In Colorado, with fast population growth in the Denver area and fierce competition for water, investors are behind a plan to import water from a mountain valley hundreds of miles away, a plan opposed by farmers and ranchers who depend on water in that valley. Gary Strieker reports.
Many residents on the Navajo Reservation are now enjoying clean, running water and solar power in their homes, benefiting from DigDeep’s ambitious project to transform their daily lives with the simple miracle of a working tap.
With authorities releasing limited water pulses upstream, conservationists and volunteers work to restore the native habitat of the Colorado Delta that has been dry for years.
Under the Clean Water Act, grass-roots campaigns in New Mexico are urging state authorities to designate the Upper Pecos watershed , Upper Rio Grande, Rio Hondo and Upper Jemez River as Outstanding National Resource Waters deserving special protection. A similar campaign in Colorado in 2006 succeeded in protecting Hermosa Creek and its entire drainage, the first stretch of water outside a wilderness area or national park to receive the Outstanding Waters designation.
Our host and field correspondent Ed Arnett has been named the new Chief Executive Officer for The Wildlife Society. He began this new role on November 1st and will still be working with our team at This American Land and hosting Season 10 set to hit channels across the country this spring.
Following the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, county authorities face the challenge of safeguarding and restoring the natural habitats of the Texas coast around the petrochemical port of Corpus Christi.
California’s largest lake is shrinking and migratory birds are disappearing as its water is now too salty for fish – an environmental disaster and a health hazard for humans. In Iowa, activists use faith to mobilize farmers in a movement to adopt new measures like perennial crops to sequester carbon in their soils, and to get paid for doing it. With federal government support, private landowners in Pennsylvania are managing their forests for diversity, providing better habitat for declining species of songbirds like the golden-winged warbler.
Farmers in Arizona are hoping that guayule, a hardy plant that produces natural rubber, can become a profitable crop requiring far less water than alfalfa, corn and cotton.
With key Oregon rivers lacking protection, a bill in Congress would designate many of them as Wild and Scenic – more mileage of rivers than in any other state.
As the U.S. Bureau of Land Management revises its Rock Springs Resource Management Plan in southwestern Wyoming, conservationists want to make sure it protects the area’s natural and historic values.
