Water

The Navajo, Hopi, and San Juan Southern Paiute tribes are one step closer to being guaranteed access to some water in the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basin and funding for water infrastructure projects.

The Interior Department is spending another $90 million on restoring rivers and wetlands across the Western U.S., including several in the Mountain West region.

Damage inside Glen Canyon Dam could mean problems with the "river outlet works," a set of small tubes near the bottom of the dam that were originally intended to release excess water when the reservoir is nearing full capacity. The dam allows water to pass through to the Colorado River and Grand Canyon.

Emergency water releases from reservoirs upstream of Lake Powell are underway to preserve the nation’s second-largest reservoir’s ability to generate hydroelectric power.

A question has bothered climatologist Park Williams during the decade he’s been probing drought in the Southwest.

The Colorado River is tapped out.Another dry year has left the waterway that supplies 40 million people in the Southwest parched. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is pushing the nation’s two largest reservoirs to record lows. For the first time this summer, the federal government will declare a shortage.

Another dry year has left the waterway that supplies 40 million people in the Southwest parched. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is pushing the nation’s two largest reservoirs to record lows. For the first time this summer, the federal government will declare a shortage.

As drought strains much of the state, and tens of thousands of newcomers move to the busy Front Range each year, towns like Severance are thinking about growth – and water usage – in ways that they never have before.

Colorado River water managers could be pulled back to the negotiating table as soon as next year to keep its biggest reservoirs from declining further.

Water supplies are so tight in the West that most states keep close watch over every creek, river, ditch and reservoir. A complex web of laws and rules is…