Colorado River reprieve

The Biden administration has temporarily resolved a dire water crisis—with help from a wet winter.

Yes, the three Lower Basin states came up with an agreement to cut water use substantially. Yes, it’s a breakthrough (as any such agreement would be). But no, it won’t be enough to save the Colorado River if the climatic conditions of the last couple decades persist or worsen. Plus, the proposed cuts are only for the next few years. What then?

It’s clear that states avoided the fundamental conversations needed to ensure the future of the Colorado River, said Michael Cohen, a senior researcher with the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based nonprofit that studies water issues.

California, Arizona and Nevada's three-year agreement to cut use of Colorado River water, in a deal backed by federal funds, is only a temporary fix.

A messy Colorado River legal fight is much less likely in the near term now that the seven river basin states have reached consensus on how to conserve water amid a historic 23-year drought, legal observers say.

The state may never see its full allotment of the river’s water, while curtailments impact everything from food prices to how our communities grow.

As the water recedes, a breathtaking landscape of deep red-rock canyons that cradle lush ecosystems and otherworldly arches, caverns and waterfalls is emerging.

As the West grapples with a megadrought, its driest spell in at least 1,200 years, rising levels of arsenic — a known carcinogen — in Colorado’s San Luis Valley offers clues to what the future may hold.

Snow is melting earlier, and more rain is falling instead of snow in the mountain ranges of the Western U.S. and Canada, leading to a leaner snowpack that could impact agriculture, wildfire risk and municipal water supplies come summer, according to a new CU Boulder analysis.

The lake needs to swell another six feet or so before it reaches an elevation that will allow it to rise and fall, as salty terminal lakes do, without posing a threat to industry, wildlife and public health.

The Great Salt Lake is a cultural and historical landmark of Utah. Giving it national park status will repair our relationship with this natural wonder.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers had urged the agency to put copper on its list of critical minerals. But USGS Director David Applegate said that is not

As the federal government weighs greenlighting controversial mining projects in places Indigenous peoples consider sacred – including the proposed lithium mine at Thacker Pass in northern Nevada and the proposed copper mine at Oak Flat in Arizona – a group of Native law experts warns that Indigenous religious freedoms and access to these sites are increasingly under threat.

The Powder River Basin Resource Council, a landowners group that has battled Ramaco over the Brook Mine for years, has its doubts about this latest evolution.

The oil giant quietly laid plans earlier this year for potentially producing the mineral in Arkansas.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, is leading efforts to modernize mining laws as the transition away from fossil fuels increases demand for certain metals and minerals.

Oil and gas operators dramatically increased their reliance on high-quality water for fracking even though they produced enough wastewater to supply the operations.

State records indicate companies injected thousands of pounds of PFAS into about 260 sites in the past decade during hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, and possibly far more because the state’s trade secrets law allows operators to conceal many of the chemicals they use, according to Physicians for Social Responsibility’s 55-page report.

Ecologist Joel Berger wasn’t pleased when he learned his research had been cited as evidence — inaccurately, he says — that the famous Path of the Pronghorn migration route ends well short of Jonah Energy’s Normally Pressured Lance gas field

New documents show Energy Transfer spent big on police gear and worked with a cadre of spin doctors to fight an information war against protesters.

In 2022, for the third consecutive year, crude oil production grew more in New Mexico than in any other U.S. state. New Mexico production grew by 0.3 million b/d to 1.6 million b/d, a record for the state.

“I think it’s the best thing since barbed wire,” said Kristy Wallner, a BLM rangeland specialist in Colorado.

“We want to find solutions that can help mitigate those emissions to cut the climate impact of beef,” says CSU’s Sara Place.

Critical Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bear habitat has been degraded by a 2019 U.S. Forest Service decision to allow more than 17,000 livestock to graze in Wyoming’s Upper Green River Basin, according to a new report.

How Donald Trump’s changes to the Bureau of Land Management are still slowing the energy transition.

Scholars argue that federal agencies can conserve land and still increase renewable energy output.

Biden administration officials in recent weeks hosted private listening sessions with environmental groups and oil companies ahead of the release of proposed oil and gas regulations that could represent some of the White House’s most lasting steps on public lands to help address climate change.

A unexpected alliance between traditional woodcutters and federal land managers in New Mexico could provide a model for a push by President Joe Biden's administration to thin forests near villages and towns at risk of climate-driven wildfires.

Adventure athletes like pro snowboarder Eric Jackson have begun to dabble in the pursuit, helping create a bridge between two previously distinct outdoor communities.

“When we’re able to come together and uplift Indigenous knowledge—and learn from each other, too, because there are things from western science and ecology that are important for restoration—we can change these systems to be more regenerative.”

After slipping off a snow-covered trail in Glacier National Park and losing both shoes, 19-year-old Matthew Read hunkered down in a tree shelter for three nights and awaited his rescue. When help finally came, he was overcome with relief.

Legislators spent part of their recently ended session passing bills that seek to slow action on greenhouse gas emissions. The moves come as a landmark climate case is hurtling toward trial in their state.

Montana became the first state in the U.S. to enact a complete ban on TikTok on Wednesday when Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a measure that’s more sweeping than any other state’s attempts to curtail the social media app, which is owned by a Chinese tech company.

Less than a week after Gov. Greg Gianfortesigned a bill that will ban Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok in Montana, the newly minted law has already drawn court challenges, one filed last week by a group of users and a second, filed Monday, by the company itself.

Now that the governor has signed a controversial bill essentially outlawing the TikTok social media app in Montana, Indigenous people in the state are wondering how such a law might affect sovereign tribal nations.

When people in Crow Agency see Rep. Sharon Stewart Peregoy around town and ask her how the legislative session went, she tells them, “It was terrible.”

“These fish are much larger and much heavier, so the biomass here overall may actually be the same or surpass what we had prior to the lake trout invasion.”

A tribe practices an ancient tradition in a modern world.

At 27 years old, world-famous bear is now the oldest known grizzly female to reproduce and raise cubs in a half-century of monitoring the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population.

Increasingly, bears at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone are showing signs of “testing fatigue,” experts say. They are less interested in interacting with containers, and that led to a backlog last summer.

Park officials are seeking information about a man who intentionally disturbed a bison calf in the park’s northeast corner last week, which led to the death of the calf.

Reintroducing wolves can restore important ecological processes, but it can have unintended effects when smaller predators like coyotes are driven closer to people, a team of ecologists found.

A conversation with the sixth-grade activists behind Utah’s new state crustacean.

A new report from Headwaters Economics details the downsides of tourism and population booms – and what communities can do about it.

As FEMA struggles to keep up with climate disasters, extremist groups see an opportunity.

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has signed legislation giving Native American families preference in fostering and adopting Native children involved with child protective services, a proactive move to protect such rights as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a case that could undercut them nationally. Governors in Wyoming and North Dakota signed similar laws this spring, while a proposal in Utah stalled.

Fires in Canada have sent smoke across several U.S. states, leaving cities like Denver with some of the worst air quality in the world – even far from the actual flames.

Trina Moyles writes that a series of government cutbacks and defunding has seriously damaged Alberta Wildfire’s ability to prevent and respond to wildfires.

Without clear guardrails in place, environmental groups worry clean hydrogen could accelerate climate change, not slow it down.

Though the state is set to spend plenty in effort to meet the goals of its emissions reduction plan, more permanent solutions seem far off.

In another show of support for cleaner energy projects, the federal agency taps UW to help launch the public-private project in southwest Wyoming, building on groundwork laid by the state.

Environmental groups are celebrating a new rule proposed Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that could expand federal oversight to a number of previously unregulated coal ash storage sites in Wyoming.

Conservation groups in Montana and Idaho allege an oversight body unlawfully attempted to invalidate Montana’s 2020 selenium rule.

From a jump in ER visits and gun violence to fears for maternal health, the Northwest’s May heat wave shows the dangers of more moderate, early heat waves.

The Pekin Noodle Parlor in Butte is the oldest, continually operating family owned Chinese restaurant in the country. But the story behind the Pekin is not just the story of one restaurant. It's a story about the Chinese-American experience of a distinct, authentic culture and cuisine that was created in this chaotic mixing bowl of the American West.