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Thursday, August 3, 2006
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After the beautiful showers the last two days we feel we need to highlight the current drought situation. Colorado is not out of the woods yet. Things are improving. Fire bans are dropping. Happy Southwest Monsoon to y'all.
North and South Dakota are getting a Dust Bowl reminder, according to U.S. Water News Online. They write, "Fields of wheat, durum and barley in the Dakotas this dry summer will never end up as pasta, bread or beer. What is left of the stifled crops has been salvaged to feed livestock struggling on pastures where hot winds blow clouds of dirt from dried-out ponds. Some ranchers have been forced to sell their entire herds, and others are either moving their cattle to greener pastures or buying more already-costly feed. Hundreds of acres of grasslands have been blackened by fires sparked by lightning or farm equipment...
"More than 60 percent of the United States now has abnormally dry or drought conditions, stretching from Georgia to Arizona and across the north through the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. An area stretching from south central North Dakota to central South Dakota is the most drought-stricken region in the nation, Svoboda said."
Category: Colorado Water
6:29:25 PM 
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Jackson Hole News: "[Dustin Child] represents a recent addition to the environmental movement. Ever since the Forest Service earmarked Child's hunting grounds for oil and gas development, the owner of Trophy Mountain Outfitters has joined a growing coalition of sportsmen working to preserve the wild lands where they work and play. Outfitter Gary Amerine, owner of Greys River Trophies, follows close behind, leading the rest of the group. Child teamed with Amerine in his quest to protect the Wyoming Range from oil and gas leases that could, they say, turn the Wyoming Range into another Jonah Field, one of the densest gas fields in the nation. For these outfitters, protecting this land isn't just a moral duty, it's a matter of survival. Many of the hunters who pay top dollar to hunt big game at Child's and Amerine's hunting camps said they wouldn't return if wells marred the landscape. 'No one in their right mind would pay to take a scenic pack trip through oil and gas wells,' says Amerine who, with his wife, Jenny, hosted the trip. 'The Wyoming Range is on the front burner right now. It's gonna set a precedent for a lot of other areas.'[...]
"About half an hour into the horseback ride, we pass hillsides and fields with sagebrush interspersed with wildflowers like Indian paintbrush and purple lupine. But up on the top of a meadow, the sage and flower landscape switches quickly to a uniform sea of grass. Off in the distance, we see a well that was capped roughly 30 years ago, nothing more than a large metal pipe fitted with a bolted collar. Cathy Purves of the conservation group Trout Unlimited explains that three decades after operators capped the well, the land still hasn't recovered. The exotic grass and weeds are entrenched. A few hundred feet up the hillside, another well, capped in 1971, looks even worse. Instead of grass, dandelions choke out the natural flora and we can easily make out linear patterns where earth moving equipment evened out the ground. 'If me or Dustin did that to our camp, we would lose our permit,' says Amerine."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
6:24:31 AM
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It looks like voters in Grand Junction will get a chance to pass an ordinance dealing with water quality issues in their watershed, according to the Rocky Mountain News. From the article, "A grass- roots political action group seeking to give this city the authority to protect its watershed from gas drilling has turned in more than twice the signatures needed to put their measure on the ballot. The proposed ordinance would give Grand Junction the authority to tightly regulate and monitor oil and gas drilling on Grand Mesa, where the city gets its drinking water. It would add another layer of protection for the city's water supply following the leasing by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management of about 13,000 acres within the watershed for gas drilling."
Category: Colorado Water
6:14:10 AM
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The humpback chub population in the Grand Canyon appears to be stabilizing, according to the USGS. From the article, "Recently collected data for endangered humpback chub (Gila cypha) in Grand Canyon suggest that the population of adult fish (age 4+) may be stabilizing after more than a decade of decline, according to biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey´s (USGS) Southwest Biological Science Center. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of adult fish appears to have stabilized at an estimated 5,000 fish. In 2005, scientists also detected more juvenile fish (age 1 to 4) and young-of-year fish, or fish hatched in 2005, than previous years...
"Catch-rate data also indicate an increased abundance of juvenile humpback chub between 2003 and 2005 near the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers, where spawning is known to occur. Increases in juvenile fish during the same period were also apparent for other native species found near the confluence, including bluehead sucker (Catostomus discobolus), flannelmouth sucker (Catostomus latipinnis), and speckled dace (Rhinichthys osculus). Catch rates for young-of-year humpback chub were higher in 2005 than previous years in middle and lower Marble Canyon. Higher than average catch rates at these locations were unexpected because they are up to 25 river miles above the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers where spawning was thought to be confined. These findings suggest that more favorable conditions for spawning and incubation existed in the Colorado River main channel during 2005."
"The primary factors thought to be contributing to the findings are as follows: Humpback chub may have benefited from the experimental removal of large numbers of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and brown trout (Salmo trutta) from the area near the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers. Rainbow and brown trout are thought to compete with humpback chub for food and prey on young fish. Since 2003, the rainbow trout population in the Colorado River near the Little Colorado River has been reduced by more than 60%. The removal effort will continue through 2006; Native fishes, including humpback chub, are thought to have benefited from drought-induced warming beginning in 2003 and continuing through 2005. Until recently, water temperatures in the main channel of the Colorado River have been too cold for humpback chub to successfully reproduce except near the Little Colorado River. As the level of the Lake Powell has dropped, warmer water found closer to the surface of the reservoir has reached the release structures. In 2005, water temperatures in the mainstem Colorado River near the Little Colorado River exceeded 17_C (60.8_F), the warmest temperatures recorded in this section of the river since the reservoir filled in 1980 and approximately the minimum temperature needed by humpback chub to successfully reproduce; Humpback chub hatched in 1999 may have benefited from substantial in-stream warming as the result of the 2000 low summer steady flow experiment. The experiment held Glen Canyon Dam releases constant at 8,000 cubic feet per second from June through August 2000 and included two habitat maintenance flows (high, steady dam releases). As a result, peak water temperatures in lower sections of Grand Canyon exceeded 20_C (68.5_F) in the summer of 2000, compared with typical peak temperatures of 15-18_C (59-64_F)."
Category: Colorado Water
6:00:38 AM
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© Copyright
2006
John Orr.
Last update:
12/29/06; 12:01:37 PM.
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