KJZZ

SAHUARIPA, Mexico – A century ago, jaguars roamed much of the Southwest, including most of Arizona. Today, the only glimpses of the endangered big cats in the United States are caught on cameras just north of the U.S.-Mexico border. In a recovery plan released in April, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said bringing jaguars ...

ST. GEORGE, Utah – The drive behind an enormous water project in southwestern Utah, the Lake Powell Pipeline, shows no signs of slowing even after the seven Colorado River Basin states signed a new agreement this spring that could force cutbacks and more conservation. Despite the shrinking of the overtapped Colorado, four Upper Basin states ...

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part 1 of a three-part series. COAL CREEK CANYON, Colo. – The Colorado River is short on water, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at a slate of proposed water projects in the river’s Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The river and its tributaries provide water for ...

LONG BEACH, Calif. – There’s a 2-mile rock wall off the coast of Long Beach that’s been one of the most important — and controversial — pieces of infrastructure in Southern California for the past 70 years. The barrier is a breakwater, and it was designed primarily to stop treacherous ocean waves from regularly flooding ...

HEBER CITY, Utah — Tucked below the jagged, snowy Wasatch range 20 miles south of Park City, the Heber Valley looks like a miniature Switzerland. Dairy cows graze in bright green pastures and a small farm sells artisan cheeses and milk. But the valley’s days as a bucolic farmland may be numbered. Over the past ...

DENVER – Retiring Colorado’s fleet of coal-fired power plants could cut carbon and save utility customers billions of dollars, according to a new analysis by the Sierra Club. The study looked at the economic impact of replacing 10 coal units in the state with cheaper wind and solar. The Sierra Club hired the consulting firm ...

PHOENIX – The Lower Colorado River Basin does not avoid a shortage in 2020 despite the plentiful snowpack on the Rocky Mountains this past winter. Why? Well, the new Drought Contingency Plan defines different “tiers” of shortage. The Lower Basin will not drop into a Tier One shortage next year because Lake Mead will almost ...

PHOENIX – The towering, often terrifying thunderstorms that signal the start of Arizona’s monsoon season typically begin in mid-June and last through the end of September, but meteorologists say we’ll likely see a delayed start this year. The meteorology department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott this week predicted a much later start to the ...

PHOENIX – U.S. recycling has nearly collapsed, prices have soared and the environmental waste problem has hit a crisis point, since China, the largest buyer of U.S. recycled products, stopped buying nearly 18 months ago. Now, recycling centers are looking to rebuild processing plants across the U.S. and that requires a policy change and millions ...