‘It’s devastating’: Drawdown at Flaming Gorge hits local recreation economy
As campers with boats flocked to Buckboard Marina at the start of Memorial Day weekend, Tony Valdez was busy issuing refunds and repairing broken boat ramps. One older Green...
Hoover Dam approaches a hydropower cliff
Some day in the next 12 months – maybe in late-August, maybe not until next spring – Lake Mead will drop below the critical threshold of 1,035 feet above...
Glen Canyon Dam faces its existential moment
PAGE, Ariz. – In the span of U.S. history certain years are turning points, milestones in the nation’s story. 1776. 1865. 1929. 1968. Circumstance and consequence conspire to make...
A record warm winter could send Lake Powell to a historic low. Flaming Gorge...
A cream-colored band lines the orange sandstone walls that rise above the blue-green waters of Lake Powell. The so-called “bathtub rings,” these chalky layers remind boaters zooming across the...
Massive energy storage project eyed for Four Corners region
BECLABITO, N.M. – Standing in a breezy parking lot on Navajo land in the state’s far northwest corner, Tom Taylor looked toward the western horizon and then upwards at...
Solar growth cushions Colorado River hydropower declines
Lakes Mead and Powell, the basin’s two largest reservoirs, are approaching critical levels in which hydropower from their dams (Hoover and Glen Canyon, respectively) would be severely curtailed or altogether cease.
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...
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,...
Data centers a small, but growing factor in Arizona’s water budget
BUCKEYE, Ariz. – It was supposed to be called Cipriani, a master planned community with more than 9,700 homes at the western fringe of this sprawling desert city in...
Utah’s Suicide Pact With the Fossil Fuel Industry
The state’s fixation on oil and gas development threatens the Colorado River watershed.