Colorado Rivers

Parks for whitewater kayaking hold a special legal status, but some river experts say it's time for Colorado's water law to evolve.

The case came about because of an angler who was fishing on a part of the Arkansas River that ran through private property. The court dismissed the angler's claim, but the battle to define whether the state owns a riverbed could pit landowners against recreation enthusiasts in the future.

The Gunnison Basin is experiencing drought much like the rest of the West. In this part of sagebrush country, work is underway to restore critical wetland habitat for the federally threatened Gunnison sage grouse and other species.

Starting in August, KUNC’s Luke Runyon is stepping away from coverage of the Colorado River basin to participate in the University of Colorado’s Ted Scripps fellowship in environmental journalism.

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

The water levels behind the Colorado River’s biggest dams are fast-approaching or already at record lows. The historic 21-year megadrought that is squeezing some Western states’ water supplies will also likely start showing up in energy bills, because those dams can’t produce as much electricity.

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

Increasingly bleak forecasts for the Colorado River have for the first time put into action elements of the 2019 upper basin drought contingency plan.

Record-breaking wildfires in 2020 turned huge swaths of Western forests into barren burn scars. Those forests store winter snowpack that millions of people rely on for drinking and irrigation water. But with such large and wide-reaching fires, the science on the short-term and long-term effects to the region’s water supplies isn’t well understood.

All signs are pointing to a dry start to 2021 across much of the Colorado River watershed, which provides water to about 40 million people in the Western U.S.