Brittany Peterson
All Stories

Record low Colorado mountain snow won’t bode well for water in the drought-stricken West
As a warm winter with poor skiing conditions gave way to early springtime record heat, snow is vanishing from all but the highest elevations in the West.

In Colorado town built on coal, some families are moving on, even as Trump tries to boost industry
The Cooper family knows how to work heavy machinery. The kids could run a hay baler by their early teens, and two of the three ran monster-sized drills at the...

Colorado avalanche experts worry Trump budget cuts will hinder life-saving forecasts
“We save lives and there are people alive today because of the work we do,” said Doug Chabot, who directed the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center in Montana.

How better water systems can help a city survive the next firestorm
As wildfires grow more frequent and intense with climate change, and become a greater threat to cities, water utilities are reckoning with the reality that they must build back better.

Citizen scientist measured Colorado snowfall for 50 years. Two new hips help him keep going.
Billy Barr first began recording snow and weather data more than 50 years ago as a freshly minted Rutgers University environmental science graduate in Gothic, near part of the Colorado...

Cloud seeding catching on amid Rocky Mountain drought
No small part of the cloud seeding growth is due to intense pressure drought is placing on the Colorado River and its tributaries that supply water to millions of people from Wyoming...

Colorado to reuse water to create new supply of drinking water
A new source of drinking water is coming to thirsty, fast-growing Colorado -- recycled wastewater. The state is expected to soon become the first to regulate direct potable reuse —...

New Mexico city, victim of wildfire caused by government burn, now faces water shortage
In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, buzzing chainsaws interrupt the serenity. Crews are hustling to remove charred trees and other debris that have been washing down the mountainsides in...

Outside Yellowstone, flooded towns struggle to recover
As officials scramble to reopen Yellowstone National Park to tourists after record floods pounded southern Montana, some of those hardest hit in the disaster live far from the famous park’s...

Biologists try to save ancient fish as Colorado River fades
Barrett Friesen steers a motorboat toward the shore of Lake Powell, with the Glen Canyon Dam towering overhead. Pale “bathtub rings” line the canyon’s rocky face, starkly illustrating how water...