KUNC

The latest Utah news for Tuesday evening, March 29, 2022

Drought in the West took a national stage as water leaders from seven states and two tribes testified in the house. They pushed for collaboration as supplies dwindle.

Deep in the Cameron Peak burn scar, nestled among charred hills, there’s an oasis of green — an idyllic patch of trickling streams that wind through a lush grass field. Apart from a few scorched branches on the periphery, it’s hard to tell that this particular spot was in the middle of Colorado's largest-ever wildfire just a year ago. This wetland was spared thanks to the work of beavers.

It’s been almost exactly a year since the Cameron Peak Fire tore through the foothills outside of Fort Collins on its way to becoming the largest fire in state history. Now, restoration efforts are underway.

The Colorado River through the Grand Canyon National Park holds lessons for managing an essential and diminishing resource in a rapidly warming climate.

Seven years ago, a pulse of water on the Colorado River at the U.S.-Mexico border temporarily reconnected it to the Pacific Ocean. Scientists used the so-called “pulse flow” to study what plant and animal life returned to the desiccated delta along with water.

Emergency water releases from reservoirs upstream of Lake Powell have begun to preserve the nation’s second-largest reservoir’s ability to generate hydroelectric power.

The water levels behind the Colorado River’s biggest dams are fast-approaching or already at record lows. The historic 21-year megadrought that is squeezing some Western states’ water supplies will also likely start showing up in energy bills, because those dams can’t produce as much electricity.

A new study, published in the journal, Nature Climate Change, shows a surprising new way in which heat and humidity are interrelated and comes at the beginning of a summer that is already sweltering and plagued with wildfire and drought.

Colorado River water managers could be pulled back to the negotiating table as soon as next year to keep its biggest reservoirs from declining further.

Declining levels at the second-largest reservoir in the U.S. have spurred officials in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico to search for ways to prop it up.

The conversation around water speculation has been heating up in Colorado in recent months. At the direction of state lawmakers, a work group has been meeting regularly to explore ways to strengthen the state’s anti-speculation law.