As KUNC’s reporter covering the Colorado River Basin, I dig into stories that show how water issues can both unite and divide communities throughout the Western U.S. I produce feature stories for KUNC and a network of public media stations in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. I also host KUNC’s live community storytelling events.
I love public radio because I know the power of hearing someone’s story in their own words, using their own voice. You can get a much better sense of who someone is and what their motivations are just by listening to how they speak, and that’s a big part of why I love public radio reporting.
Before covering water at KUNC I covered the agriculture and food beat for five years as the station’s Harvest Public Media reporter. I’ve also reported for Aspen Public Radio in Aspen, Colo. and Illinois Public Radio in Springfield, Ill. My reports have been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, Here & Now and APM’s Marketplace. I’m a proud graduate of the University of Illinois’ Public Affairs Reporting program.
My work has been recognized by the Society of Environmental Journalists, Radio Television Digital News Association, the Colorado Broadcasters Association and the Public Media Journalists Association.
When I’m not at the station you can usually find me out exploring the Rocky Mountains with either a pack on my back or skis on my feet (sometimes both at the same time).
- Originally published on April 11, 2019 3:19 pm LAGUNA GRANDE, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO — It’s mid-morning in the Sonoran desert and already the temperature is rising. Karen Schlatter suggests we find some shade, a relatively easy task at Laguna Grande, a restoration site along the Colorado River’s historic channel in Mexico.
- Originally published on April 10, 2019 9:12 am CIÉNEGA DE SANTA CLARA, MEXICO — Juan Butrón-Méndez navigates a small metal motorboat through a maze of tall reeds here in the Mexican state of Sonora. It’s nearing sunset, and the sky is turning shades of light blue and purple.
- Originally published on April 9, 2019 2:39 pm SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, MEXICO — From inside a small airplane, tracing the Colorado River along the Arizona-California border, it’s easy to see how it happened. As the river bends and weaves through the American Southwest, its contents are slowly drained.
- Originally published on March 20, 2019 10:49 am Water leaders from the seven states that make up the Colorado River basin are one step closer to finalizing a drought contingency plan.
- Originally published on March 6, 2019 12:17 pm Water is again flowing through faucets in the Western Slope town of Paonia.
- Originally published on March 5, 2019 10:53 am When Paonia resident Jon Howard went turn on the dishwasher last Friday morning, there was no water to clean the dishes. Same thing when he went to the bathroom, wanted to take a shower or fill up a glass from the kitchen sink.
- Originally published on January 2, 2019 3:39 pm In the foothills outside Longmont, Colorado, tucked high in a narrow valley, sits an ugly, cement slab. It’s the size of a train car and juts out into North St. Vrain Creek, a shallow alpine stream that serves as the city’s main drinking water supply.
- Originally published on January 16, 2019 9:55 am Following one of the hottest and driest years on record, the Colorado River and its tributaries throughout the western U.S. are likely headed for another year of low water. That’s according to an analysis by the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado Boulder.
- Originally published on December 17, 2018 2:51 pm On stage in a conference room at Las Vegas’s Caesars Palace, Keith Moses said coming to terms with the limits of the Colorado River is like losing a loved one. “It reminds me of the seven stages of grief,” Moses said.
- Originally published on December 13, 2018 11:39 am LAS VEGAS — Water leaders throughout the West now have a hard deadline to finish deals that would keep the Colorado River’s biggest reservoirs from dropping to deadpool levels.
- Originally published on November 19, 2018 9:59 am Colorado River water managers have plenty to argue about. But there’s one thing on which nearly everyone who relies on the southwestern river can agree. The foundational document that divvies up the water — the Colorado River Compact — has some big flaws.
- Originally published on November 27, 2018 6:34 pm The effects of climate change are not far off problems for future generations. They are existential problems for everyone alive today. That’s one big takeaway from the U.S. federal government’s latest roundup of climate science, the National Climate Assessment, now in its fourth iteration.
- Originally published on November 20, 2018 3:16 pm Early season snowfall in some parts of the Colorado River Basin have raised hopes of a drought recovery. But that optimism is likely premature.
- Originally published on October 16, 2018 2:37 pm Key reservoirs along the Colorado River are collectively at their lowest point at the start of a new water year since the last one filled nearly 40 years ago. As of Oct.
- Originally published on October 8, 2018 8:31 pm In 2007, years into a record-breaking drought throughout the southwestern U.S., officials along the Colorado River finally came to an agreement on how they’d deal with future water shortages — and then quietly hoped that wet weather would return. But it didn’t.
- Originally published on August 31, 2018 3:33 pm In early August three years ago, Barb Horn stood along the banks of the Animas River in the city of Durango, Colorado. Word had spread of a mine waste spill upstream near Silverton. She waited, alongside hundreds of others, for the waste to appear.
