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Posted inThe Roundup

The Roundup | How to divide the Colorado River

Curtis Wackerle by Curtis Wackerle December 14, 2021December 14, 2021
The Roundup newsletter: A weekly roundup of Aspen Journalism’s original stories with a letter from the editor, Curtis Wackerle.
Low water levels on Lake Powell
Houseboats on Lake Powell on Dec. 13, 2021, near Wahweap Marina, where the quarter-mile-long boat ramp is unusable due to low water levels. Maria managers placed an auxiliary boat ramp in another location. Image credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Back after these messages 

We took a short break from The Roundup last week due to the ongoing efforts related to our year-end fundraising, as the normal Tuesday send of our newsletter fell on Colorado Gives Day. We appreciate all of our subscribers for hanging with us through these efforts, which play a huge role in our year-round success — and to all of you who have made a donation, thank you. We are excited to share more about our progress in our next campaign email on Thursday, but safe to say the support from our readers and community has been strong, and the year to come is looking bright.

Today, we bring you stories we have published over the last two weeks, including a piece from Water Desk Editor Heather Sackett recognized as required reading ahead of this week’s Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas, which Sackett is attending. The story explains a concept making the rounds in academic circles for amending water allotments spelled out in the 1922 Colorado River Compact so that they are tied to existing streamflows, not estimated water volumes that compact framers were using, but which do not physically exist based on recent hydrology.

Sackett the week prior highlighted the expansion of a water-quality monitoring project established in the wake of 2020’s Grizzly Creek Fire in Glenwood Canyon, which amounts to an early warning system to let water users downstream know when dirty water from mudslides is headed their way. The monitoring will help with problems experienced last summer in the Silt and Rifle areas, when mud and debris running off the fire’s burn scar during heavy rains filled the river and entered municipal and agricultural water systems. 

Our Data Dashboard has the latest snowpack numbers, as well as the accelerating pace of winter lodge bookings in Aspen and Snowmass, and our Tracking the Curve project was the first to report on the upcoming effort led by the state of Colorado analyze wastewater samples from the Aspen Consolidated Sanitation District and the town of Snowmass Village to detect the presence of coronavirus.

And if you haven’t yet, check out the upcoming event Aspen Journalism is sponsoring on Sunday at the Wheeler Opera House with the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies and our board member Pete McBride, who will give a presentation on his recent “Seeing Silence” book project. I’ll be at a table in the lobby so if you happen to be at the event — tickets are just $12, and attendees must show proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test — please come say hi. And look out for an article we are set to publish looking at the origins of McBride’s project and all the ways man-made sound — or the absence of it — defines our environment.

Thanks for reading and supporting Aspen Journalism!

— Curtis Wackerle, Editor and Executive Director

Recent reporting from Aspen Journalism
Credit: EcoFlight

Working within Colorado River’s 1922 water compact for 21st century focus of annual meeting

Water managers talk about how to divide the waters

By Heather Sackett | December 11, 2021

He also pointed out that requiring the upper basin, where most of the river’s flows originate as snowpack, to contribute the same fixed amount each year despite declining flows means that the upper basin is unfairly bearing the brunt of climate change.

Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Glenwood Canyon monitoring project gets funding for second phase

Data could be useful for downstream water users in Silt

By Heather Sackett | December 4, 2021

The cascade of dirty water also had impacts to agricultural and municipal water users downstream in Silt, whose only source of water is the Colorado.

Data dashboard: Winter occupancy reaches pre-pandemic levels

Snowfalls boost watershed’s snowpack and brings down temperatures

By Laurine Lassalle | December 14, 2021

• As of Nov. 30, Aspen’s December occupancy exceeds 2019 by 16%.
• With recent storm, Indy Pass snowpack jumps to 86% of average for Dec. 12.

Tracking the Curve

Documenting COVID-19 in Pitkin, Eagle and Garfield counties

By Laurine Lassalle | December 14, 2021

The Aspen Consolidated Sanitation District and the Town of Snowmass Village are working with the Colorado health department to participate in a COVID-19 wastewater surveillance program.

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Curtis Wackerle

Curtis Wackerle

Curtis Wackerle is the editor and executive director of Aspen Journalism and the editor and reporter on the Connie Harvey Environment Desk. Curtis has also served as editor, managing editor, and reporter... More by Curtis Wackerle

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