#great-salt-lake-crisis

#great-salt-lake-crisis

"Nobody is asking for this. None of the farm groups want this. No one in conservation wants this. Nobody." Robert Bonnie, former Forest Service undersecretary, highlights widespread opposition to the reorganization.

The fact that the Burns Paiute and Bannock Shoshone tribes are still battling our government and politicians for protection of the sagebrush steppe habitat and our native sage grouse isn't spiritually uplifting.

More than a third of the nation's local newspapers have folded in the last 20 years, with the Western U.S. being especially hard-hit, including significant losses in Utah and New Mexico.

Corpus Christi's two main reservoirs are just 8.4 percent full, while the backup reservoir is 55 percent full. Without drastic cuts, the water supply could run dry by early next year.

Thursday into Friday will see the best agreement in the forecast, with a fast cold front sweeping across northern Utah, leading to a significant drop in snow levels and strong winds. Snow will start dense, with snow-to-liquid ratios improving overnight.

Data from the US Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service shows that out of approximately 70 river basins across the Western US, only five are at or above the 1991-2020 median snow water equivalent for this time of year.

In late January, Toronto was hit with what many experts said was the heaviest single day of snowfall in the city's history. In some spots, nearly 23in fell, driven in part by a collision of weather systems. The city had already removed 264,000 tonnes of snow from 1,100 km (680 miles) of roads, sidewalks and bike lanes by mid-February.

The Colorado River is an interconnected system, sustained by Rocky Mountain snowpack, rainfall and groundwater. It is fragile, and under increasing stress. Two and a half decades into this century, the river that built the modern West has 20% less water flowing through it than it did on average in the last century. As heat and drought intensify, so do the stakes: Failure to recognize the severity of changing conditions, managing the river in parts without considering needs of the whole and inadequate planning for long-term shortages put the future of all the basin at risk.

Most resorts should see firm starts and softer afternoons through Monday, then a mostly moisture-starved cold front brings a brief cooldown, gusty west winds, and only spotty light snow before warmth rebuilds late week. Confidence is highest from Sunday morning, March 8, through Friday night, March 13, with next weekend still leaning warm and mostly dry but carrying a low-end chance of light snow in the far north.

More than 100,000 residents in the Texas border city of El Paso were left with little to no water after a main break over the weekend, and it was expected to take till midweek for operations to return to normal, officials said. The break in the 36-inch water main line happened late Saturday night in El Paso, which has a population of about 700,000, officials said.

Lake Tahoe has seen a dramatic influx of water in recent weeks, with approximately 16 billion gallons added to the lake since February 15, according to the U.S. Geological Survey-the equivalent of roughly 90,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. This large bump has nudged the water gage height upward from about 7.5 feet to 8 feet on the lake's measuring station, reflecting substantial gains in the basin's water supply as winter storms continue to unload precipitation across the region.

Over time, the water evaporated to form the smaller, brinier Owens Lake. Indigenous Paiute people call the Owens Valley Payahuunadü, 'the land of the flowing water'. Today, Owens Lake is a 'Dusty Vestige of the Old West', as NASA described a photograph of the lake taken from space.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground.

Western water law is based on the prior appropriation doctrine, which gives the first entity to make "beneficial use" of water the right to keep on using that amount, even if that means that upstream "junior" users' spigots will get shut off. By the early 1900s, a rapidly growing California was enthusiastically diverting the Colorado River, with huge irrigation districts gobbling up the senior water rights.

Roughly half of the state's monitoring sites are now in what forecasters describe as "uncharted territory," meaning current snow water equivalent levels are lower than anything previously observed at those locations. To put the situation in historical context, meteorologists have pointed to long-running individual sites such as the Alta Guard House, where snow records date back to 1944. By February 1 of this season, Alta had recorded 126 inches of snow.

The issue surfaced publicly this week after the Wasatch Backcountry Alliance (WBA) posted that it is actively communicating with the Town of Alta to better understand ongoing access challenges. The organization asked users to document instances where parking reservations show as unavailable while lots appear partially or fully empty, requesting screenshots and timestamped photos to support advocacy efforts. WBA emphasized that this kind of documentation could help clarify whether the problem stems from policy, enforcement, or technology.

Digital creator Richard Oldham bought 400 acres in the mountains of Utah and built an off-grid cabin to enjoy with family and friends. As an avid snowboarder, Oldham enjoys touring his property and discovering new features on his land. Last winter he was out for tour when he came upon rock outcropping that would have been perfect for jumps but it was overgrown with trees and inaccessible in its current state.

The question of how to protect fish and the ecological health of rivers that feed California's largest estuary is generating heated debate in a series of hearings in Sacramento, as state officials try to gain support for a plan that has been years in the making. "I am passionate that this is the pathway to recover fish," said state Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. "This is the paradigm we need: collaborative, adaptive management versus conflict and litigation."

Park City, Utah, one of the West's most beloved ski destinations, is having an unusually difficult season. For a state that prides itself on its snow, 2026 has started on an unexpectedly thin note. By this point in winter, rooftops are typically glazed in white and aspen groves disappear beneath Utah's signature "champagne powder." This year, that familiar scene is missing.

In the small town of Chipaya, everything is dry. Only a few people walk along the sandy streets, and many houses look abandoned some secured with a padlock. The wind is so strong that it forces you to close your eyes. Chipaya lies on Bolivia's Altiplano, 35 miles from the Chilean border. The vast plateau, nearly 4,000 metres above sea level, feels almost empty of people and animals, its solitude framed by snow-capped volcanoes. It raises the question: can anybody possibly live here?

After experiencing one of the wettest holiday seasons on record, still soggy California hit a major milestone this week - having zero areas of abnormal dryness for the first time in 25 years. This data, collected by the U.S. Drought Monitor, is a welcome nugget of news for Golden State residents, who in the last 15 years alone have lived through two of the worst droughts on record, the worst wildfire seasons on record and the most destructive wildfires ever.