[ Boulder County ]

• Boulder County Commissioners vote to approve a ten-year extension on an open space tax. This has upset many farmers and ranchers, who are dissatisfied with this decision because there is no language to protect them from the tax extension. This could lead to driving agriculture out of Boulder County..
• Erie Town Council has approved the Erie Town Center Urban Renewal Plan, which will facilitate funding the development of the  20-acre Town-owned property at the northwest corner of Erie Parkway and E. County Line Rd. in Erie Town Center.
• Daniel Bench, 88, was killed while riding his bike on August 4th. His death is the first cyclist death in 2025. According to data provided by the city, the number of severe crashes involving bicycles has remained unchanged since the 2014 Vision Zero bill, which aimed to decrease incidents by 2030.
• The City of Boulder has hired a new Transportation and Mobility Director, Blyth Bailey. Bailey is a trained architect who has previously led the first Department of Transportation in Chattanooga, TN, as well as worked to develop parks. His integration comes during the City of Boulder’s hiring freeze

[ State]

• The City of Denver has cut of Loveland’s access to the FLOCK automatic license-plate reading software after it was revealed that Loveland was sharing the data with Border Patrol.
• The bunnies are growing horns. Rabbits around northern Colorado are developing black horn-like growths around their heads and faces. This is a form of cottontail rabbit papillomavirus. This is not a dangerous disease, nor is it spread to humans or domestic pets.
• With the continued drought and overuse of water, federal officials announced that in 2026, Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico will all receive less water from Colorado. This will be an 18% decrease for Arizona, 7% for Nevada, and 5% for Mexico. There will not be a decrease for California.
• The Lee Fire, burning in Rio Blanco County, is currently the fifth most extensive fire in  Colorado’s recorded history. At 137,485 acres burned, it is 300 acres behind the 2002 Hayman Fire

[ National ]

• Under an executive order, the National Guard has been deployed in Washington D.C. to increase policing and “decrease crime.” Initially, it was stated that the National Guard would not be armed; however, Army Senior Master Sgt. Craig Clapper said that “Guard members may be armed consistent with their mission and training.”
• Donald Trump flew to Alaska to meet with Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, to push for a ceasefire in the genocide in Ukraine. However, upon the meeting’s end, Trump had changed his mind, stating a ceasefire was no longer critical.
• Stephen Colbert announced that after ten years, Paramount has decided to cancel his show, The Late Show. While Paramount reports this was purely a financial decision, it came days after Colbert criticized the $16 million settlement between CBS and the White House over a possibly edited interview with Kamala Harris on 60 Minutes.
• The state department has halted all visas for people coming from Gaza. In the statement, it was explained that there needed to be “a full and thorough review of the process and procedures” used for granting medical humanitarian visas.

[ International ]

• Hamas has informed mediators that it has approved the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal and is ready to resume negotiations to discuss ending the conflict with Israel and Gaza, which has now killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, with looming threats of famine and starvation.
• Following the US-South Korea military exercises, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced that North Korea will be building up its nuclear armament, seeing the exercises as “an obvious expression of their will to provoke war.
• Nearly 2,000 service members have been deployed to fight the wildfire burning in Spain and Portugal. The fire has covered 579 square miles and continues to burn while southern Europe experiences a severe heatwave.

Quotes

“So stick to the streets if we want to commute efficiently. Got it.” 

– Louisville resident Joe Walsh, after the announcement that speed limits on bike paths would be limited to 15 mph. This is after many bike paths were paved for easier bike commuting.

“Vladimir Putin said something — one of the most interesting things — he said, ‘your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting,’ He said, ‘it’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.”

– Donald Trump explaining his inspiration for trying to rid our country of mail-in voting, a tool that helps the lower and working class ensure their ability to vote.

“I am not going anywhere.”

– University of Colorado Board of Regents member, Wanda James, after her peers attempted to censure her after an investigation into her opposition to the CU-backed marijuana education campaign

“The robots are still really dumb.”

– Dr Allan Fern, robotics professor, regarding the first-ever robot humanoid games held in China.

By the Numbers

274

The number of lives lost in Buner, Pakistan, after torrential rains and flooding, with no evacuation notice from the government.

1:8 Million

The ratio of neurosurgeons to citizens in Sierra Leon. Earlier this year, Dr. Alieu Kamara became the first and only practicing neurosurgeon in his country.

500,000

The approximate number of travelers who have been stranded during the Air Canada cabin-worker strikes.

39,448

A record-setting number of students are attending CU Boulder for the 2025 Fall semester.

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The post Month In Review | August 2025 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Press releases are provided to Yellow Scene Magazine. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

DENVER — July 15, 2025 — History Colorado is pleased to announce the opening of Expedition 1776: The Journey of Domínguez & Escalante at the History Colorado Center on July 18. Using carefully selected artifacts, authentic 17th and 18th century maps, accounts from historical journals, and stunning landscape photographs, this exhibition enables visitors to follow one of the earliest European expeditions to traverse the rugged terrain of what is now Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

The expedition of Domínguez and Escalante – named after the two Franciscan priests who led it – set out from Santa Fe in July of 1776 with the goal of locating a route to California. Over the course of five months, this small expedition traversed the Colorado Plateau, mapping the region and engaging with Native cultures that thrived there for centuries prior to European arrival.

“Part of what is so interesting about the story of Domínguez and Escalante is that it’s happening at the same time as the Revolutionary War,” said Jeremy Morton, exhibition developer and historian at History Colorado. “While British colonists ignite a revolution to form a new nation, these Spanish priests are pushing through jagged mountains, icy rivers, and relentless winds, determined to find a way to California.”

While Domínguez and Escalante’s expedition never made it to California, their mapping of the Southwest and interactions with the Tribes that called it home – including the Ute, Paiute, Hopi, and Zuni peoples – left a lasting mark on both the landscape and the historical record.

“The impacts of this expedition rippled through history for centuries to come,” Morton said. “The maps born from the expedition informed where future settlers made their homes. Their path laid the foundation for trade routes like the Old Spanish Trail, opening the Southwest to the flow of people, goods, and animals. And Escalante’s journal remains an invaluable record for understanding the lives of the people who shaped what became the American West.”

The highlight features of Expedition 1776 include:

Pottery, baskets, and trade goods created by the ancestral Puebloan, Paiute, and Zuni peoples.
Rare maps depicting the American West during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Travel and survival gear dating to the Spanish Colonial period.
Spanish Catholic artwork and religious artifacts crafted prior to the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Expedition 1776: The Journey of Domínguez & Escalante is designed as part of a trio of upcoming exhibitions intended to commemorate the twin anniversaries of American independence and Colorado statehood in 2026. Complementing exhibitions in this series include:

38th Star: Colorado Becomes the Centennial State – opening September 26, 2025 – explores Colorado’s long road to statehood and the more than fifteen years of debate and negotiations it took. 38th Star shows visitors where Colorado began by revisiting its origins through the authentic photographs, documents, artifacts, and voices that formed the Centennial State.
Moments That Made US – opening November 22, 2025 – is a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition that assembles artifacts spanning eight centuries such as ceramics made by ancestral Puebloans, tobacco pipes used by the colonists in Jamestown, the spurs George Washington wore at Valley Forge, the inkwell used by Grant and Lee to sign the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House, Jackie Robinson’s bat, moon rocks from Apollo 11, and more. These objects bore witness to powerful moments of our history and highlight how the story of the United States was never inevitable. We shaped it at every turn.

Expedition 1776: The Journey of Domínguez & Escalante opens July 18 at the History Colorado Center in Denver. The History Colorado Center is located at 1200 N Broadway and is open daily from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Admission for kids 18 and under is free every day.

This exhibition is sponsored by AARP Colorado.

About History Colorado
History Colorado is a division of the Colorado Department of Higher Education and a 501(c)3 non-profit that has served more than 75,000 students and 500,000 people in Colorado each year. It is a 146-year-old institution that operates eleven museums and historic sites, a free public research center, the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation which provides technical assistance, educational opportunities, and other access to archaeology and historic preservation, and the History Colorado State Historical Fund (SHF), which is one of the nation’s largest state funded preservation programs of its kind. More than 70% of SHF grants are allocated in rural areas of the state. Additionally, the offices of the State Archaeologist and the State Historic Preservation Officer are part of History Colorado.

History Colorado’s mission is to create a better future for Colorado by inspiring wonder in our past. We serve as the state’s memory, preserving and sharing the places, stories, and material culture of Colorado through educational programs, historic preservation grants, collecting, outreach to Colorado communities, the History Colorado Center and Stephen H. Hart Research Center in Denver, and 10 other museums and historic attractions statewide. History Colorado is one of only six Smithsonian Affiliates in Colorado. Visit HistoryColorado.org, or call 303-HISTORY, for more information. #HistoryColorado

DENVER — 15 de julio de 2025 — History Colorado se complace en anunciar la inauguración de la Expedición 1776: El viaje de Domínguez y Escalante en el History Colorado Center el próximo 18 de julio. Utilizando artefactos seleccionados cuidadosamente, mapas auténticos de los siglos XVII y XVIII, relatos tomados de diarios históricos y fotografías impactantes de paisajes, esta exhibición permite a los visitantes seguir una de las primeras expediciones europeas que atravesaron el terreno accidentado de lo que hoy es Colorado, Utah, Arizona y Nuevo México.

La expedición de Domínguez y Escalante —llamada así por los dos frailes franciscanos que la lideraron— partió de Santa Fe en julio de 1776 con el objetivo de encontrar una ruta hacia California. Durante cinco meses, esta pequeña expedición recorrió el altiplano de Colorado, trazando mapas de la región e interactuando con culturas nativas que habían prosperado allí durante siglos antes de la llegada europea.

—Una de las cosas más interesantes de la historia de Domínguez y Escalante es que ocurre al mismo tiempo que la Guerra de Independencia—, dijo Jeremy Morton, desarrollador de exhibiciones e historiador en History Colorado. —Mientras los colonos británicos inician una revolución para formar una nueva nación, estos sacerdotes españoles atraviesan montañas escarpadas, ríos helados y vientos implacables, decididos a encontrar un camino hacia California—.

Aunque la expedición de Domínguez y Escalante no llegó a California, el trazado del suroeste y las interacciones con los pueblos originarios que habitaban la zona —incluidos los ute, paiute, hopi y zuni— dejaron una huella duradera tanto en el paisaje como en el registro histórico.

—Los impactos de esta expedición resonaron a lo largo de la historia durante siglos—, señaló Morton. —Los mapas que surgieron de la expedición influyeron en dónde se establecieron futuros pobladores. Su ruta sentó las bases para caminos comerciales como el Old Spanish Trail ((Antiguo Camino Español), abriendo el suroeste al flujo de personas, bienes y animales. Y el diario de Escalante sigue siendo un registro invaluable para entender la vida de quienes dieron forma a lo que se convirtió en el Oeste estadounidense—.

Entre los elementos destacados de la Expedición 1776 se encuentran:

Cerámica, canastas y objetos de intercambio creados por los pueblos ancestrales pueblo, paiute y zuni.
Mapas raros que muestran el Oeste estadounidense a finales del siglo XVIII y principios del XIX.
Equipo de viaje y supervivencia de la época colonial española.
Arte religioso católico español y artefactos devocionales elaborados antes de la firma del Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo.
La Expedición 1776: El viaje de Domínguez y Escalante forma parte de una serie de tres exhibiciones concebidas para conmemorar los aniversarios de la independencia de Estados Unidos y de la formación del estado de Colorado en 2026. Las exhibiciones complementarias de esta serie incluyen:

La estrella 38: Colorado se convierte en el estado centenario — se inaugura el 26 de septiembre de 2025 — explora el largo camino de Colorado hacia la estadidad y los más de quince años de debates y negociaciones que tomó lograrlo. La estrella 38 muestra a los visitantes los orígenes de Colorado mediante fotografías auténticas, documentos, artefactos y voces que forjaron el Centennial State.
Momentos que nos formaron — se inaugura el 22 de noviembre de 2025 — es una exhibición única en la vida que reúne artefactos que abarcan ocho siglos, como cerámica de los pueblos ancestrales, pipas de tabaco utilizadas por los colonos de Jamestown, las espuelas que usó George Washington en Valley Forge, el tintero con el que Grant y Lee firmaron la rendición confederada en Appomattox, el bate de Jackie Robinson, rocas lunares del Apolo 11 y más. Estos objetos fueron testigos de momentos decisivos de nuestra historia y muestran que el relato de Estados Unidos nunca fue inevitable. Lo moldeamos en cada paso.
La Expedición 1776: El viaje de Domínguez y Escalante abre el 18 de julio en el History Colorado Center en Denver. El centro está ubicado en el 1200 N Broadway y abre todos los días de 10 a.m. a 5 p.m. La entrada es gratuita para menores de 18 años todos los días.
Sobre History Colorado
History Colorado es una división del Departamento de Educación Superior de Colorado y una organización sin fines de lucro 501(c)3 que atiende a más de 75,000 estudiantes y 500,000 personas cada año en el estado. Es una institución con 146 años de historia que opera once museos y sitios históricos, un centro de investigación pública gratuito, la Oficina de Arqueología y Preservación Histórica que ofrece asistencia técnica, programas educativos y otros recursos relacionados con la arqueología y la preservación, así como el History Colorado State Historical Fund (SHF), uno de los programas de preservación histórica financiados por el estado más grandes del país. Más del 70% de las subvenciones del SHF se destinan a áreas rurales. Además, las oficinas del Arqueólogo Estatal y del Oficial Estatal de Preservación Histórica forman parte de History Colorado.

La misión de History Colorado es construir un mejor futuro para Colorado al inspirar asombro por nuestro pasado. Actuamos como la memoria del estado, preservando y compartiendo los lugares, historias y cultura material de Colorado a través de programas educativos, subvenciones de preservación histórica, recolección de objetos, trabajo comunitario, el History Colorado Center y el Stephen H. Hart Research Center en Denver, así como otros diez museos y atracciones históricas en todo el estado. History Colorado es una de las seis instituciones afiliadas al Smithsonian en Colorado. Visita HistoryColorado.org o llama al 303-HISTORY para más información. #HistoryColorado

The post New Exhibition at History Colorado Center Follows 1776 Spanish Expedition Across the Colorado Plateau appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Attending a film festival is really fun for me as a big film nerd. Sure, the big ones are a blast because you could be watching next year’s biggest films before any of your friends, but sometimes a small festival can be fun too — You can see films that you might otherwise never have  a chance to see. And, obviously, Colorado is becoming a hotbed for film festivals, as evidenced by the recent announcement that the Sundance Film Festival, arguably the most prestigious film fest in the country, will be moving to Boulder, Colorado.

“Boulder is an art town, tech town, mountain town, and college town,” said the Sundance Institute’s acting CEO, Amanda Kelso, in a press release about the festival’s decision to relocate to Boulder. “It is a place where the Festival can build and flourish.”

Colorado governor Jared Polis echoed those sentiments in boasting about the city — and, by extension, Colorado as a whole — being a perfect fit for the festival, saying, “Here in our state we celebrate the arts and film industry as a key economic driver, job creator, and important contributor to our thriving culture.”

Still, it won’t be until 2027 that we’ll see Sundance take root in its new Colorado home. But there are still other great festivals that see Colorado and its surrounding states as the perfect home for a film fest. In that spirit, we put together a chronological guide of all the great film festivals taking place throughout the coming summer in Colorado and surrounding states. However, since we all know Colorado gets warm weather from late May through mid-October, we extended our definition of what constitutes a “summer” festival a little beyond the official start and end of the season. Below is our collection of 25 film festivals in Colorado and beyond, with a little bit about what makes each one special. Take a road trip to experience one of them for yourself, or pop in to one of the festivals that just happens to take place in your own backyard.

Mountainfilm, Telluride, CO, May 22-26

While it may not be the festival that Telluride is renowned for, the Mountainfilm documentary film festival has been highlighting outstanding documentaries since 1979. Plus, as of this year, Mountainfilm is a qualifying festival for the Academy Awards’ short film category, making it an important destination if you really value the brilliance of the documentary art form.

Women+Film Festival, Denver, CO, May 30 – June 1

Put on by Denver Film — the same organization behind the Denver Film Festival — the Women+Film Festival is one of their smaller, themed, offshoot festivals focusing on films by and about women. This year they’ll be giving the Barbara Bridges Inspiration Award to Julia Stiles for her directorial debut, “Wish You Were Here.”

deadCenter Film Festival, Oklahoma City, OK, June 11-15

Boasting the title of being the largest and only Oscar-qualifying festival in Oklahoma, deadCenter is one the best festivals to see if you’re looking to take a road trip to neighboring Oklahoma. Of particular interest is the fact that, in addition to the typical prize categories like Best Narrative Feature and Best Documentary Short, they have special awards like Best Pride Feature, Best Indigenous Feature, and Best High School Short.

Arizona Short Film Festival, Tucson, AZ, June TBA

If you happen to be traveling to Tucson, Arizona in June, you might just be able to catch the Arizona Short Film Festival which prides itself on screening the best shorts from around the world one night at The Screening Room. This year’s date hasn’t been announced, but having taken place on June 18 last year, it seems safe to expect an announcement soon.

Ouray International Film Festival, Ouray, CO, June 19-22

Though it often feels like summer starts sometime in May, the first official day of summer is June 20th, and what better way to celebrate the official start of the season than watching movies in the beautiful mountain community of Ouray, Colorado which is known for its pristine mountain views?

ABQ Indie Film Festival, Albuquerque, NM, June 19th

What makes an indie film “indie” enough for the ABQ Indie Film Festival? Apparently, the festival defines indie as “a state of mind,” and one that seems almost endangered today. The festival seeks to “re-create a nostalgic space for that state of mind.” Its Instagram says that the 2025 edition of the festival is in the works, so expect it to take place somewhere around June 20, which is when it was held last year.

Doc Sunback Film Festival, Mulvane, KS, June 27-28

This smaller festival in the unassuming town of Mulvane, Kansas is named after a beloved veterinarian born in that town in 1879 who, over a century later, is still warmly remembered by the locals. Priding itself on covering all genres of independent film, this is a small festival with a big heart.

Fear No Film Festival (Part of Utah Arts Festival), Salt Lake City, UT, June 28-30

Fear No Film is part of the larger Utah Arts Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah. So, while it’s a small, short-film festival, there’s still plenty more to do if you decide to make the trek out to SLC. Fear No Film is one of the festival’s no-ticket-required events too, so tie it into a larger experience at the arts festival.

Wyoming International Film Festival, Cheyenne, WY, July 9-13

Not only is the Wyoming International Film Festival one of the biggest and best festivals in the region featuring films from all over the world, it also features the added bonus of a 48 Hour Film Festival in which filmmakers have to shoot, edit, and turn in a completed film within 48 hours, with the films being screened on the last day of the festival. It’s always a fun experience to see what creatives can pull off in such a short amount of time.

Circle Cinema Film Festival, Tulsa, OK, July 11-14

This Oklahoma film festival stands out from the crowd in that they show a unique commitment to local filmmaking by only allowing films made in Oklahoma. It makes the festival a great platform for filmmakers who eschew the traditional Hollywood route to stardom in favor of building a local film industry.

Prescott Film Festival, Prescott, Arizona, July 16-20

The Prescott Film Festival in Prescott, Arizona is a small but quirky little festival on and around the Prescott campus of Yavapai College. There are five days of films and workshops and even a sing-along to “The Wizard of Oz,” which is a favorite of festival-goers.

CinemaQ Film Festival, Denver, CO, August 8-10

A personal favorite, this small festival, also from Denver Film, focuses on films by and about the LGBTQ+ community. In recent years, opening night films have given festival-goers early opportunities to see movies like “Bottoms” and “My Old Ass,” which went on to become big, queer cult flicks.

Mesa International Film Festival, Mesa, AZ, August 20-24

Billing itself as Arizona’s premiere film festival, the Mesa International Film Festival not only offers an opportunity to watch great films every year, but it also offers great opportunities to learn from filmmakers through workshops and one-on-one mentoring sessions.

Telluride Film Festival, Telluride, CO, August 28-September 1

Easily the biggest festival on our list, Jeffrey Ruoff of HuffPost wrote in 2015, “Early buzz at Telluride opens the fall season of North American award speculation that climaxes with the Oscars.” The 2024 lineup included several films that were nominated for Oscars, including the brilliant comedy and Best Picture winner “Anora.”

307 International Film Festival, Laramie, WY, August 30-31

The 307 International Film Festival, as its name suggests, has films from all over the world, but the festival gives back to its local filmmaking community by having specific categories amongst its Jackalope Awards for Best Wyoming Film and Best Wyoming Documentary for films by Wyoming filmmakers that capture the spirit of the state.

Arizona Underground Film Festival, Tucson, AZ, September TBA

Focusing on filmmakers with “defiantly independent visions,” the Arizona Underground Film Festival prides itself on bringing the best of genre cult films to the state. With award categories including Horror, Experimental, and even Exploitation, it really honors genres that are not always highlighted in bigger festivals.

Breck Film Festival, Breckenridge, CO, September TBA

Started in 1981 as the Breckenridge Festival of Film, the festival morphed in 2020 into a year-round nonprofit that even purchased the local art house, The Eclipse Theater. Still, the Breck Film Festival remains the focal point as it approaches its 45th anniversary in 2026.

Aspen Filmfest, Aspen, CO, September TBA

Back in 1979, founder Ellen Kohner Hunt passed a note to a friend at an Aspen Arts Council meeting saying, “How about having a film festival?” Since then, Aspen Filmfest has become one of Colorado’s biggest festivals, celebrating its 45th anniversary in 2024. Last year’s lineup included Oscar-nominated films like “A Real Pain,” “Memoirs of a Snail,” and “The Wild Robot.

918 Film Fest Tulsa Shorts, Tulsa, OK, September 18

Moving from the big name festivals to one of the smaller, more local festivals on the list, the 918 Film Fest in Tulsa offers up eight of the best short films from Oklahoma filmmakers in one night. If you happen to be in Tulsa, this is a great way to celebrate the end of summer.

Crested Butte Film Festival, Crested Butte, CO, September 24-28

At this point in our list, we’re technically getting into the first few days of fall. But it’s a great opportunity to celebrate the passing of the seasons with a festival in beautiful Crested Butte, Colorado. Not only is the festival full of great films, but there’s the added bonus of the amazing scenery and fall foliage.

Albuquerque Film + Music Experience, Albuquerque, NM, September 24-28

The Albuquerque Film + Music Experience festival is another great way to celebrate the passage from summer into fall with its celebration of the dual art forms of film and music. In addition to showcasing great films, the festival also gives a platform to independent music artists with a particular focus on local musicians.

Flatwater Film Festival, Seward, NE, September 26-28

The Flatwater Film Festival in Seward, Nebraska prides itself on creating a non-competitive space specifically for Nebraska filmmakers to showcase their work. Plus, this film festival has its own 48-Hour Film Challenge (last year’s challenge included a required prop — a slice of toast — and required dialogue — “Why is that wet”), which is always a good time.

Peoria Film Fest, Peoria, AZ, October TBA

The Peoria Film Fest in Peoria, Arizona is put together by the same people who put together the Phoenix Film Festival. In 2024, the Peoria Film Fest took on a new focus: family-friendly films. The schedule hasn’t been announced yet for 2025, but assuming it keeps the same family-friendly focus for this year, it would make for a great family road trip.

Telluride Horror Show, Telluride, CO, October 10-12

Who doesn’t love a good scary movie? Featuring films that range from smart, psychological thrillers to campy horror romps, the Telluride Horror Show is known for being one of the best specialized festivals around.

Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival, Colorado Springs, CO, October 17-19

Closing out our list is a great specialized festival that, like Denver’s Women+Film Festival, focuses on the importance of women in film. Held on the campus of Colorado College in Colorado Springs, the festival was sparked by an idea from founders Donna Guthrie and Jere Martin on a car ride back from the Telluride Film Festival in 1987.

If one were to make it to every festival on our list over the coming months, well that would make for an epic summer adventure. But more realistically, maybe you’ll want to take a day trip to one of these festivals and catch some films you wouldn’t otherwise find at your local Cineplex. If you do, I hope it makes your summer months a little sweeter and gives you an experience you’ll never forget.

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The post 25 Summer Film Festivals in Colorado and Beyond appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

In Nevada’s monstrous Lake Mead Reservoir, the term “dead pool” has a dual meaning. For hydrologists, dead pool represents a catastrophically low water level in a reservoir below which the water can no longer pass through the outlet works of the dam or produce electricity. Dead pool in Lake Mead might also relate to the hundreds of human bodies concealed within its depths, some of them Las Vegas mob hits, most of them unrecovered drowning victims. In recent years Lake Mead’s water level has plummeted alarmingly towards dead pool and, as it does so, has exposed human remains along new shorelines.

Lake Mead currently sports a giant white “bathtub” ring indicating the newly exposed land. When the lake reached its lowest level in 2022, the ring was nearly 200 vertical feet, and the reservoir held only 30% of its capacity. Apocalyptic predictions of the reservoir’s doom flooded the national media. Should Lake Mead reach dead pool, tens of millions of Americans would lose power, water faucets would run dry in many cities, and hundreds of thousands of acres of some of America’s most important agricultural land would dry up.

The water level has since risen about 30 feet because of a lucky break. The southern Rockies had an epic snow year in 2023 and unleashed a monster runoff which helped replenish the Colorado River Basin including Lake Mead. But one very good snow year cannot reverse a multi-decade megadrought, and demand for Colorado River water continues to grow year by year. It’s been decades since the river flowed regularly into the ocean. All of its water is now used up before it gets to the sea. In northern Mexico, south of the Arizona border, what used to be a vast wetland delta full of wildlife has turned into a dusty wasteland. Demand for the river system’s water continues to grow while the megadrought in the Southwest marches on in the near future harbors a potential water catastrophe.

Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona, USA. The Colorado river behind the dam, surrounding by red rocks, desert, and mountain.

A river by any other name

The official source of any river is mostly an arbitrary designation based on the happenstance of geographic naming. Both the Colorado and Mississippi Rivers, for example, have official sources that make little logical sense. A river, if viewed from above, resembles a giant leafless tree with ever smaller branches extending in all directions throughout the river’s basin in a fractal pattern. A river like the Colorado does not have a single source; rather it has hundreds of thousands of them throughout its vast drainage basin spread out over thousands of miles.

However, if we were to consider a river’s most logical single source to be the point on the river system that is the farthest from its mouth in river miles, then the source of the Colorado River is in west-central Wyoming where the Green River begins, not in the Colorado Mountains. The Green and Colorado Rivers merge in the middle of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Upstream from there, the Green is more than twice as long as the upper Colorado River branch. Had the entire river been named the Green — which it almost was — then its official source would most certainly be in Wyoming, not Colorado. Similarly, the source of the Mississippi should be the headwaters of the Missouri River in Montana instead of its officially recognized source in Minnesota, which is hundreds of river miles closer to the Gulf of Mexico than it is the start of the Missouri.

Where does the water come from?

Some of the water that fills Lake Mead starts as snowmelt high up in the Never Summer Mountain Range near Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Even up there where the Colorado River system is nothing more than a series of tiny mountain creeks, we begin to consume its waters. The first users of the Colorado’s water are you, me, and the rest of our neighbors here in the cities of the Front Range.

Unless you are on a well system, when you turn on your water faucet you are probably consuming water that was brought to you through a tunnel under the Continental Divide from the headwaters of the Colorado River. There are eight such water diversions from the Western Slope to the Front Range, the biggest of which is the Big Thompson Project. There is also the Grand Ditch, the Moffat Tunnel, the Roberts Tunnel, the Continental Hoosier System, the Homestake Project, the Twin Lakes Tunnel, and the Fry-Ark Project which provides water for Colorado Springs. Collectively they transfer almost a half million acre-feet of water annually from the Western Slope to the Front Range, all from the Colorado River’s headwater streams including the Eagle, Fryingpan, Roaring Fork, Blue, and Fraser Rivers.

The longest of these tunnels is the Alva B. Adams at 13.1 miles long and 10 feet wide, part of the Big Thompson Project. It passes right under the middle of Rocky Mountain National Park and emerges near the aptly named East Portal Campground.

dam on the South Platte River in northern Colorado below Denver, late fall scenery

Why don’t we just use the water from the South Platte? The reason is that 80% of Colorado’s population lives east of the Continental Divide while 80% of the state’s natural water supply flows west of the divide. Add to that the needs of Colorado’s thirsty Eastern Plains farms, and you have a mismatch between the location of water demand and the location of most of the water supply. The South Platte River just isn’t big enough.

This is a scenario that plays out in similar ways along the entire length of the Colorado River into northern Mexico. Along the river’s course, there are no large cities on or near its banks. The cities, Indian tribes, desert farms, and golf courses that depend on the river’s waters are scattered throughout this sparse land from the Pacific Coast to the High Plains. Forty million people use Colorado River water, most of them residing in cities far too large for their arid environments. And while the South Platte River isn’t big enough to meet the demand of the Front Range, the larger Colorado River is no longer big enough to meet the water demands of all seven states in its basin plus northern Mexico.

Mighty demand on the mighty Colorado

We think of the Colorado River as one of North America’s largest, and in terms of the geographic size of its basin, that’s true. It drains a vast area from northern Wyoming south to Mexico and from eastern California west to a thousand-plus-mile stretch of the Rocky Mountains. But in terms of water volume or discharge, the Colorado River is surprisingly small.

Thirty-six rivers in the United States carry more natural water than the Colorado River. The Mississippi carries 27 times the amount. The Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest is about 13 times larger by volume. The Yukon? Ten times larger. Even the lowly Mobile River, which is only 72 miles long, carries three times the amount of water compared to the Colorado River. We are expecting a lot from a river that is far smaller by volume than most of us realize and highly susceptible to climate changes, natural and man-made alike.

Human-caused climate change is widely believed to be a contributing factor to the current stress on the Colorado River Basin, but it is only one of many compounding variables. This is a land where even natural climate change is believed by many experts to be the primary cause of the rise and fall of whole civilizations. The climate and geological record show that megadroughts lasting several decades or more are normal here. The current megadrought is about 23 years running and coincides with significant population growth in the Southwest. It’s possible that it may turn around soon. We can hope that the big winter of 2023 — and thankfully another healthy snow year in 2024 — represents the beginning of a turning point into a wetter trend. If that happens, we will have gotten very lucky. Or it may just be a blip in a drought that has another century or more to go, for even megadroughts have wet years within them. Nobody knows which way it will go. Therefore, we must adapt and plan for the worst-case scenario.

Studying the ancient human artifacts and geologic strata of the area can unlock secrets of the past that can help us plan for the future. According to the book “Where the Water Goes” by David Owen, around the year 600 A.D., the Hohokam people “built and maintained what was then one of the world’s largest and most advanced irrigation systems in what’s now southern Arizona.”

This ancient agricultural society “diverted water from two Colorado River tributaries, the Gila and the Salt, and fed it into extensive networks of canals and ditches, with which they irrigated tens of thousands of acres of agricultural land roughly where metropolitan Phoenix is today,” wrote Owen. “Then, around 1450, the Hohokam and their complex agricultural society disappeared.” No one knows definitively why the society vanished, but one theory is that the cumulative effects of irrigation on the soil caused massive crop failures because of dissolved salts that leached into the soil and groundwater over the centuries, ultimately killing the harvest.

If that’s the correct theory, it demonstrates the importance of adaptation to changing conditions, which is exactly the kind of thing we are facing now in the same region. And, again, the needed adaptation likely must look to agriculture as the single most important contributing factor. The urban demand for the Colorado River’s water is dwarfed by the agricultural production of the area. California’s Imperial Valley sees less than three inches of annual rainfall, and yet it is an enormous producer of year-round produce, including 85% of America’s winter harvest from leafy greens to citrus fruits. The Imperial Valley alone receives an annual allotment of 3.8 million acre-feet of water from the river, which is about what the entire state of Colorado receives and a full 1.5 million acre-feet more than the entire state of Arizona.

Despite popular belief and convenient assumptions due to its proximity to Lake Mead, Las Vegas is only a minor contributor to the pressure on the Colorado River Basin. In fact, Las Vegas represents an exemplary example of urban water management headed in the right direction. Three quarters of a million more people live in the Las Vegas area now compared to just 20 years ago, but during that same period, the city has managed to reduce its water consumption by a staggering 30% or more, mostly through practical laws and incentives.

As admirable as Las Vegas’ water policies have been, the reality is that urban water management, no matter how successful, can only make a small dent in the problem. Desert golf courses and casino fountains make for easy scapegoats, but it is irrigation-based agriculture that is by far the largest draw of Colorado River water. Food production along with the multi-decade megadrought is why Lake Mead is falling and threatening to reach the dreaded dead pool level.

Who owns the water?

Water rights law is extremely complicated, and in the West, it can seem to make little sense in some cases. Unlike most of the world, even in the eastern United States, western water rights are based on the principle of “prior appropriation.” In layperson’s terms, this means that the first person to use the water has first rights to the amount of water they use regardless of where they are.

In the Colorado River Basin, the “law of the river,” as they say, was established over 100 years ago in the Colorado River Compact. This legal agreement divides the seven states in the basin into two halves, the upper basin and the lower basin. Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico are in the upper basin. California, Arizona, and Nevada make up the lower basin. One of the long-standing issues is that most of the water comes from the upper basin, but most of the consumption demand is in the lower basin, and this misalignment is getting bigger. The Colorado River also flows into northern Mexico before its mouth at the Gulf of California, so Mexico also has a small portion of the water rights. The Colorado River Compact gives each basin 50% of the U.S. rights to the water, but the upper basin states have never used their full legal allotment, even in the driest of years.

How can it be that the upper basin never uses its full legal allotment, and yet all the water in the river is used before it reaches the sea? The reason is called “paper water.” When the Colorado River Compact was written, it was based on years of historically higher than average flows in the early 1900s. Because of this, the total legal distribution of the river’s water is more than the real water that flows in the basin today. In short, the water is over-allocated.

The result is diminishing water levels in Lakes Mead and Powell as the “bank” of saved water in the reservoirs is depleted more than snowmelt each spring can replace. This also results in a river that is used up completely before it reaches the sea, creating an ecological chain reaction in Mexico and the Gulf of California as a once vast wetland delta has literally turned to dust.

Despite the difficult circumstances, there are reasons to be hopeful that the Colorado River water crisis can be mitigated to avoid a disaster, even if the megadrought persists and snowbirds keep moving to the desert to play golf. Doing so will require seven states and the federal government, specifically the Bureau of Reclamation within the Department of the Interior, to work together. In today’s political environment that might seem challenging, but the process is already moving. The Inflation Reduction Act and the Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Bill include a combined $14.5 billion to “enhance the West’s resilience to drought, the largest investment in climate resilience in our nation’s history.” That money will be supplemented by state-level investments from the seven basin states.

Another positive is that, ultimately, the federal government has the final authority. States’s rights advocates may not like the sound of that, but river systems cross state and national boundaries and a central point of authority is a necessity when it comes to interstate commerce and resources, especially one as critical as this.

Long-term initiatives from 2027 onward are yet to be confirmed, but in general, there are supply-side and demand-side opportunities that likely need to be pursued together. Supply management is about increasing the amount of water available to meet growing demand. Demand management is about using that water more efficiently to reduce consumption. In both cases, there are many things that can be done with a combination of infrastructure investment, education, a focus on more sustainable practices, and political will. This must all be achieved while simultaneously limiting the impact on the ecosystems within the basin and, hopefully, restoring past damage.

After decades of little to no Colorado River water reaching the ocean, a “pulse” of 100 thousand acre-feet of water was released from the last impoundment in Mexico in 2014. For nearly two months the river flowed once again all the way to the Gulf of California, and the dry delta immediately sprang to life with greenery as astounded ecologists measured the resiliency of nature.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area – Low Water Level on Colorado River Reservoir Shoreline – Drought, Water Rights

Lake Mead may never again reach full pool unless there is a major decades-long shift to a wetter climate, but it does not ever have to reach dead pool either, even if the megadrought continues. There are many things that can and likely will be done in the years to come to ensure the lasting health of the Colorado River system and the well-being of all that depend on it.

The example set by the city of Las Vegas gives us hope that it is possible to achieve similar results on a much larger scale. Agriculture can be made much more efficient through incentivizing the planting of less thirsty crops. Untapped water tables can be utilized in places to relieve pressure on the comparatively little surface water. New technologies can be deployed to reduce waste and improve efficiency.

Regardless of the specific solutions, changes must be made for a sustainable Colorado River Basin, and some of those changes might impact us right here in the Front Range as the first consumers of Colorado River water. The alternative of dead pool is not an option.

The post The Colorado River Water Emergency appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

[ Local ]

• Colorado Senate Republicans block a measure that would have allowed child sexual abuse victims to sue their abusers past the current statute of limitations
• Elizabeth School District decides to replace Scholastic Book Fair with a conservative book group, citing concerns about LGBTQ+ stories, Critical Race Theory, and “dark magic”
• GreenLatinos celebrate their 15-year anniversary advocating for safer communities, cleaner transit, and racial equity
• Paramedic who injected the lethal dose of Ketamine that killed Elijah McClain avoids jail time and is sentenced to 14 months of work release and probation instead
• Colorado ranchers are upset after newly released wild wolves killed a handful of calves, the Ranchers will be compensated for their losses. Wolves are key in maintaining balance in the ecosystem

[ National ]

• Protests, sit-ins, and demonstrations against the Israeli war in Gaza rock multiple campuses across the nation, sparked by Columbia University students, with authorities responding variously from mass arrests to apathy
• News organization NPR is in the news themselves following a scathing op-ed by a former editor, and a NYT piece on the supposed left-wing bias and internal division of the newsroom
• Trump is ruled in contempt of court, threatened with jail time, by the judge during his current Supreme Court trial after Trump refused to stop posting comments about the ongoing trial on social media
• Arizona lawmakers vote to repeal Civil-War era abortion ban, with some Republicans breaking party lines to vote with Democrats to advance the measure after state court previously upheld the ban
• O.J. Simpson passes away, ending his life-long search for Nicole Brown’s killer

[ International ]

• Israel and Iran exchanged missile, drone attacks prompting a brief scare that the war would widen, however tensions seemed to have calmed after both strikes supposedly caused minimal damage
• Haiti forms a transitional government looking to rebuild major institutions after a massive collapse in power and take-over by numerous warring violent groups
• Trials for international money laundering by the mega-wealthy stemming from the Panama Papers investigation began earlier this month, nearly a decade after the secret off-shore accounts were first revealed
• Wanna-be strongman Erdogan is voted out in Türkiye (Turkey) following latest election results in a positive sign for the nation straddling Europe and the Middle East

Quotes

“I take firearm safety very seriously. This is a humbling experience and I will reaffirm my commitment to responsible handling procedures” – CO State Rep. Don Wilson (R) on leaving his loaded handgun in a Capitol building restroom

“I’ll give you the truth why I’m not Speaker, It’s because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old” – Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the reason he was ousted earlier this year

“People have to stop having such thin skins… What’s more is we also believe that being offended is a sufficient reason for attacking something — but actually, everything offends somebody, always” Salman Rushdie during his appearance on the Daily Show, talking about the person who attacked him

By the Numbers

2 Feet

More accurate measure of sea-level chops an average of 2 feet off of Colorado’s 14k+ foot peaks

81, 89

Colorado Ammendment  81 — an abortion ban — fails to gather enough signatures, while 89 enshrining abortion access, is successful at getting on the ballot for this November

55,000

Residents near Boulder who had their power cut by Excel Energy without proper notice for a pre-planned outage in early April

$96 Billion

Amount in latest military aid approved by the US to send to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan

116°

Temperatures soar to unbearable heights in the Philippines. Southeast Asia is expected to see already life-threatening temperatures rise in the coming decades

The post Month in Review | March 2024 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Provided by KUNC

The Imperial Irrigation District in California, which uses more Colorado River water than any other farm district or city in the West, has agreed to conserve 100,000 acre-feet in 2023 in exchange for payments from the federal government. It’s less than half the amount of water the district originally proposed saving last spring.

The district’s conservation agreement represents the first batch of water conserved as part of Imperial’s contributions to a three-state agreement in which California, Arizona and Nevada are pledging to conserve at least 3 million acre-feet of water by the end of 2026, with at least 1.5 million conserved by the end of 2024. An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to fill one acre of land to a height of one foot. One acre-foot generally provides enough water for one to two households for a year.

In April, the irrigation district said it would conserve 250,000 acre-feet each year through 2026 as part of a water-saving proposal from the Colorado River Board of California. The 100,000 acre-feet announced in this latest proposal is less than half of that initial goal, but officials with the district say they are aiming to conserve a total of 800,000 acre-feet across the four-year stretch—a goal still 200,000 acre-feet short of the original four-year proposal.

“We’re not backing away from the 250k – but it is a big number,” Robert Schettler, a spokesman for Imperial Irrigation District, wrote in an email. “It was felt that this was needed to be done sooner than later for this single year.”

Tina Shields, Imperial’s water department manager, said conserving a larger quantity of water would have required a multi-year environmental review process, which the district plans to pursue for a 2024-2026 conservation deal.

“We were able to knock out an agreement for this year to do as much as we could under existing programs,” she said. “But we couldn’t implement any new programs without that environmental permitting piece.”

Michael Cohen, a senior researcher with the water think tank Pacific Institute, said he thinks Imperial may have been ready to offer more water in exchange for more federal payment—but the Bureau of Reclamation may be doing “some deliberation” and waiting to see if mountain snow adds to this year’s Colorado River water supply before spending more money.

“We don’t know how much water is coming, this coming winter,” Cohen said. “I’m hopeful that Reclamation is conserving some of that money because they’re going to need to invest presumably more money, maybe not for 2024, but 2025 and 2026.”

Reclamation, the federal agency that manages the Colorado River’s major dams and reservoirs, will pay about $776 for each acre-foot Imperial conserves, Shields said. That’s nearly double the amount it has paid out to other agricultural districts for water conservation. Federal payments have mostly been capped at $400 per acre-foot, including some made to farm districts that neighbor Imperial. The actual price will be adjusted slightly to account for inflation before payments are finalized.

Some Southwestern farmers have suggested they want much higher payments, sometimes more than $1,200 per acre-foot, since the Biden Administration announced last year it would spend billions on drought mitigation work in the Colorado River basin.

The payout value is tied to a contract between Imperial Irrigation District and the San Diego County Water Authority. About half of the water that will be conserved was initially designated to be transferred to San Diego, but will now instead remain in Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir. Imperial officials said the saved water comes from efficiency programs on farms within the district, like new sprinklers and pumps as well as other innovative changes to the fields in which crops are grown.

Farmers in the Imperial Valley told KUNC last summer that federal payments are an integral part of spurring them to help cut back water use.

John Hawk watches farmworkers pick vegetables in California’s Imperial Valley on June 20, 2023. Hawk and other farmers in Imperial Irrigation District say compensation will be an important part of saving water in the region. (Alex Hager/KUNC)

“Do we need to conserve? Absolutely,” said John Hawk, a farmer in the Imperial Valley. “We need to conserve, but we need to be paid for the conservation.”

Those farmers and Imperial Irrigation District officials also stressed the need for money to help remedy problems caused by a drying Salton Sea. The Colorado River used to intermittently fill the giant lake before it was dammed upstream, causing its flows to be significantly curtailed.

Now, with the river confined to its channel, the sea is sustained with runoff from the farm fields of the Imperial Valley. As the valley’s farmers use less water, the Salton Sea will continue to dry up, reducing habitat for the flocks of migratory birds that stop there and producing dust storms that increase the risk of asthma and other respiratory diseases among the valley’s residents.

This week’s water conservation agreement triggers the release of $70 million from an available $250 million in federal funding earmarked last year for environmental projects to support the Salton Sea. Bureau of Reclamation officials, including Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton, plan to visit the Salton Sea later this week to highlight that spending.

This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC and supported by the Walton Family Foundation.

The post The Colorado Rivers Biggest User Will Conserve Some Water In Exchange For Federal Dollars appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Photo by the Paul Wilkinson Law Firm

[LOCAL]

• Online marijuana sales began on August 7th. Someone should really start a pizza + weed delivery combo.
• Fort Lupton police officer found guilty for leaving a woman in his patrol cruiser that was struck by a train. The officer parked his car on the train tracks after taking her into custody. She survived but was severely injured.
• Newly implemented law in Colorado to raise age to buy a firearm to 21 has been blocked by Federal Judge.
• Nearly a quarter of a million dollars worth of bikes have been stolen in Boulder this year according to the Stolen Bikes dashboard
• Mike Johnson is inaugurated as Denver’s Mayor after beating Kelly Brough earlier this summer.

[NATIONAL]

• Florida tries to ban AP Psychology in their growing fight against being educated.
• Two attorneys associated with Colorado, John Eastman and Jenna Ellis, are indicted alongside Trump, this time simply for attempting to overthrow our government and end democracy as we know it.
• The State of Georgia also indicts Trump over his tampering with election results. Pardons in Georgia particularly hard to come by.
• Entire Colorado River Basin faces massive drought mainly due to decrease in snowmelt from shifting climate patterns.
• Mitch McConnell apparently freezes on live TV in a scary incident, prompting questions of his health and fitness for office.
• Twitter rebrands to “X” begging the question: why?

[INTERNATIONAL]

• Sinead O’Connor passes away at 56. Thank you for speaking up against Papal abuse when no one else would.
• U.S. soldier who was about to be disciplined sprinted across the North Korean border, defecting to the brutal regime.
• Over 1,000 Russians and Belarussians are stripped of their permanent resident status in Lithuania after being deemed “threats to national security”.
• Heading to Europe next year? Make sure to apply for a Visa, something previously unrequired.
• Group of West African nations say they will intervene in Niger’s ongoing coup if it is not soon resolved diplomatically.

Small Talk

“Tragically, young people are getting their hands on guns all too easily and putting them to terrible use against others — and with serious consequences for their own lives.” – DA Michael Doughtery on recent youth gun violence

“The fire was just traveling too fast, and too hot and next thing you know Lahaina town is gone, literally gone.” – Mark Stefle, Maui Fire survivor

“While I appreciate the need for transparency, it is important to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation regarding the law enforcement officers’ use of force.” – Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons on Sheriff’s records request denial regarding the shooting of Charlie Foster

“Now, more than nine months have passed, no evidence has been revealed and it has become even clearer that the impact of the dean’s actions has been irreparable and far-reaching.” – Letter signed by more than 300 academics protesting firing of CU Boulder professor Patty Limerick from the Center of the American West

By the Numbers

22% – Increase in abortions performed by Colorado clinics following harsh restrictions like those in Texas
$1 Billion – Barbie Movie revenue, highest ever for a female director
13% – Number of Colorado families who will receive free full time preschool, not the promised 50%
110° / 31 Days – Phoenix experiences an entire month of daily temperatures over 100°
60% – Increase in water bills after a sudden water rate hike for Lafayette residents
17 – People shot and killed by Colorado law enforcement in 2023 so far

The post Month in Review | August 2023 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Examining Puebloan peoples’ responses to environmental change and growing agriculture can inform modern conservation efforts, but it still may not be enough.

Watering the desert

The Colorado River has brought life to an arid land for millennia. It’s not the largest river in the United States but its continuous and persistent flow has irrigated the desert, carved canyons, and provided life to countless millions of humans across the ages.

Native Americans used its life-giving properties to survive for thousands of years, construct vast cities, and grow crops in the Southwest desert long before the arrival of any Europeans. Numerous Native American nations have called the river home and used the geographical features the river has created as markers on the land, showing them sacred spaces, guiding migrations, and observing seasonal transitions. For many of them, the land and their people are inseparable. The story of the Colorado and its surrounding tributaries, vast landscapes, and otherworldly canyons is directly tied to their history, memories, and identity.

We must be careful not to fall into the racist trope of the pristine wilderness and “noble savage” that has plagued European thought well before Jean-Jacques Rousseau ever coined the term. Native Americans used resources to their advantage, building empires and vast networks spanning the continent. The Pueblo were one of the most successful groups to do so.

For countless generations the Colorado River has been used as a mercurial yet constant source of water for the mobile groups of hunter-gatherers that lived here. There is some truth to the fact that the original inhabitants of this continent do have a deeper connection to the land and the water that runs through it. Unfortunately, when white settlement reached this region they did not respect it as it deserved. Failing to understand the long history of ebbs and flows, times of abundance and times of scarcity, and the sustainable ways to survive off water in the desert has led to some of the modern issues surrounding the use of the Colorado’s water today.

The story of the overuse of the Colorado River has its origins in farming. Around 9,000 years ago a small wild plant called teosinte, commonly found in Mexico and Central America, was ingeniously domesticated. Mexico is one of the few places on Earth that archaeologists and botanists have determined agriculture independently arose. Mesoamericans relied on this plant to supplement the gathered crops and hunted animals for food. Over time and with direct human involvement, teosinte transformed into maize, or corn.

Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona, USA. The Colorado river behind the dam, surrounding by red rocks, desert, and mountain. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

The power of agriculture did not reveal itself immediately. Most hunter-gatherers did not make an immediate or dramatic transition to farming. From China to Mesopotamia to Mesoamerica, people likely used crops to supplement other wild food sources, becoming increasingly reliant on growing their own food as opposed to gathering it. This transition reduced the mobility of early farming groups. They could no longer pack up and leave land easily after investing time, energy, and hope into farming.

Settled life led to an increased population. Hunter gatherers have lower fertility rates than agriculturalists, possibly because multiple young children can be cared for at once in a farming community whereas carrying multiple small children across vast terrain is much more difficult.

Crop surpluses from farmed plants necessitated storage, ownership, and distribution of food to ensure the community’s survival through the seasons. It eventually meant that not every member of society had to hunt or gather. This allowed the formation of power hierarchies and classes not seen in mobile societies, which are inherently more egalitarian. We see the rise of monumental architecture, permanent cities, and population increases in regions where farming developed.

Maize in the Four Corners

Maize, or corn, agriculture spread slowly from southern Mexico up through the Southwest into the Four Corners region of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. The Pueblo people living in the northeast corner of this area, including southern Colorado, became expert desert farmers. “Histories of Maize” by John Staller, Robert Tykot, and Bruce Benz compiles evidence of this transition via pottery, architecture, and oral traditions. Puebloans constructed “great houses”, likely to store excess food and seeds in case of crop failures. The unknowable nature of rainfall may have propagated the rise of new classes of priests and belief systems. By 900 A.D. the Pueblo peoples had built incredible cities, established vast trade routes, and brought agriculture to the desert.

Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

“Pueblo” means home in Spanish. Today many people have an idea of what a pueblo looks like, but in fact the wattle and daub adobe buildings that the word conjures up would not appear until much later on. The first structures to be identified were called pit houses — half underground, half above ground. These homes used the natural cooling properties of being partly underground to create comfortable living spaces. “Kivas,” large circular ceremonial buildings, soon appeared in the archaeological record. The size of settlements gradually increased over time, with “great kivas” reaching up to 65 feet in diameter.

One of the first human developments to place a strain on the natural resources in this region was Chaco Canyon. Chaco Canyon, in what is now New Mexico, features twelve massive complexes, the largest of which was over five stories tall with hundreds of rooms. An archaeologist once quipped that Pueblo Bonito, the largest building in Chaco Canyon, was only surpassed in size once New York City constructed its massive tenement housing in the late 1800s.

Evidence of intricate pipe networks, massive storage units, and countless cobs of corn points towards an agricultural and architectural explosion. We do not know how many people lived here full time. It was likely a ceremonial center full of symbolism. Road networks emanated from the canyon, spanning hundreds of miles across the terrain. Some roads paralleled each other and some ended not long after they beain. These roads may be symbolic entryways of different groups of Pueblo peoples into what is known as the Chaco system. As corn production grew, so did the influence, size, and power of this central storage city. Entire mountains may have been deforested to construct the great buildings in Chaco Canyon.

In the epic book “One Vast Winter Count,” Colin G. Calloway states, “Between about 900 and 1150 the people of Chaco built a dozen towns, or ‘great houses,’ and scores of small settlements. They used at least two hundred thousand timbers in these construction projects.” Calloway adds, “Tree-ring-dating techniques applied to the beams allow archaeologists to establish detailed chronologies of construction.”

More and more innovative and complex ways to sustain this settlement are seen in the archaeological record. Controlling water became important. Calloway informs us that “Chacoans also built dams, ditches, canals, and reservoirs to collect water and transport it to their fields.” Strategies we use on the Colorado River today were pioneered over a thousand years ago. However, it did not last forever.

Colorado River, Lake Powell and Trachyte Canyon looking down aerial view from above – Bird’s eye view Colorado River, Utah, USA. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

Geography or history?

By the time European settlers arrived, Chaco had been abandoned for centuries. The numerous trees used to construct the canyon also tell a grave tale. Using tree rings as biological evidence, scholars are able to estimate when these buildings were constructed but also reveal that persistent drought struck this region in the mid 1100s. Calloway explains, “Prayers for rain went unanswered, and drought gripped the region for several years. Tree rings show that drought struck the San Juan Basin in 1130 and persisted until about 1180.” Maize-based agriculture continued to flourish in areas further south like Mexico, but Calloway adds, “Farmers who had extended their communities and fields to areas where soil and growing conditions were marginal for corn cultivation were hard hit.”

What our modern minds conceive of as catastrophe may not have been perceived as such by the Puebloans who built Chaco Canyon. We actually see populations rise after Chaco fell. It seems the Pueblo peoples adapted to the overuse of resources in one area by fanning out, building numerous smaller settlements and not over-straining the canyon that had once been the center of their world. Instead, the inhabitants likely realized that incorporating elements of hunting and gathering, living in less dense settlements, and allowing the land to recover from deforestation and overuse of water was the solution to environmental degradation.

“There is little evidence of people fleeing their homes in blind panic and clear evidence of planned movements. People made choices based on the alternatives available; they knew where they were going and why,” Calloway writes.

“There is little evidence of people fleeing their homes in blind panic and clear evidence of planned movements. People made choices based on the alternatives available; they knew where they were going and why.”

Drought, crop failures, and other environmental factors have played an incredibly important role in shaping human history, yet we would rarely say something like the Roman Empire fell solely because of drought. Historians also point to forced movements of populations and political instability as reasons empires fall. This narrative helps reinforce human agency but reduces the role of geography and climate.

Farming is shown to have spread at a much faster rate in the Old World compared to the Americas likely because of the orientation of the landmasses. It is easier for crops and animals to be transported laterally, across a wide continent, because the climate does not vary as much along latitude as it does longitude. The shift in climate from the heart of Mexico to the mountains in Colorado is much greater than the shift from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the western side. Similar climate and geography facilitate the spread of farming and animals, but it does not determine the course of history.

Taking things too far the other way, stating that geography is the reason why humans developed the way they did, is also a known fallacy experts call “geographical determinism.” The popular book “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies” by Jared Diamond has been accused of this. Somewhere between the constraints of geography and human agency lies our history.

Adapting to the reality of prolonged drought, the Pueblo peoples created new survival strategies. Although evidence of warfare and destruction does not exist in Chaco, across the Four Corners we start to see a dramatic shift in architecture. Pit houses and great houses gave way to cliff dwellings located at staggering heights on mountain faces. Defensive settlements, like Mesa Verde, developed as the main architectural features. Stone watchtowers and rock art demonstrate an increase in violence. New peoples, also affected by widespread environmental change, appeared in the region.

Although drought occurs regularly in the Colorado River’s past, today’s challenges are vastly more complicated in that humans are causing global climate change. The Puebloans reacted to overuse of water in a drought by changing their ways. Today’s challenge is deeper than a local, regional, or even continent-wide drought.

“A monument to man’s arrogance”

The first white settlers to lay eyes on Chaco Canyon were themselves less than one hundred years away from their own water crisis. Abandoned cities in the desert could have served as a warning sign that water availability and precious resources can and will change course.

American settlers and farmers also recognized the importance of the Colorado River to their development plans. By the 1880s this new wave of settlement was becoming more and more reliant on the river’s water to sustain their farms. Increased water use led to disputes over who has rights to access the river’s flow. In 1922 negotiations began among the several states that depend on the river. In a shortsighted and cruel twist of fate, the water allocations agreed to during the Colorado River Compact were unsustainable from the start.

“It’s now known that the years on which the original estimates were based on, in the early twentieth century, were the wettest since the 1400s,” writes David Owen in his book about the Colorado River, “Where the Water Goes.”

“It’s now known that the years on which the original estimates were based on, in the early twentieth century, were the wettest since the 1400s.”

Regulators, land-owners, and politicians were basing their decisions off of incredibly recent history, with little to no understanding of lessons from the deep past. The fact that the Colorado River had not been that full in over 600 years — and that the river has a history of fluctuating quite a bit — never played a role in that early decision-making process.

The term “paper water” is used to refer to water allocations that exceed the actual flow of the Colorado River. Today more water is legally granted for use than actually exists. Arid megapolises like Las Vegas and Los Angeles can only thrive because of the Colorado River’s series of dams, canals, and reservoirs.

“It supplies water to more than 36 million people, including residents not just of Boulder, Denver, and Colorado Springs, but also of Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego, and Los Angeles … it irrigates close to six million acres of farmland,” Owen states, yet the water use is unsustainable, and our modern society is highly unlikely to be able to adapt to changes the way the Pueblo peoples did. We also face a globe that has been altered, almost irreparably, by industrialization and population growth on a scale nearly unimaginable just a hundred years ago.

Recent news of shrinking reservoirs outside of Las Vegas exposing old mob hits and sunken boats serve as a dire warning that water is running out. Despite recent “atmospheric rivers” hitting California, a series of storms will not solve what is inherently an unsustainable allocation of water resources. It remains to be seen if mega-cities and suburban sprawl can weather the changes that our dramatic climate will throw at them in the not too distant future.

Record low water level of shrinking Lake Mead. The lake is key reservoir along Colorado River. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The past is the future

The Pueblo peoples are still here. Often Native Americans are talked about only in the past tense, as a relic of older times. This could not be further from the truth. Lessons from those who still live on the land of their ancestors cannot be ignored.

Efforts to return the management of land back to Native American groups have grown in popularity in recent years. These programs are an attempt to return stewardship of land, animals, and precious resources like water to people with a long history of adapting to them. It won’t be enough to solve the Colorado River water crisis on its own, however. Overpopulation and global climate change have driven water usage in the West to epidemic proportions that ancestral Pueblo would have never imagined.

The history of the Pueblo farming the Southwest desert is ultimately one of success, adaptation, and realizing the carrying capacity of nature when living in harsh, arid environments. To look towards our future we must consider the deep past. Architecture that takes advantage of natural heating and cooling properties can reduce energy consumption. Basing new development in the West on actual flowing water, not paper water, will have dramatic effects but may ultimately be necessary. Today we also have to contend with forces like political corruption via oil and gas companies, unrestricted pollution by the military which has a massive presence in this part of the nation, and the sheer scale of damage already wrought by globalization and industrialization. There are lessons to learn from the Puebloans of the past and the Puebloans of today, but we as a society must be willing to make herculean efforts and rethink what success means in order to cope with a changing landscape.

The history of the Pueblo farming the Southwest desert is ultimately one of success, adaptation, and realizing the carrying capacity of nature when living in harsh, arid environments.

Where has all the water gone?

1. Drought has always played a role in who can live in the West, we have entered uncharted new heights with population growth and urban development 
2. The Colorado River was at its highest point in centuries when an agreement to divide up the waters was signed in the 1920s
3. The series of dams, reservoirs, and canals built in the 20th Century allowed more development West of the Rockies
4. Major cities in arid regions, like Los Angeles and Las Vegas, are users of the Colorado River’s waters
5. There is now more water allocated to use than actually exists in the River itself 
6. The River no longer flows into the ocean, it depletes itself somewhere near the Mexico border

When Systems Fail

1. The Pueblo adapted to drought by dispersing into smaller settlements and shifting reliance away from agriculture
2. The entire modern West runs on Colorado River water, from drinking, to irrigation, to use as an energy source
3. If the River dips low enough, intake in crucial dams will drop below functioning level and the dams won’t generate power
4. Massive cutbacks on water usage will be needed, some restrictions are already in place

The post Drought, Famine, Overpopulation, and a Lack of Water: What the Puebloans and the Colorado River Can Teach Us appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

By Eric Galatas, Public News Service (AP Storyshare)

As Colorado River Basin states grapple with ways to keep a river more than 40 million people, agriculture and industry depend on flowing, Wall Street is tapping water scarcity to deliver steep profits.

Gary Wockner, director of the group Save the Colorado, said hedge funds and other investors have acquired key parcels of land with water rights. In the early 2000s, Wockner pointed out, you could buy Colorado River water for about $8,000 dollars per acre foot. Last year, an acre foot was selling for $80,000 dollars.

“Over a 20-year period, it went up 1,000% in price,” Wockner noted. “That’s 50% per year, and that’s a pretty good profit, no matter what you’re investing in. And this is going on throughout the southwest United States.”

A recent CBS News report revealed New York-based hedge fund Water Asset Management, whose president once called U.S. water “a trillion-dollar market opportunity,” has invested $20 million in western lands over the last five years. The company, for its part, said its investments work to ensure supplies of quality water.

Wockner cautioned efforts to parlay water rights to command higher prices from southwestern cities whose populations continue to swell will likely continue, unless federal or state governments intervene. He emphasized the incentive to remove water, combined with a 23-year-old drought and climate change, has put the long-term health of the river at great risk.

“There’s been less and less water in the river, so we’re seeing dramatic negative impacts to the ecological health of the river itself,” Wockner stressed. “Fish species are being impacted. Riparian habitat, wildlife habitat, wetlands, et cetera, they’re all being impacted.”

Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — recently submitted a proposal for ways to keep reservoirs from bottoming out. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is expected to release new rules this summer for dealing with shortages.

Wockner believes the role of government should not only be to ensure specific batches of water are delivered through the Colorado River to customers.

“But also to protect the public health and the environment,” Wockner asserted. “The government’s role isn’t to find a way for investors and wildly rich people to make more and more money off of Colorado River water.”

References: Water rights CBS News 01/31/2023 | Proposal Ariz./Colo./Nev./N.M./Utah/Wyo. 01/31/2023

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Navajo Nation Police Department escort an honor possession in Shiprock, New Mexico, July, 19, 2021. (Crystal Ashike/KSUT Tribal Radio)

By Crystal Ashike, KSUT Tribal Radio (AP Storyshare)

The Navajo Nation Police Department has received numerous missing persons reports that they have traced to addiction treatment centers in Arizona.

Now they are warning tribal communities about recruiters.

It all started one Monday morning when Navajo Nation Police Sgt. Roland Dash looked at the arrest log which was unusually small after the weekend.

“We only had one, and I asked the sergeant on duty what was going on,” said Dash.

Sgt. Dash started asking around and heard about a white van coming into Tuba City, Arizona.

“And they were asking everyone if they were hungry, if they wanted a place to stay, and that they were coming out of a rehab center out of Arizona,” he said.

The recruiters have been reported in various areas like the outdoor markets or picking up people walking on the side of the road, according to a statement published on Facebook by the Navajo Nation Police Department on November 17.

Soon families started to report their loved ones missing.

“We started getting calls, missing persons,” said Dash.

Sgt. Dash began looking into different sober homes, or group homes, after a family member of a missing person told him their brother went to a recovery treatment center in Phoenix, Arizona.

Sgt. Dash spoke with the individual over the phone.

He explained he willingly went with the recruiters, and reconnected with his sister.

But the Police Department Facebook post from November 17 said some people had experienced difficulty returning to the Navajo Nation.

Sgt. Dash says the problem is ongoing.

“Right now it’s a constant thing of these guys showing up here and taking these individuals down,” he said.

In a separate Facebook post from October 26, Carol Willeto, a community member, warned people about a couple from Blue Sapphire Group Home showing up at Window Rock, Arizona, outdoor market and recruiting people.

Tribal Radio contacted the Blue Sapphire Group Home about their business and why they were in Window Rock.

A woman who identified herself as Justine apologized and said she was not involved because she had no Navajo clients, and then hung up.

Sgt. Dash is now working with other law enforcement agencies to investigate any possible criminal activity and to ensure the safety of Navajo communities.

“I made contact with the FBI on this whole thing,” he said.

The Navajo Nation Police is advising community members not to get into vehicles with individuals they do not know, even for a short ride.

Sgt. Dash is asking anyone with any information about these incidents to contact him at 928-637-3028, the FBI at 1-800-225-5324, or online at tips.fbi.gov.

RADIO VERSION:

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Colorado River. Photo credit: Mike Newbry via Unsplash

By Char Miller
The Limon Leader / SMH Publications (via AP Storyshare)

The Colorado River is revealing its secrets. For decades a World War II landing craft lay submerged 200 feet beneath Lake Mead’s surface — but now it’s beached, rusting in the sun. It’s become an unsettling marker of just how vulnerable the river is and how parched the Intermountain West has become.

The immediate impact of what’s being called the most severe mega-drought in 1,200 years, has been sharp cuts in the allocation of water to downstream users, with southern Nevada’s take slashed by seven billion gallons. Then there’s the fear that if Lake Mead’s water levels continue to fall, it may not be able to generate the power it now supplies to 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California.

Yet the diminished reservoirs tell another tale about the Colorado River, one of the world’s great plumbing systems, which enables downstream agriculture and sends potable water to an estimated 40 million residents. The story is that just where the river ends, at the Gulf of California, it has been slowly coming alive.

For decades, the United States sucked so much water from the Colorado that only a trickle, if that much, ever reached its desiccated, sprawling delta in Mexico. Once covering 9,650 square miles, the delta has shrunk to less than one percent of its original expanse. Human diversions wrung it dry.

It wasn’t always that way. In 1922, conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote about paddling a canoe through the delta’s green lagoons and marveling as “cormorants drove their black prows in quest of skittering mullets” and “mallards, widgeons, and teal sprang skyward in alarm.” When a troop of egrets settled on a far green willow, Leopold said they looked like a “premature snowstorm.”

Leopold’s lyrical vision had the misfortune a century ago of coinciding with the signing of the Colorado Compact, which sealed the delta’s fate. Approved by Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California, the compact quantified the Colorado’s annual flow and set up the seven states to contend with one another to protect, if not expand, their individual shares. The compact turned the delta into a dust bowl.

For decades, environmental and tribal activists and nonprofit organizations protested the devastation that massive diversions to fill the Powell and Mead reservoirs produced in the delta’s once-flourishing human and biological communities. They pushed hard for remedies from both the U.S. and Mexican governments and the river-hugging state legislatures.

It wasn’t until 1993, when Bruce Babbitt became Secretary of the Interior under President Bill Clinton, that the political dynamic changed. Babbitt argued that the states must demonstrate how they intended to operate within their apportioned amount. If they failed to do so, he said, he would not approve surplus water, a threat particularly aimed at California, which routinely commandeered any surplus flow the other states didn’t use.

River activists immediately demanded that some of the water savings should head down to the delta. They got nowhere until 2014, when Mexico and the United States acted on their earlier commitment to sluice more water into the delta’s riparian habitats.

Since then, the two countries have periodically released water to mimic historic seasonal flooding. These tiny pulses of liquid energy, which constitute less than one percent of Los Angeles’ total annual water consumption, have had an outsized impact.

With restoration ecologists to guide the process, some wetlands have revived, small woodlands have flourished and native plants and animals have taken hold. Remote-sensing cameras recently spotted beavers gnawing on cottonwoods.

We don’t know how current drought-management solutions might cripple these recent interventions that brought the tail end of the river to life. Meanwhile, let’s recall Leopold visiting the delta where he watched burbling sandhill cranes circling overhead. The sight brought him joy as it made him feel he was joined with them in the “remote vastness of space and time.” That’s a compelling affirmation that the Colorado River must be kept alive to its very end.

Char Miller is a contributor to Writers on the Range.org, writersontherange.org, a nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is an environmental historian at Pomona College; his upcoming book is Natural Consequences: Intimate Essays for a Planet in Peril.

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