Pagosa Springsโ water and wastewater service providers โ the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) and the Pagosa Springs Sanitation General Improvement District (PSSGID) โ suffered more than $13 million in damage to their systems in last weekโs flooding event, according to Wednesday estimates. The PSSGID suffered about $9 million in damage, stated Pagosa Springs Town Manager David Harris, while PAWSD Programs Manager Renee Lewis indicated that, on Wednesday morning, PAWSD estimated damages at $4,005,000. Lewis emphasized that this is a โVERY preliminaryโ estimate since some PAWSD infrastructure is still inaccessible. According to Harris, the PSSGID, which provides sewer service for downtown Pagosa Springs and is operated by the Town of Pagosa Springs, primarily suffered damage to all three of its lift stations, its two pumping stations on the line that moves wastewater from downtown to PAWSDโs Vista wastewater treatment plant, and to the sewer line that runs under the 1st Street bridge on U.S. 160. He explained that the pumps and electrical equipment at these stations all suffered damage due to being inundated with water and that at least some of the equipment in all these stations will likely need to be replaced. Harris stated that the pump stations on the line to Vista are currently operating with one set of dry and submersible pumps each, when they normally use two sets of pumps that alternate operations to give each set downtime. He indicated that the inundation during the flooding also led to the system overflowing raw sewage into the San Juan River once its pumping capacity was exceeded at the Vista pipeline. The forced main for the Vista pipeline handled 1.7 million gallons of water on Thursday, Oct. 22; 1.58 million gallons on Friday, Oct. 23; and 1.32 million gallons on Saturday, Oct. 24, Harris stated. He added that the pipeline usually handles about 350,000 gallons of wastewater per day…
The damage to the 1st Street bridge pipeline was due to the water rising high enough to destroy the pipe that runs under the bridge, Harris stated. Prior to the flooding, the PSSGID implemented a bypass using a flexible pipe running along the sidewalk on top of the bridge and a temporary pump on the east end of the bridge, Harris explained, which is still in operation since the normal pipe has been destroyed. He added that this incident accounts for a significant portion of the cost of the damages that the PSSGID suffered. Harris also stated that the PSSGID suffered other miscellaneous damage, including to work that was in progress to replace sections of the McCabe Creek sewer line, which is a large source of inflow and infiltration of outside water into the PSSGID system…Connor states in his update that the district will likely have to replace the exposed lines at Mockingbird Lane and North Pagosa Boulevard in the future, but that this will occur in conjunction with the county repairing the road washouts that cause the exposures. His update states that the Snowball and Hatcher Lake water treatment plants are fully operational and that the diversion on the San Juan River that provides water to the Snowball plant and its associated reservoir has been cleared sufficiently to allow water to flow into the reservoir. The San Juan water treatment plant, located at PAWSDโs offices at 100 Lyn Ave., which also contains the Vista wastewater treatment plant, was shut off before the flooding began, according to Lewis. In an Oct. 23 update to the PAWSD board, Connor also states that the Vista wastewater treatment plant โheldโ during the flooding and remains operational. He adds that the plant treated 5.7 million gallons of wastewater during the Oct. 22 and Oct. 23 flooding events. In her update, Lewis states that damage to the river and creek diversions that feed PAWSDโs water treatment plants is yet to be fully determined.
Click the link to read the release on the UC Riverside website (Jules Bernstein):
October 28, 2026
For the first time, UC Riverside scientists have measured how much microplastic pollution falls on the Sierra Nevada during snowstorms and were surprised to find significant amounts even in the most remote locations.
Toxicologist Aleksandra Karapetrova sampling snow in the Sierra Nevada, measuring microplastics. (Sonya Maple/CDFW)
Lead researcher Aleksandra Karapetrova, a UCR environmental toxicologist, could not access any of the snowfall collection sites by car or even on foot. She expected plastic to be harder to find or even nonexistent in at least a few of these locations, given their distance from human activity.
“One site was accessed by chairlift. I had to ski to the rest of the remote sites. Thatโs how isolated they are,โ Karapetrova said. โBut no matter how far out the site, I always found microplastics there.โ
Details about the particles, the seven locations at which they were collected, and the method used to verify their chemical properties are described in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Though the study did not determine how much plastic ultimately reaches drinking water, the findings have significance beyond the mountain, as the Sierra Nevada snowpack supplies about 30% of Californiaโs freshwater.
The study also describes how snow scavenges airborne plastic from the atmosphere and carries it to the ground, far from population centers and places where the plastic is produced or used.
Microplastics enter the air when plastic products shed fibers or wear down into small fragments. Clothing can emit fibers directly into the atmosphere, including through dryer vents or just daily wear, while wind lifts particles from the ground and transports them elsewhere.
As snowflakes fall, they collect some of these tiny plastic particles suspended in the air. This process, called scavenging, helps explain why researchers measured substantially more plastic arriving with the falling snow than during dry weather.
Flow chart depicting the process by which microplastics get into the atmosphere and snowfall. (Aleksandra Karapetrova/UCR)
“We are at a point where microplastics are in our atmosphere, not just the ocean, not just rivers. It comes down with the snowfall, making its way to places humans typically donโt go,โ Karapetrova said.
At remote sampling locations, during the height of the storm, the snow deposited between 270 and 3,200 plastic particles per square meter, per day. At one site in the Mammoth Mountain ski area, the amount of pollution was roughly three times that found in remote sites. Between 2,600 and 7,500 particles per square meter per day there deposited in the snow. Nearby human activity and greater snowfall accumulation there are possible explanations.
โI didnโt think the plastics would stay suspended so much in the town,โ Karapetrova said.
Even the large particle counts at Mammoth represent small amounts of material. At the highest estimated rate, snowfall over an acre would deliver about 1.5 grams of plastic per day.
To explore where the plastics may have originated, the researchers traced masses of air that ushered in the storms sampled in the study. Most of the storm air passed over Fresno and Madera counties, suggesting the Central Valley may be a region contributing these particles.
Computer models could not identify exact sources or exclude plastic arriving in the Sierra from even farther away.
The snow appears pristine, but analysis paints a different picture. (Sonya Maple/CDFW)
Earlier research had already established that microplastics occur in Western U.S. snow. This study examined how much is being deposited on the ground during individual storms, allowing researchers to connect measurements with particular weather events.
Confirming the particlesโ identities required more than looking through a microscope. Researchers used infrared light to read chemical signatures, then compared those signatures with a reference library to distinguish plastic from soil and plant material.
Most commonly, the researchers found polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyester/PET, which are plastics commonly used in clothing and packaging. The team also found cellulose derivatives, a group of chemically modified, plant-based materials used in consumer products.
This study did not assess health effects of microplastics in the environment. However, some chemicals used in plastics have documented health effects including hormone disruption, inflammation, and cellular damage.
The particlesโ familiar ingredients point to the reach of everyday plastic use far beyond the products themselves.
โWeโve reached a point where plastic pollution is falling out of the sky every day, across this entire region, even when it isnโt snowing,โ Karapetrova said.
Pinyon Plain Mine representatives argue that the toxic metal is naturally occurring, not contamination from the mining operation.
Three of four wells across the Grand Canyon region that have average arsenic levels above the Environmental Protection Agencyโs standard for safe drinking water are at the site of a controversial uranium mine, a new analysis of groundwater sampling shows.
The analysis from the Grand Canyon Trust, a nonprofit advocating for protection of the canyon and the Colorado Plateau, relied on 32 years of groundwater sampling across 40 sites from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. The Pinyon Plain Mine, where the contaminated wells are located, lies within a national monument just nine miles away from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
The heightened arsenic levels at the mine site are not a coincidence, Misael Cabrera, senior vice president of environment, safety and sustainability for the mining company, Energy Fuels Resources Inc., said, as arsenic is found in highly mineralized areas, like at the Pinyon Plain Mine site.
โWe donโt get to choose where we put a mine,โ he said. โNature puts the minerals in certain locations, and then if we want to harvest those minerals, we have to go to those locations.โ
Cabrera was the director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality when the mine was being permitted.
It is the latest dispute in a months-long debate over the rising arsenic levels, what is increasing them and whether the contaminant is at risk of spreading throughout the region. Pinyon Plain mineโlocated within the Baaj Nwaavjo Iโtah KukveniโAncestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, is one of the countryโs first new uranium minesdriven by a resurgence of interest in nuclear energy.
The analysis comes after ADEQ permitted Energy Fuels to raise the levels of arsenic at one of the mineโs monitoring wells that require the company to issue an alert about the contamination. That decision prompted outcry from local communities and researchers.
โOur opposition is not based on fear or politics,โ said Havasupai Tribal Chairwoman Melinda Yaiva at a press conference announcing the findings. โIt is based on our responsibility as a sovereign tribal nation to protect our people, our homeland and the water that makes life in Supai (the tribeโs village in the Grand Canyon) possible. Today, the immediate issue is arsenic.โ
For years, the mineโs opponents have expressed concern it would contaminate the regionโs groundwater. Research from hydrologists found the shallow groundwater aquifer the mine drills into is connected to the deeper, regional aquifer. Reviews by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Environmental Protection Agency followed and found more research is needed to understand if the mine site poses a threat to the regionโs water quality.
Cabrera said no data shows there is a risk for the mineโs water to spread.
โDespite all of the evidence that we have on record, despite all of the regulatory approvals, despite the multiple court cases, we are still being assumed to be guilty before proven innocent,โ he said. โWe really need to reflect on that as a country if we want to be able to produce our own energy without relying so heavily on foreign sources.โ
He likened the current situation to looking at a traffic map of Arizona, where major cities like Phoenix would have the most congestion. โIn the same vein, you are going to have higher levels of mineralsโ like arsenic at mine sites.
Laura Crossey, an emeritus professor of earth science at the University of New Mexico, who for decades has researched the hydrogeology of the Grand Canyon, has a traffic analogy as well. Dismissing data showing the aquifers are connected and that contamination can spread is โlike studying the traffic pattern of Phoenix by only looking at the side streets and ignoring the interstates that move through, that are carrying much higher volumes, much higher speeds.โ
One monitoring well at Energy Fuelsโ Pinyon Plain Mine exceeded permitted alert levels for arsenic four times since 2025, before the company applied to amend its permit to allow for higher levels of arsenic. The groundwater in the mineโs sump is over 3,000 times the limit for arsenic in drinking water. At the mineโs monitoring wells, the water is nearly two, three and six times the safe drinking water levels of arsenic, respectively.
โThis is a kind of a failure in the monitoring program and the regulatory process, because at the present time, we donโt really know why the arsenic is rising, because it hasnโt been thoroughly investigated,โ said Brad Esser, a retired environmental radiochemistry researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
If the mineโs evaporation pond is leaking, it can be patched. If the groundwater pumping is changing the hydrologic flow, then limits can be placed on the pumping. But without a definitive study and answer to whatโs causing the increasing levels of arsenic, a mitigation plan canโt be put in place, he said.
Image Source: Michigan State University Extension, Water Quality Bulletin # 35, August 1991
ADEQ and the company have claimed the arsenic issue is natural, and not due to mining. They attribute the rising arsenic levels to its groundwater pumping causing a โcone of depressionโ around the well that is drawing in water with more naturally occurring arsenic from further reaches of the aquifer.
Protesters voice their opposition to uranium hauling from the Pinyon Plain Mine in Arizona. Credit: Blake McCord
Critics have questioned that claim and said more data was needed to prove it before permitting higher arsenic alert levels. The analysis of regional arsenic levels in groundwater, they say, shows the company and ADEQโs hypothesis is wrong.
โIf arsenic concentrations in groundwater outside the mine are lower than inside, how can drawing low concentration outside increase the already high and increasing arsenic concentrations inside the property,โ asked Dave Kreamer, emeritus professor of hydrology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. โYou would think that adding cleaner water, groundwater from outside, shouldnโt it dilute the high concentrations inside? Iโve been asking this question of ADEQ monthly since June 1, and have not got an answer yet.โ
Most at risk is the Havasupai Tribe, whose reservation is in the Grand Canyon. Its only source of water is Havasu Creek, which is directly fed by the regional Redwall-Mauv aquiferโthe deeper regional groundwater supply.
The tribe has objected to ADEQ raising the allowable arsenic levels at the mine site, and appealed the decision. That appeal was dismissed by the agencyโs appeals board, which concluded the tribe lacked standing. Yaiva said the tribe is considering what other options it has, including legal ones.
Something Havasupai children are taught at birth, Yaiva said, is that water is sacred. Havasu Creek, located on the tribeโs reservation and famed for its vibrant blue-green waters, is not just a beautiful place, she said. โIt is the lifeblood of our homeland.โ
โOur people drink this water,โ she said. โWe cook with it. We grow food with it. We care for our animals with it, and depend on it every day. It is also part of our ceremonies, our traditions, and our culture, and our identity as Havasupai people. Our relationship with this water goes back generations, long before the state of Arizona existed, long before the federal government approved the uranium mining near our homeland.โ
In addition to supporting the Havasupai people, the waters in Havasu Canyon give life to an array of animals and plants. Photo credit: Amy S. Martin via The Grand Canyon Trust
Click the link to read the article on the PNAS website (Min Long, Ai-Shi Wang, Weldon C. Elias, and Bruce E. Rittmann). Here’s the abstract:
October 19, 2026
Significance
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are notoriously difficult to destroy in ambient conditions, and the catalytic principles needed for low-energy defluorination remain an unachieved goal. This study identifies a previously unrecognized dual-hydrogen mechanism in catalytic membranes, in which surface hydrogen captures PFAS while subsurface hydrogen, stored as ฮฒ-PdHx, drives CโF bond cleavage. By linking hydrogen generation, storage, and reactivity within a membrane platform, this work advances a mechanistic framework for destructive PFAS treatment rather than simple contaminant separation. The results establish both a mechanistic foundation for hydrogen-enabled defluorination and a scalable membrane-based strategy for continuous, low-energy PFAS destruction in water.
Abstract
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) persist in aquatic environments due to their ultrastable CโF bonds and poor susceptibility to conventional treatment. Here, we report an H2-based catalytic-film membrane that enables PFAS destruction in ambient conditions by generating highly reactive surface (Hads*) and subsurface hydrogen (Hsub*), the latter stored as ฮฒ-phase palladium hydride (ฮฒ-PdHx). Solid-state analyses evidenced ฮฒ-PdHx formation and related lattice expansion with elevated H2 chemical potential, revealing a structural mechanism that links hydrogen storage to catalytic defluorination. Mechanistically, the two hydrogen species play complementary roles: Hads*-rich Pd0 surface enabled PFAS capture through parallel adsorption to maximize interfacial contact with active H, whereas sustained Hsub* supplied the energetic driving force for stepwise hydrodefluorination consistent with sequential CโF scission. As a result, across six PFAS of regulatory concernโPFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and GenXโthe catalytic membrane converted all contaminants toward fully defluorinated products. Long-chain PFAS were removed and defluorinated more rapidly than short-chain analogs, while GenX showed greater recalcitrance due to its ether linkage, weaker adsorption, and higher average CโF bond dissociation energy; nonetheless, GenX still exhibited removal and defluorination, with the production of 2-propoxypropanoic acid. The system also enabled continuous coremoval of all six PFAS in ambient conditions, with up to 96% removal and 83% defluorination over 58 d. These findings provide a mechanistic framework for how active hydrogen is generated, stored, and deployed in catalytic membranes, and identify engineered H2-catalytic membranes as a promising low-energy technology for destructive PFAS treatment.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the so-called โforever chemicals,โ have become a class of global contaminants of regulatory concern. Decades of extensive deployment of PFAS in firefighting foams, oil- and water-repellent surfaces, non-stick cookware, and food-contact materials have created diffuse, chronic inputs into watersheds and drinking-water supplies (1). Their amphiphilic architectures combine perfluorinated chains with polar headgroups, a molecular design that underpins their commercial success, but also drives rapid aqueous dispersion, sustained mobility, and environmental persistence (2โ4).
Monitoring campaigns increasingly reveal co-occurrence of multiple PFAS of regulatory concern in raw and treated waters, with mixtures of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (GenX), perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), and perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS) frequently detected at summed concentrations approaching or exceeding 1,000 ng/L; hot spots have reported raw water levels up to 11,000 ng/L and finished water still containing >1,000 ng/L (5, 6). Parallel epidemiological and toxicological evidence links PFAS exposure to immunomodulation, developmental and metabolic disruption, cardiovascular risk elevation, and carcinogenicity (1, 7). In response to these growing risks, in 2024, the United States Environmental Protection Agency finalized Maximum Contaminant Levels of 4 ng/L (4 ppt) for PFOA and PFOS individually and 10 ng/L for PFNA, PFHxS, and GenX, together with a Hazard Index of 1 for mixtures containing two or more of PFNA, PFHxS, GenX, and PFBS. In May 2026, the EPA proposed retaining the PFOA and PFOS limits while rescinding the standards for other PFAS. These ongoing regulatory developments, particularly the growing concern over the cumulative risks of PFAS mixtures, expose a wide technology gap between current treatment performance and mandated outcomes.
The resistance of PFAS to conventional treatment stems in large part from the exceptional strength of the CโF bond, and the low bond polarizability of the electron cloud for F contributes to the physicochemical inertness of the CโF bond, which limits oxidative, photolytic, and biological reactivities (8, 9). Today, utilities must rely on separation technologies (granular or powdered activated carbon, ion exchange, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis) to meet interim goals (10, 11). These approaches sequester rather than destroy PFAS, generating secondary wastes (spent sorbents, brines, concentrates) and increasing costs for handling, regeneration, or disposal. Furthermore, the shorter-chain and ether-containing species exhibit early breakthrough. Destructive processes capable of CโF scission include photochemical, electrochemical, thermal, plasma, or advanced-reduction methods. Although some achieve high defluorination, quantitative benchmarking shows that they commonly require aggressive operating conditions, entail high energy inputs, and exhibit limited selectivity, all of which complicate scale-up and sustainability (SI Appendix, Table S1) (12). Still lacking are treatment systems that operate at ambient conditions and achieve high-affinity capture with in situ defluorination.
Hydrogen-driven hydrodefluorination offers a direct reductive route under comparatively mild conditions (13). Palladium nanoparticles (Pd0NPs) activate H2 efficiently, transiently incorporate hydrogen into near-surface lattice sites, and can mediate sequential CโF bond cleavage along perfluoroalkyl chains. Hydrogen-based membrane catalyst-film reactors (H2-MCfRs) feature in situโdeposited metallic Pd0 nanoparticles, enabling direct gas-to-solid hydrogen transfer and demonstrating documented PFOA removal via hydrodefluorination (14). This success warrants studies to identify the underlying mechanisms by which Pd0NPs destroy PFAS with diverse structural features.
Here, we investigate six priority PFAS (PFOS, PFOA, PFBS, PFNA, PFHxS, GenX) using membrane-supported, in situ formed Pd0 nanoparticles that couple removal with reductive defluorination at ambient conditions. Using well-controlled batch systems, we resolve how perfluoroalkyl chain length and functional headgroup govern PFAS removal and CโF bond cleavage. By distinguishing between outer-surface-adsorbed H and in-lattice-adsorbed H, we identify mechanisms that relate H location with sequential hydrodefluorination. Calculations using density functional theory (DFT) explain experimentally observed adsorption hierarchies and defluorination trends by quantifying interfacial energetics. We also conduct a long-term continuous test for sustainable defluorination of a mixture of 6 PFAS for practical application. Together, the integrated experimental-plus-computational framework clarifies structureโreactivity relationships delineate design principles for hydrogen-based catalytic membranes aimed at minimizing secondary waste while advancing toward emerging ultra-low regulatory thresholds.
Fig. 1. Solid- state morphology of Pd0 nanoparticles (Pd0NP) on the fiber film. (A) XPS spectra revealing the valence states of Pd (B) STEM imaging showing the boundary of the Pd0NP. (C) Lattice fingers of Pd0NP. (D) XRD spectra of the planes of Pd crystals. (E) Diffraction patterns of Pd0NP. (F) Size distribution of Pd nanoparticles on the fiber film. (G) In situ XRD spectra in 3D plotting and contour map showing the Pd0NP on the fiber film when exposed to N2 and H2. (H) XANES spectra collected in situ under hydrogen, with different H2 delivery rates through the lumen.
It only now occurs to me, six years into my half century of life and of roaming around the Four Corners Country, that the predominant autumnal color of the high desert is yellow. At least this year, when wacky weather and an altered climate have shuffled the phenological calendar, that is the case. Chamisa blooming madly, wild sunflowers dancing by the roadside, once-dusty fields turned golden by hundreds of clusters of aรฑil del muerto โ indigo of the dead โ which I am told usually bloom after the monsoons in July and August.
And there, almost as if leaping from the deep cut banks of the Rio Puerto, the dazzling shock of quivering turned leaves of a cottonwood.
Stone, fencepost, and Huerfanito Peak in the San Juan Basin. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
I spend the night in a small BLM campground in the heart of the San Juan Basin gas field. The sites are nice, it has some of the most spectacular views of any campground, and itโs free โ subsidized by royalties from the gas wells that surround it. I used to have the place mostly to myself, but on this Thursday night it fills up. A couple of loners, like me, one guy in a converted school bus who probably lives here, at least until he gets rousted, a family, a German couple in a vanlife van (with German plates), who talk loudly enough that I can hear every word, and even understand a few. Theyโre headed down to Carlsbad next.
Near Angel Peak in the San Juan Basin. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
A big yellow dump truck blazes across the gravel campground road ahead of me, trailing a cloud of dust, as it hauls a load from one side of Envirotechโs land farm to the other. A land farm is where hydrocarbon-contaminated soils, like those that have been soaked by an oil or produced water spill, are taken to be reclaimed and plowed back into the land farmโs โfields.โ This one is special because Chacoโs Great North Road cuts right through the hydrocarbon-soaked fields. The owner of the facility apparently has some sensitivity and appreciation for archaeology and cultural sites, and left the โroadโ undisturbed, though it is abutted on both sides by the fields.
On this Friday morning the land farm is especially busy, my first indication that the oil and gas drilling boom in the Greater Chaco Region is back on, at least in a limited fashion. And given the number of trucks bringing in more crude-soaked soil, Iโm guessing the number of spills is increasing, too.
The activity is heaviest between Nageezi and Counselors, where the highway suddenly gets busier and a higher percentage of the traffic is made up of large white trucks, tankers, and frack-sand haulers. A drilling rig juts out from behind a piรฑon and juniper studded hill near Twin Pines. A big orange sign: SAND TRUCKS.
The renewed activity brings urgency to the fight to keep the Chaco Cultural Protection Zone intact. And yet, it offers no protection for the people who live in Nageezi, Lybrook, Counselors, Twin Pines, Ojo Encino โฆ
Outside Cuba, four hikers. Walking sticks, nice backpacks, incongruent. Then I remember the sign back at the store: Welcome Continental Divide Trail Hikers. It makes sense.
Handwritten sign along the road to Pueblo Pintado: No Dumping Trash or Dogs.
A hundred yards later a herd of goats in tight formation, brilliant white fur, shiny black fur, munching roadside chamisa.
Further on, an array of solar panels splayed out across the landscape, black and glimmering.
Building, Grants, New Mexico. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
The urban architecture of Grants and Milan, two central New Mexico towns separated only by a couple hundred yards of liminal space, seems haunted by ghosts.Not in the supernatural or the ghost town sort of way. No, these ghosts are more of an economic sort, ones that linger in the streetscapes and the townsโ strange layout.
Grants, especially, is imbued with the specter of Route 66, of the glorious time when people made their way slowly across the country in those big olโ American cars, stopping every couple hundred miles to eat dinner, have a few cocktails, stay the night, maybe even get dressed up and going dancing.
But thereโs also what came next: The three-decade-long uranium boom that was ignited when a Navajo man named Paddy Martinez found a chunk of uranium ore near his home out beyond Ambrosia Lake in 1953. Grantsโ population jumped from about 2,200 in 1950, to over 10,000 in 1960, to more than 11,000 in 1980, the boomโs peak. That growth is apparent in the architecture and the layout of the town, especially in where and how it sprawled away from the Route 66 thoroughfare and the interstate in a northeasterly direction. That probably made some sort of sense when it happened, as thatโs where there was room for the town to grow. But now it seems odd to have to drive out to the fringe, beyond the defunct carpet and furniture place, to go to the grocery store. The strip mall across the street seems especially out of place.
Of course, thereโs a much more consequential shadow from those times clouding the neighborhoods and residents of Grants and Milan, namely the toxic wraith of the uranium industry itself. Just outside Milan, 22 million tons of uranium mill tailings, remnants of Homestakeโs operations that were shuttered in 1990, sit in a mesa-like pile amid the sage and chamisa. The groundwater is indelibly contaminated and, 36 years later, cleanup continues. When I visited heavy machinery working the top of the pile kicked up huge clouds of dust. The work is potentially endless, and in recent years Homestake has turned to purchasing homes in contaminated areas to try to get out of cleanup requirements.
If youโre wondering why Homestake doesnโt just go belly up and whither away like so many other mining companies have done over the past 150 years, itโs because somewhere along the line, Barrick Gold โ a multinational firm with big mines in Nevada and elsewhere โ acquired Homestake, along with its liabilities.
Homestakeโs uranium tailings depository, which contains 22 million tons of toxic and radioactive materials. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Homestakeโs pile is just one of many toxic remnants of this areaโs uranium boom. The Grants Mining District includes some 85 abandoned and defunct once-producing uranium mines, including the giant and notorious Jackpile-Paguate, and four mill sites, which are now marked by tomblike tailings depositories.
One might think Homestakeโs long ordeal would serve as a warning to other firms looking to mine the Grants uranium belt: Best to just stay away. But no. High uranium prices and the promise of growing demand driven by a new generation of data center-powering reactors has sparked a slew of proposals for new mining projects around here. Laramide Resources is working on permitting for its La Jara Mesa underground mine on 156 mining claims, Energy Fuels Roca Honda underground mine is moving through Forest Service permitting process, and the Grants Energy in-situ extraction project is also progressing. All are being fast-tracked by the federal government.
Mt. Taylor and La Jara Mesa, where Laramide Resources is hoping to build a major uranium mine. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
The two conventional mines would sit on public lands on the lower slopes of Mt. Taylor, or Kโaweshtima in Acoma Puebloโs Keres language, a volcanic cone that juts up from the sandstone mesas on the southern end of the San Juan Basin. Its prominent position on the Four Corners Countryโs southern horizon has given it a significant role in Indigenous cosmologies. Some Chacoan structures are aligned with the peak and contain timbers from the mountainโs slopes, it remains sacred to Acoma, Laguna, and Zuni Pueblos, and is one of the Dinรฉโs four mountains that demarcate their homeland. The proposals will serve as a test of New Mexicoโs designation of Mt. Taylor as a traditional cultural property. The Grants Energy ISR project is in a sage- and chamise-strewn basin near the base of Mt. Taylor.
Grants Energy proposes to discharge up to 360,000 gallons of formation water per day into the ground here for aquifer testing related to its proposed in-situ uranium extraction project. The sight is a couple of miles west of San Mateo. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
If a triangle was drawn between the three projects, somewhere near the center would be the village of San Mateo, nestled against the lower basaltic slopes of Mt. Taylor. It was once known as the Uranium Capital of the World because of its proximity to so many mines, including the Mt. Taylor underground mine, which produced nearly 700,000 tons of uranium during its short life in the late 1980s, and for which Gulf Mineral Resources Corporation dewatered three aquifers to keep its thousands of feet of workings dry.
Other than the mine, which sits a half mile from the village, and any contamination or dry wells it may have left behind, the remnants of the uranium boom arenโt apparent in San Mateo, itself. The cluster of modest homes and gardens with a riot of pink cosmos and winter squash and dried out stalks of already harvested corn feel much like the northern New Mexico villages near Taos or in the Chama River Valley. Spanish colonial activity dates back to the late 1500s, though the San Mateo wasnโt settled until the mid-1800s. It houses a morada, or church for the Penitente Brotherhood.
Iโm sure there are plenty of people here who are rooting for the mines and their promises of hundreds of jobs and the sort of economic boost that brings more people and more strip malls, that fills up the restaurants, hotels, and bars, and awakens the dormant glory of days gone by. And who can blame them? But thereโs at least as many folks, the ones whose wells are contaminated or who are sick or lost a family member to cancer or kidney disease, who not only would like to see the mining companies go elsewhere, but who wish that the previous boom never had happened.
And then there are those who just want to move on into the future, who want Grants to thrive economically, but also as a community. I saw glimmers of this: The well-manicured parks and playgrounds lining Route 66, the busy farmerโs market in one of those parks on a Saturday morning, the hikers and bike packers stopping at local businesses that are helping to make Grants a stopping point along the Continental Divide Trail, and who are capitalizing on the communityโs proximity to Mt. Taylor and El Malpais and El Morro national monuments.
These are the ones who donโt want to be beholden to the old extractive boom bust cycle because they know that no matter how good it gets, always, always ends in abuse and then abandonment.
***
When I want to understand what life was like during the uranium boom in the Grants area, I donโt look to history books or old newspapers. Rather, I read the poetry of Simon Ortiz, of Acoma Pueblo, in the Grants Mining District. Ortiz worked in the mines and mills as a young man, and many of the poems in Fight Back: For the Sake of the People, For the Sake of the Land are inspired or derived from his time in the industry and the people he worked alongside, people from Acoma, Laguna, the Navajo Nation, or white folks from Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Colorado, or Montana, who had come to the area seeking jobs.
The poems are all insightful and give a visceral sense of the place and the time and what it was like to be an Indigenous person working in the uranium industry. Some pieces expose the ever present, underlying racism in the industry, while others indict the companiesโ greed for profit and disregard for the workers and the land. Every one is moving and enlightening in its own way, but โTo Change in a Good Way,โ a narrative poem centered on the friendship between Bill and Ida, an Oklahoma couple, and Pete and Mary, from Laguna Pueblo, is, to me, perhaps the most stirring and also illuminating of the bunch. I urge you to find it and read it, along with the other poems in that collection. All of these pieces can be found in Woven Stone, which is even available as an ebook.
Thereโs another piece of his, โIt Was That Indian,โ that manages to concisely capture the whole arc of the uranium boom in just a couple dozen lines. Iโve included it in its entirety here:
It Was That Indian by Simon Ortiz
Martinez from over by Bluewater was the one who discovered uranium west of Grants. That’s what they said. He brought that green stone into town one afternoon in 1953, said he found it by the railroad tracks over by Haystack Butte. tourist magazines did a couple spreads on him, photographed him in kodak color, and the Chamber of Commerce celebrated that Navajo man, forgot for the time being that the brothers from Aacqu east of Grants had killed that state patrolman, and never mind also that the city had a jail full of Indians. The city fathers named a city park after him and some even wanted to put up a statue of Martinez but others said that was going too far for just an Indian even if he was the one who started that area into a boom
Well, later on, when some folks began to complain about chemical poisons flowing into the streams from the processing mills, carwrecks on Highway 53, lack of housing in Grants, cave-ins at Section 33, non-union support, high cost of living, and uranium radiation causing cancer, theyโthe Chamber of Commerceโpointed out that it was Martinez that Navajo Indian from over by Bluewater who discovered uranium, it says so in this here brochure, he found that green stone over by Haystack out behind his hogan; it was that Indian who started that boom.
The San Juan structural basin is primarily in New Mexico in a corner of the Colorado Plateau. By US Geological Survey – Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the San Juan Basin Province of New Mexico and Colorado, 2002, USGS Fact Sheet FS-147-02, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5749904
La Junta is receiving $29.15 million that will go toward upgrading water infrastructure to filter out PFAS, or Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, in wastewater. These substances are known as “forever chemicals” due to their longevity in the environment. They come from anything ranging from firefighting foam to non-stick cookware. The investment will also help bring the town in line with new federal regulations, set to take effect in 2027. The award, distributed over three years, represents approximately two-thirds of the total federal funding the state received to distribute…Tom Seaba is the town’s director of water. He said part of what drove this level of investment is the contaminants that flow into La Junta from the bigger cities north of the town of 7,000.
โIf you kind of look at a map, La Junta really doesn’t have anything that would put PFAS into our waters, so we need to look further upstream,โ Seaba said.
The town sits along the Arkansas River, and almost all the water that flows downstream first goes through Colorado Springs or Pueblo, or both. The contaminants โslowly infiltrated into our groundwater sources,โ Seaba said. The utility pulls its water from shallow wells fed by the river. Seaba said the townโs water plant is able to remove contaminants, but the high concentration of contaminants overwhelms the wastewater system.
โWe have just been blending it with (treated wastewater) and discharging it into the river where it basically matches what the natural occurring levels are, but it’s higher than what permit regulations allow,โ Seaba said.
The utility is also upgrading its drinking water treatment infrastructure by adding extra filtration, but the residual byproduct from treatment will have more contaminants like PFAS. He said the town is focusing on building low-tech options like evaporative ponds.
Two wastewater spills totalling nearly 250,000 gallons occurred Tuesday [October 13, 2026] at Pueblo West Metropolitan Districtโs treatment facility. Both leaks happened during work by contractors to upgrade the districtโs ultra-violet disinfection system according to a written release. The bypass system failures involved wastewater at different levels of treatment and disinfection. Water quality testing is underway for Wild Horse Creek and Pest House Gulch, the two tributaries of the Arkansas River affected by the pair of accidental discharges.
During a meeting held by the Archuleta County Board of Health (BoH) on Sept. 17, the board heard from Water Quality Manager Jessica Green about potential changes to the countyโs regulations involving on-site wastewater treatment systems (OWTS). Green commented that the OWTS program โhas been pretty overwhelmingโ for staff since the beginning of the year…Green explained that the inspection ensures the condition of the system is evaluated at the point of a property title being transferred, โwhich prevents failing systems from being sold without disclosure of risk.โ
She also explained that it provides oversight with higher-risk properties through existing exemptions, adding that the state does not define what exemptions are possible and that the county can adjust those exemptions to meet its needs…Green โstronglyโ recommended that the BoH keep the transfer-of-title program, noting that there is a $115 permit cost associated with the program. She added that if the BoH chooses not to keep the program, there would be a risk that failing systems could be transferred to new property owners without knowing there is an issue.
High in the Colorado Rockies, Grand County lives up to its name. Each year, from elevations of up to 14,000 feet, the snowpack from this formidable range melts to form the headwaters of the Colorado River, whose basin supplies water to more than 40 million people in a thirsty American West.
In 2020, the East Troublesome fire tore through Grand County and Rocky Mountain National Park, scorching nearly 200,000 acres of wilderness and sending sediment cascading into the rivers and reservoirs below.
โIn terms of the loss and ferocity of this fire, you almost couldnโt believe what you were seeing,โ says Sean Henry, environmental planning manager for Northern Water, the local public agency that manages and delivers the resource.
โWe were already in extreme drought, and bark beetles had destroyed 70% of the trees in the years before.โ
New vegetation grows around the burn scar of the East Troublesome fire that torched 200,000 acres in Colorado in 2020. Photo credit: Walton Family Foundation
Without water and roots in the soil, the resulting sediment and ash slid right off the burn scar and into the water supply, causing โtremendous water quality problems.โ
At the same time, Henry says that the disaster kick-started momentum to find a lasting solution. โThere was a huge feeling of motivation. We knew it was time to get to work.โ
Sediment and ash from the East Troublesome fire that washed downstream caused severe water quality problems. Photo credit: Walton Family Foundation
When it comes to regulating water flow, beavers are naturals. Their once-prolific North American population created more than 300,000 square miles of wetland in the United States.
A range of groups including Grand County, Middle Park Conservation District, National Forest Foundation, Northern Water, Three Lakes Watershed Association, The River District, Trout Unlimited and the U.S. Forest Service are supporting strategies to restore the landscape.
Sean Henry is environmental planning department manager with Northern Water, a public agency helping restore the landscape damaged by the East Troublesome fire. Photo credit: Walton Family Foundation
The work includes installing natural structures called Beaver Dam Analogs, Simulated Beaver Structures and Post-Assisted Log Structures within the burn scar. The installations weave wood and soil together to mimic the ecological role of natural beaver dams by slowing down moving water and rehydrating the landscape.
Adde Sharp is a watershed program specialist for the National Forest Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the U.S. Forest Service. She says these low-tech structures actโas a speed bump to the water.โ
โWhen you slow down the flow of water, two things happen,โ Sharp says. โOne, all of the sediment that the water is carrying is dropped onto the structure, slowly accreting in these deep channels. Once that happens, the water is able to access the floodplain and spread out more and more, nourishing the plant and animal communities around it.โ
Adde Sharp is a watershed program specialist at National Forest Foundation. She says low-tech structures that mimic beaver dams help restore water quality by slowing down flows and filtering damaging sediment.
Paired with forest management approaches such as targeted thinning, these efforts are restoring natureโs ability to protect itself from extreme weather, all while providing clearer, sediment-free water for users downstream.
In just a few seasons of work, thousands of tons of sediment from fire runoff is already piling up against the new structures, raising the stream beds in some places by two or three feet. โItโs happening faster than we thought,โ says Henry.
In just a few seasons of work, thousands of tons of sediment from fire runoff is already piling up against the new structures, raising the stream beds in some places by two or three feet. โItโs happening faster than we thought,โ says Henry. Photo credit: Walton Family Foundation
Paired with forest management approaches such as targeted thinning, these efforts are restoring natureโs ability to protect itself from extreme weather, all while providing clearer, sediment-free water for users downstream.
For Sharp, the work is proof that with a little nudge in the right direction, itโs possible to reverse course on even the most devastating natural disasters.
โI was driving recently, and there are already small trees coming up in the burn scar. The aspen are beginning to change color, like a little pot of gold in the black landscape.โ
In the wake of Colorado’s East Troublesome fire, restoration work included the construction of beaver dam analogs, manmade structures that slow down and purify on streams and rivers. Photo credit: Walton Family Foundation
These same strategies are being used in nearby Kawuneeche Valleyโnot to recover from fire, but to protect against it. Beavers used to thrive in the Kawuneeche Valley, with scattered ponds hydrating the land.
But decades of human impacts and overgrazing by moose and elk depleted the tall willows beavers use both for food and to build their dams. As a result, crucial habitat was lost, beaver populations plummeted, and the land dried up and eroded. This left behind a vastly altered, less resilient landscape.
Restoration work has helped speed up post-fire recovery efforts. “There are already small trees coming up in the burn scar,” says Adde Sharp. “The aspen are beginning to change color, like a little pot of gold in the black landscape.โ Photo credit: Walton Family Foundation
The Kawuneeche Valley Restoration Collaborative was formed as a partnership between Colorado State University, Grand County, National Park ServiceโRocky Mountain National Park, The Nature Conservancy, Northern Water, Rocky Mountain Conservancy, the town of Grand Lake and the U.S. Forest Service. The group is working to restore the valleyโs natural system to improve water quality, support wildlife and recreational opportunities, and make the area more resistant to future wildfires.
The collaborative hopes that the work will also entice more beavers to return to the valley and maintain the new structures, allowing nature to take the lead.
American beaver, he was happily sitting back and munching on something. and munching, and munching. By Steve from washington, dc, usa – American Beaver, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3963858
Social media is one of the few communication platforms left that allows us to publish true, unfiltered scientific data regarding the success of refining industrial byproduct waterโmore commonly known as produced water.
Lately, we are seeing more positive coverage from both local and major media outlets. But unfortunately, there is always a “but.”
We cannot eliminate the critics, but we can change the narrative.
For too long, the industry’s response to passion-driven, negative articlesโsprinkled with photos of salt on the ground, contaminated streams, or leaking orphan wellsโhas been to publish another defensive white paper.
It is not moving the needle fast enough.
While political adversaries battle, and NGOs clash with corporate interests, regulatory permits sit delayed. Meanwhile, our biggest collective challenge is being ignored: Stewardship.
We need a bridge, not another debate.
There are currently two US-issued patents that provide a proven, patented process from acquisition to destination for putting industrial byproduct water to beneficial use.
It faces resistance from both sides:
NGOs often push back because this patent provides a viable, structured pathway that actually supports energy production through strict guardrails.
Some in the energy industry hesitate due to licensing agreements or fees.
But letโs remember: innovation and entrepreneurship are what made America what it is today. It isn’t for the faint of heart. Maybe we weren’t missing the desire to do what’s rightโmaybe we were just missing the link to bring us together.
I often think of Keith Stelterโs passion to clean the roads (now the Stelter Initiative). Letโs put our call to Stewardship 1st . Let’s define Fit For Purpose 2100, and as I was recently challenged to add: Fit for YOUR Purpose. You now have a new tool in the toolbox besides a white paper. You have a proven process.
What do you have to lose by trying it? #Fit For Purpose 2100
This study is an update to a 2012 Report that explores the relationship between water and economic activity in a portion of western Colorado where the interaction of precipitation, elevation, and location produces water for the Headwaters Region, much of Colorado, and the Western United States.
The Headwaters Region encompasses the headwaters of the Colorado River and its tributaries. The Headwaters Counties consist of Eagle, Grand, Gunnison, Pitkin, Routt, and Summit County, depicted in Figure 1-1, on the next page. The water in the Headwaters Counties plays a special, dual role in meeting the needs of residents, businesses, and visitors while at the same time, meeting legal obligations for providing water to 40 million people in Colorado and the western U.S.
The study rests in the fact that water resources emanating from the Headwaters Counties are neither consistent nor unlimited, subject to considerable future uncertainty. Besides year-to-year weather variations, longer term climate changes are evident, and climate scientists expect these trends in climate change to continue. Regardless, economic activity in the Headwaters Counties is not standing still; leaders there seek prosperity, looking to further develop economic activity in their counties, the same as all counties around the State. At the same time, water providers on the Front Range in Colorado are seeking increased water supplies, identifying transmountain diversions (TMDs) from the Headwaters Counties as a potential source.
Couple this with the uncertainty related to interstate Colorado River allocations under the Colorado River Compact, and it is clear the Headwaters Counties should be worried about water scarcity. In short, all these forces bear down upon the increasingly less predictable but indispensable water supplies originating in the Headwaters Counties.
Representing the Headwaters Counties, the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG) through its Water Quality/Quantity Committee (QQ) sought a current understanding of the relationship of the local economies to the evolving availability of surface waters. NWCCOG retained Harvey Economics (HE) to prepare this study.
By the time Tanya Bachman noticed something was wrong with her border collie, Jax, it was too late.
She and her family had taken their boat and two dogs out on the Columbia River near Portland, Oregon, in August 2024 to celebrate her birthday, a summer ritual as important to them as fireworks on the Fourth of July. That afternoon, Bachman let the dogs loose on an island beach to play. When Jax returned, his tail drooped.
As Bachman tried to attach Jaxโs leash, he vomited, began convulsing and then lost consciousness. Bachman screamed for her husband, and the couple raced the dog to a veterinarian. It was no use; less than an hour after Bachman noticed Jaxโs droopy tail, he was dead.
โIt was just so shocking,โ she said.
The veterinarian told them that Jax had likely ingested a toxic, algae-like microorganism called cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, from a benthic bloom, a phenomenon scientists began documenting in the West about five years ago. Benthic blooms, which resemble globs of snot, form on stream bottoms or submerged logs or rocks, sometimes breaking free and rising to the surface. They are less familiar to Westerners than planktonic blooms, which form on the surface of lakes and reservoirs and look more like floating grass clippings or spilled green paint.
The cyanobacteria that cause planktonic and benthic blooms have existed in Earthโs waters for billions of years. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fertilizers or air pollution can cause them to proliferate. Research suggests that climate change is also contributing to more frequent and widespread blooms as warmer water stagnates during hot, dry years like this one, said Hannah Bonner, a professor and water scientist at Brigham Young University who studies benthic cyanobacteria.
Itโs a cruel twist: As the West warms, once-inviting cool-water refuges may become a threat not just to pets, but to people and wildlife.
Cyanobacteria in both benthic and planktonic blooms can secrete toxic chemicals that irritate human skin, or, if consumed, cause nausea or even liver damage. The same toxins can kill any pets, livestock and wildlife that drink the contaminated water or lick their wet fur. No backpacking waterโfiltration systems can removecyanobacteria toxins.
Most Western states only began tracking planktonic blooms โ which are easier to spot and monitor than benthic blooms โ in response to health concerns in Eastern waters. In 2014, toxic cyanobacteria blooms in Lake Erie shut down Toledo, Ohioโs drinking water system. Wyoming began monitoring blooms in 2018, first with satellite imagery and then, starting in 2021, with on-the-ground water sampling. Utah ramped up monitoring in 2016. California and Oregonโs programs, which are among the oldest in the West, started about 20 years ago.
Benthic Cyanobacteria. Photo credit: USGS
Results from those and other programs suggest that planktonic blooms are popping up earlier in the season in more lakes and reservoirs and are lasting longer into the fall. Some experts believe the reported increases could be the result of more monitoring. But a nationwide Environmental Protection Agency study published in 2021 found that increased nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus are combining with the warming and drying effects of climate change to create more and longer-lasting blooms.
โWeโre affecting so much of the land surface and creating disturbances and introducing nutrients,โ said Theodore Dreher, a microbiology professor emeritus at Oregon State University. Unlike climate change, where one continentโs emissions can affect the climate of another, nutrient pollutionโs sources are often localized and can be more easily regulated. Utah, for example, has implemented regulations requiring improvements at places like wastewater treatment plants. Itโs also created voluntary incentives for treating agricultural runoff and restoring floodplains. The combination has helped stem nutrient flow into Utah Lake, near Provo, where blooms were once so bad that people sold T-shirts with the slogan โSki the Scum.โ
In order to address the causes effectively, however, officials need to collect water quality data, not just monitor for blooms. Unfortunately, not enough are doing so, said Justin Hayes, Northern Rockies conservation director with American Rivers. โStates need to take this really seriously and start trying to solve it rather than just warning people.โ
Researchers are also still struggling to understand why recent blooms are turning up in unusual places. Planktonic blooms in high-elevation lakes far from septic systems and feedlots are becoming more common, possibly because of runoff from melting glaciers or atmospheric deposition of nitrogen and phosphorus from dust and air pollution, Bonner said. And benthic blooms may become more common as snowpack declines and produces less snowmelt. At the same time, parts of the West are seeing fewer monsoon rainstorms that can flush algal mats away.
โI was just in the mountains last weekend, in a pristine creek, and they were everywhere,โ she said.
Bonner doesnโt think people should stay home to avoid blooms, but said they do need to know what to look for. A benthic bloom โis like a big ball of snot,โ she said. โFind a stick, poke it, lift it up, and if you see hairlike strands or fibers, most of the time itโs not cyanobacteria or toxic. If it is a boogery consistency, it likely is.โ
Meanwhile, more states are installing signs, sending email alerts, and posting public-health advisories that warn recreationists about toxic blooms.
And Bachman keeps talking to local and regional media, hoping Jaxโs death will save someone elseโs pet. โEverything upstream flows downstream,โ Bachman said. โJust because you have a patch of it upstream doesnโt mean it wonโt move down to you.โ
Reporting for this story was supported by the Mighty Arrow Family Foundation.
Several of the latest claims located within the pre-shrinkage Bears Ears National Monument are on the north side of the Tables of the Sun, seen here in the background on the right. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
The mining claim game continues to heat up in the areas Trump illegally slashed from Bears Ears National Monument, and the top player is, once again, Kimmerle Mining of Moab. Since the Land Desklast wrote about this mini-land rush, Kimmerle has filed seven additional claims areas that had been within the national monument, and therefore off limits to new mining claims.
The latest claims are in the White Canyon area. During the post-War uranium frenzy, the federal government, county crews, prospectors, and mining companies webbed this area with roads, poked it full of prospect holes and mine adits, and contaminated waters with radioactive materials. Part of that legacy includes a 26,000-ton pile of uranium tailings entombed within the waters silt of Lake Powell.
Itโs important to keep in mind that the presence of active mining claims does not necessarily mean anyone is going to mine or even explore these pieces of land. And while the claims may be active, which simply means the claimant is up to date on their $200/year location and maintenance fee, they may not be valid. That requires, at least theoretically, proof that the claim contains valuable minerals.
But it does appear as if Kimmerle is targeting viable mining areas, which indicate that the firm either intends to mine the claims, or consolidate enough of them to sell them to a larger company. The newly revealed claims are located in two clusters on either side of Natural Bridges National Monument.
The notices of location have been declared with the San Juan County Recorder, but have not yet shown up on the Bureau of Land Management database. Just before publishing this, I checked the San Juan County records search and found that an entity called Land Survey Advisers โ which typically stakes claims for other firms or individuals โ filed location notices on more than three dozen claims in San Juan County. At least some of those claims appear to be within the pre-shrinkage BENM boundaries, but the location description on many of them included sections that donโt exist (43, 47) in the public land survey system, and the document download function isnโt working for me, so I have yet to confirm any of this. Still, itโs potentially alarming.
Map showing the approximate location of the claims filed by Kimmerle Mining in Sept. 2026. It also shows pre-existing active claims (in pink) that were staked before Bears Earsโ 2016 establishment, or following the Trump I-shrinkage. Map: BLM and Land Desk.
The Kimmerle claims include:
Six lode claims (each at 20.66 acres) on the north slope of the Tables of the Sun formations in the upper Fry Canyon drainage, just on the boundary line of the original Bears Ears National Monument. While this specific area has seen little mining activity in the past, it is in the same vicinity as the Daneros Mine, which was up for expansion as recently as 2016. And the new claims are adjacent to Kimmerleโs Lucky group of claims.ย The nearest historic mining activity was at theย Fry # 4 mine1, an underground uranium mine with over 400 meters of workings. In 1977, the operator was Utah Power & Light Co., which was the main mining company of the area at the time.
One lode claim on the east slope of Upper Lost Parks, an appendage of Elk Ridge just north of Natural Bridges National Monument and south of the Woodenshoe formation. Itโs across Deer Creek Canyon from Kimmerleโs Geitus and Cedar claims, which the firm staked just before President Barack Obama designated Bears Ears, and right after President Donald Trump shrunk the monument for the first time. Itโs also in the vicinity of the Sandy claims that Kimmerle held, but that [those?] were closed in 2015. The area was mined and prospected heavily during the Cold War. The nearest historical mines and prospects were the Big Red, the Sandy, and the Hideout. In 1977, the Big Red โ operated by Utah Power & Light โ was reported to have a flooded, a caved, and an open adit. While the Hideout sparked a 1950s prospecting boom in the area, none of these were ever large producers. However, a 1965 USGS report did indicate this part of Elk Ridge was favorable for uranium deposits, which is likely one reason the Trump administration stripped it of national monument protections.
The White Canyon area was known to contain rich uranium reserves back in the 1940s and 1950s, but its remoteness and the rugged landscape created challenges for mining companies looking to exploit the resources. One of the biggest hurdles was getting the ore to the Monticello processing plant, which required driving gnarly roads across the crinkled landscape and up and over Elk Ridge.
So in 1949, the Vanadium Corporation of America built a small mill at theย confluenceof White Canyon and the Colorado River, primarily to process uranium ore from the nearby Happy Jack Mine, located upstream in the White Canyon drainage (and just within the original Bears Ears National Monument boundaries). For the next four years, the mill went through about 20 tons of ore per day, crushing and grinding it up, then treating it with sulfuric acid, tributyl phosphate, and other nastiness. One ton of ore yielded about five or six pounds of uranium, meaning that each day some 39,900 pounds of tailings were piled up outside the mill on the banks of the river.
In 1953 the mill was closed, and the tailings were left where they sat, uncovered, as was the practice of the day. Ten years later, water began backing up behind the newly built Glen Canyon Dam; federal officials decided to let the reservoirโs waters inundate the tailings. There they remain today, though at current lake levels they are probably buried by and mixed in with the Dominy Formation of silt, rather than covered with water.
Satellite image showing the location of the White Canyon Mill and its silt-entombed tailings pile.
During the uranium days of the West, more than a dozen mills โ all with processing capacities at least ten times larger than the one at White Canyon โ sat on the banks of the Colorado River and its tributaries. Mill locations included: Shiprock, Mexican Hat, Monument Valley, Tuba City, Monticello, Rifle, Grand Junction, Moab, Uravan, Green River, and Naturita. There was even an ore upgrading mill at Fry Canyon, followed by a copper heap leaching operation. Groundwater contamination continues to today, and was partially responsible for the Fry Canyon Lodgeโs demise.
At the Durango mill the tailings were piled into a hill-sized mound just a stoneโs throw from the Animas River. They werenโt covered or otherwise contained, so when it rained tailings simply washed into the river. Worse, the millโs liquid waste stream poured directly into the river at a rate of some 340 gallons per minute, or half-a-million gallons per day. It was laced not only with highly toxic chemicals used to leach uranium from the ore and iron-aluminum sludge (a milling byproduct), but also radium-tainted ore solids.
Radium is a highly radioactive โbone-seeker.โ That means that when itโs ingested it makes its way to the skeleton, where it decays into other radioactive daughter elements, including radon, and bombards the surrounding tissue with alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. According to the Toxic Substances and Diseases Registry, exposure leads to โanemia, cataracts, fractured teeth, cancer (especially bone cancer), and death.โ
It wasnโt any better at any of the other mills. In the early 1950s, researchers from the U.S. Public Health Service sampled Western rivers and found that โthe dissolved radium content of river water below uranium mills was increased considerably by waste discharges from the milling operationsโ and that โradium content of river muds below the uranium mills was 1,000 to 2,000 times natural background concentrations.โ
That was just from daily operations. In 1960, one of the evaporation ponds at the Shiprock mill broke, sending at least 250,000 gallons of highly acidic raffinate, containing high levels of radium and thorium, into the river. None of the relevant officials were notified and individual users continued to drink the water, put it on their crops, and give it to their sheep and cattle. It wasnโt until five days later, after hundreds of dead fish had washed up on the riverโs shores for 60 miles downstream, that the public was alerted to the disaster.
Of course, whatโs dumped into the river at any of these places doesnโt stay there, but makes its way downstream. In the early 1960s, while Glen Canyon Dam was still being constructed, the Public Health Service folks did extensive sediment sampling in the Colorado River Basin, with a special focus on Lake Meadโs growing bed of silt, which had been piling up at a rate of 175 million tons per year after Hoover Dam started impounding water in 1935. The Lake Mead samples had higher-than-background levels of radium-226. The report concludes:
And so, the billions of tons of silt that has accumulated in Lake Mead and Lake Powell serve as archives of sorts. They hold the sedimental records of an era during which people, health, land, and water were all sacrificed in order to obtain the raw material for weapons that are capable of destroying all of humanity. If the new mining claim mini-rush is any indication, some more records may be added to the archive before long.
๐ธ PARTING SHOT ๐๏ธ
Thereโs snow in them thar hills!
Thereโs snow on the peaks just as the aspens are peaking around Silverton, Colorado. Sept. 23, 2026. Andy Gleason photo.
1 This also appears on some maps and documents as Frey #4. In fact, many of the โFryโs in the Fry Canyon area show up as โFreyโ on older maps (while some still say โFry.โ). Oh my oh my I donโt know why itโs Frey or Fry.
The Trump administrationโs Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to further constrain the reach and potency of the Clean Water Act by re-defining what qualifies as โwaters of the United States,โ or WOTUS, which are streams, wetlands, and other water bodies under federal jurisdiction. The proposed definition would disproportionately affect the arid West by lifting protections from thousands of miles of streams, arroyos, and wetlands.
Under the CWA, a firm or individual looking to discharge pollutants or other material into, or dredge or reroute or otherwise alter, a WOTUS waterway must obtain a federal permit from the EPA or Army Corps of Engineers. A battle has raged for more than five decades over what constitutes a WOTUS. The Supreme Courtโs 2023 Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency ruling called for a narrower definition, handing industry and right-wing ideologues a major victory.
Ephemeral streams are streams that do not always flow. They are above the groundwater reservoir and appear after precipitation in the area. Via Socratic.org
The changes in the latest proposed supplemental rule are even more exclusionary than the administrationโs November 2025 proposal, which removed โephemeralโ and โintermittentโ waterways โ i.e. arroyos or washes that run only after rains or snowmelt โ from federal jurisdiction. Included as a WOTUS under that proposal were โrelatively permanent โฆ bodies of surface water that are standing or continuously flowing year-round or at least during the wet season.โ
The new proposal omits the โwet seasonโ verbiage. It then defines โrelatively permanentโ to be synonymous with โperennial,โ which in turn is defined as โโhaving standing or continuously flowing water every day of the year during ordinary conditions.โโ However, โa body of water does not lose its relatively permanent status if it dries up as a result of anomalous events such as drought or dry spell.1 A body of water also does not lose its relatively permanent status if it dries up for no more than a single period of up to 30 consecutive days in any given year as a result of non-anomalous events resulting in a temporary interruption such as low tide or a regularly occurring dry spell.โ Yet, โif flow is interrupted for two periods in any given year, and each period consists of 10 consecutive days of no flow, the water body would not be jurisdictional.โ
A Natural Resources Defense Council analysis found that the new proposal would remove protections from more than 94% of the nationโs wetlands and about 79% of its streams. The changes would hit the West hardest, leaving a state like Arizona with almost no federally protected streams or wetlands.
So hereโs my interpretation of where the updated proposal leaves us:
WOTUS waterways (keeps CWA protections): A year-round river, stream, or lake that never dries up, such as the Animas River, the San Juan River, the Colorado River, the Gunnison River, Cement Creek, Mineral Creek, the Fremont River, and so on, would retain federal protections under the CWA. However, since most of these rivers are fed by intermittent or ephemeral streams, they would also be potentially affected (since is someone altered or polluted a tributary, the effects would eventually reach the mainstem).
Non-WOTUS waterways (would lose CWA protections): All intermittent and ephemeral streams, i.e. arroyos or washes that run only when it rains, such as are ubiquitous in the arid West, would be removed from federal jurisdiction. Other streams and rivers that run seasonally, but regularly dry up for more than 30 consecutive days per year, such as the Paria River, the Dirty Devil, Rio Puerco, Santa Cruz River, or the Mancos River, would also lose federal protections, as would wetlands that are only โwetโ for part of the year.
Vague WOTUS status: Rivers or streams that are perennial as a whole, but on which certain segments dry up for more than 30 days per year (usually because of upstream diversions), e.g.: the Rio Grande through Albuquerque, long sections of the Lower Dolores River between McPhee Dam and its confluence with the San Miguel, the North Fork of the Gunnison around Paonia, lower reaches of the La Plata River, or Junction Creek through Durango, and numerous desert rivers in Arizona and New Mexico.
While the proposed rule would remove federal CWA protections from many waterways, it would not automatically give developers or industry free rein to bulldoze or dump toxic waste into them. State and local laws would still apply, and arroyos and streams on public land would still be protected to some degree by federal environmental laws. Colorado lawmakers passed a bill in 2024 that effectively backfilled the regulatory gap left by the Sackett decision. New Mexico also has moved to implement its own layer of water protections. In more industry-friendly states such as Idaho and Utah, the proposed rule would leave thousands of miles of streams and waterways vulnerable to development and pollution.
The proposed rule is open to public comments until Oct. 9. You may send comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPAโHQโ OWโ2025โ0322, by any of the following methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov/. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
Email: OW-Docket@epa.gov. Include Docket ID No. EPAโHQโOWโ 2025โ0322 in the subject line of the message. โข
Mail: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket Center, Water Docket, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460.
Hand Delivery or Courier: EPA Docket Center, WJC West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004.
For more background on the long and winding struggle to define WOTUS, check out the following:
My February 2022 High Country News piece on the Supreme Court taking up the Sackett Case, including a detailed timeline of the WOTUS definition battle.
And, from the Land Desk archives (youโll need a paid subscription for access):
A new paper is out from the group of Colorado River experts known by some as the โTraveling Wilburys of the Colorado River Basin,โ2 and lo and behold, it actually contains some good news. Namely this: The Lower Basin users have managed to make significant reductions in water use over the last decade and a half without turning the Southwest into a dust-choked wasteland and getting ahead of the latest round of mandated cuts. This indicates that the users can continue to slash water use in the future โ to a degree โ if necessary.
The Lower Basin accounts for about 60% of all consumptive water uses and losses on the Colorado River. Irrigated agriculture, in turn, makes up about 60% of the Lower Basinโs consumptive use. The Imperial Irrigation District, which is primarily agricultural, is the largest single water user on the entire river. This means that the agricultural sector โ and the IID in particular โ โwill play a significant role in future reductions in water use,โ as the authors put it.
So far, the Lower Basinโs farmers and the IID have stepped up. In 2025, the Lower Basin statesโ consumptive use was 5.76 million acre-feet, the lowest since at least 2010. Since 2023, California has used about 13% less water, a reduction attributable mostly to cuts at IID.
Source: The Colorado River Water Supply Crisis in a Few Graphs: Part 2 Agricultural Water Use in the Lower Basin.
Figure 3. Consumptive use in Arizona since 2010. Estimated use in 2026 based on forecast of September 1, 2026.
Notably, IIDโs reductions came mostly during the summer months, the peak season for field crops such as alfalfa, Bermuda grass, and kleingrass, when itโs too hot to grow most garden crops, such as lettuce, onions, and broccoli. During the vegetablesโ growing season, from November through March, water use stayed roughly the same as before. A similar, but less dramatic, dynamic shows up in Arizona.
Figure 6. Box-and-whisker plots of total monthly consumptive use by the IID between 2010 and 2026. Each box is the Inter Quartile Range, defined by the 25th and 75th percentile of the years of data for that month. These boxes represent the typical monthly use pattern since 2010. Red dots are the average use in each month between 2024 and 2026. See text for additional explanation of a box-and-whisker plot.
This suggests a couple of things: 1. The Imperial Irrigation District and other large agricultural users may be able to significantly lower overall water use without harming important garden crops such as broccoli and carrots (easing fears that the Colorado River crisis will deprive us of vegetables); and, 2. The IID is successfully using its vast alfalfa crop as a giant water demand-response tool3. That is, through both fallowing some fields and putting others on a summer water diet, the districtโs farmers have managed to slash water use, while still growing gobs of hay and alfalfa.
And because the IID still has about 150,000 acres of alfalfa, it has huge potential for future water cuts through these same methods, which is the good news. The bad news is that the federal plan for operating the river contemplates Lower Basin cuts of up to 3 million acre-feet per year (resulting in a total annual consumption of 4.5 MAF), which is about twice what the Basin has already achieved.
To consider the viability of such cuts, the authors summed up the smallest monthly use in each Lower Basin state since 2010, even though they didnโt occur simultaneously, and even though in some cases the reductions were due to heavy precipitation, not conservation efforts. The result was 5.03 MAF, still 530,000 acre-feet over the potential target. In other words, getting to 4.5 MAF/year is likely to be much more painful than accomplishing the reductions so far.
Yet some pain is likely to be necessary unless the Westโs warming climate does a rapid about-face, and soon.
๐ธ PARTING SHOT ๐๏ธ
Horse, Torrey, Utah. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
1 * The proposed rule says โonly extreme (D3) and exceptional (D4) droughts would qualify as anomalous drought conditions that can temporarily interrupt perennial flow, and can extend continuously across no more than a five-year timeframe.โ
2 This is an appropriate monicker, coined by longtime Colorado journalist Allen Best, and is great for those of us in Generation X or older. But I worry that it might not mean much to anyone under the age of, say, 40? So if you have any more contemporary suggestions for a group of superstar water wonks, aka, Jack Schmidt, Anne Castle, Eric Kuhn, Kathryn Sorensen, and Katherine Tara, Iโd love to hear them!
3 Demand response is a term typically used in relation to electricity use. Itโs when large power users, or a collection of smaller users, are paid to reduce electricity consumption during times of high demand to ease grid strain. So, for example, during a heat wave, when everyoneโs air conditioners are running full blast, the utility or grid operator would signal a factory, say, or a data center, or even a host of smart thermostats, to scale back their operations or dial down the AC during the hottest time of the day when solar generation might be dropping off. The targeted drop in consumption has the same effect as increasing power generation would, keeping supply and demand in balance.
Since Jonathan wonders if anyone under 40 will get the reference to the Traveling Wilburys, here you go:
Colorado ranchers who own some of the stateโs most scenic landscapes are joining new research efforts to better understand emerging water quality issues in the Yampa and Gunnison basins, among others.
Pressured by rising stream temperatures and shrinking flows due to climate change, rivers and lakes across the state are showing signs of distress, including algae blooms, some of which are toxic.
At the same time, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Colorado State University are analyzing water quality and testing how voluntary best management practices, rather than strict regulations, can protect these hallmark water bodies.
Philip Rossi grows hay and runs a cattle operation in the Upper Yampa River Basin above Stagecoach Reservoir. He is among the first ranchers to agree to allow scientists to monitor the water quality, and soon the temperature, of the irrigation water that runs off from his hay meadows.
So far the news has been good, Rossi said. Little if any of the fertilizer he applies to his hay reaches the stream and in the years heโs been working with the CSU researchers, the use of nonfertilized grass strips along the creek that runs through his property has reduced that number even further.
โWhat I learned is that I wasnโt wasting money. The fertilizer I was putting on was being used, and just as important I wasnโt affecting the stream.โ
With results from the first three-year study officially out, another even broader effort involving more ranches is underway. It will add the monitoring of stream temperatures to the analysis.
Erik Wardle, director of Colorado State Universityโs Agricultural Water Quality Program, said there was little water quality data available in remote regions such as the Yampa Basin. โWe wanted some real world data on whatโs happening on our ranches and our cow-calf operations.โ
As word of the research has spread, more ranchers have come forward to participate, despite skepticism and worry about government efforts to monitor what theyโre doing. โEarly on I was doing a lot of cold calling, asking ranchers to participate. And a lot of them said, โAre you crazy?โ But now I would say 85% of what weโre doing is being driven by these producers. These ranchers have put themselves out there,โ Wardle said.
Even in these pristine areas of Colorado, no one expects water quality worries to subside in the warmer future. In response, water agencies in the area are looking for ways to change the way they operate to help streams.
โWater quality on the West Slope has always been assumed to be great,โ said Andy Rossi, general manager of the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District, which owns Stagecoach Reservoir. He is not related to Philip Rossi, the rancher.
โHere we are in snowpack-dominated basins with pristine wilderness areas driving our water supply. But 10 years ago we started seeing changes, like toxic algae blooms in Stagecoach Reservoir and Steamboat Lake.โ
Since then, the water district has shifted into high gear to understand whatโs happening and why, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a water quality modeling and monitoring program.
Nothing that has been uncovered yet has exceeded a state standard, Rossi said, โyet we still have potentially toxic algae blooms. The assumption has always been that ag is the source of our troubles. But we felt it was unfair to jump to that conclusion without doing the strict science to figure it out.โ
Can best practices be shared between ranches?
With early research results in hand, Tyson Ingels, a veteran water quality regulator at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said the state hopes to avoid a strict regulatory approach for these remote high country lakes and streams, relying on voluntary efforts instead.
โThis is a very positive study,โ he said. โFor mountain hay we didnโt have the best data on how best management practices could impact nutrient levels. This was an area that needed to be better understood.โ
Looking ahead, Ingels said the state wants to take a measured approach to these regional water quality issues. That the best management practices that are being used on the Rossi Ranch and elsewhere are working well indicates that water quality goals can likely be achieved without a heavy-handed regulatory effort.
Philip Rossi said heโs feeling optimistic, in part because of all the scientific groundwork that is being laid, as well as the early encouraging results of the studies.
He believes that the temperature studies of the water that is returning to the streams, will also show minimal impact.
The rationale, he said, is that water used to flood irrigate fields seeps into the groundwater, flowing to the stream later, when it has cooled down. This was the belief held by his father and grandfather, and Rossi believes the new studies will uphold those beliefs. โThe researchers are going to find out the things that my dad told me and that my grandpa used to sayโ are true, he said.
Click the link to read the article on the 9News website (Alexander Kirk). Here’s an excerpt:
September 1, 2026
Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) said the sewage has been moving downstream in the Arkansas River and was expected to reach John Martin Reservoir near Las Animas beginning Monday. The City of Pueblo Wastewater Department said that state and city stormwater officials were notified of the discharge issue early Thursday morning, and said the discharge was halted by approximately 11:45 a.m. According to the wastewater department, a pipe inside of the stormwater pipe had a hole cut in the top many years ago. That hole was patched with concrete, and over time the concrete slipped from the hole. The pressure of the sanitary sewer pipe to keep the bypass pumps running caused untreated wastewater to come out of the hole and flow into the stormwater pipe, which flows into the Arkansas River.
Arkansas River Basin — Graphic via the Colorado Geological Survey
Kim Lennberg from Alba Watershed Consulting, Luke Kimmes from Colorado Mountain College, and John Kemper from Utah State University, collect data on the Elk River in 2025. Photo credit: Friends of the Yampa
Here’s the release from Friends of the Yampa:
July 29, 2026
Results for the 2025 Yampa River Scorecard Project focusing on the Elk River Segment are now available. This segment stretches for about 32 miles from the confluence with the South Fork Elk River to the confluence with the Yampa River. The main stem of the Elk flows through a mixture of private property and the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, past Glen Eden and Clark, and through a variety of large working ranches and small private developments. It also passes through the Christina State Wildlife Area, a Colorado Parks & Wildlife fishing easement, before reaching the main stem of the Yampa River east of Milner.
A complex combination of parameters is measured and considered when determining the score for any of the project segments. These parameters include flow and sediment regimes, water quality, habitat and riverscape connectivity, riparian conditions, river form, micro and macro habitat considerations, and the biotic community.
The overall score for the Ecological Health and Function of this segment was a โB.โ This represents an overall healthy river. Findings show that this segment should continue to be protected as an example of a well-functioning system that supports both a healthy and productive human community and a relatively natural ecosystem.
Key findings:
Channel morphology largely intact
Limited invasive plant species present
Water quality generally excellent
Some periodic exceedances of temperature thresholds downstream
Bank armoring is the main detrimental factor that negatively influences organismsโ ability to move between aquatic habitat and riparian habitats
Native fish data is sparse and there is widespread and unregulated stocking of non-native fish species
The overall score of โBโ refers to the Ecological Health and Function of the Elk River.ย ย Other attributes scored included People and Community Benefits and River Uses and Management. Photo credit: Friends of the Yampa
Why Do a River Health Assessment?
The Yampa River Scorecard Project is the implementation of a goal set forth in the Yampa White Green Basin Roundtable โIntegrated Water Management Plan.โ It is an ongoing river health assessment that will eventually provide data on the health of the Yampa River in its entirety. The goals for this project are to:
1) Provide a source of ongoing data collection related to river health that can document change over time.
2) Improve public understanding of river processes, river use, and river ecosystem services through an engaging public interface that communicates our findings at yampascorecard.org.
3) Provide information related to river health that may be used voluntarily by landowners/land managers to inform river and land-management decisions.
To accomplish these goals, Friends of the Yampa and Scorecard partners have divided the river into six segments. One segment is assessed each year so that after six years, the health of the entire river will be assessed.
The Yampa Basin isย divided into 6 focal segments.ย The year listed is when the majority of the data isย collected,ย and most reports willย come outย early the following year. Credit: Friends of the Yampa.
The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (Northern Water), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Grand County, the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG), the Colorado River Water Conservation District (Colorado River District) and the Town of Grand Lake today announced a landmark agreement establishing the Three Lakes CLEAR Initiative, a long-term effort to improve water clarity, watershed health and resilience across Grand Lake, Shadow Mountain Reservoir and Granby Reservoir (the Three Lakes).
The Three Lakes System is part of the federal Colorado-Big Thompson (C-BT) Project, which collects and stores water in Grand County and then diverts it for use by C-BT beneficiaries on the Front Range through a series of reservoirs, ditches and tunnels. The CLEAR Initiative continues the ongoing Grand Lake Adaptive Management framework for managing C-BT Project operations and incorporates additional collaborative initiatives to enhance clarity and provide watershed health benefits within and upstream of the Three Lakes System.
CLEAR stands for Clarity, Legacy, Ecosystem, Adaptation and Resilience, reflecting the shared commitment by partners to protect and improve this important resource.
The agreement marks a major milestone following two decades of coordinated work to improve clarity in Grand Lake and water quality in Shadow Mountain Reservoir and reflects a renewed commitment to sustained action and investment. It also provides a long-term framework to continue and expand this work as the Grand Lake Clarity Stakeholdersโ Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), established in 2016, expires in December 2026. Todayโs action renews and expands upon that MOU, protecting the Three Lakes and tributary watersheds for the next 30 years.
As part of the agreement, Northern Water, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District Municipal Subdistrict, and the Windy Gap Firming Project Water Activity Enterprise will provide $30 million over 30 years to address both C-BT Project operations and the broader environmental conditions influencing water quality by supporting implementation of projects and initiatives that address watershed and lake conditions. Of that amount, $20 million will be directed toward project funding to accelerate near-term, priority on-the-ground improvements initiatives, while $10 million will build a long-term reserve fund intended to provide sustained, legacy funding and the flexibility to address future needs as conditions evolve beyond the 30-year agreement.
The initiative continues and strengthens the collaborative adaptive management of C-BT Project operations in the Three Lakes that began with the original MOU, using real-time adjustments to improve clarity in Grand Lake while balancing water supply, power generation and environmental needs. At the same time, the initiative establishes a dedicated fund directed by the parties, to invest in watershed and system health projects that improve water quality and ecological conditions across the Three Lakes system and tributary watersheds.
Projects will focus broadly on watershed and forest health, reducing sediment and nutrient inputs, improving lake and reservoir conditions, and strengthening monitoring and adaptive management tools across the interconnected system.
“The foundation for this landmark agreement to improve Grand Lake clarity and create the Three Lakes CLEAR Fund was laid over decades of effort by many, representing all parties, to improve and use our knowledge of the Three Lakes System for actionable projects that can move the needle for better Grand Lake clarity. The parties have differing interests for sure, but we strive to find common ground because we have a spirit of mutual trust and respect,โ said Jeff Metzger, Town of Grand Lake.
Northern Water emphasized the enduring framework the agreement creates to support the long-term health and resilience of the Three Lakes System while benefiting communities on both sides of the Continental Divide.
โThe Three Lakes CLEAR Initiative demonstrates how shared stewardship of Grand Lake clarity and the health of the broader Three Lakes System and its watersheds can strengthen the long-term resilience of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project for the benefit of Front Range water users while supporting the natural resources and thriving West Slope communities that depend on them. By creating a lasting legacy of collaboration and investment, this agreement helps ensure these shared resources will continue to be protected for generations to come,โ said Esther Vincent, Environmental Services Director for Northern Water.
Grand County Board of County Commissioners Chair Edward Raegner highlighted the importance of the agreement for Grand County and the local communities that have stewarded the Three Lakes watershed for generations.
“This 30-year MOU reflects an unprecedented commitment to Grand Lake’s health and the long-term future of the Three Lakes System. Grand County is proud to work alongside our partners to help preserve Grand Lake’s water clarity for generations to come.โ
The Colorado River District emphasized the value of continuing the collaborative approach that has guided clarity improvements in the Three Lakes System for the past decade.
โThis MOU continues the collaborative approach that has guided clarity work in Grand Lake and water quality throughout the Three Lakes system since 2016. Over the past decade, we’ve gained valuable knowledge about how to effectively use adaptive management in the system, and this agreement will provide a strong foundation to continue that work for the long term. As a signatory to this MOU, the Colorado River District will continue to be a voice for the Western Slope and advocate for solutions that protect our water resources and the communities which depend on them,โ said Rebecca Briesmoore, Senior Water Resources Engineer with the Colorado River District.
Former NWCCOG Executive Director Jon Stavney also welcomed the long-term commitment.
โSince the 1970s, our organization has been engaged in multiple efforts to protect and enhance the water quality of Grand Lake. This MOU represents a new beginning backed by a long-term commitment of substantial resources to the clarity of Grand Lake.โ
Colorado-Big Thompson Project map. Courtesy of Northern Water.
Northern Water will pay $30 million over the next 30 years to solve long-standing clarity and water quality problems at one of Coloradoโs most treasured natural wonders, Grand Lake.
Under the terms of the agreement, the giant water provider will spend $1 million annually to test and implement new solutions to the problem, including weed control, aeration and sediment removal. The deal is the first time a dedicated source of money has been set aside to help the lake, Northern Water spokesperson Jeff Stahla said.
Grand Lake, located near the west entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, is Coloradoโs deepest natural lake and has been a major tourist destination since the late 1800s. A coalition of federal and state agencies, and local advocacy groups have been working and arguing over how to restore it since at least 2008.
โIt has been a long and arduous process to get here,โ Stahla said. โWeโre hopeful that this is a turning point for being able to work together for the common good.โ
Grand Lake is a key element of Northern Waterโs Colorado-Big Thompson delivery system, which provides water to more than 1 million people on the northern Front Range and thousands of acres of irrigated farmlands.
Owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and operated by Northern Water, The C-BT gathers water from the Upper Colorado River, and stores it in two holding pools built by the federal government: Lake Granby and Shadow Mountain Reservoir. From there it is eventually moved into Grand Lake and delivered via the Adams Tunnel under the Continental Divide to Carter Lake, west of Berthoud, and Horsetooth Reservoir, west of Fort Collins.
Colorado-Big Thompson Project map. Courtesy of Northern Water.
During that process, algae and sediment are carried into Grand Lake, clouding its formerly clear waters and causing algae blooms and weed growth, and harming recreation.
In 2008, the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission moved to set a clarity standard, but it has since been replaced with a clarity goal and the aim of achieving โthe highest level of clarity attainable.โ Since then, Northern Water and others have implemented different management techniques, including changing pumping patterns, to find ways to improve water quality in all three water bodies.
In 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation took the first steps required under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 to do the scientific and engineering studies needed to fix the system and hold public hearings. But Reclamation stopped the process in 2020, saying that it could not definitively establish any structural alternatives that would work, nor could it find a way forward on funding such a major infrastructure redesign.
Frustration among Grand Lake advocates continued to build, however, and in 2024, Colorado lawmakers passed a resolution calling for more work on the issue.
In 1941, before the Colorado-Big Thompson Project began operating, clarity was measured at 9.2 meters in depth, about 32 feet, according to Northern Water. Since 2016, the goal has been to achieve clarity of 3.2 meters, just over 9 feet. โWeโve been hitting the goals much more steadily than we have before, thanks to changes in the way the water is pumped through the system,โ Stahla said.
Still the lake is plagued by infusions of warm, murky water during the summer and algae blooms that harm its recreational value, locals say.
Mike Cassio, president of the Three Lakes Watershed Association and a long-time Grand Lake advocate, said the new agreement was the only way the local interests could see to move forward, given what they say is an imbalance of power between the federal government and Northern Water, and the people of Grand County.
โThe Bureau of Reclamation has estimated that replumbing and fixing Grand Lake is a $1 billion project and it would take a congressional mandate to fund it,โ Cassio said. โIs this agreement the best that we have? Probably. Is anybody up for a fight with Northern and the Bureau? Probably not. So the best thing to do is to work together.โ
In addition to the $30 million, the new agreement also expands the governing body overseeing the work to include the town of Grand Lake, which will for the first time have an official role in how the three-lake system is managed, Stahla said.
The Colorado River District, which represents 15 Western Slope counties, signed off on the deal this week, saying via email that the new agreement would provide a strong foundation for future work on the lake.
Other signers to the agreement include Grand County, the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, Northern Water, and the town of Grand Lake. It must still be signed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
The fire situation in the Four Corners area is not improving. The weather remains hot, dry, and windy, and this weekโs forecast calls for more of the same. Next week may even be hotter, if longer-range models hold. Meanwhile, air quality has deteriorated in some places that previously seemed to avoid the worst of the smoke. The good news is that the Fourth of July weekend came and went without any new major fire starts in the region.
So far this year some 37,209 fires have burned through about 3.3 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Thatโs the second highest acreage for the first half of the year in the last decade.
Hereโs a rundown of some of the Four Corners area fires. By no means is this a complete list.
The Babylon Fire, burning in the higher elevation parts of Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah,ย had grown to over 96,000 acres by Monday night, making it the nationโs largest active blaze (the Cottonwood Fire in the western part of the state has gone through about the same amount of acreage, according to Watch Duty). The two are also tied for the fourth largest fires in the stateโs recorded history. The Babylon Fire is at 0% containment, with the most active area moving up the west slope of the Abajo Mountains, between Shay Mountain and Mount Linnaeus. Air tankers are pulling water from Lake Powell, and officials are asking boaters to avoid the area between Dangling Rope and Rainbow Bridge.ย
Closed public lands include: The Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, Manti-La Sal National Forest lands within the Monticello Ranger District, and BLM lands in the Indian Creek Corridor, Beef Basin, Dark Canyon, and the Sweet Alice Wilderness Study Area. Still Open: Natural Bridges National Monument, Cedar Mesa, Grand Gulch, and other lower elevation areas in the southern reaches of Bears Ears National Monument.
Theย Ferris Fireย along the Dolores-Montezuma County line in southwestern Colorado initially burned in a northeasterly direction toward the Disappointment Valley. Then the winds shifted and the most active front of the fire curved back to the northwest, crossing the Ponderosa Gorge of the Dolores River, and is within about 12 miles of the town of Dove Creek. As of Monday night the fire was atย 51,622 acres and 22% containment.
The Gold Mountain Fireย north of Ouray, Colorado, has burned across almostย 29,300 acres of San Juan Mountain high country and was 2% containedย as of Monday night. Firefighters on Mondayย conducted strategic backfiring operationseast of Ridgway to provide more protection for structures in that area. There is a chance of thunderstorms this afternoon and evening, which could bring dry lightning along with gusty and erratic winds, with high temperatures reaching the high 80s and low 90s.
The Pocket Fireย north of Sedona, Arizona, has reached 26,442 acresย and was at 48% containment as of Monday night. Forecasters are predicting more hot and dry weather today, with the mercury topping out around 100ยฐ F and sub-20% relative humidity.
On July 6, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality approved Energy Fuelsโ request to amend its aquifer quality permit for a groundwater monitoring well at its Pinyon Plain Mine near the Grand Canyon. The change raises the allowable concentration of arsenic from .050 milligrams per liter to .055 milligrams per liter and the associated alert level from .040 to .050 mg/l.
The Havasupai Tribe strongly condemned the change in a written statement, calling the approval a โprofound attack on the Tribeโs inherent responsibility to guard and protect the waters of the Grand Canyon.โ
Energy Fuels asked for the revision โ and ADEQ granted it โ after finding that construction of the mineโs shaft had created a hydraulic sink that allowed naturally occurring arsenic โ a known toxic substance โ to move toward the facilityโs perimeter wells, putting them in violation of their permit.
So, regulators simply altered the permitโs limits and, according to the tribal nationโs statement, โchosen to weaken environmental protections instead of strengthening them.โ
Dr. Bradley K. Esser, a retired Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientist, submitted technical comments on the proposed revision last year. He cast doubt on Energy Fuelsโ hydraulic sink explanation, and demonstrated that the arsenic concentrations detected in the monitoring wells are far higher than regional natural background levels. He posited that it was far more likely the elevated arsenic concentrations came from sump water from the mineโs workings contaminating the groundwater.
Uranium, arsenic, and lead concentrations shot up in the Pinyon Plain Mineโs โsump water,โ or groundwater that had flowed into the mine shaft, after active mining began in 2023. While an independent scientist acknowledges that itโs possible elevated arsenic levels in perimeter monitoring wells are the result of a mining-related hydraulic sink pulling naturally occurring arsenic to the wells, he posited that itโs more likely that sump water made its way into the groundwater in the wells. Source: Grand Canyon Trust.
Esser also writes:
๐ฅต Aridification Watch ๐ซ
Monsoon season officially kicked off in the Southwest in the middle of last month, but it has yet to bring significant amounts of moisture. Earlier forecasts predicting higher than average precipitation beginning later this month are still in place for some parts of the West, but they likely will be accompanied by above-normal temperatures just about everywhere.
Next week isnโt looking so hot for fire-dousing moisture in the Southwest, but after that the chances of above-normal precipitation start climbing.
Smoky skies and three-digit heat? Ick.
The drought situation has grown worse over the last year in most of the Interior West, though there has been improvement in the deep Southwest. Source: U.S. Drought Monitor.
‘As you might expect, the hot, dry weather is taking a toll on streams around the region. The Animas River through Durango is running at 190 cubic feet per-second; the median flow for this date is over 1,000 cfs.
๐ธย Parting Shotย ๐๏ธ
Red rocks and crazy clouds in Utah before fire season had arrived and sullied up the skies. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
Click the link to read the article on the Pagosa Springs Sun website (Clayton Chaney). Here’s an excerpt:
July 1, 2026
The Archuleta County Board of Health (BoH) held a special meeting on June 15 to consider approval of Regulation 43, pertaining to on-site wastewater treatment system (OWTS), also known as septic systems…
According to the regulation attached to the meeting agenda, โThe purpose of these Regulations is to establish the minimum standards for the location, design, construction, performance, installation, alteration, and use of OWTS with a design capacity equal to or less than 2,000 gallons per day within the Jurisdiction.โ
[…]
It also states that the regulations apply to all OWTS in the unincorporated areas of the county and over all municipal corporations within the territorial limits of Archuleta County.
Furthermore, it explains that an โOWTS permit must not be issued to any person when the subject property is located within a municipality or special district that provides public sewer service, except where such sewer service to the property is not feasible according to the determination of the municipality or special district, or the permit is otherwise authorized by the municipality or special district.โ
The document explains that Archuleta County Water Quality Department โmay enter upon a private property at reasonable times and upon reasonable notice for the purpose of determining whether or not an operating OWTS is functioning in compliance with the OWTS Act and applicable regulations adopted pursuant thereto and the terms and conditions of any permit issued and to inspect and conduct tests in evaluating any permit application.โ
Map of the San Juan River, a tributary of the Colorado River, in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, USA. Made using USGS National Map data. By Shannon1 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47456307
While the Trump administration 2.0 has so far rexfrained from trying to shrink or eliminate national monuments, its non-executive-branch proxies just keep on trying.This week the 10th Circuit federal appeals court issued a decision keeping alive Utahโsย lawsuitย challenging Joe Bidenโs 2021 re-establishment of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments following Trump 1.0โs shrinkage of the same.
The state and Garfield and Kane counties filed one lawsuit in 2022, with the Blue Ribbon Coalition and other parties filing their own suit. In 2023, a federal court dismissed both lawsuits; that ruling was appealed.
This weekโs decision confirmed the dismissal of the Blue Ribbon suit. But it also determined that presidential national monument designations under the Antiquities Act are subject to federal judicial review, and sent Utahโs case back to the district court.
***
Photo credit: Jonathan P. Thompson/The Land Desk
The Bureau of Land Management is moving forward withย three travel management plansย in Utah that will determine which roads, trails, and areas of the respective field officesโ jurisdiction are open to motorized vehicles.ย Given that the stated aim is to bring the plans in line with Trumpโs recent executive orderย rescinding restrictions on motorized vehiclesย on public lands, we can assume that the idea here is to expand motorized access to some remote areas. The plans include:
The Moab Field Office has released preliminary alternatives for theย Dolores River Travel Management Planย on about 127,000 acres in Grand County, Utah, east of Moab and abutting the Colorado border. This would include roads along the Utah section of the Lower Dolores River, and on mesas and in canyons on either side of it. Maps of the alternatives can beย found here. This one is not yet open to public comment.
The Kanab Field Office has released a draft environmental assessment for itsย Trail Canyon Travel Management Planย on nearly 330,000 acres in Kane County. It isย open to public input.
And the Vernal Field Office has also released a draft review for the Dinosaurย North Travel Management Plan.ย The public comment period is open.
***
I typically stay away from electoral politics, especially the horse-race part of it and polls and such. But sometimes a particular contest or candidate can provide a lens on bigger trends or phenomena, and so are worth looking into.
The latest race that has caught my interest is the one to replace Sen. Cynthia Lummis, the Wyoming Republican who is retiring at the end of this term. Since itโs Wyoming in 2026, itโs safe to assume the winner will be a Republican (though this wasnโt always the case), meaning the primary is the contest that matters. The front-runner, I suppose, is Rep. Harriet Hageman, the Trump sycophant and MAGA extremist who unseated Liz Cheney back in 2022 after Cheney failed to show adequate fealty to Trump.
But itโs one of her challengers that Iโm interested in: Sam Mead. Mead is a fifth-generation Wyoming rancher, comes from a long line of Republican Wyoming politicians, and is the nephew of former governor Matt Mead. Mead is young (36), charismatic, has strong conservative credentials on fiscal issues and gun-rights, and a background in engineering and business, having run a whiskey distillery in Kirby. But what really distinguishes him from his opponents is his willingness to speak out against some of Trumpโs policies, and his priority on protecting public lands and keeping them in the publicโs hands.
Mead, in other words, appears to be an old-school, pre-MAGA Western Republican. He reminds me a bit of Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, back before extreme polarization pulled him more and more rightward and into MAGA land. Wyomingโs primary is on Aug. 18.
Meanwhile, Utah just held its primaries, with some surprising results. Utah State Senate President Stuart Adams, a Republican, was defeated by challenger Stephanie Hollist. Adams was a strong supporter of the controversial proposed Stratos Project data center complex on the north shore of the Great Salt Lake. Also, incumbent Rep. Celeste Maloy trounced challenger Phil Lyman in the GOP primary for the 3rd Congressional District, with about 70% of the vote.
While Maloy was endorsed by Trump, and has plenty of extreme views, Lyman is the more MAGA of the two. And Trump pardoned Lyman after his conviction for leading an OHV rally down Recapture Canyon in the southeastern part of the state. Political consultant Taylor Morgan told the Utah News Dispatch that Lymanโs resounding defeat showed that his โvery angry, very conspiracy-based, populist, toxic form of Republicanism (is) frankly wearing very thin, especially here in Utah.โ Letโs hope heโs right!
Pumpjack in the Aneth oil field. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
I wrote Tuesday about how the Trump administration is eviscerating Biden-era oil and gas rules aimed at reducing methane emissions and ensuring companies clean up their own messes rather than foisting them onto the taxpayers. Now the changes are open for public comment.
Here are a few of the changes Trump and co. are proposing:
Bring back pre-Biden reclamation bond rates, which amount to just over $2,000 per well, which is insane, since the cost to reclaim and plug a single well easily can exceed $100,000. These numbers incentivized petroleum companies to walk away, forsake the bond, and abandon the well, leaving the tab for the taxpayers.
Reduce the current $10 minimum per-acre bid for leasing public land to $2, restore noncompetitive leasing, and slash royalties and filing fees for oil and gas companies.
Implement a new fee forย protestingย leases. And they plan to cut the 90-day public input period to just 10 days. In other words, theyโre trying to cut out the public from decisions regarding public lands.
Gut the waste prevention rule (they wanted to roll it back altogether, but chose to revise it instead because it wasnโt clear which rule would replace it) by removing limits on royalty-free flaring and killing requirements that companies develop leak detection and repair plans.
Trumpโs changes to the waste prevention rule will turn back the regulatory clock to the days when oil and gas operations on federal and tribal land vented and flared an average of 44.2 billion cubic feet annually of methane, which is usually accompanied by nasty volatile organic compounds and other dangerous compounds. Thatโs as bad for the climate as burning around 9 million tons of coal. But it also amounts to lighting money โย yourย money โ on fire and throwing it away. That vented methane is basically the same stuff you pay for to run your furnace, or to generate much of the electricity running through the grid. And since operators donโt pay royalties on gas they throw away, that cost American taxpayers some $166 million in lost revenue over a decade.
The result of all of this (and more) will be to rob taxpayers and sacrifice public lands and the climate to subsidize the same energy corporations that are raking in obscene profits thanks to Trumpโs disastrous war on Iran. The administration argues that their proposed changes will save petroleum corporations operating on federal lands $17 million annually in compliance costs.
That sounds like a lot of money, until you realize that high oil prices have driven corporationโs profits to absurd highs. During the first quarter of 2026 alone, ExxonMobil raked in $8.8 billion in underlying, adjusted profits. Somehow, I donโt think several million in compliance costs is going to deter them from drilling.
๐ Colorado River Chronicles ๐ง
Many of the Westโs streams have entered their summer low-flow phase, a period that falls between the end of snowmelt and the beginning of the monsoon, while irrigation diversions are in full-swing. One of the most dramatic cases of this is, perhaps, the Colorado River itself as it flows through Grand Junction. This morning, the river was running at just 366 cubic feet per second near Palisade, which as reader Dave Grossman pointed out is low enough to allow someone to walk across the sprawling river bed.
Some other notably low flows:
Animas River in Farmington, NM: 104 cfs.
Dolores River at Bedrock, CO: .76 cfs (effectively dry)
White River near Watson, UT: 76.4 cfs
Green River above Flaming Gorge: 551 cfs
Green River below Flaming Gorge: 1,590 cfs
San Juan River near Caracas, CO (above Navajo Reservoir): 85 cfs
Colorado River near Hite, UT: 4,300 cfs
This has reduced daily average inflows into Lake Powell to about 4,800 cfs and dropping. It would be much lower than that, except that flows are being bolstered by upstream reservoir releases. Either way, inflows are far less than Glen Canyon Dam releases, which are averaging about 8,500 cfs daily (approx. 6,500 cfs at night and 10,600 cfs during the day). This disparity, exacerbated by reservoir evaporation, is lowering Lake Powellโs surface level, which currently sits at about 3,526.75 feet. Without substantial upstream rain, it will likely drop to 3,520 feet by early August.
๐ Reading (and watching) Room ๐ง
Matt Jenkins wrote an excellent overview for the Water Education Foundation of the potential โGrand Bargainโ on the Colorado River, which would require both the Upper and Lower basins to give up some of their Colorado River Compact claims not only to keep the system from collapsing, but also to avoid litigation.
The piece lays out the fact that the Compact is not only outdated, but also internally conflicted, in that it apportions the Upper Basin 7.5 million acre-feet of water per year, while also obligating it to allow the same amount of water to flow to the Lower Basin annually. Thatโs just not possible these days, given that thereโs far less than 15 MAF in the river.
Southeastern Utah is known mostly as a mining hotspot for uranium, copper, with lithium emerging more recently. But it also hosts a potash extraction industry, and at least one company is looking to expand the potash footprint. Sage Potash says it has secured permits from Utah and San Juan County to begin drilling at is Sage Plain Potash project.
While this is only exploratory drilling, itโs notable in that itโs not occurring in the Lisbon Valley or near existing potash sites near Moab. Rather it is on the Great Sage Plain southeast of Monticello, in the archaeologically rich zone north of Hovenweep National Monument.
***
Prior to mining, snowmelt and rain seep into natural cracks and fractures, eventually emerging as a freshwater spring (usually). Graphic credit: Jonathan Thompson
Yet another reason to worry about spewing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere via fossil fuel burning: It can exacerbate acid mine drainage, the phenomenon that leads to toxic heavy metal loading in streams and other waterways. Thatโs the conclusion of a peer-reviewed study published in Communications Earth & Environment this April.
Acid mine drainage occurs when a mine excavation exposes once-buried sulfide-bearing rocks such as iron pyrite (FeS2) to oxygen and water. The hydrogen, sulfide, and oxygen come together to form sulfuric acid (H2SO4). Thus, the water becomes acidic, or its pH drops. The acidity dissolves heavy metals and the water picks them up. As the pH level of the water drops below 4.8, acidophilic bacteria begin feeding off the metals, releasing more acid into the solution and causing metal loading to occur up to 1 million times faster than in water with higher pH. Metal loading is bad for fish and other aquatic life.
The study found that elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels enhance the acidophilic bacterial activity, which accelerates iron and sulfur oxidation, acid formation, and metal loading. Zinc and cadmium, both of which are harmful to aquatic life, are more sensitive than other metals to rising carbon dioxide levels. Zinc loading is especially problematic in the Upper Animas watershed in southwestern Colorado.
***
Okay, I really donโt care that Anfieldย bought its first underground haul truckย for its Velvet-Wood uranium mine in the Lisbon Valley of southeastern Utah.ย But I found this press release interesting for another tidbit: The haul truck was built byย Youngโs Machine Company, located in Monticello, Utah. I never knew Monticello had this sort of manufacturing industry. I gotta say, itโs kind of cool.
The Hoback River joins the Snake River following a landslide upstream on June 18, 2026. Robert Frodeman photo.
๐ฃ๐ฝ Water Watch ๐
Water Quality in the Greater Yellowstone
A Guest Post by Robert Frodeman
Four million people visit Teton County, Wyoming, each year. They come to hike, float, and ski, snap pictures under the elk antler arches, and to partake in the myths of the American West. As the sign at the top of Teton Pass says, โWelcome Stranger. Yonder is Jackson Hole, the Last of the Old West.โ Visitors expect to find a pristine environment. They donโt expect water quality problems reminiscent of a developing nation.
Teton County has some of the best drinking water in the country. Or most of Teton County does: Hoback, in the southern part of the County, has a nitrate problem. Nitrate is a health risk โ most acutely to infants under six months, in whom nitrate is converted to nitrite by gut bacteria, interfering with oxygen transport in the blood and causing methemoglobinemia (blue baby syndrome). Many of the water systems in Hoback are on their last legs: two weeks ago, I had no running water and then a boil order at my home.
Jackson is the town, Jackson Hole is the valley that runs north of town in front of the Tetons. (โHoleโ was what mountain men called a valley.) If you drill 20,000 feet into the valley floor you will hit the same sandstone layer that sits on top of the Tetons. This implies that the Tetons have risen some 25,000 feet over the last 10 million years.
Of course, mountains come down as they go up: the Tetons have been shedding sediment across all that time, piling up thousands of feet of gravel on the valley floor. Still more gravel was brought by the glaciers that flowed down from the Yellowstone Plateau. The Snake River meanders in front of the Tetons, but much of the river passes unseen below the surface, forming what is known as the Snake River Aquifer.
In effect, Jackson and Jackson Hole sit on top of a huge bathtub filled with gravel and water. This provides an abundant source of high-quality water for the town. But the bathtub only extends so far. The southern rim of the tub comes up at Munger Mountain five miles south of town. This is where the Yellowstone glacier stopped, and where the Snake River Canyon begins, which runs for 30 miles to Alpine and the Mormon communities of Star Valley.
Hoback lies four miles south of Munger Mountain โ beyond the reach of the aquifer. Local residents must drill for their water. Local wells reach 200 feet down to the Bear River Formation. The water isnโt ideal โ itโs brackish and can have a distinct sulfur smell (as do some of the local hot springs). The groundwater is also contaminated from horse farms and pig farms and (mainly) septic tanks and leach fields. Septic tanks can leak, and there is not enough biotic activity at this elevation and latitude for leach fields to function well. The result is nitrate levels in our drinking water which sometimes exceed EPA daily maximums.
Hoback is distinctive not only because of its geology. The billionaires live elsewhere in the County. There are two trailer parks nearby. Historically, local politicians have directed their attention to the Town of Jackson, Wilson, and the ski resort of Teton Village. But this has changed in recent years. Carlin Gerard of the Teton Conservation District formed a Hoback Stakeholders Group in 2019 to highlight drinking water problems. Covid disrupted that effort, but then a local non-profit called Protect Our Water Jackson Hole brought its energy and resources to southern Teton County.
In 2023 Hoback residents formed a water and sewer district. The district has now raised $7 million from the County and the State to build a municipal drinking water system. Water will be drawn from the Snake River just above the confluence with the Hoback. Construction should begin this fall and be done in a year or two depending on the weather.
At first it will only serve 125 residents: the district was made small out of fear of opposition. Teton County is solid blue, but past attempts had failed because of Hobackโs history of Red State, donโt-tread-on-me politics. In any case, it turned out that the demographic transition had already occurred: when the election was held the vote was 36-0 in favor. And there are now plans to annex a new affordable housing development that Teton County hopes will help address the local housing shortage.
Of course, the new system will only isolate residents from the nitrate problem. The environment will remain polluted, and people outside the district will still be on wells. The district has begun to price out a wastewater system, which is liable to be quite expensive. But youโd hope for nothing less for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem โ and officials would hate to see an article in the New York Times about Teton Countyโs leaky septic systems.
Map of Greys River in Wyoming, United States. By Feydey – Nasa World Wind 1.3.5 public domain NLT Landsat 7 satellite photo, layered with PD vmap0 vector data. Image:Map_of_USA_highlighting_Wyoming.png was used for the smaller image., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1589723
The Havasupai Tribe is concerned about a proposed increase in the allowable arsenic level near the Pinyon Plain uranium mine.
State regulators claim the increased arsenic is naturally occurring, not a result of mining pollution.
Tribal leaders and environmental groups worry the change could contaminate Havasu Creek, the tribe’s sole water source.
The Havasupai Tribe has raised new concerns about a proposal to allow higher levels of arsenic in a groundwater monitoring well near the Pinyon Plain uranium mine south of the Grand Canyon, warning that the changes threaten Havasu Creek, the tribe’s sole water source. A proposed amendment to a state Aquifer Protection Program permit would revise the mine’s alert level and aquifer quality limit for arsenic after groundwater monitoring detected changes in arsenic concentrations in the well. According to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, the changes were not the result of pollutants discharged from the mine into the aquifer, but naturally occurring.
In a June 25 public notice, the agency said that Energy Fuels Resources, Inc., the mine’s operator, and ADEQ have entered into a changed application agreement for an amendment to the Pinyon Plain Mine’s permit.
“The Havasupai Tribe first learned of the proposed amendment, which appears to have been a private deal between ADEQ and Energy Fuels, only after a concerned citizen discovered this new amendment on ADEQโs website and promptly notified the Tribe,” said Havasupai Tribal Chairwoman Melinda Yaiva.
The Havasupai Tribe was shocked by ADEQ’s decision, she said, citing longstanding concerns that the Pinyon Plain Mine could contaminate Havasu Creek, the tribe’s only water source. Tribal leaders said the creek is vital to the community, its culture and its tourism economy, and reiterated their opposition to the mine.
Kevin Sonnichsen, water commissioner, right, and Alan Novacek, backup operator and sewer commissioner, left, gaze into the Creighton water treatment facility in this file photo from 2021. Built in 1993, the facility uses reverse osmosis to remove nitrate. Creighton was the first community in Nebraska to use reverse osmosis to remove nitrate in drinking water. Photo ยฉ J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue
The countryโs most severe drinking water problems, from high levels of contaminants and foul-smelling water to pipe breaks, low water pressure, and expensive rates, are generally found in the thousands of small systems that serve dozens of people up to a few thousand.
These systems are public health crises waiting to emerge, said Denise Schmidt, director of water at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center, a group that works with water utilities on infrastructure funding.
Though some are perpetually struggling, small water systems, especially those serving low-income communities, are encountering a fresh set of economic and political hurdles in their quest for safe drinking water.
In recent industry surveys, small utilities report that accessing financing to repair and upgrade their systems is becoming increasingly difficult. Their credit ratings are deteriorating, making borrowing more expensive. The rates they charge customers are not covering the cost of providing water service, thus digging a long-term financial hole. Extreme weather is burdening them withย unexpected and daunting repairsย to their reservoirs, treatment plants, and pipe networks. Federal water quality mandates for PFAS and lead pipe replacements, though both providing public health benefits, are an added cost.
Small systems, in effect, are walking a precarious path. They are trying to survive today while also staring at a gathering wave of necessary replacements to aging pipes and treatment plants.
The Trump administration and Republican allies in Congress, meanwhile, are casting more obstacles. The White Houseโs tariffs have increased the price of equipment and materials. And the Houseโs fiscal year 2027 budget would cut the main federal water infrastructure program by about a quarter.
โI donโt think people realize how big this wave is and how much itโs going to cost,โ said Blake Anderson, president and founder of Mogollon Water Management, a company that operates and maintains 11 small water systems in northeast Arizona. โThe utilities that were built in 1970 now are 56 years old. There was a lot of development that happened back then. And all of these waves are going to start crashing.โ
Negative Outlook
Crashing sounds are gaining strength.
Last year, for the first time, S&P Global, a credit rating agency, lowered the financial outlook for small water and wastewater utilities from stable to negative. Large and medium utilities remained stable.
The increased pessimism for small water utilities is due to stiffening financial headwinds, said Malcolm DโSilva, an associate director at S&P, which rates roughly 1,700 water and wastewater utilities. Ninety-one percent of the agencyโs credit downgrades last year were for small systems, he said. Credit downgrades increase the cost of borrowing.
DโSilva narrated a story in two parts. One is the โexpense squeeze.โ Costs are rising across the board. First from the post-Covid inflation and supply chain shortages, and now from the Trump administrationโs tariffs. Half of the utilities that responded to the American Water Works Associationโs annual survey said that tariffs had โmoderate or considerableโ pressure on equipment and materials costs. At the same time, revenue is not keeping up. In the same survey, only 43 percent of utilities said they charged customers enough to fully cover service costs.
The second part is managerial. Small systems typically do not have the technical expertise, staff, or budget to analyze their infrastructure and apply for funding in the way that larger utilities do. Some might keep only paper records of their pipe networks. The smallest systems have volunteer board members or staff that might also oversee the fire department and run a business.
The positive news is that last year might have been the bottom for small systems, DโSilva said. S&P is seeing some improvement in the first half of 2026, with the rate of downgrades slowing. More utilities have instituted rate increases to fill budget holes, DโSilva said.
Federal Question Mark
Just as one hole is closing, however, another might be opening.
Every year the White House lobs a spending plan toward Capitol Hill and members of Congress decide whether those numbers are a good idea. For fiscal year 2027, the Trump administration proposed a roughly 90 percent cut to the two state revolving funds, the main federal sources of water infrastructure funding.
Congress usually sustains the state revolving funds, which have broad support. But this budget cycle could be different.
A House spending bill cuts the revolving funds by about 24 percent combined. The House Appropriations Committee approved the bill on June 3.
The bill provides $1.2 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (27 percent cut) and $911 million for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (19 percent cut). The Senate has not yet introduced its version.
Jeff Dietlin, director of utilities for Cadillac, Michigan, stands inside a new pump house built as part of the cityโs East 44 Road well field project. The city received a $9.8 million low-interest loan from the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund to finance the project. Photo ยฉ J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue
The Environmental Policy Innovation Center, or EPIC, tracks state revolving fund expenditures and project proposals in 15 states. At Circle of Blueโs request, EPIC analyzed small system and very small system requests for drinking water funding. By EPAโs definition, small systems serve fewer than 10,000 people and very small systems fewer than 3,300.
The data indicate high demand from these systems. Some 61 percent of projects seeking drinking water funding were small or very small. However, only about a third of these proposed projects advanced to the next step in the funding process. This โhighlights significant unmet infrastructure needs,โ EPIC analysts wrote.
Water infrastructure funding needs and the status of the revolving funds were a point of discussion during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on May 20.
Jessica Kramer, the head of the EPA Office of Water, defended the administrationโs proposed cuts. Her justification: the states have $14.8 billion in uncommitted state revolving funds, those sitting in coffers for more than a year without being allocated. That money should be distributed first, she argued.
โIt doesnโt do any good to get the money to the states if the states arenโt actually getting it out to the communities that need it,โ Kramer said.
Schmidt, the EPIC water director, had a different view. Two issues are being wrapped into one, she said. If state administrative capacity to review and approve applications is the problem, then focus on that. But donโt use it to rationalize disinvestment in an otherwise successful decades-long infrastructure program.
โUncommitted does not mean unneeded,โ Schmidt said. โCutting moves us farther from the solution.โ
The View from Arizona
The financial pressures that populate DโSilvaโs and Schmidtโs spreadsheets are the on-the-ground reality for Blake Anderson.
Anderson is the president and founder of Mogollon Water Management, a company that operates and maintains 11 small water systems in the White Mountains of northeastern Arizona. Mogollon oversees the smallest of the small โ systems ranging in size from 29 service connections to roughly 1,100.
These are not the sophisticated, professionally managed systems that you would see in Phoenix or Flagstaff.
โTheyโre volunteer board members and theyโre aware that thereโs some sort of money for water out there but they donโt know where it is, or if they do know, they arenโt sure how to go about applying and accessing it,โ Anderson said, describing the challenges for small systems in securing grants and loans.
โMost of them have never done a capital improvement project over $50,000,โ he added. โAnd so there is not institutional knowledge in how do you manage a federally funded program or a state funded program? How do you go about securing engineers or contractors? What are the proper procurement practices?โ
One school of thought for solving the small systems problem is that there should be fewer of them. By connecting with larger systems or forming regional partnerships, small utilities could grow into medium-sized utilities with favorable economics: more customers to cover expensive infrastructure costs, better credit ratings, money to hire knowledgeable staff.
Research from Manny Teodoro at the University of Wisconsin indicates that the target size for utility consolidations should be about 20,000 service connections, or about 60,000 people. At that point the most serious water quality violations become far less common and operating costs become more reasonable.
Where might funding for consolidations come from? States like California have dedicated programs, though even those are facing funding shortfalls. Another source is federal: the state revolving funds that House Republicans want to cut.
A reservoir built to serve nearly a million Northern Coloradans started filling this spring. But Chimney Hollowโs future is still murky weeks after the initial fill. Chimney Hollow will eventually pull water from the Colorado River near its headwaters in Grand County to serve a dozen fast growing cities on the Front Range from Broomfield to Greeley…Chimney Hollow is holding just 2% of its total volume today because thereโs a problem. Northern Water discovered that some of the rocks it used to build the massive dam at the reservoir contained radioactive uranium. It was naturally occurring, but it set the project back at least a year. Northern Water is still coming up with a mitigation plan.
โReally, the best way to kind of move that uranium out is to draw down the water and force that out,โ spokesperson Rachel Stevens said. โBut before we make any of those decisions, we really want to see what the levels of uranium are.โ
So every week, crews are taking water samples from the small pool and sending it to a lab to see how much radioactive material is really in the water. The results are expected soon. Northern Water has only been able to test how uranium leaches out of the rocks in a laboratory setting. Filling the reservoir just slightly will help reveal the extent of the problem.
Map from Northern Water via the Fort Collins Coloradan.
Specialists surveying Coloradoโs forests know this year will be challenging. Snow melted too quickly, strong winds dried out the trees, and the early signs of danger are already settling across the landscape. Wildfire season is no longer confined to a few months โ itโs a yearโround reality, they said…And this year, the risk is even higher.ย Snowpack peaked at just 58% of normal โ and weeks earlier than usual. An unusually warm March accelerated the melt, and parched soils absorbed much of the runoff before it reached streams and reservoirs, leaving less water to flow downstream. While much of the public conversation focuses on drought, dry fuels, and wildfire danger, another worry runs deeper โ what happens to the stateโs water supply if a major fire strikes?
[…]
When a large fire burns, the flames strip hillsides of vegetation, said Weston Toll, a watershed program specialist for the Colorado Forest Service. Once rainstorms arrive, thereโs nothing left to hold the soil in place.
โWhen we have a storm event, all the sediment that is now exposed typically runs downhill and โฆ will fill up reservoirs, which is bad from a water quality and quantity standpoint,โ Toll said…
A 2023 report by the U.S. Geological Survey echoes that warning.
The agency found that wildfires pose a significant risk to water supplies by triggering severe flooding, erosion, and the delivery of sediment, nutrients, and metals into rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.
According to the USGS, these changes can degrade water quality, reduce reservoir storage, harm stream habitats, and drive up treatment costs for drinkingโwater providers. The effects can vary widely โ from barely noticeable shifts to 100โfold increases in sediment, nutrients, and other contaminants. In the worst cases, experts said the water can resemble โchocolate milk.โ
Ash and silt pollute the Cache la Poudre River after the High Park Fire September 2012. Photo credit: USDA
This USGS map shows the number of PFAS detected in tap water samples from select sites across the nation. The findings are based on a USGS study of samples taken between 2016 and 2021 from private and public supplies at 716 locations. The map does not represent the only locations in the U.S. with PFAS. Sources/Usage: Public Domain. Visit Media to see details.
EPA aims to end federal regulation of fourย PFASย in drinking water and give utilities more time to comply with existing rules.
FEMA reopens applications for aย climate-resilient infrastructure grant programย that the agency had cancelled.
Bureau of Reclamation announces $52 million for three newย Hoover Dam turbinesย that will generate hydropower at lower Lake Mead levels.
A House FY27ย budget billย will cut the federal governmentโs primary water infrastructure funds by 24 percent.
NOAA forecasts fewerย Atlantic hurricanesย this season.
EPA water office leader commits to investigate groundwater pollution in Georgia fromย Meta data center construction.
The Trump administration recommends that the U.S. Supreme Court take up Nebraskaโs claim that Colorado has violated aย river-sharing compact.
And lastly, the Bureau of Reclamationโs acting commissioner informs a House subcommittee about the status of Colorado River negotiations.
โSeveral weeks ago, I met with the 14 senators from the Colorado River basin and on a bipartisan basis, several of them said, โLook, we have a real crisis on the Colorado and we need to get things done and if there are any environmental statutes that are slowing things down, tell us what they are and maybe we can legislate to clear out some of the unhelpful bureaucratic paperwork.’โ โ Scott Cameron, acting Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, speaking at a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing. Cameron said his office has not yet followed up on the offer but โlooked forwardโ to conferring with the senators about โwaiving or streamlining certain environmental statutes on the Colorado.โ
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2025. Note the tiny points on the annual data so that you can flyspeck the individual years. Credit: Brad Udall
As for the status of Colorado River negotiations, Cameron said, โFrankly, the seven states are not in a position where they could agree today, right now, to a four-year deal, let alone a 20-year deal, because of the uncertainties weโre dealing with.โ
By the Numbers
$1 Billion: Funding now available from FEMAโs Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, a grant opportunity to reduce risk from climate and weather hazards. A federal judge ordered the agency to reinstate the program, which the Trump administration had cancelled. Applications are due July 23.
$52 Million: Funding announced by the Bureau of Reclamation for three new low-head turbines at Hoover Dam. Only five of the damโs 17 turbines are designed to operate when Lake Mead drops below elevation 1,035 feet, a threshold that the shrinking reservoir is fast approaching and could breach in the next 12 months, if not sooner.
Not So PFAS The EPA is proposing to repeal federal regulation of four PFAS in drinking water, partially undoing a Biden-era rule that set first-ever limits on six of the โforever chemicals.โ
Three of the chemicals โ PFHxS, PFNA, and Gen X โ were regulated individually. Together with PFBS, they were also regulated as a mixture.
The EPA will retain standards for PFOA and PFOS, the two most-studied of the chemicals. However, in a separate rule-making, the agency is proposing to give water utilities more time to comply, extending the deadline by two years, until 2031. The agency says the move will โease the implementation burdenโ financially and administratively for water systems and might allow for cheaper treatment technologies to come to market.
Water utilities must apply for an extension. One of the considerations is whether an extension would pose an โunreasonable risk to health.โ The EPA is proposing that PFOA and PFOS levels below 12 parts per trillion would not be unreasonable. (The federal standard for both is 4 ppt.)
The EPA wants public comment on whether interim utility actions during a compliance extension โ point-of-use treatment, filtration pitchers, education, alternative water sources โ can mitigate health risks above 12 ppt.
Water Infrastructure Funding Cuts A House spending bill cuts the two main federal sources of water infrastructure funding by about 24 percent in fiscal year 2027. The bill passed out of subcommittee last week.
The bill provides $1.2 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (27 percent cut) and $911 million for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (19 percent cut).
Following a recent trend, about half of the appropriation comes in the form of earmarks. This money will go directly to specific projects and will not enter the revolving fund. Water industry advocates argue that continuing to take earmarks out of the revolving fund appropriation threatens the viability of the program.
Studies and Reports
The South Platte River Basin is shaded in yellow. Source: Tom Cech, One World One Water Center, Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Great Plains Water Fight The federal governmentโs top lawyer recommended that the U.S. Supreme Court take up one of Nebraskaโs claims that Colorado is violating the South Platte River Compact, which divides the riverโs water between the two states.
Nebraska argues that Colorado is breaking three articles of the compact. The U.S. solicitor general says that the high court, through a special master, should pursue only one of them: that Colorado is allowing irrigators to take too much water.
โA claim that one State has deprived another of water to which it is entitled under an interstate compact is a quintessential case for this Courtโs original jurisdiction,โ the brief states.
Atlantic Hurricanes NOAA is forecasting a less active Atlantic hurricane season. The agency estimates that one to three major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher) will form.
The category ratings can be misleading. They measure wind speed, not precipitation. Tropical storms and minor hurricanes can still inflict serious flood damage.
Air Conditioning Estimates The U.S. Census Bureau published data estimating how many homes use air conditioning.
States with the lowest air conditioning use are in New England and the West.
On the Radar
EPA on Data Centers and Household Wells Under oath at a House subcommittee oversight hearing, Jessica Kramer, head of the EPA Office of Water, committed to investigate impacts to drinking water quality from data center construction.
โWhatever type of construction it is, itโs a priority to ensure that water quality standards established by EPA are being met. So weโll be looking into that certainly,โ Kramer said.
Kramerโs commitment at the House Energy and Commerce hearing was prompted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who asked about water pollution from data center construction.
Ocasio-Cortez visited Morgan County, Georgia, a few weeks ago. She returned with jars of brown water from household wells near the construction site of a Meta data center. She displayed those at the hearing.
โThis is what the drinking water now looks like, next to that data center,โ Ocasio-Cortez said.
โAs soon as I get back to the office, I will be looking into exactly what you just talked about,โ Kramer replied.
Army Corps Deauthorized Projects The Army Corps published a list of water projects that it intends to deauthorize.
These are projects that were authorized years ago but either havenโt ever received funding or havenโt recently received funding.
Public comment on the proposal runs through August 19. Submit comments at http://www.regulations.gov using docket number COE-2026-0034.
Federal Water Tap is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.
A whistleblower and watchdog advocacy group used an EPA database of locations that may have handled PFAS materials or products to map the potential impact of PFAS throughout Colorado. They found about 21,000 Colorado locations in the EPA listings, which were uncovered through a freedom of information lawsuit. Locations are listed by industry category. (Source: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility analysis of EPA database)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $44.3 million in new grant funding for โSmall or Disadvantaged Communitiesโ to address polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Colorado water. That funding comes as the agency rolls back some regulations on those chemicals…The funding for Colorado water is part of a billion dollar investment across the country. The money can be allocated to testing, planning, and infrastructure projects. According to a press release from the EPA, โsmall, rural, and disadvantaged water systems often have fewer resources.โ The program is โspecifically designed to ensure these communities are not left behind.โ […] New rules announced Monday wouldย rescind some Biden-era regulations on PFAS chemicalsย and extend the deadline for water to meet federal standards byย two additional years, to 2031.
Anna Vargas, of Manassa, Colorado, is a sixth-generation resident of the San Luis Valley who is deeply embedded in local water management initiatives. She hasnโt drunk her own tap water in years out of fear of contamination. Credit: Jacob Spetzler/Inside Climate News
In the San Luis Valley, the ongoing megadrought and a record-low snowpack are draining groundwater and increasing its concentrations of toxic metals. There are few protections for residents drinking from private wells.
Julie Zahringer hears a common refrain at her environmental laboratory in Alamosa, Colorado: A customer has been drinking well water on family land where theyโve lived for years, but recently noticed it has changed. They want to know why.
โAll of a sudden it looks different, tastes different, thereโs odor, thereโs color,โ said Zahringer.
Zahringerโs SDC Laboratory is one of the few testing water in the San Luis Valley, an 8,000-square-mile, high-altitude desert in south-central Colorado. She has tested thousands of wells during more than 30 years in the field.
Residents of the valley, which has large Hispanic populations and a high poverty rate, have been concerned about naturally occurring heavy metals in their water for decades, she said. But in the past five years, the rate of change has accelerated.
โEvery year it just seems like this is the climax of it, and the next year, it gets worse,โ said Zahringer. โThis year, weโre looking at probably the worst as far as water quality.โ
San Luis Valley Groundwater
The San Luis Valley relies on surface water from the Rio Grande and a massive aquifer system, one of the largest in North America, to drive its agricultural economy. But the aquifer is severely overallocated, losing an estimated 1.2 million acre-feet of water between 1976, when tracking began, and 2013โequivalent to more than five times what the city of Denver consumes each year. This year, the aquifer could hit another record low, as Coloradoโs snowpack, which recharges the stateโs aquifers, is at the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1941.
San Luis, CO – MAY 5, 2026: The sun sets over agriculture fields in San Luis, Colorado on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. The primary agriculture in the valley are potatoes and livestock. The Rio Grande recharges the aquifer which is the source of water for the entire San Luis Valley, including agriculture, which is the industry which economically sustains the area. The amount of water necessary for large scale agriculture is also the primary reason for the aquiferโs depletion. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to Inside Climate News)
Manassa, CO – MAY 5, 2026: A water control gate controls flow in an irrigation ditch in Manassa, Colorado on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to Inside Climate News)
Researchers are finding that as groundwater levels drop, the remaining water can contain higher concentrations of carcinogenic heavy metals.
The valleyโs well water users, many of them in historically underserved communities, are increasingly concerned about whatโs in their drinking water. But with little governmental oversight of private wells or resources to help track and manage quality, they have few options to make it safe.
Shifting Chemistry
Anna Vargas, a sixth-generation resident of the San Luis Valley, remembers making snowmen often as a child, and her mother talking about the daily rains during the summer monsoon season. Now, monsoon season barely exists here, Vargas said.
โAs the years have gone by, thereโs less rain, less snowfall. Iโve lived in the valley long enough to see the changes in weather patterns,โ says Vargas, project manager with the SLV Ecosystem Council. โWe depend a lot on snowpack, and we have hardly any this year. Itโs concerning for all of us in the Rio Grande basinโฆThe heavy metals will just become more concentrated.โ
Map of the San Luis Valley
Heavy metals like arsenic, tungsten, uranium, manganese and selenium occur naturally in rocks and soils and come up with groundwater that is pumped to the surface. With drought, Zahringer said, they can become a problem.
โWeโre not seeing a dilution of any of the contaminantsโฆso anything thatโs in the geologic makeup is just really concentrating,โ said Zahringer, whose tests have documented contaminant levels rising in the wells during dry periods.
Alamosa, CO – MAY 5, 2026: Julie Zahringer, owner and laboratory director of the Sangre de Cristo (SDC) Laboratory, poses for a portrait in her office in Alamosa, Colorado on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. The SDC Laboratory is the only source of water testing in the San Luis Valley. The company tests water for both private well owners and municipalities as well as water used in agriculture. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to Inside Climate News)
In addition, as aquifer levels drop during droughtsโand due to overpumpingโits geochemistry shifts, says Kathy James, Ph.D., associate professor with the Colorado School of Public Health. Users reaching deeper into the ground to access the remaining water can draw small amounts of water connected to geothermal sources or underground reservoirs of hot water, which can have high arsenic concentrations, into the drinking supply. Even in small amounts, this can increase arsenic concentrations to dangerous levels. James notes that these relationships are complex and non-linear, however, and additional research is needed.
Zahringerโs estimates mirror these results: Of all the well waters her lab tests in southern Colorado, about 25 percent exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencyโs maximum contaminant level for arsenic in drinking water.
Zahringer said that some customers come to her lab on referrals from their primary care physicians trying to determine the root cause of elevated levels of heavy metals in their bloodstream. Her own well water is high in arsenic, but her filtration system thoroughly treats it before it enters her house.
โIโm in a unique situation where Iโm educated and vigilant, and I have the resources to test and make sure itโs OK,โ said Zahringer. โA lot of my neighbors, I know theyโre just drinking it right out of the ground.โ
Half of the U.S. population relies on groundwater for drinking, irrigation, industry and livestock. Much of it is pumped through public water systems, which must limit contaminants to comply with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, in addition to state requirements that may be more stringent. But private wells, which are the main source of drinking water for 15 percent of Americans and about a third of San Luis Valley residents, are not regulated or monitored. In effect, about 51 million Americans are responsible for monitoring the safety of their own drinking water.
In the San Luis Valley, residents are asking more questions about how their water is impacting their health, crops and cattle, Vargas said, making it easy for her to recruit some of the more than 800 private well owners involved in Jamesโs study.
โWe filled it up so fast that that just shows how much the community members wanted their wells tested,โ says Vargas.
After a few months of recruiting, the study group was nearly at capacity.
Later, neighbors would stop her at the grocery store to tell her about their results: manganese, arsenic, uranium or other contaminants were often above the EPA thresholds.
Today, many residents in Vargasโs community have turned to bottled water. โThey just donโt know if they can drink the water,โ she said.
โAs those contaminants are increasing, we are going to start to see these rural areas really canโt afford these treatment plants and mitigation for it,โ said Zahringer. โWeโre dealing with a lot of really small communities that are really struggling to pay for their water testing, let alone to build these new plants.โ
San Luis Valley is one of the poorest rural areas of Colorado, with an estimated 21.4 percent poverty rate. Even if well users can access a water test, consistent filtration remains an economic burden.
San Luis, CO – MAY 5, 2026: Water from a natural spring pours out of a pipe in the town of San Luis in the San Luis Valley, Colorado on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to Inside Climate News)
San Luis, CO – MAY 5, 2026: The town of San Luis in the San Luis Valley, Colorado on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to Inside Climate News)
Household reverse osmosis systems can remove up to 99 percent of contaminants, including arsenic. But they are expensiveโoften costing thousands of dollars to install and hundreds more annually to maintainโand can waste up to 80 percent of the water that passes through them. And because the San Luis Valley has moderately to extremely hard water, compounds and metals accumulate much faster on filtration systems, requiring replacement more than twice as frequently as in areas with soft water.
โI come from a rural and impoverished community, and my community members canโt always be changing out these filters for this reverse osmosis filtration system,โ Vargas said.
Researchers at Arizona State University are planning to field test a new type of filter that removes a range of heavy metals from hard water systems without losing water in hopes of providing more accessible water quality mitigation for residents. Alireza Farsad, a postdoctoral research scholar at ASU who founded AmorPH2O, the company developing the filter, expects it to be commercially available next year.
Meanwhile, Vargas and James have presented the water quality study results to local county commissioners and talked with state lawmakers about the increasing concentrations of heavy metals.
But, for now, the issue has seen little action beyond testing.
San Luis, CO – MAY 5, 2026: Shirley Romero Otero, a local activist and teacher poses for a portrait in town of San Luis, Colorado on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. As an educator and activist Romero Otero has spent decades organizing for land and water rights in the San Luis Valley. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to Inside Climate News)
For Shirley Romero Otero, a local educator and activist who helped implement Jamesโs study, water quality in the San Luis Valley is an issue of environmental justice. She says the valley, home to the stateโs largest native Hispanic population, is often left out of policymaking conversations.
โThose folks in Denver that make those decisions for testing and resources need to pay attentionโฆWe are part of Colorado. We should have equality when it comes to testing and finding out what the hell is really going on,โ says Otero, who lives in San Luis, the stateโs oldest continuously occupied town, which has fewer than 600 residents.
โRegardless of socioeconomic status, political affiliation or racial geographic areas, water is the most precious resource that we have. It is the lifeblood of every community. You donโt have water, you die. Itโs that simple.โ
San Luis , CO – MAY 5, 2026: An acequia flows into San Luis, Colorado on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. Acequias are traditional community-managed irrigation ditches that channel water from rivers and streams to farms and towns. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to Inside Climate News)
The western stretch of the Arkansas River, which flows from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains across the plains of southeastern Colorado, is in trouble. That trouble is compounded by uncertainty about what, exactly, is polluting and drying the river, and how such problems can be fixed.
Overshadowed by the ongoing political brawl over the Colorado River, the Arkansas River Valley rarely appears in national news. But since Dec. 30, when President Donald Trump vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have secured favorable terms for funding to complete a $1.39 billion, 130-mile water pipeline, the region has become the stage for yet more drama about water in the Western U.S.
Arkansas Valley Conduit map via the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District (Chris Woodka) June 2021.
The Arkansas Valley Conduit is part of a decades-long effort to replace the dwindling, contaminated water in this stretch of the Arkansas Valley with clean water from Coloradoโs Western Slope and the Pueblo Reservoir. If completed, it will supply water to roughly 50,000 valley residents, many of whom can no longer count on municipal supplies for safe drinking water.
Pundits portrayed Trumpโs veto as retaliation against Colorado politicians: Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, who helped force the November vote for the release of the Epstein files, and Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who has resisted pressure to pardon Tina Peters, a county clerk in western Colorado convicted of tampering with voting machines during the 2020 election. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both Democrats, condemned the administration for โputting personal and political grievances ahead of Americans.โ The Salida-based Ark Valley Voice declared a โReign of Retribution Punishing Deep Red Southeastern Colorado.โ The New York Times, emphasizing the same irony, observed that โA Trump Veto Leaves Republicans in Colorado Parched and Bewildered.โ
For those managing the project, the veto is a setback but not a showstopper. The first dozen miles of the conduit have already been completed, and enough capital is on hand for at least three more years of construction. โSome (coverage) has been saying itโs the end of the project, which is totally false,โ said Chris Woodka, senior policy and issues manager of the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District. โItโs still being built; the veto was not for any reason that had anything to do with the project, and weโre working in every way we can to make this affordable.โ
For valley residents, the issue is personal. This rural region is more culturally aligned with western Kansas than with Front Range cities. Like people throughout the Great Plains, the local residents are grappling with eroding social services and the rising cost of living. The scarcity of safe water magnifies uncertainty. โIf you donโt have clean water,โ said Jack Goble, general manager of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District and a sixth-generation rancher, โyou really donโt have anything.โ
โHOW EASY IT IS,โ wrote William Mills in his 1988 book The Arkansas, โto take a river for granted.โ
The Arkansas Valley of Colorado is the ancestral homelands of the Plains Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples. A geographical corridor across the Southern Plains, it was a route for incursions and ethnic cleansing by non-Native fur trappers, traders, military expeditions, hide hunters, railroad developers and settlers. Those settlers include my ancestors; I grew up in southwest Kansas, where generations of my family farmed and ranched along the dry Cimarron River. The Arkansas Valley, with its dwindling water and flatlands, feels like home.
Straight line diagram of the Lower Arkansas Valley ditches via Headwaters Magazine
By 1900, settlers had diverted the Arkansas into a maze of ditches. Irrigation and migrant labor supported sugar beet factories, vegetable cultivation and Rocky Fordโs famous melons. Such practices remade the riverbed, increased salinity, and reduced flow. As with the Colorado River, water rights were assigned partly on wishful thinking. Today, the Arkansas Valley is one of the regionโs most over-appropriated basins, and the riverโs annual flow has dramatically declined. A short distance past the Kansas line, the river is entirely dry.
The Arkansas is being drained in new ways. Climate change and a record-breaking snow drought are intensifying the scarcity. Over the last half-century, growing Front Range cities have purchased water rights from farmers in the valley. Exchange agreements allow cities to swap these rights for ones farther upstream, leaving the downstream flow diminished and dirtier. Between 1978 and 2022, nearly 44% of the irrigated farmland in the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District was taken out of production.
Rocky Ford Melon Day 1893 via the Colorado Historical Society
Critics call it โbuy-and-dry.โ They say the removal of water has disastrous consequences for an agricultural region. โIf you take all of that water out of an economy that completely depends on it,โ Goble said, โit just breaks a community.โ Faced with the prospect of litigation from local water districts, cities like Aurora claim to be developing more sustainable arrangements.
THE ARKANSASโ WATER is changing, too. The river is diverted into dozens of canals and fields. What doesnโt evaporate or get absorbed returns as runoff or sinks through the alluvial gravels that connect to the riverbed. Each time a drop of water returns, it carries more dissolved minerals. As the riverโs volume lessens, the concentration increases in what is left. By the time the river reaches the Kansas border, the water regularly contains 4,000 milligrams or more per liter โ making it about eight times saltier than a typical sports drink and unsuitable for growing many crops.
Minerals are not the only problem. The river basin and alluvial gravels are also contaminated with radium and uranium. Last year, a study by the Colorado Geological Survey found that the levels of radioactivity in more than 60% of the private wells sampled in the valley exceeded federal standards.
The radionuclides are called โnaturally occurring.โ But natural uranium usually stays locked in rock. In the valley, irrigated agriculture sets it into motion. Uranium is mobilized by complex interactions between oxygen, sediments, water, microbes and nitrate. Nitrate is a common fertilizer. One study found that valley farmers had over-applied it for decades. This pulls out radionuclides, turns them loose, and flushes them into the riverโs shallow aquifer. Levels rise as the river moves east through agricultural lands.
Contamination is not news in the valley. People have worked on cooperative solutions for decades. To meet safe water standards while the conduit is under construction, the towns of La Junta and Las Animas installed filtration systems. But cleaning the water creates hyper-contaminated wastewater, which is currently diluted and poured back into the river. โThe only true solution,โ said Bill Long, president of the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District board, โis a new source.โ
Aerial Photo of AVC Construction. Credit: Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District
THE CONDUIT WOULD PROVIDE safe water to a region too often disregarded. But the project also raises questions about what can truly be bypassed and what cannot, and about the fate of the river itself.
Lincoln Park/Cotter Mill superfund site via the Environmental Protection Agency
Near Caรฑon City, upstream from the conduit, the Lincoln Park/Cotter Superfund site contains a former uranium mill, millions of tons of radioactive waste, coal mineworks and tailing ponds. The site sits less than two miles from the Arkansas River. It is known to be contaminated with the same compounds โ radionuclides, selenium, sulfates โ that affect communities downstream.
Local residents have worked for decades to raise awareness and hold a revolving cast of agencies, regulators and owners accountable for the pollution. โIt has taken us a lifetime,โ said Jeri Fry, co-chair of Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste. โAs the years have gone by, we have been the ones holding the memory.โ
Without memory, they say, contamination is normalized as background, treated as an isolated issue, or denied. โWeโve been stonewalled on many of our legitimate concerns,โ said Carol Dunn, vice-chairperson of the Lincoln Park/Cotter Community Advisory Group. She believes state regulators avoid testing for fear of uncovering inconvenient facts.
The most inconvenient would suggest connections between contamination in the valley and industrial pollution upstream, which affects not only Caรฑon City but the communities of Leadville, Pueblo and Fountain Creek. For Fry, all of the known and unknown pressures on the river point to the same fundamental problem. โWe are not treating our water as though it is a sacred thing,โ she said. โAnd it is. Itโs got to be.โ
When I led the Bureau of Land Management under President Biden, the hardest part of my job was reassembling the agency after the first Trump administration had scattered its headquarters from our nationโs capital. The move crippled the agencyโas intended.
That experience led me to understand that the current Trump administrationโs unpopular plan to move the U.S. Forest Service headquarters will be every bit as destructive. It will hurt forests, wildlife and communities that rely upon our public lands and waters.
In 2020, almost 90% of the BLM employees ordered to move West chose not to, forcing them out the door. With those seasoned employees went years of wisdom and knowledge of how things are supposed to work, of how to deliver for the American people.
Todayโs Forest Service plan goes farther, aiming to close regional offices and shutter dozens of the agencyโs research centers, as we face what some say will be a horrific wildfire season.
The Forest Service and the BLM combined manage 20% of our countryโs lands and waters. These public lands, the places we camp, hike, watch birds, hunt and simply wander in nature, are truly one of Americaโs best ideas. For Westerners, they are a deep part of our identity.
There is a reason Forest Service headquarters are based in Washington, DC. Itโs where our nationโs leaders work. Believe me, I did not want to move to the capital from my home in Montana to run the BLM, but to be able to fight for Western people and places, I had to go to the seat of our nationโs power.
I was often in the Interior Secretaryโs offices. I frequently walked to work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director, talking through thorny problems such as how to protect wildlife while permitting transmission lines. Washington is where people manage relationships with Congress, where budgets get made.
The administration says all their changes are about bringing leadership closer to where the work happens. Thatโs a political talking point, and itโs false.
If DOGEโs dismantling of government agencies last year provides any lesson, then cruelty and disruption are the real point. These changes aim to create chaos, deliver the administrationโs stated goal of traumatizing employees, and imperil the very existence of public lands โ lands that belong to all Americans. We improve the management of our forests by giving foresters the resources they need and letting them make decisions based on sound science and collaboration, not by gutting their agency.
Over the course of the last year, the Forest Service forced or coerced roughly a quarter of its approximately 30,000 employees to leave. In this latest round of engineered chaos, thousands of people will be reassigned and ordered to move. If BLM history is any guide, almost all will leave their positions rather than uproot their families. The agency could soon be left with roughly half its former ranks.
Think of your job. Now, think of half of your colleagues gone. Would your organization be able to recover from the loss and demoralization to do its work?
There are inevitable repercussions to this radical attack on our public land management agencies: Campgrounds will close. Trails wonโt be maintained. High fuel loads near communities will go unaddressed. Wildfires will become even harder to fight. More sawmills will close. The health of our land, waters and wildlife will decline. With things going wrong on the ground, some will demand that these lands be transferred to states or sold to private industry.
Tracy Stone-Manning. Photo via WritersOnTheRange.org
Thatโs exactly what the people in power today want. The choice of Utah for the Forest Service headquartersโhome to Senator Mike Lee, who leads the charge on public land selloff, as well as to the state that is suing to try to take over millions of your public landsโreveals the administrationโs true agenda.
The inevitable does not need to happen. There is one power to stop our public lands from being mismanaged to the point of selloff: Itโs the outrage of the American people.
Americans overwhelmingly support public lands and want future generations to enjoy the freedoms found in them. Our public forests, rivers and deserts deserve to be treated better, and the federal land managers who work tirelessly deserve better. Itโs up to us to demand it.
Tracy Stone-Manning is president of The Wilderness Society and a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.
The Navajo Mine, which supplies coal to the Four Corners Generating Station; aerial view looking west. Wikimedia Commons: User Dicklyon licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Residents of the Navajo community of Burnham, New Mexico, have raised concerns about the expansion of a coal mine, including its environmental impact and a lack of transparency .
The Navajo Transitional Energy Company has proposed expanding the Navajo Mine, potentially extending its life by 110 years.
Opponents question the need for a 110-year expansion, as the mine’s only customer is a power plant set to close in 2031.
Dailan Long, with his relatives and other members of the Navajo community in Burnham, New Mexico, has long worked to defend their community from coal industry efforts to expand access to the areaโan ongoing struggle that has led him to ask, โAre we always going to keep fighting?โ The latest threat is a proposed expansion of the Navajo Mine by theย Navajo Transitional Energy Company, a plan that could keep the operation running for 110 years, even though the only coal-fired power plant in the area is set to close in 2031. Long, his relative Joni Lapahie, and other community members are working to raise awareness about the proposal, which they say surfaced only recently despite assurances from their chapter administration. NTEC has submitted an application for the โNo Name Permit,โ after the No Name arroyo runs through the permit area. It would expand coal mining operations across about 11,526 acres. NTEC proposes to mine 9,042 acres of the area, with a maximum annual production rate of 5 million tons of coal per year, starting in 2031. The total mined coal would be approximately 503 million tons, extending the mineโs life to 2136. In late January, the Office of Surface Mining held a scoping meeting at the Burnham Chapter House, where members of the community, environmental justice groups and employees voiced their concerns or support for the expansion. The office said during the meeting that it intends to prepare a draft environmental impact statement by August less than a year after NTEC submitted its permit application package application. Many critics of the expansion say that’s too quick of a turn around.
EPA asks federal court to pause part of its regulations forย PFASย in drinking water.
EPA also says it will uphold Biden-eraย lead pipeย replacement requirements.
DOE once again orders aย Michigan coal plantย to continue operating.
Congress will holdย hearingsย this week on safe drinking water, water-related legislation, and an Army Corps authorization bill.
U.S. Supreme Court will hold oral arguments this week for theย Line 5 oil pipeline case.
EPA seeks comments on ways to reduce regulatory burden forย hazardous substance spill response plans.
FEMA continues to be slow in approvingย disaster declarationsย in Democratic-led states.
And lastly, the White House promotes domestic phosphorus mining and glyphosate production by conferring โimmunityโ under the Defense Production Act.
โConsistent with these findings, I find that ensuring robust domestic elemental phosphorus mining and United States-based production of glyphosate-based herbicides is central to American economic and national security. Without immediate Federal action, the United States remains inadequately equipped and vulnerable.โ โ President Trumpโs executive order that grants these activities (phosphorus mining and glyphosate production) immunity from โdamages or penaltiesโ for any activity related to the order. The underlying law is the Defense Production Act. Phosphorus and glyphosate are foundational elements of modern American agribusiness. They are in fertilizer and the weedkiller Roundup. But they are also primary water pollutants that contribute to harmful algal blooms or are linked to cancer and other illnesses.
EPA PFAS Lawsuit The EPA is continuing to make its case in court that the agencyโs Biden-era regulation of four PFAS in drinking water should be paused while it works on a new regulation that would officially rescind them, Bloomberg Law reports.
Two of the regulated chemicals โ PFOA and PFOS โ have standard numerical limits. The four others โ PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and GenX โ would also be regulated as a group, using whatโs known as a โhazard index.โ This is the first time the agency has used such an approach for drinking water regulation.
The court in January rejected the EPAโs request to vacate the hazard index component. The agency now wants to separate the hazard index from the rest of the litigation.
Two water utility groups โ the American Water Works Association and Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies โ filed the lawsuit in June 2024 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
In the court filing, the agency says that it has drafted a notice of rulemaking to rescind the hazard index and plans to โcommence the rulemaking process imminently.โ
Lead Pipe Replacement In a separate lawsuit, the EPA said it would uphold the Biden administrationโs 10-year timeline for most cities to replace lead drinking water pipes, the Associated Press reports.
The lawsuit challenging the timeline was also brought by the American Water Works Association, which argued that it was not feasible.
Michigan Coal Plant Operating Order Extended The Department of Energy once again extended the life of a Michigan coal-fired power plant.
This is the fourth 90-day order to keep the J.H. Campbell Generating Plant operating. The DOE argues that closing the plant is a threat to grid reliability. It is also costing Consumers Energy, the plant owner, a lot of money โ at least $80 million through last September. The company will likely recover costs through customer rate increases or surcharges.
Consumers intended to shut down the plant in May 2025.
The EPA, at the prompting of regulated facilities, is considering changing federal requirements for hazardous substance spill plans, which are authorized under the Clean Water Act to guide emergency response in case a large volume of toxic chemicals is released into waterways.
The requirements in questions were established in 2024 during the Biden administration and apply to onshore non-transportation facilities โ things like chemical manufacturers, oil and gas operators, gas stations, hospitals.
The agency is seeking comment on whether it should simplify the rules for determining which facilities are required to file response plans. Public comments are due March 20 and can be submitted via www.regulations.gov using docket number EPA-HQ-OLEM-2025-1707.
Studies and Reports
Disaster Declarations and Approvals FEMA approved a disaster declaration for Louisiana, which the state requested on February 5 following a late-January storm. And it approved a declaration for a Washington, D.C. sewer line that collapsed on January 19.
The federal disaster agency, meanwhile, has rejected or has been slow to approve requests from Democratic-run states. FEMA has not acted on Washington stateโs January 21 request.
Arizona and Illinois are appealing requests from last fall that were rejected. Colorado is appealing two requests from January 16 that were denied.
Chinook Salmon Decision The National Marine Fisheries Service decided against listing the Washington coast segment of Chinook salmon as endangered or threatened, saying the population faces low extinction risk.
This is the result of the agencyโs 12-month review, an in-depth assessment of the threats to a species. In response to a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, the agency had made a preliminary, 90-day decision during the Biden administration that listing the species may be necessary.
Washington coast Chinook salmon spawn north of the Columbia River and west of the Elwha River, a geography that includes the Olympic peninsula.
On the Radar
Line 5 in the U.S. Supreme Court On February 24, the nationโs high court will hear oral arguments in a case involving the controversial Line 5 oil pipeline that crosses the Straits of Mackinac between lakes Huron and Michigan.
The case centers on a jurisdictional matter: should the lawsuit seeking to shut down the 73-year-old pipeline be heard in state or federal court?
Dana Nessel, the Michigan attorney general, filed the case in state court in 2019 alleging that Enbridgeโs continued operation of the pipeline violated state law.
Colorado River DEIS Comments Due The Bureau of Reclamation is accepting public comments through March 2 on its draft plan for managing the Colorado River reservoirs after current rules expire at the end of the year.
Also on February 24, a Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee will discuss 18 water-related bills, including rural water supply systems, snow water forecasting, and water recycling.
There are two hearings this week on the next Water Resources Development Act, the legislation that authorizes Army Corps projects for dams, levees, ports, and ecosystem restoration.
The action starts on February 24 with a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee. The head of the Army Corps will testify, as will the chief of engineers.
Then on February 25, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works holds its own hearing.
Federal Water Tapย is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news,ย followย Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.
There is another emerging issue that decades of drought and the warming climate is causing in the San Luis Valley โ elevated levels of heavy metals in drinking wells that can cause health issues for households that rely on them.
Itโs a topic Kathy James, Ph.D., and associate professor with the Colorado School of Public Health, knows well after spending the past three years working with families in the Valley that rely on private drinking wells.
James provided an update to the work during Tuesdayโs opening day of the 2026 Southern Rocky Mountain Ag Conference. She reported that 15 to 25 percent of the private groundwater wells used for drinking water in the San Luis Valley contain elevated levels of arsenic, uranium and other heavy metals.
Her confidence in the findings is bolstered by the fact that 850 households in the different counties of the Valley participated in the study and provided samples to help James and her team evaluate the effect drought is having on water quantity and water quality.
โThe comprehensive information that we have about distribution of metals across the Valley is by far one of the best weโve seen in most western states that do experience elevated metals,โ James said.
She noted how low snowpack impacts the age of water underground and ultimately the quality of water people are drinking from a private well.
The Upper Rio Grande Basin, like the Colorado River, is suffering from snow droughtsin the high elevations of the west and below-normal spring runoff levels.
Less snow, less spring runoff for recharge of the aquifers, and higher levels of arsenic, uranium and other heavy metals is the emerging issue. James talks more about the study and the teamโs findings in the next episode of The Valley Pod, which streams Wednesday on AlamosaCitizen.com.
When people think about agricultural pollution, they often picture what is easy to see: fertilizer spreaders crossing fields or muddy runoff after a heavy storm. However, a much more significant threat is quietly and invisibly building in the ground.
Across some of the most productive farmland in the United States, a nutrient called phosphorus has been accumulating in the soil for decades, at levels far beyond what crops actually require. While this element is essential for life-supporting root development and cellular chemistry to grow food, too much of it in the wrong places has become a growing environmental liability.
Phosphorus is one of the three primary nutrients plants require for growth, along with nitrogen and potassium. Without enough phosphorus, crops struggle and production suffers.
For decades, applying phosphorus fertilizer has been a kind of insurance policy in American agriculture. If farmers werenโt sure how much was already in the soil, adding a little extra seemed safer than risking a shortfall. Fertilizer was relatively inexpensive, and the long-term consequences were poorly understood.
However, phosphorus can still be carried off fields when rain or irrigation water erodes phosphorus-rich soil, or some of the built-up phosphorus dissolves into runoff.
Years of application have led to something no one initially planned for: accumulation.
How much phosphorus has built up?
Since the mid-20th century, farmers across the United States have applied hundreds of millions of tons of phosphorus fertilizer. From 1960 to 2007, phosphate fertilizer consumption in the U.S. increased from approximately 5.8 million metric tons per year to over 8.5 million metric tons annually.
In more recent decades, fertilizer use has continued to rise. In corn production alone, phosphorus applications increased by nearly 30% between 2000 and 2018. Crops absorb some of that phosphorus as they grow, but not all of it. Over time, the excess has piled up in soils.
Scientists call this buildup โlegacy phosphorus.โ Itโs a reminder that todayโs environmental challenges are often the result of yesterdayโs well-intentioned decisions.
If phosphorus stayed locked in the soil, farmers would have wasted money on fertilizer they didnโt need. And excess phosphorus in soil can hinder the uptake of essential plant micronutrients and alter the soil microbial community, reducing diversity that is important for good soil health.
Unfortunately, phosphorus doesnโt always remain in place. Rainfall, irrigation and drainage can transport phosphorus โ either dissolved in water or attached to eroded soil particles โ into nearby canals, streams, rivers and lakes. Once there, it becomes food for algae.
The result can be explosive algal growth, known as eutrophication, which turns clear water a cloudy green. When these algae blooms die, their decomposition consumes oxygen, sometimes creating low-oxygen โdead zonesโ where fish and other aquatic life struggle to survive. This process is primarily driven by phosphorus leaching, as seen in the Florida Everglades.
Another prime example is the largest dead zone in the United States, covering about 6,500 square miles (16,835 square kilometers), which forms each summer in the Gulf of Mexico. Cutting back on nitrogen without lowering phosphorus can worsen eutrophication.
Some algal blooms also produce toxins that threaten drinking water supplies. Communities downstream may be told not to drink or touch the water, and face high treatment costs and lost recreational opportunities. National assessments document toxins associated with algal blooms in many states, particularly where warm temperatures and nutrient pollution overlap.
Rising global temperatures are exacerbating the problem. Warmer waters hold less oxygen than colder waters, increasing the likelihood that phosphorus pollution will trigger eutrophication and dead zones.
A phosphorus monitor operates next to a small stream near an agricultural field in Ohio. AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel
Flawed testing hid the problem
Given the risks, a natural question arises: Why donโt farmers simply stop adding phosphorus where it isnโt needed?
Part of the answer lies in how the amount of phosphorus in the soil is measured. Most soil tests used today were developed decades ago and were designed to work reasonably well across many soil types. But soils are incredibly diverse. Some are sandy; others are rich in organic matter formed from centuries of decayed plants.
And those traditional soil tests use acids to extract phosphorus from the soil, delivering inaccurate findings of how much phosphorus plants can actually access. For instance, in soils that have more than 20% organic matter, like those found in parts of Florida and other agricultural regions, the testsโ acids may be partially neutralized by other compounds in the soil. That would mean they donโt collect as much phosphorus as really exists.
In addition, the tests determine a total quantity of phosphorus in the soil, but not all of that is in a form plants can take up through their roots. So soil where tests find high phosphorus levels may have very little available to plants. And low levels can be found in soil that has sufficient phosphorus for plant growth.
When farmers follow the recommendations that result from these inaccurate tests, they may apply fertilizer that provides little benefit to crops while increasing the risk of pollution. This isnโt a failure of farmers. Itโs a mismatch between outdated tools and complex soils.
Soil testing determines levels of various nutrients, but the results donโt always line up with whatโs available to plants. Wayan Vota via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA
A smarter way forward
The solution isnโt to eliminate phosphorus fertilization. Crops still need it, and many soils genuinely require additional nutrients. The challenge is knowing when enough is truly enough.
Researchers, including me, are developing improved testing methods that better reflect how plants actually interact with soil. Some approaches mimic plantsโ root behavior directly, estimating how much phosphorus crops can realistically take up from any given field or type of soil โ rather than only measuring how much exists chemically.
Other tests look at the amount of phosphorous a fieldโs soil can hold before releasing excess nutrients into waterways. These approaches can help identify fields where farmers can use less phosphorus or pause it altogether, allowing crops to draw down the legacy phosphorus already present.
The phosphorus problem is a slow-moving one, built over decades and hidden below ground. However, its effects are increasingly visible in the form of algal blooms, fish kills and contamination of drinking water supplies. Farmers can measure and manage soil nutrients differently and reduce pollution, save money and protect water resources without sacrificing agricultural productivity.
Firefighting foam containing PFAS chemicals is responsible for contamination in Fountain Valley. Photo via USAF Air Combat Command
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elliot Wenzler). Here’s an excerpt:
January 21, 2026
An Adams County water district filed a lawsuit against Denver on Tuesday [January 20, 2026], alleging that foam from the cityโs fire training facility has contaminated its water for decades. Theย South Adams County Water and Sanitation Districtย says the cityโs Roslyn Fire Training Facility, near the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, has used firefighting foam containing a group of chemicals known as PFAS, also known as โforever chemicals,โ since at least 1991…
โDenver has failed to eliminate or control releases of (the chemicals) at and from the fire training facility and those releases have contaminated and continue to contaminate the Districtโs drinking water supplies,โ the lawsuit alleges.
The district serves about 75,000 residents in Commerce City and unincorporated Adams County. It firstย discovered the contamination in 2018. Since then, the district has spent tens of millions of dollars to mitigate the issue, according to the lawsuit. Officials there built another water treatment facility specifically to treat PFAS, and itย purchased water from Denver Waterย to dilute the contaminated water…Even with state and federal funding, the lawsuit says, โthere remains a huge deficitโ from the costs associated with the firefighting foam. The district asks a U.S. District Court judge to rule that Denver is liable for the response costs and for the ongoing costs the district will incur. It notes that water district officials notified Denver city officials of this claim back in 2019. The amount that the city of Denver would have to pay, if found liable, would be determined in a trial.
Water officials and Coloradoโs congressional reps are scrambling to find an affordable path forward for communities in the Lower Arkansas Valley who had hoped the federal government would help them lower their costs for a critical clean water pipeline.
President Trump vetoed the bipartisan Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act on New Yearโs Eve, and despite Coloradoโs efforts, Congress failed to override the veto last week.
Construction on the $1.39 billion pipeline began in 2023. Thereโs enough money left from the $500 million appropriated by Congress to continue building for another three to five years, according to Bill Long, president of the board for the Pueblo-based Southeastern Water Conservancy District. The district operates the federal Fryingpan-Arkansas Project and is overseeing pipeline construction for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
That means the pipeline should eventually reach Rocky Ford, a point roughly halfway between its start east of Pueblo Reservoir and its endpoint farther east, near Lamar. โItโs when we get to the second half of the project where it will be challenging to build and repay our portion of the debt,โ Long said. โWithout this legislation, there will be a point where we will have to stop.โ
What comes next isnโt clear yet, though members of Coloradoโs congressional delegation and water officials in the Lower Arkansas Valley said they are evaluating their options for taking another run at the issue in Congress.
โObviously things are up in the air,โ Long said.
โSooner rather than later we may be looking at a new piece of legislation, but the question is, would this administration be amenable to a new piece of legislation. If we canโt find something, we may have to wait this administration out,โ he said.
Pueblo Dam. Photo courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife
Waiting for clean water in the Lower Arkansas Valley is nothing new.
First envisioned as part of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamationโs Fryingpan-Arkansas Project in 1962, the pipeline languished on paper for decades because of high costs. The 130-mile pipeline serves 39 communities.
The need for clean water in the Lower Arkansas Valley became apparent in the 1950s and earlier, by some accounts, when wells drilled near the Arkansas River were showing a range of toxic elements, including naturally occurring radium and selenium. Both can cause severe health problems, including bone cancer and lung issues if high amounts are consumed.
Without safe drinking water, towns in the region have either had to haul water or install expensive reverse osmosis plants to purify their contaminated well water.
Things changed on the stalled project in 2023, when Congress directed some $500 million toward the pipeline.
The legislation would have gone further, allowing the repayment terms on the loans from the federal government to be extended to 75 years, up from 50 years, and to cut interest rates in half, from 3.046% to 1.523%. The legislation also would have allowed the project to be classified as one of hardship, a move that may have allowed the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to forgive some loan payments if a case for economic hardship could have been made.
The conduit project is also partially funded with grants and loans from state agencies, including the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority.
โThe act was an important step in making this project affordable,โ said Keith McLaughlin, executive director of the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority, one of the agencies helping fund the work.
โObviously weโre disappointed,โ he said.
Colorado politicos say theyโre still working to push legislation through. The bipartisan act was sponsored by Colorado Republican U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert and Jeff Hurd in the U.S. House and Democratic U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet in the U.S. Senate.
Trumpโs veto of the measure is widely seen as being the result of ongoing conflicts between his administration and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, including a request to pardon former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who is serving a nine-year prison term for orchestrating a data breach of the countyโs elections equipment violating state elections. Polis so far has declined to intervene in that case, although he did describe the sentence as โharsh,โ leading some to speculate that he might commute it. In a statement, Polis said he was hopeful that Congress would ultimately succeed in approving some form of aid to help complete the conduit.
Neither Boebert nor Hurd responded to a request for comment. But Hickenlooper said that all the congressional reps continue to work on a new path forward.
โThe people of southeastern Colorado have waited 60 years for clean, safe drinking water. Weโre continuing to work with our partners in the delegation to complete the Arkansas Valley Conduit and deliver on the federal governmentโs promise,โ Hickenlooper said via email.
After Coloradan U.S. House Reps. Lauren Boebert and Jeff Hurd saw their Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act approved unanimously by Congress in December, they were stunned when President Donald Trump โ once a proponent of the project โ vetoed it…After the rejection of the legislation sponsored by Boebert, the former 3rd Congressional District representative and co-sponsored by Hurd, the districtโs current representative, they sought a rare move for Congressional Republicans in the Trump era: a veto override that could have defied the president. A vote on the veto override was held in the House on Thursday, needing two-thirds of voters to vote โyesโ to pass. It ultimately failed with 249 โyesโ votes and 176 โnoโ votes, with one โpresentโ vote, around 8% short of the threshold for passage. All 213 Democrats voted to back the override, while 36 Republicans backed the override but 176 did not. Five Republicans did not vote…
Boebertโs bill, H.R. 131, would have provided communities in the region more time and flexibility to repay the federal government by extending repayment periods and lowering interest rates. In his veto decision, Trump cited financial concerns, but on the House floor, both Boebert and Hurd emphasized that the bill would not expand the project, authorize new construction or increase federal share. Per Boebert, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation found that Arkansas Valley drinking water has such high levels of radium, uranium and other pollutant contamination that people in the area could see the cost of drinking water triple without this legislation.
โContrary to what the veto message states, my bill does not authorize any additional federal funding. It simply modifies the repayment terms for small rural communities in my district so theyโre able to afford their 35% cost share of the project that they are statutorily obligated to repay,โ Boebert said…
Hurd said that rural Colorado and rural America voted โoverwhelminglyโ for Trump because they didnโt want to be forgotten by the government, adding, โThey expected Washington to keep its word, not abandon them midway.โ He also expressed concern about the precedent a failed veto override would set, not just for the rest of Trumpโs term but moving forward on Capitol Hill.ย This was a similar, though less alarmingly phrased, point as Neguse earlier stating, โNo state is safe from political retaliation.โ
Arkansas Valley Conduit map via the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District (Chris Woodka) June 2021.
U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet issued the following statement after President Trump vetoed their bipartisan Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act:
โNothing says โMake America Great Againโ like denying 50,000 rural Coloradans access to clean, affordable drinking water. President Trumpโs first veto of his second term blocks a bipartisan bill that both the House and Senate passed unanimously, costs taxpayers nothing, and delivers safe, reliable water to rural communities that overwhelmingly supported him. Trumpโs attacks on Southern Colorado are politics at its worstโputting personal and political grievances ahead of Americans. Southeastern Coloradans were promised the completion of the Arkansas Valley Conduit more than 60 years ago. With this veto, President Trump broke that promise and demonstrated exactly why so many Americans are fed up with Washington. We will keep fighting to make sure rural Coloradans get the clean drinking water they were promised.โ
Arkansas Valley Conduit map via the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District (Chris Woodka) June 2021.
A mayfly loving trout โ speckled, shiny and perfectly hand-sized for that Instagram hero shot. A five-foot-long torpedo of a predator, capable of powering through floodwaters and migrating hundreds of miles. A three-inch minnow, living only a couple of years and content with life in a small pool in an ephemeral creek. Which fish is the true Colorado native?
The answer is all of them. A state with waterways as diverse as Coloradoโs has naturally produced a diverse assortment of native fish to match. We have cutthroat trout, lovers of pristine, high-elevation streams on both sides of the Continental Divide. Large, long-lived species like Colorado pikeminnow and humpback chub fight their way through the whitewater of the Western Slope. Tiny brassy minnows and redbelly dace ply the shallow, sandy creeks of the Eastern Plains. Each is adapted to its own ecological niche, body and behavior tailored to its particular home waters and the other aquatic creatures that evolved alongside it.
Humans have dramatically altered this delicate balance in a very short time span. While some native populations still thrive, many others struggle as their habitats and predators have changed. Starting a couple of hundred years ago, mining pollution, overfishing, and haphazard stocking of non-native fish led some Colorado species to plummet, or even go extinct. Today, native fish still grapple with climate change, dams, water diversions, and competition with invasive species. But humans are also working to turn back the clock and restore these native species. Follow along on this tour of Coloradoโs waterways, meeting our home-state fish โ and learning what it takes to help them endure.
Headwaters
On the Yampa River Core Trail during my bicycle commute to the Colorado Water Congress’ 2025 Summer Conference August 21, 2025.
The headwaters region is the realm of the cutthroat trout. Credit: Water Education Colorado
Letโs begin where the rivers do: high in the Rocky Mountains, where clean, cold streams form and flow downhill, eventually feeding the stateโs largest rivers. This is the realm of Coloradoโs poster fish, the cutthroat trout. Colorful, beautiful and beloved by anglers, cutthroats โ recognizable by the iconic red slash markings under the jaw that give the species its name โ live in the headwaters of almost every river basin in the state. Cutthroat trout are at home where thereโs oxygenated water, gravelly bars for spawning, and good vegetative cover on stream banks.
โCutthroat troutโ isnโt just one type of fish in Colorado, but rather, six. Thereโs the greenback cutthroat trout, originally from the South Platte River Basin on the east side of the Divide. The yellowfin cutthroat came from the Arkansas River Basin, but is now considered extinct. Moving southwest, the Rio Grande cutthroat rose from the Rio Grande Basin. Then, on the Western Slope, the Colorado River cutthroat is further divided into three lineages: the Green River lineage, found in the Green, White and Yampa rivers; the Uncompahgre lineage, of the Dolores, Gunnison and Upper Colorado rivers; and the San Juan lineage, of the San Juan River Basin.
Thatโs not to say the average angler โ or indeed, the average fish biologist โ can tell the cutthroats apart just by looking at them. Nor can they be identified based on where theyโre caught these days. Humans, from regular people trying to create new fishing opportunities to professional fisheries managers, spent much of the last couple of centuries moving cutthroats around the state with little understanding of the differences between subspecies. โItโs really hard to put the genie back in the bottle once that happens,โ says Jim White, southwest senior aquatic biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW). โOne of the great mysteries in cutthroat trout distributions was, what went where? What did these river basins look like before we started widespread stocking of cutthroats and non-natives?โ
Biologists didnโt know the answer until 2012, when a landmark study led by University of Colorado Boulder researchers conducted DNA analysis on museum fish specimens gathered at the beginning of European contact with the West. Those results confirmed the existence of the six genetically distinct types of cutthroat โ five previously known to science, and one brand-new one, the San Juan lineage trout. The study speculated that San Juan cutthroats had also gone extinct, but CPW biologists had to be sure. โWe beat the bushes, surveyed all the populations, and conducted molecular tests on fin clips from all known cutthroat trout populations in the San Juan Basin,โ says Kevin Rogers, CPW aquatic research scientist and co-author on the 2012 genetic study. โIndeed, there were about a half-dozen populations that [matched] the fish that had been collected in the mid- to late 1800s.โ
One thing all five remaining Colorado cutthroat varieties have in common is a reduction in the amount of habitat they occupy. The stateโs cutthroats are now relegated to just 12% of their historical habitat on the high end, down to half a percent on the low end, says Boyd Wright, native aquatic species coordinator with CPW. โMost of the lower elevations have been invaded by non-native trout, so cutthroats are persisting only in the headwaters,โ Rogers says. Greenback cutthroats are federally listed as threatened, and Rio Grande and Colorado River cutthroats (occupying just 12% and 11% of their historic habitat, respectively) are state species of special concern. The culprits? What began with pollution, overharvesting and the stocking of non-native fish in the era of Western colonization continues today.
Non-native fish pose a major threat to native cutthroats, particularly the brown, brook and rainbow trout that have been stocked statewide and now thrive in Coloradoโs waters. โTo sum it up, thereโs hybridization, thereโs predation, and thereโs competition,โ White says. โAll of those three things can interact to disadvantage our native fish populations.โ Rainbow and cutthroat trout can breed, resulting in the hybrid cutbow. Non-native trout sometimes even eat the natives. They also compete with cutthroats for food, and often win. Brook and brown trout spawn in the fall and hatch in the spring โ so when the cutthroat fry hatch in late summer, their non-native rivals have already had several months to grow bigger.
Climate change isnโt helping. โWe have the two ugly stepchildren that come along with a changing climate: drought and wildfire,โ Rogers notes. โThe toll wildfire can take on cutthroat is substantial. The debris flows that invariably happen afterward can wipe out populations.โ Drought can also lower or dry up streams, further contracting ranges.
But CPW and partner organizations like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are actively working to conserve Coloradoโs native cutthroats. Biologists raise the trout in hatcheries for stocking back in their native streams, but thereโs a lot more to it than that. First, managers must prep the waterways by removing non-native trout, often by poisoning with natural fish toxicants, a process that can take years. Any present pathogens, like whirling disease, must be eradicated. Managers also have to make sure non-native fish canโt reinvade the stream, usually by building a barrier, like a waterfall. Despite the difficulty and expense, the state is actively working on recovery projects for all five cutthroat varieties. โThatโs what weโre about, trying to preserve diversity for future generations to enjoy,โ Rogers says.
Desert Rivers
The Yampa River winds through towering cliffs on its journey west to meet the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument. Photo Credit: Dave Showalter
Credit: Water Education Colorado
As the mountain streams follow gravity into the western lowlands, they flow into larger networks: Rivers like the Yampa, White and Animas feed the desert arteries of the Green and San Juan, and these, together with the Gunnison, Dolores and others join the Colorado. The entire basin touches seven states, from Wyoming and Colorado up north to Arizona and California in the southwest.
The cold swift headwaters give way to rivers that historically swung between huge springtime floods and slow, turbid flatwater. And the trout give way to large, long-lived fish with bodies suited to big water and wild rapids.
Just over a dozen fish species evolved with the chops to survive in the larger rivers within the Colorado River system. Three of them, called just โthe three speciesโ by biologists, are the flannelmouth sucker, bluehead sucker, and roundtail chub. These omnivorous swimmers persist in todayโs rivers, though managers keep a close eye on conserving their populations so that they donโt go the way of four other native species.
These four โ all federally listed as endangered or threatened โ have struggled in the face of drastic, human-caused changes to their habitats. The bonytail, a large-finned, skinny-tailed omnivore, is the worst off, with no sustainable wild populations left. Its relative, the humpback chub, sports a pronounced bump behind its head, all the better to stabilize the fish in whitewater. Its populations have stayed stable over the past few years, with most of them found near the Grand Canyon, and the species was downlisted from endangered to threatened in 2021. The Colorado pikeminnow, a powerful swimmer shaped like a missile, is the largest minnow in North America. It can migrate 200 miles annually and lives 40 years or more. Its numbers are slowly increasing in the Upper Colorado and San Juan subbasins, but are declining in the Green River. And the razorback sucker, a bug- and plankton-eater, features a similar keel behind its head that helps it maneuver through high flows.
All four populations have crashed in response to human water use and reduced water availability resulting from drought and climate change, which has altered the habitats they once inhabited. โWe have cross-basin diversions that feed water from the Western Slope over to the Front Range,โ says Jenn Logan, native aquatic species manager for CPW. โWe donโt have the volume of water that we used to see in the spring. With dams and water going into ditches and filling reservoirs, runoff is nowhere near where it used to be. We donโt have sandbars formed in the way that we used to, and these systems relied on sediment to form complex habitats.โ Not only that, but dams change water temperature, with released water alternately cooling or warming the river downstream depending on where in the reservoir it comes from. And of course, they form a physical barrier for fish that evolved migrating through a huge, interconnected river system.
Then thereโs the non-native interlopers โ primarily smallmouth bass, northern pike, walleye, and green sunfish โ all introduced, either purposely or accidentally, by humans looking for expanded angling opportunities. โTheyโre predatory species โ they get in the river and can really compete with and consume the native fish in the Colorado River,โ says Josh Nehring, deputy assistant director, aquatic branch, of the CPW fish management team. All have found happy homes in the modern Colorado River Basin with its dams, reservoirs and warmer waters.
But just as in the mountain streams, fisheries managers on the Western Slope are working aggressively to protect the natives. The Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program and the San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program oversee the recovery of the four fish species listed as threatened or endangered. The recovery programs are coalitions of water users, federal, state and tribal agencies, plus nonprofits and energy organizations. They take steps like installing nets at the edge of reservoirs to keep non-natives contained and stocking sterile non-native fish in reservoirs to keep them from establishing a population if they do get out. Other work looks like electrofishing stretches of river โ that is, introducing a current that stuns fish in the water โ and physically removing the non-natives, leaving the native fish to recover and swim another day; and gillnetting northern pike in their springtime spawning habitats. Water managers go so far as to recontour river channels on the upper Yampa to cut off access to northern pikeโs spawning wetlands.
Dam management is another useful tool for both helping native fish and disadvantaging the non-natives. The Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program works with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation at Utahโs Flaming Gorge Dam on the Green River on timed releases โ releasing water when biologists detect the yearโs razorback sucker larvae โto attempt to move them down to their wetland habitats,โ Logan says. Theyโll release water to disrupt smallmouth bass nesting, when possible. And in the Lower Basin downstream of Lake Powell, managers have begun releasing cooler water specifically to make the Colorado River there less hospitable to smallmouth bass. As long-term drought has dropped water levels in Lake Powell, โWeโve been seeing increases in water temperature releases coming through the dam,โ says Ryan Mann, aquatic research program manager for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Some smallmouth bass made their way into the river below the dam in years past, but the water had been cold enough to keep them from reproducing. But in 2022, biologists found baby bass. Last summerโs cold-water releases prevented widespread spawning, and managers may continue them into the future.
Todayโs Colorado River Basin is a radically different place than in centuries past, and, โUnless thereโs some amazing technology that comes along to remove all non-native fish or a way to return flows to historic conditions weโre not going to be able to move [major river systems] back to native fish,โ Nehring says. But that doesnโt mean those species are doomed. CPW and its partners are actively raising threatened species in hatcheries and reintroducing them to targeted habitats. โWeโre really focusing on the tributaries, to keep the natives alive in enough areas where we know theyโll persist,โ Nehring says.
Eastern Plains
Here at the confluence of the Big Thompson and South Platte rivers near Greeley, a new conservation effort is underway. It restores wetlands and creates mitigation credits that developers can buy to meet their obligations under the federal Clean Water Act to offset any damage to rivers and wetlands they have caused. Credit: Westervelt Ecological Services
Credit: Water Education Colorado
As alpine streams flow east, they meander through Front Range cities, then spread across the arid plains. The water warms, rocky beds grow sandy, and habitats shrink as creeks dry up seasonally. Waters dominated by a single species explode with different fish. โWeโve got this melting pot of biological diversity along the transition zone,โ says Wright. โYou go from historically a one-species profile in the mountains to more than 28 as you go farther east. These [plains] are very harsh, unpredictable environments.โ
The fish that evolved to thrive on the plains, from the regionโs western edges in Colorado out into Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska, are largely the opposite of the big, long-lived species on the Western Slope. Theyโre a few inches long, live just a couple of years, and reproduce early. These fish are used to biding their time in small pools until rain or spring runoff reconnects the intermittent creeks, finally allowing them a change of scenery.
But the Eastern Plains havenโt escaped the challenges affecting Coloradoโs other rivers โ its native fish are struggling, too. โMost of our plains fishes are declining or locally extinct because of habitat modification or loss,โ says Ashley Ficke, fisheries ecologist with engineering firm GEI Consultants. Humans have diverted water to farms and municipalities, redirected streams into straight channels lacking habitat complexity, and even drained some waters completely. That hits fish like the plains minnow particularly hard, as its semi-buoyant eggs float vast distances between spawning grounds and ideal nursery habitat. โIt needs vast portions of unfragmented stream habitat,โ Wright says. โWeโve really lost that in Colorado, and thatโs a big reason why theyโre very rare.โ
As elsewhere in the state, though, fish managers are working to replenish the swimmers of the plains. At a hatchery in Alamosa, CPW breeds 12 rare native fish, half of them eastern species: plains minnow, suckermouth minnow, northern and southern redbelly dace, Arkansas darter, and common shiner. โWeโre working with private landowners that have streams or ponds that would be suitable for these native fish, working with them to maintain or improve that habitat, and stocking those waters with the native fish,โ Nehring says. By preserving and restoring enough of the plainsโ stream habitats, managers hope to give back sufficient waters for these little fish to persist.
In May of 2023, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that significantly limited the scope of the Clean Water Act, undoing protections that safeguarded the nationโs waters for over 50 years. Specifically, it erased critical protections for tens of millions of acres of wetlands, threatening the clean drinking water sources for millions of Americans.
While the Biden administration amended rules to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, the Trump administration recently released a new draft rule that would go further than even the Supreme Court in limiting what waters can be protected.
Nooksack River, Washington | Brett Baunton
The Clean Water Actโs definition of โWaters of the United Statesโ (WOTUS) is core to defining what waters are protected and which arenโt. Unfortunately, the Trump Administrationโs newly proposed WOTUS rule would roll back protections for vast areas of wetlands and river tributaries. Itโs estimated that close to 80% of Americaโs remaining wetlands would lose Clean Water Act protections. As written, the rule would leave many waterways vulnerable to pollution, degradation, and destruction, threatening water quality and community resilience across the country.
Blanca Wetlands, Colorado BLM-managed ACEC Blanca Wetlands is a network of lakes, ponds, marshes and wet meadows designated for its recreation and wetland values. The BLM Colorado and its partners have made strides in preserving, restoring and managing the area to provide rich and diverse habitats for wildlife and the public. To visit or get more information, see: http://www.blm.gov/co/st/en/fo/slvfo/blanca_wetlands.html. By Bureau of Land Management – Blanca Wetlands Area of Critical Environmental Concern, Colorado, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42089248
Here are our top four concerns with the new WOTUS proposal
1. The rule requires streams and wetlands to have surface water โat least during the wet seasonโ in order to qualify for protection. But it never defines what the wet season actually is.
What this means for rivers: Wet seasons vary dramatically from region to region, and without a clear, science-based definition, many healthy and ecologically important streams risk being excluded.
2. Narrow definitions and expanded exemptions shrink the scope of protected waters.
What this means for rivers: By redefining โtributaryโ to include only streams with year-round or steady โwet-seasonโ flow, and expanding exemptions for wastewater and waste-treatment systems, the new rule would eliminate protections for many intermittent streams and man-made infrastructure that function like natural streams, opening the door to more unregulated pollution. Many rivers in the Southwest only flow for part of the year. This updated definition would put many of these rivers at risk.
3. The rule suggests any artificial or natural break in flow cuts off upstream protection.
What this means for rivers: Under the proposed rule, a culvert, pipe, stormwater channel, or short dry stretch can sever jurisdiction. This means upstream waters that feed larger rivers may no longer be protected, allowing pollution to still flow into nominally protected rivers and streams.
4. The rule significantly eliminates wetland protections by requiring โwetlandsโ to physically touch a protected water and maintain surface water through the wet season.
What this means for rivers: The new definition excludes many wetlands, which naturally store floodwater, filter pollutants, and safeguard communities. This puts the drinking water for millions at risk and increases the risks of flooding for many communities.
The health of our rivers depends on the small streams and wetlands that feed them. By discarding science, narrowing longโstanding definitions, and creating confusing jurisdictional tests, the Trump Administrationโs proposed WOTUS rule risks undoing decades of progress toward cleaner, safer water. Americaโs riversโand the communities that depend on themโdeserve better.
These rollbacks will put our waterways and the life that depends on them in jeopardy. The public comment period to speak up and defend clean water protections is open until January 5. Please take action today and send a letter to the EPA urging them to keep the current definition of Waters of the United States in place!
Ephemeral streams are streams that do not always flow. They are above the groundwater reservoir and appear after precipitation in the area. Via Socratic.org
The Uncompahgre River flows from Coloradoโs San Juan mountains through the towns of Ouray and Ridgway and then into Ridgway Reservoir, which stores water for farms and households downstream. The river is beautiful, but also troubled; runoff from old mines carries heavy metals into the river, and it is pinched into an unnaturally straight and simple channel as it passes from mountain canyon headwaters into an agricultural valley.
As the river moves through the modified channel, it carves deeper into the valley floor and less frequently spills over its bank. As a result, the local water table has dropped, and riverside trees such as cottonwoods have died, impoverishing this important habitat. Water users on the Ward Ditch at the top of the valley were also struggling with broken-down infrastructure, making it difficult to access and manage water for irrigation. This confluence of challenges created a landscape of opportunity for the Uncompahgre Multi-Benefit Project, which addresses environmental problems along the river and water usersโ needs, while also improving water quality and reducing flood risks downstream.
Uncompahgre River, Colorado | Hannah Holm
The Project, managed by American Rivers, took an integrated approach to restoring a one-mile stretch of the river, which included replacing and stabilizing the Ward Ditch diversion, notching a historic berm to reconnect the river to its floodplain, and placing rock structures in the river that both protect against bank erosion and improve fish habitat. Meanwhile, ditch and field improvements make it easier to spread water across the land for agriculture and re-establish native vegetation.
Photo credit: American Rivers
Photo credit: American Rivers
In addition to the direct benefits this project delivers for on-site habitat and landowners, the enhanced ability of the river to spread out on its floodplain, both through the ditch diversion and natural processes, also provides downstream benefits. As the water slows and spreads across the floodplain during high flows, its destructive power to erode banks and damage infrastructure downstream is diminished. The same dynamics enable pollutants and sediment from upstream abandoned mines or potential wildfires to settle out before the river flows into the downstream reservoir.
Uncompahgre River, Colorado | Hannah Holm
With construction wrapping up in November 2025, the transformation of this stretch of river and its adjacent floodplain is nearly complete.ย Fields of flowers and fresh willow plantings are replacing invasive species and dead cottonwoods, and new pools, sandbars, and riffles are providing instream habitat, complementing other organizationsโ work to remediate old mines upstream.ย As a bonus, when the water level is right, the reach has become an inviting run for skilled whitewater boaters.
Because of the government shutdown, the Bureau of Reclamation cancels a high-volume water release fromย Glen Canyon Damย meant to rebuild Colorado River beaches.
Department of Energy research lab announces a funding opportunity to develop cheaperย wastewater treatment for coal power plants.
Economic disaster declarationย approved for an Illinois county where a harmful algal bloom in July resulted in a โdo not drinkโ water advisory.
The Bureau of Land Management is scheduled this week to publish a final environmental impact statement for a proposedย groundwater pipelineย in Utah.
Hydropower generationย at federal dams in the western states was below average in fiscal year 2025.
And lastly, House Democrats from Illinois ask the EPA to release lead pipe replacement funds.
โUsing federal funds as leverage against communities based on political considerations represents a dangerous abuse of power that undermines public trust and puts lives at risk. The longer we wait, the higher the long-term health, educational, and economic costs will climb, with costs being borne disproportionately by low-income and marginalized communities who have the least political power to demand faster action.โ โย Letterย from seven Illinois representatives to Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, asking him to release federal funds for lead pipe replacements.
By the Numbers
River Mile 46.5: Estimated location, as of November 14, of the leading edge of the saltwater โwedgeโ in the Mississippi River in southern Louisiana. The wedge โ salt water that pushed upriver due to weak water flow โ has retreated 10 miles in the last three weeks.
88: Percent of average hydropower generation at federal dams overseen by the Western Area Power Administration in fiscal year 2025.
November 2012 High Flow Experiment via Protect the Flows
News Briefs
Glen Canyon Dam High-Flow Release Canceled Due to the government shutdown, the Bureau of Reclamation canceled a planned high-volume release of water from Glen Canyon Dam.
โThis decision is based on the current lapse in appropriations, which has created uncertainty concerning necessary resources,โ said Wayne Pullan, director of the Upper Colorado Basin Region, in a letter dated October 31.
High-flow releases are typically carried out when downstream sediment conditions are ripe for rebuilding Colorado River beaches. The last such release was in April 2023.
Pullan said that conditions in spring 2026 will probably be conducive to a high-flow release.
Illinois Harmful Algal Bloom The Small Business Administration approved an economic disaster declaration for Coles County, Illinois, for a harmful algal bloom in July that resulted in residents being told not to drink their tap water.
The disaster declaration allows small businesses that were hurt by the do-not-drink order to receive low-interest loans. Small businesses in six contiguous counties are also eligible.
Microcystin, a neurotoxin produced by the algae, was found in the treated water above safety limits in the town of Mattoon. The town issued two do-not-drink orders in a week. Businesses closed and residents bought bottled water.
Mattoonโs water comes from Lake Paradise, the source of the algae.
Studies and Reports
Keeping Coal Going The National Energy Technology Laboratory, a Department of Energy research arm, is offering $50 million in federal funding for projects to develop wastewater treatment systems for coal power plants.
It is the largest part of a $100 million funding announcement intended to improve the โefficiency, effectiveness, costs, emissions reductions, and environmental performance of coal and natural gas use.โ
For wastewater treatment, the goal is to reduce discharges and generate useful, money-making byproducts.
Applications are due January 7, 2026.
On the Radar
Senate Hearings On November 19, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing on PFAS cleanup and disposal.
Also that day, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will discuss BLM land use planning.
Utah Rivers map via Geology.com
Utah Groundwater Supply Pipeline The BLM is due to release an environmental impact statement on November 21 for the Pine Valley Water Supply Project, a scheme to pump groundwater in southwest Utahโs Beaver County and move it to neighboring Iron County for municipal supply and irrigation water.
Proposed by the Central Iron County Water Conservancy District, the project includes 15 wells to supply 15,000 acre-feet of groundwater per year, 70 miles of pipeline, and a 200-acre solar field.
Federal Water Tap is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.
Northern Water will further delay an initial partial filling of its new Chimney Hollow Reservoir into next year to allow time for expanded groundwater tests in the area to make sure unexpected uranium leaching inside the planned pool would not migrate to other supplies.
After spending years permitting and constructing the dam west of Loveland, Northern Water was surprised in June that routine water quality tests ahead of the filling go-ahead found natural uranium leaching out of rocks exposed from a quarry used for dam fill. Initial water fill-up was then delayed for testing, to see how long the leaching might last, and how the uranium would be diluted when water diverted under the Continental Divide by the Colorado-Big Thompson system eventually fills Chimney Hollow.
Now Northern Water says it needs more time to test groundwater outside the reservoir to provide background levels of naturally occurring uranium, and determine whether a filled reservoir would โinfluenceโ nearby groundwater with uranium-tainted water. A Northern Water spokesperson used โinfluenceโ rather than โleakingโ to describe what engineers would be watching.
โInfluence or mixing of surface and groundwater can vary greatly, depending on many factors, scenarios and even locations,โ spokesperson Amy Parks said. โWithout adequate baseline data, we are not able to assess those future conditions, so this short delay allows us to do that work.โ
Map from Northern Water via the Fort Collins Coloradan.
Similar-sized Carter Lake Reservoir is just over a ridge that makes up the east edge of Chimney Hollow.
โAt this time, due to the existing bedrock, we do not think that migration of water from Chimney to Carter is likely. However, additional monitoring will help us ensure that can be detected in the future,โ Parks said.
Filling of a small portion of the reservoir had been planned for this month, but now is โexpected in early 2026,โ according to the agency.
The 12 Northern Water members that bought into the project, including the cities of Broomfield and Loveland, are already paying for construction bonds through their rates. The delay in filling the reservoir is not expected to affect their finances, the utility said.
Members were not scheduled to receive Chimney Hollow water for years. โThis doesnโt affect water deliveries or anything that project participants have been expecting, so itโs a good timeโ to widen testing protocols, Parks said in an interview.
โItโs really just an abundance of caution and making sure weโre putting the health and safety of our public and neighbors into priority, and making sure weโre crossing our tโs and dotting our iโs before we take that step of adding water,โ she said.
What mitigation is necessary remains unknown
Northern Water still does not know the scale of mitigation required to keep uranium in Chimney Hollow water at safe levels. The agency earlier this year said it believed uranium leaching would decrease over time as stored water stopped penetrating farther into the naturally occurring seams. Excavators have now capped some unused construction materials that will eventually be underwater with a clay layer that will prevent some leaching.
If uranium levels in the filled pool do not drop far enough, other mitigation measures could include a water treatment plant or system below the reservoir, Parks said. Northern Water does not yet have a cost estimate on how much the testing, delays or treatment will cost, until more testing is complete, she said.
Engineering and testing teams decided โitโs best to delay this for a few months to make sure that we have the groundwater samples from the reservoir, from around the reservoir, before that water goes in there,โ Parks said. โWe just want to make sure that any water that goes into the reservoir now doesnโt influence groundwater around it.โ
Chimney Hollow was built to store 90,000 acre-feet of water for 11 northern Colorado communities and water agencies and the Platte River Power Authority. The project was meant to โfirmโ or store water rights Northern Water owns in the Windy Gap project near Granby, which collects and pumps Colorado River water into the Adams Tunnel for Front Range buyers. Windy Gap and Chimney Hollow allow the Front Range communities to take advantage of their water rights in wet years when Lake Granby is too full to contain their portion of the river. Northern Water has also suffered setbacks this year on its other major project, the proposed $2.7 billion twin-reservoir Northern Integrated Supply Project. Some members of NISP, a slightly different list than Chimney Hollow members, are warning they will pull out of the two-dam and pipeline construction plan after decades of permitting because costs have risen too high and delays raise uncertainty.
The San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado is known for producing oodles of fossil fuels over the last century. But it is really so, so much more than that: An epicenter of cultures, lovely landscapes, and geological wonders. It is also a hotspot for fossils, some of which recently have yielded new information about the dinosaursโ last days on earth.
While itโs generally accepted that non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid some 66 million years ago, researchers have long debated whether the big reptiles were doing well leading up to the cataclysmic event, or were already in decline and headed for extinction. A study published last month in Science, based on the fossil record of the San Juan Basin, finds that a diverse array of dinosaurs were actually flourishing at the end of the Cretaceous period. Had it not been for that asteroid, they might have stuck around for quite a bit longer.
And thatโs not all for San Juan Basin dinosaur news! In September, a team of researchers announced they had identified a new species of duck-billed dinosaur in northwestern New Mexico. The Ahshiselsaurus, an herbivore, weighed up to nine tons and spanned up to 35 feet from bill to tail.
In a news release, the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs notes that the bones that led to the identification were unearthed in 1916 in what is now the Ah-shi-sle-pah Wilderness in San Juan County. โIn 1935, the fossils were classified as belonging to another hadrosaurid called Kritosaurus navajovius. However, this new research identified distinctions between these fossils and all known hadrosaurids, including several key differences in the animalโs skull.โ
Cottonwood trees in full autumn splendor in the Paradox Valley, Colorado. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
๐ฅต Aridification Watch ๐ซ
This past weekend, my sister held the annual garlic-planting and apple cider-making ritual at her farm in the North Fork Valley in western Colorado. Folks from all around gather to help put thousands of garlic cloves into the ground. At the same time, a handful of us crank the handle and toss apples into the 125-year-old cider press that my ancestors brought to the Animas Valley from Pennsylvania in the early part of the century.
It was a lovely day, with an intensely blue, cloudless sky and high temperatures in the 60s. We felt lucky to have such conditions in early November, but they werenโt wildly abnormal. Though a few places in the region set daily high temperature records, at least as many also set daily low temperature records as the mercury dipped down to around 22ยฐ F, even in the lowlands, overnight.
More striking to me was when I stopped in Silverton on the trip back to Durango to take a bike ride on the new trails on Boulder Mountain. That mountain biking is even an option in Silverton in early November is a little odd. That the trails were bone dry at 10,600 feet in elevation is even odder. And that I was not just warm, but downright hot and sweaty in just short sleeves and shorts felt downright weird.
A cursory look at the data reveals that this has been one of the wettest โ and least snowiest โ starts to a water year on record, at least in southwestern Colorado. The huge, flood-spawning rains of October pushed the accumulated precipitation levels up into record high territory. But most of that liquid abundance fell as rain, not snow, even at high elevations. And the warm temperatures that followed has deteriorated what little snowpack existed. Itโs striking to see only a thin layer of white painting its designs on north-facing slopes at 12,000 or 13,000 feet. And without a radical shift in weather (which is certainly possible), itโs hard to imagine ski areas opening by Thanksgiving.
Still, weโre only about one month into the 2026 Water Year, so itโs far too early to draw any conclusions from the data. Last year started out as one of the snowier seasons on record, before fading out into a pretty sparse snow year.
North-facing peaks in the San Juan Mountains, late October 2025. Thereโs snow, but a lot less than one would expect. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
๐ Reading Room ๐ง
Nick Bowlin andย ProPublicaย just published anย extensive investigationย into oil and gas field โpurges,โ which is when injecting produced wastewater underground forces toxic water to spew out of old wells in mind-blowing volumes, killing vegetation and trees and contaminating the earth.| Bowlinโs investigation focuses on Oklahoma โ where regulators are doing little to address it โ but these purges occur anywhere that produced wastewater is injected into the ground as a way to dispose of it, which is to say every oil and gas field from Wyoming to New Mexico. Each barrel of oil pulled from the ground is accompanied by anywhere from three to 30 barrels of brackish wastewater that can be contaminated with an assorted soup of hazardous chemicals. This means that hundreds of billions of this stuff must be disposed of each year, usually by deep injection. As oil production continues, and as more and more wells are โorphanedโ or abandoned without being plugged, the purge problem will only grow worse.ย
KUNCโs Alex Hagar has aย nice, good-news pieceย on how beavers are returning to Glen Canyon and its tributary canyons as Lake Powellโs water levels recede. Itโs yet more evidence that if โ when โ Lake Powell disappears, the canyons it and ecosystems it drowned will eventually recover, and may do so far more quickly than might be expected.
๐Notes from the Energy Transition ๐
Those of you who watch Denver television will certainly recognize longtime Denver 7 weather forecaster. He retired a little while back and has taken on a sort of second career advocating for a Super Grid โ an integrated, nationwide, direct current, underground power grid designed to move power from where itโs generated to where itโs needed when itโs needed.
Itโs a cool idea, but also a very, very ambitious one. Instead of rehashing all of the details, Iโll let you watch this video of his presentation, which gives a very informative overview of the whole energy situation.
Map from Northern Water via the Fort Collins Coloradan.
From email from Northern Water:
Northern Water and Chimney Hollow participants are committed to keeping our customers, stakeholders and end users, as well as the general public, informed as we gather additional information on the discovery of uranium at the Chimney Hollow Reservoir construction site. Collecting data and modeling are crucial steps in the development of mitigation strategies, and we are actively working to learn more by evaluating test results from field investigations and modeling scenarios.
Before making mitigation decisions, we want to make sure we have all the information to evaluate operational and treatment options. We are following a rigorous process, starting with geochemical characterization and scoping studies, to inform mitigation alternatives analyses and ultimately select a final approach. Following these steps allows us to make informed decisions, evaluate trade-offs and determine the best path forward.โฏ
Northern Water has been testing how the uranium minerals leach into water and what concentration to expect when the reservoir fills and its operation begins. To allow time for additional data collection and investigations to advance, we have elected not to fill the reservoir as quickly as initially planned. A small amount of water (less than 2 percent of total capacity) will be moved into Chimney Hollow Reservoir in November 2025. During this time, additional water quality data will be collected and used to evaluate the performance of model simulations, and required dam safety monitoring will begin. Even as the reservoir fills, no water will be released as further assessments are underway and mitigation options continue to be evaluated.
Because the mineralized uranium is coming from materials quarried at the site, excess (unused) rock from construction has been buried under a layer of water-sealing clay. The clay cap will effectively minimize uranium leaching from these materials.
We expect uranium leaching from the dam to decrease over time because there is a finite quantity of soluble uranium at the site. The duration of the leaching process is not yet fully understood and will depend on how the reservoir is operated over time. While the discovery of mineralized uranium has caused Northern Water and the Chimney Hollow participants to modify our plans, it is an issue that can be safely managed. The new reservoir remains an important part of securing water supply needs for Northern Colorado and its future. Please visit the Water Quality page on our website for more information and a list of Frequently Asked Questions.
With a newly approved grant of over $30,000 from the Colorado Basin Roundtable, the Blue River Watershed Group will install cameras and measuring devices on the river to report on stream conditions.
A news release stated the group will use a technical consultant to create a webpage with a community-facing geographic information system map to share water quality data, as well as information about how the data affects the Summit County community.
The database will share locations, data types, collection purposes and data quality objectives from each of the Blue River watershedโs collecting entities.
The grant was part of the more than $180,000 of spending the Colorado Basin Roundtable approved in its September meeting. The rest of the money is funding projects around the state.
A core element of Denver Waterโs mission is ensuring the large, complex system that collects, cleans and delivers drinking water for 1.5 million people is prepared to meet future challenges.
And with more than 100 years of operations under its belt, Coloradoโs largest water provider, which serves about 25% of Coloradoโs population, is in the biggest period of capital investment in its history. Denver Water expects to invest about $1.7 billion into the system during the next 10 years.
โThe work we do provides the critical water supply that the community we serve needs to thrive and grow,โ said Denver Water CEO/Manager Alan Salazar.
โContinuing to maintain and invest in the system that supports our water supply will ensure that we โ Denver Water as well as our customers โ are ready for what lies ahead, from a warming climate to the potential for new regulations, while keeping rates as low as good service will allow,โ Salazar said.
Since 2022, Denver Water has replaced an average of 97,000 feet of water mains per year. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Responsibility to maintain and protect the stateโs largest water system, along with a desire to encourage water conservation, keep essential indoor water use affordable and ensure the utility is financially stable, were incorporated into the Oct. 22 decision by Denverโs Board of Water Commissioners to approve new water rates for 2026.
Denver Water is protecting and preparing the complex system and its customers for the future in many ways, including:
Theย Lead Reduction Program, which started in 2020, is protecting customers from the risk of lead in their drinking water and to date hasย replaced more than 35,000 old, customer-owned lead service linesย at no direct cost to customers.
The newย Northwater Treatment Plant, which began operations in 2024, can clean up to 75 million gallons of water per day and can be expanded when needed to 150 million gallons per day.
Theย Gross Reservoir Expansion Project, which began construction in 2022, is designed to nearly triple the reservoirโs storage capacity.
Theย Landscape Transformation Program, which helps customers remodel landscapes dominated by water-intensive Kentucky bluegrass into water-wise, climate-resilient ColoradoScapes.
And ongoing work to replace aging water mains, upgrade infrastructure on the utilityโs southern collection and treatment system, and reach aย net-zero carbon emissionsย goal by 2030.
Overall, Denver Water expects to invest $1.7 billion over the next 10 years in projects that will maintain, repair, protect and upgrade the system, and make it more resilient and flexible in the future.
In addition to rates paid by customers, funding for Denver Waterโs infrastructure projects, day-to-day operations and emergency expenses like water main breaks comes from bond sales, cash reserves, hydropower sales, grants, federal funding and fees paid when new homes and buildings are connected to the system.
The utility does not receive tax dollars or make a profit. It reinvests money from customer water bills and fees to maintain and upgrade the water system.
And the utility is committed to delivering a safe, clean and affordable water supply to its customers while managing the impacts of the larger economy, from inflation to supply chain issues.
How the 2026 water rates will affect individual customer bills will vary depending on where the customer lives (either in Denver or in one of the utilityโs suburban distributor districts) and how much water they use.
And major credit rating agencies recently confirmed Denver Waterโs triple-A credit rating, the highest possible, citing the utilityโs track record of strong financial management.
Monthly bills for single-family residential customers are comprised of two factors: a fixed charge, which helps ensure Denver Water has a more stable revenue stream to continue the necessary water system upgrades to ensure reliable water service, and a volume rate for the amount of water used.
Combining both of those factors, a typical single-family residential customer who uses 104,000 gallons of water annually will see their monthly bill increase by an average of $2.45 to $3.30 over the course of the year, depending on where the customer lives (in Denver or in one of the utilityโs suburban distributor districts) and the type of service the customerโs suburban distributor district receives from Denver Water.
(See the infographic below for information about Denver Waterโs suburban distributor districts, types of service and rates.)
The monthly bill example above includes an increase to the fixed monthly charge, which is tied to the size of the meter. For most single-family residential customers with a 3/4-inch meter, the fixed charge will increase by $1.85 in 2026, to $20.91 per month.
The more you use, the more you pay
After the fixed monthly charge, Denver Waterโs rate structure for residential single-family customers has three tiers based on the amount of water used. The tiers are designed to keep essential indoor water use affordable while encouraging water conservation outdoors. (See additional details about the 2026 rates for the three tiers in the infographic below.)
The first tierย is charged at the lowest rate and covers essential indoor water use for bathing, cooking and flushing toilets. Each customer has their individual first tier determined by the average of their monthly water use as listed on bills that arrive in January, February and March โ when there is very little or no outdoor watering.
The second tierย is for water consumption, typically used for outdoor watering, that is above the customerโs first tier and up to 15,000 gallons of water per month. Water use in this tier is considered to be an efficient use of water outdoors.
The third tierย is for water use of more than 15,000 gallons per month. It is priced at the highest level to signal potentially excessive water use and encourage conservation efforts by larger-lot customers.
Bills in the summer months can be higher if customers use water to irrigate their outdoor landscapes.
Need help?
Denver Water offers one-time payment assistance to customers who may qualify. The utilityโs Customer Care representatives also can help customers navigate payment options and unique circumstances. Customers can reach them via denverwater.org/ContactForm or by calling 303-893-2444.
What customers can do to save water, money
Denver Water encourages all customers to conserve water where they can indoors and out.
Finding and plugging leaks inside the home can be done year-round, and the utility offers rebates for qualified water-saving toilets and sprinkler equipment.
To help customers remodel their lawns to create a more vibrant, diverse ColoradoScape, Denver Water in 2026 will again offer a limited number of customer discounts on Resource Centralโs popular turf removal service and its water-wise Garden In A Box plant-by-number kits. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Outside, Denver Water encourages customers to conserve water by remodeling unused areas of water-intensive Kentucky bluegrass into more diverse, water-wise ColoradoScapes that fit naturally into our dry climate and are interesting to look at through all seasons. These drought-resistant and climate-resilient ColoradoScapes include tree canopies and plants that help maintain vibrant urban landscapes and benefit our communities, wildlife and the environment.
Using less water also means more water can be kept in the mountain reservoirs, rivers and streams that fish live in and Coloradans enjoy. It also can lower monthly water bills, saving money.
Note 1:ย An individual customerโs monthly water bill will vary depending on where they live in Denver Waterโs service area (in Denver or in one of the utility’sย suburban distributor districts), the types of service the suburban distributor district receives from Denver Water, and how much water the customer uses.
Note 2:ย The difference in volume rates (in the infographic above) for Denver Water customers who live inside Denver compared to those who live in the suburbs is due to the Denver City Charter (seeย Operating Rules), which allows permanent leases of water toย suburban water districtsย based on two conditions: 1) there always would be an adequate supply for the citizens of Denver, and 2) suburban customers pay the full cost of service, plus an additional amount.
Until the passage of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) in 1980, miners across the American West extracted gold, silver, and other valuable โhardrockโ mineralsโand then simply walked away. Today, tens of thousands of these abandoned hardrock mines continue to leak acidic, metal-laden water into pristine streams and wetlands. Federal agencies estimate that over a hundred thousand miles of streams are impaired by mining waste. Nearly half of Western headwater streams are likely contaminated by legacy operations. Despite billions already spent on cleanup at the most hazardous sites, the total cleanup costs remaining may exceed fifty billion dollars.
So how did we end up here? In short, the General Mining Law of 1872 created a lack of accountability for historic mine operators to remediate their operations, but CERCLA and the Clean Water Act (CWA) arguably add an excess of accountability for third parties trying to clean up abandoned mines today.
The Animas River running orange through Durango after the Gold King Mine spill August 2015. Photo credit: Jonathan P. Thompson/The Land Desk
The first legislation to address this problem was introduced in 1999. Many iterations followed and failed, even in the wake of shocking images and costly litigation due to the Gold King Mine spill that dyed the Animas River a vibrant orange in 2015. Finally, in December, 2024, Congress passed the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act of 2024 (GSA).
The GSA is a cautious, bipartisan attempt to empower volunteers to clean up this toxic legacy. The law creates a short pilot program and releases certain โGood Samaritansโ from liability under CERCLA and the CWA, which has long deterred cleanup by groups like state agencies and NGOs. EPA has oversight of the program and the authority to issue permits to Good Samaritans for the proposed cleanup work.
Despite the promise of this new legislation, critical questions remain unanswered about the GSA and how it will work. Only time will tell whether EPA designs and implements an effective permitting program that ensures Good Samaritans complete remediation work safely and effectively. EPA now has the opportunity as the agency that oversees this program to unlock the promise of the GSA.
The GSA left some significant gaps unanswered in how the pilot program will be designed and directed EPA to issue either regulations or guidance to fill in those gaps. EPA missed the statutory deadline to start the rulemaking process (July, 2025) and is now working to issue guidance on how the program will move forward. EPA must provide a 30-day public comment period before finalizing the guidance document according to the GSA. With EPAโs hopes of getting multiple projects approved and shovels in the ground in 2026, the forthcoming guidance is expected to be released soon. While we wait, itโs worth both looking back at what led to the GSA and looking ahead to questions remaining about the implementation of the pilot program.
A Century of Mining the West Without Accountability
The story begins with the General Mining Law of 1872, a relic of the American frontier era that still governs hardrock mining on federal public lands. The law allows citizens and even foreign-based corporations to claim mineral rights and extract valuable ores without paying any federal royalty. Unlike coal, oil, or gasโwhich fund reclamation through production feesโhardrock mining remains royalty-free.
As mining industrialized during the 20th century, large corporations replaced prospectors. Until 1980, mines were often abandoned without consequences or cleanup once they became unprofitable. The result: an estimated half-million abandoned mine features will continually leach pollution into American watersheds for centuries.
CERLCA Liability Holds Back Many Abandoned Mine Cleanups
Congress sought to address toxic sites throughย CERCLA, also known as the Superfund law, which makes owners and operators strictly liable for hazardous releases. In theory, that ensures accountability. In practice, it creates a paradox: if no polluter can be found at an abandoned site, anyone who tries to clean up the mess may be held responsible for all past, present, and future pollution.
The Clean Water Actโs Double-Edged Sword
Even state agencies, tribes, or nonprofits that treat contaminated water risk being deemed โoperatorsโ of a hazardous facility. That fear of liabilityโcombined with enormous costsโhas frozen many potential Good Samaritans in place. Federal efforts to ease this fear have offered little more than reassurance letters without real protection.
The Clean Water Act compounds the problem. Anyone who discharges pollution into a surface water via any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance must hold a point source discharge permit. By requiring these permits and providing for direct citizen enforcement in the form of citizen suits, the CWA has led to significant improvements in water quality across the country. That said, courts have ruled that drainage pipes or diversion channels used to manage runoff from abandoned mines may also qualify as point sources. As a result, Good Samaritans who exercise control over historic point sources, like mine tunnels, could face penalties and other liabilities for unpermitted discharges, even when they improve overall conditions.
The 2024 Good Samaritan Act Steps onto the Scene
After decades of failed attempts, the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act was signed into law in December, 2024. The GSA authorizes EPA to create a pilot program, issuing up to fifteen permits for low-risk cleanup projects over seven years. Most importantly, permit holders receive protection from Superfund and Clean Water Act liability for their permitted activities. This legal shield removes one of the greatest barriers to cleanup efforts.
Applicants can seek either a Good Samaritan permit to begin active remediation or an investigative sampling permit to scope out a site for potential conversion to a Good Samaritan permit down the road.
In either case, applicants must show:
they had no role in causing, and have never exercised control over, the pollution in their application,
they possess the necessary expertise and adequate funding for all contingencies within their control, and
they are targeting low-risk sites, which are generally understood to be those that require passive treatment methods like moving piles of mine waste away from streams or snowmelt or diverting water polluted with heavy metals below mine tailings toward wetlands that may settle and naturally improve water quality over time
Under the unique provisions of the GSA, each qualifying permit must go through a modified and streamlined National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process. EPA or another lead agency must analyze the proposed permit pursuant to an Environmental Assessment (EA). If the lead agency cannot issue a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) after preparing an EA, the permit cannot be issued. The GSA therefore precludes issuance of a permit where the permitted activities may have a significant impact on the environment.
The pilot program only allows forย up toย fifteenย low riskย projects that must be approved by EPA over the next seven years. Defining which remediations are sufficiently low-risk becomes critical in determining what the pilot program canย proveย aboutย theย Goodย Samaritanย modelย for abandoned mine cleanup. To some extent, โlow riskโ is simply equivalent to a FONSI. But the GSA further defines the low-risk remediation under these pilot permits as “anyย actionย toย remove,ย treat,ย orย containย historicย mineย residueย toย prevent, minimize, or reduce (i) the release or threat of release of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant that would harm human health or the environment; or (ii)ย aย migrationย orย dischargeย ofย aย hazardousย substance,ย pollutant,ย orย contaminant that would harm human health or the environment.”
This excludes โany action that requires plugging, opening, or otherwise altering the portal or adit of the abandoned hardrock mine siteโฆโ, such as what led to the Gold King mine disaster. Many active treatment methods are also excluded from the pilot program, therefore, because they often involve opening or plugging adits or other openings to pump out water and treat it in a water treatment plant, either on or off-site. As a result, the Good Sam Actโs low-risk pilot projects focus on passive treatment of the hazardous mine waste or the toxic discharge coming off that waste, such as a diversion of contaminated water into a settlement pond.
The GSA requires that permitted actions partiallyย orย completelyย remediateย theย historic mine residue at a site. The Administrator of EPA has the discretion to determine whether the permit makes โmeasurable progressโ. Every activity that the Good Samaritan and involved permitted parties take must be designedย to โimprove or enhance water quality or site-specific soil or sediment quality relevant to the historic mine residue addressed by the remediation plan, including making measurable progress toward achieving applicable water quality standards,โ or otherwise protect human health and the environment by preventing the threat of discharge to water, sediment, or soil.ย The proposedย remediation need not achieve the stringentย numeric standardsย requiredย byย CERCLAย orย theย CWA.
Furthermore, it can be challenging to determine the discrete difference between the baseline conditions downstream of an acid mine drainage prior to and after a Good Samaritanย remediationย isย completed.ย Notย onlyย doย backgroundย conditionsย confuseย the picture, but other sources of pollution near the selected project may also make measuring water quality difficult. This may mean that the discretion left to the EPA Administrator to determine โmeasurable progressโ becomes generously applied.
Finally, once EPA grants a permit, the Good Samaritan must follow the terms, conditions, and limitations of the permit. If the Good Samaritanโs work degrades the environment from the baseline conditions, leading to โmeasurably worseโ conditions, EPA must notify and require that the Good Samaritantake โreasonable measuresโ to correct the surface water quality or other environmental conditions to the baseline. If these efforts do not result in a โmeasurably adverse impactโ, EPA cannot consider this a permit violation or noncompliance. However, if Good Samaritans do not take reasonable measures or if their noncompliance causes a measurable adverse impact, the Good Samaritan must notify all potential impacted parties. If severe enough, EPA has discretion to revoke CERCLA and CWA liability protections.
Recently, EPA shared the following draft flowchart for the permitting process:
Disclaimer: This is being provided as information only and does not impose legally binding requirements on EPA, States, or the public. This cannot be relied upon to create any rights enforceable by any party in litigation with the United States. Any decisions regarding a particular permit will be made based upon the statute and the discretion granted by the statute, including whether or not to grant or deny a permit.
Challenges Facing the Pilot Program Implementation
Despite its promise, the pilot programโs scope is limited. With only fifteen Good Samaritan permits eligible nationwide and no dedicated funding, the law depends on states, tribes, and nonprofits to provide their own resources. The only guidance issued so far by EPA detailed the financial assurance requirements that would-be Good Samaritans must provide to EPA to receive a permit. Definitions provided in this financial assurance guidance raised concerns for mining trade organizations and nonprofits alike with EPAโs proposed interpretations of key terms including โlow riskโ and โlong-term monitoringโ. Crucial terms like these, along with terms impacting enforcement when a permitted remediation action goes awry, like โbaseline conditionsโ, โmeasurably worseโ, and โreasonable measuresโ to restore baseline conditions, are vague in the GSA. How EPA ultimately clarifies terms like these will play a large role in the success of the GSA in its ultimate goal: to prove that Good Samaritans can effectively and safely clean up abandoned hardrock mine sites. The soon-to-be-released guidance document will therefore be a critical moment in the history of this new program.
Funding the Future
Funding remains the greatest barrier to large-scale remediation efforts. Coal mine cleanups are funded through fees on current production under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. Current hardrock mining, however, still pays no federal royalty. A modernized system could pair Good Samaritan permitting with industry-funded reclamation fees, ensuring that those profiting from todayโs mining help repair the past. Without this reform, the burden will remain on underfunded agencies and nonprofits. However, this General Mining Law reform remains politically unlikely. In the meantime, the GSA creates a Good Samaritan Mine Remediation Fund but does not dedicate any new appropriations to that fund. Grants under Section 319 of the CWA (Nonpoint Source Pollution) and Section 104(k) of CERCLA (Brownfields Revitalization) programs may help, but funding opportunities here are limited.
The GSA includes provisions that allow Good Samaritans to reprocess mine waste while completing Good Samaritan permit cleanup work. These provisions include a key restriction: revenue generated from reprocessing must be dedicated either to the same cleanup project or to the GSA-created fund for future cleanups. A January 20, 2025 executive order to focus on domestic production of critical minerals led to a related Interior secretarial order on July 17, 2025, for federal land management agencies to organize opportunities and data regarding reprocessing mine waste for critical minerals on federal lands. Shortly after these federal policy directives, an August 15, 2025, article in Science suggested that domestic reprocessing of mining by-products like abandoned mine waste has the potential to meet nearly all the domestic demand for critical minerals. Legal and technical hurdles might prevent much reprocessing from occurring within the seven-year pilot program. Reprocessing projections aside, the political appetite for dedicated funding for the future may still grow if the GSA pilot projects successfully prove the Good Samaritan concept using a funding approach reliant on generosity and creativity.
Despite Significant Liability Protections, Good Samaritans Face Uncertainties
While the new law should help to address significant barriers to the cleanup of abandoned mines by Good Samaritans, uncertainties remain. The GSA provides exceptions to certain requirements under the Clean Water Act (including compliance with section 301, 302, 306, 402, and 404). The GSA also provides exceptions to Section 121 of CERCLA, which requires that Superfund cleanups must also meet a comprehensive collection of all relevant and appropriate standards, requirements, criteria, or limitations (ARARs).
In States or in Tribal lands that have been authorized to administer their own point source (section 402) or dredge and fill (section 404) programs under the CWA, the exceptions to obtaining authorizations, licenses, and permits instead applies to those State or Tribal programs. In that case, Good Samaritans are also excepted from applicable State and Tribal requirements, along with all ARARs under Section 121 of CERCLA.
However, Section 121(e)(1) of CERCLA states that remedial actions conducted entirely onsite do not need to obtain any Federal, State, or local permits. Most GSA pilot projects will likely occur entirely onsite, so it is possible that Good Samaritans might still need to comply with local authorizations or licenses, such as land use plans requirements. While it appears that GSA permitted activities are excepted from following relevant and applicable Federal, State, and Tribal environmental and land use processes, it is a bit unclear whether they are also excepted from local decision making.
The liability protections in the GSA are also limited by the terms of the statute. Good Samaritans may still be liable under the CWA and CERCLA if their actions make conditions at the site โmeasurably worseโ as compared to the baseline. In addition, the GSA does not address potential common law liability that might result from unintended accidents. For example, an agricultural water appropriator downstream could sue the Good Samaritan for damages associated with a spike in water acidity due to permitted activities, such as moving a waste rock pile to a safer, permanent location on site.
Finally, the GSA does not clearly address how potential disputes about proposed permits may be reviewed by the federal courts. However, the unique provisions of the GSA, which prohibit issuance of a permit if EPA cannot issue a FONSI, potentially provide an avenue to challenge proposed projects where there is disagreement over the potential benefits and risks of the cleanup activities.
Measuring and Reporting Success of the Pilot Program
The Good Samaritan Act authorizes EPA to issue up to fifteen permits for low-risk abandoned mine cleanups, shielding participants from Superfund and Clean Water Act liability. Applicants must prove prior non-involvement, capability, and target on low-risk sites. Each permit undergoes a streamlined NEPA Environmental Assessment requiring a FONSI. To be successful, EPA and potential Good Samaritans will need to efficiently follow the permit requirements found in the guidance, identify suitable projects, and secure funding. The GSA requires baseline monitoring and post-cleanup reporting for each permitted action but does not require a structured process of learning and adjustment over the course of the pilot program. Without this structured, adaptive approach, it may be difficult for Good Samaritan proponents to collect valuable data and show measurable progress over the next seven years that would justify expanding the Good Samaritan approach to Congress. EPAโs forthcoming guidance offers an opportunity to fix that by publicly adopting a targeted and tiered approach in addition to the obligatory permitting requirements.
The EPAโs David Hockey, who leads the GSA effort from the EPAโs Office of Mountains, Deserts, and Plains based in Denver, has suggested taking just such a flexible, adaptive approach in public meetings discussing the GSA. EPA, working in coordination with partners that led the bill through Congress last year, like Trout Unlimited, intends to approve GSA permits in three tranches. EPA currently estimates that all fifteen projects will be approved and operational by 2028.
The first round will likely approve two or three projects with near-guaranteed success. If all goes according to plan, EPA hopes to have these shovel-ready projects through the GSA permit process, which includes a NEPA review, with the remedial work beginning in 2026. These initial projects will help EPA identify pain points in the process and potentially pivot requirements before issuing a second round of permits. This second tranche will likely occur in different western states and might increase in complexity from the first tranche.
Finally, the third tranche of permits might tackle the more complex projects from a legal and technical standpoint that could still be considered low risk. This may include remediation of sites in Indian Country led by or in cooperation with a Tribal abandoned mine land reclamation program. Other projects suited for the third tranche might include reprocessing of mine waste, tailings, or sludge, which may also require further buy-in to utilize the mining industryโs expertise, facilities, and equipment. These more complex projects will benefit most from building and maintaining local trust and involvement, such as through genuine community dialogue and citizen science partnerships. The third tranche projects should contain such bold choices to fully inform proponents and Congress when they consider expanding the Good Samaritan approach.
EPA appears poised to take a learning-by-doing approach. But the guidance can and should state this by setting public, straightforward, and measurable goals for the pilot program. This is a tremendous opportunity for EPA and everyone who stands to benefit from abandoned mine cleanup. But this is no simple task. Each permit must be flexible enough to address the unique characteristics at each mine site, sparking interest in future legislation so more Good Samaritans can help address the full scale of the abandoned hardrock mine pollution problem. But if EPA abuses its broad discretion under the GSA and moves the goalposts too much during the pilot program, they may reignite criticisms that the Good Samaritan approach undercuts bedrock environmental laws like the Clean Water Act. If projects are not selected carefully, for instance, the EPA could approve a permit that may not be sufficiently โlow riskโ, or that ultimately makes no โmeasurable progressโ to improve or protect the environment. Either case may invite litigation against the EPA under the Administrative Procedure Actโs arbitrary and capricious standard or bolster other claims against Good Samaritans.
While the GSA itself imposes only a report to Congress at the end of the seven-year pilot period, a five-year interim report to Congress could help ensure accountability. If all goes well or more pilot projects are needed, this interim report could also provide support for an extension before the pilot program expires. The guidance issued by EPA should only be the beginning of the lessons learned and acted on during the GSA pilot program.
Seizing the Window of Opportunity
The GSA represents a breakthrough after decades of gridlock. It addresses the key fears of liability that stymied cleanup. Yet its success will depend on how effectively the EPA implements the pilot program and the courage of Good Samaritans who are stepping into some uncertainty. If it fails, Americaโs abandoned mines will continue to leak toxins into its headwaters for generations to come. But if the program succeeds, it could become a model for collaborative environmental restoration. For now, the EPAโs forthcoming guidance could mark the first steps toward success through clear permitting requirements and by setting flexible yet strategic goals for the pilot program.
If you are interested in following the implementation of the Good Samaritan Act, EPA recently announced it will host a webinar on December 2, 2025. They will provide a brief background and history of abandoned mine land cleanups, highlight key aspects of the legislation, discuss the permitting process, and explain overall program goals and timelines. Visit EPAโs GSA website for more information.
Map of the San Juan River, a tributary of the Colorado River, in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, USA. Made using USGS National Map data. By Shannon1 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47456307
Democrats on budget committees tell EPA and Interior to halt potentialย staff cutsย during the shutdown.
White House budget office says $11 billion inย Army Corps infrastructure projectsย will be paused.
BLM will begin an environmental analysis of a proposed expansion of aย Mojave Desert gold mineย that will need more groundwater to operate.
And lastly, EPA prepares to permit abandoned hardrock mine cleanups under a new Good Samaritan law.
โIf you were a nonprofit or a county with a serious water pollution issue coming out of an old set of mine tailings, you could not work on that problem. The moment you touched it, you accepted total liability for the pollution going downstream. So nobody would ever do anything about all these 140,000 abandoned mines. Almost every one of them having some environmental problem. Almost all of it connected to water.โ โ Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) speaking with the Western Governorsโ Association podcast about the problem of cleaning up abandoned mines in the western United States.
Last year the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act was signed into law. It requires the EPA to permit 15 pilot cleanup projects to be completed within seven years. The projects can be located on private, federal, or state land.
David Hockey, acting director of the EPA Office of Mountains, Deserts, and Plains, said the agency will review project applications starting this fall. He hopes to have the first projects under construction next year and all 15 in progress by summer 2028.
By the Numbers
$11 Billion: Army Corps infrastructure projects that will be โpaused,โ Russell Vought, the director of the White House budget office, wrote on X. Vought blamed the government shutdown for the freeze. The targeted projects are mostly in states where Democrats are in power, E&E News reports.
News Briefs
Potential Shutdown Staff Cuts Leading Democrats sent letters to the heads of EPA and Interior asking them to halt potential job cuts at their agencies during the shutdown.
Sen. Jeff Merkeley and Rep. Chellie Pingree are the ranking Democrats on the budget committees that oversee spending by those agencies.
Their concern is over the administrationโs use of โreduction in forceโ during the shutdown to pare the federal workforce closer to President Trumpโs vision of a diminished bureaucracy, even though Congress is supposed to set funding levels.
โThis coordinated, government-wide approach to implementing RIFs during a lapse in appropriations appears designed to circumvent the appropriations process,โ they wrote in their letter to Lee Zeldin, EPA administrator.
Of particular concern, they wrote, are proposed changes and reductions to the EPAโs science assessment and research division.
Similar concerns were raised in the letter to Doug Burgum, the interior secretary.
Studies and Reports
State Revolving Fund Audits The EPA Office of Inspector General reviewed the financial documents for the state revolving fund programs, the main federal vehicle for water infrastructure funding.
The review found that 42 state drinking water programs and 43 clean water programs had an independent financial audit.
Audited financial statements help to identify wasteful and fraudulent spending.
On the Radar
Shutdown Continues Nineteen days and counting, as of this writing.
The expansion would extend the mineโs life by 30 years and would entail construction of a 32-mile pipeline to supply 2,250 acre-feet of groundwater per year.
The mine is part of FAST-41, a federal program to accelerate project permitting and environmental reviews through close interagency coordination. The project dashboardsuggests that permitting for the Castle Mountain expansion will be completed by December 2026.
Public comments are being accepted through November 20. Submit them via the above link.
A virtual public meeting will be held on November 5 to outline the project and collect public input. Register here.
Federal Water Tap is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.
