Given the latest NOAA CBRFC inflow forecast for Lake Powell, I dusted off this plot from my Twitter days and updated it. The Feb 1st outlook for Colorado River flows hasn't been this poor in >35 years. Even if wetter weather ahead, bottom-10 outcome likely. h/t @glenwoodrek.bsky.social

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

Arizona takes action on groundwater overuse And ‘nonfunctional turf’ is taken to court A fascinating read by @danielrothberg.bsky.social — and thanks for flagging the story, Daniel! open.substack.com/pub/invisibl...

"Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said Monday that her administration is acting to 'crack down on the out-of-state special interests that are pumping our state dry while Arizona families and farmers suffer.'" From @ianjames.bsky.social www.latimes.com/environment/...

The U.S. government released its draft environmental review of options for new Colorado River rules to replace current operating guidelines that expire this year. Sounds dry but very important for a watershed that supports 40 million people in the Southwest. coloradosun.com/2026/01/09/c...

National assessment of river protection in the U.S. Article: doi.org/10.1038/s418... Policy Brief: doi.org/10.1038/s418... Rivers Explorer: map.myriver.americanrivers.org Collaboration b/t American Rivers, Conservation Science Partners, Univ WA @americanrivers.bsky.social Thread 👇 | DM for PDF

"...the ghost of Tulare Lake has much more to teach us than its existence alone. Tulare Lake wasn’t drained because it failed. It was drained because it worked, precisely as nature intended." @andrewrypel.bsky.social writes on America's Ghost Lake tnature.substack.com/p/americas-g...

"The drop (in Lake Powell) is compressing the margin between routine operations and hard infrastructure limits at Glen Canyon Dam as negotiations over post-2026 Colorado River operating rules remain unresolved." www.enr.com/articles/622...

This is so sad on so many levels.

"One of the West’s most valuable resources has no consistent valuation – and sometimes costs nothing at all." | California cities pay a lot for water; some agricultural districts get it for free calmatters.org/environment/...

New report from the Colorado River Research Group: Dancing with Deadpool. It begins: "Conditions on the Colorado River are, to put it bluntly, dire." www.colorado.edu/center/gwc/C...

"Nevada is completely over-allocated on its groundwater resources. It’s the driest state in the union. Our tribe’s number one goal is protecting our resources." | The AI boom is heralding a new gold rush in the American west www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

A new report looks at approaches for updating local ordinances in California to consider the connection between groundwater use and streamflow within the context of SGMA and a 2018 ruling that applied public trust considerations to well permits. www.groundwaterresourcehub.org/content/dam/...

I joined @danielrothberg.bsky.social for the first video edition of his newsletter, Invisible Waters—imo the best resource for staying up to date about what’s going on with water in the West—to talk about my forthcoming book, Salt Lakes: substack.com/@cetracey/no...

‘The precedent is Flint’: How Oregon’s data center boom is supercharging a water crisis thefern.org/2025/11/the-...

Have you been wanting to learn more about Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom's ideas for collaborative governance? Now is your chance to get that copy of The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom for half price! islandpress.org/books/uncomm...

“Litigation could take years, if not decades, to resolve. The effects of aridification are unfolding at a faster rate.” @danielrothberg.bsky.social invisiblewaters.substack.com/p/what-happe...

“Previous negotiations did not address core issues. They either delayed them or worked around them, making do based on the circumstances of the time.” Good piece from Caitlin Ochs on the legal questions behind the Colorado River talks: www.hcn.org/articles/why...

New York Times investigation finds home insurance companies have exploited loopholes in California wildfire regulations to avoid high-risk areas while still charging higher rates: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/u...

my latest: CRIT grants personhood status to #coloradoriver - 3rd in North America by Indigenous peoples. www.azcentral.com/story/news/l...

Colorado River talks hit crunch time as deadline from Trump administration looms calmatters.org/environment/...

Do groundwater rights retirement programs work? There is certainly demand for them in Nevada. For KNPR and the Daily Yonder, I talked to irrigators about their experiences with a pilot program in areas where aquifers are being depleted faster than they are replenished. knpr.org/desert-compa...

Exactly a year ago, Ellen Wohl, @parriblue.bsky.social and I spent two days in Providence thinking about #rivers and how we conceptualize them & live with them. Here’s the result of history and fluvial geomorphology teaming up. #envhist doi.org/10.1371/jour...

“Regardless of what sort of offsetting or replenishment you do, it doesn’t necessarily nullify the water footprints of your own operations." Amazon strategised about keeping its datacentres’ full water use secret, leaked document shows www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Wrote a bit about the mining and (ground)water nexus in the Western U.S., with the rush for critical minerals and gold surpassing $4,000/ounce. invisiblewaters.substack.com/p/where-ther...

Melanie Winter, who dedicated much of her life to reimagining the Los Angeles River as a natural asset, has died. I feel fortunate to have known Melanie and learned about her vision for a living river. She inspired many others, who will carry her vision with them. www.latimes.com/environment/...

Check out (and subscribe!) to @sammyroth.bsky.social's new Substack focused on climate solutions in entertainment and pop culture. "...what I’ve realized — what drove me to start this newsletter — is that the climate crisis is in large part a cultural problem."

Its official! Today, the US Corps Of Engineers is announcing that it signed into effect a Water Control Manual update for Lake Mendocino on the Russian River that implements FIRO* there! 1/7 www.sfchronicle.com/california/a... * Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations

“The Monday filing outlines where 2,050 positions would be eliminated; the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of Land Management, and the main Interior office would be especially hard hit. Regional offices with the National Park Service are also targeted for significant cuts.”

Salmon reach headwaters for first time in a century after California dam removal www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...

“We’ve seen so many impacts from groundwater pumping. There’s a lot of areas that are dewatered, that are dried up.” Indigenous leaders raise concerns about groundwater pumping in Owens Valley and call for negotiations with L.A. @ianjames.bsky.social has more. www.latimes.com/environment/...

You'd think the Colorado River Basin dispute amounts to conflict between the upper and lower basin states based on most coverage, but Tribes and Mexico also have a big role here. We talked with Cora Tso and Sam Sandoval about these issues on Water Talk www.watertalkpodcast.com/episodes/epi...

Important report out from the Initiative on Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribal Communities (UACW): The FY 2026 federal budget includes a 70% reduction in funding for Tribal Access to Clean, Reliable and Accessible Drinking Water. tribalcleanwater.org/wp-content/u...

NOAA has just issued a La Niña Watch for late 2025/early 2026. So far this century, we've had 12 La Niña winters versus just 8 El Niño winters. What does this portend for Southwest US drought? There's some unsettling new science out on that. yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/08/why-...

Photographs from Mono Lake and the Mono Basin, a landscape of deep silence and immense space. (And overdue for implementation of the full protections guaranteed by decades-old legal decisions.) #monolake #monobasin #lake #nature #landscape #california #basinandrange #photography

In today’s @latimes.com: ‘It needs more water’: Calls grow for boosting Mono Lake www.latimes.com/environment/... @myungchun.bsky.social

We do not talk enough about groundwater, the quiet water crisis playing out across the globe. “Groundwater is the most precious natural resource in the dry parts of the world," said ASU's Jay Famiglietti. “And it is probably the least protected.” www.westernwaternotes.com/p/q-and-a-gr...

As housing costs soar, running water has become a luxury in Portland, Phoenix and other wealthy US cities. Latest for @bloomberg.com with Klara Auerbach, gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

What makes heat so hard to cover? Thoughtful reporting from my friends and colleagues, Meg Bernhard and Bridget Bennett, on the invisibility and difficulties of telling stories about extreme heat, a crisis that so often "turns us inward." www.cjr.org/feature-2/wh...

As a public service, people will find the original pdf files of all the U.S. National Climate Assessments, 2001-2023, publicly available at: www.patrickgonzalez.net#us_national_...

“Many people still expect the Colorado River to bounce back,” Shanahan said. “But our findings suggest it may not. Water managers need to start planning for the possibility that this drought isn’t just a rough patch — it could be the new reality.”

This downward spiral of the number of working journalists in communities across the country has been happening for years. At my former shop for example, the newsroom was systematically reduced from nine reporters and three editors to just a single reporter over the course of four years. 1/

"In the United States, which prefers to measure its losses in dollars [rather than lives], the damage from major storms was more than $180 billion last year, nearly 10 times the average annual toll during the 1980s, after accounting for inflation" #climate www.propublica.org/article/texa...

‘Water brings life’: Plans to revive Tulare Lake take shape in the San Joaquin Valley www.latimes.com/environment/...

While majority of Americans see climate change as risk almost nobody talks about it with others. This is a major reason for lack of action. climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications...

Smart piece on the future of publishing in a world after Google Zero. Written about the journalism industry, but it applies to science communication and many forms of publishing. mattdpearce.substack.com/p/ai-could-c...

From @internetarchive.eu: "Internet Archive Europe proudly announces the launch of Our Future Memory, a global campaign dedicated to safeguarding the digital rights of libraries, archives, and museums worldwide." www.internetarchive.eu/protecting-t...

My first #artwork in months - I wanted to try a geological "field" sketch - submarine fan deposits in the Cretaceous Point Loma Formation at Point Loma, San Diego, and overlying Pleistocene deposits. Locally, the PLF consists of repetitive sandstone/mudstone couplets. #watercolor #geology