An initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder

Scientists Warned of a Salton Sea Disaster. No One Listened.

California’s Salton Sea offers a tableau of dead wildlife, toxic dust, and neglect. It was long in the making.

Photos and videos: Rio Chama rafting, May 2023

This page features photos and videos from a wilderness rafting trip on the Rio Chama in northern New Mexico. The Rio Chama is a major tributary of the Rio Grande...

3M offers $10.3B settlement over PFAS contamination in water systems – now, how do...

PFAS chemicals seemed like a good idea at first. Then tests started detecting PFAS in people’s blood.

How well-managed dams and smart forecasting can limit flooding as extreme storms become more...

Here’s what reservoir managers think about during storms, and how efforts to improve forecasting may soon be able to reduce flood damage

Once ‘paradise,’ parched Colorado valley grapples with arsenic in water

Decades of climate change-driven drought, combined with the overpumping of aquifers, is making the valley desperately dry — and appears to be intensifying the levels of heavy metals in drinking water.

Renegade rancher

40 million people rely on the Colorado River system for water and power. But after 20 years of drought, the river basin is running low. For the Water Desk,...

Photos: Roosevelt Dam and Roosevelt Lake aerials May 2021

This page features aerial photos of Theodore Roosevelt Lake and Theodore Roosevelt Dam, along the Salt River east of Phoenix. Roosevelt Dam, which rises 357 feet, was the first structure completed as a part of...

How Hudbay’s Santa Rita mining will impact Southern Arizona’s waterways

The proposed Copper World Complex mine is carving roads and berms that will impact wildlife and waterflow.

Photos: Dolores River and McPhee Reservoir, May 2023

This page features aerial photos of the Dolores River and McPhee Reservoir in southwest Colorado. The Dolores River begins in the San Juan Mountains and meets the Colorado River in...