NERN – Mountain West
Arizona Announces Phoenix Area Can’t Grow Further on Groundwater
PHOENIX—The nation’s fifth-largest city and surrounding metropolitan area is officially tapped out of groundwater, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs announced Thursday, adding another item to the state’s long list of water woes. By 2121, the Phoenix metro area will be short of nearly 5 million acre feet of water—enough water for around 17 million homes—under a […]
Read MoreSunZia Southwest Transmission Project Receives Final Federal Approval
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued its record of decision last week for the SunZia Southwest Transmission Project, a precursor to its final right-of-way grant required for construction on federal lands, which is expected in the next month or so. The SunZia transmission line will traverse approximately 520 miles of federal, state and private […]
Read MoreAt Lake Powell, Record Low Water Levels Reveal an ‘Amazing Silver Lining’
If you want to see the Colorado River change in real time, head to Lake Powell. At the nation’s second-largest reservoir, water levels recently dipped to the lowest they’ve been since 1968. As the water recedes, a breathtaking landscape of deep red-rock canyons that cradle lush ecosystems and otherworldly arches, caverns and waterfalls is emerging. […]
Read MoreColorado Frackers Doubled Freshwater Use During Megadrought, Even as Drilling and Oil Production Fell
In the middle of the longest-running drought in more than a thousand years, Colorado energy companies diverted rising volumes of the state’s freshwater resources for fracking, a new analysis shows. Colorado operators doubled their use of high-quality water to prepare wells for fracking over the last 10 years, with diminishing returns on oil production, the […]
Read MoreMontana’s New Anti-Climate Law May Be the Most Aggressive in the Nation
Montana Republican lawmakers have passed legislation that bars state agencies from considering climate change when permitting large projects that require environmental reviews, including coal mines and power plants. Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill last week, marking what could be considered the nation’s most aggressive anti-climate law. Under House Bill 971, Amanda Eggert reports for […]
Read MoreAmid Continuing Drought, Arizona Is Coming up With New Sources of Water—if Cities Can Afford Them
BUCKEYE, Ariz.—Sixty miles west of Phoenix along the I-10 freeway to the California border lies what many Valley cities with limited water supplies and investment companies see as an answer to helping solve Arizona’s water woes: the Harquahala Basin. It’s one of three basins in the state where groundwater can be pumped out and sent […]
Read MoreLegislative Proposal in Colorado Aims to Tackle Urban Sprawl, a Housing Shortage and Climate Change All at Once
In recent decades, hundreds of thousands of people have moved into areas of Colorado where wildlands met urban sprawl. The influx has had devastating consequences, with homes lost to wildfires, housing shortages emerging, and rent and sale prices rising beyond the reach of residents old and new. Now, the state is seeking to address the […]
Read MoreClimate Change Wiped Out Thousands of the West’s Most Iconic Cactus. Can Planting More Help a Species that Takes a Century to Mature?
TUCSON, Ariz.—Jerry McHale dug a small hole with a shovel near the base of a Palo Verde tree and placed a cactus a few inches tall in it. The saguaro was just old enough to sprout the needles it needs to keep desert rats and jackrabbits from devouring it. One by one, McHale and a […]
Read MoreRestoring Watersheds, and Hope, After New Mexico’s Record-Breaking Wildfires
GALLINAS, N.M.—On a warm August day, a small crew arranged charred logs and rocks into a structure to slow flooding below a dammed pond in New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo mountains. Just three months earlier the state’s largest-ever wildfire raged through here, burning over 340,000 acres and leaving behind thick ash, charred debris and unstable, […]
Read MoreThe ‘Power of Aridity’ is Bringing a Colorado River Dam to its Knees
Deep in the bowels of the Glen Canyon Dam, an awful lot stays the same. Under the mass of concrete it’s pleasantly cool all year long, even when the Arizona sun beats down above. As the decades march on, the machinery inside remains unchanged, too. The dam’s innards are a time capsule of 1960s engineering. […]
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