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How low can the Colorado River go? A slow float on the 15-mile reach

By
Heather Sackett, Aspen Journalism
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A group of paddlers take a lunch break on the 15-mile reach of the Colorado River this week. Boaters had to occasionally drag their duckies and paddle boards through the shallows because of extremely low flows. (Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism)

On a hot and sunny morning in August, a group of nine paddlers pushed their duckies and stand-up paddle boards into the Colorado River at Harky’s boat launch in Palisade. 

The goal of the float was to experience and document the river at one of the lowest levels it has ever seen. With flows hovering around 93 cfs, a bathtub ring showed on the rocks along the riverbank and rusty hunks of old farm equipment emerged from the streambed. Bright green algae grew between the rocks, and herons and ospreys hunted in the shallows. 

In many places, paddlers got hung up on rocks and were forced to drag their watercrafts through the ankle-deep water. It took about four hours to float the roughly six-and-a-half miles from Palisade to Corn Lake, a trip that normally takes two to three hours with higher flows.

Boaters got hung up on rocks in the 15-mile reach of the Colorado River during extremely low flows this week. The stretch of river between Palisade and the confluence of the Gunnison River is chronically dry. (Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism)

The trip was organized by Joel Sholtes, a water resources engineering instructor at Colorado Mesa University and a coordinator for the Grand Valley River Corridor Initiative. 

“I knew that the river would kind of be on life support and maybe even dry up so I wanted to get out on the river with the people that were involved in managing its flow and experience the 15-mile reach at such a historically low level,” Sholtes said. “It just felt important to be on it and see it both from a habitat standpoint and from a user experience standpoint.”

The Colorado River and its water users are now experiencing the consequences of the lowest winter snowpack on record, exceptionally hot temperatures and resulting low streamflows. The impacts are being felt across Colorado as farmers and ranchers have their irrigation water cut, cities and towns impose severe water restrictions on their customers and flows dwindle in stretches of river that are critical habitat for the ecosystem. 

The stretch of the Colorado River between the large agricultural diversions in Palisade and the downstream confluence with the Gunnison River is known as the 15-mile reach. This chronically depleted section is also home to endangered fish. Water managers work each year to keep enough flows for fish by coordinating carefully timed releases from upstream reservoirs.

This year’s historic drought makes keeping enough water in this reach more challenging than usual. The recovery program has pools of water dedicated to the fish in Lake Granby and Ruedi Reservoir that it releases specifically to boost flows in the 15-mile reach, but because of the dry conditions, less of that water is available. According to the Colorado Division of Water Resources, the average August flows in the 15-mile reach have been about 119 cfs this year, far below the 810 cfs target set by the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program. 

The program’s Instream Flow Coordinator David Graf told water managers on a conference call Wednesday that the program is trying to keep 75 cfs in the river through the end of August. Graf said the program was responsible for about 70% of the water in the river during Tuesday’s float; without it, flows could have dipped to around just 25 cfs.

“We are so far below the recommended flows anywhere in the Colorado River basin right now,” Graf said. “Keeping water in there is valuable; it takes a village.”

Irrigators reduce diversions

Nearly all of the river’s flows are being diverted to the Grand Valley’s agricultural producers. Colorado River water transforms the valley’s desert into a ribbon of verdant peach orchards, vineyards, corn and alfalfa fields. The valley’s irrigation districts can collectively draw 1,950 cfs from the river, but this year, they have reduced that down to 1,450 cfs in an effort to save some water for later in the season. 

“We collectively set the target flow lower for the sole purpose of extending to gain and accrue some storage,” said Jackie Fisher, manager of Orchard Mesa Irrigation District. “We had none at the beginning of the year and it became super critical to talk with our partners and say, what can we live on now because we knew we needed it two or three months later.”


The Grand Valley Irrigation Company canal on the left is the last big agricultural diversion on the Colorado River in the Grand Valley. It marks the beginning of the 15-mile reach.
(Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism)

Late summer is a crucial time for irrigators because the high flows of spring runoff have come and gone, but hot temperatures drive up the amount of water needed by crops. Irrigators often depend on releasing water stored in upstream reservoirs during this time to supplement low river flows. This year, spring runoff peaked weeks early and a pool of water in Green Mountain Reservoir known as the Historic Users Pool did not fill, which created far-reaching impacts.

HUP water is released mainly to satisfy farmers and ranchers in the Grand Valley, which hold the senior, commanding water rights on the river. The HUP also protects other water users, known as HUP beneficiaries, because without the releases from Green Mountain to supplement the Grand Valley, these other users could have to cut back. 

Entities that own or lease stored water, like the Colorado River Water Conservation District, the Colorado Water Trust, Grand County and Northern Water, among others, have pitched in this year to contribute extra acre-feet to Grand Valley irrigators. But even with collaboration and water sharing, Grand Valley Water Users Association General Manager Tina Bergonzini said they cannot guarantee water deliveries to their farmers after September 1. Irrigation season typically goes through Oct. 31. 

“It probably sounds a little melodramatic to say, but it’s not: It’s literally the first time in 111 years that we’ve run out of water in the Grand Valley Water Users Association,” Bergonzini said. “I’ve done my best and my staff has done their best to make sure that our producers and our residents that are under our system are aware that we could get to the point that we have unreliable delivery.”

Joel Sholtes, left, and Abby Burk paddle the 15-mile reach. Sholtes organized the float to experience the river at extremely low flows. (Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism)

GVWUA irrigators have been on restriction all season and the association has been taking just 500 of its 730 cfs water right. Bergonzini said many of her producers have switched to less thirsty crops this year like triticale and Sudangrass, instead of corn and alfalfa, and have made adjustments to the way they irrigate to adapt to less water. 

Heading into the fall with unreliable water is a scary scenario for some, Bergonzini said. It’s the time of year when some farmers plant winter crops and have a need for lots of water.

“We’ve tried to make sure everybody is prepared and that’s really all we can do,” she said. 

As water managers grapple with how to stretch this year’s meager flows as far as possible, Sholtes said from a recreation and quality of life standpoint, the Colorado River still provides so much value to the community – even when it’s barely flowing.

“I think it’s important to know that even in drought conditions, the river is accessible and enjoyable,” he said. “It’s my interest as a citizen in the Grand Valley, and as a scientist, to have a river that works for everyone, and to have growth and use that is compatible with the river ecosystem.”

Aspen Journalism is a nonprofit, investigative news organization covering water, environment, social justice and more. Visit aspenjournalism.org.

Drive for nuclear power boosts uranium industry — and tribal health concerns in Southwest

By
Melissa Bailey, KFF Health News
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Malcolm Lehi stands at Entrance Spring, where in the late 2000s elevated levels of radionuclides were linked to the nearby White Mesa Mill. The mill processes uranium ore from across the Southwest and radioactive waste from as far away as Estonia. (Melissa Bailey for KFF Health News)

This story was originally published by KFF Health News on August 18, 2026.

WHITE MESA, Utah — On a hot April day, Malcolm Lehi maneuvered his Jeep Wrangler over a rough dirt road past junipers and sagebrush in search of Entrance Spring on land long connected to his tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute.

The cool, mossy spring lies just across the highway from White Mesa Mill, the nation’s only remaining conventional uranium mill, which produces yellowcake for nuclear power fuel.

For decades, the mill has sparked debate over whether radioactive contamination threatens human health by getting into the water and the air. Concerns run especially deep in the White Mesa Ute Community, where Lehi and about 200 members of his tribe live some 5 miles south of the facility.

State regulators and the company that owns the mill contend that any pollution associated with it is contained. That’s little consolation to nearby tribal members, who — aware of uranium’s deadly legacy across the Colorado Plateau — have raised questions about the potential spread of toxic waste. Many won’t drink the local water, relying on bottled water instead.

Now the tribe’s concerns have taken on new urgency as the U.S. pushes to revive domestic uranium production. A federal law, passed in 2024, bans imports of Russian uranium by 2028, increasing pressure to develop domestic fuel supplies. President Donald Trump set a goal to quadruple U.S. nuclear energy capacity by 2050. He issued orders to prioritize mining on federal lands and fast-track approval of mining projects. The Velvet-Wood uranium mine in Utah, for instance, zipped through federal environmental review in 11 days, to the dismay of local tribes who were given one week to offer input.

Trump’s goal of quadrupling nuclear power capacity will be hard to meet, because it would require constructing more reactors — which are difficult to build and often meet local opposition, said David Hart, a senior fellow for climate and energy at the Council on Foreign Relations. But data centers and rising electricity demand have intensified interest in nuclear power as a low-carbon energy source, he said. And more states are opening the door to it.

So the effort to obtain the key ingredient, uranium, is underway.

The White Mesa Mill, built in 1980 near what is now Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah, is a focal point of this latest uranium boom — and the tensions between local tribal concerns and national economic interests. Increased demand draws a steady flow of trucks carrying uranium ore to the mill from regional mines, including one near the Grand Canyon where the Havasupai Tribe lives. That ore is trucked through the Navajo Nation. And the mill plans to expand its waste storage, as well.

A former tribal councilmember, Lehi is part of a growing opposition that includes members of the Havasupai and Navajo (Diné) tribes, who are now linked by the uranium trucking routes passing through their lands. The Havasupai and Ute Mountain Ute tribes share concerns that toxic wastewater from uranium mining and milling may move through the ground and poison drinking water for future generations.

A photo shows a sign in front of White Mesa Mill. The facility is seen in the background.
White Mesa Mill, 5 miles north of White Mesa, Utah, on April 21. (Melissa Bailey for KFF Health News)

A history of distrust

One spring morning in White Mesa, Yolanda Badback gazed out an open door not far from the highway and watched three uranium trucks drive by.

“There goes another one,” Badback said with a tone of exhaustion. She is a Ute Mountain Ute member and leader of the White Mesa Concerned Community advocacy group that has been fighting the mill.

The mill receives 10 to 15 trucks each weekday, said Curtis Moore, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development at Energy Fuels, which has owned the facility since 2012. The majority pass through White Mesa.

The mill’s business is picking up after a quiet 15 years, Moore said. The White Mesa Mill produced 1 million pounds of yellowcake last year; the company plans to more than double that this year, he said. The mill has also diversified into processing radioactive waste from as far away as Estonia and Japan, and received a $725 million conditional loan commitment from the Defense Department to scale up its domestic processing of rare earth elements.

The new rare earths business alone could create 100 permanent jobs, Moore said. About half of the mill’s 105 workers are Indigenous; Moore estimated that no more than two belong to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

“When it comes to tribes in the area, I do very much understand their skepticism of uranium,” Moore said. “They’ve been lied to before.”

An aerial view of a desert community with mountains in the distance.
Federal highway 191 brings trucks carrying uranium ore through the White Mesa community (in foreground) in Utah to White Mesa Mill, about 5 miles to the north. Shown overhead from a plane on March 22. (EcoFlight)

A uranium boom driven by the U.S. government from the 1940s through the 1980s, much of it concentrated around the Four Corners area of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado, exposed miners to heightened rates of mortality from lung and other cancers. Federal reviews found that the miners, many of them Navajo (Diné), were not warned about radiation risks even after government scientists understood the dangers. Mining companies left behind thousands of abandoned waste sites that have leached contamination into surrounding soil and water, including over 500 spots on and near the Navajo Nation.

But Moore said things have changed a lot since the 1950s. He said workers today are exposed to 15% to 20% of allowable radiation limits, and outside the mill it’s “effectively zero.”

Government agencies and Energy Fuels officials have said there’s no evidence that the mill is affecting White Mesa’s drinking water supply, which comes from a deep aquifer protected by a thick rock barrier known as an aquitard.

“It really is the perfect site for a uranium mill,” Moore said.

A photo of a 10-wheeler dump truck hauling a dump trailer behind it.
A truck leaves White Mesa Mill. (Melissa Bailey for KFF Health News)

Scott Clow, environmental programs director of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, said that deep aquifer does have quality issues — including arsenic, iron, and manganese — but the public drinking water is filtered and safe to drink.

Adam Wingate, uranium recovery manager at the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, said he understands why some residents are concerned. White Mesa is downslope in terms of underground water flow from the uranium mill.

If locals hear about the plume of contamination in a different, shallower aquifer beneath the mill — even if it’s not the source of their drinking water — and their own water tastes funny, “that’s a scary spot to be in,” he said. But based on available evidence, Wingate said, locals’ “health is not at risk because of the mill.”

Even so, Lehi and Badback said that the tap water smells of sulfur and has a milky color, and that people in White Mesa typically don’t drink it.

“I don’t trust it,” said Badback, whose family has been fighting the mill for decades. “My main goal is to shut the mill down.”

A Native American woman speaks at a microphone. An American flag is seen flying above her.
Yolanda Badback speaks at a No Kings rally in Moab, Utah, on March 28. (Melissa Bailey for KFF Health News)

An annual spiritual walk and protest sponsored by Badback’s group has grown over the past decade amid deep distrust rooted in uranium mining’s history. Much of the opposition centers on the mill’s toxic waste, which is stored in five lined pits called tailings cells occupying 284 acres of land.

Badback vows to fight expansion plans that include new tailings cells located about a quarter-mile closer to the White Mesa community than the current ones. Moore said the cells will be triple-lined per modern standards.

“They want to expand south towards my reservation,” Badback said. “That’s the reason why I am standing up and doing whatever I can to stop that from happening.”

Concerns about air quality

At a No Kings rally in March in Moab, about 80 miles north of White Mesa, Badback gave a speech and staffed a table offering T-shirts and information.

“No Uranium,” the T-shirts read. “Protect White Mesa Ute Community.”

In 2021, her tribe passed a resolution stating that the White Mesa Mill “has had severe health impacts on the residents of White Mesa and should cease entirely.”

A group of people sit near an information booth set up at a rally. Several are wearing red shirts with white text that read, "Protect White Mesa Ute Community."
Badback (second from right) of White Mesa Concerned Community and Sarah Fields (at right) of Uranium Watch run an information table about White Mesa Mill at a No Kings rally in Moab, Utah, on March 28. (Melissa Bailey for KFF Health News)

While their psychological stress is palpable, other health effects have been hard to prove.

A 2023 federal health assessment concluded that radiation levels measured at the tribe’s air monitor in the center of White Mesa from 2013 to 2019 were unlikely to harm human health. But the authors said they could not evaluate whether the mill’s radon emissions could affect bordering properties or residents. They recommended that the tribe collect air samples closer to the mill, during times of heightened mill activity.

In December 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency found the mill was violating the Clean Air Act by failing to cover one of its tailings cells with liquid to limit emissions of radon, a known cause of lung cancer. The EPA called the violation “egregious in nature and duration” and temporarily barred the mill from receiving waste from Superfund cleanup sites.

The mill corrected the problem, according to state regulators, and passed its latest air quality review in 2025.

An aerial view shows tailing ponds amidst a mesa landscape. The wing of an airplane from which the photo was taken is seen in the frame.
White Mesa Mill’s radioactive waste is stored in five tailings cells, which occupy 284 acres of land in Blanding, Utah, as shown overhead from a plane on March 22. (EcoFlight)

Still, some White Mesa residents remain uneasy. Badback and Lehi complained of odors, which they attribute to the mill, that smell like chemicals or rotten eggs. She has raised concerns about air quality and rates of cancer and asthma, which are being explored by a University of Utah health survey.

Moore denied that any odors from the mill could be smelled beyond the mill parking lot.

Utah air quality officials said the state does not conduct ambient air monitoring in White Mesa and does not regulate odors.

Watching the water

That spring day, Lehi continued to look for Entrance Spring. On the horizon lay the silhouette of Sleeping Ute Mountain, a landmark of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, said to be the body of a great warrior god.

Along the way, Lehi pointed out a circle of stones that he thought looked like an ancestral burial site. After parking the Jeep, he walked down a faint trail through a lush grove of willows and found his way into a streambed that he reckoned would lead to the spring.

The tribe doesn’t rely on the spring for drinking water. But it’s one of the seeps and springs that the tribe, the state, and the company monitor, because they offer clues to whether the mill’s waste ponds are leaking into a less protected aquifer.

In the late 2000s, an EPA report found elevated contamination by radionuclides — atoms that emit radiation as they decay — at Entrance Spring. EPA water samples found that uranium concentrations at times exceeded the federal drinking water standard. EPA and U.S. Geological Survey fieldwork suggested the uranium at Entrance Spring came not from leaking waste ponds but from dust that blew off the mill’s ore storage pads.

The latest tests from 2025 showed Entrance Spring had uranium levels at 22.5 micrograms per liter (µg/L) — within the federal drinking standard of 30 µg/L but still elevated.

Clow said the tribe continues to keep a close eye on the seeps and springs.

“We’re concerned about the pollution of those springs,” he said. “We are looking towards many generations in the future here.”

Clow is also closely watching the Burro Canyon Aquifer, which lies beneath the mill’s toxic waste cells and feeds the local springs. A plume of chloroform and another of nitrates already pollute the aquifer, said Wingate, with the state. He said Energy Fuels is pumping out the contamination.

When contaminants increase, it’s hard to prove whether they stemmed from natural causes or mill activity, since substances such as sulfate and manganese occur naturally in the local bedrock. So Clow, the company, and state officials continually debate whether the tailings ponds are leaking. What’s not in dispute is that the mill produces radioactive waste — and once that exists, it can linger for tens of thousands of years.

Lehi followed the stream to where it ends in a curved grotto — the site of Entrance Spring. Water oozed from a rock face into a pool, offering cool relief from the desert. Lehi looked around with wonder at the dripping green moss. A descendant of medicine men, Lehi said he feels a duty to protect the landscape as his ancestors did, even if the tribe doesn’t currently use this spring for drinking water.

 “Water is life,” Lehi said, “because that’s where we all began.”

A photo of Malcolm Lehi reaching down to touch the water of Entrance Spring.
Lehi touches the cool water of Entrance Spring. (Melissa Bailey for KFF Health News)

This article was supported by The Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative based at the University of Colorado-Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

‘Pain and suffering’: What the feds’ Lake Powell proposal means for Utah and other Colorado River states

By
Brooke Larsen, The Salt Lake Tribune
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A boat makes its way to Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell as high water marks indicate how much the reservoir has receded on Friday, April 24, 2026. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune)

After years of analysis and stalled negotiations, the federal government last month finally laid out its proposal for managing the Colorado River’s biggest reservoirs for the next decade.

The Bureau of Reclamation still needs to release its final decision and an operating plan for the next two years. But its final environmental impact statement provides a framework for how it intends to manage parts of the Colorado River system under its control.

The new plan would mean changes in how much water is stored and released from Lake Powell, voluntary water conservation in Utah and other Upper Basin states, and potentially steep water cuts in the Lower Basin — Arizona, California and Nevada.

Current guidelines for managing the reservoirs expire at the end of this year and Reclamation needs a new plan in place by Oct. 1. Reclamation said its preference was to implement a seven-state consensus deal, but so far states have yet to agree.

How Reclamation and states manage the river system affects 40 million people across seven U.S. states, 30 federally recognized tribes and northern Mexico.

Here’s why the latest framework matters and what you need to know:

It still might not be enough in a drying West

House boats are pictured at Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell on Saturday, April 25, 2026. Glen Canyon National Recreation Area officials plan to move the marina to the deeper waters in the main channel of the reservoir across from Halls Crossing. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune)

The Colorado River Basin has been mired in drought for more than two decades, and research shows that area will likely only get warmer and drier.

The question that really matters is how the new plan operates in a dry world, said Jack Schmidt, senior research scientist at Utah State University’s Center for Colorado River Studies.

The document gives Reclamation flexibility to respond to an uncertain, but likely drier, river basin. It doesn’t solve all issues, though.

If drought conditions don’t improve, Reclamation said in its analysis that “even large and unprecedented reductions may be needed and may not be enough to stabilize storage” at Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

“The scary thing about all of this is that none of this solves the problem if the world keeps getting drier,” Schmidt said. “That should be taken as an enormous warning for the desperate need to reduce the impact of a warming planet and the drying of the Colorado River Basin.”

What does it mean for Utah?

High winds kick up the wake of a rental pontoon boat during a tour of Lake Powell on Sunday, April 26, 2026. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Reclamation’s framework sets a goal of 200,000 acre-feet of voluntary water conservation in Utah and other Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Gene Shawcroft, Utah’s Colorado River negotiator, said it will likely take Utah and its upstream neighbors three to five years to conserve that amount.

The voluntary target for the Upper Basin is “moving in the right direction,” said John Berggren, regional policy manager for Western Resource Advocates.

But he also hopes those states conserve more than 200,000 acre-feet. “Every state is going to have to do whatever it can to find every acre-foot if we’re going to make it through some of the hydrologies that we’re going to see in the future,” he said.

Under Reclamation’s proposed framework, Upper Basin states and tribes will have “equal access” to store up to 3 million acre-feet of conserved water in Lake Powell. That stored water can be used for transactions with other Upper Basin users, and tribes would receive credit for their contributions to the pool.

Crystal Tulley-Cordova, a principal hydrologist for the Navajo Nation, said the pool is an “innovative solution” and “opportunity” for her tribe.

Reclamation’s framework does not detail how the process will work, but Tulley-Cordova said tribes and Upper Basin states have started discussing it.

Reclamation only includes voluntary measures in the Upper Basin because the federal government doesn’t believe it has the responsibility or authority to force water shortages in the Upper Basin, said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.

Upper Basin states have argued that they take “mandatory cuts” each year based on how much water actually flows in the river and its upstream tributaries.

“We get cuts from Mother Nature every year,” Shawcroft said.

What about California and other Lower Basin states?

In contrast to Reclamation’s limited role in the Upper Basin, the Interior Secretary is considered the “water master” in the Lower Basin and controls the delivery of Colorado River water to Arizona, California and Nevada from Lake Mead.

“The measures that [the bureau] believes it has the authority to impose could have very dramatic impacts on the Lower Basin,” Porter said.

Cuts could be as large as 3 million acre-feet in those states during dry years, according to the federal government’s framework. That’s almost double what those states have offered to conserve in a Lower Basin proposal released earlier this year.

Lower Basin shortages would hit Arizona, which is home to 22 of the 30 federally recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin, particularly hard. During the driest conditions, the state could see its Colorado River allocation cut by as much as 77% under Reclamation’s proposal.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources called the potential cuts “unacceptable” and said “such reductions would devastate Arizona’s water users and its economy.”

The Gila River Indian Community, which holds substantial rights in Arizona, said in a statement that Reclamation’s proposal “fails to adequately address the federal government’s trust responsibility to tribes in the Basin who are seriously affected by cuts to critical water supplies.”

“The community has forcefully made its case to the federal government throughout this process that it cannot simply take our water without our consent,” the statement said.

Ten of the 11 tribes with unresolved water rights in the basin are also in Arizona, said Cora Tso, senior research fellow at the Kyl Center for Water Policy and member of the Navajo Nation.

“They’re left to wonder what water will be left over for them to negotiate and ultimately bring to their community members, to fulfill the purpose of their reservation, to sustain a permanent homeland,” Tso said.

“We’re talking about getting clean water access to people’s homes,” Tso added, “and making sure that those who are hit hardest with impacts from climate change have the adequate resources to help mitigate those impacts.”

Reclamation prioritizes dam infrastructure

Glen Canyon Dam and high-voltage transmission towers in Page, Ariz. on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Reclamation’s framework aims to stop water levels at Powell and Mead from dropping so low that it could cause damage to Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam.

“There’s enough room within this framework for Reclamation to ensure that the reservoirs avoid a truly catastrophic outcome,” said Doug Kenney, western water policy program director at Colorado University Boulder’s Getches-Wilkinson Center. “But of course the only tool that they have to do that is to cut off water users, and so there’s going to be pain and suffering somewhere, and that pain and suffering is primarily aimed at Arizona.”

The new framework also reduces possible water releases out of Lake Powell from the current low level release of 6 million acre-feet to 5 million acre-feet to protect Glen Canyon Dam.

“The document makes clear that Reclamation will continue doing everything it takes to prop up Lake Powell, including releasing as much water as they can from Flaming Gorge,” Eric Balken, executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute, told the Tribune.

Reclamation includes the “potential for maximum use of” Colorado River reservoirs upstream of Powell, including Flaming Gorge, to protect dam infrastructure.

Reclamation wants to keep Powell above 3,500 feet. At 3,490, the reservoir hits “minimum power pool,” where the dam can no longer produce hydropower and water must go downstream through lower tubes that weren’t intended for sustained water releases.

Hydropower generated from Glen Canyon Dam, and other dams part of the Colorado River Storage Project, provides electricity to over 50 tribal nations. That includes about 42% of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority’s total electric supply, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Risk of litigation

A tour boat at Lees Ferry in Marble Canyon, Ariz., on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Such low releases could trigger what’s known as a “compact call” from Lower Basin states.

The century-old Colorado River Compact says that the Upper Basin States “will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry” — the dividing line between the basins just below Glen Canyon Dam — to fall below an aggregate of 75 million acre-feet over a ten-year period.

With releases as low as 5 million acre-feet out of Powell, downstream deliveries could fall below that “tripwire,” as Colorado River experts call it, and Lower Basin states could sue.

“I believe that the Lower Basin states will probably bring a compact call against the Upper Basin unless there’s some kind of agreement in place that preserves their claims,” Porter said.

Lower Basins states are also “very likely to bring a legal challenge to the” record of decision, Porter said. Reclamation is expected to release its final decision in the coming days to weeks.

If a lawsuit is brought, it could last for 10 to 20 years, Porter said.

Where negotiations stand

As the Colorado River continues to downcut, construction of a new North Wash takeout near Hite Crossing brings much needed respite for boaters exiting excursions down Cataract Canyon, Friday, April 24, 2026. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Reclamation says it’s “committed to preserving the opportunity to implement potential future consensus agreements” among the seven states within the framework it outlines.

Shawcroft said that having a clear sense of Reclamation’s plans may help negotiations among the seven basin states because it shows how the feds intend to operate the reservoirs.

Others say it may nudge states closer to courts than consensus, though.

“I don’t see that it helps at all, unless pushing states to litigation can somehow be interpreted as a help,” Porter said. “I don’t see that it creates a context to create a higher likelihood for an agreement.”

“Certainly, if I were an Upper Basin state, I would feel very affirmed right now,” Porter added. “The Lower Basin states have the opposite interpretation.”

And if the hydrology stays bad, negotiations may not get any easier.

“A system that’s totally reliant upon seven-state unanimous agreement deals doesn’t work very well,” Kenney said, “when the only thing there is to negotiate is how the pain and suffering is going to be distributed.”

Meanwhile, “tribes are still totally a side story,” in Reclamation’s governance of the river system, Kenney said.

Reclamation has consulted with tribes, but the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) said in a statement that Reclamation has been sharing documents with states without “co-equal interaction or discourse” with the tribe, despite CRIT holding 23% of Arizona’s Colorado River allocation.

Going forward, Tso said all 30 tribes, the seven states and the federal government should be at the negotiating table together.

This story was produced in partnership with The Water Desk, an independent reporting initiative at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.

This article is published through the Colorado River Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative supported by the Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water, and Air at Utah State University. See all of our stories about how Utahns are impacted by the Colorado River at greatsaltlakenews.org/coloradoriver.

With fields already fallow, Uncompahgre Valley growers adapt to a drier future

By
Heather Sackett, Aspen Journalism
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Farmer Randy Friend grows corn in the Olathe area. He left the debris from last year’s crop on the ground as a form of mulch to try to retain moisture in this exceptionally dry year. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

This story was originally published by Aspen Journalism on July 23, 2026.

Fourth-generation Olathe farmer Randy Friend stopped his pickup truck next to a row of corn whose green leaves were limp and curling, with a gray tinge. Friend’s corn was stressed as the valley endured a July heat wave with temperatures nudging close to 100 degrees.

“I hate to see it looking like that with our water situation,” Friend said. 

Next was a field of onions, a thirsty crop with a long growing season. The furrows between the dark-green sprouts were still damp, an indication the field was just irrigated that morning.

“Onions are our most expensive crop to grow and the most reward on a good year,” Friend said. “But they can also bankrupt you because they take so much more water.”

Friend farms corn, onions and forage crops for livestock as part of the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association, a vast expanse of farmland that extends from just south of Montrose to Delta, on Colorado’s Western Slope. Water from the Gunnison and Uncompahgre rivers, along with miles of tunnels, canals and ditches, transforms about 76,000 acres of high desert into lush green fields of corn, pinto beans, onions and alfalfa. 

But this year, Uncompahgre Valley farmers are making tough decisions and developing new tools as they try to adapt to one of the hottest, driest years on record in the Upper Colorado River basin. Many are leaving fields dry, culling their cattle herds, switching to crops that use less water and relying on crop insurance payouts as the association faces a 50% cut to its irrigation water supply. 

“I’ve been farming 30 years now, and this is by far the most extreme, biggest cut of water that I’ve ever had to deal with,” Friend said. 

Some producers in the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association have left some fields unplanted due to drought. The association has only about half its normal water supply this year. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

The Uncompahgre water users get about half of their water supply from Taylor Park Reservoir, at the headwaters of the Gunnison River, via the Gunnison Tunnel, a six-mile-long aqueduct that can bring up to about 1,175 cubic feet per second to the valley. The other half comes from the Uncompahgre River, a much smaller river basin that saw an abysmal end-of-season snowpack with just 14% of median April 1. That means the association has only about half its normal water supply for irrigation season.

“We’re limping along right now, but it’s going to be a challenging year,” said association manager Steve Pope. “We got to get our producers through Labor Day; we’re going to need the water then. It’s just a physical supply issue; the water just wasn’t there.”

With its water cut by half, many producers in the Uncompahgre Valley have chosen to irrigate only some of their fields, leaving others unplanted for the season. The district’s northwest area, which is where much of the valley’s row crops are grown, has been the hardest hit. Pope estimates those farmers are fallowing between 30% and 60% of their ground. Driving around the district revealed many fields that were brown and dry.

“There’s just a tremendous amount of land out there that’s just barren, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he said.

This field in the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association district has been fallowed this season due to a lack of water. The state of Colorado announced Wednesday that it will set up a conservation program using federal dollars, which means more fields on the Western Slope could soon look like this. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Friend, an association board member, said he is fallowing about one-fourth of the land he farms and using about 30% to 40% of his acres to grow forage crops that use less water, such as sorghum-Sudangrass. But switching to drought-resistant plants is a strategy that doesn’t work for every grower. Friend also owns a feedlot so he can mix these drought-tolerant crops with higher-quality feed to make it work. Although some growers on the Western Slope are experimenting with alternative forage crops, such crops have yet to be grown on a large scale. Water-intensive alfalfa, with its high protein content, remains dominant. 

Daris Jutten, a fifth-generation rancher in Ouray and Montrose counties, said the lack of water has prompted him to cut his herd back to the fewest cows he has ever had on his ranch. He has also left some of his alfalfa fields fallow.

“I’ve seen it bad before, but I’ve never seen it this bad,” Jutten said. “2002 was bad. 2018, 2012 were all bad. But they don’t even come close to what this thing is.”

The Uncompahgre River in Olathe was nearly dried up in July due to agricultural diversions and drought. The Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association is the biggest agricultural water user in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Colorado’s new conservation program adds pressure to cut water use

This year’s lack of water and a management crisis have brought the Colorado River system to the brink of collapse. 

As the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, plummet to new lows, water managers are taking emergency steps to keep Lake Powell levels high enough to produce hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam. At the same time, federal officials are crafting a plan for how the seven states that share the Colorado River will share shortages and how the reservoirs will be operated for the next two years.

Upper Basin water managers have focused on the fact that their farmers and ranchers are affected first by a warming climate and are already experiencing shortages because the water simply isn’t there. The Upper Basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) suffer because there aren’t major reservoirs from which they can draw in dry years the way that the Lower Basin states (Arizona, California and Nevada) do. Both basins are increasingly expected to reduce consumption because supplies are shrinking and the Colorado River system as a whole must be managed within these new limits.

Onions are one of the water-intensive row crops grown in the Uncompahgre Valley. Farmers in the region are adapting to drought by fallowing fields and planting crops that use less water. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

On July 15, state officials announced the creation of a “near-term contribution program” that will pay water users to voluntarily cut back in 2027 and 2028, using $100 million in promised funding from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The Upper Basin states have a goal of saving 100,000 acre-feet by the end of September 2028, which marks the end of water year 2028. The saved water will need to have a home in Upper Basin storage buckets — Lake Powell, Navajo, Blue Mesa or Flaming Gorge reservoirs — but precisely how it will be used and how it will fit into broader Colorado River management are still unknown. 

The program has been a long time coming, and the concept is not new to Colorado. Officials said they are incorporating the lessons learned from previous demand-management studies beginning in 2019, stakeholder input and recent pilot programs. 

As the biggest agricultural user in the Upper Basin, the Uncompahgre Valley — drought-stricken as it is — is ideally located for these types of programs and is considered one of the lowest-hanging fruits when it comes to finding places to save water.

When Colorado’s contribution program is implemented next year, the association will be ready. Knowing that a program was inevitable, Western Slope water managers have been proactive, developing a data-mapping tool that can help the association adapt to drought.

UVWUA Manager Steve Pope stands at the spot where water from the South Canal dumps water from the Gunnison River into the Uncompahgre River. It’s then diverted to the west side of the valley where it irrigates fields and row crops. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Mapping tool helps plan conservation 

With 550 miles of interconnected canals and laterals snaking through the valley, downstream irrigators often depend on reusing the water that runs off an upstream neighbor’s fields, and leaving a field dry could have unintended downstream consequences. 

Developed by the Colorado River Water Conservation District and The Freshwater Trust, the tool can pinpoint where the greatest opportunities for water savings are, as well as how to avoid the worst consequences of fallowing ground. It can show what happens when efficiency improvements are made to the association’s century-old infrastructure and can show which ditches should be lined to provide the most bang for the buck to reduce seepage loss. 

“From our perspective, it’s a great management tool because it allows us to track water through our system,” Pope said. “Let’s say there’s [a conservation]  program, well, what would be the best farms to go to a deficit irrigation or fallow that would create the most (water savings), and you can target that.” 

The tool is aimed at helping producers adapt to drought and can show which projects would result in the most water savings. Although the River District does not endorse a large-scale conservation program, it has long recognized that one was inevitable and has sought to mitigate the worst impacts to rural agricultural communities.

The intent of the tool is to help create a program that can maximize economic and environmental benefits as well as water conservation, said Raquel Flinker, director of interstate and regional water resources with the River District. 

“It was always to provide data and analytics that would make whatever entity [is] creating a program design it in a way that seemed the most sensible,” Flinker said.

Some Uncompahgre Valley producers have participated in experimental programs that pay them to cut their water use, including the federally funded System Conservation Pilot Program, which took place in 2023 and 2024. Friend and a few others in the association enrolled in 2024 and were paid to reduce their water use. The association’s board has allowed their members to participate in conservation programs, but they remain somewhat controversial. An irrigation district in the Western Slope’s other big agricultural area, the Grand Valley, does not allow its members to participate.

Pope said instead of programs that pay farmers not to irrigate, he would rather see federal money pay for more efficiency upgrades to water-delivery systems such as lining ditches and improving headgates. The recently announced state program is meant to include a broad range of water-saving actions, but pilot conservation programs in the Upper Basin have always defaulted to paying irrigators to temporarily stop using water.

“The problem I see with it is if somebody enrolls and they sign off the year before, and then we don’t get any water and they are 50% fallowed anyway, did the program really generate any water?” Pope said. “It’s very difficult to measure the benefits of these types of programs when you have such an unreliable supply to begin with.”

Pope brings up an inherent contradiction about Upper Basin conservation: How can agricultural water users cut back when they already don’t have enough in drought years like this?

Despite the 100,000-acre-foot goal for the Upper Basin, Colorado leaders have long said they can’t commit to saving a specific amount of water. They said that figure can be reached only if sufficient federal funding is available and hydrologic conditions allow. And for now, the program remains short-term, while the effects of a warmer and drier climate appear likely to continue for the long-term.

“If this is the new normal, it’s going to get way more difficult,” Friend said. “If we have another winter like this last one, a lot of people are pretty worried about it.”

Federal plan makes steep Colorado River water cuts to Arizona, California and Nevada

By
Jake Bolster, Inside Climate News
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Hoover Dam and Lake Mead in May 2021. Photo: Alexander Heilner/The Water Desk

This article originally appeared on July 31, 2026, on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Water users in the American Southwest confronted on Friday the strong possibility that cities and farms in the region must reduce Colorado River use by hundreds of billions of gallons after the Trump administration released a new management plan for the coming decade.

The document, published by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, outlines a 10-year management approach that could adjust to changing hydrological conditions that affect the river’s flow, with operations updatable every two years. The agency proposed cuts in water allotments originally suggested by Arizona, California and Nevada, which make up the river’s Lower Basin. Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, the region’s Upper Basin, could make voluntary conservation measures.

Interim guidelines and drought contingency plans agreed upon by the basin states in 2007 and 2019 are set to expire in 2027 and negotiations for a new agreement due this year have stalled, with the states missing repeated deadlines to come to a consensus.

But the Bureau of Reclamation operates much of the river’s infrastructure, including the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams, which form Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the nation’s two largest reservoirs. A federal record of decision finalizing operations on the river for the next two years will follow the final environmental impact statement Reclamation released Friday. 

“This plan strikes a balance between flexibility and predictability for the Colorado River system that is vital to the 40 million people who rely on it given unprecedented hydrologic conditions and the potential for considerable impacts on water users,” said Andrea Travnicek, Interior’s assistant secretary for water and science, in a statement accompanying the plan’s release. “It also allows a new flexibility to respond to changing conditions and potential consensus.”

The agency is considering releases from Lake Powell, the reservoir near the border of Utah and Arizona that delineates the upper and lower basins, ranging from 5 million to 12 million acre feet to the downstream states (one acre foot can supply about two to four households for a year). The Lower Basin, including Mexico, could take steep cuts in their water allocations, potentially losing 1.5 million acre feet in both 2027 and 2028.

Under such a scenario, Arizona would lose 760,000 acre feet of its allotment from the river, California 440,000 acre feet and Nevada 50,000, following a proposal submitted by the Lower Basin.

But beyond 2028, Lower Basin cuts could reach up to 3 million acre feet.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources called that figure “unacceptable” in a statement published online. “Such reductions would devastate Arizona’s water users and its economy,” the agency said. 

Reclamation appears to be seeking voluntary Upper Basin reductions of up to 200,000 acre feet, and discussed moving water from federally managed dams in the basin downstream, as hydrology allowed.

“The proposal responds to a fundamental reality: the Colorado River no longer reliably produces enough water to support all the uses and expectations built around it,” said JB Hamby, California’s Colorado River Commissioner, in a statement. “That challenge is shared across the Basin, and addressing it requires specific, measurable reductions in water use by every state.”

A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources said the state is “analyzing” the document.

Upper Basin governors said in a statement that they were “encouraged that new operating guidelines will better reflect existing water supply, which must underpin any practicable plan going forward.”

The Colorado River is perhaps the most climate-stressed waterway in the U.S. It provides water to between 35 and 40 million people across seven Western states, 30 tribes and two Mexican states as it wends its way through the Southwest, home to some of the country’s most arid and drought-stricken landscapes. Millions of Westerners also rely on the electricity the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams generate. 

The 1922 compact between the river’s users assumed roughly 17.5 million acre feet of water was available to the two basins and Mexico, but the historical average of its natural flow has only been roughly 14.7 million acre feet. That number plummeted to an average of 11.2 million acre feet between 2020 and 2024, according to provisional data from Reclamation. 

In that same time period, the agency calculated average use and evaporative loss across the basin at just over 13 million acre feet.

“The operational ranges that Reclamation put forward, they’re the right things that we need to be doing in order to fix the supply and demand imbalance,” said John Berggren, regional policy manager at Western Resource Advocates. “But it is just a range, and what they actually do over the next two years or within any given year, that will matter if they’re actually gonna be able to bring the system back into balance.”

Berggren hopes the short-term certainty this plan provides can unstick negotiations between the states.

“I hope [the basin commissioners] don’t just keep doing what they’ve been doing for the last two or three years, ’cause that clearly hasn’t worked,” he said. “I hope they try and take this opportunity to change things up. Let’s try something new and hopefully get to a seven-state agreement.”

Reclamation’s final environmental impact statement was initially supposed to codify the management plan the basin states have yet to agree on. Though deadlines for those negotiations have come and gone, Reclamation is still holding the door open for a deal, which is widely regarded as the most productive path to a durable long-term operating agreement for the river. 

Negotiations are stalled over whether cuts should be mandatory across the entire basin. After overdrawing from the river for decades, the Lower Basin now uses less water than it is apportioned, according to federal accounting; it wants to see future cuts shared across the seven states. The Upper Basin, which has never used the full amount of water it is legally entitled to, has fiercely contested demands for it to make mandatory cuts, offering voluntary conservation measures instead. The states that make up that basin contend that variable environmental conditions, such as this year’s record-low snowpack, already limit how much water they use.

Even with some idea of federal management options in place, the absence of a seven-state  agreement further increases the prospect of states dependent on the Colorado River suing one another in cases that would be adjudicated by the Supreme Court.

Still, proposing to manage the river in a way that is adaptive to hydrological conditions is “the kind of agreement that we are going to need to really think about long-term how do we live in this basin with much less water moving forward,” said Celene Hawkins, Colorado River program director at The Nature Conservancy. 

Hawkins hopes this spurs a seven state agreement “so that, ultimately, we can do really good work for communities and for the river itself.”

The Water Desk now accepting applications for a Fall 2026 paid internship

By
The Water Desk
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Love storytelling? Curious about how water shapes life in the West? Want to work with a small team of journalists who are fascinated by the snowpack, rivers, reservoirs, and the stories behind them?

The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism is looking for a Fall 2026 Intern, and we’d love to hear from you.

As our intern, you’ll work alongside The Water Desk’s leaders, helping track water news, supporting reporting projects, writing your own stories, and contributing ideas to strengthen coverage of one of the West’s most important issues. 

What you’ll do:

  • Dig into research for your own stories and our team’s special projects
  • Support our social media, website updates, and general communications
  • Help wrangle details for journalism training programs and workshops
  • Contribute to brainstorming sessions and team discussions
  • Bring your curiosity and creativity to our team

What we’re looking for:

  • Strong writing skills and a sharp eye for detail
  • Genuine interest in journalism, water, climate, or environmental issues
  • A student who’s organized, comfortable working independently, and eager to learn
  • Bonus points if you’ve dabbled in reporting, photography, video, data analysis and visualization, or digital communications

This paid internship is open to CU Boulder students and offers flexible hours (approximately 10-15 per week) for the duration of the fall semester. It’s a great opportunity to build real-world experience in environmental journalism, storytelling, and digital media.

Ready to apply?

Fill out this online application, which asks for your résumé, a brief cover letter, and two work samples.

Come help us tell the story of water in the West.

Deadline for submissions: August 31, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. MT

Climate change made the West’s snow drought far more likely—but it’s still not the new normal

By
Mitch Tobin, The Water Desk
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Last winter’s meager snowpack near Silverton, Colorado, on March 14, 2026. Researchers analyzed Western snowpack data from the next day, March 15, to assess the influence of climate change on the historic snow drought and to project how future warming could affect the likelihood of similar events. Photo: Mitch Tobin/The Water Desk. 

The American West’s historic snow drought in 2026 depressed skiers, heightened wildfire risks and constrained already scarce water supplies. 

Was this extreme event just a stroke of bad luck in a region where snowfall naturally varies from year to year? 

Or did the record-low snowpack bear the fingerprints of climate change?

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes that global warming more than quadrupled the odds of the West’s snow drought when compared to the preindustrial climate, before human greenhouse gas emissions began heating the planet.

In the Upper Colorado River Basin, where snowmelt supplies most of the water in a river that serves tens of millions of people and irrigates millions of acres of farmland, climate change’s estimated influence was even greater. Researchers concluded the snow drought was about 14 times more likely, although that estimate is more uncertain because the event was so exceptionally rare, even in today’s warmer world. 

Looking ahead, scientists project that snow deficits as extreme as the West’s 2026 drought could become the norm by the end of the century if emissions continue to climb.

In the 2020s, a Westwide snow drought as bad as last season’s has about a 1-in-10 chance of occurring each year, so it’s still not the new normal. But the odds rise dramatically under the “moderately high” emissions scenario used in the study: the annual probability more than triples to about 1-in-3 by the 2050s and soars to nearly 9-in-10 in the 2090s. 

Hydrologist Adrienne Marshall. Source: Colorado School of Mines.

I spoke with the study’s lead author, Adrienne Marshall, a hydrologist and assistant professor at the Colorado School of Mines. Excerpts from our July 23 conversation are below, edited lightly for clarity and brevity.

“Where we are is serious,” Marshall said. But she emphasized that a West where profound snow droughts are routine is not a fait accompli, because future greenhouse gas emissions are not set in stone. 

“These are not predictions of what will happen in the future,” Marshall said. “I think this type of work is most useful if it is motivational and not discouraging.”

How would you summarize the most important findings of the study?

I think our most important findings here are that we were able to look at the extent to which this last year’s unusually low snow conditions were attributable to human-caused climate change. 

We found that across the Western U.S., the low snow conditions we saw were about four and a half times more likely because of climate change that we’ve experienced to date. That is equivalent to a water volume that’s about the size of Lake Mead. If we think about a rare event in a world without human-caused climate change and a rare event in the world we’re living in, the amount of snow we’re missing is about the size of Lake Mead. 

In the Upper Colorado River Basin, the snow drought was more extreme, so we find a higher “risk ratio,” meaning an increased probability due to human-caused climate change.

Did these findings surprise you?

The thing that surprised me was the magnitude. I wasn’t surprised to see that these events seemed to be attributable to human-caused climate change. I was a little bit surprised to see numbers that were quite as big as they were.

The study says that climate change made the snow drought about 4.4 times more likely. Could you explain that further? What exactly does that mean?

To dig into what that “more likely” means, people might have heard before of things like a 100-year rainfall event or a 100-year flood event, where we can say we would expect an event like this one to have maybe a 1% chance of happening each year. That would be a 100-year event. 

So we took that approach with unusually low snow conditions. We used some models that were run for the 1850 to 1900 period, so that’s our period without human-caused climate change. And we saw that, in that period, the snow conditions we had this year would’ve been about a 1-in-30-year event. Then when we use those same models for about a 20-year period encompassing the world we’re living in now, we see it’s about a 1-in-7 event. And then we divide those two numbers, so 30 divided by about seven, to get that approximately four and a half times more likely value.

Skiers at Purgatory Resort in southwest Colorado on February 8, 2026. Photo: Mitch Tobin/The Water Desk.

Why is climate change making snow droughts like this much more likely?

In the most basic sense, there are two things that can cause snow drought. One is warm temperatures, and then the other one is just not getting any precipitation at all. So when we have warm temperatures, we get precip that falls as rain rather than snow. 

When we think about the impacts of climate change, we have a lot of certainty about increasing temperatures. We have very good evidence that temperatures have increased, and models agree really well that they expect temperatures to continue to increase. That also aligns with our basic physical understanding of the Earth system. 

Precipitation is a lot more uncertain, so it’s harder to see clear trends in winter precipitation so far, and models tend to disagree more about how we think precipitation will change—at least in the Western U.S. So when we think about the impacts on snow, those warming temperatures giving us less snow are kind of a really clear climate signal while the uncertainty in the precipitation can muddy the waters, relatively speaking.

With this snow drought, it sounds like it was really primarily driven by temperature.

We haven’t quantified what was the contribution of temperature versus precip. But if we look at what was happening across the West this year, temperatures were really unusually high over much of the winter, with sort of an extraordinary heat wave in March. Precipitation was low, but not extraordinary across most of the Southwest. And then as we look up into the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, we tend to see precipitation that was a little bit above average up there. Temperature: kind of extraordinary. Precipitation: more within a range of variability that we’re used to seeing.

Source: National Integrated Drought Information System.

The date you used was March 15. We often hear about people using April 1 as the key milestone for snow water equivalent (a measure of the snowpack’s water content). Why did you use March 15? 

We used March 15, in large part, because this year it looks like that was approximately peak snow water equivalent—when we sum up how much snow was sitting there across the West. We thought that was a useful indicator of how much snow does a water manager have to work with, even if it was earlier than usual. I think doing the same analysis with April 1 would be interesting, too. The statistics get a little bit more challenging for more rare events. Because of that March heat wave, I think that we would see that April 1 snow would likely have been even more extreme, which could make the statistics a little bit more challenging—increase uncertainty, essentially.

The study also looks specifically at the Upper Colorado River Basin. Could you explain what the findings were for that portion of the West?

In the Upper Colorado River Basin, this event was especially extreme. Snow was really particularly low. Our best estimate here is that, in the world we’re living in now, the snow conditions this year were about a 1-in-140-year event in the Upper Colorado River Basin, so quite rare. In the world without anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change, we think that it would’ve been maybe a 1-in-2,300-year event. Once we start estimating events quite that rare, we get big uncertainty ranges. Then when we divide those two, we see that in the Upper Colorado River Basin, we think that this event was about 14 times more likely because of human-caused climate change. But there our uncertainty is really large.

The Gold Mountain Fire burns near Ridgway, Colorado, on July 1, 2026. Photo: Mitch Tobin/The Water Desk. 

The study also looks ahead to the future and the climate continuing to warm. What should we expect going forward?

These results were quite sobering. We look at what we would expect to happen in a moderately high greenhouse gas emissions scenario. What we see is for the Western U.S., we estimate that an event this bad had about a 10% chance of occurring each year in the 2020s. By the time we get to the 2050s, that slightly more than triples. So every year we would have about a 30% chance of having snow at least this low. And then by the 2090s, that becomes 87% of years, so we would expect that most of the time the snow would be at least this low Western U.S.-wide. In the Upper Colorado River Basin, we also see increases, but because this event was so extreme, we never see it becoming the norm in the 21st century. 

The really important caveat here is that these are not predictions of what will happen in the future. These are our estimates of what we would expect in a particular greenhouse gas emissions scenario. And there are other greenhouse gas emission scenarios that are better. We could emit fewer greenhouse gases than this and do better than what these projections suggest.

It seems like pretty clear evidence for the benefit of reducing emissions for the snowpack.

The analysis I’d like to do is to look at the other scenarios and say, “OK, how much better would it be?” We don’t quite have the data to make exactly that apples-to-apples comparison at the moment, but there’s ways to pursue that . . . Based on our understanding of this system, I would strongly expect that if we look at a lower-emissions scenario, we would not see those probabilities climb quite so high.

We often hear the question, “Is this the new norm or is this the new normal?” These data suggest that it’s not right now. Western U.S.-wide, it could be by end of century. So I do look at that and think, “Let’s try to avoid that.” 

Low water at Blue Mesa Reservoir, along Colorado’s Gunnison River, on July 1, 2026. Photo: Mitch Tobin/The Water Desk.

What do you hope the public and decision-makers take away from this study and the projections?

There’s three big takeaways I have in mind. One is that I hope it’s clarifying in terms of where we’re at right now in terms of the impacts of climate change. It’s relatively new that we can look at a specific snow year and say, “Here’s how much this was caused by anthropogenic climate change.” 

The second impact is I hope it’s useful for adaptation so that individuals and utilities and water managers can look at this snow year and think seriously about what we might like to do to adapt to more snow years like this. 

And then the third thing is to help motivate us to see if we can push emissions trajectories downwards and do what we can to avoid having more snow years like this to the extent possible.

To learn more about the opposite of snow droughts—known as snow deluges—see my 2024 Q&A with Marshall about her research on California’s epic snowpack during the 2022-2023 winter.

This story was produced and distributed by The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.

Peaches pay the bills for Western Colorado farmers, but prolonged drought makes their future uncertain

By
Caroline Llanes, Rocky Mountain Community Radio
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Bruce Talbott in one of his orchards in Palisade, Colorado. Talbott Farms is one of Colorado’s most productive peach growers. (Caroline Llanes / Rocky Mountain Community Radio)

On a warm morning in Palisade, Colorado, Bruce Talbott walks through his orchards, picking and discarding peaches he knows won’t sell. With just one look, he can tell how many days until a peach should be picked, whether its pit is split, and whether it will look good at the grocery store. 

“See those, they’ll pick both of those because that color, that orange color,” he explained, gesturing to a pair of peaches hanging from a nearby branch. “And that one’s a good, sound peach.”

Talbott’s family first began planting orchards in the Grand Valley in 1907. Now, Talbott Farms is one of the largest peach growers in Colorado. Their orchards in Palisade grow around 200,000 trees, and each year, they plant about 5,000 more as older orchards become less productive. All that is to say: Talbott knows a thing or two about peaches.

“Appearance sells the first peach, flavor sells the second peach,” he said with a chuckle. “So if it doesn’t taste good, they’re not getting another one.”

Bruce Talbott indicates a pair of peaches that will likely be picked in the next week or so. (Caroline Llanes / Rocky Mountain Community Radio)

But this has been an extraordinarily challenging year for Talbott, and his fellow Palisade fruit growers. There was virtually no snowpack in the headwaters of the Colorado River, the valley’s key irrigation water supply, which fills ditches and canals that run to its orchards. When March broke records for high temperatures, what little snow there was melted off fast.

Because of the fast melt, Talbott started picking peaches about a month earlier than usual. Now, he’s worried he may not have enough water to finish out the harvest in early September. 

“We have never had the canal shut off,” he said. “We’ve had some really tight years. ‘77 was tight. 2002 was tight, where it was nip and tuck on whether we would finish the season or not. Right now, there’s not water to do that.”

Losing water early will have impacts well beyond this season. A peach orchard is a long-term investment. The trees start off in nurseries, and farmers have to put in orders long in advance. Once they’re in the ground, Talbott says he won’t start pulling significant fruit off a tree to sell for four years. 

“With that kind of lead time, what next winter’s gonna be?” he said, shrugging. “I’ve already made my decisions for ‘27. I’ve made some decisions for ‘28 already. I can’t turn on a dime.”

Talbott draws water from Orchard Mesa Irrigation District’s canal system. (Caroline Llanes / Rocky Mountain Community Radio)

In the past, farmers like Talbott haven’t worried as much about water conservation, because there was enough to go around. Now, it’s a bigger consideration, because peaches are thirsty crops and demand for water is rising. Canals in the Grand Valley may go dry before the end of the growing season. Elsewhere in the Colorado River basin, water cutbacks are the focus of intense multi-state negotiations.

David Sterle, a research scientist at Colorado State University who studies tree fruit, estimates that it takes about 3 feet of water per acre to grow peaches each growing season—or just under a million gallons.

“So they’re fairly water intensive, especially compared to the amount of precipitation that we tend to get here, which I think on average is about nine inches a year, and lately has been about five or less,” he said.   

However, Sterle said most farmers think peaches are worth the water.

“The way I try to think of that is basically if you’re trying to calculate per gallon of water used, how much money can you make off of it?” he said. “What kind of economic impact can you have with that? And I think peaches are pretty high on that list.” 

He said peaches can bring in anywhere from $10,000 to 35,000 per acre—significantly more than other crops. Talbott estimates the return per acre-foot of water for peaches is ten to 20 times higher than alfalfa or corn.

“Peaches pay the bills,” Talbott said. “Peaches are consistent as anything we grow, and the markets are as consistent.”

Peaches from Talbott’s orchards pile up quickly as workers pick throughout the morning. (Caroline Llanes / Rocky Mountain Community Radio)

It’s why Talbott has invested so heavily in his peach orchards—and why he’s willing to go to such great lengths to make sure his orchards survive this drought. Talbott has started on contingency plans if his ditches run dry before September 1 to keep his trees from dying. 

“We will probably be putting water in tanks—it’ll be municipal water—and dig a basin around each plant,” he said. “And we’re going like you would (with) house plants, and keeping them alive, if at all possible.” 

In the longer term, Talbott knows that in the Colorado River Basin, there will be less water to go around for agriculture, as the climate continues to get hotter and drier. He’s hoping his high value peaches can withstand that seismic change.

But the uncertainty around water supplies is making that much more challenging.

“This industry can absorb a higher cost of water than a lot of your other crops can… as long as it’s there,” he said, as he gestured to his orchards. “If it’s just not there, then this has to go away as well. Hope we never go that far.” 

In the meantime, Talbott is hoping for monsoon rains to get him to the end of the peach harvest, but he’s not holding his breath.

Talbott Farms is one of Colorado’s biggest peach producers, with over 200,000 trees in their orchards. (Caroline Llanes / Rocky Mountain Community Radio)
Workers in one of Talbott’s orchards unload baskets of peaches into the truck. (Caroline Llanes / Rocky Mountain Community Radio)

This story was produced in partnership with The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder Center for Environmental Journalism.

Copyright 2026 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.

Canelo Hills ladies’-tresses grow only in the Southwest’s vanishing ciénegas. Can they be rooted there again?

By
Melissa L. Sevigny, High Country News
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Researchers Andrew Salywon, Luis Romero, Hope Brooks and Steve Blackwell and a volunteer plant orchids at Arizona’s Canelo Hills Cienega Preserve in April. Photo: Cassidy Araiza/High Country News

This article was originally published by High Country News on July 9, 2026, and is republished here by permission.

Arizona’s rarest orchid, when not in bloom, resembles a blade of grass. It vanishes easily in the lush greenery of the Canelo Hills Cienega Preserve — even to the eyes of the botanists who plant it.

On a mild April morning, after a decade of preparation, a group of scientists gathered at a desert wetland cradled in southern Arizona’s hills to reintroduce a federally endangered orchid. Aside from the researchers’ chatter, the only sounds were water trickling from a spring and boots squelching through mud.

Steve Blackwell, conservation biologist at the Desert Botanical Garden (DBG), ventured into the wetland, using tussocks of grass as stepping-stones. He wanted to see if a small test plot of orchids planted months before had survived. He returned at a run, fists pumping the air. “I found one!”

The rest of the team, made up of orchid experts from DBG and the North American Orchid Conservation Center (NAOCC), followed him to a soil moisture sensor stuck into the boggy ground. He pulled aside sedges and grasses to reveal a thin, grass-like leaf.

“We did it, guys,” NAOCC technician Hope Brooks said.

“Now we just gotta do 360 more,” Blackwell replied.

“DESERT WETLAND” sounds like a contradiction. Known regionally as ciénegas, they’re pockets of green in an arid landscape, fed by freshwater springs. They’re among the rarest habitats in the Southwestern United States, making up just a tiny fraction of the landscape but home to a vast array of species. 

The Canelo Hills ladies’-tresses, one of the most endangered orchids in the United States, contributes to that diversity. But only a few hundred remain in the wild, and none had been seen at the Canelo Hills Cienega Preserve, where the species was first documented in a scientific publication, since the early 2000s.

In 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked DBG botanists whether they could grow the orchid from seed. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure I can,’” Blackwell said, chuckling at his own confidence. “I love getting these problems that are difficult and then trying to work through them.”

Ciénegas are among the rarest habitats in the Southwestern U.S., making up just a tiny fraction of the landscape but home to a vast array of species. 

The first challenge was locating the remaining wild orchids; there were only two known populations, both in southern Arizona. Canelo Hills ladies’-tresses bloom in late summer, sending up a stalk spiraled with white flowers. The rest of the year, they’re essentially invisible. The team had to recruit two specially trained “ecology detection” dogs to sniff them out.

The seeds are minuscule, optimized for wind dispersal. “They’re like dust,” said ecologist Melissa McCormick, who directs NAOCC. “They don’t have nutrients in them to support the developing seeds.” Instead, baby orchids draw their nourishment from a particular type of mycorrhizal fungus.

Enter the second challenge: cultivating the right fungus in a laboratory. Researchers at NAOCC, a program of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland, led this task. They scrubbed orchid roots with toothbrushes and shaved off tiny pieces under a microscope. “All the little balls of fungus pop out,” McCormick said, enabling researchers to cultivate them in petri dishes. The ladies’-tresses, grown in glass flasks, can germinate with a substitute supply of nutrients, but they sprout much faster with a dab of lab-grown fungus.

The scientists also checked for the presence of Sonoran bumblebees at the Canelo Hills to ensure the orchids would have a pollinator, and they conducted a prescribed burn to push back trees encroaching on the wetland. All these pieces had to come together to give the reintroduction a chance. But McCormick rejected orchids’ fragile reputation: “They can grow in really tough conditions.”

INCLUDING, apparently, underwater. The team was surprised to find one of the test orchids fully submerged and still green. Fine silt clouded the water as the researchers rooted around, feeling for the metal tags that marked the planting locations. 

Ultimately, the scientists located seven of the 20 orchids in the test plot; the others may have died, gone dormant or simply remained hidden. Reassured, the team set to work planting hundreds more, enough to test different restoration techniques. The first question: Can orchids thrive if they go straight from flask to ground, or do they need to spend some time potted in soil first?

Another variable is the fungus, which occurs naturally in some parts of the ciénega. This first batch of orchids was grown without the aid of the laboratory-cultivated fungus, which the plants need in the soil. The researchers placed fungus-inoculated cotton balls in the planting holes with some of the orchids. Others got cotton balls without fungus or nothing at all, to see whether the orchids grow better with a fungal boost. And they planted some orchids in a part of the wetland where tests didn’t turn up the right fungus in the ground. Would the fungus-spiked cotton balls open up new habitat for ladies’-tresses?

DBG conservation researcher Luis Romero lifted the first orchid out of its pot, brushed dirt from its roots, and put it on a scale. It was too light to register, so he counted the plant’s leaves and roots instead as a baseline to measure its growth later on. Brooks recorded the data while Romero improvised a pair of forceps out of charcuterie skewers and poked a cotton ball into the mud. The orchid sprout followed, and a peaty, plant-rot smell rose from the disturbed earth. It was the first of 15 orchids planted in a half-meter-by-half-meter square, all part of one experimental treatment.

In July, the team will return to check the results. Blackwell, half-jokingly, said he dreamed of returning to “a field of just white flowers.” But Romero said he will consider the project a success even if only a few orchids survive. At this early stage, both failures and successes provide lessons for future attempts. He aims to develop a blueprint for orchid reintroduction: a protocol that can be adopted by other institutions.

Julie Stromberg, an Arizona plant ecologist who wasn’t involved with the reintroduction project, echoed Romero’s emphasis on good experimental design. That way, even if a project’s orchids don’t survive, she said, “at least you’re going to learn something about what’s driving the system and why it’s failing.”

Ciénegas face many threats, including climate change, drought, groundwater pumping, diversions of spring water, overgrazing and fire suppression. Trees have overtaken many places, consuming water that used to sustain wetland flora. Human developments, such as roads and culverts, also take a toll. “A lot of these ciénegas, as a whole, have blinked out,” Stromberg said.

Because ciénegas are so isolated, they’re all different. Each holds a unique mix of rare species. “When you lose one ciénega, you’re losing something that really can’t be replaced,” she said. 

TRACING THE causes of a ciénega’s decline is part science, part detective work. Upstream from the orchid-planting site, DBG botanist Andrew Salywon pointed out a roughly 10-foot-deep drop in a creek bed. It was a headcut, a site of dramatic erosion that would continue to carve its way upstream, deepening the creek as it goes. In a healthy wetland, water slows down and spreads out. A deep channel has the opposite effect.  

“Historically, this probably was all wetland vegetation,” Salywon said, gesturing at the tree stumps on the streambanks. Now, it’s an example of a dying ciénega.

Headcutting happens in natural cycles but is worsened by extreme rainfall, which is becoming more frequent in a climate-changed world. It may also be a sign of the preserve’s ranchland history: Long-abandoned culverts and berms still capture and channelize water, which can cause headcuts and other erosion.

“When you lose one ciénega, you’re losing something that really can’t be replaced.”

Years ago, while surveying for orchids, Salywon noticed the 10-foot headcut and decided to try to save this ciénega. Restoring fire, removing trees and remediating earthworks are all part of that rescue effort. But Salywon acknowledged this damaged area may never recover enough to support ladies’-tresses — at least, not in his lifetime. Restoration, he said, “can take a long time, but you just need to start the healing.”

The new orchids, if they survive, will help cushion shocks to existing populations. They are currently the only ones known to be living on protected land; the Canelo Hills preserve was purchased by The Nature Conservancy in 1969 and is now closed to the public.

The researchers hope one day to expand the project to surrounding ranchland. Light grazing, like fire, may benefit these orchids by knocking back competing vegetation.  

Curt Bernal, owner of the neighboring Z Triangle Ranch, said he welcomes opportunities to aid the restoration effort. For any rare plant, he said, “it’s incumbent upon us humans to do what it takes to make sure they continue to exist long after we’re gone.” 

We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.

This article appeared in the July 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “An endangered desert orchid comes home.”

This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Supreme Court shrunk clean water protections in the West. Colorado and New Mexico are restoring them

By
Rachel Cohen, Mountain West News Bureau
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Abby Burk with Audubon Rockies examines a seasonal stream in the forest near Glade Park, Colo. Colorado’s new clean water permitting program aims to protect wetlands and streams left vulnerable after a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision. (Rachel Cohen / KUNC)

In dry, western Colorado, near the town of Glade Park, a high-elevation meadow is surrounded by aspens and firs. The grass is surprisingly bright green. That’s a clue, said Abby Burk: there’s water here. But at first, it’s not apparent.

“There are some wetland plants that are here that let us know – it’s kind of like being a sleuth,” said Burk, who works for Audubon Rockies, which advocates for birds and their habitats.

We comb through the brush, into a clearing and spot it. A tiny stream glitters in the sunlight. The trickle is barely audible over the buzz of a fly and birds chirping. It might dry up after more summer heat.

Burk, who lives not too far from this wetland, knows this place is more  than meets the eye.

“This is a pretty wet spot, and wildlife know that, as well,” she said. “They come here for their groceries if you will.”

But three years ago, places that look like this became more vulnerable. In 2023  the U.S. Supreme Court dramatically narrowed the 1972 Clean Water Act in Sackett v. EPA. 

In ruling in favor of an Idaho couple, Michael and Chantell Sackett, who sought to build a house on their property containing some wetlands, the court hollowed out protections for an estimated 63% of the country’s wetlands and nearly five million miles of streams, an EPA official told the Washington Post in 2023. 

A high-elevation wetland in the forest near Glade Park, Colo. (Rachel Cohen / KUNC)

Now, bulldozers could move in and pave over formerly protected waters for subdivisions, industrial parks or roads, without going through extensive federal “dredge-and-fill” permitting. 

“With a light switch decision, all of a sudden a tremendous amount of acreage was exposed,” Burk said.

The court decision said wetlands needed a “continuous surface connection” to a protected lake, river or stream to keep federal safeguards, and that protections only apply to waters that are “relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing.” 

Burk said that language doesn’t reflect how water works in the arid West, where intermittent streams can run dry a bulk of the year and ephemeral streams fill only after storms. But, these temporary arteries support abundant wildlife and connect to more substantial waters downstream.

Hand off to the states

The Sackett ruling effectively shifted more clean water oversight to states. About half already had their own wetland protections on the books, according to the Environmental Law Institute. Arizona and Wyoming state laws provided some clean water protections. But in the rest of the Mountain West, states relied on federal law to limit pollution.

“Colorado kind of saw the writing on the wall,” Burk said. “Unless the state came together and created our own program, we could be at the mercy of pendulum swings in protections and in jurisdiction. And that creates uncertainty for everyone.”

So, Colorado stepped in. It became the first state after the Supreme Court decision to create a new permitting program for waters that lost federal protection.

But building this new state system wasn’t easy. There were two competing bills in the statehouse. Some business groups were worried that new state regulations would go beyond the old federal ones. Boulder water attorney Gabe Racz testified about those concerns on behalf of the Colorado Water Congress, a wide-range of water users.

“I think there was concern about an expansion of coverage,” he said. “That that could present difficulties for the state economy and development in the state.”

Colorado lawmakers eventually reached a bipartisan compromise in 2024. It includes expanded protections for isolated wetlands and requirements to offset harmful impacts, but also includes exemptions for agriculture. 

Rio Costilla in northern New Mexico, typically runs dry before it hits the Rio Grande. Clean water advocates in New Mexico believe it is likely no longer federally protected after the Sackett Supreme Court decision. (Courtesy of Jim O’Donnell / Amigos Bravos)

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission spent the next year writing the rules and held 48 public meetings. Parts of the permitting program launched in spring 2026, with more coming online later this year. Now, developers or organizations will need to go to the state if their projects will affect waters that were previously federally-regulated. 

The big question on Racz’s mind is whether the state has the capacity to take this on.

“We don’t know yet whether the program is adequately resourced in order to issue permits on the schedule that’s necessary,” he said. “I do think resources are going to be a big part of whether this is a successful program.”  

Filling the gap

Colorado’s new state permitting program is under the purview of Nicole Rowan, director of the Department of Public Health and Environment’s Water Quality Division.

Her agency is authorized to hire around five staffers to work on the permitting program and that the state legislature could adjust in the annual budgeting process. 

But Colorado’s workload could soon get bigger. Last year, the Trump administration proposed more Clean Water Act rollbacks that could leave even more wetlands and streams under the state’s responsibility. 

“I do think if it continues to shrink and shrink, then Colorado is going to have to take on more of the burden of permitting, and so it is a cost concern,” Rowan said.

Still, she said, Colorado’s new state program is designed to protect the state’s waters even as the federal landscape changes. And the idea is spreading. 

Jackie Corday, a natural resources consultant, examines a map of wetlands and streams near Glade Park, Colo. during a site visit for a potential restoration effort. Organizations proposing certain restoration or development projects now need to go to the state for permits to work in waters that were once covered by federal law. (Rachel Cohen / KUNC)

New Mexico’s legislature passed a law in 2025 to develop a permitting program that would set up a similar structure as Colorado, plus it would regulate pollutant discharges. About 96% of the state’s streams are intermittent or ephemeral, meaning a large portion lost protection after the Sackett decision. A state board aims to finalize the rules of the program by the end of the year. 

Portia Osborne, the executive director of the National Association of Wetland Managers, said she applauds the responses from these two western states. But she’s not surprised more states haven’t taken a similar path since the Supreme Court ruling.

“It takes political will, and it takes a big effort at the state level to go about getting the approval, putting funds in place to fund a program, and then all of the work of developing the rules, hiring and training staff, and building up a program,” Osborne said. “It’s a big ask.”

Osborne also said the federal government played an important role in enforcing Clean Water Act regulations and was able to coordinate protections under other federal laws like the Endangered Species Act.

“This patchwork of protections is never going to ensure as strong of a protection to our aquatic resources as a strong federal protection and program would,” she said.

A seasonal stream in western Colorado may dry up in the summer heat. Streams like this are common features of the arid West, but were left in a legal gray area after a U.S. Supreme Court decision three years ago that said only “relatively permanent” waters would keep federal protections. (Rachel Cohen / KUNC)

For Burk in Colorado, however, the work isn’t finished. 

“Is this a mic drop moment? I think we have come a tremendous way,” she said. “But we’re not done yet.”

Now comes the most important part, she said. Ensuring Colorado’s new permitting program delivers on protecting wetlands and small streams.

This story was produced in partnership with The Water Desk, an independent reporting initiative at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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