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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Grand Canyon, carved out over the eons by rushing river water, began to form 17 million years ago, making it nearly three times older than previously thought, scientists said on Thursday. The general consensus among geologists had been that the famed natural landmark in Arizona was about 6 million years old. But now University of New Mexico scientists say it is far older based on their findings using a technique called uranium-lead isotope to date mineral deposits in caves from nine sites in the canyon's walls. The cave formations provided a record of a dropping water...

A medical examiner’s office has confirmed a body recovered from the Grand Canyon is that of a missing California man... 67-year-old Mike Howard of Simi Valley... His body was pulled from downstream of Phantom Ranch on Sept. 14, about 10 miles from where he last was seen a week earlier.... Authorities say Howard tried to rescue his wife when she slipped into the Colorado River during a commercial rafting trip. Both swam through a river rapid. Others in the group that was setting out for a day hike pulled Howard’s wife from the water.

Two vessels collided head-on in a stretch of the river near Topock Gorge and Park Moabi Channel, authorities said. The area is not far from the Arizona border. The force of the crash caused one of the boats to sink; the other sustained heavy damages, according to a tweet from the Fire Department. Two people are missing and “presumed submerged,” according to the tweet. At least 12 patients were treated, including one with life-threatening injuries who was airlifted to a Las Vegas-area trauma center. Six people received moderate injuries, while the remaining patients were treated for minor injuries.

Along the Colorado River, a number of geoglyphs are carved out of the desert floor that are on par with the mysterious markings in the Peruvian desert near Nazca. However, the American “intaglios” are far less famous. The intaglios near Blythe, along the Colorado River along the California-Arizona border are the American equivalent of the Peruvian Nazca lines. Though never promoted as the airport for extraterrestrial beings, here are nevertheless the same geometric shapes, animals and humans, etched in the soil and best – and some of them only – visible from the sky. Geoglyphs can be found in a...

One of California’s largest Colorado River farm water districts is suing the state’s largest municipal water agency, charging that efforts to move farm water to cities are threatening the viability of agriculture in one of the oldest farming valleys on the river. The Palo Verde Irrigation District, in a suit filed last month in Riverside County Superior Court, is charging the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California with “thinly veiled attempts” to turn agricultural land it owns in the Blythe Valley into “water farms” by placing water consumption limits and fallowing requirements on the land in order that water from...

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The Middle Eastern kingdom needs hay for its 170,000 cows. So, it's buying up farmland for the water-chugging crop in the drought-stricken American Southwest.Saudi Arabia's largest dairy company will soon be unable to farm alfalfa in its own parched country to feed its 170,000 cows. So it's turning to an unlikely place to grow the water-chugging crop — the drought-stricken American Southwest. Almarai Co. bought land in January that roughly doubled its holdings in California's Palo Verde Valley, an area that enjoys first dibs on water from the Colorado River. The company also acquired a large tract near Vicksburg, Arizona,...

The head of the New Mexico Environment Department blasted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday during a legislative committee meeting in the New Mexico Legislature, saying federal officials are downplaying the long-term effects of the Gold King Mine spill. ... Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn told members of the House agriculture committee that the agency has been pressuring communities to get behind a proposal that calls for monitoring water quality for only a year. Flynn also argued that the proposal would look at whether the water is safe for recreation rather than digging deeper into recurring spikes in the readings...

On Aug. 5, 2015, contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency accidentally released 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River. Six months later, questions about the effects of spring runoff, Superfund status and remediation remain unanswered.N.M. official blasts EPA over Gold King spill‘When storm events occurred, the sediment was remobilized’ Where the Animas goes The Gold King Mine blowout on Aug. 5, 2015 sent 3 million gallons of wastewater into the Animas River, which flows into the San Juan River. The San Juan flows into the Colorado River. The Colorado River is dammed,...

DENVER—Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s big gulp of water from the formerly orange Animas River wasn’t just icky, it was “reckless and irresponsible,” said New Mexico’s top environmental official. New Mexico environment department secretary Ryan Flynn said Mr. Hickenlooper’s decision to fill up his water bottle from the site of the EPA’s 3-million-gallon wastewater spill in Durango, Colorado, sends the wrong message. “If it’s true, it’s a reckless and irresponsible act by a public official,” said Mr. Flynn in the Farmington (N.M.) Daily Times. “He might as well stick 15 cigarettes in his mouth and light them all at the same...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Anger was mounting Monday at the federal Environmental Protection Agency over the massive spill of millions of gallons of toxic sludge from a Colorado gold mine that has already fouled three major waterways and may be three times bigger than originally reported. An 80-mile length of mustard-colored water -- laden with arsenic, lead, copper, aluminum and cadmium -- is working its way south toward New Mexico and Utah, following Wednesday's accidental release from the Gold King Mine, near Durango, when an EPA cleanup crew destabilized a dam of loose rock lodged in the mine. The crew was...

How often do we see sad stories such as this in the news? Evil industrialists carelessly create a swath of damage across our pristine natural resources through pollution and reckless destruction. Another such event took place in Colorado this week when millions of gallons of toxic, metal laden waste water were dumped into a local stream, feeding into the local river system used by swimmers and fishermen. And the culprit for this horrendous act was… the Environmental Protection Agency. A team of U.S. regulators probing contamination at a Colorado gold mine accidentally released a million gallons (3.8 million liters)...

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva don’t agree on much, but both worry California could take Arizona’s water. The conservative governor and the liberal congressman say Arizona must be vigilant to ensure its drought-parched neighbor doesn’t use federal action to grab some of Arizona’s Colorado River supply. Of particular concern is a California drought bill that’s been quietly negotiated for months in the U.S. Senate. “The secrecy generates concern and nervousness. Nobody I know in Arizona knows what’s in this bill at this point,” says Chuck Cullom, who manages Colorado River issues for the Central Arizona Project,...

PARKER, Ariz. (AP) — A Phoenix couple has claimed responsibility for putting two fake skeletons sitting in lawn chairs in the Colorado River in far west Arizona, authorities said Friday. The husband and wife approached the La Paz County Sheriff's Office earlier this week and revealed how the skeletons in their closet ended up at the bottom of the river in Parker

EAST RIM OF THE GRAND CANYON, Ariz. — Renae Yellowhorse stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon, 26 bumpy miles across the Painted Desert from the nearest paved road, not a glint of civilization in sight. Ms. Yellowhorse, 52, who has lived her whole life on this Navajo land, cast an arm over the gulf sweeping out to the horizon, pointing to where the Colorado River and the Little Colorado meet in a dazzling burst of deep blue 3,000 feet below. “This is where the tram would go,” she said. “This is the heart of our Mother Earth. This...

The mud-choked Colorado River flows through the dry lakebed of northern Lake Powell in a new satellite image released yesterday (May 22). Western drought has left this reservoir on the border of Utah and Arizona less than half full, the satellite image captured on May 13 reveals. As of May 21, the lake was at 42 percent of capacity, according to U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) data.

She wasn’t necessarily popping champagne Thursday, but conservationist Jennifer Pitt was certainly celebrating the arrival of water from the Colorado River into the Sea of Cortez. It was a monumental moment for conservationists, who said that water hasn’t flowed regularly from the Colorado River to the sea in more than 50 years. It temporarily reached the sea twice in the 1980s and last in 1993. […] The water reached the sea on Thursday afternoon. It traveled nearly 100 miles from a previously barren delta at the Morelos Dam just south of where California, Arizona and Mexico meet. It was a...

Not too far from the Colorado River, on the low desert just west of Highway 95, lies one of the most spectacular ancient creations in California––a group of immense drawings that, like Peru’s famous Nazca lines, can only be seen properly from the air. They are called the Blythe Intaglios. Unseen by whites until the 20th century, these huge figures hidden on the desert floor were rediscovered from the air. In 1930, aviator George Palmer was flying over the area when he spotted enormous outlines of a man, a woman, a horse, a coiled snake,

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The federal government isn't going to tap the Missouri River to slake the thirst of a drought-parched Southwest, the government's top water official said Wednesday. But rising demand and falling supply have water managers in the arid West considering a host of other options to deal with dire projections that the Colorado River — the main water supply for a region larger than the country of France — won't be able over the next 50 years to meet demands of a regional population now about 40 million and growing. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued what he...

Who is buried in the Hoover Dam? The Hoover Dam is one of the most phenomenal structures in modern history. This 1244 feet long, 660 feet thick, and 726 feet high concrete behemoth holds back so much water that it deformed the earth's crust and caused 600 small earthquakes in the decade after its construction. Over 100 workers died constructing the Hoover Dam — and legend has it, some of them are buried within its concrete facade. Is there anything to these rumors? An enormous number of deaths - Over 100 people died in the construction of the Hoover Dam....