoid the impacts of overgrazing, timber clear-cutting, mining, overcrowded recreation and other issues yet to surface.
Through it all, the WRNF remains public land โ 2.3 million acres (3,593.75 square miles) of the most visited national forest in the United States, stewarded by rangers trained with the necessary skills of backwoodsmen, diplomats, defenders, peacemakers, resource managers and ecologists.
The story of the WRNF is therefore a weave of time and place, and of a people for whom the forest is both an economic lifeblood and a battleground for conservation and preservation. For many, the forest is a place of sacred, cherished, iconic and legacy landscapes in which any and all visitors may experience and celebrate the power and splendor of pristine nature.
The White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve, the second federal forest reserve to be created, came into existence in 1891 and has evolved into the White River National Forest we know today as the most visited national forest in the country. Its management purview reflects two centuries of tension between exploitation and preservation for the greater good. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Snowmass Mountain is shown in a historic U.S. Forest Service photo. The architecture of the White River National Forest was determined by vast and nearly incomprehensible geologic forces that shaped the mountain landscapes we see today. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Public lands with no protection
In a foreword to Justine Irwinโs unpublished manuscript โWhite River National Forest: A Centennial History,โ Thomas Hoots, the WRNF supervisor in 1990, led off with a crucial observation: โBefore the turn of the century, the public lands were without a protector.โ The national commons was being plundered and exploited by whoever got there first. Such was the opportunism that was rampant during the fever of westward expansion marked by Manifest Destiny and a willful disregard to impose limits on human agency.
This land hunger was described the following way by Gifford Pinchot, chief of the U.S. Forest Service from 1898 to 1910 and one of Americaโs original wise use conservationists: โThere is no hunger like land hunger, and no object for which men are more ready to use unfair and desperate means than the acquisition of land.โ
Pinchot led a growing advocacy for conservation of national resources against great odds as they lobbied for protection of federal lands from the unbridled influences of capitalistic greed.
Richard A. Ballinger, secretary of the interior from 1909-11, clearly defined a prevailing view: โYou chaps who are in favor of this conservation program are all wrong. In my opinion, the proper course to take with regard to [the public domain] is to divide it up among the big corporations and the people who know how to make money out of it.โ
Thanks to those with clearer vision for a public lands legacy for America, the world and for future generations, Ballingerโs idea did not come to fruition. And yet such has been the message from the transactional Trump administration as the monetization of public lands offers yet again the potential for financial gain.
Thirty-five years ago, Hoots described a different ethic: โThe nationโs leadership recognized this dilemma and so began the long climb towards public land and resource management as we know it today. Nowhere has the strength and vitality of America been better reflected in the last 100 years than in the evolution of the National Forest System.โ
Gifford Pinchot portrait via the Forest History Society
The WRNF is an integral part of that system. It is also a stellar example of a forest that has withstood numerous threats and, despite many compromises toward achieving the multiple-use mandate, has retained the conservation principles that has made it one of the most successful stories of land management in the United States. โThe strength of our nation,โ concluded Hoots on the centennial of the WRNF, โdemands nothing less of the stewards of these public resources.โ
Federal forest management dates to 1876 when Congress created the office of special agent in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. In 1881, the department expanded the office into the Division of Forestry. A decade later, Congress passed the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, authorizing the president to designate public lands in the West into what were then called โforest reserves.โ
Enter what would become the White River National Forest, the preliminary boundaries of which were drawn on federal maps under the direction of administrators in Washington, D.C. These long-distance planners for a realm of national treasures gazed over mountainous regions whose value they could only speculate, but which they reasoned were valuable in ways other than extractive, fast-buck profits measured only in capital gains for the few.
Responsibility for these reserves fell under the Department of the Interior until 1905 when President Theodore Roosevelt transferred their care to the Department of Agricultureโs new division: the U.S. Forest Service. Pinchot led this agency as its first chief, charged with caring for the newly renamed public commons.
The WRNF was created as the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve on Oct. 16, 1891, by President Benjamin Harrison. This reserve was the second oldest in the newly conceived forest system, after a reserve established east of Yellowstone National Park, which two decades earlier became the countryโs first national park. The WRNF would become the largest forest in Colorado when, in 1945, it absorbed the Holy Cross National Forest, created as a reserve in 1905. This newly defined national forest was a priority because it was being exploited with unsustainable resource extraction. It soon earned a place of immeasurable importance in the mosaic of public lands designated across the rugged western United States.
A geologic map of Colorado, produced by the survey team led by Ferdinand Hayden in 1873-74, helped draw prospectors to the mountains. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
Nature laid the foundation
The architecture of the WRNF was determined by vast and nearly incomprehensible geologic forces that shaped the mountain landscapes we see today. Precambrian granite is the bedrock that was heaved up, twisted, broken, eroded and later covered with beds of sandstone and, later still, covered with an inland seaway that stretched from Mexico to Canada.
That seaway propagated plant and marine life-forms that speak to a far-different climate and ecology than today and that would eventually, under enormous pressure, form into huge coal deposits. This Cretaceous Seaway then gave rise to new landscapes as several major uplifts shed the accumulated water into major river systems and began building the mountain peaks rising from the bedrock floor. The uplifting, some from magma upwelling, brought metals and minerals to the surface where they were dissolved in super-heated groundwater and conveyed in solution into bedrock faults and fissures where they precipitated out at concentration. This formed the veins that gold and silver miners would later extract through labyrinthine tunnels and shafts.
Glaciation sculpted the finishing touches on the landscape by paring mountains into ragged escarpments and precipitous arรชtes, and gouging deep U-shaped valleys where glacial runoff cut deeper still in the V-shaped drainages that we see today. Natureโs work is never complete, and so the mountains and valleys continue to be formed by erosion and an almost immeasurable continued uplifting from energies emanating from Earthโs depths.
Then biology stepped in and established an overlay of life, the flora and fauna that we see today inhabiting the niches where they are genetically suited to proliferate and thrive. These are the desert scrublands, grassy meadows, mixed forests and lichen-covered alpine terrain comprising a half-dozen life zones and multiple ecosystems that give the WRNF the diversity that characterizes a healthy and vibrant ecology.
The forest is home to one of the largest mule deer herds and one of the largest elk herds in the nation, as well as bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, mountain lions, snowshoe hare, marmot, porcupine, badger, marten, ground squirrels and chipmunks, hundreds of bird types, and thousands of plant species in a veritable Garden of Eden of biodiversity.
But the human stories are what capture our imaginations, as noted in Irwinโs WRNF Centennial History; the people of the forest have differed greatly in their relationship to it: โSome have loved her, some have abused her, some have hated her, but all have made her what she is today.โ
A map shows the route of the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante expedition, led by two Spanish priests trying to find a way from Santa Fe to California. They reached Utah Lake before turning back, becoming the first Europeans to explore a vast portion of what would later become Colorado and Utah. CREDIT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The first Europeans
The first Europeans to visit the region of the WRNF and enter the traditional homelands of the native Utes were Spanish Franciscan friars Fray Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez. The two explorers and their party left Santa Fe on an ambitious exploratory mission to find an overland route to the Roman Catholic mission in Monterey, in what later became California. They ventured into the Western wilderness in July 1776, the same year the American colonies declared independence from British rule.
After traversing what is now northern New Mexico and southwest Colorado, the party traveled north, eventually passing through the Paonia area and Muddy Creek. They met the Colorado River near Divide and Mamm creeks along the Grand Hogback, a diagonal sawtooth range near Silt and New Castle. With Ute guides, they crossed the White and Green rivers, making it as far as what is now known as Utah Lake along the Wasatch Front, where they encountered a thriving indigenous community. With winter approaching, the party turned back toward Santa Fe and faced starvation as they struggled to cross the Colorado River at a location now flooded by Lake Powell, but all made it back alive.
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 opened the door to more exploration, this from the east where a few adventuresome parties reached Coloradoโs Front Range. The towering Rockies were considered too severe an obstacle to pass through, except for freelancing traders and trappers who knew no bounds and no limits in their pursuit of trade and beaver pelts.
A French trapper, Antoine Robidoux, was perhaps the first Anglo to trap in the White River in 1825, harvesting beaver pelts from Trappers Lake on the north side of the Flat Tops. The Yampa Valley, to the north, became widely visited by mountain men such as Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and Jedediah Smith.
John Fremont, an Army officer and explorer, took part in an 1845 journey that crossed Tennessee Pass from the Arkansas River basin and then followed the White River into Utah. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The seizing of Texas from Mexico in 1836 by Sam Houston stretched the promising Western U.S. boundaries, inviting more visitation as manifest destiny became a divine entitlement for Western settlement and provided a God-given mandate to force out native peoples and exploit the land and its many resources.
In 1845, John Fremont, guided by Carson, crossed Tennessee Pass from the Arkansas Valley and along the White River to Utah. With the announcement that gold had been discovered in California, streams of fortune-seekers flowed west through Colorado, many of whom recognized the grazing potential of verdant mountain valleys well-watered by rolling streams and rivers. After striking out on California gold, some returned to what would, in 1876, become Colorado to farm and raise cattle. The discovery of gold along Cherry Creek, near todayโs Denver, made Colorado a hot new prospect in 1859, popularizing this mostly unmapped territory.
The next year, 1860, Capt. Richard Sopris, for whom Mount Sopris is named, prospected the Roaring Fork Valley with a party of 14. In journals, it was mentioned that they stopped to take in the soothing waters of Yampa Hot Springs at todayโs Glenwood Springs. The Homestead Act was passed by Congress in 1862, encouraging more western migration and providing a relief valve for growing national tensions during the Civil War.
Official U.S. survey teams were sent west to report on resources and tribal relations. Foremost among them was John Wesley Powell, a Civil War veteran who had lost his right arm in the Battle of Shiloh, but it didnโt impede him from exploring the Green, Yampa, White and Colorado rivers. By the early 1870s, cattlemen began grazing their herds in Brownโs Park and the Meeker area in what would become northern Colorado.
As permanent settlements became established, some officials in the federal government became aware that Western lands had no protective management. They garnered congressional funding for a particularly seasoned survey team under the leadership of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, who would later win acclaim for surveying Yellowstone. Haydenโs 1873-74 visits to the Gunnison Country, the Roaring Fork Valley and the White River produced maps that would later draw hordes of mining prospectors into Ute lands in the late 1870s.
The Hayden Survey produced detailed drawings of multiple mountainscapes across Colorado, including these depictions of Pikes Peak, the Sawatch Range and Elk Range. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
Hayden and his โRover Boys,โ including renowned photographer and artist William Henry Jackson and geographer Henry Gannett, for whom the highest peak in Wyoming is named, summited, triangulated, mapped and named most of the major peaks that we know and climb today. The scientific acumen that this team provided was monumental in their understanding of geology, flora and fauna. Hayden correctly referred to the Elk Mountains as an example of an โeruptive rangeโ and a โgeologic jumbleโ for the upheavals he recognized. Described as โtall, slender, with soft brown hair and blue eyes,โ Hayden, a consummate geologist, was given a nickname by the Utes that translated to โcrazy man who runs around picking up rocks.โ
A letter from Rover Boy J.T. Gardner to his daughter in New York state characterized what must have been a crowning moment in history to witness a pure wilderness: โWe are in full tide of successful career camping almost every night at 11,000 or 12,000 feet and climbing peaks 14,000 feet and over, their tops overlooking crested ridges and grand rock-walled amphitheaters where old glaciers were born, I cannot tell you how I am enjoying this wonderful region. โฆ What a sweet sight. โฆ The terrible grandeur around me here where life is represented by the grim bears crawling along the edges of perpetual snow fields or the mountain sheep scaling the shattered crags.โ
In a later letter, Gardner described the partyโs discovery of Mount of the Holy Cross where a horizontal ridge and vertical couloir form a snow-filled cross. โWe are undoubtedly the first who have ever reached this peak. I do not feel in the least over-fatigued and am very well and strong.โ Enduring an early-winter storm, Gardner wrote: โOn this climb I wore four heavy shirts and a thick buckskin coat. The snow blew so that I had to wear spectacles to protect the eyes.โ
Hayden spent 20 days nursing a sick member of the party at the base of Mount Sopris while his party explored the Crystal River Valley, with Jackson photographing it all. Unfortunately for history, Jacksonโs load-bearing mule stumbled and fell into the Crystal River, breaking the glass plate negatives. All photographic documentation from that portion of the survey was lost.
Nonetheless, Haydenโs Atlas of Colorado was published by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1877, featuring six finely drawn resource maps identifying forests, pastures, croplands, and regions of coal, gold and silver. These geologic maps became a spur for treasure-seekers eager to flood into Ute lands. And there lay the age-old conflict between European trespass on the Western Slope of Colorado still controlled by the Utes under treaties, later broken, that were doomed at keeping the peace.
This story, and Aspen Journalismโs ongoing coverage of challenges facing local public lands, is supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
Click the link to read the report on the NOAA website:
Temperature
NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information calculates the global temperature anomaly every month based on preliminary data generated from authoritative datasets of temperature observations from around the globe. The major dataset,NOAAGlobalTemp version 6.0.0, uses comprehensive data collections of increased global area coverage over both land and oceansurfaces. NOAAGlobalTempv6.0.0 is a reconstructed dataset, meaning that the entire period of record is recalculated each month with new data. Based on those new calculations, the new historical data can bring about updates to previously reported values. These factors, together, mean that calculations from the past may be superseded by the most recent data and can affect the numbers reported in the monthly climate reports. The most current reconstruction analysis is always considered the most representative and precise of the climate system, and it is publicly available through Climate at a Glance.
July 2025
July 2025 recorded a global surface temperature 1.00ยฐC (1.80ยฐF) higher than the 20th-century average, making it the third-warmest July since records began in 1850. Only July of 2024 (warmest) and July 2023 were warmer. All ten warmest Julys on record have occurred since 2016. July 2025 also marks the 49th consecutive July with above-average global temperatures.
The global ocean-only surface temperature for July was the third-highest on record, at 0.92ยฐC (1.66ยฐF) above average. This was cooler than July 2023 (warmest) and July 2024. For land areas, the global land-only surface temperature in July tied as the seventh-warmest on record, at 1.20ยฐC (2.16ยฐF) higher than the 20th-century average. This was the smallest July land temperature anomaly since 2019 and the smallest for any month since December 2022 (+1.16ยฐC / +2.09ยฐF).
A smoothed map of blended land and sea surface temperature anomalies is also available.
In July 2025, most of the globe experienced much-warmer-than-average temperatures. The most significant high temperature anomalies, exceeding 1.0ยฐC (1.8ยฐF) above average, occurred over Europe, southern Asia, the northern Pacific Ocean, and parts of North and South America, central-western Antarctica, and the North Atlantic Ocean. Record-high July temperatures were limited to areas within southern and eastern Asia, the Arctic region, the western and southern Pacific Ocean, and parts of the Southern Ocean. Overall, record-high July temperatures were observed across close to 6% of the Earth’s surface.
In contrast, parts of northern North America, the North Atlantic, India, and western and eastern Antarctica had cooler-than-average conditions during July 2025. Notably, no land or ocean areas recorded record-cold July temperatures.
Regionally, Asia and Europe (tied) had their fourth-warmest July on record. The Arctic region, Africa, and the Caribbean region had their seventh-warmest, eighth-warmest, and ninth-warmest (tied) July on record, respectively. North America, South America, Oceania, and the Hawaiian region all had above-average July temperatures, though none ranked among their ten warmest Julys on record. Contrasting with other regions, the Antarctic region had a slightly below-average July temperature departure of -0.02ยฐC (-0.04ยฐF). This was the coldest July for the region since 2016.
July temperature summaries provided by national meteorological services and media reports include:
The average temperature in theย United Kingdom (U.K.)ย for July 2025 was 16.8ยฐC (62.2ยฐF), which is 1.5ยฐC (2.7ยฐF) above average. This ranked as the nation’s fifth-warmest July on record. Minimum (nighttime) temperatures were notably high, with the U.K. experiencing its second-warmest July on record for minimum temperatures, according to the Met Office.
Irelandย experienced its ninth-warmest July on record, and the 12th-warmest month overall in 126 years of record-keeping. The temperature was 1.21ยฐC (2.18ยฐF) above the 1991โ2020 average. Notably, Ireland’s five warmest Julys have all occurred since 2001.
In July 2025, theย Kingdom of Bahrainย recorded an average temperature of 36.1ยฐC (97.0ยฐF). This temperature was 1.0ยฐC (1.8ยฐF) above the monthly average and was the sixth-highest July mean temperature since national records began in 1902. Additionally, it was reported that Bahrain experienced 18 days in July where maximum temperatures surpassed 40ยฐC (104ยฐF).
Australiaย recorded an above-average national temperature in July, at 0.60ยฐC (1.08ยฐF) above normal. However, this did not place it among the ten warmest Julys on record for the country. All of Australia’s states experienced above-average mean temperatures for July. Western Australia’s mean temperature, at 0.07ยฐC (0.13ยฐF) above average, was the lowest since 2016.
Most ofย New Zealandย experienced above-average temperatures during July 2025, resulting in a national average temperature of 9.2ยฐC (48.6ยฐF), or 1.1ยฐC (2.0ยฐF) above average. This was New Zealand’s fourth-warmest July since national records began in 1909. Nine locations had their warmest July on record.
Japan experienced an intense heat wave in July, with maximum temperatures above 35ยฐC (95ยฐF). July 30 became Japan’s hottest day on record with maximum temperatures reaching 41.2ยฐC (106.2ยฐF) in Tamba, Hyลgo Prefecture (Central Japan). This surpassed the previous record from 2018 and 2020 by a narrow margin of 0.1ยฐC (0.2ยฐF). Heat stroke alerts were reportedly issued for 33 of Japan’s 47 prefectures. As a result of the heat, more than 10,800 people were hospitalized with heat-related illnesses. Additionally, July 2025 wasย Japan’sย warmest July on record, with temperatures averaging 2.89ยฐC (5.20ยฐF) above normal. This surpassed the previous record, set in 2024, by 0.73ยฐC (1.31ยฐF). The past three years (2023, 2024, and 2025) are all among Japan’s five warmest years on record.
South Korea experienced a significant heat wave in mid to late July, leading to record-breaking temperatures. Notably, Seoul recorded a new high of 22 tropical nights (minimum temperatures above 25ยฐC / 77ยฐF), surpassing the 1994 record of 21 since records began in 1907. One of these nights saw a record-breaking low of 29.3ยฐC (84.7ยฐF), marking the hottest July night on record. Media reports indicated the extreme heat caused record power demand.
Persistent above-average temperatures affected Greece and Turkey from mid- to late July. Temperatures consistently exceeded 35ยฐC (95ยฐF), with some weather stations recording over 40ยฐC (104ยฐF). In Greece, popular tourist attractions were closed due to lingering extreme temperatures. On July 25, a new all-time national maximum temperature record for Turkey was set in Silopi, reaching 50.5ยฐC (122.9ยฐF). This shattered the previous record from August 2023 by 1.0ยฐC (1.8ยฐF) and marked the first time a temperature of 50ยฐC (122ยฐF) was recorded in Turkey. The extreme heat and drought conditions contributed to the development of dangerous wildfires across the region.
Year-to-date Temperature: JanuaryโJuly 2025
The global surface temperature for JanuaryโJuly 2025 was the second-highest in NOAA’s 176-year record, at 1.18ยฐC (2.12ยฐF) above the 20th-century average. This is just 0.10ยฐC (0.18ยฐF) shy of tying the record set from JanuaryโJuly 2024. A statistical analysis by NCEI scientists indicates a very high likelihood (greater than 99% chance) that the year 2025 will be among the five warmest years on record, with less than a 1% chance of being the warmest year on record.
Separately, both the global land-only and global ocean-only temperatures for JanuaryโJuly were the second warmest on record. For both, only JanuaryโJuly of 2024 was warmer.
A smoothed map of blended land and sea surface temperature anomalies is also available.
During JanuaryโJuly 2025, warmer-than-average temperatures were prevalent across much of the Earth’s land and ocean surfaces. The most significant high-temperature anomalies, 1.5ยฐC (2.7ยฐF) above average or higher, were observed in the Arctic region, northern North America, much of Asia, and western and eastern parts of Antarctica. Record-high temperatures for the JanuaryโJuly period were observed in western Europe, the British Isles and the surrounding North Atlantic Ocean, across parts of the Arctic and western Antarctic regions, southern Asia, southwestern and southern Australia, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the Indian Ocean.
In contrast, based on the percentiles map, cooler-than-average temperatures during this seven-month period were largely confined to central and eastern Antarctica. However, no land or ocean areas experienced record-cold temperatures during JanuaryโJuly.
During JanuaryโJuly 2025, several regions saw notably high temperatures. Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Arctic region each recorded their second-warmest JanuaryโJuly period on record. Africa and the Caribbean region had their fourth-warmest, the Hawaiian region its fifth-warmest, and North America’s year-to-date temperature tied as the sixth-warmest on record. South America’s year-to-date temperature tied as the seventh-warmest on record. Although the Antarctic region had an above-average JanuaryโJuly temperature, it did not rank among its ten warmest on record.
As is typical, precipitation patterns varied globally during July 2025. Drier-than-average conditions were observed across the western, southeastern parts of the contiguous U.S., Alaska and Hawaii, southern Mexico, southern Europe, central parts of Australia, and across parts of western and central Asia. Eastern Asia, however, experienced contrast in precipitation totals, with some locations along the eastern coast and the northeast receiving more than double the monthly average precipitation. Wetter-than-average July conditions were also observed across the northern and northeastern contiguous U.S., northern Mexico, the British Isles, central and northeastern Europe, central and southeastern Russia, and across northeastern and southeastern Asia.
July precipitation summaries provided by national meteorological services and media reports include the following:
Precipitation varied acrossย Australiaย in July; however, the nation as a whole experienced a slightly wetter-than-average month. Regional differences were notable: Queensland, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory had drier-than-average conditions, while New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia had wetter-than-average conditions. According to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, South Australia recorded its wettest July since 1998, and New South Wales and Victoria had their wettest July since 2010 and 2016, respectively.
On July 6, Typhoon Danas, an equivalent Category 3 typhoon, made landfall on Taiwan’s central-western coast. This was reportedly the first typhoon to make landfall in Chiayi County in nearly 120 years. Danas brought heavy rainfall to affected areas, including southern Taiwan, where rainfall totals reached 500โ600 mm (20โ24 inches). The torrential rain caused rivers, including the Gangkou River, to overflow their banks, leading to flash floods that submerged homes, roads, and farmlands, and damaged infrastructure. The storm also disrupted power, water, and communication services.
During mid- to late July, thunderstorms brought heavy rain and flooding to parts of the United Kingdom (U.K.). Several locations in Northern Ireland experienced their wettest July day on record; notably, Killowen received 69 mm (2.7 inches) and Murlough received 61 mm (2.4 inches) on a single day. Across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, the floods caused major property damage and transportation disruption.
The state of Jalisco, Mexico, was affected by heavy rain and flash floods during July 14โ18. Reports stated that over 100 homes were damaged.
From July 16โ21, heavy rain caused devastating floods and deadly landslides across southern regions ofย South Korea. During this six-day period, affected areas reportedly received 600โ800 mm (24โ31 inches) of rain, setting numerous records. More than 10,000 residents evacuated their homes. The floods submerged roads and farmland, damaged or destroyed thousands of homes and buildings, and resulted in the loss of approximately 1.5 million livestock. At least 19 people died, with the death toll expected to rise.
Torrential rain from severe thunderstorms affected parts of northern and central France during July 23โ24. Notably, Bohain-en-Vermandois, Aisne, in northern France received nearly a month’s worth of rain (70โ80 mm / about 3 inches) in just one hour on July 23. This intense rainfall caused floodwater to rise rapidly, inundating homes and streets and damaging infrastructure.
China experienced several heavy rainfall events during July 2025. These events included:
Remnants of Typhoon Dana, in combination with the East Asian monsoon, brought heavy rain to parts of southern and eastern China on July 10, according to reports. This resulted in floods, affecting approximately 10,000 people in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. Reports indicated that 25 rivers exceeded alarming levels, with the Chishui River in Guizhou province reaching its highest recorded level since 1953 and the Xiaocao River reaching a 29-year high. One county in Yunnan province had 227.8 mm (9.0 inches) of rain fall in a 24-hour period โ the highest single-day total since 1958. In addition to floods, the intense rainfall triggered landslides, leading to evacuations and property damage.
Typhoon Wipha made landfall in Guangdong province, southern China, on July 20 as an equivalent Category 1 storm. It weakened as it moved southwest and made landfall in northern Vietnam on July 22 as a tropical storm. Wipha brought heavy rain and strong winds to the affected areas, resulting in uprooted trees, power outages, disrupted travel, damaged infrastructure, and in some instances, triggering landslides.
Storms brought nearly a year’s worth of rainfallโabout 449 mm (17.7 inches)โto Baoding City in northern China within a 24-hour period (July 24โ25). Reports indicate that Baoding’s annual average precipitation is slightly over 500 mm (19.7 inches). The torrential rain triggered flash floods, caused power outages, and damaged bridges and roads. Over 19,000 people were evacuated from the affected regions.
In late July, strong storms brought torrential rain and catastrophic flooding to Beijing and neighboring provinces, affecting over 300,000 people. Beijing’s Miyun district was hard hit, receiving nearly a year’s worth of rain in just a few days. This caused rivers to overflow and resulted in deadly flash floods, which tragically killed at least 31 people at an Elderly Care Center. Reports indicate the Miyun Reservoir reached its highest level since 1959. The floodwaters also damaged roads and infrastructure, disrupting power and communication services.
References
Adler, R., G. Gu, M. Sapiano, J. Wang, G. Huffman 2017. Global Precipitation: Means, Variations and Trends During the Satellite Era (1979-2014). Surveys in Geophysics 38: 679-699,ย doi:10.1007/s10712-017-9416-4
Adler, R., M. Sapiano, G. Huffman, J. Wang, G. Gu, D. Bolvin, L. Chiu, U. Schneider, A. Becker, E. Nelkin, P. Xie, R. Ferraro, D. Shin, 2018. The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Monthly Analysis (New Version 2.3) and a Review of 2017 Global Precipitation. Atmosphere. 9(4), 138;ย doi:10.3390/atmos9040138
Gu, G., and R. Adler, 2022. Observed Variability and Trends in Global Precipitation During 1979-2020. Climate Dynamics,ย doi:10.1007/s00382-022-06567-9
Huang, B., Peter W. Thorne, et. al, 2017: Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature version 5 (ERSSTv5), Upgrades, validations, and intercomparisons. J. Climate,ย doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0836.1
Huang, B., V.F. Banzon, E. Freeman, J. Lawrimore, W. Liu, T.C. Peterson, T.M. Smith, P.W. Thorne, S.D. Woodruff, and H-M. Zhang, 2016: Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature Version 4 (ERSST.v4). Part I: Upgrades and Intercomparisons.ย J. Climate,ย 28, 911-930,ย doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00006.1.
Menne, M. J., C. N. Williams, B.E. Gleason, J. J Rennie, and J. H. Lawrimore, 2018: The Global Historical Climatology Network Monthly Temperature Dataset, Version 4. J. Climate, in press.ย https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0094.1.
Vose, R., B. Huang, X. Yin, D. Arndt, D. R. Easterling, J. H. Lawrimore, M. J. Menne, A. Sanchez-Lugo, and H. M. Zhang, 2021. Implementing Full Spatial Coverage in NOAA’s Global Temperature Analysis. Geophysical Research Letters 48(10), e2020GL090873;ย doi:10.1029/2020gl090873.
Most of the Intermountain West is in a drought, with nearly 20 percent of the region stuck in the most severe, driest conditions, according to a Tuesday presentation from Colorado state climatologist Russ Schumacher and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…The most drought-stricken areas are west of the continental divide โ a scraggly arc of mountain ranges where precipitation eventually drains westward, towards the Pacific Ocean.ย The driest conditions in Colorado are largely concentrated on the Western Slope, while much of the Eastern Plains faces little to no drought, and has seen average or above-average precipitation levels since October…in April, abnormallyย hot and dry conditions rapidly melted snowpackย and began dumpingย less precipitation than average across the West. Southern Arizona is even seeing some of its driest conditions over the last 130 years, according toย data prepared by the Colorado Climate Center.ย Climate change is alsoย accelerating extreme heat conditionsย for the region, which could prolong future droughts. Denver, for instance, is projected to experience 32 days of extreme heat by 2050, compared to just four days on average between 1976-2005,ย according to NOAA data.ย
Click the link to read the article on the Summit Daily website (Ryan Spencer). Here’s an excerpt:
August 9, 2025
Colorado state climatologist says the weather has been hot and the monsoon season weak, with little signs of relief anytime soon
Drought conditions are getting worse on Coloradoโs Western Slope, increasing the risk of wildfires, even as several large fires are already burning, scorching thousands of acres and forcing evacuations. Colorado State Climatologist Russ Schumacher said the extended dry period on the Western Slope contains โechoesโ of the climate patterns in 2020, the worst wildfire season in Colorado history, when the three largest wildfires recorded in the state occurred…Like 2020, this summer has been hot, with above-average temperatures across much of the Western Slope, Schumacher said. The monsoon season has also been lackluster, with little precipitation and hot, dry weather coming on the heels of a winter with a poor snowpack. This June and July were among the 10 hottest on record in the northwestern corner of the state, where some of the largest wildfires are now raging, according to the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University. While the southern mountains got above-average precipitation in June, things remained dry in the northwest, where precipitation was less than 50% of average. In July, precipitation was below-average across the entire Western Slope…Extreme drought is now impacting all of Moffat, Rio Blanco, Garfield, Pitkin, Teller and Delta counties and part of Eagle County, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Severe drought has spread east into Summit, Routt and Lake counties and across the southwestern part of the state…
The Middle Colorado Watershed Council (MCWC), in partnership with Garfield County and state and federal funders, broke ground on the Roan Creek Fish Barrier Project on Tuesday, August 5. This long-anticipated conservation infrastructure project has been five years in the making and aligns directly with MCWCโs Integrated Water Management Plan (IWMP), a framework that dovetails with the larger Colorado Water Plan.
Located in a remote stretch of Roan Creek in western Garfield County, the project will construct a permanent fish barrier to protect one of Coloradoโs most unique native fish assemblagesโincluding a rare genetic strain of Colorado River cutthroat trout, as well as bluehead sucker, Paiute sculpin and speckled dace. These species are increasingly rare across the Colorado River Basin, with cutthroat trout occupying just one percent of their historic range.
The project is primarily funded through the Bureau of Reclamationโs WaterSMART Program, under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Additional support comes from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) , the Colorado River Districtโs Community Funding Partnership and the Trout and Salmon Foundation. In total, the project represents a $1,034,995 investment in watershed health and habitat.
โThis is a win-win for both water users and native fish,โ said Garfield County Commissioner Perry Will, who served more than 40 years with CPW, including as a state wildlife officer and supervisor. โGarfield County is proud to support this project as a Category A partner, helping leverage the funding and collaboration it took to get here. The cutthroat trout in Roan Creek represent an incredibly unique genetic lineageโadapted to survive even in 80-degree waters. Keeping nonnative species like brook and rainbow trout out of this system is essential to preserving that rare genetic makeup and ensuring these fish continue to thrive.โ
The project will also replace outdated irrigation infrastructure, eliminate push-up dams and install a modern concrete diversion with a headgate, fish screen and flow-measuring device โimproving efficiency for water users while benefiting stream function and aquatic habitat.
Early funding from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) supported the 90-percent design phase, completed in 2021 by Wright Water Engineers with guidance from BLM liaison and fisheries biologist Thomas Fresques.
โThe construction of the fish passage barrier on Roan Creek marks a major step toward protecting and sustaining its unique native fishery,โ said Assistant Area Wildlife Manager Albert Romero. โFor more than 15 years, CPW and partnersโincluding the BLM, local landowners and many othersโhave worked extensively throughout the drainage to conserve this vital resource.โ
The Roan Creek Fish Barrier is the result of strong collaboration across local, state and federal partners. Garfield County played a key role as the Category A partner for Bureau of Reclamation funding, helping to secure vital federal support. The Middle Colorado Watershed Council continues to lead grant administration and stakeholder coordination. Wright Water Engineers serves in the project management role, and Kissner General Contractors, Inc. is constructing the structure.
โThe Roan Creek Fish Barrier project is a great example of how targeted, local investments and partnerships can complete projects that support multiple benefits,โ said Melissa Wills, Community Funding Partnership Program Manager at the Colorado River District. โUpgrading this infrastructure brings lasting benefits to both native ecosystems and the agricultural community. Through our Accelerator Grant Program, the River District is proud to have helped secure significant state and federal funding and to be part of the collaborative effort that made this project possible.โ
The outflow at the bottom of Navajo Dam in New Mexico. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
From email from the Bureau of Reclamation (Conor Felletter):
The Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled an increase in the release from Navajo Dam to 850 cubic feet per second (cfs) from the current release of 800 cfs for Tuesday, August 12, at 4:00 AM.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
This scheduled release change is subject to changes in river flows and weather conditions. If you have any questions, please contact Conor Felletter (cfelletter@usbr.gov or 970-637-1985), or visit Reclamationโs Navajo Dam website athttps://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html
Reclamation conducts Public Operations Meetings three times per year to gather input for determining upcoming operations for Navajo Reservoir. Input from individuals, organizations, and agencies along with other factors such as weather, water rights, endangered species requirements, flood control, hydro power, recreation, fish and wildlife management, and reservoir levels, will be considered in the development of these reservoir operation plans. In addition, the meetings are used to coordinate activities and exchange information among agencies, water users, and other interested parties concerning the San Juan River and Navajo Reservoir. The next meeting will be held Tuesday, August 19th at 1:00 PM. This meeting is open to the public with hybrid options, in person at the Civic Center in Farmington, NM (200 W Arrington St, Farmington, NM 87401, Rooms 4&5) and virtual using Microsoft Teams. Register for the webinar at this link
From email from the Bureau of Reclamation (Conor Felletter):
On Monday, August 11 at 8pm MT, Reclamation will increase releases from Crystal Dam to 1,700 cfs from the current release of 1,650 cfs. Gunnison Tunnel diversions remain at 1025 cfs. Gunnison River flows in the Black Canyon/Gunnison Gorge, currently ~590 cfs, are anticipated to increase to ~640 cfs.
Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Aspinall Unit, and to maintain target base flows through the endangered fish habitat along the Gunnison River between Delta and Grand Junction.
Reclamation conducts Public Operations Meetings three times per year to gather input for determining upcoming operations for the Aspinall Unit & Gunnison River. Input from individuals, organizations, and agencies along with other factors such as weather, water rights, endangered species requirements, flood control, hydro power, recreation, fish and wildlife management, and reservoir levels, will be considered in the development of these reservoir operation plans. In addition, the meetings are used to coordinate activities and exchange information among agencies, water users, and other interested parties concerning the Aspinall Unit & Gunnison River. The next Operations Group meeting will be held on August 21, 2025 at 1:00 p.m in Montrose, CO at the Holiday Inn Express (1391 S. Townsend Ave). This meeting is open to the public with a virtual option using Microsoft Teams. Register for the webinar at this link.
Contact Conor Felletter (cfelletter@usbr.gov or 970-637-1985) for more information regarding Aspinall operations or the Operation Group meeting.
An aerial view of Oak Flat in Arizona. Credit: EcoFlight
Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
August 7, 2025
Key Points
The value of the copper beneath Oak Flat drew the attention of a judge hearing arguments to halt a land swap needed to build a huge mine.
The federal judge asked attorneys for Resolution Copper and the federal government what could stop the land exchange, which is required by law.
No timetable was given for a ruling in the case, but the land swap could occur as early as Aug. 19 if a court doesn’t block it.
U.S. District Court Judge Dominic W. Lanza heard arguments from the San Carlos Apache Tribe and a consortium of environmentalists on Aug. 6 as they seek to overturn a disputed land exchange between the U.S. Forest Service and Resolution Copper. Lanza likened the day’s “very complicated exercise” to pounding a square nail into a round hole. Much of the back-and-forth during the five-hour hearing centered around aย 2022 appraisalย of a 766-acre plot at Oak Flat, the Tonto National Forest campground at the heart of the struggle. Roger Flynn, who represented the environmentalists and inter tribal coalition, argued that the appraisal lacked one essential element: the value of the copper underneath the surface. Some estimates say that about 40 billion pounds of copper lie beneath Oak Flat, currently valued at $4.40 per pound…
Attorneys from the federal government and Resolution Copper, which has sought to obtain Oak Flat to mine for copper, squared off with lawyers from the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition and the San Carlos Apache Tribe, supported by the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona and several environmental organizations, including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club. Although there was no set date for Lanza to rule, he said he was cognizant of the need to rule soon as a 60-day review period nears an end. If no judge intervenes, the land exchange could be finalized as soon as Aug. 19.
Click the link to read “This Week in Water” from the H2ORadio website. Here’s an excerpt:
August 10, 2024
Last week, President Trump said he wants to impose a 100 percent tariff on imports of semiconductors and chipsโbut would exempt companies that make them in the United States. Details on a prospective policy were scarceโand also missing in the proposal are plans to address a concern vexing the industryโwhereโs all the water going to come from to manufacture chips in the U.S.?
A single fabrication facility, or fab, can use tens of millions of gallons of tap water per day, which is cleaned to become โultrapureโ by removing any particles or salts that could damage the chips. Currently, the ultrapure water is used only once to make chips. The wastewater is used to cool the buildings, which get very hot, or in scrubbers that โshower offโ gases and other chemical contaminants used in the manufacturing process.
Several U.S. fabs are currently located in water-stressed areas such as Arizona, so can adding more plants in the country be achieved sustainably? Professor Paul Westerhoff at Arizona State Universityโs School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment told H2O Radio that fabs can be sustainable but would require companies to invest in ways to recycle water to continuously bring it back to an ultrapure state to avoid tapping into local supplies.
He and his colleagues are researching what reuse technologies and policies would be necessary to make facilitates โwater neutralโ or at least close to it, some of which would include protecting the watersheds where manufacturers operate.
Another problem in growing the semiconductor industry in the U.S. is climate change. Making semiconductors is energy intensive, so manufacturers would need to switch to renewables instead of fossil fuels to be sustainable. Otherwise, as global temperatures rise and severe droughts increase, the water upon which fabs rely may not be there when theyโre ready.
โThereโs just no water in the system,โ said Cleave Simpson, the general manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. He was talking to us on Tuesday, Aug. 5, about the startling conditions of the Upper Rio Grande Basin that showed a flow of 36 cubic-feet per second at the Alamosa County line. The river was flowing 15 cfs at the Lobatos Bridge.
The warnings about this yearโs dryness go back to February when we saw a string of 60-degree days and then more record heat back in April. Fast forward to August and whatโs been a relatively dry summer with less than an inch and a half of accumulated precipitation and we see very little water in the river.
Much of the Great Basin is under intense fire restrictions.
Rio Grande and Pecos River basins. Map credit: By Kmusser – Own work, Elevation data from SRTM, drainage basin from GTOPO [1], U.S. stream from the National Atlas [2], all other features from Vector Map., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11218868
The main topic of the most recent Rio Blanco Water Conservancy meeting was news that despite the recent $2.5 Million repair, the Hydro power unit is not in operation yet. Originally, the hydraulics seized due to solids in the oil, all the oil has been flushed and replaced and the hydraulics are in working order. Currently they are working on the part known as the face seal. It is being refurbished in California and will be delivered and installed asap. Once the face seal is installed then RBWCD will finalize wet testing to verify that it is properly functioning before going fully online with it.
The issue was discovered while the hydro power unit was running during the initial wet testing. They ran the hydro for approximately 12 hours over a couple of days. At this time is when the stuck face seal was discovered. It appears that this part may have been faulty for several years and it is the belief of the contractor, engineer and RBWCD Staff that this fix will help remedy these persistent issues the hydro has been having.
CPW and RBWCD is working on education and prevention for the zebra mussels at Kenney Reservoir. The lake has seen an increase of use due to closures of other lakes in the area due to mussels, capacity restrictions and construction.
The District continues to solicit responses to their Irrigation Study and Recreation Study and intend on using the results to support in NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act) for the Wolf Creek mega reservoir project. According to Executive Director Alden Vanden Brink, they are having better than expected participation. The next survey will be a Rangely Water Needs assessment.
The Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors voted at a July 31 special meeting to immediately enter stage two drought under the districtโs drought management plan due to low water levels in area rivers and other concerns. At the meeting, PAWSD District Engineer/Manager Justin Ramsey explained that drought stages for PAWSD are based on water levels in Hatcher Reservoir, which is used to supply water to the uptown Pagosa Springs area; water levels in the San Juan River, which is used to supply water to the downtown area; and what the state drought stage for the area is. He stated that the heaviest weight in the drought calculation is on the level of Hatcher Lake, the second heaviest weight is on the San Juan River and the third heaviest is on the state drought stage.
Ramsey noted that Hatcher is in โreally good shape…However, Ramsey commented that the San Juan River is โlowโ at 48 cubic feet per second (cfs) as of the day of the meeting and that the state drought stage for the area is stage two, which indicates severe drought.
These days, thereโs a lot that divides the Colorado delegation along party lines. But one thing theyโre all in agreement on is the need for the federal government to release about $140 million itโs holding onto for 15 water projects across the state.
โWe ask you to move forward with obligating the remaining $140 million worth of Bucket 2 projects in Colorado โ not just for the benefit of our state, but for the resilience of the entire Colorado River Basin,โ urges the delegation letter [from Sen. John Hickenlooper, Hurd, Sen. Michael Bennet, and Reps. Jeff Crank, Joe Neguse, Gabe Evans, Brittany Pettersen, Lauren Boebert, Diana DeGette and Jeff Crow].
Among the awards was $40 million to purchase the Shoshone water rights from Xcel Energy and transfer them to the Colorado River District. The other projects deal with watershed restoration, restoring or improving habitats, improving wetlands and improving water health. As the letter points out, Congress allocated $4 billion in Bidenโs signature climate, tax and health care law to deal with theย ongoing drought in the Colorado River Basin.ย The Bucket 2 funding was awarded on January 17, but that was just the first step for money to be distributed to the projects. Typically, contracts or agreements have to be signed before the money is actually obligated and distributed. Still, even if that had been completed before the change of administrations, one of Trumpโs first executive ordersย paused all funding appropriated through the IRA.
During both the Obama and Biden presidencies, Republicans and the fossil fuel industry often accused the administration of waging a โwar on energy.โ It was a demonstrably false allegation. The most either of the Democrats did to attack the energy industry was to incrementally increase common sense regulations and environmental protections, which apparently did little to hamper energy development. The so-called shale revolution, when โfrackingโ opened up huge new reserves of tight oil and gas, began under Obama, and truly came to fruition under Biden, when domestic oil and gas production reached new record highs. Meanwhile, Bidenโs Interior Department approved dozens of utility-scale solar and wind and long-delayed transmission projects on public lands.
But now the Trump administration is, in fact, waging a very real war on energy โ renewable energy, that is, namely wind and solar power. Theyโve frozen and even clawed back funds for projects, killed federal clean energy tax credits, subjected wind and solar projects on public lands to heightened reviews, and eliminated wind energy leasing areas off Oregonโs coast. And theyโve done it all as America is supposedly gripped by an โenergy emergency.โ
Now, the Interior Department has gone even further with a new order that threatens to kill all new renewable power development on federal lands. I know there are some readers out there who might applaud this, since so many of our public lands are not suited for sprawling utility-scale solar or wind developments. But this order โ deceptively and cynically titled, โManaging Federal Energy Resources and Protecting the Environmentโ โ would potentially replace proposed wind and solar projects with coal or uranium mines and/or power plants, oil and gas fields, or other non-renewable energy projects.
The order requires land management agencies, when reviewing proposed solar or wind energy projects, to consider โa reasonable range of alternatives that includes projects with capacity densities meeting or exceeding that of the proposed project.โ
Capacity density is basically the amount of energy a project can generate per acre. According to the Interior Departmentโs calculations (weโll get to the flaws there in a moment), the capacity density (megawatts/acre) for various power sources are:
Advanced nuclear reactor: 33.17 MW/acre
Combined cycle gas plant: 5.4 to 24.42 MW/acre (depending on configuration)
In other words, wind and solar are the big losers, taking up far more space to generate the same amount of electricity as, say, a nuclear plant. According to the new order, this raises the question of โwhether the use of federal lands for any wind and solar projects is consistent with the law.โ
This isnโt a new argument: The specter of โrenewable energy sprawlโ has long been wielded to push back against solar and wind development. And certainly the amount of space a project takes up should be one of many considerations in whether to permit it. But should it really have more weight than the amount of damage the project would inflict? How about pollutants emitted per megawatt, or amount of harm to people, the climate, and the environment per megawatt? Is there consideration for the fact that there is a lot of space between the turbines within a wind facility that is minimally affected? And why doesnโt their chart include hydroelectric, which has the lowest capacity density of all?
Also, the Interior Departmentโs calculations are a bit fishy, or at least incomplete. They say they are based on a 2023 Sargent & Lundy report commissioned by the Energy Information Administration. The report is not on capacity density, but rather the costs of building and operating various power generating technologies. When determining the acreage of the nuclear and fossil fuel plants, they do not take into account the land required for fuel production, which can be extensive.
The supercritical coal plant referenced in the report, for example, would require a mere 600 acres. Yet, the Four Corners coal plant in northwestern New Mexico โ along with its associated Navajo Mine (current mining areas as well as reclaimed areas), Morgan Lake, and coal combustion waste disposal facilities โ covers (and wrecks) some 15,000 acres. That acreage will continue to grow for as long as the plant operates, since the mine and waste dumps will continue to expand. Compare that to the 2,400 acres covered by the nearby San Juan solar plant.
Iโd also argue that if the goal is to get the most energy out of every acre of public land (which is a silly goal, but whatever), then they should figure in the amount of energy the proposed project consumes. Coal mining and oil and gas drilling require large amounts of electricity and petroleum (along with human labor, which is also a form of energy), as does transporting coal and gas by train and pipeline. Uranium enrichment, which is necessary to produce reactor fuel, is extremely power-intensive.
None of this really matters to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, however. Thatโs because he knows weโre not really in an โenergy emergency,โ and that it is merely a fabricated excuse to give more handouts and regulatory relief to his fossil fuel-industry buddies and to get revenge on Trumpโs political opponents by punishing cleaner energy sources.
Proposed utility-scale solar and wind facilities on public lands should by all means be scrutinized and subjected to the same reviews as any other projects, contrary to what the Abundance faction might believe. The projects should be denied if their impacts outweigh the benefits, with bonus benefit-points for solar or wind projects that displace or replace coal or natural gas generation.
But judging the projects based on a virtually meaningless metric is not only spiteful, unfair, and stupid, but it also will needlessly hamper the fight against health-harming pollution and climate change. And thatโs simply irresponsible, at best. [ed. emphasis mine]
โ๏ธ Mining Monitor โ๏ธ
Speaking of fake energy emergencies โฆ In May, the Bureau of Land Management completed its environmental review and approval of the Velvet-Wood uranium mine in Utahโs Lisbon Valley in just 11 days. The rush, sans public input, ostensibly was necessary to get the mine online quickly to address the supposed uranium shortage.
The mineโs proponent, Anfield Resources, apparently doesnโt share the Trump administrationโs sense of urgency. At the end of April, the Utah Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining asked Anfield for more information on its application to commence large mining operations, which was deemed technically incomplete. Anfield has yet to respond. The company is also not rushing forward to get state approval for its water treatment plant permit or to reopen its Shootaring Mill near Ticaboo, where the Velvet-Woodโs uranium would be processed.
In other words, the fast-tracked permitting was merely a ruse, intended to bypass environmental regulations and public input, not to expedite the project, itself.
***
Photo-illustration of the Animas River a few days after the spill from the air. Jonathan P. Thompson photo and illustration.
Itโs the tenth anniversary of the Gold King Mine blowout that affected the Animas and San Juan rivers in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. A few folks have asked if Iโm going to write anything about it โ since I did write a book about it โ but I donโt think thereโs much more to say, really.
The Gold King Mine continues to drain acidic, heavy metal-laden water โ though it is being treated before itโs released into the watershed โ and neighboring mines continue to do the same (though they arenโt being treated). Superfund designation hasnโt been the boon to water quality that some hoped for, nor did it stigmatize Silverton as many feared it would (property values continue to soar into the unreachable zone).
While the event did bring more attention to the problem of abandoned mine sites (even though the Gold King wasnโt technically abandoned when it blew out), and injected โacid mine drainageโ into the publicโs vocabulary, it hasnโt led to mining law reform or any widespread effort to address the issue. That said, Congress finally did pass a Good Samaritan bill, that might clear the way for volunteer groups to do some additional cleanup without being sued for it. Still, they need funding, and thatโs in short supply these days.
If youโd like to read more on it, check out this piece by Peter Butler. And you can check out past stories in the Land Desk for more information (links below, but they are behind the paywall). Better yet, go down to your local bookstore and buy River of Lost Souls.
This image was taken during the peak outflow from the Gold King Mine spill at 10:57 a.m. Aug. 5, 2015. The waste-rock dump can be seen eroding on the right. Federal investigators placed blame for the blowout squarely on engineering errors made by the Environmental Protection Agencyโs-contracted company in a 132-page report released Thursday [October 22, 2015]
An image of the Sharp Fire near Cahone, Colorado, from the Benchmark fire lookout. Source: Watch Duty.
๐ฅต Aridification Watch ๐ซ
Fire season is really heating up, along with the summer temperatures. The relatively dry spring was followed by higher than normal temperatures in July and zero to minimal precipitation in many places, turning low- and mid-elevation forests to kindling. Officials working the Leroux Fire west of Paonia said the relative humidity was just 2%, contributing to rapid fire growth.
The Leroux blaze was just one of many new starts on Coloradoโs Western Slope over the last several days. The Sharp Canyon Fire north of Cahone, Colorado, grew rapidly to 400 acres on Monday, forcing evacuations, but it seems to have quieted down overnight. The Lee and Elk fires in Rio Blanco County blew up to 13,000 and 7,700 acres, respectively, over a couple of days. The Middle Mesa Fire east of Navajo Reservoir and just south of the Colorado-New Mexico line grew to 2,500 acres as of Monday night.
Meanwhile, the Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyonโs North Rim has lived up to its name, reaching 126,445 acres as of Tuesday morning with only 13% containment a month after it ignited.
The situation is probably going to get worse before it gets better. The National Weather Service has issued red flag warnings for parts of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, with extreme heat warnings in parts of Arizona and southern California. The mercury in Moab is expected to reach 100ยฐ F or more every day this week, and thereโs no significant rainfall in sight.
The Colorado River is in trouble: Not as much water flows into the river as people are entitled to take out of it. A new idea might change that, but complicated political and practical negotiations stand in the way.
The river and its tributaries provide water for about 5 million acres of cropland and pasture, hydroelectric power for millions of people, recreation in the Grand Canyon, and critical habitat for fish and other wildlife. Thirty federally recognized Native American tribes assert rights to water from the Colorado River system. It is also an important source of drinking water for cities within the Colorado River Basin, including Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas, and cities outside the basin, such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Denver and Albuquerque.
The 1922 Colorado Compact divided the 250,000-square-mile Colorado River Basin into an Upper Basin โ which includes parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, as well as the northeastern corner of Arizona โ and a Lower Basin, encompassing most of Arizona and parts of California and Nevada. The compact apportions each basin 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the river each year. An acre-foot of water is enough to cover 1 acre in water 1 foot deep, which amounts to approximately 326,000 gallons. According to a 2021 estimate from the Arizona Department of Water Resources, 1 acre-foot is sufficient to supply 3.5 single-family households in Arizona for one year.
Anticipating a future treaty with Mexico for sharing Colorado River water, the compact specified that Mexico should be supplied first with any surplus available and any additional amount needed โborne equallyโ by the two divisions. A 1944 water-sharing treaty between Mexico and the U.S. guarantees Mexico at least 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River water annually.
The compact also specified that the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming โwill not cause the flow of the river โฆ to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of 10 consecutive years.โ
The Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada contend that this provision is a โdelivery obligation,โ requiring the Upper Basin to ensure that over any 10-year period, a total of at least 75 million acre-feet flows to the Lower Basin.
By contrast, the Upper Basin states contend that the language merely creates a โnon-depletion obligationโ that caps their collective use at 7.5 million acre-feet per year in times when additional use by the Upper Basin would cause less than 75 million acre-feet to be delivered to the Lower Basin over a 10-year period.
This disagreement over the compactโs language is at the heart of the differences between the two basins.
Snowfall in Western mountains, including the Flatirons outside Boulder, Colo., is the primary source of water for the Colorado River Basin. AP Photo/Thomas Peipert
A small source area
Nearly all of the water in the Colorado River system comes from snow that falls in the Rocky Mountains in the Upper Basin. About 85% of the Colorado Basinโs flows come from just 15% of the basinโs surface area. Most of the rest of the basinโs lands are arid or semi-arid, receiving less than 20 inches of precipitation a year and contributing little to the flows of the Colorado River and its tributaries.
Rain and snowfall vary dramatically from year to year, so over the course of the 20th century, the Colorado Basin states โ with the assistance of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency of the Department of the Interior responsible for operating federal water and power projects in the U.S. West โ developed a complex system of reservoirs to capture the extra water in wet years so it could be available in drier years. The most notable reservoirs in the system are Lake Mead, impounded by Hoover Dam, which was completed in 1936, and Lake Powell, impounded by Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1966.
Over the past 25 years, the quantity of water stored in Lake Mead and Lake Powell has declined significantly. A primary driver of this decline is a lengthy drought likely amplified by climate change: One study estimated that the region may be suffering its driest spell in 1,200 years.
But human errors are also adding up. The Colorado Compactโs original negotiators made unrealistically optimistic assumptions about the riverโs average annual flow โ perhaps knowingly. In their book โScience be Dammed,โ Colorado River experts Eric Kuhn and John Fleck document how compact negotiators willfully or wishfully ignored available data about the riverโs actual flows. Kuhn and Fleck argue the negotiators knew it would be decades before demand would exceed the riverโs water supply, and they wanted to sell a big vision of Southwestern development that would merit massive federal financing for reservoirs and other infrastructure.
In addition, the current Colorado River system accounting does not factor in the roughly 1.3 million acre-feet of water lost annually from Lake Mead due to evaporation into the air or seepage into the ground. This accounting gap means that under normal annual releases to satisfy the apportionments to the Lower Basin and Mexico, Lake Meadโs water level is steadily declining.
Stabilization efforts
The seven Colorado River states and Mexico have taken significant steps to stabilize the reservoirs. In 2007, they agreed to new guidelines to coordinate the operations of Lake Mead and Lake Powell to prevent either reservoir from reaching catastrophically low levels. They also agreed to reduce the amount of water available to Arizona and Nevada depending on how low Lake Meadโs levels go.
When the 2007 guidelines proved insufficient to keep the reservoir levels from declining, the Colorado Basin states and Mexico agreed in 2019 to additional measures, authorizing releases from Upper Basin reservoirs under certain conditions and additional cuts to water users in the Lower Basin and Mexico.
By 2022, projections for the reservoir levels looked so dire that the states started negotiating additional near-term measures to reduce the amount of water users withdrew from the river. The federal government helped out, too: $4 billion of Inflation Reduction Act funding has helped pay the costs of water-conservation measures, primarily by agricultural districts, cities and tribes.
These reductions are real. In 2023, Arizona, California and Nevada used only 5.8 million acre-feet of Colorado River water โ their lowest combined annual consumption since 1983. The Lower Basinโs total consumption in 2024 was slightly higher, at 6.09 million acre-feet.
Lake Powell, a key Colorado River reservoir, holds only one-third as much water as it is designed to contain. Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
A new opportunity?
With the 2007 guidelines and additional measures expiring in 2026, the deadline for a new agreement looms. As the Colorado River states try to work out a new agreement, Arizonaโs new proposal of a supply-driven approach offers hope, but the devilโs in the details. Critical components of that approach have not been ironed out โ for instance, the percentage of the riverโs flows that would be available to Arizona, California and Nevada.
If the states canโt agree, there is a chance that the secretary of the Interior, acting through the Bureau of Reclamation, may decide on his own how to balance the reservoirs and how much water to deliver out of them. That decision would almost certainly be taken to court by states or water users unhappy with the result.
And the Lower Basin states have said they are fully prepared to go to court to enforce what they believe to be the Upper Basinโs delivery obligation, which, the Upper Basin has responded, it is prepared to dispute.
In the meantime, farmers in Arizonaโs Yuma County and Californiaโs Imperial County cannot be sure that in the next few years they will have enough water to produce winter vegetables and melons for the nation. The Colorado River Basinโs municipal water providers are worried about how they will meet demands for tap water for homes and businesses. And tribal nations fear that they will not have the water they need for their farms, communities and economies.
It was a week with a lot of change noted in areas of dryness and drought across the U.S. Heavy to locally excessive rainfall engendered broad areas of improvement in much of the Southeast, the lower Great Lakes Region, the central and northern Great Plains, and many locations across the High Plains and adjacent southern Rockies. Meanwhile, continued subnormal precipitation and episodes of unusually hot weather, low humidity, and high winds led to large areas of deterioration in the central and northern Rockies. Also, emerging short-term precipitation deficits led to the introduction of scattered areas of abnormal dryness (D0) over parts of the Middle and Lower Mississippi Valley, the Tennessee Valley, and near the western foothills of the western Appalachians. A few spots of deterioration were also introduced in western portions of the Southeast (where typical summer shower and thunderstorm activity has been less robust than usual) and Southwest (where subnormal monsoonal rains have been observed)…
Rainfall varied in intensity across the High Plains Region, with abundant rainfall amounts falling on a large part of the Plains while lesser, subnormal totals were observed in the higher elevations farther west. A similar pattern has been observed periodically for several weeks now, resulting in significantly worse conditions in the western part of the region than farther east. A solid swath of moderate drought (D1) or worse covers most of southern and western Wyoming and the western half of Colorado, with severe drought (D2) covering a large part of this region, and extreme drought (D3) noted in a sizeable portion of west-central and northwestern Colorado. This represents a significant increase in the extend of D2 and D3 coverage compared to last week. In contrast, another wet week led to a continued reduction in the coverage of the abnormal dryness (D0) to locally severe drought (D2) over the Great Plains. A broken pattern of heavy rainfall โ with upwards of 3 inches reported in spots โ prevailed from northern Kansas through much of the Dakotas, although higher amounts were more common in some areas than others. The improvements left severe drought confined to part of south-central Nebraska and adjacent Kansas, southwestern Nebraska, and a small area in south-central South Dakota. Moderate drought (D1) coverage also decreased, mainly across Nebraska and a few adjacent locations in the far eastern sections of Colorado and Wyoming. The USDA reported short or very short subsoil moisture across about one-third of Colorado and two-thirds of Wyoming. In addition, 17 percent of the Colorado corn crop was in poor or very poor condition, and drier weather earlier in the summer has left one-third of the Nebraska oat crop in poor or very poor condition…
Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending August 5, 2025.
Heavy precipitation prompted significant areas of improvement across the southeastern and northern sections of the West Region, but hot and dry weather has caused dryness and drought to intensify in central parts of the Region, across Utah, eastern Nevada, and northeastern Arizona (similar to the situation in western parts of Colorado and Wyoming). Reports of 2 or more inches of rain were fairly common across southeastern and north-central through northwestern Montana as well as northeastern New Mexico, with lesser amounts in other parts of these states. These rains brought 2-week totals to between 2 and 5 inches in much of New Mexico and Montana, with locally higher totals, especially in north-central Montana and northeastern New Mexico. This prompted broad improvements through both states, but even so, areas that missed most of the rain in these states remained entrenched in drought. Exceptional drought (D4) persisted in part of southwestern New Mexico, and extreme drought (D3) remained across north-central and southwestern parts of the state, along with a significant swath of west-central Montana. Moderate to severe drought still affected a large part of the remainders of these states despite improvements, and only the southeastern quarter of Montana and northeastern New Mexico have completely emerged from any designation of dryness or drought. Farther west, showery weather has occurred periodically for the past few weeks in central and eastern Oregon, leading to a reduction in the coverage of dryness and drought there. Across central parts of the West Region from eastern Nevada through Utah, rainfall has been far less generous, and drought either persisted or deteriorated here. The entire region is experiencing at least moderate drought at this point, with widespread D2 conditions across eastern and western Utah, and adjacent Nevada. Some expansion of extreme drought (D3) occurred in east-central and northeastern Utah, where conditions have been similar to those observed across western parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Elsewhere, no changes were observed, and broad areas of drought remained entrenched. USDA reports that 50 percent of the Barley crop and 48 percent of the spring wheat crop in Washington was in poor or very poor condition, as were 26 percent of the barley crop and 47 percent of spring wheat in Montana. In addition, 90 percent of Nevada rangeland was in poor or very poor condition…
Outside southern and western Texas, not much dryness or drought has been observed across the South Region. But after a few relatively dry weeks, short-term precipitation shortfalls have developed in portions of Arkansas and Tennessee, leading to the introduction of a few patches of abnormal dryness (D0) in areas of significant 30-day rainfall shortages and near- to below-normal 60-day totals. A much larger proportion of these two states report 30-day precipitation deficits, but above-normal 60-day totals precluded more expansive D0 development this week, although the situation will need to be monitored going forward. In Tennessee, some patches of abnormal dryness and isolated moderate drought (D0 and D1) was assessed last week. In the easternmost parts of the state, heavy rains engendered a bit of improvement, but the burgeoning dryness farther west allowed a few additional spots of moderate drought to develop. To the west, rainfall was sufficient to end the fledgling area of abnormal dryness in southwestern Oklahoma, but more widespread and intense drought continued to cover large parts of western and southern Texas. Moderate to heavy rainfall was observed over parts of the drought-affected region, leading to some improvement in the Big Bend and along the northern fringe of the region. Substantial rainfall evaded areas farther to the south, however, allowing for some expansion of D0 and D1 conditions in the southernmost parts of the state. Since early May, rainfall totals exceed 3 inches in portions of south-central Texas, and approach 6 inches in part of the Big Bend. Despite recent improvement in much of the state, however, a small patch of exceptional drought (D4) persisted in upper South Texas, and severe drought continued in adjacent areas as well as parts of the Rio Grande Valley and Big Bend. But despite recent drought improvement, 22 percent of the Texas cotton crop and 48 percent of its oat crop was in poor to very poor conditions, according to USDA.
Looking Ahead
From August 7 to 11, an area of showers and thunderstorms off the Southeastern Coast may develop into a tropical system according to the National Hurricane Center, but this is far from certain. Any organized system is expected to remain off the East Coast, but early in the period the disorganized convection is expected to impact the South Atlantic Coastline. Generally 1 to locally over 3 inches of rain are forecast for coastal sections of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida while similar amounts are forecast along the central and eastern Gulf Coast, and much of the Florida Peninsula. Between 1 and 3 inches are anticipated near a frontal system stretching from the Middle Mississippi Valley into the Great Lakes Region, and amounts in the lower part of that range are forecast in scattered parts of the central and northern Plains. Moderate amounts of several tenths to around an inch should fall in many areas from the Upper Mississippi Valley into the Northern Intermountain West, portions of the central Plains, and areas near the Southeastern and Gulf Coasts. Light precipitation is possible in parts of the central and eastern Four Corners States, the central Ohio Valley, the southern Appalachians, the mid-Atlantic, and upper New England. Other areas are expecting little if any precipitation. Meanwhile a cooler than normal but moderating air mass should allow temperatures to average near or slightly below normal in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic while daily highs should average a few degrees below normal in and around the northern High Plains. In most other locations, temperatures should average a little above normal as above-normal temperatures begin to slowly cover most of the Contiguous States. The greatest positive temperature departures are expected where above-normal temperatures have already settled in, specifically parts of the interior West and the Northeast, where highs will average 6 to 12 deg. F in spots.
The Climate Prediction Centerโs 6-10 day outlook (valid August 12-16, 2025) features significant uncertainty in the precipitation outlook. Odds for above-normal precipitation exceeding 40 percent across most of Alaska outside the northeast and southwest sections, and nowhere else. There are, however, fairly broad areas with slightly enhanced chances (33 to 40 percent) for wetter than normal wetter; specifically, the remainder of Alaska, the northern tier of the Contiguous 48 States, the Sonoran Desert, the eastern Great Plains, the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, the Great Lakes Region, the upper Southeast, the mid-Atlantic, and inland sections of the Northeast and New England. Drier than normal conditions are slightly favored in the Great Basin and adjacent sections of the Rockies and Pacific Northwest. There is more certainty in the temperature forecast, with above-normal temperatures favored across a large part of the Contiguous States, and Hawaii. The best odds (over 70 percent) cover the Northeast and New England while the central West Coast, parts of the Four Corners States, the eastern Great Lakes, the mid-Atlantic, the coastal Southeast, and the Florida Peninsula have 60 to 70 percent chances for unusually high temperatures. Only Alaska and the northern High Plains are not areas where warmer than normal conditions are favored. In fact, subnormal temperatures are favored over most of Alaska, with odds topping 60 percent in northwestern parts of the state.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending August 5, 2025.
Just for grins here’s a slideshow of early August US Drought Monitor maps for the past few years (including 2002).
High winds and extreme drought conditions in northwest Colorado have fueled the rapid growth of two wildfires this week near Meeker in Rio Blanco County, where firefighting crews say theyโre prioritizing structure protection with โlimited resourcesโ on hand.
The Lee Fire, west of Meeker, nearly doubled in size Tuesday and has now burned 22,497 acres, predominantly on Bureau of Land Management land south of Colorado Highway 13. About 20 miles to the east, the Elk Fire is estimated at 8,304 acres in size. Both fires are believed to have been started by lightning strikes on Aug. 2.
Jeramy Dietz, operations section chief with the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team responding to both fires, said in a video update Wednesday that crews are developing plans โbased on our highest values at risk, with our limited resources that we have on hand.โ
With the latest growth, the estimated area burned in Colorado by 11 major wildfires in 2025 now stands at 64,196 acres, according to federal data. That doesnโt include smaller fires suppressed by state and local first responders, but it already makes for the stateโs worst fire year since 2020, when multiple historic blazes burned a record-setting 625,357 acres, according toย National Interagency Fire Centerย data.
Other large Colorado fires this summer include the Turner Gulch Fire, which has burned over 24,000 acres east of Gateway, near the Colorado-Utah border, and is currently 49% contained; and the 4,232-acre South Rim Fire, which has forced the closure of parts of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and is estimated at 52% containment.
Drought conditions classified as โsevereโ or โextremeโ currently extend across the majority of Coloradoโs western half, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. A critical fire weather advisory for western Colorado and several neighboring states has been issued by the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center, a Denver-based branch of the NIFC, and will remain in place through at least mid-August.
โAfter a dry winter with minimal snowpack fuel moistures are well below normal, and much of the region is under severe to extreme drought,โ the agency warns. โExtreme fire behavior marked by rapid spread, torching, and resistance to control is being driven by critically dry โฆ fuels, and drought-stressed brush and trees. As heat intensifies and fuel moistures decline further, fire potential will remain elevated across the area.โ
Colorado public health officials have issued health advisories for wildfire smoke in 17 counties across the state, including the Denver area and the northern Front Range. People โwith heart disease, respiratory illnesses, the very young, and older adultsโ are advised to limit outdoor activities.
Due to climate change, much of Colorado has grown hotter and drier in recent decades, increasing wildfire risk. The three largest wildfires in Colorado history all occurred in 2020, and the stateโs 20 biggest fires on record have all occurred in the past 20 years. Rising levels of greenhouse gases, mostly the result of fossil-fuel combustion, have caused much of the Western Slope to warm by an average of more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels, and the regionโs current โmegadroughtโ is its worst dry spell in at least 1,200 years.
The state could eventually host the nationโs largest uranium production facility to use two different mining methods. Environmentalists worry that expedited permitting in the nuclear sector could threaten โsafety, environmental quality and public trust.โ
Uranium Energy Corp.โs Sweetwater uranium project has become the first mining proposal in Wyoming to be fast-tracked under President Donald Trumpโs March executive order to increase U.S. mineral production.
The company announced Aug. 5 that it planned to expand its uranium mining operations in Wyomingโs Red Desert as a result of the expedited permitting process. The federal government expects to post a permitting timetable for the project by Aug. 15.
Through other executiveorders, the dismantling of environmental regulations and the spending bill congressional Republicans passed in July, the second Trump administration has made it easier for extractive industries to receive permits for mining on public lands. Trump has classified uranium as a โcritical mineralโ for the U.S., which imported 99 percent of its fuel for nuclear energy in 2023, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
John Burrows, energy and climate policy director at the Wyoming Outdoor Council, saw the fast-tracking news as evidence of a pattern in the stateโs nascent nuclear industry.
โAcross the nuclear supply chain weโre seeing permits getting expedited and weโre having concerns around safety, environmental quality and public trust,โ he said.
Last month, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission accelerated its review of an advanced nuclear reactor being built in Kemmerer, Wyoming, with an end-of-year completion goal. TerraPower, the company behind the new technology, was co-founded by billionaire Bill Gates.
Uranium Energyโs Sweetwater permits were fast-tracked by the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council. Trumpโs March executive order required the executive director of the council to publish such projects on a special dashboard.
โI am excited to welcome the Sweetwater Complex to the FAST-41 transparency dashboard in support of President Trumpโs goal of unlocking Americaโs mineral resources,โ said Emily Domenech, the councilโs executive director, in a statement accompanying Uranium Energyโs announcement. โThe uranium that this project can produce would be game-changing for our nation as we work to reduce our reliance on Russia and China, strengthen our national and economic security, and reestablish a robust domestic supply chain of nuclear fuel.โ
The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council was established in 2015 under President Barack Obama and made permanent by President Joe Bidenโs Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021.
Pictorial representation of the In situ uranium mining process. Graphic credit: (source: Heathgate Resources)
If approved, Uranium Energy expects to begin โin-situโ uranium mining within its permit boundaries. The process involves leaching uranium from underground rock and does less surface disturbance than conventional strip-mining methods. The company already operates conventional uranium mines in Wyoming but wants to expand its claim to include nearby areas it says are suitable for in-situ retrieval methods.
โThis will provide the Company unrivaled flexibility to scale production across the Great Divide Basin,โ Amir Adnani, Uranium Energyโs president and CEO, said in an email.
If Uranium Energy receives its permits, which could still take years, the company said its Sweetwater facility will become the largest in the United States capable of processing both conventionally and in-situ-mined uranium. Its current licensed production capacity at the Sweetwater facility is 4.1 million pounds of uranium annually, the company said.
