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The Latest Breaking News from Colorado River

States struggle to find Colorado River cuts as Lake Mead shrinks

LAS VEGAS — Getting states to agree to use less water is hard. Doing so in a matter of months is near impossible.

Tribune News Service

In dry West, farmers balk at idling land to save water

With drought, climate change and overuse of the Colorado River leading to increasingly dire conditions in the West, the federal Bureau of Reclamation is looking at fallowing as a way to cut water use

The Independent UK

Commentary: California and its neighbors are at an impasse over the Colorado River. Here’s a way forward

California and the other Colorado River Basin states are at odds over how to halt the precipitous decline of Lake Mead. The impasse reflects a century of failure to take a basic step left undone by the original Colorado River Compact.

Los Angeles Times

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‘A nice sign’: Big Rockies snowpack may boost Lake Mead

LAS VEGAS — It’s not even March yet, but the mountains that feed the Colorado River already have seen more snow this winter than they normally would through an entire snow season.

Tribune News Service

Editorial: An unfair plan to cut California’s use of Colorado River water

The immediate question before the seven states that use rapidly vanishing Colorado River water is not how to renegotiate the century-old agreement and accompanying laws that divvy up the supply.

Los Angeles Times

As the Colorado River shrinks, federal officials consider overhauling Glen Canyon Dam

LOS ANGELES — The desiccation of the Colorado River has left Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir, at just 23% of capacity, its lowest level since it was filled in the 1960s.

Los Angeles Times

Can Western states agree on the future of the Colorado River?

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Western state water officials will spend the next few months trying to agree on how to divvy up water from the Colorado River, which sustains a region of 40 million people across seven states but has been devastated by the worst drought in more than a…

Tribune News Service

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As Colorado River shrinks, water evaporation becomes critical to California’s future supplies

LOS ANGELES — Much of the Colorado River’s water is diverted from reservoirs and transported in canals to the farmlands and cities of the desert Southwest. But some of the water also ends up going elsewhere — vanishing into thin air.

Los Angeles Times

The river’s end: Amid Colorado water cuts, Mexico seeks to restore its lost oasis

LOS ALGODONES, Mexico — When the Colorado River reaches the U.S.-Mexico border, it pushes up against Morelos Dam. Nearly all the remaining water is shunted aside into an immense canal and flows toward the farmlands and cities of Baja California.

Los Angeles Times

‘A living spirit’: Native people push for changes to protect the Colorado River

FORT MOHAVE, Ariz. — On a bluff overlooking the Lower Colorado River Valley, the ground bears an image of two giant figures. Known as the Twins, these ancient figures are revered by members of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, who say they show their people’s deep connection to the land…

Los Angeles Times

Wet La Nina winter likely to bring more water into Lake Powell

LAS VEGAS — One of the Colorado River’s two major reservoirs is expected to collect better than average runoff this year, thanks to an unusually wet La Nina pattern that dropped a deluge of snow up and down the basin.

Tribune News Service

Michael Hiltzik: The fight over the Colorado River is a 100-year-old interstate grudge match

Arizona was girding for war with California over the Colorado River.

Los Angeles Times

Q&A: Colorado River crisis brings ‘very dry’ reality to US West

Al Jazeera speaks to UN expert Lis Mullin Bernhardt about need to adapt to historic drought’s impact on key US waterway.

Al Jazeera

Why desert golf courses and artificial lakes remain untouched by the Colorado River crisis

LA QUINTA, Calif. — Golf courses. Ponds. Acres of grass. Cascading waterfalls. Displays of water extravagance zip past each day when Sendy Hernández Orellana Barrows drives to work.

Los Angeles Times

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Los Angeles Times

In Arizona, Colorado River crisis stokes worry over growth and groundwater depletion

BUCKEYE, Ariz. — Kathleen Ferris stared across a desert valley dotted with creosote bushes, wondering where the water will come from to supply tens of thousands of new homes. In the distance, a construction truck rumbled along a dirt road, spewing dust.

Los Angeles Times

How Las Vegas declared war on thirsty grass and set an example for the desert Southwest

LAS VEGAS — Fountains still shimmer opulently at casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, but lush carpets of grass are gradually disappearing along the streets of Sin City.

Los Angeles Times

In California’s Imperial Valley, farmers brace for a future with less Colorado River water

HOLTVILLE, Calif. — Just north of the California-Mexico border, the All-American Canal cuts across 80 miles of barren, dune-swept desert. Up to 200 feet wide and 20 feet deep, the canal delivers the single largest share of Colorado River water to the fertile farmlands of the Imperial Valley.

Tribune News Service

News briefs

What the crisis on the Colorado River means for Southern California

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Los Angeles Times

What the crisis on the Colorado River means for Southern California

LOS ANGELES — Call it water whiplash: As California recovers from one of its wettest months in recent history, the Colorado River is still dwindling toward dangerous lows.

The Conversation

As climate change and overuse shrink Lake Powell, the emergent landscape is coming back to life – and posing new challenges

As Western states haggle over reducing water use because of declining flows in the Colorado River Basin, a more hopeful drama is playing out in Glen Canyon.

Los Angeles Times

The Colorado River is overused and shrinking. Inside the crisis transforming the Southwest

BERTHOUD PASS, Colo. — The Colorado River begins as melting snow, trickling from forested peaks and coursing in streams that gather in the meadows and valleys of the Rocky Mountains.

Los Angeles Times

A river guide’s view of Lake Powell’s decline and the depths of the Colorado River crisis

LAKE POWELL, Utah — Muddy water whizzed past as John Weisheit steered a motorboat upstream in the Colorado River. He revved the engine as the boat sped around a bend and up a riffle.

Los Angeles Times

Colorado River crisis is so severe, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are unlikely to refill in our lifetimes

LOS ANGELES — The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is the deepest it’s been in decades, but those storms that were a boon for Northern California won’t make much of a dent in the long-term water shortage for the Colorado River Basin — an essential source of supplies for Southern…

Tribune News Service

Editorial: Why California leaders may regret playing hardball in negotiations over the Colorado River

The failure of California and six other Western states to meet a Jan. 31 deadline for deciding how to divvy up the dwindling water supplied by the Colorado River clears the way for one of the biggest fights over natural resources in U.S. history — and already the Golden State…

Financial Times

The battle for the Colorado River is a water warning to us all

Who should control access to increasingly scarce resources?

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