RBC | Rio Blanco County’s unincorporated and private lands, the entire White River National Forest, and all areas within the BLM White River Field Office boundaries are entering into Stage 1 Fire Restrictions starting Friday, June 19, 2026, at 12:01 a.m. Rio Blanco County’s Stage 1 Fire Restrictions include: PROHIBITIONS:[Read More…]
Tag: Drought
Conservation district annual meeting report, part 2
Last week, reported on the annual meeting of the White River Conservation District, which took pace Jan. 12. Here is some additional information from the meeting. Other topics covered included rangeland, water, wildlife and more. Here are highlights from the meeting handout. Rangeland The Districts have secured $388,000 and have[Read More…]
Reviewing the state of the White River in 2022
MEEKER | A water year ends on Sept. 30, after runoff and after the monsoon, after fields have been harvested and headgates closed when the rivers have dropped to their baseline flow. Now is a good time to review the state of the river, while it takes a rest. The[Read More…]
BLM adds opportunities for public comment on Wolf Creek
U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials have decided to increase the opportunities for members of the public to weigh in on a controversial reservoir project in northwest Colorado with an additional round of public engagement. Members of the BLM’s Northwest Resource Advisory Council expressed support for early public engagement on[Read More…]
What to do when the water keeps dwindling?
It seemed inevitable that the dwindling Colorado River would be divvied up by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. On June 14, BuRec gave the seven states in the Colorado River compact just 60 days to find a way to cut their total water usage by up to 4 million acre-feet.[Read More…]
Colorado River Compact discussed at CLUB-20
One hundred-years after the historic Colorado River Compact allocated 15 million acre feet of water between seven states in the arid west, the situation has grown dire. On June 15, US Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton issued a call to action for all seven states in the 1922 Compact[Read More…]
Letter: Time to switch
Dear Editor: Perhaps you remember when there was enough water to launch a boat from the ramps on Lake Powell. Or when CPW didn’t have to close fishing streams because the water temperature was too high. Or when forest fires didn’t explode, launching embers that started spot fires two miles[Read More…]
STATE OF THE SNOWPACK …
Even by Colorado standards, late December storms dumped a LOT of snow, depositing 19 inches of snow water equivalent (SWE) and bringing statewide values for precipitation to 120% and snowpack to 126% of median, including the combined Yampa-White-Little Snake basin at 117% (top left). Despite large amounts of snow, reservoir[Read More…]
Wolf Creek project secures River District grant
RBC I The Colorado River Water Conservation District board of directors approved a request to partially fund the permitting costs for a dam and reservoir project in northwest Colorado. The Rio Blanco Water Conservancy District asked the River District for $3 million over three years for federal and state permit[Read More…]
Public meeting to discuss Rio Blanco Lake fish populations
MEEKER | Colorado Parks and Wildlife is holding a public meeting to discuss the management of the fisheries population in Rio Blanco Lake west of Meeker. The meeting will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 26 at 6 p.m. at Mountain Valley Bank in Meeker. With current drought conditions and a[Read More…]
Dept. of Ag accepting drought funding applications
RBC I Over the past several years, many farmers and ranchers have been affected by multi-year effects of a changing climate, including the 2018 drought and the 2019 freeze. After several years of unusual weather patterns, a warm spring, dry summer, and critically hot autumn further contributed to the 2020[Read More…]
The Colorado River is sending us a message
RBC I It feels like an apocalypse in the Southwest — wildfires, floods, drought, heat, smoke. This was not the norm when I moved to Colorado 35 years ago. Climate scientists may have predicted the arrival of these extreme events, but many admit their predictions have come true faster than[Read More…]
