Brett Walton

Difficult decisions for the Colorado River are starting to be made. In what will be a defining year for the struggling watershed, the federal agency that manages the basin’s dams took unprecedented actions on Friday to store more water in Lake Powell in order to preserve hydropower generation and protect water-delivery infrastructure at Glen Canyon […]

Reclamation takes extraordinary actions to alter water releases in the Upper Colorado River basin.

Circle of Blue WaterNews Weekly water news delivered directly to your inbox

KEY POINTS Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1963, was not designed to be operated at extremely low water levels in Lake Powell. The decline of Lake Powell is putting hydropower generation and downstream water deliveries at risk. The Bureau of Reclamation, the federal water manager, is studying options for retrofitting Glen Canyon Dam. PAGE, Ariz. […]

The Rundown And lastly, the White House approves a cross-border pipeline from Canada into Montana to carry crude oil and petroleum products. News Briefs Line 5 Oil Pipeline RulingIn a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the Michigan attorney general’s 2019 lawsuit to halt the operation of the Line 5 oil pipeline through […]

The Rundown And lastly, the EPA plans to begin regulatory rollback of certain PFAS in drinking water soon. “We need drinking water rules that are legally defensible. We need drinking water regulations that are not susceptible to legal challenge because the explicit process in the Safe Drinking Water Act wasn’t followed. And so that is […]

The Rundown And lastly, NOAA’s early-season forecast is a moderate harmful algal bloom in Lake Erie. “It pays to consider the low probability, the darker, the more pessimistic scenarios we might face.” – Wayne Pullan, Bureau of Reclamation Upper Colorado regional director, speaking at a meeting of the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Work Group, […]

KEY POINTS A warming climate is increasing the risk to water infrastructure. The U.S. recorded a record number of billion-dollar weather disasters in the last three years. Weather hazards, combined with aging infrastructure and rising costs, are raising the cost of supplying water. When the Eaton Fire blitzed central Los Angeles County in January 2025, […]

EPA aims to end federal regulation of four PFAS in drinking water and give utilities more time to comply with existing rules.

The Rundown And lastly, the EPA administrator visits Great Salt Lake. “Not just for Utah, but also for our nation, Great Salt Lake is vital to our economy, national security, and environment, and it’s entirely necessary to save.” – Lee Zeldin, EPA administrator, in a statement posted to X. Zeldin joined Utah congressional representatives on […]