Daniel Salzler No. 1346
EnviroInsight.org Three Items February 20, 2026
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- Arizona’s water supply facing dry snowpack, low reservoirs. As the battle for Colorado River rights continues, so does the battle all western states are waging against Mother Nature.
While Arizonans continue to watch the battle for their water from the Colorado River play out, that water itself is having other issues this winter.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs traveled to Washington, D.C., late last week to meet with governors and water policy professionals from the Upper and Lower Basin states and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to discuss ongoing Colorado River negotiations.
At its most basic, the impasse stems from Upper Basin states — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico — calling on the Lower Basin states — Arizona, California and Nevada — to reduce water use while Lower Basin states are calling on the Upper states to strengthen their conservation efforts. More than 40 million people rely at least in part on the Colorado River for drinking water, crop irrigation, hydropower and other needs.
The meeting in DC didn’t amount to many answers.
“While we didn’t leave with a lot of specifics — the details are to be worked out through negotiation — I think that we came away with hearing that nobody wants to end up in litigation,” Hobbs told Arizona Capitol Times. “We want to find a way to get to a deal.”
Outside of potential legal battles, all states are battling Mother Nature at the moment.
Most of the Colorado River’s flow originates as snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains in the Upper Basin, and the Rockies are in the midst of a snow drought, the term for a period of abnormally low snowpack.
Using satellite technology to map western snow cover, NASA on Jan. 15 reported “the lowest coverage for that date” seen since the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer first started tracking in 2001.
“The mountains of the western United States are sporting thin winter coats in early 2026,” NASA’s report summarized.
Unseasonably warm winter temperatures, especially over the central Rockies, led to temperature anomalies from mid-November to mid-January, where temps have been as much as 15 degrees above average, reports Open Snow, an app that charts snow reports and severe weather maps.
Each of the Colorado River Basin states just experienced their warmest December on record out of 131 years of data, per NOAA.
All of which makes the battle between the states that much more critical.
Arizona officials maintain the Grand Canyon State is doing its part to reduce use.
In his Jan. 27 presentation to the Arizona House, Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke reported that, as of Jan. 11, Lake Powell sits at 27% capacity and Lake Mead is at 33%. Both comprise the Colorado River’s largest reservoirs.
At the same time he noted other reservoirs above Lake Powell are not facing nearly the shortage of those in the Lower Basin. The Navajo Reservoir, in New Mexico, sits at 60% capacity; Flaming Gorge in Utah is at 82%; and Morrow Point in Colorado sits at 96%.
Blue Mesa in Colorado at 50% capacity represents the lowest of the Upper Basin reservoirs.
“It’s a pretty tough thing for the state of Arizona to ask our people to take cuts based on the elevations and the volume of water in Lake Powell alone,” Buschatzke said. “One of our big points of negotiation is that a substantial amount of water from these reservoirs above Lake Powell has to move to Lake Powell and then move down to Lake Mead so that we can access it.”
As for Upper Basin advocates claiming Lower Basin states are overusing their water allotment, Buschatzke points out while Lower Basin states are cleared to use 7.5 million acre-feet annually, they used 6.09 million in 2024 and 5.82 in 2023, demonstrating their commitment to conservation.
And while Upper Basin states say those figures don’t include tributaries within Arizona, Buschatzke points out that a 1963 Supreme Court ruling found that tributaries are not to be counted with the reservoirs.
“Arizona has developed responsibly over the past 35 years even as its population has surpassed 7 million residents,” the Coalition for Protecting Arizona’s Lifeline, a nonpartisan alliance of leaders focused on long-term water security from the Colorado River, shared in a statement. “Importantly, this growth occurred in compliance with some of the strongest water conservation and management laws in the country, requiring developments to prove a 100-year water supply for homes.”
Meanwhile, Arizona’s persistent drought continues. The period from September 2020 to August 2025 was the sixth hottest and seventh driest on record, according to ADWR. Temperatures were above average across the state in December, with several stations, Phoenix among them, measuring their hottest December on record.
And there are little indications for change ahead.
“Odds continue to favor warmer and drier than normal conditions this winter,” ADWR noted.
Source: “Fountain Hills Times Independent”
2. Pristine Grand Canyon Spring Water Is No Longer As Pure As it Looks. Grand Canyon springs often look untouched, flowing clear through one of the most protected landscapes in the United States. But new testing shows that even these remote waters are not completely isolated from modern pollution.
Scientists have detected traces of prescription drugs and long-lasting industrial chemicals in spring water near the canyon’s South Rim.
The findings reveal how treated wastewater can travel underground through hidden rock pathways and return to the surface miles away.
Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) traced the chemical signals to treated water released from the South Rim treatment plant.
Fragile desert water sources
In the Grand Canyon’s dry environment, each spring forms a small oasis that supports algae, insects, amphibians, and other wildlife that depend on clean, reliable water.
Many of these pools are shallow, meaning even small amounts of contamination can quickly reach animals through their skin or gills.
Hikers also drink from some of these springs, which often look clear enough to trust, concentrating potential exposure at the very places where wildlife and people gather.
Hidden underground pathways can make these waters more vulnerable than they appear. Cracks and fractures along the Bright Angel Fault can channel groundwater in directions that surface maps do not show.
Although the South Rim treatment plant releases treated water to the southwest, some of that flow can travel through smaller fractures, shift north underground, and eventually rise back to the surface near canyon springs.
If these pathways remain open, chemicals that are difficult to remove during treatment can repeatedly find their way back into the canyon’s most sensitive water sources.
Drugs detected in Grand Canyon water
Only Monument Spring showed a noticeable mix of medications, with the clearest signal coming from the common allergy drug diphenhydramine.
Researchers also found carbamazepine, a medication used to treat seizures, along with small traces of an antibiotic, an antifungal drug, and an antidepressant.
Scientists detected the same combination of medicines in treated wastewater flowing through Bright Angel Wash – at higher levels – helping them confirm that wastewater likely influenced the spring water.
Because millions of people use these medications every day, their distinctive chemical “fingerprints” can reveal a wastewater connection even when the water looks perfectly clean.
Forever chemicals in the mix
The same water also carried per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), long-lasting chemicals used in many products.
The USGS detected only PFAS at Bright Angel Wash, Monument Spring, and Upper Horn Bedrock Spring during the sampling. Federal health summaries from the EPA note that some PFAS exposures can affect fertility and hormones.
If PFAS keep moving through the same underground cracks, cleanup becomes harder because the contamination can outlast a single fix.
Exposure risks still being studied
Many of the chemicals found in the springs fall into a category scientists call contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). These are substances that researchers are tracking even though regulators have not yet set formal safety limits for most of them.
At Monument Spring, none of the measured concentrations exceeded existing drinking-water benchmarks, but for many of the detected compounds, no official standards exist.
That means park managers must rely on scientific studies and long-term monitoring rather than simple pass-or-fail thresholds when judging potential risks.
Laboratory research has shown that some PFAS and pharmaceutical residues can disrupt hormones in wildlife, even when animals do not show obvious signs of illness.
The levels measured in the Grand Canyon were far below those typically linked to effects in experiments. Yet scientists note that small, continuous exposures can still matter, especially for species such as frogs and salamanders that live directly in spring pools and cannot easily avoid contact.
“Not only could these cause problems for the reproductive systems of sensitive species, but backcountry recreationists likely don’t want to be exposed to these chemicals either,” said Mike Fiebig, southwest river protection director for the nonprofit group American Rivers.
Treatment plants miss chemicals
Human waste releases pharmaceuticals into wastewater, and standard treatment does not completely remove many of those compounds.
Most treatment plants are designed to eliminate microbes and solid materials, while many drug molecules remain dissolved in the water and pass through the system.
Engineers can add advanced filtering and specialized treatment steps to capture more of these chemicals, but those upgrades require additional funding, equipment, and staff.
Even with improvements, small traces can still slip through. That is why many experts say the most effective protection often begins upstream – reducing how much pollution enters drains in the first place.
Even with improvements, small traces can still slip through. That is why many experts say the most effective protection often begins upstream – reducing how much pollution enters drains in the first place.
Protecting Grand Canyon water
To find out whether the contamination was a one-time event or part of a longer trend, researchers compared water samples collected in April 2021 with historical water records spanning 1980 to 2022.
Because older monitoring programs rarely measured CECs, the team relied on indirect indicators that often point to wastewater sources.
Large global reviews now commonly detect pharmaceuticals in rivers worldwide, confirming wastewater as a major pathway.
Continued monitoring will help managers determine whether treatment upgrades truly reduce exposure levels or simply shift the contaminants to other locations.
The Grand Canyon results highlight how even remote springs can carry traces of modern chemicals, especially when human waste remains nearby.
Protecting these waters will likely require improved treatment technologies and tighter controls on everyday consumer products, since CECs can move silently through water that appears perfectly clean.
The study is published in Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5095.
3. Trump to Repeal Landmark Climate Finding in Huge Regulatory Rollback This move will reverse legal determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health.
Quick Summary
The Trump administration plans to repeal the 2009 “endangerment finding,” removing the legal basis for federal greenhouse gas regulation.
The rollback targets regulatory requirements for motor vehicle emissions.
The administration will also direct the Defense Department to purchase electricity from coal-fired power plants.
The Trump administration is planning this week to repeal the Obama-era scientific finding that serves as the legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation, according to U.S. officials, in the most far-reaching rollback of U.S. climate policy to date.
The reversal targets the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which concluded that six greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. The finding provided the legal underpinning for the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules, which limited emissions from power plants and tightened fuel-economy standards for vehicles under the Clean Air Act.
“This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in an interview.
The Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group, has said that rolling back the endangerment finding would “eliminate some of our most vital tools to protect people from the pollution that causes climate change.” The group said the administration was trying to steer Americans toward dirtier, more dangerous and more destructive air.
Officials said the rollback would equate to more than $1 trillion in regulation cuts, though they didn’t provide details on how they came up with the number. They said that rescinding the finding would result in an average per-vehicle cost savings of more than $2,400. Public health and environmental groups have said federal climate regulations help prevent hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year.
Read the entire article at https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-02-12-2026/card/trump-rolls-back-landmark-climate-finding-in-major-regulatory-rollback-cO0TZOJhVrsxTEa2Tppb?mod=Searchresults&pos=1&page=1
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