by Robert Marcos

The electrical power that’s being produced by new wind and solar farms cannot fully replace the power being lost as the output of the Glen Canyon Powerplant continues to fall.

As of March 11, 2026, the Powerplant is producing only 60% to 65% of its maximum output. At full capacity the plant can produce 1,320 megawatts. But because of Lake Powell’s low water level it’s currently producing between 800 and 870 megawatts. While new wind and solar power will cushion the impact of Glen Canyon’s decline, the hydroelectric power is a critical component of the regional power grid. Electricity from the Glen Canyon Powerplant is operationally superior to wind and solar mainly because it is dispatchable, highly flexible, and provides critical grid‑stability services that variable renewables cannot provide on their own.

Dispatchability and reliability

Glen Canyon can generate on demand, ramping output up or down quickly to follow load; flows and generation are deliberately increased during weekday business hours to match demand.

Hydropower at Glen Canyon is not dependent on real‑time sun or wind conditions, so it can produce power at night, during calm periods, and in cloudy weather, as long as water is available in Lake Powell.

The plant provides both energy and dependable capacity for resource adequacy, which is essential during extreme heat waves and other system‑stress events when solar and wind output may not align with peak demand.
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Flexibility and ramping

Glen Canyon is explicitly operated for load following: its turbines adjust automatic generation control signals to continuously balance supply and demand, so actual output can be above or below the hourly schedule at any moment.
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The dam is allowed to fluctuate releases to provide about 40 MW of regulation capacity, with short‑lived flow changes of roughly 1,200 cfs up or down that help stabilize the grid against second‑to‑second and minute‑to‑minute imbalances.

Turbines can ramp thousands of cubic feet per second within an hour (subject to environmental constraints), providing fast ramping that complements slower, weather‑dependent changes in wind and solar output.
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Grid‑stability and system services

Conventional hydropower units like those at Glen Canyon provide inertia, frequency regulation, spinning reserve, voltage support, and black‑start capability, all of which are necessary to keep the system stable as variable renewables grow.

These services are inherently available from large synchronous hydro generators without needing extensive additional power‑electronics‑based equipment that wind and solar typically require for similar functions.
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Glen Canyon’s participation in automatic generation control helps maintain area control error near zero, directly supporting system frequency and reliability.
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Scale, efficiency, and cost characteristics

Glen Canyon has a total capacity on the order of 1,300 MW and produces roughly 4–5 billion kWh per year, enough for hundreds of thousands of households across seven Western states.

Modern hydro units have high conversion efficiency and very long lifetimes (often 50–100 years), which spreads capital costs over decades and yields low long‑run levelized cost of electricity compared with many newer wind and solar plus storage builds.

Revenues from Glen Canyon hydropower also fund environmental and river‑management programs in Glen and Grand Canyons, a co‑benefit not typically associated with individual wind or solar plants.

by Robert Marcos

Even though the San Diego County Water Authority’s MOU has proposed an initial water transfer of only 10,000 acre feet annually, General Manager Dan Denham said the agreement, (if approved by other agencies), could clear the way for the first-ever interstate transfers of Colorado River water starting next year. He said, “It’s just a different way of managing water in the West”.¹

California Govenor Gavin Newsom has supported the idea, telling governors of the other six states in a recent letter that California would welcome joint investments in water recycling and desalination. Denham said Scott Cameron – the Trump administration’s acting head of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, also supports the idea.²

The laws which forbid or limit the transfer of water across state or county lines originated in the early 20th century as states sought to protect their local resources from being diverted to rapidly growing urban centers. The Colorado River Compact of 1922 was a landmark agreement that effectively “locked” water within specific basins to prevent faster-growing states like California from claiming the entire river under the “prior appropriation” (first-come, first-served) doctrine.

But the San Diego County Water Authority, Arizona Department of Water Resources, the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, and the Southern Nevada Water Authority, are exploring a strategy that could bypass these legal barriers to interstate water transfers by using “paper water” transfers rather than physically moving desalinated water across state lines.³

While this method avoids the physical impossibility of moving ocean water to the desert, it still requires federal approval from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and from existing rights holders like the Imperial Irrigation District and the Metropolitan Water District which will have to ensure that these transfers do not negatively impact their own legal entitlements.

Nothing like a water rights talk from David Robbins! This is the first time, in many trips to view the cranes, that I’ve run into someone I know. Woo hoo, water law! He took us from the Articles of Confederation to the Rio Grande compact and explained how well it works because Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas all share in shortages. Here’s the blurb from the Crane folks:

Drawing on decades at the forefront of Colorado water law and policy, David Robbins offers a clear-eyed look at how water is governed, protected, and contested in the West. This session explores the legal frameworks that shape rivers, aquifers, and instream flows — and why these decisions matter for ecosystems, agriculture, communities, and wildlife across the San Luis Valley and beyond.

Read the full press release

Posted by by Robert Marcos, photojournalist

The San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors today unanimously approved a landmark agreement to explore an interstate water transfer and exchange pilot program with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and agencies in Nevada and Arizona.,

The memorandum of understanding (MOU) – which still needs to be ratified by the other agencies – creates a pathway that could eventually allow the Water Authority to “move” water from the nation’s largest seawater desalination plant in Carlsbad to areas in the drought-ravaged Colorado River Basin that need more water. If successfully developed, this would create the first program to transfer water across state lines within the basin.

Such a program could help reduce water costs for working families in San Diego County by optimizing the region’s investments in reliability. Water purchases from the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant would generate new revenues and offset costs for residents, improving regional water affordability.

“This agreement could be a gamechanger for San Diego County and the entire Southwest because it creates the possibility of a new, collaborative path for moving water where it’s needed most while keeping reliability and affordability at the center for ratepayers,” said Water Authority Board Chair Nick Serrano. “Leveraging existing resources like our Carlsbad desalination plant in this moment simply makes sense for everyone.”

Water transfers or exchanges would occur “on paper,” meaning agencies would access supplies through existing infrastructure and avoid costly new infrastructure.

The demand is clear: In recent years, agencies in Arizona and Nevada have sought ways to tap the Pacific Ocean, but the costs of construction are prohibitive. The Arizona Department of Water Resources, Central Arizona Water Conservation District and Southern Nevada Water Authority are part of the new MOU.

For more than 20 years, the seven states in the Colorado River Basin have wrestled with drought conditions that have created growing imbalances between water supplies and demands. As the Bureau of Reclamation, Basin States, Mexico, and tribal nations consider new operating guidelines for the river, new management strategies and interstate partnerships are increasingly critical.

Over roughly the same period, the Water Authority has invested $3 billion in water reliability efforts, including the Carlsbad plant, which produces up to 54 million gallons per day. Additionally, the 2003 Colorado River Quantification Settlement Agreement – which generates conserved water in the Imperial Valley – and hard-wired conservation in the San Diego region have positioned the Water Authority to not only meet the region’s needs but also provide relief to other areas.

“Next-generation strategies must include interstate partnerships that deliver water where it’s needed most,” said Water Authority General Manager Dan Denham. “We appreciate the collaboration with the Bureau of Reclamation, Metropolitan Water District, Arizona and Nevada. New ideas are challenging to implement, but it’s in everyone’s best interest to make this work.”

by Robert Marcos, photojournalist

Climate change is altering the chemical makeup of rainfall. It’s increased the concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide which makes rainfall more acidic¹. At the same time it has shifted the levels of atmospheric pollutants that wash out when it rains. This changing chemistry is a problem because it alters how water interacts with soils, plants, aquatic systems, infrastructure, and even the atmosphere itself. Increased acidity in rainfall acts as a chemical catalyst that destabilizes both terrestrial and aquatic environments through the following mechanisms²

• Nutrient Leaching: Acidic rain strips the soil of essential buffering minerals and nutrients—such as calcium, magnesium, and potassium—which are vital for plant cell structure and growth.
• Heavy Metal Mobilization: As soil pH drops, naturally occurring but normally stable metals like aluminum become soluble. This “mobile” aluminum is toxic to plants, damaging root systems and preventing them from absorbing water.
• Microbial Disruption: Many beneficial soil bacteria and fungi are sensitive to pH changes. Increased acidity can suppress the microbial activity responsible for decomposition and nitrogen fixation, ultimately reducing soil fertility.
• Biological Stress and Mortality: Many aquatic species have narrow tolerance ranges. At a pH of 5.0, most fish eggs cannot hatch, and lower levels can lead to the death of adult fish, amphibians, and insects like mayflies.
• Gill Damage: Soluble aluminum leached from nearby soil enters waterways and clogs the gills of fish. This impairs their osmoregulation and ability to breathe, often serving as the primary cause of fish kills in acidified lakes.
• Food Web Collapse: The loss of acid-sensitive “base” species, such as certain plankton and invertebrates, triggers a cascade effect that starves larger predators and simplifies the entire ecosystem.

Effects on Agricultural Production

The chemical and physical shifts in rainfall are fundamentally destabilizing the economic foundations of global food systems³.

• Declining Crop Productivity: For every 1°C of warming, global yields of major staples are projected to decline significantly: maize by 7.4%, wheat by 6.0%, and rice by 3.2%.
• Nutritional Degradation: Increased atmospheric and altered soil chemistry reduce the concentrations of protein and essential minerals like zinc and iron in crops like wheat and soybeans.
• Increased Costs: Farmers must spend more on lime to neutralize soil acidity and additional fertilizers to replace leached nutrients like calcium and magnesium.
• Direct Foliar Damage: Acidic rain erodes the waxy cuticle of leaves, making plants more vulnerable to dehydration, pests, and diseases.

Impacts on Commercial Fishing

Marine fisheries and seafood industries, which supported $319 billion in sales in 2023, face major disruptions as fish stocks move toward cooler poles or become less productive⁴.

• Catch Potential Losses: Tropical regions are predicted to see declines of up to 40% in potential seafood catch by 2050 due to warming and acidification.
• Shellfish Vulnerability: Ocean and coastal acidification (exacerbated by acidic runoff) hinder calcification, weakening the shells of oysters, clams, and scallops. This is estimated to cause consumer losses of $480 million per year by the end of the century.
• Ecosystem Collapse: Acidified freshwater and marine environments disrupt reproductive cycles; for instance, at a pH of 5, most fish eggs cannot hatch, leading to the collapse of local populations and the industries that rely on them.

Impacts on Water Infrastructure

More acidic rainfall significantly deteriorates water infrastructure by accelerating the chemical breakdown of both metallic and cement-based materials. When rainwater’s pH drops—oftenhttps://www.gov.nl.ca/eccc/files/waterres-reports-drinking-water-study-on-ph-adjustment-systems-task-7-study-report.pdf due to sulfuric and nitric acids—it becomes highly corrosive, leading to structural damage and water quality issues. Acidic water targets the internal and external surfaces of the pipes that transport water.⁵

• Chemical Dissolution: Acidic rain reacts with the calcium carbonate and calcium hydroxide in concrete, dissolving these components and leaving the structure porous and weak.
• Structural Failure: As the concrete matrix dissolves, the protective layer around steel reinforcements (rebar) can fail. Corroding steel expands up to six times its size, creating internal pressure that cracks the surrounding concrete.
• Surface Erosion: Prolonged exposure causes surface “spalling” or peeling, exposing coarse aggregates and increasing maintenance costs for bridges, dams, and treatment basins.

Challenges for Water Treatment

• Water treatment facilities must expend more resources to manage increasingly acidic sources of water.
• Increased Neutralization Costs: Facilities must add more alkaline substances, such as caustic soda or soda ash, to raise the pH to a non-corrosive range (typically 6.5 to 8.5).
• Disinfection Interference: Efficient chlorination is more difficult in water that is too acidic or too basic, potentially requiring higher chemical doses to ensure safety.
• Contaminant Mobilization: Acid rain leaches aluminum and other minerals from the surrounding soil into reservoirs, requiring more complex filtration to remove these additional contaminants.⁶

Click the link to read the article on The Durango Herald website (Scout Edmondson). Here’s an excerpt:

February 26, 2026

Last week, Southwest Colorado saw enough snow to cancel school and snarl travel. A week later, winter appears to have vaporized – replaced by clear skies, dry roads and temperatures warm enough for sandals and T-shirts. According to the National Weather Service, high temperatures in Durango reached 63 degrees Thursday. It is the latest episode of weird winter weather this year. Jonathan Harvey, an associate professor of geosciences at Fort Lewis College, said in an email to The Durango Herald that winter’s absence is because of stubborn high-pressure ridges steering the jet stream – a belt of fast-moving winds that separates warm tropical air to the south from cold arctic air to the north – toward the northern United States.

“We have spent most of the winter under a ‘ridge’ in the jet stream, which has prevented cold air and storms from hitting our region,” he said.

That, according to National Weather Service forecaster Lucas Boyer, is because of warm seawater temperatures in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

“We’ve had ample warm water in the in the Eastern Pacific for a lot of the winter,” he said. “We’ve really seen the jet stream get pushed north, which means warm air to the south. It’s been really devastating for any kind of snowfall production.”

Boyer said any storms that have managed to break through that high-pressure ridge were followed by periods of temperatures 10 to 15 degrees above the historical average…The warm, dry winter has hurt snowpack in the San Juan Mountains. Boyer said the water equivalent in the San Juan River Basin is at 17% of the historical median, while the snowpack in the San Juan Mountains is 40% to 50% of average. Unfortunately, Harvey said there is not much time left for mid-elevation snowpack. But, there is still time for high-elevation snowpack.

By Robert Marcos

For decades people believed that the Anasazi, (later renamed the Ancestral Puebloans), had vanished suddenly and under mysterious circumstances. But over the years a host of scientific disciplines has produced evidence that has largely resolved that mystery. Scientists shifted from viewing the Ancestral Puebloans’ departure as a “mysterious disappearance” to a deliberate migration triggered by a combination of environmental and social factors.

The Ancestral Puebloan great house, Pueblo del Arroyo, in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico. Photo by Rationalobserver.

Types of evidence produced by recent studies

Prolonged megadroughts like the “Great Drought” (1276–1299) coincide with widespread abandonment of large Four Corners settlements and severe maize shortfalls.¹

Tree rings and other proxies show multi‑year to multi‑decadal droughts during the broader Medieval Climate Anomaly (roughly AD 800–1300).²

Environmental degradation including deforestation and topsoil erosion around major centers like Chaco and Mesa Verde, reducing fuel and soil productivity.³

Deer bones decline and turkey bones increase after about AD 1150, suggesting overhunting of wild game and heavier reliance on domestic turkeys that competed with people for maize.⁴

Hydrologic stress and extreme variability: Ancestral Puebloan societies were highly dependent on winter snowpack and limited runoff; summer rains were unreliable and often arrived as intense, erosive storms.In earlier droughts (AD 150–950), people were already resorting to melting cave ice for drinking water, indicating that marginal sources became critical during dry spells.⁵

Climate stress resulted in conflict, and the migration of Numic‑speaking groups onto the Colorado Plateau, and rapid changes in religious and political systems.⁶

Crop failures undermined rain‑making rituals and institutions, social cohesion and the legitimacy of leadership likely eroded, encouraging relocation.⁷

In short, highly climate‑sensitive dry land agriculture, local deforestation and soil loss, and repeated multi‑year droughts combined with social pressures, all combined to make life untenable in the Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon regions.⁸

Conditions in today’s American Southwest are strikingly similar.

The environmental conditions in today’s American Southwest continue to be characterized by a high-desert environment, which is defined by extreme aridity, and unpredictable precipitation patterns. In many ways this mirrors the volatile climate that challenged the Ancestral Puebloans. Much like the late 13th century—a period marked by the infamous “Great Drought”—the modern region experiences significant moisture deficits and high evaporation rates.

Farmers today contend with a bimodal precipitation cycle: winter snowpack provides the primary source of groundwater and spring runoff, while intense, localized monsoon storms in late summer offer brief but erosive bursts of rain. These erratic shifts between prolonged dry spells and sudden deluges force a reliance on micro-climates and elevation-specific planting, as the short growing season is often bracketed by late spring frosts and early autumn freezes.

Soil conditions that consist largely of alkaline, nutrient-poor substrates, are highly susceptible to erosion. In areas like the Colorado Plateau, the soil is often a mixture of sandy loams and heavy clays that lack the organic matter found in more temperate zones. These soils are prone to crusting and salinity buildup, which can inhibit seedling emergence and water infiltration.

Just as the Ancestral Puebloans utilized check dams and lithic mulching (using stones to preserve soil moisture), modern land managers must navigate these “thin” soils that offer little buffer against environmental stress. The persistence of lithic soils and wind-blown loess ensures that any successful cultivation requires sophisticated water-harvesting techniques to prevent the precious topsoil from being stripped away by the elements.

by Robert Marcos

Devices that collect water from the air are generally called atmospheric water harvesters or atmospheric water generators. None of these actually create water, they just phase‑change or capture water that’s already in the atmosphere.

Why is this pertinent? As most of the Earth’s land areas dry out, our warming atmosphere is holding on to ever-increasing amounts of water vapor. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported that in 2024 the Earth’s atmosphere held almost 5% more water vapor than the average recorded between 1991–2020.

Here are the four basic types of Atmospheric Water Harvesters –

• Condensation-based systems cool air below its dew point using refrigeration or heat‑pump cycles so water vapor condenses into liquid on cold coils. Theses are essentially dehumidifiers optimized for producing potable water. 
• Desiccant-based systems use hygroscopic materials (desiccants) such as salts or silica gel that absorb moisture from air, which are then are heated to release liquid water for collection.
• Adsorption based systems use porous materials like hydrogels or metal–organic frameworks that adsorb water vapor at night or when cool, then release it when warmed by the sun or low‑grade heat, with the vapor condensed on nearby surfaces.
• Fog and dew collectors are passive devices thatuse meshes or netted surfaces which collect fog droplets which collect then drain into gutters and tanks.

DARPA, the U.S.Army Research Lab, the Marine Corps, Air Force, and special operations units  have all experimented with AWG technologies for desert and emergency conditions, most often at bases in the Middle East and on the African continent. The U.S. Army is actively testing and piloting atmospheric water generators (AWGs), but as of early 2026 they appear in research, demonstration, and limited field trials rather than as a fully standard, widely deployed water source for all soldiers.

Currently the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) has signed multiple Cooperative Research and Development Agreements with companies such as Genesis Systems and AirJoule to develop fuel‑efficient, truck‑ or ATV‑mounted AWGs that can provide potable water at the point of need in austere environments. Genesis Systems’ WaterCube units have been “operationally fielded and commercially available,” and an Army–Genesis CRADA is specifically aimed at adapting this platform for mobile military use in field operations. Public descriptions of these efforts emphasize potential use to reduce water convoys and support future warfighters, which indicates a transition and experimentation phase rather than full-scale permanent deployment across the force.

Water From Air is a non-profit organization that’s specifically focused on distributing atmospheric water generators in schools, villages, and water-stressed regions primarily located in East Africa and India. Their units produce clean drinking water directly from humidity in the air, bypassing the need for wells, pipes, or rainfall. Each installed unit typically provides between 200 and 400 liters of clean drinking water daily, supporting approximately 200–400 people.

More non-profits which provide clean drinking water to disadvantaged communities –

• The Moses West Foundation A non-profit that deploys large-scale AWG systems during disaster relief efforts and in water-stressed areas globally, including Africa.
• Innovation: Africa While primarily focused on solar-powered pumped water from aquifers, they specialize in delivering Israeli-developed water technologies to remote African villages.
• Majik Water: A Kenyan-based social enterprise (start-up) that uses AWG technology to provide more than 200,000 liters of water monthly to arid regions in Kenya.
• One Drop Foundation seeks sustainable access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene for the world’s most vulnerable communities. The foundation distinguishes itself through a unique approach called Social Art for Behavior Change™, which uses art and creativity to inspire communities to adopt healthy water-related habits and take ownership of their local infrastructure.

by Robert Marcos

Stratospheric aerosol injection, (SAI), is a theoretical solar geoengineering proposal that involves dispersing sulfate (or other reflective particles) into the stratosphere to reflect a portion of incoming sunlight back into space. Research into delivery methods focuses on platforms capable of reaching the stratosphere, which begins at varying altitudes depending on the latitude. Proposals range from spraying reflective particles, such as sulfur dioxides, finely powdered salt or calcium carbonate, from aircraft or high-flying balloons. None of these solar geo-engineering strategies address the underlying causes of climate change. Instead, they aim to control the amount of incoming solar radiation by emulating the sulfur-rich dust cloud that remains in the atmosphere after large volcanic eruptions.¹

Proof of Concept provided by Mt. Pinatubo

The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo injected approximately 17 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, creating a global layer of sulfuric acid haze that significantly increased the Earth’s albedo. This aerosol veil reflected incoming solar radiation back into space, resulting in a measurable drop in global mean temperatures of approximately 0.5°C (0.9°F) between 1992 and 1993. This transient cooling effect temporarily offset the trend of anthropogenic global warming and disrupted global precipitation patterns, demonstrating the profound impact that volcanic stratospheric aerosols can have on the Earth’s energy balance.²

According to one study, by sending specially designed high-altitude airplanes on roughly 4,000 total sulfate injection missions a year, humans could replicate this same level of cooling. This has the potential to offset half of the warming expected over the study’s 15-year period and counteract billions of metric tons of CO2 emissions each year. At a cost of around $2 billion annually, even medium-sized economies could afford such a program. This price tag would also be far less expensive than the potential impacts of climate change. Take the United States: the 2018 US National Climate Assessment Report estimates the impacts of climate change damages will amount to “hundreds of billions of dollars annually” by 2090, making atmospheric sulfate injection an appealing solution.³

Aerial platforms under consideration

Large commercial or military transport aircraft: These could potentially be retrofitted with specialized tanks and nozzle systems. However, most standard aircraft have flight ceilings that only reach the lower stratosphere, particularly near the poles.

Specialized Research Planes: Aircraft designed for high-altitude atmospheric research, such as those used by space agencies, can reach the higher altitudes (around 20 km) often cited as optimal for SAI. These generally have limited payload capacities.

Purpose-Built High-Altitude Jets: Many researchers suggest that a new class of specialized aircraft would be necessary for efficient, large-scale delivery. These designs would require high-lift wings and engines capable of sustained operation in thin air while carrying heavy payloads of aerosol precursors.

High-Altitude Balloons: Tethered or free-floating balloons have been proposed as a lower-cost method to loft materials into the stratosphere, though they face challenges related to stability and large-scale operational control.⁴

Potential benefits

Rapid Global Cooling: SAI can lower global average temperatures much faster than carbon removal methods. Historical volcanic eruptions, like Mount Pinatubo in 1991, have proven that atmospheric sulfur can cool the planet by roughly 0.5°C within a year.

Cost-Effectiveness: Compared to the trillions needed for a full green energy transition, SAI is estimated to cost between $18 billion and $27 billion per year using modified aircraft.

Life-Saving Potential: Some studies suggest SAI could save up to 400,000 lives annually by reducing heat-related mortality in the world’s hottest regions.

Glacial Preservation: By lowering surface temperatures, it could slow sea-level rise and prevent the melting of land-based glaciers and sea ice.

Reversibility: Unlike permanent carbon storage, SAI effects are temporary; if stopped, the aerosols naturally fall out of the atmosphere within 1–2 years.⁵

Potential risks

Termination Shock: If SAI is suddenly stopped (due to war, terrorism, or political collapse) while greenhouse gases are still high, the planet would experience a catastrophic and rapid temperature spike.

Ozone Depletion: Injecting sulfates can damage the stratospheric ozone layer, increasing harmful UV radiation and risks of skin cancer.

Disrupted Weather Patterns: Models indicate it could cause regional droughts, specifically by weakening the South Asian monsoon and reducing tropical rainfall.

Ocean Acidification: SAI only masks temperature; it does not reduce CO2 levels. The oceans would continue to absorb carbon, leading to acidification that destroys coral reefs and marine life.

Moral Hazard: The availability of a “quick fix” might reduce the political and corporate incentive to actually cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Geopolitical Conflict: There is no international governance for SAI. A single country could “control the thermostat,” potentially leading to global conflict if their actions cause weather disasters elsewhere.

Ecological Impacts: Reduced direct sunlight could decrease crop yields and interfere with solar power generation.⁶

by Robert Marcos, photojournalist

While climate change and the general lack of precipitation are the most obvious causes of the aridification of the American West, there are other factors taking place in the background that are contributing to this process.

Dust on Snow: Windblown dust from disturbed desert soils and dry lake beds—such as the Great Salt Lake—settles on mountain snowpacks. This “dark topcoat” reduces reflectivity (albedo), causing snow to absorb more solar heat and melt up to three to seven weeks earlier than clean snow. This premature runoff often reaches reservoirs when they are already full or when the ground is still too frozen for agricultural use, effectively wasting the “natural reservoir” of the snowpack.¹

Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD): Often described as the “thirst of the atmosphere,” VPD measures the difference between the moisture in the air and how much it can hold. Higher temperatures exponentially increase this demand, sucking moisture directly out of soils and plants even when precipitation levels are normal. In recent years, this “atmospheric thirst” has accounted for roughly 61% of drought severity, outweighing the impact of reduced rainfall.²

Pacific Decadal Oscillation Stagnation: The “PDO” is a long-term ocean temperature pattern that typically flips every 20 years. Since the 1990s, it has remained stuck in a “negative phase,” which brings cooler water to the eastern Pacific and pushes moisture-bearing storms farther north, away from the Southwest. Recent research suggests this prolonged “stuck” phase may be driven by human-caused aerosol and greenhouse gas emissions.³

Soil and Vegetation Feedbacks: Aridification creates a self-reinforcing cycle. As soils dry out, they lose the cooling effect of evaporation, causing solar radiation to heat the ground and the air even further. Additionally, while higher CO2 levels can make plants more water-efficient, this gain is often offset by longer growing seasons and increased plant growth, which ultimately draws more total moisture from the soil through transpiration.⁴

Land Use and Soil Degradation: Intensive land uses, including livestock grazing and urbanization, remove protective vegetation and destabilize soil. This not only increases wind erosion (leading to more dust-on-snow events) but also reduces the soil’s ability to absorb and retain what little moisture does fall, intensifying the “baking” of the landscape.⁵

Invasive plants: Cheatgrass, tamarisk, and Russian olive are invasive plants most often named as contributors to the aridification of the American West. Cheatgrass transforms diverse, deep‑rooted native shrub–grass communities into shallow‑rooted, flammable annual monocultures that dry and senesce early, it depletes shallow soil moisture sooner in the growing season, and dramatically increases fire frequency. It creates a cheatgrass–wildfire feedback loop that repeatedly removes perennial vegetation, reduces soil organic matter and carbon storage, accelerates erosion, and leaves soils warmer, drier, and less able to retain water, so landscapes lose both plant cover and hydrologic function and effectively behave more like a hotter, drier, impoverished system even when long‑term precipitation totals have not changed.⁶

by Robert Marcos, photojournalist

I met John Leary in the parking lot of a Tractor Supply in Rangely Colorado. There was something about the vehicles in that lot that made me think it might not be the best place to park a Toyota Yaris with California plates, so I parked around the corner, then moved my video gear into the back of John’s white utility truck.

John is a Senior Restoration & GIS Project Manager at RiversEdge West, a non-profit organization that’s leading the White River Partnership – a coalition of public, private, and nonprofit entities that are working to conserve and to restore riparian ecosystems along the White River and its tributaries.¹

John had volunteered to show me some of the restoration work he and his teams had been doing on the riverbanks west of Rangely. The river had officially been designed as being “over-appropriated” in 2025. When a river is classified as being over-appropriated, it means that the total amount of water legally promised to water rights holders exceeds the supply of water that’s available in the river system at some or all times of the year.² The designation acts as a formal recognition of water scarcity, where the demand for water is higher than the supply, often exacerbated by drought, climate change, and increased development.

John and his teams were working to reduce the number of invasive tamarisk and Russian olive trees that had crowded the White River’s banks, at the expense of wildlife and native vegetation like willows and cottonwoods. One of the methods John and his teams used was the application of tamarisk beetles. Tamarisk beetles originated in Eurasia – specifically central Asia, China, Kazakhstan, Greece, Uzbekistan, and Tunisia, and were introduced to North America as a biological control agent for invasive tamarisks. The beetles defoliate tamarisk trees by feeding on their leaves and on new growth, until the trees either weaken or die altogether.³

Since their introduction tamarisk beetles have spread across the Western U.S., including Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and even parts of Arizona, and in some areas have resulted in an 80% mortality rate for the invasive tamarisks.⁴ This removal method sounds better than what I witnessed in California’s Coachella Valley, where miles of tamarisk trees had been intentionally burned by the Southern Pacific Railroad – which planted the trees in the early 1900s to keep sand off their railroad tracks.⁵

John and I drove west along the river and then finally parked. We hiked to a spot where John showed me a stand of native cottonwoods had sprouted up after his team removed tamarisks which had previously occupied that area. During the interview I filmed with John he repeatedly credited RiversEdge West and their partners in the White River Partnership, which included the Bureau of Land Management, Canyon Country Discovery Center, Colorado Northwestern Community College, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, State of Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, Town of Meeker, Colorado,Town of Rangely, CO, Uintah County Utah, Utah Conservation Corps, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah State University, Western Colorado Conservation Corps, the White River Alliance, and most importantly many ranchers and private land owners who supported the restoration efforts being carried out on their own riverfront property.⁶

by Robert Marcos, photojournalist

Mountain snowmelt is the lifeblood of the Great Salt Lake, providing the vast majority of its fresh water. On average the mountains around the lake contribute approximately 1.9 to 2.1 million acre-feet of surface runoff annually.¹ However on February first of this year – with Utah’s snowpack in near record-poor condition, Utah’s Natural Resources Conservation Service released a report that forecast a reduction in snowmelt that ranges from 21% to 77% of average.²

This (potentially) dramatic drop in snowmelt forces our attention to the Great Salt Lake’s other major source of water, the Bear River, and there the news is equally alarming. The Bear River in Utah faces a variety of environmental threats primarily from human activities like agriculture, water management, and development. These impact water quality, habitats, and flows into the Great Salt Lake. The following list of challenges the river faces are ranked in order of prevalence and severity, from reports like wetland studies and conservation plans.³

Water Diversions: Proposed and existing diversions, such as the Bear River Development project, threaten to reduce flows by up to 220,000 acre-feet annually, lowering Great Salt Lake levels by 8.5-14 inches and exposing lakebed dust with toxins like arsenic. This exacerbates drought effects and harms migratory birds reliant on Bear River Bay wetlands.⁴

Agricultural Runoff: Runoff from intensive farming affects 83% of wetlands, delivering excess nutrients, sediments, and pollutants that cause eutrophication, algal blooms, and oxygen depletion. The Bear River is impaired throughout the study area due to these inputs, worsened by upstream sources in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.⁵

Hydrologic Alteration: Dams, irrigation, and impoundments alter flow timing and flooding, impacting nearly all wetlands and degrading riparian habitats. Reservoirs like Cutler divert spring runoff, leading to inconsistent river flows and wetland desiccation.⁶

Invasive Species: Non-native plants like Phragmites australis cover 11% of wetlands, outcompeting natives and reducing biodiversity, especially in disturbed mudflats. Agricultural species such as foxtail and clover invade via forage planting.⁷

Sediment and Pollution: Erosion from tributaries and livestock causes siltation, while point sources (69% of wetlands) and nanoparticles from boat paints add contaminants. Legacy issues like high alkalinity and industrial wastes persist.⁸

by Robert Marcos, photojournalist

The Gold King Mine spill happened on August 5, 2015, when EPA contractors accidentally released approximately 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater into Cement Creek – a tributary of the Animas River in Colorado. The plume, containing heavy metals, flowed into the Animas and San Juan rivers. ¹ The USGS – in cooperation with the EPA, gathered streamgage data in order to confirm the origin of the stream flow spike at Cement Creek and the volume of the spike estimated at three million gallons. USGS also took water and sediment samples and provided both current and historical water quality data to EPA.²

Four months later during her address to a House Committee on Natural Resources, the Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said, “As is so often the case, it is unfortunate that an incident like this has to happen to highlight an issue that land managers in both the state and federal governments have been grappling with for years – that addressing abandoned mine lands is a nationwide problem, and mitigating toxic substances released from many of them is a significant undertaking. Abandoned mine lands are located on private, state, federal, and tribal lands. There are tens of thousands of abandoned hardrock sites on federal lands alone. Many of these abandoned mine land sites were mined prior to the implementation of federal surface management environmental laws that require reclamation and remediation to take place. For those mine sites where no viable potentially responsible party can be determined, the federal government, and ultimately the taxpayer, often bears the burden of addressing these threats to public safety, human health, the environment, and wildlife, rather than the entities that developed and profited from the operations.”³

In 2018 the U.S. Geological Survey, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and National Park Service, initiated the Lake Powell Coring Project.⁴ Its purpose was to retrieve and analyze hydraulic piston cores from Lake Powell sediments—primarily targeting the San Juan River delta—to reconstruct the history of sediment and contaminant deposition, including assessing whether material from the 2015 Gold King Mine spill had been sequestered there. Cores taken from 40 holes penetrated up to the pre-Glen Canyon Dam surface to evaluate metal concentrations, distribution, and bioavailability for water quality impacts.⁵

Preliminary results shared by USGS scientists in late 2021 shared significant findings: while the 2015 Gold King Mine spill caused detectable spikes in lead and zinc, much larger and “more concerning” spikes were identified from mining waste disasters that occurred in the 1970s. The following contaminants were found in core samples:⁶

Lead: Found in significant spikes, particularly in deeper sediment layers corresponding to mid-20th-century mining disasters.

Zinc: Often found in conjunction with lead; used as a primary indicator of mine waste runoff.

Arsenic: A major concern in the San Juan River delta, often naturally occurring but concentrated by mining processes.

Cadmium: A toxic metal frequently associated with zinc mining that was identified in the core samples.

Copper: Present in the sediment, reflecting the region’s extensive copper mining history.

Mercury: Studied due to its ability to bioaccumulate in the food chain (fish), though much of the mercury in the system is attributed to atmospheric deposition and older mining practices.

Now as Lake Powell’s water levels continue to recede amid prolonged drought and heavy upstream water use, vast expanses of toxic sediments—laden with heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, copper, mercury, lead, selenium, and zinc from historical mining discharges including the 2015 Gold King spill—are increasingly exposed. This drying creates a heightened risk of human exposure through direct contact during boating, fishing, or shoreline recreation, as well as inhalation of windblown dust carrying bioavailable toxins, potentially leading to respiratory issues, skin irritation, and chronic health effects with repeated exposure. Without expanded monitoring or mitigation measures, these once-submerged hazards now pose an urgent public safety threat to the millions of annual visitors in this popular Southwestern reservoir. ⁷

by Robert Marcos, photojournalist

As evaporation rates increase and inflow from the Colorado River falls, Lake Mead’s water volume will shrink but the total mass of dissolved minerals will remain relatively stable. This creates a concentration effect where minerals like calcium, magnesium, and salts, become more densely packed in the remaining water. Without sufficient fresh inflow to dilute these minerals, the water becomes increasingly “hard,” reaching salinity levels that pose significant challenges for regional water management.¹

This increasingly hard water is a silent but growing threat to household appliances owned by residents of Las Vegas, because when hard water is heated or left to evaporate, minerals like calcium and magnesium precipitate out of the liquid, forming a rock-hard crust known as limescale. This buildup acts as an insulator in water heaters, forcing them to work harder to heat water, and clogs the delicate internal components of dishwashers and washing machines. Over time, these deposits restrict water flow and corrode seals, leading to premature mechanical failure and leaks.²

The financial burden of these mineral-heavy waters translates to shorter lifecycles for major appliances and higher utility bills. Residents may find themselves replacing water heaters every 8 years instead of the typical 12 to 15, and the efficiency loss from scale buildup can increase energy costs for water heating by as much as 25%. Between more frequent appliance replacements, the cost of professional plumbing repairs, and the potential need for expensive water softening systems, the long-term economic impact on a single household can reach thousands of dollars.³

While drinking water with elevated TDS is generally considered safe by regulatory standards, it can have some noticeable effects. Very high concentrations of minerals like sulfates can cause a laxative effect or gastrointestinal discomfort in sensitive individuals or those unaccustomed to the water. While the body requires minerals like calcium and magnesium, excessive levels can affect the water’s smell and its taste, which may motivate residents to rely more on bottled water or on in-home filtration units like reverse-osmosis, which incrementally drives up the cost of living.⁴

by Robert Marcos, photojournalist

Utah’s cloud seeding program began in the early 1950s with initial winter experiments aimed at boosting snowfall in mountainous regions to enhance water supplies. These early efforts were part of broader U.S. weather modification initiatives following World War II discoveries about silver iodide’s role in nucleating ice crystals in supercooled clouds. By the 1970s, amid severe droughts in central and southern Utah, counties collaborated with the state to formalize operations, leading to the Cloud Seeding Act of 1973. This legislation empowered the Utah Division of Water Resources to regulate and fund programs, with North American Weather Consultants often handling implementation using ground-based silver iodide generators.₁

The program’s foundational design targeted winter storms from November to April, releasing silver iodide particles from foothill and high-elevation sites to stimulate precipitation in key watersheds like the Uinta Mountains and central Utah ranges. Early operations in the 1973-74 season involved manual generators, with state funding starting in 1975-76 to match local contributions from participating counties such as Beaver and Sanpete. Evaluations drew from prior research, hypothesizing that seeding supercooled clouds would increase snowpack for spring runoff, and the program paused only briefly during non-drought periods but resumed consistently.₂

Over decades, Utah expanded its efforts with partnerships like the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, supporting targeted areas including the West Uintas and Emery programs, while annual legislative appropriations—around $300,000 by 2021—ensured continuity. Aerial seeding with aircraft supplemented ground units in the late 1970s and 1980s, but ground-based methods proved more reliable and cost-effective. By the 2020s, amid ongoing water scarcity, the state ramped up investments, reflecting confidence in 5-15% snowfall increases backed by long-term data collection.₃

Recent advancements have modernized the program into the world’s largest remote-controlled network, with 190 automated generators deployed statewide by 2025 for safer, faster activation during storms. Funding surged to nearly $16 million in 2025, enabling drone-based seeding pilots in challenging terrains like the La Sal Mountains, replacing prior airplane tests for precise cloud penetration. These innovations, overseen for environmental safety, align with Utah’s water policy to combat the impact of droughts for both agricultural and urban users.₄

by Robert Marcos, photojournalist

American consumers are well aware that their electric bills have been going up, in some areas dramatically.₁ The construction of AI data centers have been widely blamed for this, even though (at present) they’re responsible for only a small part of the increase. In Phoenix and Chandler Arizona – two of the nation’s hottest and driest cities – enormous factories are being built to fabricate the semiconductors used in those data centers, and they’re widely expected to drive up costs that local residents pay for both electricity and water. Since the increased costs are shared by all rate payers, it can be said that residents of Maricopa County who pay for water and power are subsidizing the cost of water and power used by these new industries.₇

Water Usage Concerns

TSMC’s Phoenix plant is projected to consume over 17 million gallons a day. Critics from groups like Chip Coalition United argue this adds pressure to local supplies, potentially raising municipal costs despite recycling pledges (e.g., TSMC’s near-zero discharge goal). Phoenix officials counter with investments like a 70,000 acre-foot recycling facility by 2030 to offset shortfalls.₄

The new Intel semiconductor plant in Chandler, Arizona (part of expansions at the Ocotillo campus), obtains its water from the City of Chandler. This supply is drawn from the Colorado River, Verde River, Salt River, and some groundwater sources.₈ Intel heavily recycles water at its Chandler facilities, treating up to 9.1 million gallons daily on-site and returning much of it to the city or aquifer via partnerships like the Ocotillo Brine Reduction Facility. The company achieves high reuse rates (over 90% in some reports), minimizing net freshwater demand.₉

Power Demand Impact

TSMC’s facility alone could require electricity for 300,000 homes, straining Arizona’s grid and emitting gases rivaling 32,000 households. Intel’s Chandler expansions add further load, prompting calls for full environmental reviews. No sources confirm explicit resident bill hikes yet, but increased grid demand often leads to higher utility rates over time.₅

Manufacturer’s commitment to recycling water

TSMC and Intel’s semiconductor plants in Arizona address their substantial ultra-pure water needs for chip fabrication—primarily wafer rinsing and cooling—through advanced on-site recycling facilities designed for Arizona’s arid conditions. TSMC Arizona currently recycles about 65% of its water for cooling towers and scrubbers via in-house systems, with a new 15-acre Industrial Reclamation Water Plant (IRWP), groundbreaking in 2025 and operational by 2028, set to treat industrial wastewater back to ultrapure standards, targeting 85-90%+ recycling rates to achieve near-zero liquid discharge and minimize fresh municipal water draws. Intel, operating multiple Chandler fabs, already recycles over 80% of water through on-site reclamation plants like its 12-acre Ocotillo facility, purifying used water for reuse in manufacturing, cooling, or aquifer recharge, while pursuing net-positive water goals by 2030 via conservation and restoration. These strategies sharply reduce net consumption, with TSMC’s first fab projected to drop from 4.75 to 1 million gallons daily post-recycling, supporting sustainable expansion amid regional scarcity.₆

Sources

1. Choose Energy: https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/
2. Bipartisan Policy Center: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/why-is-my-electric-bill-going-up-understanding-changes-in-electricity-bill-prices-over-time/
3. InBusiness: https://inbusinessphx.com/technology-innovation/arizonas-semiconductor-boom-sparks-environmental-concerns
4. Greater Phoenix Economic Council: https://www.gpec.org/blog/water-key-resource-in-greater-phoenix-and-the-semiconductor-industry/
5. Stand: https://stand.earth/insights/the-climate-cost-of-bidens-semiconductor-buildout-in-arizona/
6. Construction Owners: https://www.constructionowners.com/news/tsmc-arizona-breaks-ground-on-water-recycling-plant
7. Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-electricity-prices/?embedded-checkout=true
8. UltraFacility: https://www.ultrafacilityportal.io/insights/end-user-insight:-water-strategy-at-intel’s-ocotillo-site
9. Arizona Disital Free Press: https://arizonadigitalfreepress.com/intel-ocotillo-aws-water-certification/

Click the link to read the article on Governor Polis’ website:

THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2026

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Governor Polis released the following statement ahead of a meeting between Western governors and federal officials on the Colorado River. 

“Colorado is coming to Washington committed to an agreement that reflects real world water supplies and shares responsibility across all seven Basin states. I am fighting for Colorado water users and our way of life. I look forward to working with Interior and Basin partners to develop a better way to protect the river, respect our state authority, and provide long-term certainty for so many people and communities who depend on the mighty Colorado River,” said Governor Jared Polis. 

The river sustains communities, Tribal nations, agriculture, and critical hydropower infrastructure across the West. Protecting Lake Powell and Lake Mead is not a regional concern – it is a shared obligation essential to the stability of the entire system. 

Colorado has invested heavily in conservation and efficiency while honoring existing water rights and interstate compacts and is prepared to continue that work. A sustainable agreement must be supply-based, enforceable, and equitable.

By Robert Marcos, photojournalist
Grand Junction, Colorado

While filming for the Nature Conservancy I learned this: Climate change has made three-quarters of our planet drier, yet at the same time the frequency of extreme downpours has increased. Raindrops that fall during these downpours hit the soil with more energy than they used to. This results with more erosion as dislodged soil is swept downstream by runoff that our increasingly dry soil is unable to absorb.

Forgive me if I left anything out of that overly-simplified explanation, but I wanted to define the problem first before describing solutions that are underway in Northwestern Colorado. The Nature Conservancy and their partners are heavily invested in a project whose goal is to improve the water quality in the Yampa River, and I was fortunate to have been invited to film work being done at three remote sites.

Joseph Leonhard – a Riparian Restoration Project Manager at the Nature Conservancy told me that his crews – which consisted primarily of AmericaCorps workers plus a few hardy scientists from the BLM and USGS, utilized Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration, (LTPBR), methods to slow the water in streams that led into the Yampa River.

LTPBR is a low cost restoration method that uses simple, hand-built structures composed of natural materials obtained locally – like branches, boulders, and sod, which mimic actual beaver dams. By restricting water these small dams encourage regenerative processes that can, over time, repair degraded landscapes, improve water retention, create habitat, and even build resilience against drought and fire.

What really impressed me was that the members of these crews – some of whom were 19-year olds while others were PhD’s, shoveled mud and waded through knee-deep water together. They displayed “group cohesiveness”- which is defined as coordinated effort toward shared objectives. During his interview Joseph Leonhard said that he and his people were “activated”, which I interpreted as meaning that instead of sitting in front of a computer, (like I am right now), they were engaged in productive physical activity that would directly benefit the environment.

For more information about the Yampa River Fund please visit: https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/colorado/stories-in-colorado/yampa-river-fund/

By Robert Marcos, photojournalist
Grand Junction, Colorado

Most of you have heard that California’s Salton Sea would not currently exist were it not for the nearly 1 million acre feet of agricultural runoff that’s drained into it every year. Paradoxically – the sea is both being kept alive by this salty runoff and being killed by it, in part because the Sea’s evaporation rate of six feet per year is continually concentrating its chemical-laden waters. ¹

As you might expect the Salton Sea’s water is dominated by high salinity from salts, which increases dramatically as the lake shrinks. Selenium ranks next as a major metalloid of concern, often reaching ecologically harmful concentrations from runoff. Other notable contaminants include heavy metals like cadmium, copper, zinc, and nutrients driving algal blooms.²

Meanwhile 132 miles south in Sonora another body of water has formed from American-made runoff, and it’s also a paradox. Ciénega de Santa Clara is technically a brackish water wetland consisting of marshlands and lagoons, and its classification as “anthropogenic” stems from the fact that it was inadvertently created by, and entirely sustained by human engineering.³

This “human engineering” began in 1965 after the U.S.Bureau of Reclamation rerouted approximately 100,000 acre feet of salty runoff from the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation District away from the Colorado River and 13 miles into Mexico – as a temporary way to reduce the excessively salty Colorado river water that had been killing crops in Mexico. By 1973 a permanent bypass canal was built which carried that salty runoff 50 miles further, to the Ciénega de Santa Clara in Sonora.⁴

But to everyone’s shock and surprise the salty runoff that was dumped at Cienega de Santa Clara resulted in the rebirth of an amazing ecosystem. The sprawling 40,000-acre wetland, now a UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserve, transformed a desolate salt flat into a lush expanse of emergent marshes dominated by dense stands of southern cattail interspersed with bulrushes and submerged aquatics. The nutrient-rich, albeit salty, waters fostered rapid plant growth, creating tangled corridors of green that ripple across the landscape, their feathery seed heads swaying in desert breezes amid shallow, mirrored pools teeming with microbial life.⁵

But the oasis’s vitality depends upon consistent inflows. Disruptions, like the one in 1993 that occurred during canal repairs caused a dramatic loss of vegetation, confining green regrowth to low-lying faults until the runoff flows resumed. But today “La Cienaga” endures as a testament to ecological opportunism, though looming desalination plans at Yuma threaten its future by potentially diverting the life-sustaining drainage. ⁶

1. The Salton Sea. Physical and Chemical Characteristics
   https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.4319/lo.1958.3.4.0373
2. NIH: National Library of Medicine
   https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7232737/
3. From accident to management: The Cienega de Santa Clara ecosystem
   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925857413001079#:~:text=rights%20and%20content-,Abstract,that%20flows%20to%20the%20Cienega.
4. Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Project
   https://www.usbr.gov/projects/pdf.php?id=96#:~:text=In%201961%2C%20two%20major%20problems,Project%2C%20Delivery%20of%20Water%20to
5. Audubon: “Water Flows in Colorado River Delta Again”
   https://www.audubon.org/news/water-flow-colorado-river-delta-again
6. Sonoran Institute
   https://sonoraninstitute.org/files/pdf/colorado-river-delta-research-la-cienega-de-santa-clara-06152011.pdf

By Robert Marcos, photojournalist
Grand Junction, Colorado

A political brouhaha erupted in the early 1960s after the Wellton‑Mohawk irrigation project in Arizona discharged very saline return flows into the Colorado River, which raised salinity at the border from 800 ppm to about 2,700 ppm. In Mexicali Valley farmers said the water was virtually “useless for irrigation purposes,” and led to widespread crop failure in one of Mexico’s largest and most fertile regions.

It took the United States 12 years to find a definitive, long-term solution: from the initial crisis in 1961 to the signing of a permanent agreement, known as “Minute 242” in 1973. This agreement led with the Bureau of Reclamation investing $250 million in the development of the Yuma Desalting Plant, which would use a reverse-osmosis system to filter a percentage of salts from the river before it entered Mexico.

The expensive plant was completed in 1992 but was used for only a few months. Because in 1977 a temporary measure enacted by the BOR diverted (the salty) Wellton-Mohawk runoff to Mexico’s Ciénega de Santa Clara. This action brought the river water back into compliance while the Yuma Desalting Plant was still being built. But this “temporary measure” worked so well that it obviated the need for the expensive desalting plant.

The Bureau of Reclamation had known since the 1970’s that the Dolores River had, (for millions of years), been a significant source of the Colorado River’s salinity and in 1996 they took action. The Paradox Valley Unit removes between 50,000 to 180,000 tons of salt annually from a facility west of Montrose, Colorado. In a nutshell the operation works by intercepting saline-rich groundwater before it enters the Dolores River by the use of nine extraction wells. These wells pump out this naturally occurring brine -which is eight times saltier than seawater, before it can seep into the Dolores River.

The brine is piped to a facility where it’s injected under high pressure 3 miles down into the earth – underneath a natural salt layer that prevents it from rising back to the surface. Unfortunately, as is often seen with other types of deep fluid injections, a 4.5 magnitude earthquake was triggered and the unit had to be shut down for two years. When operations resumed it was at a reduced rate of 67% in an attempt to mitigate the seismic risks. Even so, in 2024 the unit still managed to remove 62,913 tons of salt …salt which used to show up in Mexicali Valley.

The very different types of operations that have succeeded in lowering Grand Valley’s once-massive salt load will be addressed in a future post. Thank you.

Sources:

https://www.usbr.gov/history/ProjectHistories/Yuman-AZ-Desalting-Plant.pdf

https://sonoraninstitute.org/files/pdf/colorado-river-delta-research-la-cienega-de-santa-clara-06152011.pdf

https://www.usbr.gov/uc/progact/paradox/index.html

From email from Brian McNeece:

December 31, 2025

I arrived late to the Upper Colorado River Commission meeting in Las Vegas, having briefly gotten lost in the disorienting maze of garishly lit slot machines, escalators reaching to the heavens, and hallways with a vanishing point at infinity. Could there be a more incongruous place to hold a convention about something so natural and sublime as water?

Just as I took my seat, Becky Mitchell, the forceful, passionate commissioner from the state of Colorado, said something puzzling and important. “The Lower Basin states continue to overuse their allocation of Colorado River water.”

And thus, in my very first minutes at the Colorado River Water Users Association (CRWUA) conference, I had my theme for the next three days. Because, in fact, that is not true. The Lower Basin states of Nevada, Arizona, and California are not overusing their allocation. In fact, last year, they used 6 million acre-feet, 1.5 maf less than their allocation. Why would Ms. Mitchell say that?

I asked this question numerous times in the next few days. I got some arcane answers. Perhaps Ms. Mitchell doesn’t accept that Arizona isn’t charged Gila River water as part of its allocation. Maybe she thinks the Lower Basin should be charged for evaporation losses below Glen Canyon Dam.

One Colorado water attorney brought his own charts to breakfast and showed me how the Lower Basin states had in fact been overusing their allocation—in the past. True, but we’re talking about now. Ms. Mitchell has not answered my email request for an explanation.

Ms. Mitchell apparently stands alone in her assertion that even now, the Lower Basin is overusing water. For after she spoke, neither Brandon Gebhart of Wyoming, nor Gene Shawcroft of Utah, nor Estevan Lopez of New Mexico repeated her claim.

As leader of the Upper Colorado River Commission, Ms. Mitchell has also protested that Mother Nature cuts her users when it doesn’t rain, and therefore Upper Basin states cannot take any more cuts.

But in fact, the Upper Basin has dozens of reservoirs above Lake Powell that right now are holding around 5 million acre-feet of water—about a year and a half of storage at recent Upper Basin use. The Upper Basin has wiggle room for taking emergency cuts.

Even those water users who are directly cut by Mother Nature can take cuts—during wetter years. Currently, the state of Colorado has a provision in its water law known as Free River, which means that when the flow in a creek exceeds the volume needed to fulfill all local water rights, users along the creek are free to divert all the water they want. In 2023, the South Platte River was in Free River condition for 64 days. This should stop.

---

Read: Prior Appropriation. A free river is a river or stream reach where the natural flow is sufficient to satisfy all existing decreed water rights, so no administrative curtailment (a “call”) is required.

---

Jason Turner, an attorney for Colorado River water Conservation District, told the audience that Free River, despite appearances, is not wasteful of water that could otherwise go to the next reservoir downstream. No, he said, this water helps bring moisture deep into the soil, preventing the pasture grass from dying during the later dry months of the year.

Every user on the Colorado River would love to invoke Free River—use as much as you want when times are flush. But seeing the Colorado River system as a whole, times are not going to be flush. The whole region is getting drier, and we have to reduce water north and south.

With her two claims, Ms. Mitchell has extended her character beyond passion and resolve; she is holding positions that challenge the foundation of the Law of the River going back to the Compact of 1922.

It seems that Ms. Mitchell is the adamantine wall preventing progress toward new rules for operating the Colorado River watershed after the interim rules expire next September. The word on the convention floor was that she is willing to ride her position into court, a risky move that almost everyone else wants to avoid. The solution is for the other states to negotiate a deal without Colorado.

This has happened before. Arizona refused to ratify the Colorado River Compact after its commissioner Winfield S. Norviel signed it in 1922, but the deal went forward anyway. Arizona finally ratified the agreement in 1944.

The Lower Basin states of Nevada, Arizona and California have volunteered to continue taking 1.5 maf of cuts into the future, but if deeper cuts are needed, they propose that the Lower Basin and Upper Basin share reductions fifty-fifty. Maybe those numbers can be adjusted somewhat. Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, it’s time to make a deal. Colorado can sign on later. Everyone needs to do her part.

[ed. The 1.5 MAF satisfies the structural deficit because the Lower Basin has never been charged for shrink, and it is a significant commitment. However, the Lower Basin folks are talking around the fact that no one has the authority to order mandatory cuts by Colorado diverters; No one has the technology to “color” (account for) the water in the Colorado River due to measurement uncertainty, the lack of structures in place, hundreds of river miles with gaining and losing reaches; The classic paper water vs. wet water dilemma; Prior Appropriation — if the water is in the stream, and a diverter has a decree that is in priority, the it is lawful for the diverter to divert and water bypassed by upstream diverters; Any uncompensated restriction would be a “taking” so a funding stream is needed to pay for compensated savings.]

Click the link to read the article on the Sibley’s Rivers website (George Sibley):

December 23, 2025

‘Dancing with Deadpool’ – Doesn’t that sound like something a romantic like me would concoct? I was intending for this post to be a follow-up on the last post, laying out my rationale for believing that we have all been ‘romancing the Colorado River’ for a century and a half, with three distinct epochs.

But then ‘Dancing with Deadpool’ came along. ‘Dancing with Deadpool’ is actually the title of a report recently released by a Colorado River Research Group, a group of natural and social scientists presenting under the auspices of the Getches-Wilkinson Law Center at the University of Colorado. They are ‘all academics with long, well-established involvement in Colorado River scholarship,’ and you’ve heard about the work of a number of them in these posts before – Brad Udall, Eric Kuhn, Jack Schmidt, Ann Castle, Doug Kenney, among others. In ‘Dancing with Deadpool’ they were invited ‘to present their thoughts on the future of the Colorado River as individuals rather than as representatives of their institutions.’

Back for a moment to my thesis that, as a Bureau of Reclamation engineer said in 1918, ‘a vein of romance runs through every form of human endeavor,’ but mediated with desert poet Mary Austin’s caution to those who drink the waters of the romanced river, and who then ‘can no more see fact as naked fact, but all radiant with the color of romance’: I will say of most of the contributors to ‘Dancing with Deadpool,’ that they are trying to reconcile the naked facts too long ignored with the ongoing Romance of Controlling and Conquering the River that they are too polite to suggest just ending, as it were.

Their thoughts have received a bigger play in the news than they might have, had there been any real news from the closed rooms where the seven state negotiators, with 30 First People nations and Mexico looking over their shoulders, are trying to work out a new post-2026 management plan for the river. Since we’ve been in the 2026 water year since October 1, a new plan can’t come any too soon at this point – especially given the projections that this winter may be as anemic as last winter in terms of runoff this coming summer.

The 60-page report can be found at Colorado River Insights: Dancing with Deadpool, and is mostly good reading; the Executive Summary of the eight essays can be found here, and most newspapers of record have done a big story on the report.

I am not going to go into separate analyses of all eight essays making up this report. What I want to do instead is to pick up and run with some points in several of the essays that seem to me to point toward a potentially romantic vision of our future in the Colorado River region that starts with some often downplayed ‘naked facts’ that can’t be ignored or denied forever….

When we talk about ‘our problems with the Colorado River,’ we need to be more clear when we are talking about a ‘river problem’ and when we are talking about ‘the river system’ that we have imposed on the river to enable our use of the river’s water. In ‘Dancing with Deadpool’ Brad Udall and Jonathan Overpeck, take a second look at a big river problem. A decade or more ago, they added an enlightening distinction about ‘drought’ to our vocabulary: they acknowledged that part of the 21^st century drought was a ‘dry drought,’ meaning caused by diminished precipitation; but then said that at least half of the drought was a ‘hot drought,’ caused by rising temperatures that increased evaporation and transpiration of the precipitation that managed to fall. And the rising temperatures they accrued to anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Now they they have amended their analysis based on studies of  what has been happening in the Pacific Ocean; they say in this essay that the ‘dry drought’ is also probably at least partially a consequence of our anthropogenic sins, due to the impact of rising temperatures on the Pacific Ocean from whence the western climate emerges.

About half of the CRRG scientists collaborate on a ‘Dancing’ essay about ariver system problem, analyzing where we stand on Colorado River Reservoir Storage – showing that we are indeed dancing with deadpool, the stage at which a reservoir level drops below its lowest portals through the dam, meaning no flow in the river below the dam. We wish this were a river problem that we could blame on the gods of nature, but it is mostly a river system problem. The river system is most visibly a set of big physicl structures for storing water and releasing it on a need basis into a vast desert distribution system. This system is overlaid on the natural river (which has dealt with worse obstacles in its five million years), but overlaid on the physical system is a thick but rickety layer of compacts, laws, treaties, regulations, court decisions, et cetera that dictate the operation of the physical system. Right now, the river managers – another layer, generating an operating system fraught with tensions between politics, economics and traditions – are working kind of desperately on ever-larger bandaids patched on operating systems that were clearly on track for deadpool in the first decade of the century. Jack Schmidt et al lay out this unfolding story.

About half of the CRRG scientists collaborate on a ‘Dancing’ essay about ariver system problem, analyzing where we stand on Colorado River Reservoir Storage – showing that we are indeed dancing with deadpool, the stage at which a reservoir level drops below its lowest portals through the dam, meaning no flow in the river below the dam. We wish this were a river problem that we could blame on the gods of nature, but it is mostly a river system problem. The river system is most visibly a set of big physicl structures for storing water and releasing it on a need basis into a vast desert distribution system. This system is overlaid on the natural river (which has dealt with worse obstacles in its five million years), but overlaid on the physical system is a thick but rickety layer of compacts, laws, treaties, regulations, court decisions, et cetera that dictate the operation of the physical system. Right now, the river managers – another layer, generating an operating system fraught with tensions between politics, economics and traditions – are working kind of desperately on ever-larger bandaids patched on operating systems that were clearly on track for deadpool in the first decade of the century. Jack Schmidt et al lay out this unfolding story.

But those essays reflect the ‘first we scare’em, then we ask them to think’ strategy of most legitimate public information (public propaganda never gets to the second step). Some of the essays in ‘Dancing with Deadpool’ gave some nudges toward alternative ways of looking at both the river and the river system that might be rabbit holes out of the current stalemate.

Doug Kenney, chair of the CRRG and director of the Getches-Wilkinson Center’s Western Water Policy Program, set me to thinking about that with an essay that was actually part of the ‘first we scare’em’ section of the pamphlet, about the ‘alarming erosion’ of the Colorado River ‘Safety Nets.’

A focus on surface water prior to the early 20^th century is understandable; until the advent of powerful fossil-fueled pumps, all land-based animal life including us had to access the water we needed from the surface water that makes up less than one percent of all the water on the planet. We could also dig wells into the upper groundwater zone, fitted with handpumps, and the farm culture generated the windmill driven pump for filling stocktanks as well as home use, but other than that, it was all surface water – especially when it came to irrigated agriculture.

But now we can access that groundwater – and obviously do; when we say the Colorado River provides domestic water for 40 million people and irrigation water for five million acres of farmland, it should be obvious that allthat water is not coming from a river running on average 12 million acre-feet a year. It is, in fact, hard to tell in some places in the Lower Colorado River Basin, and in many urban areas, which resource, ground or surface water, is the ‘safety net’ for the other. We do know that we’ve been pumping enough ‘supplemental’ groundwater to cause serious subsiding of the land as emptied underground aquifers collapse irreversibly.

But nevertheless, at the heart (not in the head but the romantic heart) of the negotiations is how to build up the storage again in two big open reservoirs under an increasingly brutal desert sun. How to Make Mead and Powell Great Again! – and who should sacrifice to do it. Have they not read Udall and Overpeck?

If we were intelligently approaching the post-2026 era, we might consider setting a 20-year ‘interim’ schedule for phasing out Mead and Powell entirely as the world warms, and getting as much of the river’s surface water as possible underground where it is safer from the drying sun. Before we have emptied and collapsed all the underground storage areas. There’ll be a full post on that one of these days.

Well, that’s the kind of thinking “Dancing with Deadpool’ wakens in my admittedly iconoclastic mind. I do not suggest that as a simplistic trumpish solution. Allocation of invisible underground water is not as straightforward as the allocation of surface water; nothing will be simplified by trying to combine ground and surface water into a single system – although it is working out fairly well in Colorado where integrating groundwater and surface water use has been the practice since 1969.  Not a new idea, in other words, although California – where the Central Valley has massive subsidence from aquifer loss – continues to believe it is not that big a deal.

Why are our negotiators not working on that kind of integrative 21^st century thinking? Why haven’t they been working on it since the ‘interim’ began in 2007? The water mavens are quibbling over bits and pieces of the overdeveloped surface water, while most of the states pump huge quantities of groundwater with no regulation for their diminishing future.  The faded but still somewhat radiant colors of the Romance of Conquest still hover over the basin, where we continue to tinker with the divine compact carved in stone by God’s lightning and carried off of a sacred mountain by Herbert Hoover and Delph Carpenter.

Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Monitor website.

Click the link to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

This Week’s Drought Summary

This U.S. Drought Monitor week saw both improvements and degradations across the country, shaped largely by uneven precipitation and widespread colder-than-normal temperatures. Much of the nation was colder than normal, with the sharpest departures in the Midwest and Northeast, where most of the week’s moisture fell as snow and offered limited short-term help for soils and streams. In the West, storm systems delivered substantial rain and mountain snow to the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, improving conditions in parts of Washington, northwest Oregon, western Montana and eastern Idaho. However, areas that missed the heaviest precipitation—especially central and southern Oregon, central Idaho and southwestern Montana—saw drought expand as snowpack remained well below normal. Parts of the Southwest, including southeastern California and western Arizona, continued to improve as moisture from earlier storms worked through the hydrologic system, while east-central Nevada saw worsening drought due to very low snowpack and long-term precipitation deficits. 

The central and southern Plains did not see any meaningful precipitation this week, leading to conditions remaining largely unchanged outside of localized areas. Short-term dryness worsened in southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma, where precipitation deficits continue to accumulate. In the east, several areas along the Gulf Coast and Southeast received 1 to 3 inches of rain, leading to widespread improvement short-term dryness and drought in southern Alabama, southern Georgia, the Florida Panhandle and portions of the Carolinas. Despite moderate precipitation in southern Florida and parts of the interior Southeast, longer-term precipitation deficits led to dryness continuing to intensify. In the Midwest and Northeast, cold temperatures and predominantly frozen precipitation led to limited improvements and degradations in areas that missed precipitation…

High Plains

Conditions across the High Plains changed very little this week as much of the region received only light precipitation and remained colder than normal. The Dakotas saw little meaningful moisture, and Nebraska saw none, leaving drought conditions unchanged. In Kansas, a lack of precipitation combined with continued short-term dryness led to an expansion of abnormal dryness (D0) that stretched into northeastern Oklahoma. 

In eastern Wyoming, dryness increased where precipitation was limited, resulting in some expansion of abnormal dryness. In eastern Colorado, light snowfall helped ease small pockets of abnormal dryness, though most areas saw little change…

West

Out West, there was a mixture of improvements and degradations. Improvements were seen in the Southwest despite no precipitation this week. Prior weeks’ moisture has made its way into the hydrologic cycle, as seen in improving streamflows and soil moisture. Despite snow falling across the Rocky Mountains, many stations continue to report that the snow water equivalent (SWE) is below the 30th percentile. Snowpack levels in the northern Rockies are doing better, with many stations showing snowpack at 100 percent for this time of year, which was further improved with 1 to 2 feet of snow falling across western Montana and eastern Idaho. This moisture led to areas of improvement in northwest Montana. Improvements were also seen along the Idaho-Wyoming border where up to 2.5 feet of snow fell. Southwestern Montana and central Idaho, which are experiencing below-normal snowpack, missed out on the snow and saw the expansion of moderate drought (D1) across the border. Over the Pacific Northwest, storms brought upwards of 6 to 8 inches of precipitation, where many stations in the Cascades are reporting below snowpack below 50 percent of normal. Areas in central Washington into northwest Oregon saw improvements as some short-term metrics were more aligned with moderate drought (D1) conditions rather than severe drought (D2). Central and southern Oregon, which missed out on the heaviest precipitation, saw the expansion of abnormal dryness (D0) and moderate drought (D1)…

South

The South saw mostly improvements this week following a mixture of below-normal temperatures and heavy rainfall. One-class improvements were seen from far eastern Texas to Mississippi where 1.5 to 3 inches of rain fell, with parts of southern Louisiana recording 5 to 6 inches of rain. Areas of central Texas and the Panhandle that improved last week, continued to see improvements in soil moisture and streamflows, leading to further improvements this week. Isolated degradation did occur in Texas’ southwestern Panhandle as well in northeastern Oklahoma as lack of precipitation continues to stress soils and lead to lower streamflows…

Looking Ahead

According to the National Weather Service’s 5-day quantitative precipitation forecast (valid from Dec. 11 -16) the heaviest precipitation is forecast across the Pacific Northwest, especially along the coastal ranges of Washington, Oregon, and far northern California, where totals may exceed 5 to 10. Moderate precipitation is also expected across the northern Rockies and into the northern Plains and Upper Midwest, with widespread amounts between 0.5 and 2 inches and localized areas of higher amounts where terrain enhances moisture, such as elevation and lake-effect snow. Across the South and Southeast, a broad area of lighter but steady rain is anticipated from eastern Texas through the Gulf Coast states and into the Carolinas, generally ranging from 0.5 to 2 inches. The Northeast is also expected to pick up around 1 to 2 inches. In contrast, much of the Interior West—including the Great Basin, Southwest and central Rockies—shows little to no precipitation. 

The Climate Prediction Center’s 6 to 10 day outlook (valid Dec. 16–20) favors widespread above- normal temperatures across most of the Lower 48, with the highest likelihood for above-normal temperatures centered over the Four Corners region and extending across the western and southern U.S. Much of the Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast also lean warmer than average, while only a small pocket of near-normal temperatures is suggested in parts of the northern Plains. Cooler-than-normal conditions are limited to coastal New England and portions of Alaska, where the highest chances for below-normal temperatures appear. Precipitation patterns show more divide with wetter-than-normal conditions favored across the Pacific Northwest, the northern Rockies, the Upper Midwest and parts of Hawaii. In contrast, drier-than-normal conditions are likely across the central and southern Rockies, the central Plains and much of the Southeast, with the strongest dry signal centered over Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas. Near-normal precipitation is expected across broad sections of the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Interior West.

Click the link to read the assessment on the NOAA website:

December 8, 2025

Key Points:

• November was unusually warm nationwide, ranking as the fourth warmest on record, with five states setting November temperature records.
• Meteorological fall ranked third warmest on record, with seven states setting fall temperature records.
• Dry conditions dominated the eastern U.S., with the Southeast seeing its driest fall since 1978.

Other Highlights:

Temperature

The average temperature of the contiguous U.S. (CONUS) in November was 46.8°F, 5.1°F above the 20th-century average, ranking as the fourth-warmest November in the 131-year record. Much-above-average warmth covered most of the western and central U.S., while much of the eastern third remained near average. Five states—Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Utah—set new statewide records for November temperature, with Utah (44.4°F) surpassing its 2017 record by more than 1°F. New Mexico had its second-warmest November and Colorado, Oklahoma and Wyoming each recorded their third warmest. At the county level, 100 Texas counties set new records for their warmest average November temperatures, with 30 counties recording average daily highs more than 10°F above the 20th-century average.

For meteorological fall (September–November), the CONUS average temperature was 57.2°F, 3.7°F above average, ranking as the third-warmest fall in the 131-year record. Apart from the Carolinas, all CONUS states had fall temperatures more than 1°F above the 20th-century average, and seven states—Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington—set new statewide fall temperature records. Nationwide, 275 counties—nearly 15 million people—experienced their warmest fall temperatures on record.

Alaska’s statewide November temperature was 17.3°F, 5.6°F above the 1925–2000 average, ranking in the warmest third of the 101-year period of record for the state. The state was especially warm across parts of the Interior and the North Slope, which had its fifth-warmest November on record—more than 11°F above the long-term average. For the fall season, Alaska’s average temperature was 30.2°F, 4.3°F above average and the tenth warmest on record.

For November, Hawai’i had an average temperature of 66.9°F, 0.4°F above the 1991–2020 average, ranking in the warmest third of the 35-year record. Fall temperatures also ranked in the warmest third of the historical record.

Precipitation 

November precipitation for the CONUS was 1.70 inches, 0.53 inch below average, ranking in the driest third of the 131-year record. Precipitation was below average across much of the U.S. east of the Mississippi River, with the Southeast region experiencing its sixth-driest November on record. The Southeast region averaged just 1 inch of rainfall for the month—less than 35% of the 20th-century average. South Carolina had its second-driest November, marking its lowest November rainfall since 1931, while Florida received less than 15% of its average rainfall for its third-driest November. In contrast, precipitation in the West was mixed; portions of California and the Southwest recorded above-average rainfall, while parts of the northern Great Basin, Northwest and Rockies received below-average precipitation.

The fall season (September–November) was also dry for the CONUS, with a total of 5.97 inches of precipitation, 0.91 inch below average, ranking in the driest third of the record. While much of the Northwest and Rockies received near-average precipitation, wetter-than-average conditions prevailed in the Southwest and Plains, with several counties in southern California and southeastern Arizona recording their wettest fall on record. Further east, below- to much-below-average precipitation was seen across the middle and upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes, as well as a region stretching from the southern Plains across much of the South, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The Southeast region recorded its driest fall since 1978 (sixth driest on record), with Georgia receiving less than half of its seasonal average for its fourth-driest fall. However, in contrast to the widespread dry trend in the east, parts of the Ohio Valley received above-average rainfall.

Alaska’s average monthly precipitation in November was 2.99 inches, 0.40 inch below average, ranking in the middle third of the 101-year record. The September–November total was 12.91 inches, 0.59 inch above average and in the middle third of the record.

Precipitation across Hawai’i in November averaged 5.28 inches, 1.19 inches below average, ranking in the middle third of the 1991–2025 record. Fall precipitation was 11.70 inches (4.30 inches below average), ranking in the driest third of the record.

Drought

According to the December 2 U.S. Drought Monitor report, about 41.4% of the contiguous U.S. was in drought, down about 2.3% from the beginning of November. Drought contracted or was reduced in intensity across much of the western U.S., particularly the Southwest, Great Basin and parts of the Rockies and Northwest, as well as in portions of the middle Mississippi and Ohio Valleys and the Northeast. In contrast, drought developed or intensified significantly across the Southeast and in parts of the southern Plains and upper Mississippi Valley.

Monthly Outlook

Above-average temperatures are likely across much of the southern tier, from the central Rockies through the southern Plains and Southeast, while below-average temperatures are favored in the northern Plains, upper Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast. Above-average precipitation is expected in parts of the northern Rockies and northern Plains, and along the Gulf Coast through the Carolinas and into the Northeast, while below-average precipitation is favored across the central Plains and Florida Peninsula. Visit the Climate Prediction Center’s Official 30-Day Forecasts for more details.

Drought improvement or removal is expected in parts of the Northwest and northern Rockies, the western and central Gulf Coast, much of Alabama and Georgia, the Great Lakes, the Mid-Atlantic, the Northeast and Hawai’i. In contrast, drought is likely to persist or worsen across the central and southern Rockies, portions of the Plains, the middle and upper Mississippi Valley and the Florida Peninsula, with expansion likely in western Texas and eastern New Mexico. Visit the U.S. Monthly Drought Outlook website for more details.

Significant wildland fire potential in December is above normal across portions of western Texas and western Oklahoma, as well as southern Georgia and north-central Florida. For additional information on wildland fire potential, visit the National Interagency Fire Center’s One-Month Wildland Fire Outlook.

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For more detailed climate information, check out our comprehensive November 2025 U.S. Climate Report scheduled for release on December 11, 2025. For additional information on the statistics provided here, visit the Climate at a Glance and National Maps webpages.

Click the link to read the article on the Sibley’s Rivers website (George Sibley):

November 18, 2025

The Bureau of Reclamation’s November 11 deadline for the seven states to present a plan for the management of the Colorado River has passed with no white smoke from the chimney – no smoke at all in fact, black or white; the meetings have been so secretive that one wonders if the Magnificent Seven have really been meeting at all.

So there being no news on that front, rather than adding to the copious media analysis of no news, I’m going to step back for the usual longer look – this time backward, to acknowledge an anniversary: this post marks the completion of the fourth year of this ongoing commentary on our lives with our rivers, mostly the Colorado River; the first post was November 22, 2021. About that, I’ll just say I’ve enjoyed this, and learned a lot on top of what I already knew about the river, hydrology, riparian sociology and economy, et cetera; and I do appreciate the handful of people who read it and comment, often teaching me something. I want to express my gratitude to a friend and mostly retired attorney who underwrites this website, and to Rob Strickland of Midnight Marketing, who created and manages the website.

Actually remembering this anniversary, for a guy who tends to forget birthdays, even his own (willfully), makes it a good time to check up on myself, and my work these past four years: am I doing what I started out wanting to do? An inquiry I might as well do transparently, with you still reading this ongoing bloviation. So here is my first post, from November 22, 2021, with some interlinear comments in italics:

Sibley’s Rivers? What, Why and – Why Not?

The first thing I want to say about ‘Sibley’s Rivers’ is to not be misled by the name; it’s not going to be all about rivers – although because the West will be the locus of focus, the rivers that run through it (or don’t) will be frequent topics. Especially the Colorado River, which is so ominously interesting these days.

What you’ll find, should you decide to visit ‘Sibley’s Rivers’ from time to time, is mostly going to be ‘rivers of words’ about learning to live in the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene: this new epoch in the eternal evolution of the planet, precipitated by changes that we humans, purposefully or inadvertently, have imposed on the planet’s basic systems, changes which are now altering the conditions of existence for all life on the planet. [ed. emphasis mine]

Most of the scientific community accepts this as a fact of life we now have to learn to live with, and measure up to. We – all of us, just in the way we daily live – are a major change agent acting on the planet, on a global scale, which means that what we do now, or stop doing, carries a major responsibility for the continuity of much of the life on earth – certainly for the continuity of our own species. This is what the president means when he calls it an ‘existential challenge’: our very existence is at stake.

I think I’ve been a little ‘lite’ in this. I write primarily about the Colorado River because I see it as ‘the First River of the Anthropocene’ – the natural phenomenon most dramatically and obviously changed by human actions. But I need to make that more thematic.

Are we up for this? As the rational, problem-solving species we tell ourselves we are? We humans tell each other stories, mythologies, about ourselves and the world we live in – our origins, our development, our relationship with other living things and with the planet itself – and we want our stories to show us as a positive force in the world, in the systems we impose on the nature of things around us. These stories are part of who we are.

Most of us probably grew up, as I did, on the ‘Ascent of Humankind’ story: We humans emerged as a poor little species with little going for us except a big active brain; for hundreds of thousands of years we crept around slipping into niches as foragers and hunters in all kinds of ecosystems, and somehow we managed to survive. Then around 10,000 years ago, we improved our lives with the invention of agriculture, bringing our food sources together under our control; we settled in towns rather than wandering around the landscape following the food. Success in that gradually led us to gather in larger and wealthier cities; we learned to write, developed the sciences and creative arts, created beautiful things and useful things that we traded with each other, and with other advanced city-states; we learned to make good wine and spirits. We became a civilization, the highest ascent of the species; we spread our light through the conquest and enlightenment of less well developed peoples. An originally insignificant little species became the dominant species on the planet. We are not yet perfect in all our systemic efforts to address the challenges to civilization, both internal and external, but we are, always, steadily improving. This is the mythos of Western Civilization, now the global civilization, in the Holocene, this lovely mellow 10 or 20 thousand year epoch that brackets the ‘Ascent’ story.

So what does the dawning of the Anthropocene do to the Holocene’s ‘Ascent’ mythos? If we go by the classical definition of ‘tragedy’ – knowledge gained by the protagonists too late to save them – then our foundational myth turns from a tale of triumph to a tragedy if it were to end now with the end of the Holocene. So of course it can’t end now. But how do we extend, amend or otherwise carry the story forward? Or do we need a new story to tell ourselves about ourselves and our evolving relationship with our planet? 

The fact is, we are not yet displaying any real capacity for executing a transition into the responsibilities we’ve imposed on ourselves in creating the Anthropocene. In this nation we have a president who seems to get the urgency of it, but he is stymied in acting by a political cult that promotes nothing positive and seeks only his failure. Even worse, a solid 40 percent of the American electorate is in vigorous denial about the challenge – and many of them are threatening violent armed insurrection if pushed too far on this and other issues. Self-defense, you know.

The nations of the world (most of them) just assembled in Scotland for the United Nations’ ‘COP26’ gathering, which was designed for a rational species confronting a problem to be solved, but everyone went home with no more than vague pledges offered and no specific missions to accomplish by a specific time, in addressing what everyone seemed to agree is a ticking time bomb. The fossil fuel producers had several hundred lobbyists there to make sure that nothing too productive happened on the carbon issue.

As I write this, the nations – the Council of Parties – are gathered in Belem, Brazil for COP 30. Carbon emissions have continued to go up every year since 2021; brave but vague promises are made very year, with rich nations making commitments to help poorer nations transition to affordable futures, commitments seldom more than partially fulfilled.

I followed COP26 on the internet through the adventures of a young Colorado woman, Sarah Johnson, at the COP26 conference. A freelance environmental educator from Carbondale, she wangled an ‘observer’ badge to the Glasgow event, and made frequent posts from there, providing a different look at what was going on there than one got from the mainstream media. Based just on her accounts, I would say that one positive thing that might come from COP26 will be a lot of young people from everywhere who now know each other, and know of each other, and are the ones who will not shrink from inheriting the whirlwind the current crop of poohbahs is probably going to leave in their laps after a few more years of harrumphing.  (Sarah’s COP26 postings are at https://www.wildroseeducation.com/uncop.html.)

‘We are desperate for a new story,’ Sarah said in one of her posts, ‘a promising narrative, words of encouragement grounded in our history of tenacity, strength, and determination.’

Trying to find elements of that story for the Anthropocene is as close as I can come to a statement of purpose for this site, and I hope for exchange and input from people like Sarah, and anyone else who has read this far. 

I think cautionary elements of that story exist in the wrestling I’ve done with the Colorado River and its fantasy-ridden management, and I’ve gotten insightful comments from readers, for which I’m grateful. But the new story remains elusive.

My perspective here is what I think of as ‘Medial West’: the perspective of one caught between an Old West and a New West, and not really comfortably at home in either. The Old West has been a culture of resource appropriation and development – at its worst, the rip-and-run mining of minerals, timber, grass and water; at its best the evolution of multi-generational ranching and farming communities, in for the long haul. The New West is most visibly a culture of industrial recreation, auto tourismand real estate development dependent on an aesthetically inspiring natural environment. 

I’ve not pointed out enough that an ‘aesthetically inspiring natural environment’ is no more sustainable than an oil well, when we start filling it up with people, monstrous houses and the other artifacts of high civilization.

But the dominant culture of both the Old and New West has been and is the Industrial Revolution – a huge system for employing the population in the myriad acts of converting nature’s resources into goods and services to be bought and sold in as many forms as possible. The basic difference between Old West and New West industries: Old West industries move the products to the people; New West industries move the people to the products. Just in the moving, both contribute significantly to the greenhouse gas challenge that tipped us into the Anthropocene.

I’ve personally been too involved with both the Old and New West to choose either over the other unconditionally. My mother’s grandparents homesteaded a modest farm in the valley of the North Fork of the Gunnison River in the 1880s, driven by dreams that weren’t very industrial at all, but also weren’t very well articulated; I’ve come to know the fourth and fifth generations of farmer-ranchers here in the Upper Gunnison Basin who are a lot like what I know of my great-grandparents, and who seem to see their lives more as a heritage culture than an economic industry – even though they sell their cattle into the global industrial market.

Access to that market is thanks to people like my mother’s father, who was a civil engineer in the Gunnison River Basin making sure the railroad got to every community – the Industrial Revolution’s first efficient vehicle for vacuuming the resources of the West for the nation’s growing industrial cities – including eventually its human resources, its offspring.

I came to the Gunnison River Basin from the urban-industrial mainstream eighty years after my grandparents, thinking I was fleeing it, but instead went right to work in the incipient industries of the New West. When I realized that I was basically making straight in the wilderness the way for the fullblown advent of the remodeled Industrial Revolution, I tried to pull back, but still had to make enough of a living to keep the family functional, and what else was there?

Nevertheless, I did manage to work my way into two ‘counterrevolutionary’ situations. One was running a small sawmill on the edge of civilization, producing rough-sawn lumber entirely for a local market. The other was two decades of slightly subversive work for a regional college here, trying to develop niche programs to wake the children of the Industrial Revolution up the possibility that life could and should be more than an economy in which we must labor all our lives. My success was about par for the two and a half centuries of that counterrevolution’s steady retreat before the industrial revolutionaries – not much, but hope abides. More about that in future posts – rethinking our conventional sense of our history may help us succeed in the Anthropocene.

My ‘Medial West’ perspective values the work ethic and attachment to place of the Old West people who have stayed long enough to have a story of their own here, but also values – and shares – the aesthetic appreciations of the New West people and the growing effort to find re-creation beyond recreation – probably an essential transition in learning to live in the Anthropocene. My energy for earnestly tackling the challenges of the Anthropocene dissipates if not frequently infused with the sight of the blue sky out the window, and its invitation to spend some time later today out under that sky, in meditation with the axe and the woodpile.

Okay – there’s still work to do with the First River of the Anthropocene – but rather than beating on the dead horse of 20th-century mismanagement to try to make it get up and slog on, I’ll make a more disciplined effort to find Sarah Johnson’s story that would make us want to live constructively in the Anthropocene. Meanwhile, there’s again wood to be split for the winter. Allons, friends!

Here’s the release from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (Michael Elizabeth Sakas):

October 17, 2025

The Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) is announcing the launch of a new program to install diversion measurement structures on the Western Slope at no cost to water users. Utilizing $7 million in federal funding, the structures will allow Colorado to improve water management within the Upper Colorado River Basin. 

“Accurate and effective measurement of diversions on the West Slope is critical to protect Colorado’s apportionment of water for our water users,” said Colorado State Engineer Jason Ullmann. “This funding is critical to helping those on the Western Slope meet the challenges of water management in the West.”

The Diversion Measurement Installation Program will be administered by the CWCB, in coordination with the Division of Water Resources (DWR) and a hired consultant, SGM. Eligible water users will have a measurement structure installed at their point of diversion, at no cost to them. A diversion measurement structure is a device installed at or near a point where water is diverted from a river, stream, or ditch, in order to accurately measure the volume or flow rate of water being diverted. Common examples include flumes and weirs. 

Water users with a missing or faulty measurement device may apply to the CWCB for a measurement device to be installed at their point of diversion, free of charge. To be eligible, their legal water right must be actively put to beneficial use. The Program does not include the installation of headgates or other diversion structures. 

“It’s a win for Colorado that we can use this funding to help water users with the costs of a measurement device,” said Upper Colorado River Commissioner Becky Mitchell. Mitchell voted to approve the use of federal funding for diversion measurement at a November 2024 meeting of the Upper Colorado River Commission (UCRC), as part of the UCRC’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Spend Plan. 

Because the Program is federally funded through the UCRC, it is limited to the Upper Colorado River Basin. It covers streamflow diversions in Colorado’s Gunnison River Basin (DWR Division 4), the Colorado River Basin (DWR Division 5), the Yampa and White River Basins (DWR Division 6, excluding the North Platte), and the San Juan and Dolores River Basins (DWR Division 7). 

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Applications for measurement structures in Divisions 6 and 7 will be made available later this year. CWCB has two upcoming public meetings to provide additional information and assist with applications. The Division 6 meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 4, from 3:30 to 6:00 at the Colorado Northwestern Community College, 2801 W 9th St, Craig, CO 81625. The Division 7 meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 12, from 3:30 to 6:00 at the Florida Grange, 656 Highway 172, Durango, CO 81303. Virtual options are available for both meetings; please see cwcb.colorado.gov/diversionmeasurement for Zoom links. 

Applications for Divisions 4 and 5 will be made available in 2026. Further application rounds will be available in 2027 and 2028. All structures will be installed by 2029, when the federal funding authorization expires. 

Interested water users may submit a Statement of Interest form, available at cwcb.colorado.gov/diversionmeasurement, to be kept informed on the Program’s timeline. Questions may be sent to DNR_diversionmeasurement@state.co.us.

Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Politics website (Marianne Goodland). Here’s an excerpt:

September 11, 2025

With a critical Nov. 11 deadline fast approaching, negotiators from the seven Colorado River basin states remain at odds over how to manage a river that serves 40 million people — and which, experts long agree, is overallocated. Negotiations are moving so slowly that some basin leaders are questioning whether that agreement will happen before the deadline or whether the Bureau of Reclamation, which still doesn’t have a permanent commissioner, will have to step in. Negotiations over the “divorce,” as some are calling it, or a “conscious uncoupling,” which is how Colorado negotiator Becky Mitchell describes it, began over the year-long stalemate between the upper and lower basin states. And then came the bureau’s 24-month study of hydrology, adding a wrinkle that nobody wanted.

The deadline for implementing the post-2026 operating guidelines agreement is Oct. 1, 2026, although the bureau wants everything ready to go by June 2026. The hydrology report pointed out a near-crisis level at Lake Powell by next year, just as negotiators are trying to come up with a long-term deal that will guide the river’s operations into the future…Current operating guidelines that were put into place in 2007 will expire next year. However, it has become a much more challenging job to manage the river over the past two decades. This river supplies water for agriculture and supports 40 million people across seven states. Experts said that’s due to a 25-year drought that has reduced the river’s historic flow by millions of acre-feet of water per year.

Click the link for all the inside skinny from the Colorado River District Annual Seminar:

Click here to reserve your spot!

This year’s seminar on October 3rd will explore the spaces where perspectives don’t always align in the world of western water, and how we still have to find our way forward together. Sometimes, these perspectives are split between upstream and downstream, sometimes between the data and the real-world experience, between science and policy, and between East Slope and West. As we face mounting challenges across the Colorado River Basin, this year’s event will bring together diverse voices to confront those divides, question assumptions, and work toward shared understanding with a focus on what it all means for water users on the Western Slope.

Through candid conversations and solution-focused dialogue, we’ll examine what’s missing, what’s misunderstood, and what bridges we can build. From political disconnects to on-the-ground impacts, we’ll shine a light on the gaps and highlight the innovations, partnerships, and leadership working to close them.

Event Summary:

On October 3rd, the Colorado River District’s will host its Annual Water Seminar from 8:30 am 3:15 pm at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction. Speakers will cover topics ranging from interstate negotiations and current hydrology, to innovations in agriculture, water policy, and funding strategies.

Doors will open at 8:00 a.m. Be sure to stick around after the program for a happy hour networking event on the terrace from 3:35 – 5:00 p.m. A complimentary drink ticket is included with all registrations.

DRAFT Agenda Available here (.pdf)

Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:

August 30, 2025

The likelihood of Western states reaching a consensus on a plan for the future of the Colorado River is dimming as time runs out for the negotiators tasked with dividing up the shrinking river relied upon by 40 million people.

“The path to success seems tenuous at this point,” Arizona’s negotiator, Tom Buschatzke, said in an interview this week with The Denver Post. “The discussions continue to revolve around the main issue that we’ve been struggling with for some time since these discussions started.”

The states have until Nov. 11 to tell the federal government whether they will have a deal and until Feb. 14 to submit a detailed plan. If consensus cannot be reached, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will implement its own plan — a scenario that would likely prompt years of expensive litigation and put complicated water management questions in the hands of judges who aren’t specialized in the issues…

Negotiators from the Lower Basin for months have argued that their counterparts in the Upper Basin must agree to mandatory usage cuts in the driest years. The Lower Basin has already made significant cuts to address the shrinking river, Buschatzke said this week…The Upper Basin states maintain that they already take water cuts every year because they are above the system’s two major reservoirs. Since they’re reliant on snowpack and precipitation, they’re forced to live within the supply of the river. Unlike the Lower Basin states, the Upper Basin has never used its entire legal allotment, while the Lower Basin for years used more water than the river supplied and depleted water supplies stored in Mead and Powell, the basin’s negotiators have said…

Negotiators continue to discuss a concept that would base the amount released from the system’s two major reservoirs on the amount of water flowing in the river, rather than the decades-old system that bases releases on water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The negotiators spoke publicly last month about the concept, which some hailed as a potential breakthrough in negotiations. But optimism around that concept has faded. Mitchell said it was unclear whether an agreement could be reached around the framework. Buschatzke said major sticking points remained, like what percentage of the flow each basin should receive.

We arrived in Barcelona in the afternoon from Paris. After a short walk from our hotel we enjoyed a delicious dinner at Honest Greens. It was bittersweet to return to Barcelona knowing that by coming full circle the great vacation in Europe was coming to the end.

From email from the City of Fort Collins:

March 14, 2025

Larimer County Considers 1041 Permit Application

As someone who is interested in the Halligan Water Supply Project, we are reaching out to inform you about an upcoming meeting. This month, the Larimer County Board of County Commissioners is scheduled to consider the Halligan Water Supply Project’s 1041 permit application. County Commissioners will hear presentations from county staff and City of Fort Collins staff and will invite the public to comment before making a final decision. The meeting will take place on March 24 at 6:30 p.m. at the Larimer County offices at 200 W. Oak St. in Fort Collins.  Last month, the Larimer County Planning Commission unanimously recommended the Board of County Commissioners approve the permit with 53 proposed conditions.  To view the application, visit the county’s website by clicking this link. If you have questions about the project, feel free to email halligan@fcgov.com or call 970-416-4296.

Click the link to read the article on the Land Desk website (Jonathan P. Thompson):

February 14, 2025

Plus: Going down the pipeline wormhole; Funding freeze wrecks the West

🌵 Public Lands 🌲

It’s a cliché, but it’s also accurate: The Trump administration is hiring the foxes to guard the henhouses, figuratively speaking. This week Trump nominated Denver resident Kathleen Sgamma to lead the Bureau of Land Management. Since 2006, Sgamma has been president of the Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas industry group that works to open up more public land to drilling.

Sgamma’s job, in other words, is to lobby lawmakers to weaken the laws that protect human health and the environment in order to clear the way for petroleum corporations to rake in even more profit. That role has often included butting heads with the BLM and suing the Department of Interior on behalf of the industry. And she’s not merely a hired hand, but also a hard-right ideologue, one who, on social media, frequently downplays the effects of climate change, mocks efforts to stamp out institutional racism and foster diversity, equity, and inclusion, lets her fossil fuel-fetish flag fly, and who clearly has never seen a drill rig she doesn’t adore.

Now she will be charged with enforcing regulations on some 245 million acres of the public’s land, while overseeing the same agency that sells oil and gas leases and issues drilling permits to the same companies that have been paying her salary for nearly 20 years.

What could go wrong?

I’ve heard it said that picking a fossil fuel advocate is no different than Biden choosing Tracy Stone-Manning, who worked for environmental advocacy groups. This argument doesn’t hold up because of a stark difference. Energy companies — i.e. Sgamma’s former employers — stand to benefit financially from the BLM opening more land to drilling. Green groups, by contrast, did not reap any kind of monetary gain when Stone-Manning implemented policies that protected the land. In fact, green groups tend to bring in more donations when the administration is hostile towards the environment.

Now if Biden would have chosen a former solar or wind power executive or trade group employee, that would represent the same sort of conflict of interest. And it is valid to argue that someone with a career in federal land management — not an outsider, regardless of their political tendencies — should lead the agency that oversees federal lands.

In this case it may not really matter. Anyone that Trump picked, whether it was William Perry Pendley, Sgamma, or a career bureaucrat, would have had to follow the “drill, baby, drill” and “energy dominance” agenda — and demonstrate their unconditional loyalty to Trump — or risk being canned.

***

While Sgamma’s confirmation is almost certain, it is not so evident that there will be a BLM for her to lead.

Elon Musk and his sidekick President Trump have been busy eviscerating the federal government, laying off thousands of employees, withholding billions of dollars of funding for state and local governments, and generally wreaking chaos — purportedly in the name of efficiency. The Western U.S. stands to lose out big time.

The U.S. Forest Service, for example, is expected to fire about 3,400 employees, according to Politico, or about 10% of its workforce. While this doesn’t include firefighters, wildfire prevention jobs are being cut. NPR reports that the Energy Department has also slashed its workforce, including folks keeping an eye on the nation’s nuclear arsenal, and Veterans Affairs is cutting more than 1,000 employees. And the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal entity that runs hydropower dams and parts of the Northwest electrical grid, could lose nearly 20% of its workforce, raising safety and grid reliability concerns.

The administration also froze hiring for many agencies, which includes seasonal National Park Service workers. That has raised the specter of chaos at busy, understaffed parks this summer. The administration has backpedaled somewhat, saying they will hire for “certain” positions, though they haven’t released details.

Some 264,000 residents of Western states are employed by the federal government (this doesn’t include the Department of Defense), including 30,000 in Colorado. Many of those jobs are potentially on the chopping block.

The administration has also been withholding funds from the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction laws passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in 2021 and 2022. This includes about $560 million for Colorado that was allocated for electric vehicle charger infrastructure, home electrification and energy efficiency programs, grid resilience, and the Solar for All program.

Nevada was promised $156 million for its Solar for All program, which was designed to bring rooftop and community solar to low- and moderate-income households. Trump froze the funds, then unfroze them, then refroze them, leaving the program, which was about to launch, in limbo. Other states have gone through a similar herky-jerkiness, with an emphasis on the jerk part. Courts have ordered the payments to resume; Trump and J.D. Vance have indicated they will defy those orders, a violation of the Constitution and the checks and balances that, yes, make America great.

There are probably folks out there who support these firings and funding cuts because you just don’t like solar or electric vehicles, or think the national parks and forests have too many rangers running around in them, or who kind of enjoy watching forests and neighboring communities go up in flames. Or maybe you believe that the government should be run more like a business and more efficiently, which often includes mass layoffs to please shareholders.

But 3,400 jobs, whether they are cut from a corporation or the Forest Service, are still 3,400 jobs taken out of the economy. And it’s 3,400 people deprived of their livelihood. And that $560 million, regardless of what it funds, is money coming into the state that creates jobs, supports local businesses, and — in the case of the solar program — would cut electricity bills for hundreds of residents. In the North Fork Valley of western Colorado, the future of a proposed agrivoltaics — which mixes solar panels and crops — project is in doubt due to the freeze.

In other words, these federal programs and jobs are good for states’ economies. And when those funds are cut off, where do you think they go? Do you think that Musk and Trump will use that $560 million they saved to cut a $93 check to each Coloradan? Nope: They’ll use the savings to justify cutting taxes, again, for the wealthy and the corporations.

And what of this ideal of running the government as if it were a business? If you were to take the concept to its logical end, if you were to aspire to turning the government into a lean, efficient, money-making machine, then you’d have to get rid of public roads, firefighters, cops, libraries, water systems, food safety regulators, flight controllers, public lands, and, well, all that other great stuff that doesn’t make a profit.

Which is probably one of the goals here. By hollowing out the government, its agencies, and the services it provides, Musk and Trump are creating a justification for privatizing everything that is public, whether it’s firefighting forces, highways, or the public lands. They continue to conspire to make an America by and for the ultra-wealthy.

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🗺️ Messing with Maps 🧭

Jon Harvey, a Land Desk reader and an associate professor of geosciences at Fort Lewis College, sent me down a pipeline wormhole this week. In a comment on last week’s pipeline-focused Messing with Maps dispatch, he let readers know he had assigned his Fort Lewis College class to map and analyze the pipeline, but was having a hard time finding the origin story — if you will — of said pipeline. I was interested, too, and wanted some more insight into why a natural gas pipeline was carrying gasoline.

One of the things I learned is that the history of the line sort of follows the history of oil and gas development in the Interior West. So for all of you infrastructure nerds out there, here we go:

In 1979, MAPCO, Inc., (aka Mid-America Pipeline Company) proposed constructing 1,172 miles of pipeline to move 65,000 barrels per day of mixed-stream hydrocarbons — i.e. natural gas liquids — from Wyoming, Utah, and the San Juan Basin to Hobbs, New Mexico, and into Texas, where it would join up with a larger distribution system.

This was during the Carter administration when, on the one hand, public lands protection rules were tightened and, on the other, the government was going all out to achieve “energy independence,” in part by encouraging more federal land drilling and coal mining. The second energy crisis — this one triggered by the Iranian revolution — was well underway, sending oil and gasoline prices sky high and American politicians scrambling for more domestic energy sources.

Because the line crosses oodles of public land, the BLM had to do an environmental impact statement. The EIS process included scoping meetings in various towns along the route, from August through November 1979, just weeks after Carter had given his famous “Crisis of Confidence” speech. Some communities expressed concerns about damage to wilderness areas, and the National Park Service insisted it go around, not through, Arches National park. But in Durango, according to the terse summary, “the consensus was that the line had been well routed.”

MAPCO ultimately got the federal go-ahead to build the line, and operated it until 1997, when Williams purchased the company and its assets. At the time, according to SEC documents, the line was bringing in $716.4 million annually. In 1998, Williams set out to expand the line to carry 125,000 barrels per day, which entailed constructing a new, parallel-running 412-mile pipeline that extended from Vernal, Utah, to Huerfano, New Mexico. The project was riddled with delays and other mishaps. And in December 1998 a contractor’s bulldozer ruptured the live gas line near Moab, sparking a huge explosion that injured several people, shut down a highway, and forced evacuations from Arches National Park.

In 2002, Enterprise acquired the Mid-America Pipeline; by then the Rocky Mountain segment included a total of 2,548 miles of pipe. In the ensuing years, Enterprise increased the capacity, to 275,000 barrels per day in 2007 and to 350,000 barrels per day in 2014.

In the meantime, the market for hydrocarbons had shifted, both geographically and in terms of commodities. A nationwide natural gas glut led to a prolonged price slump that slammed the industry in methane-rich areas like the San Juan and Piceance Basins. Meanwhile, global oil demand shot up, bringing prices and rig numbers with it. There was no longer much of a need to ship Wyoming natural gas to Texas.

So, in 2024, Enterprise converted some of the pipeline’s capacity to carry refined products — i.e. gasoline and diesel — in the opposite direction. It now moves as much as 60,000 barrels per day from Texas Gulf Coast refineries to various terminals throughout the Southwest and Rocky Mountain areas. This includes a massive, new 400,000-barrel storage hub and truck-loading terminal adjacent to I-70 near the Utah-Colorado line. Fuel was on its way there when 23,000 gallons of it spewed into the ground in folks’ backyard and water wells south of Durango last December.

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⛈️ Wacky Weather Watch⚡️

It looks like the Four Corners area is finally finding some relief from what was looking to be an unusually dry winter. A real San Juaner moved into the area last night and the snow is piling up. Forecasts called for feet of white stuff in the high country, prompting CDOT to preemptively shut down Hwy 550 over Molas and Coal Bank passes. Red Mountain Pass remained open as of early Friday morning, even though it looked like this:

About ten inches stacked up in Durango, even, causing schools to call a snow day(!) Still, one storm, even a big one, won’t be enough to bring snowpack levels in the southwestern areas up to normal. But for the rivers’ and water users’ sake, here’s hoping this could be just the first of many whoppers this late winter and spring.

Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:

February 11, 2025

Snowpack across Colorado ranges from close to normal levels near the Colorado River headwaters, outside Grand Lake, to troublingly low along the state’s southern border. The pattern of snow conditions worsening from north to south is also visible across the broader mountain west — where snowpack is near normal in the most fortunate places and drastically below normal in the southern tail of the Rocky Mountains…

The drought across much of the mountain west follows a year when many states recorded some of their warmest average temperatures in the last 130 years. 2024 was Colorado’s fourth-warmest year in that time period, and it was the second-warmest year for New Mexico and Utah and the third-warmest year for Arizona and Wyoming…

Statewide, the snowpack is at 82% of the median between 1991 and 2020. Snowpack in the mountains from near Rocky Mountain National Park to the ranges in the south near Aspen, Silverthorne and Buena Vista are generally sitting at near-to-above normal. Mountains farther south and west, however, remain much more dry. A snow observation station near Mancos is recording snowpack at 31% of normal — the lowest in the state.

In southwest Colorado, snowpack in the San Miguel, Dolores, Animas and San Juan basins is at only 61% of median. The Upper Rio Grande Basin, similarly, sits at 64% of median.

Click the link to read the release on the USGS website (Seth Amgott):

December 17, 2025

Reston, Va. — The USGS recently released a new report analyzing greenhouse gas emissions – including carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) – associated with U.S. federal lands. 

Published as a follow-up to an earlier USGS 2018 report, it incorporates the latest data and methodologies, expanding the timeframe of analysis from 2005 to 2022 while providing updated estimates of ecosystem carbon emissions and sequestration.  

Given that U.S. federal lands are approximately 28% of the land in the United States, understanding both greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration on these lands is essential to informing land management practices that can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. 

“More than a quarter of lands in the United States are federally-managed, and almost one-quarter of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions come from federal lands. This report is key to understanding greenhouse gas emissions trends related to federal land and resource management,” said Dave Applegate, USGS Director. “USGS science informs the work of resource managers whether from the oil and gas industry or ecosystem restoration specialists on public lands.”

The first part of the report looks at emissions originating from the extraction and end use of fossil fuels from federally-managed rights, both below the land’s surface and offshore areas including the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific outer continental shelf. The findings include:

• On average, CO₂ emissions from federal lands comprise about 21.8% of the U.S. total. 
• Overall, greenhouse gas emissions associated with federal lands declined from 2005 to 2022. Combined greenhouse gas emissions (CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O) in 2005 were 1368.2 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent, falling to 1118.9 of CO₂ equivalent in 2022.  
• The trend in declining emissions associated with federal lands mirrors the overall drop in emissions across the U.S. 
• To date, peak fossil fuel production and emissions associated with federal lands both took place around 2009. Within the overall downward trend, there was an increase from 2020 to 2022. 

“It is too early to tell if the increase after 2020 was just a short-term anomaly related to the pandemic, when emissions dipped and then rebounded, or if emissions will continue to trend upwards,” said Matthew Merrill, USGS research geologist and lead author of the report.

The second part of the report provides an in-depth analysis of how ecosystems on federally-managed surface lands both emitted and sequestered greenhouse gases from 2005 to 2021. 

Using the latest scientific methods, researchers found that ecosystems provided less of an offset than previously thought. In the original report looking at the years 2005 to 2014, ecosystem offsets were originally reported at 15%, but newer estimates using data from 2005 to 2021 show the average annual offset was just 1.4%. 

While federal ecosystems functioned as net carbon sinks in 11 out of 17 years studied, climate factors such as drought and increased wildfires contributed to net emissions during six of the years studied. Combustion emissions reached nearly three times the historical average during wildfires in 2020 and 2021. In years of low fires, such as 2019, the offset reached as high as 31.5%.

The report, “Federal Lands Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sequestration in the United States: Estimates for 2005–22” and data release are available online.

Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Mark Jaffe):

January 25, 2025

Faced with uncertainty due to a U.S. Supreme Court decision and a Trump administration decree, Colorado is steering its own course when it comes to regulating and protecting the state’s waters and wetlands.

In a 2023 decision the Supreme Court sharply limited protections under the Clean Water Act.

Colorado, however, enacted its own, more comprehensive statute in 2024. House Bill 24-1379, requires state permits for any dredging or filling of wetlands, streams and rivers on state or private land.

The federal government – through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – retains the power to issue permits on federal land in Colorado and to oversee certain water projects. And on Jan. 25 in an executive order President Donald Trump called for emergency permitting powers under the act for energy facilities, which could affect Army Corps permits.

“We were the first state to pass our own state-level permitting regulations,” said Sen. Dylan Roberts, an Avon Democrat and bill co-sponsor. “The election was going on at this time and it was in the back of some people’s minds.”

“Wetland protections and regulations had swung pretty drastically from the Bush administration to Obama to Trump to Biden and now back to Trump,” Roberts said, “They were swinging back and forth for almost two decades.”

“This provides certainty here on the state level,” Roberts said. “People won’t have to worry about what happens next.”

The push for state rules started well before the campaign season. It was sparked by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sackett v. EPA, a case in which an Idaho couple sued the Environmental Protection Agency when they were blocked from filling in a wetland on their property.

The 5-4 decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito, limited the scope of Clean Water Act protections, particularly to wetlands when it came to issuing permits to dredge and fill.

“Following Sackett, many streams, lakes, and wetlands in Colorado are at risk of irreversible harm,” House Bill 24-1379 said.

An array of projects requiring dredge and fill, including flood control, stream restoration, roads, housing, water development and transit, would no longer be regulated by the federal government, the bill said.

And so, legislators on both sides of the aisle began looking to craft state rules. But getting to near-unanimous passage of the legislation — the final House vote was 56 to 7 and it passed unanimously in the Senate — was not easy.

“There are always many voices in the water policy space in Colorado,” said House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Vail Democrat and the bill’s prime sponsor. At the first stakeholder meeting to discuss the proposed legislation 400 people attended.

Balancing the needs of competing interests

The goal was to balance multiple, and sometimes competing interests, including the business community, developers, the agricultural community, water developers and environmentalists, while safeguarding water quality in the state, McCluskie said.

“We listened and tried to accommodate all those voices,” she said. The bill was amended in both the House and the Senate.

One of the first big debates was the scope of the state rules. “Business groups were pushing for only waters that lost protection under Sackett,” said Stuart Gillespie, an attorney with the environmental law group Earthjustice.

“But it was difficult to delineate just those gaps. The science very clearly shows you can’t protect a subset of water … and there was the risk of further rollbacks,” Gillespie said.

The lawmakers decided on a comprehensive rule. “Colorado is no longer beholden to changes in federal laws,” Gillespie said.

The law directs the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission to develop a dredge and fill authorization program for all waters on state and private land.

The foundation for that program is the current federal standard for permits, so-called Section 404 permits, issued by the Army Corp of Engineers. The legislation calls for the state rules for large projects to include an impact analysis, an alternative analysis, and a compensatory mitigation plan.

House Bill 1379 directs the commission to “establish a comprehensive dredge and fill program to protect state waters, no matter how the federal term “Waters of the United States” is defined in the future.”

“The final rulemaking of the state-led program is scheduled for December 2025, following an ongoing stakeholder process to obtain extensive public input,” commission spokesperson John Michael said in an email.

“Colorado remains committed to a balanced approach that safeguards our natural environment while allowing construction projects to proceed responsibly,” Michael said.

Smaller projects will be allowed to proceed while the rulemaking is underway, but large ones will have to wait for the new rules, Gillespie said.

The rules took on even more import when President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 25 Declaring a National Energy Emergency and calling on the Army Corp of Engineers to use the emergency permitting provisions to speed Section 404 permits for energy projects.

“The state program operates separately from the federal 404 permitting program and thus is not impacted by President Trump’s executive order directing federal agencies to expedite energy project approvals,” the commission’s Michael said.

Earthjustice’s Gillespie said, “if the Corps is really handing out permits without checking compliance to the Clean Water Act it could hurt Colorado, so the state will have to be vigilant.”

More by Mark Jaffe

Mark Jaffe writes about energy and environment issues. He was a reporter and editor at The Denver Post covering energy and environment and a reporter on the energy desk at Bloomberg News. Previously, he was the environment writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is the author of “And No Birds Sing — The story of an ecological massacre in a tropical paradise,” “The Gilded Dinosaur — The fossil feud between O.C. Marsh and E.D. Cope and the rise of American Science.”

Click the link to read the article on the WyoFile website (Angus M. Thuermer Jr.)

January 30, 2025

A Wyoming Senate panel is demanding that Congress give the state all federal lands and mineral rights in the Equality State, except Yellowstone National Park.

The Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources committee voted 4-1 for a resolution that demands Congress confirm by Oct. 1 its intent to turn over the property. Senate Joint Resolution 2, “Resolution demanding equal footing,” covers some 30 million acres “that derive from former federal territory.”

That amounts to about 47% of the state’s land area, the resolution’s lead sponsor Sen. Bob Ide, R-Casper, told the committee. The property in question includes Grand Teton National Park, Devils Tower National Monument, the Bridger-Teton, Shoshone, Targhee, Black Hills, Bighorn and Medicine Bow-Routt national forests, plus the Thunder Basin National Grassland and Bureau of Land Management acreage.

In addition to seeking property belonging to all Americans, the resolution demands federal mineral rights in Wyoming, which amount to 69% of the rights in the state.

Citing the Constitution, Ide said “Congress shall have the power to dispose,” of the land. He interpreted what that means.

“It’s a mandate to dispose,” he said. “They don’t have the authority not to dispose.

“You can’t do the opposite of something that’s specifically directed in the U.S. Constitution,” Ide said.

He agreed with Scott Brown, who told the committee during public testimony that, “by virtue of your oath [to uphold the Constitution] you are required to vote in favor of this resolution.”

Sens. Tim French, R-Powell; Troy McKeown, R-Gillette and Laura Pearson, R-Kemmerer, backed the resolution. Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, voted against it.

Misreading

The resolution claims two violations of the U.S. Constitution, including that federal ownership puts Wyoming on an unequal footing compared to other states and that federal control of land in Wyoming violates the Bill of Rights.

Those arguments have been part of the foundation of a revived Sagebrush Rebellion that most recently culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of a petition by the state of Utah. The Beehive State sought 18.5 million acres of Bureau of Land Management property.

But Utah’s arguments are based on “wrong-headed assumptions,” made by an advocate who misreads and misinterprets the Constitution and cherry picks definitions, according to a widely cited article by John D. Leshy, a professor at UC Law in San Francisco.

Alec Underwood, program director for the Wyoming Outdoor Council, agreed. The Supreme Court’s rejection “is based on over 100 years of case laws showing that this is impossible legally,” he said.

Ide saw the Supreme Court rejection differently. “They sent it back to district court and told them to kind of work their way up the ladder,” he said of the court’s 12-word order that reads only: “The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied.”

If Congress acquiesces to the resolution’s demands, Wyoming would be willing to negotiate turning some property back to the federal government, Ide said. The resolution states that Wyoming would create a new designation — state public lands — that’s different from school trust lands where camping, fires and other activities are restricted.

Aside from constitutional questions, the Senate committee heard worries about the fate of mineral rights, the cost of managing the lands, the prospect of Wyoming selling the acreage, the cost of grazing, potential loss of access, response to wildfires, the loss of $30 million in annual federal payments in lieu of taxes and more.

100 years of lawsuits

Ide couldn’t say whether mineral rights would belong to Wyoming or overlying landowners should the panel get its wishes. “How do we figure out where that goes without creating 100 years’ worth of litigation,” Crago asked him.

Ide, who said he was formerly “a mineral title land man,” agreed the proposal “could get very messy on the mineral estate.

“I’ve had a 40-acre parcel,” he said, “that had 200 different mineral owners on it, and you try to track them all down and you can spend a month of work … and still not find half of the mineral owners.”

Crago also warned that grazing costs could increase if the state comes to own federal lands. Outdoor council representative Underwood said grazing leases on state land cost $5.52 an animal-unit month versus $1.35 on federal property.

Crago said Wyoming is restricted by its own constitution on how little it can charge for grazing, and “we’re probably at the bottom of that number right now.”

Noting that outdoor recreation accounts for $2.2 billion and 15,000 jobs annually in Wyoming, Underwood posed an overarching question.