River | Environment.org

In an often-excerpted passage from his memoir, Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain describes how his perceptions of the Mississippi River changed after he spent months piloting a steamboat up and down its muddy length. “The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book,” he said, allowing him to read the bends and eddies that meant nothing to his passengers. But the tragedy of this “valuable acquisition” was that “the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river.”

“All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat,” he wrote.

Even for those of us who will never pilot a steamboat, there is a vestigial lesson in this passage about how we perceive and talk about the environment. …

River water quality shaped by land–river connectivity in a changing climate

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| Climate

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 07 March 2024; doi:10.1038/s41558-023-01923-x

River water quality affects water security and is expected to degrade under climate change—an issue that has garnered limited attention. Here the authors review the impacts of climate change and climate extremes on water quality, highlighting the pivotal role of land–river connectivity.
Nature Climate Change…

Arizona’s Gila River Indian Community moves forward with first solar canal project in the US

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| Pollution

This story was originally published by the Arizona Mirror.

In an effort to address the ongoing drought affecting the Southwest, the Gila River Indian Community is taking an innovative step forward by launching its Solar Canal Project to construct the country’s first solar-over-canal project.

“A tribe is leading the way,” Gila River Indian Community Governor Stephen Roe Lewis said, adding that the shovel-ready project will immediately address water conservation.

The Gila River Indian Community and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed an agreement on Thursday in Sacaton, Arizona, kicking off construction on the first phase of the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project Renewal Energy Pilot Project, which is expected to be completed in 2025.

“This new technology fits and supports our culture and tradition as we look forward to being sustainable in the future in a very real way,” Lewis …

Pig-Nosed Turtle / Fly River Turtle Facts, Pictures, Species Guide

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| Wildlife

Dwelling in the freshwater river systems of Northern Australia and southern New Guinea lies a unique reptile. With its long snout (from which the species gets its name) and webbed flippers, the pig-nosed turtle Carettochelys insculpta–also known as the Fly River turtle–is one of the world’s most distinctive turtles. Sadly, this odd-looking animal is now endangered, mainly due to over-hunting.

Read on to find out more about this distinctive Australian reptile…

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Pig-Nosed Turtle Stats

Other name(s): Fly River turtle
Scientific name: Carettochelys insculpta
Length: Up to 70 cm (27.5 inches)

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Does the Mississippi River have rights?

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| Pollution

This story was originally published by WNIJ and is republished with permission.

The Mississippi River flowed lazily under the Centennial Bridge, which connects Illinois and Iowa in the Quad Cities. Cars cruised past on a Saturday afternoon in early May, waving and occasionally honking at a long line of environmentalists who say the river is alive.

Glenda Guster was among the roughly 80 people to join the Great Plains Action Society’s Walk for River Rights — the centerpiece of a three-day summit earlier this month for Black and indigenous organizers from across the Mississippi River basin, who, among other things, want to grant the river legal standing.

Like many making the march across the river, Guster, who held a sign saying “water is life” over her head, said the river needs more protection.

“The river has rights, just like …

At last, states reach Colorado River deal: Pay farmers not to farm

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| Pollution

After a year of intense negotiations, the states along the Colorado River have reached a deal to solve one of the most complex water crises in U.S. history. The solution to this byzantine conundrum is deceptive in its simplicity: pay farmers — who collectively use 80 percent of Colorado River deliveries — to give up their water.

Representatives from Arizona, Nevada, and California announced on Monday that they had agreed to reduce their states’ collective water usage by more than 3 million acre-feet over the next three years. That equals around a trillion gallons, or roughly 13 percent of the states’ total water usage. Under the terms of the deal, cities and irrigation districts in these so-called “Lower Basin” states will receive around $ 1.2 billion from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, in exchange for using less …