With memories of drought still fresh in the West, the Montana Environmental Education Association is sponsoring “Water, Wet & Wild: Flowing into the 21st Century” from March 25-27 in Billings, Mont. Designed for elementary and high school teachers, the meeting offers workshops on water pollution and water rights and exhibits by film makers and publishers. […]
Water
From driveways to watersheds
When oil became scarce in the 1970s, New Mexico’s solar industry quickly boomed and then busted. State tax subsidies had helped sell complicated new systems that sometimes didn’t work, and by the mid-80s many people ditched their solar designs. In an effort to rebuild its solar industry, the New Mexico Natural Resources Department has published […]
Symposium won’t be dry
-Rivers at the Crossroads: Law, Science, Politics, and People” will bring together conservationists, agriculturalists and politicos to talk about water-use conflicts in Idaho and other Western states. Symposium organizer Marty Bridges says the meeting will give people the opportunity to voice their concerns about water-use policy directly to the heads of the Idaho Department of […]
Las Vegas wheels and deals for Colorado River water
Las Vegas is prepared to give up its controversial quest to pipe underground water from rural Nevada, says the area’s top water official. But only if the booming metropolis can get more water from the Colorado River. That’s a big if, requiring changes in how the Colorado River has been run for most of this […]
Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
YUMA, Ariz. – When people talk about 1990s boondoggles, conversation often turns to the superconducting super collider, the Hubble space telescope or the space station. But consider for a moment a water-desalting plant in the middle of a desert. Make it the largest, most expensive reverse-osmosis plant ever built, and keep in mind that it […]
Idaho’s unsettling sediment
A new government study shows that Idaho’s Lake Coeur d’Alene is one of the most contaminated bodies of water in the world. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 85 percent of the 50-square-mile lake bed is contaminated with 75 million metric tons of sediments containing silver, copper, lead, zinc, cadmium, mercury and arsenic. The contamination […]
Northwest is asked to give up 18 dams
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has said he wants to blow up a dam. Andy Kerr of the Oregon Natural Resources Council aims higher: He wants 18 dams destroyed across Oregon, Idaho and Washington – a drastic measure intended to save salmon runs now teetering on the edge of extinction. “Many people believe dams are engineering […]
Damnable dams
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Northwest is asked to give up 18 dams. The Oregon Natural Resources Council makes the case for eliminating 13 finished, one unfinished and four proposed dams. Historically, questions about dams have been limited to where dams should be built, but now the […]
Some dams self-destruct
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Northwest is asked to give up 18 dams. The Oregon Natural Resource Council’s 18-dam “hit list” is already growing shorter. An Oregon irrigation district voted Jan. 5 to remove the Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue River. “This is not the decision […]
Comment on curbing a dam
Comment on curbing a dam The Bureau of Reclamation will host a series of meetings and public hearings on the Glen Canyon Dam draft EIS from Jan. 27 through March 24. The Bureau will accept public comments until April 11. Information Meetings, 5-9 p.m., will be held in Washington, D.C., Jan. 27, at the Stouffer […]
Draft plan foresees a freer-flowing Colorado River
If a draft plan for managing the massive Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona gains final approval, the Colorado River could run through the Grand Canyon much as it did before dam-builders arrived there in 1963. The Glen Canyon draft EIS, released by the Bureau of Reclamation Jan. 6, would protect the canyon from the […]
The Virgin River is the target
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Virgin River is the target.
Use-it-or-lose-it dam draws fire
Wyoming tries to revive the Sandstone Dam project in order to reserve the state’s Colorado River water rights. To read this article, download this HCN issue in PDF format. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Use-it-or-lose-it dam draws fire.
Montana’s disappearing wetlands
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Montana’s disappearing wetlands.
Wetlands at a distance
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wetlands at a distance.
Group fights animus to Animas
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Group fights animus to Animas.
Defunct refinery fouls Wyoming river
The Sierra Club charges that a Texaco oil refinery is polluting the North Platte River in Wyoming. To read this article, download this HCN issue in PDF format. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Defunct refinery fouls Wyoming river.
Don’t drink the water
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Don’t drink the water.
In Utah, water grows on trees
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline In Utah, water grows on trees.
Tribes may take over Animas-La Plata
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Tribes may take over Animas-La Plata.