From Our Members
Blog posts and latest happenings from our coalition members.
Audubon Arizona
Lake Mead and Lower Colorado River to Remain in Tier Zero Shortage for 2021
The Colorado River millennial mega-drought continues, despite robust snowpack last winter. Above-average temperatures in spring resulted in a paltry 57% runoff, nowhere near enough water to refill the reservoirs that remain half-empty.
Western Resource Advocates
Western Resource Advocates’ Experts Available to Talk about Severe Drought Impacting Western Communities and Rivers this Summer
WRA is helping communities across the Interior West confront the impacts of climate change to balance growth and healthy rivers.
Despite a winter with ample snow, and following a substantial year for snowpack in 2019, much of the Interior West is currently gripped by drought, leading to low streamflow across many rivers that support drinking water, outdoor recreation, fish, ranches, and farms.
American Rivers
How walking along rivers changes your brain
Spending time in natural spaces reduces anxiety, worry and stress. Nature, and rivers, are fundamental to our health, well-being, and relationships – to our happiness.
My little boys are growing up. My older one starts kindergarten next month. My little one is charging out of toddlerhood, becoming more independent by the day. Life moves so fast, and the best way I know to slow things down and treasure the moments is to get out on a river.
Business for Water Stewardship
MAJOR CORPORATIONS COMMIT FUNDING TO HELP LAKE MEAD
Business For Water Stewardship has announced the transfer of over $1.5 million in corporate and philanthropic funding to support Arizona’s efforts to increase water supply reliability through a system conservation project with the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT). View the press release here.
The funds were provided by leading corporations and brands including Intel Corp.; Microsoft; Cox; The Coca-Cola Foundation; Procter & Gamble; Reformation; Silk and Swire Coca-Cola, USA.
American Rivers
How Stormwater Affects Your Rivers
Rivers are dependent on their surrounding lands (known as the watershed) for a consistent supply of clean water. Altering a watershed does many things; one of the most significant is to alter the way stormwater soaks into the ground or flows to the local river.
When managed properly, this water is a valuable resource. However, when stormwater is managed like a waste product, it exacerbates flooding and becomes contaminated with pollutants.
Audubon Arizona
How the Verde River Exchange is Innovating Arizona Water—Voluntarily.
In order to begin to address the myriad water issues affecting Arizona, developing real world examples of potential solutions is critical. The Verde River Exchange is a creative example of what is possible for sustainable water management in Arizona, and illustrates how market based solutions can help to protect natural resources and the people who rely on them. Learn from Jocelyn Gibbon from Freshwater Policy Consulting LLC and Max Wilson from Friends of the Verde River about this effort to keep the Verde from running dry!
Audubon Arizona
New Senate Bill Threatens U.S.—Mexico Cooperation, Environment, and Birds of Lower Colorado River
Reopening the Yuma Desalting Plant—with its ancient technology—too expensive and too damaging.
New legislation proposed by Senator Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) would destroy the Ciénega de Santa Clara, the largest remaining wetland in the Colorado River Delta, essential for birds there and many birds that travel to the United States during migration.
American Rivers
Who Was George I. Haight and Why is He Now Relevant to the Colorado River Basin?
This is a guest blog by Eric Kuhn, former General Manager and a member of American Rivers’ Science and Technical Advisory Committee and author of “Science Be Dammed, How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River.”
As Utah pushes forward with its proposed Lake Powell Pipeline – an attempt move over 80,000 acre feet per year of its Upper Colorado River Basin allocation to communities in the Lower Basin – it is worth revisiting one of the critical legal milestones in the evolution of what we have come to call “the Law of the River.”
Audubon Arizona
Arizona’s Rivers Could Face Irreparable Harm
The majority of Arizona’s rivers and streams are at risk of irreversible harm due to the loss of Clean Water Act protections. With the Trump Administration’s revision to the interpretation of the Clean Water Act (called the Navigable Waters Protection Rule) now in effect in Arizona, it is urgent that we continue the hard work of developing a state-level water quality program to protect our precious waterways.
American Rivers
Invest in Rivers
All life depends on rivers. But right now, too many people in our country lack access to safe, affordable clean water. Too many people live along sick, polluted streams.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed longstanding injustices in our water systems.
Western Resource Advocates
Tucson Electric Power’s Resource Plan Makes Important Steps to Reduce Carbon and Add Renewable Energy
Western Resource Advocates today welcomed Tucson Electric Power’s (TEP’s) announcement that it plans to reduce its carbon emissions by 80 percent and provide 70 percent of its electricity generation from renewable energy resources by 2035. The plan is the most aggressive commitment to reducing emissions by a utility in Arizona.
Business for Water Stewardship
CO Rivers Key to Economy
River and Water Related Outdoor Recreation Contributes Nearly $19 Billion to Colorado’s Economy Annually.
Recreating on or along the water in Colorado is an integral part of the outdoor opportunities enjoyed by the state’s residents and visitors. Business for Water Stewardship commissioned a study to characterize outdoor recreation on or along waterways within Colorado in 2019.
Environmental Defense Fund
Understanding and Evaluating Safe-yield – Part Two
Forty years ago, then Democratic Gov. Bruce Babbitt signed Arizona’s landmark Groundwater Management Act, which created a system to manage groundwater in five regions of the state where overpumping was most severe and aquifer levels were declining rapidly.
American Rivers
7 Ways to Safely Recreate Again
Here’s how we can celebrate National Rivers Month and recreate thoughtfully in our new world. With parts of the country and the West slowly, tenuously re-opening, we know people are loading up trailers and trucks, putting air in tires and crafts, dusting off sun hats and heading out the door to visit places they miss, and do the things that make them feel whole.
Audubon Arizona
ADWR and Audubon Agree to Funding Plan to Conserve Colorado River Water
PHOENIX—As part of an overall $38 million effort to bolster Lake Mead surface levels by fallowing irrigable farmland on the Colorado River Indian Reservation in western Arizona, the National Audubon Society has reached an agreement with the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) to help fund the Colorado River Indian Tribes’ (CRIT) on-going efforts to conserve 150,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead over the next three years.
American Rivers
A Healthy River is an Economic Engine
What role do rivers play in a time of uncertainty and severe economic downturn? This is the first in a series of blogs exploring the economic benefits of healthy rivers.
Audubon Arizona
Arizona Legislature Adjourns 2020 Session
A once-promising legislative session for Audubon priorities grinds to a halt, but there is hope.
Western Resource Advocates
WRA Update: Protecting the West While Working From Home
WRA Update: This episode, we’ve brought together a group of advocates from across our organization to give us an update on what life is like now, and what our organization is doing to continue our work to ensure clean air and healthy rivers and lakes, protect and connect Western landscapes, and address climate change.
American Rivers
Memory Flows
MEMORY FLOWS: SINJIN EBERLE Being stuck at home is the perfect excuse to revisit your old photos and turn some of that unspent river energy and affection into fresh storytelling!
Audubon Arizona
Draw a Bird with David Sibley
You don’t need to go outside to get to know birds: Try drawing them instead. David Sibley, the ornithologist who wrote and illustrated The Sibley Guide to Birds, created a video for Audubon for Kids that shows how to sketch an American Finch.
Environmental Defense Fund
An Earth Day pledge for the COVID era
Earth Day in the time of COVID-19 is more urgent than ever. This crisis has made the 50th Earth Day a profound reminder that our mission is not only about the world, but about all the people in it.
Audubon Arizona
Spring 2020 Magazine
Toxic Legacy Spring 2020 Magazine. A deadly pesticide mounts a comeback, this time as a brutal weapon against birds and other wildlife.
American Rivers
We are rivers Podcast
To further the conversation about the value and complexity of rivers, American Rivers launched our podcast series, “We are Rivers: Conversations about the Rivers that Connect Us.”
Environmental Defense Fund
How water managers can build recharge basins to boost resilience for farmers & birds alike
Recharge basins are becoming increasingly popular in overdrafted regions in California, where water managers are seeking solutions to balance groundwater supply and demand to comply with the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).
Environmental Defense Fund
How This bill will protect scarce water supplies for rural Arizona
Groundwater pumping is essentially unregulated in nearly 80% of the state, putting the livelihoods and water supplies of up to 1.5 million residents at risk.
Audubon Arizona
Arizona Legislators, Western Rivers Action Network Discuss Water Security
After helping pass landmark legislation last year, Audubon and its partners focus on prioritizing water and birds at annual advocacy day.
Western Resource Advocates
Action Alert
Groundwater – the water supply that lies just under our feet, stored in formations of soil, sand and rock called aquifers – is an essential water source for communities across Arizona.
American Rivers
How Stormwater Affects Your Rivers
Rivers are dependent on their surrounding lands (known as the watershed) for a consistent supply of clean water. Altering a watershed does many things; one of the most significant is to alter the way stormwater soaks into the ground or flows to the local river.
Western Resource Advocates
Science be dammed
There are countless Colorado River resources available to learn about the history of how the river has been and continues to be governed. Hundreds of books, reports, studies, and papers have been written on the subject.
Audubon Arizona
Prioritizing Water Security for Arizona’s Birds and People
With these water reductions officially underway, Audubon is looking ahead to what is next, with our focus on prioritizing water security for all of us in Arizona, including our birds and wildlife.
Here are three water policy priorities for Audubon Arizona as we enter the 2020 Legislative Session:
Environmental Defense Fund
What 2,000 years of traditional Hopi farming in the arid Southwest can teach about resilience
When Michael Kotutwa Johnson was 8 years old, he began spending much of his time on the Hopi reservation in Arizona with his grandfather, who taught him how to farm.
For more than 2,000 years, the Hopi have been farming without irrigation in an area of Arizona that receives less than 10 inches of rain a year.
American Rivers
Big news for the Gila River
We are closer than ever to securing more permanent protection for New Mexico’s last major free-flowing river.
You may recall that we listed the Gila as #1 due to the threat of a major diversion that could be built on the Gila, just downstream from where the river tumbles out of the first Wilderness area designated in the United States.
Audubon Arizona
Snowpack in the West.
Snowpack in the West is essential to creating healthy flowing rivers that support recreation, tourism, and habitat for thousands of species. Communities also rely on the snowpack to fill reservoirs that supply cities and towns with a steady supply of drinking water year-round.
American Rivers
Arizona: Looking back on 2019 - Looking ahead to 2020
2020 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for the long-term sustainability of Arizona. The holiday season is upon us, and between the deep-fried turkey disaster, the sprigs of plastic mistletoe hanging about, and the cat knocking down the Christmas tree, ‘tis the season to look back upon the year that was, and get excited for the new year ahead.
Environmental Defense Fund
2019 made climate impacts visible. Here are 4 stories of resilience that give me hope for 2020.
Farmers took big hits from unprecedented flooding in the Midwest, coastal communities were pummeled with record-breaking rainfall and storms, and more than 250,000 acres in my home state of California burned from wildfires that took precious lives and left millions of people without power for days on end.
Audubon Arizona
10 Things You Should Know About Arizona’s Groundwater Management Act
In the midst of the ongoing drought and increasing temperatures throughout the West, Lake Mead and the Colorado River get a lot of attention. However, with all the dialogue around surface water, we cannot forget about groundwater—the water found underground in the cracks and spaces in soil, sand, and rock.
American Rivers
Stay Flexible, Arizona
Collaboration might be the only way forward for communities facing an uncertain water future.
It’s a fact of life in the Colorado River Basin that no one is really in charge.
Instead, the complicated business of managing the basin’s water supply is achieved collaboratively by an array of federal and state agencies, quasi-agencies, irrigation districts, cities, Native American nations and the Republic of Mexico — all operating according to a complex set of rules called the Law of the River.
Audubon Arizona
Why Groundwater Matters for Arizona’s People and Birds
Groundwater takes thousands of years to accrue—and sometimes—just decades to deplete. When too much is pumped out of the ground too fast—as we have seen throughout Arizona—entire river stretches and the ecosystems and wildlife that rely on that water can be depleted.
Western Resource Advocates
Despite Bountiful Snowpack Earlier This Year, Large Portions of the West Experiencing Drought Conditions
After a record start for snowpack across the Interior West earlier this year, the region is once again experiencing drought conditions and two main reservoirs remain far from full.
Audubon Arizona
International Infrastructure Issues Threaten Arizona’s Santa Cruz River
Why fixing a nine-mile sewage pipe is crucial for people and birds.
Environmental Defense Fund
This creative tax is a good bet for Colorado’s water future. Here’s why.
Here’s a pop quiz: What are two finite resources in the West?
If you answered money and water, you win.
American Rivers
6 Ways to Make Dams Easier to Remove
American Rivers has 20 years of experience freeing rivers from unnecessary dams. Here’s our advice on how to take the dam removal movement to the next level.
Environmental Defense Fund
Colorado River Basin story map highlights importance of managing water below the ground
The Colorado River is a water workhorse for seven western states, supplying drinking water to 40 million people. But it’s not the region’s only important source of water.
Audubon Arizona
How Craft Beer Is Helping Save Water In the Colorado River Basin
The Western Rivers Brewers Council continues to be an integral partner of Audubon Arizona’s dedication to a sustainable water future.
American Rivers
Sonora Rising
Water and wheat — foundations of life for millennia. In the American Southwest’s arid Sonoran Desert, water flows across Arizona from more than 300 miles away to quench the thirsts of more than four million people and sustain the food, economy, and livelihoods they rely on every day.
Walton Family Foundation
Heeding a Spiritual and Sacred Call to Protect the Colorado River
Native American tribes are seeking a greater voice as stewards of a river that’s been home for millennia
Water is life. Water is the giver and sustainer of life.
Environmental Defense Fund
Resilience on the river
The Gila River Indian Community in Arizona played a critical role in a historic seven-state agreement to conserve water from the Colorado and build a more resilient future in the face of a nearly two-decade drought.
Business for Water Stewardship
August 2019 Newsletter
We encourage you to take time this week to think about your business’ water footprint and how BWS can help you maximize your water stewardship.
Audubon Arizona
What It's Like to Catch and Band a Yuma Ridgway’s Rail
It’s a hot evening, and the mosquitos near the marsh are terrible. But, it’s worth it to try and band the elusive Yuma Ridgway’s Rails on the Gila River—for science, and because I love seeing these birds up close. We listen closely for their “Kek” calls.
Western Resource Advocates
The Drought Contingency Plan is authorized. What’s next for the Colorado River Basin
Can we make the changes needed to avoid crisis on the Colorado River?
American Rivers
Ranching in the new normal
After 19 years of drought in the Colorado River basin, many experts are calling this prolonged drying out of the southwest by a new name – aridification. Drought implies there’s an end, what if there’s not?