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Glen Canyon Dam: Facing Dead Pool
October 2nd, 2024
Via The Land Desk, a look at the crisis facing Glen Canyon Dam: In 1998, when I was in fourth grade, I joined a class field trip to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. But when we got to Cortez, the road was barricaded. Hours earlier, three men had stolen a water-tanker truck and killed […]
Read more »Stark Before-and-After Photos Reveal Dramatic Shrinking of Major Amazon Rivers
September 30th, 2024
Via CNN, stark before-and-after pictures reveal dramatic shrinking of major Amazon rivers Huge tributaries that feed the mighty Amazon River — the largest on the planet — have plunged to record-low levels, upending lives, stranding boats, and threatening endangered dolphins as drought grips Brazil. The country is currently enduring its worst drought since records began in 1950, […]
Read more »Joliet, Illinois, Plans to Source Its Future Drinking Water From Lake Michigan. Will Other Cities Follow?
September 30th, 2024
Via Inside Climate News, a report that – as aquifers dry up – some Midwest communities are looking to the region’s greatest natural resources for a solution. A 2008 law governs access to it—with an exemption for Illinois. The aquifer from which Joliet, Illinois, sources its drinking water is likely going to run too dry […]
Read more »Millions Depend On The Mississippi—But The Mighty River Is Running Dry
September 27th, 2024
Tons of grains and crops are shipped down the Mississippi River every year. This National Geographic article examines what will happen if increasingly persistent droughts shrink America’s longest river? About eighty miles south of St. Louis, Brian Ragsdale’s boat, the Dredge Potter, has been deployed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to carve a […]
Read more »How Cities Run Dry
September 24th, 2024
Via Yale Climate Connection, an article on how – with rivers, lakes, and reservoirs long strained by overuse now facing climate change – some cities are turning to water restrictions to get back on track: In April 2024, more than 9 million residents of Bogotá, Colombia’s capital city, were told to collect rainwater – if the city […]
Read more »Western Water: Where Values, Math, and the “Law of the River” Collide
September 14th, 2024
Via The Land Desk, an essay on water in the U.S. West – where values, math, and the “Law of the River” collide: This spring, I had the pleasure to sit on a panel on water in the West with Paolo Bacigalupi and Heather Hansman, two writers I’ve long admired. During the question & answer period, […]
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