The Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone is the most endangered river in North America, reports the environmental group American Rivers. The wild and scenic river, which runs through Montana and Wyoming, is threatened by a proposed gold mine two-and-a-half miles from Yellowstone National Park. The project includes a 90-foot dam designed to hold millions of […]
Water
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Irrigation pumps kill salmon
More than half the screens protecting Columbia River salmon from being sucked into irrigation pumps in Washington and Oregon are missing or don’t work, according to a recent survey conducted by the two states. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently inspected 80 screens at irrigation and hydroelectric facilities, and discovered half were either […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Rural area beats back water diversion plan
An eight-year controversy ended May 9 when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled against a company seeking to pump vast amounts of groundwater from beneath Colorado’s San Luis Valley. In 1986, American Water Development Inc., filed for the rights to siphon 65 billion gallons of groundwater a year from the sprawling San Luis Valley. Investors in […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
Cities fight to keep water out of the Platte
Standing on the banks of the Platte River in central Nebraska, surrounded by cottonwood trees and dense brush, it’s hard to imagine how different the river looked 100 years ago. It’s “an enormous change in habitat over the last century,” says Ken Strom, manager of the National Audubon Society’s Rowe Wildlife Refuge near Kearney, Neb. […]
Posted inMay 2, 1994: A struggle for the last grass
BuRec downsizes
Seven years after the Bureau of Reclamation promised to transform itself from dam builder to environmental water manager, the agency announced its first self-imposed overhaul. Under an order signed by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the Bureau will move its headquarters from Denver back to Washington, D.C., streamline its management structure and cut 550 jobs, mostly […]
Posted inMay 2, 1994: A struggle for the last grass
Oregon dam is in limbo
The future of partially completed Elk Creek Dam in southern Oregon remains murky. Federal judge James Burns recently decided that the Army Corps of Engineers has not adequately considered new studies which show the dam significantly impairing salmon runs. But instead of ordering the dam razed, or lifting an injunction against completing work, the judge […]
Posted inMay 2, 1994: A struggle for the last grass
Colorado told to stop stealing water
A special water master appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court handed Colorado a stunning defeat in February. He ruled that the state has stolen hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water from Kansas since 1949. Judge Arthur Littleworth’s decision concludes an eight-year legal battle over the Arkansas River, and will likely force Colorado farmers to […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
From driveways to watersheds
Suburbs and ranchettes sprouting across the Western landscape often add pollution to already burdened watersheds. Residential pollution comes from oil, pesticides, and fertilizers washed off driveways and yards. The University of Nevada Cooperative Extension in Reno has launched an effort to reduce nonpoint pollution of the Truckee River by educating residents about sources of pollution […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Coal firm may pull its straw out of aquifer
MOENKOPI, Ariz. – Hubert Lewis recalls hot summer days when he and other children of this Hopi village would get relief from the cool water in Moenkopi Wash. Moenkopi – which in Hopi means “a place where water flows’ – sits right above one of the few waterways that traverse the arid reservation in northeastern […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Seattle resident turns open sewers back into streams
After John Beal returned to Seattle from the Vietnam War, he and his family often picnicked on a wooded hillside where a large pond fed a meandering stream. Twelve years ago, developers bought the property and sold it to a sand-and-gravel pit operator. “I watched over a period of five years as it was absolutely […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
New plan will protect salmon habitat
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The salmon win one. After months of delay, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have proposed temporary regulations to protect rivers and streams on public lands in the Pacific Northwest. Known as “Pacfish,” the new plan establishes buffer zones along […]
Posted inApril 4, 1994: Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau?
Indians and water
During the feverish development of water projects throughout the West, most Native American tribes were left out. But under federal law, Indian reservations have senior rights to vast amounts of water – more than Western states could spare even if they wanted to. Thus it is no surprise that today almost every state and reservation […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
Wet and wild symposium
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. […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
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 […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
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 […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
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 […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
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 […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
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 […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
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 […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
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 […]