Between tribes and their water

Tribal, state and federal officials converged on Boulder to discuss key concerns and make wish lists to address the river basin’s uncertain water future.

The controversy over removing the four Lower Snake River dams in the Columbia basin has simmered for decades as salmon runs struggle. Yet Indigenous leaders and other proponents are watching closely as the nation’s biggest dam removal project gets underway in Northern California.

Apache tribe members say Arizona land slated to be destroyed for a copper mine is sacred. Their legal battle is now a major religious liberty test.

Today, hundreds of ancestral remains and funerary objects have still not been returned to the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin under decades-old federal and state laws. Repatriation to tribes can be a frustratingly delayed process.

The San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe may finally get its own reservation after nearly two centuries of fighting for its homelands.

Opponents of a plan to halt oil and gas drilling near Chaco Canyon blocked roads leading to the site on Sunday and forced a disappointed Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to cancel a planned event and address the situation in Albuquerque.

Tuesday marked the first of four walks centered on Mika Westwolf, a 22-year-old woman who was hit and killed while walking along Highway 93.

The Missoula event allowed for more than 250 participants to create conversations about breaking borders, strategizing and addressing issues their communities face.

In an area that was once an ancestral burial ground, about 150 members of five regional American Indian tribes gathered at a park in East Boise on Friday to commemorate their ties to the Boise Valley, and to pay tribute to their culture and history.

"The hunting of bison to near extinction is one of the most heart-wrenching and tragic stories in all of America," said Germain White, a CSKT information and education specialist who speaks in the film.

Scientific testimony figures prominently into second day of youth-led constitutional climate trial Held v. Montana.

Testimony from renowned Earth scientist, glaciologist figures prominently into second day of youth-led constitutional climate trial Held v. Montana.

“Montana’s promotion of fossil fuel production is making the problem worse, because every ton of CO2 makes a difference,” climate scientist Cathy Whitlock testified Tuesday, the second day of Held v. Montana taking place in Lewis and Clark County District Court.

A high school athlete who along with 15 other young people took Montana to court over climate change testified Tuesday that increased smoke from forest fires makes it difficult for him to compete and that a doctor prescribed an inhaler to help his breathing problems.

“The decision in this case ultimately will be part of a larger set of decisions that can help shape the course of climate, governance and the future,” says Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law in New York City.

A new book from water expert Peter Gleick urges a rethinking of how we use, manage and value one of our most important resources.

Scientists and residents see changes in the ecosystem of forests that make the regions ripe for conflagration.

Statistics on the fires — which help place their scope in historical context — continue to show how extreme they are. And they’re part of a trend toward larger, fiercer fires and more-damaging fire seasons.

As temperatures increase and prolonged drought continues, a new study of ponderosa forests in the Four Corners region underscores the importance of summer monsoons.

Across the American West, forests are failing to regenerate after high-intensity wildfires, but that doesn't have to mean they're gone for good.

A jury in Oregon has found the electric utility PacifiCorp responsible for causing devastating fires during Labor Day weekend in 2020, ordering the company to pay tens of millions of dollars to 17 homeowners who sued and finding it liable for broader damages that could push the total award well into the billions.

Attorney in class action lawsuit against Xcel Energy says investigation results confirm law firms’ findings.

Extreme heat is changing summer for kids as we know it.

“The world is looking at nuclear in a new light,” says Wayne Heili, the CEO of a uranium mining company that’s ramping up production in Wyoming.

Nevada is emerging as a major battleground to determine the fate of a century-and-a-half-old mining law as demand for critical minerals in the U.S soars.

The Public Service Company of New Mexico handed over the virtual keys to the reservoir that once provided water from the San Juan River for San Juan Generating Station operations to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for use in the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project.

The Utah Office of Energy Development lacks defined goals and internal governance and should be doing more to implement state energy policy, according to a blistering audit released today from the Utah Legislative Auditor General.

Similar programs requiring fossil-fuel consuming outdoor amenities to be offset have been adopted elsewhere in Colorado.

Legal scholars J.B. Ruhl and James Salzman explain recent changes to the National Environmental Policy Act and what they mean for protecting the environment and expanding clean energy production.

Gross natural gas withdrawals in the Permian region set an annual record high in 2022 at 21.0 billion cubic feet per day, 14% above the 2021 average. Annual gross natural gas production in the Permian region, which extends across western Texas and eastern New Mexico, has been rising steadily for over a decade and continued to grow in the first four months of 2023.

The view from a tiny plane Friday morning showed the grandeur of Paradise Valley, making clear a patchwork of human attempts to tame a wild space.

A year later, the flood scars aren’t visible to the untrained eye. But for some who live and work along the river, the flooding reshaped the way they view their homes.

After a judge determined they did not trespass while stepping through the airspace above the corner of a private ranch, Missouri hunters describe their ordeals.

When asked for an interpretation of the two cases Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks cites in determining that corner crossing is unlawful in Montana, University of Montana law professor Michelle Bryan said, “While the cases the state cites do address air rights and trespass in other contexts, I think the law is more complicated than those two cases, neither of which deal with the unique situation of corner crossing to access public lands.”

Recent county reports and a dashboard from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute show tourism jobs and visitor spending had largely recovered to pre-pandemic levels in 2021, though some counties lagged behind.

Utah lawmakers are notoriously resistant to ceding any land to federal control, but supporters say it could help with conservation efforts.

Grazing livestock to mimic how wildlife forages can prevent the erosion of topsoil, protect water quality and keep carbon out of the atmosphere, but it requires big changes in how the beef industry operates.

Two very different men are gone, but their legacies are undoubtedly intertwined.

An endangered-male grizzly bear was killed last week by a Washington hunter in North Idaho who told wildlife officials that he mistakenly identified the bruin as a black bear before he fired the fatal shot.

A hunter killed a grizzly bear in self-defense last week in the Madison Range southeast of Ennis, according to a news release from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission on Thursday voted to dramatically increase hunting quotas for mountain lions across the state, aiming to reduce their populations by up to 40% in the next six years in the hopes of boosting the numbers of sheep, mule deer and moose.

The Protect America’s Rock Climbing Act sends a loud message: Recreation interests are more important than preserving the small bit of wilderness we have left.

Those who knew him described him as an unstoppable force in the legal world but mainly someone who brought everyone into the conversation.

His fiction faces a bloody past and never looks away.

U.S. Census Bureau estimates show Boise lost nearly 1,400 residents, while the other top 19 most populated Idaho cities gained residents.

Reclamation officials investigating suspicious spike in dam flow May 25.

Last week, construction began on a 5,200 square-foot cryptocurrency mine, one of at least two crypto mines currently being built in Campbell County, Wyoming.

The Colorado regional office of the EPA vowed tougher enforcement action against Suncor in Commerce City, issuing a report showing the refinery releases air pollutants into nearby neighborhoods more often than many similar facilities around the U.S.

Officials are looking ahead to wildfire and drought risk this summer as southwest Montana’s above-average snowpack melts faster than area hydrologists had hoped.

Home insurance is becoming increasingly expensive and harder to find in the Wasatch Back.

Newspaper Guild says it "believes Gannett’s decision will further degrade the newspaper’s reputation in the community.”

Parent company Gannett's massive debt has exacted a toll on local newspapers.