Out West

Idaho might need to rely on reservoirs more than usual this year, amid drier and warmer early spring months that have prompted faster snow melts with less streamflow runoff than expected.

The Trump administration has cut tens of millions of dollars from a key Columbia Basin salmon-restoration program run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Fires have already burned more than 38,000 acres in Arizona in 2025, more than double the amount burned by this time last year.

Lake Mead’s infamous bathtub ring is expected to get bigger this summer as low snowpack levels in the Rocky Mountains choke the reservoir’s biggest source of water – the Colorado River.

Hundreds of federal employees managing the nation’s main hydropower corridor have retired, resigned or been released due to Trump orders and hiring freezes.

About $40 million a year in state funding from new transportation fees could be the key to getting a short passenger rail line from Denver to Fort Collins up and running in the next four years, Colorado officials said last week.

Summer is arriving in the Tetons with the opening of the aerial tram at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

A new law signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson on Saturday toughens the punishment for littering and delays requirements for retailers to offer thicker bags for sale from Jan. 1, 2026 until 2028.

Utah officials say they want to expand an airport, widen roads, and build new reservoirs and other water infrastructure on the federal land.

Revenues are ahead of last year’s collections, but behind the forecast legislators used in the state budget.