Photos: Salt River, Arizona, 2021 and 2023
This page features aerial photos of Arizona's Salt River, including its confluence with the Verde River.
Both the Salt and Verde are tributaries of the Gila River and part of the Colorado...
Photos: Granite Reef Diversion Dam aerials, June 2023
This page features aerial photos of Arizona's Granite Reef Diversion Dam, along the Salt River near Mesa.
Completed in 1908, the dam is only 29 feet high but 1,000 feet long. It was...
Photos: Stewart Mountain Dam and Saguaro Lake, June 2023
This page features aerial photos of Arizona's Stewart Mountain Dam and Saguaro Lake along the Salt River northeast of Phoenix.
Stewart Mountain Dam was built from 1928 to 1930 by the Salt...
Seasonal river cleanups could be a new community conservation tradition in Tucson
The Santa Cruz River may be dry but it has come alive with people who are making a seasonal river cleanup a community conservation tradition in Tucson.
Pitkin County aims to bring back beavers
Pitkin County is making beavers a top priority, funding measures that may eventually restore North America’s largest rodent to the Roaring Fork watershed.
The fun is back at Blue Mesa and other reservoirs, as heavy winter snows...
Southwestern Colorado’s Blue Mesa Reservoir, drained by years of drought and a major release of water designed to aid a plummeting Lake Powell, is experiencing a rebirth this summer.
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...
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,...