Saving The Colorado River - Are We Doing Too Little, Too Late? - 2021

 

Saving The Colorado River - Are We Doing Too Little, Too Late?

On Monday, May 24, 2021, I departed Monument Valley for Kanab, Utah, via Page, Arizona. The weather was clear, with only a light breeze. Page, Arizona owes its current existence to the nearby Glen Canyon Dam and its reservoir, inaptly named “Lake Powell”. Loved by power boaters but decried by environmentalists since its completion in the mid-1960s, both the dam and the “lake” are anachronistic constructs of 20th century groupthink. To justify its initial construction, dam advocates and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) had touted the proposed dam as a flood control mechanism.

Later, those running the dam’s electrical generators switched to promoting its ability to produce electricity from a supposedly renewable resource. Current lake levels would suggest otherwise. By 2023, the hydro-power intake structures will stand above the projected lake level. In other words, the dam will likely create no hydro-power at all.

As of 2021, drought and structural overdrawing of Colorado River water supplies have made a mockery of the Glen Canyon Dam and its rapidly shrinking reservoir. The Upper Colorado River Basin is in such extreme drought that the prospects of a catastrophic flood are near zero. As for the power boaters, most of their launch ramps now look like ski jumps, with a long drop-offs to the rocks below. The lake itself is so much smaller, snags, unseen sandbars and lack of beaches for camping make the boating experience more hazardous each year. Shorelines of quicksand and gravel bars not seen in over fifty years will consume the unwary. Lake Powell is fast approaching its all-time low water mark and is unlikely to rebound in the next decade or two.

In November 2019, the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) near Page, Arizona ceased operations. If anyone thought that Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell were cynical constructs of 20th century infrastructure, they should study the development and ultimate demise of the coal fired NGS. Owned by the Salt River Project, the largest public utility in the State of Arizona, the main purpose of NGS was to create electricity to pump Colorado River water over five mountain ranges to Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona.

To power the three huge furnaces at NGS, miners extracted and shipped coal from the Black Mesa Complex, near Kayenta, Arizona. Black Mesa lies above what used to be the largest aquifer in the Navajo Nation. Contemporaneous with the NGS, unscrupulous power brokers had tapped that aquifer to send a slurry of coal to a now defunct power plant at Laughlin, Nevada. Peabody Coal and its successor corporations operated the Black Mesa Mine on contract to the Navajo Nation. In exchange for some transitory jobs and revenue, the Navajo received a strip-mined mesa and the despoilment of their precious water resources. As a concession to the Navajo, the mine offered free coal for home heating each year. Since many Navajo households have no electricity, the foul and deadly coal was their only heat source during the winter. To add insult to injury, the Navajo had to line up with their personal pickup trucks and trailers to cart off the "free coal".

Although the mine and the NGS did provide some jobs for Navajo tribal members, the true legacy of the NGS was polluted groundwater and air throughout the Four Corners Region. For over forty years, visitors to the nearby Grand Canyon often looked down on a smokey pit, not the natural wonder they came to see. At one time, the NGS was the largest producer of airborne nitrogen oxide in the United States. Only far cheaper electricity provided by natural gas and renewable sources doomed the NGS.

When Arizona won a larger share of Colorado River water in federal lawsuits during the 1960s, the largest user of water in Southern Arizona was agriculture. Pima cotton got its name from Pima County, where Tucson now boasts a population of over one million residents. In the days when cotton was king, Phoenix, Arizona had a population of under 600,000. Today, Greater Phoenix has a population of 4.485 million. As agriculture subsided, the vast and thirsty megalopolis of Phoenix/Tucson grew in its place.

A little-known fact about the NGS was its thirst. During its 45-years of operation, it was the single largest consumer of water from Lake Powell. It also used over ten percent of its electrical power generation to transport coal via rail and to pump its cooling water from Lake Powell. Looking back, the NGS stole water from the Navajos and wasted that precious water to power itself and its electric trains. To complete the circle of complicity, Arizona built its current wealth on the false premise of abundant water, pumped from an unsustainable water supply. Like a science fiction monster, the NGS laid waste to water and land while using profligate amounts of energy to power itself. For 45-years, the NGS wasted water, power and environmental resources, all in the name of “progress”.

By 2021 and prior to the major delivery cutbacks to come, Arizona had banked about two years of water supply in shallow desert aquifers. Most of it is near the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, west of Phoenix. With the water table so close to the surface, water samples there can register over 80-f degrees. To stave off potential water shortages, construction crews are installing pumps and delivery systems from those aquifers to north Phoenix. For as long as that water bank lasts, Phoenix can continue to pretend that it has an adequate supply of water. When it becomes obvious that supplies will tighten, expect land values in more recent suburbs, like Anthem Arizona to experience a major slump in housing prices. Water may soon become too expensive or scarce to supply all who want it.

When the reservoir downstream from Lake Powell, which is Lake Meade reaches its official drought emergency level in August 2021, Arizona and Nevada will take the deepest cuts in future water deliveries. With unending drought and decreased flows in both the Upper Colorado Basin (Lake Powell) and the Lower Colorado River Basin (Lake Mead), there is no guarantee of sufficient water in either or both basins to supply basic water needs to the 40 million people in the Southwest who depend on it. Although Arizona and Nevada will take the biggest initial cut in water deliveries, the entire region is likely to experience extreme shortages in the next decade.

The history of water politics in the West is one of over optimism and faulty projections. Instead of inaction and dithering as the West dries up and blows away, both the federal government and the states that make up the Colorado River Compact should take bold action. Each year, Lake Powell losses up to fifteen percent of its volume to evaporation and percolation into its sandstone basin. The USBR should immediately decommission Lake Powell. They should then conduct a controlled release of water from Lake Powell into the Colorado River. When that still substantial volume of water reaches Lake Mead, it will then occupy a smaller geographical “footprint”. Unlike the substantial percolation at Lake Powell, Lake Mead’s granite lined basin will retain much more of its received water.

How would these bold moves affect the Colorado River and its water consumers? First, Page Arizona would decline in population, back to near its size before construction of the Glen Canyon Dam. Power boaters would have to travel to a more viable Lake Mead, farther downstream. As Lake Powell recedes, river runners could once again conduct rafting tours of the actual Glen Canyon. For the first time in over fifty years, hardy tourists could visit the most spectacular ecosystem ever destroyed by a desert reservoir. In time, Glen Canyon would recover, and the “Eden of the Desert” could well become a greater draw than the transitory “lake”. With luck and realistic planning, Phoenix, Las Vegas and even Los Angeles could survive, albeit on a much tighter water budget.

On the bright side, Page Arizona could become both a rafting and a mining center, quarrying desert sandstone for use in xeriscape throughout California, Arizona and Nevada. Personally, I would be happy to repopulate my Southern California front yard with succulents and cacti, interspersed among expanses of “Navajo Sandstone”. As I write this in August 2021, my plan sounds harsh. In 2022 and beyond, it may sound like “too little and too late”.

This concludes Part Three of a Five-Part Article. To read Part Four, click HERE. To return to Part One, click HERE

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By James McGillis at 01:47 PM | Colorado River | Comments (1) | Link

As Navajo Generating Station Spews Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas) into the Air, Downwind There isn't a Chuckle - 2013

 

As Navajo Generating Station Spews Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas) into the Air, Downwind There isn't a Chuckle

The Navajo Generating Station (NGS), near Page, Arizona provides the electrical energy necessary to operate the Central Arizona Project (CAP). Thus, coal-fired power produced by NGS in the Upper Colorado River Basin enables Arizona’s CAP water delivery system to operate in the Lower Colorado River Basin.

As a byproduct of burning eight-million tons of Black Mesa coal each year, NGS currently sells about 500,000 tons of flyash to concrete block manufacturers. Land filled on site is an undocumented volume of scrubber byproducts, including bottom ash and gypsum. The remaining combustion gasses and solids enter into the atmosphere via three 775 ft. tall flue gas stacks.

According to EPA spokesperson Rusty Harris-Bishop, the Navajo Generating Station is one of the largest sources of nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions in the country. When processed for medical purposes, nitrous oxide becomes the benign sounding anesthetic, “laughing gas”. When drag racers inject N₂O into internal combustion engines, it acts as an oxidant, offering additional power and speed.

After departing the flue gas stacks of coal-fired plants like NGS, no one knows the effects of N₂O on lifeforms downwind. With an atmospheric lifespan of 120-years, the environmental effects of N₂O may last longer than any human lifespan. One wag asked, "Are the clouds of laughing gas emanating from NGS part of a scheme designed to keep nearby Navajo and Hopi tribes pacified?"

If the Bashar Assad regime in Syria were to conduct widespread dispersal of nitrous oxide (N₂O) gas among the people of Syria, would the U.S. object, calling it a war crime? Such is currently the lot of anyone living in the air shed downwind of NGS or other coal-fired plants within the Four Corners country. If the nitrous oxide emissions dissipate quickly, over a wide area, war crime questions may remain moot. Only with chemical-gas testing on the reservation shall we understand the effects of long-term exposure to N₂O and other emitted gasses. Unless changed, this complex set of environmental hazards will operate as usual. New cases of Black Lung Disease will surely continue among current and former Black Mesa miners.

Earlier studies found that NGS alone caused between two and seven percent of airborne winter haze downwind at the Grand Canyon. Not only does NGS siphon vast amounts of water from Lake Powell, its heat-island effect increases evaporation of the remaining lake water. Heat and greenhouse gasses emitted from the NGS stacks drive cool air and moisture away from the area. As part of an environmental death spiral, NGS directly robs CAP of what it needs most, which is an adequate water supply downstream.

Hydrologists, utilities spokespeople and federal regulators offer only lip service regarding interdependence between the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basins. Collectively, they have yet to admit that diminished input and too many outputs may soon drain the greater Colorado River watershed. Only when officials admit that there is a collective shortage shall they find better uses for our resources, including earth, water and fire.

In 2009, I drove past the Peabody Coal Company Access Road on U.S. Highway 160. There, a backlit sign featured the words, “Peabody Western Coal Company” and “Black Mesa Complex”. In recent years, plant owners at nearby Navajo Generation Station (NGS) and the Navajo Nation gave Peabody Energy a twenty-five year lease extension. That agreement yoked the Navajo and Hopi Nations to an environmentally destructive course. When some Navajo and Hopi threatened to shut down the Black Mesa Complex, Peabody Energy "doubled down", raising their annual royalty fee for Black Mesa coal from $34.4 Million to $42 million. Over Hopi Nation objections, the twenty-two percent increase in royalties was enough to secure Navajo Nation agreement.

No one knows how much profit Peabody Energy will reap from their continued strip mining of Black Mesa, but it will be orders of magnitude larger than any royalty fees paid. Succumbing to what some call a meager financial incentive, the Navajo Nation traded the health of its people for the benefits of Old Energy. In their marketing campaign, Peabody and the Navajo Nation raised the prospect of continued employment for the Navajo and Hopi workers. Skeptics say that strip-mine-jobs cause more health and environmental harm than any economic benefit that they may provide.

As the saying goes, “Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it”. In post-1984 America, companies that hide their history shall gain little benefit from their deceit. Since 2009, Peabody Energy has removed all references to “Peabody Western Coal Company” and “Black Mesa Complex” from their corporate communications. In line with their expunging of the historical record, Peabody Energy also removed all “Black Mesa Complex” informational signage from U.S. Highway 160. Under their current marketing scheme, Peabody Energy applies the innocuous moniker, “Kayenta Mine” to the largest strip mine in the West.

Out of sight and out of mind is where Peabody Energy wants their dirty little secret to lie. Luckily, for the company, destruction caused by their operation lies unseen behind the ridge of Black Mesa. Only with satellite photography can we see the extent environmental destruction occurring at Black Mesa. Despite Peabody Energy’s efforts to hide their mining operations, gray trails of effluvium lead down the canyons from the area. At the lower end of newly deepened gulches, that “gray matter” turns and runs north toward Kayenta. Even if the mines were to close today, the deep scars on Black Mesa would take several geological epochs to heal.

In a community minded effort, NGS and its owner, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) are now extending electrical power to sixty-two homes in the area surrounding LeChee, Arizona. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population at LeChee is ninety-eight percent Native American. Located less than two miles from NGS, many of LeChee's residents work either at the plant or as service workers in nearby Page, Arizona. With a 2010 population of 1,443, LeChee had lost 163 residents over the previous decade. How many of them departed because of chronic respiratory diseases, no one knows. Prior to electrification, how many of the LeChee homes burned coal for heat?

This is Chapter 3 of a four-part series regarding coal and water in the Southwest. To read Chapter 4, please click HERE.

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By James McGillis at 01:26 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

As Colorado River Water Vaporizes in the Desert, Arizona Faces a New Energy Reality - 2013

 

As Colorado River Water Vaporizes in the Desert, Arizona Faces a New Energy Reality

Recently, the Navajo and Hopi Nations signed a controversial lease with the Arizona public utility, Salt River Project (SRP). Under that agreement, and for the benefit of SRP, the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) near Page, Arizona will operate until 2044. The primary function of NGS is to provide electrical energy to SRP’s Central Arizona Project (CAP). Using that power, SRP lifts 1.5 million acre-feet of water per annum from Lake Havasu. After pumping it over the Buckskin Mountains, CAP alternately siphons, pumps and uses gravity to transport the water east, to Pima, Pinal and Maricopa Counties.

While crossing Arizona’s Tonopah Desert, the aqueduct consists of a large, evaporation-trench. From Tempe to Tucson, the water remaining after a scorching trip across the desert might become mist at an outdoor restaurant. Burning eight million tons of Black Mesa coal each year, NGS generates more than enough power to pump a continual flood of Colorado River water across the Arizona desert.

In the event of a power shortage or a shortage of Colorado River water, CAP could economize by curtailing deliveries to both agriculture and its groundwater recharge stations. If CAP water deliveries were to fall below current per capita consumption, either new water connections would halt or consumers would face rationing and shortages. With that, Arizona’s fifty-year construction and population boom would end. With its economy reliant on new residential development and construction, Arizona's ongoing boom could quickly turn to bust.

If CAP water deliveries were to diminish significantly, the Maricopa County might face its second Great Disappearance in less than a millennium. In 899 CE, the Hohokam Indians experienced and then recovered from a flood that devastated their extensive water storage and delivery systems. In the late fourteenth century, major flooding again occurred in the Valley of the Sun. This time, recovery flagged. By 1450 CE, between 24,000 and 50,000 Hohokam Indians had disappeared from the archeological record.

Currently, the Phoenix-Tucson metropolis is living on borrowed time and borrowed water. By “borrowed time”, I mean that California, Arizona and Nevada currently withdraw Colorado River water faster than the watershed upstream can replenish it. By “borrowed water”, I mean that as shortages loom, Arizona’s CAP water rights are subordinate to those of California. Arizona’s current tourism motto is “Discover the Arizona Less Traveled”. In the years ahead, the less traveled part of Arizona may well include Pima, Pinal and Maricopa Counties.

Over mountains and desert, CAP’s borrowed water travels to an artificial oasis with a population of five million. Arizona's twenty-year development plans are a pipe dream. They call for a future Southern Arizona population of up to ten million. Long before that, the big pipe that is CAP may be running near empty. One does not need to be a climate scientist to see that sustained pumping from a declining Colorado River is not a viable long-term solution. In fact, supplying sufficient water to current users may yet prove unsustainable.

In order to transport their allotment of Colorado River water across the desert, Arizona dumps its environmental responsibilities on the Navajo Nation. From mining, processing, transport and burning of Black Mesa coal, the Navajo and Hopi Nations subsidize profligate water use in Phoenix and Tucson. When it came to producing additional power closer to home, no one in Phoenix wanted a coal-fired power station upwind. Instead, at its Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station (PVNGS), SRP utilized a “clean power source”. Standing in the Tonopah Desert, fifty miles west of Phoenix, the massive complex comprises the largest nuclear power plant in the nation. Tonopah derives from the word Tú Nohwá, meaning "Hot Water under a Bush". In fact, PVNGS is the only major nuclear power plant in the world not situated adjacent to a major body of water.

Owned by a consortium of utilities stretching from El Paso to Los Angeles, PVNGS’s biggest advantage is that it does not burn coal. Since its initial construction in the 1970s, PVNGS has been a magnate for nearby natural-gas-fired “peaker plants”. Each of those natural gas plants consumes cooling water, emits hydrocarbons and heat into the atmosphere. Both the Black Mesa Complex (strip-mine) to the north and PVNGS have a public relations advantage. Located in remote locations, both complexes are out of sight and out of mind. Few in Arizona realize that their lifesaving air conditioning depends on a 3,900 megawatt power plant called "Hot Water under a Bush".

Other than the inherent fragility of 1970’s nuclear power plant design, the main weakness of PVNGS is its cooling loops. As the sole source for their cooling water, all of the Tonopah power plants rely on treated effluent water from Phoenix and other cities. Reduced future delivery of Colorado River water will force conservation on Phoenix. As residents curtail non-essential water usage, demand for CAP water will harden at a lower volume. Inevitably, as Phoenix consumes less fresh water, sewage plant effluent will decrease as well. I do not know how much treated water Phoenix currently has to spare, but that would be an interesting statistic.

Although currently recharged with excess CAP water, the Tonopah Aquifer is finite. If Phoenix metropolitan sewage plants currently supply most of their outflow to Tonopah, any decrease in effluent could set off an unpleasant chain reaction. If treated effluent flow decreased, the power plants at Tonopah would resort to pumping from their local aquifers. To see the negative ramifications of such an act, one needs to look no further than to the depleted aquifers of Black Mesa, to the north. Not if, but when the Tonopah aquifers run dry, power production would decrease to whatever diminished level the sewage plants upstream could support.

Pumping of groundwater at Tonopah will only delay the day of reckoning. Even today, sixty percent of Arizona's population relies on groundwater for its domestic water needs. Thus, if history is an indicator, Arizona will soon tap its desert aquifers. When the aquifers make their final retreat, CAP customers will discover a new reality. With insufficient cooling water available at Tonopah, both nuclear and gas-fired generating stations will curtail output. Unless some of CAP's then diminished supply of Colorado River water is diverted directly to the power plants, a downward spiral of SRP power production will ensue.

Any decrease in water or power deliveries would strain the economy and ultimately, the population of Southern Arizona. In subsequent years, the price of both water and power could exceed many Arizonian’s ability to pay. Unable to revert to its former ranching, mining and semi-rural economy, the outlying suburbs of Maricopa, Pinal and Pima Counties would be the first to go. Old copies of Arizona Highways Magazine might look new again. Ghost towns, like Casa Grande, Arizona could feature both Hohokam ruins and abandoned regional shopping centers, which have gone to seed. Once again, a complete way of life could vanish from the Valley of the Sun.

This is Chapter 2 of a four-part series about coal and water in the Southwest. Whether in power plants or homes, the burning of Navajo Reservation, Black-Mesa-Coal degrades lasting environmental and health effects created by the burning of Black Mesa coal in both power plants and homes on the Navajo Reservation, Read Chapter 3.

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By James McGillis at 04:31 PM | Colorado River | Comments (0) | Link

Near Page, Arizona, the Navajo Generating Station, Burns Navajo Nation - Black Mesa Coal - 2013

 

Near Page, Arizona, the Navajo Generating Station, Burns Navajo Nation - Black Mesa Coal

The trip from Kayenta, Arizona to Tuba City on U.S. Highway 160 covers about seventy-five miles. Thirty miles south of Kayenta, is the Black Mesa crossroads. From there, Arizona Highway 542 heads west toward Navajo National Monument, nine miles away. Extending east from the crossroads is Peabody Coal Company Access Road, also known as Indian Route 41.

Peabody Energy is the largest private sector coal company in the world. Coal from Peabody mines accounts for almost ten percent of U.S. electrical energy production and two percent of worldwide electrical energy production. Although located wholly on tribal lands at Black Mesa, Peabody Energy has disingenuously renamed the largest strip mine in the Southwest as “The Kayenta Mine”. Peabody has a history of trying to distance itself from its own businesses. Someone in the marketing department must have decided that “Kayenta Mine” sounded better than “Black Mesa Mine”.

During the past decade, Southern California Edison closed and then demolished its Mohave Generating Station (MOGS) in Laughlin, Nevada. From its inception in 1971 until its closure in 2005, Peabody Energy loaded up to six hundred tons per hour of Black Mesa Coal into a slurry pipe destined for MOGS, two hundred seventy-five miles away. If run continuously, the pipeline had a capacity of over five million tons of coal per annum. With four 8-million-gallon storage tanks onsite, dewatering the coal and recycling the vast amounts of water used in transport were high priorities. What the Black Mesa aquifer lost, MOGS gained. At the plant, MOGS recycled and reused the slurry water in their cooling loops, thus achieving zero water discharge from the plant.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Office of Surface Mining, US Geological Survey (USGS) confirmed that Peabody Energy compromised the viability of the Black Mesa aquifer. “Since Peabody began using N-Aquifer water for its coal slurry operation; pumping an average of 4,000 acre feet, more than 1.3 billion gallons of water, each year; water levels have decreased by more than 100-feet in some wells and discharge has slackened more than fifty percent in the majority of monitored springs.” (Miller).

Near the intersection of U.S. Highway 160 and Arizona Highway 542, stands the architecturally imposing Black Mesa Coal Conveyor Belt and its storage silos. This is also the northern terminus loop of the Black Mesa & Lake Powell Railroad. The Navajo Generation Station (NGS) near Page, Arizona, owns the railroad and its attendant facilities. Between Kayenta and Tuba City, the loading facilities at Black Mesa Junction are the largest structures visible along the highway. From that northern terminus, dedicated coal trains travel south along the length of the both the Kletha and Red Lake Valleys.

Just south of Cow Springs Lake, the tracks leave the highway, bending northwest. In a series of sinuous arcs, the tracks then snake around buttes and mesas. At NGS, there is a second terminus loop, allowing the coal trains to dump their hoppers almost without stopping. Departing the NGS loop, the one-way trip back to Black Mesa Junction is about seventy-five miles.

Even in the desert, some things are too big to hide, and NGS is one of those things. From Highway 160, the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) is invisible, hidden behind a series of low mesas. Once again, out-of-sight makes for out-of-mind. In order to visit NGS, the average tourist would have to plan a special trip on Arizona Highway 98. Not seeking to become a tourist attraction, the remoteness of NGS from commercial and tourist routes is exactly how the utility likes it. Their goal is to keep a 2,250-megawatt, coal-burning power plant mostly off the consciousness of the American public.

Despite improvements over the years, contemporary coal-fired power plants are thermally and environmentally inefficient. In order to operate its plant and equipment, NGS consumes onsite fully seven percent of its own generated power. Pumping of water uphill from Lake Powell accounts for a large portion of onsite energy consumption. Electric train operation between Black Mesa and NGS is another net drain on transmitted power. Additional electrical power goes to run the Peabody Black Mesa Complex, including its many miles of coal conveyor belt. When all internal and infrastructure power consumption is taken in to account, NGS may well consume for more than ten percent of its gross electrical output.

The generating station draws about 26,000 acre-feet (32,000,000 m3) of water per year from Lake Powell. Under average conditions, it takes about 1/2 gallon (1.9L) per kWh of electrical output. Although most of the water usage at NGS goes to scrubbing and cooling, the remainder is stored in large adjacent ponds. Only through evaporation, can the ponds cool sufficiently to allow reentry of their water into the cooling loops. In the end, it is easier to waste the water onsite than to recycle it. With that in mind, systems are set to maximize evaporation and to reduce retention on site. Once retained water reaches a high enough temperature, it loses much of its cooling capacity. To ameliorate the environmental effects of its flue gas emissions, NGS uses massive amounts of cold, Lake Powell water. From June to August 2013, Lake Powell went from 3601 ft. elevation to 3590 ft. or a drop of eleven feet.

At that rate, Lake Powell will soon be much smaller and warmer. As the relict water in the depths disappears into the siphons connected to NGS, the ambient temperature of remaining lake water will rise. As the water warms, it will create inefficiency within the cooling system and scrubbers at NGS. The warmer that Lake Powell becomes, the more water NGS will have to pump in order to keep its coal fires burning at current rates.

Black Mesa and the Navajo Generating Station are two of the critical links within the water and power systems in the Upper and Lower Colorado Basins. Situated in the upper Colorado Basin, NGS transmits power to pump water across the deserts of the Lower Colorado Basin. This is Chapter 1 of a four-part series regarding coal and water in the Southwest. In Chapter 2, learn the consequences of too much power chasing too little water across the landscape of the Southwest.

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By James McGillis at 05:30 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link