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

Indigenous youths finish historic journey down Klamath River after dams removed

KLAMATH, Calif. — In a thick forest along the remote northern California coast earlier this month, a group of mostly young Indigenous kayakers pushed off into the clear-emerald waters...

As Gross Reservoir rises, Boulder County residents grapple with project’s legal turmoil

Pieter Strauss used to love hosting stargazing parties at his house in the Lakeshore Park neighborhood up Flagstaff Road southwest of Boulder. The hobbyist astronomer would fire up the...

Once a showcase of American optimism and engineering, Hoover Dam faces new power generation...

The long-term drying of the American Southwest poses a gathering and measurable threat to hydropower generation in the Colorado River basin. Should Lake Mead, the reservoir formed by Hoover Dam,...

Dwindling water supply, legal questions push Colorado River into ‘wildly uncharted territory’

Time is ticking for states that share the shrinking Colorado River to negotiate a new set of governing rules. One major sticking point, which has the potential to thrust...
Ute Water Assistant Manager Greg Williams shows a map where the domestic water provider plans to build Buzzard Creek Reservoir and Owens Creek Reservoir. Cities, conservancy districts, energy companies and private citizens have conditional water rights to build 99 new reservoirs over 5,000 acre-feet on the Western Slope. Photo by William Woody

Colorado has big dreams to use more water from the Colorado River. But will...

The site where Ute Water plans to build Owens Creek Reservoir at 8,200 feet on the Grand Mesa was snow covered by mid-November. The Western Slope’s largest domestic water...

Why don’t we just fix the Colorado River crisis by piping in water from...

The Colorado River is a lifeline for about 40 million people across the Southwest. It supplies major cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Denver and a multibillion-dollar agriculture industry...

Using less of the Colorado River takes a willing farmer and $45 million in...

Wyoming native Leslie Hagenstein lives on the ranch where she grew up and remembers her grandmother and father delivering milk in glass bottles from the family’s Mount Airy Dairy. The...

Colorado River crisis — How did the nation’s two largest reservoirs nearly go dry?

Experts cite complicated operating systems, competing government agencies, rigid guidelines and climate change

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.

Upper Colorado River states add muscle as decisions loom on the shrinking river’s future

Upper basin states seek added leverage to protect their river shares amid difficult talks with California and the lower basin