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WaterSMART: The smartest water program you’ve never heard about
Drought. Wildfire. Flooding. Excessive Heat. Low snowpack. Look at any state in the West and you’re sure to find local examples of these extreme weather events and natural disasters. But while the challenges and headlines generated by these events are well known, the tools available to mitigate and combat their increasingly unpredictable impacts have received far less attention. …
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Hope in dry times
How we’re making key Western streams more hospitable for trout and people in the hotter, drier present As the West grapples with extreme and unprecedented drought, Trout Unlimited’s restoration pros and partners are pushing forward with on-the-ground work to make waters and fisheries more resilient to changing conditions. In Idaho, we are decommissioning a hydropower…
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Infrastructure package could help the drought-stricken Colorado River Basin
A massive package of legislation, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is currently working its way through Congress, having been passed by the Senate earlier this week. If enacted, this bill would make essential investments of remarkable size and scope to help the nation address the impacts of climate change, including some of the worst impacts of the…
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Climate resilience in a hotter, drier West
The West is in the grips of another hot, dry summer, with more than 60 large wildfires currently burning across the region. At the same time, the effects of last year’s fires are apparent in many states; Interstate 70, a major artery for east-west transportation, has been shut down through Colorado’s Glenwood Canyon multiple times in the past two months due to mudslides resulting from last year’s Grizzly Creek fire. The epicenter of the ongoing drought is the Colorado River…
Author
Sara Porterfield
Dr. Sara Porterfield is the Colorado River program director & western water policy advisor at Trout Unlimited.