Stories

Refrigerator filters are an attractive target for counterfeiters, who may also be putting consumers at risk by selling filters that are not merely ineffective, but unsafe.

Beaver reintroduction and restoration can help with some of the West's most profound water problems, both in terms of quantity and quality. A trial program is underway at Caribou Ranch in Boulder County.

Scientists fear that eventually the toxic residue of more than a century of agricultural runoff will be blown into the air — and into the lungs of residents.

As climate change brings warmer weather, Westerners are looking for ways to protect the region’s rivers and streams. In a special report for the Water Desk, Jerd Smith of Fresh Water News explains a strategy for safeguarding Colorado’s Yampa River.

Farmers, large and small, are beginning to grapple with what the state’s first major groundwater regulation means for them.

With talks looming on a new operating agreement for the river, a debate has emerged over the best approach to address its challenges.

Irrigators in Northwest Colorado are facing a sea change in how they use their water, and many ranchers are greeting such a shift with reluctance and suspicion.

Hundreds of ranchers in the Yampa Valley have ignored a state request to begin measuring the water they use, putting them on a collision course with regulators if they don’t relent.

The Colorado River has been dammed, diverted, and slowed by reservoirs, strangling the life out of a once-thriving ecosystem. But in the U.S. and Mexico, efforts are underway to revive sections of the river and restore vital riparian habitat for native plants, fish, and wildlife.

Once criticized for being a profligate user of water, fast-growing Phoenix has taken some major steps — including banking water in underground reservoirs, slashing per-capita use, and recycling wastewater — in anticipation of the day when the flow from the Colorado River ends.