ARIZONA

Reservoirs near record lows

PAGE — The Colorado River’s Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in the U.S., is shrinking. A record-dry winter and extreme heat — as well as decades of overuse, chronic drought and climate change — are threatening to pummel the lake to near historic lows. Low water levels have forced marinas in this important tourist destination to adapt. Boat ramps have closed or moved, new ones are being added and marinas have been temporarily relocated to deeper waters.

“The Colorado River is in full-blown crisis mode,” said John Berggren, regional policy manager with Western Resource Advocates, an environmental nonprofit.

But there’s still enough water on Lake Powell for recreation, marina managers say.

Lake Powell is currently about 23% full and is about 33 feet from reaching water levels so low that hydropower can’t be produced. The reservoir could break its all-time record low in early September.

Together with U.S.’s largest reservoir Lake Mead downstream, the two bodies of water are the lowest they’ve been in nearly 70 years. The last time their combined storage was this small was in May 1957 when Glen Canyon Dam that holds back Powell was being built, according to a recent paper published by a group of academics and retired water officials. Powell began to fill in 1963.

“There’s less water in the two reservoirs than there has ever been at any time in the history of Lake Powell even existing,” said Jack Schmidt, the paper’s lead author and director for the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University. Combined, Mead and Powell hold slightly less than 60% of all water stashed in the basin.

OKLAHOMA

Black members sue tribe for citizenship

Two descendants of Black people once enslaved by a Native American tribe are asking a federal court in Oklahoma to force tribal leaders to issue them citizenship cards as ordered a year ago by a tribal court.

A lawsuit filed July 23 in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City on behalf of Rhonda Grayson and Jeffrey Kennedy names Principal Chief David Hill and the Muscogee Nation Citizenship Board as defendants.

It says that Hill and the citizenship board are violating an 1866 treaty between the tribe and the U.S. government by refusing to recognize Black Creek Freedmen as citizens as ordered by the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court in July 2025.

The board denied the applications of Grayson and Kennedy in 2019 after it incorrectly determined they could not identify a lineal descendant of the tribe, but the court said the pair are entitled to tribal citizenship.

However, Hill and the board have not yet issued the citizenship cards, denying Grayson and Kennedy their “right to vote and the ability to participate fully as members of the Nation,” according to the lawsuit.

Last August, Hill blocked the tribe’s citizenship board from issuing citizenship cards until leaders decide how to change the tribe’s constitution. The tribe’s headquarters is in Okmulgee, about 100 miles northeast of Oklahoma City.

“We would point out that federal law and precedent is clear that matters of Muscogee Nation law and governance are to be addressed through the Nation’s own governmental institutions,” the Muscogee Nation said in a statement.

The Muscogee Nation is one of five tribes in Oklahoma that once practiced slavery.

MONTANA

Lawmaker’s guilty verdict tossed

The guilty verdict in the official misconduct case against former Senate President Jason Ellsworth has been thrown out following revelations that jurors were exposed to sealed exhibits concerning communications with a potential key witness.

Lewis and Clark County District Judge Christopher Abbott said in a July 22 court hearing that he learned that morning that jurors deliberating in the misdemeanor trial were inadvertently given exhibits by court staff regarding the scheduling of potential key witness Bryce Eggleston.

Abbott vacated the previous day’s verdict against Ellsworth from the bench on the afternoon of July 23

The mistaken provision of the material to jurors at the start of deliberations became known to Ellsworth’s legal team as they visited with a juror after the verdict was announced shortly after 8 p.m. on July 22. The juror mentioned details considered by jurors that weren’t part of the trial.

Eggleston is Ellsworth’s longtime friend and former employee, who in 2024 pitched the senator on tracking the state’s progress implementing 27 legislative bills created by lawmakers with the purpose of curtailing the powers of Montana courts. Ellsworth signed two contracts totaling $170,000 for the proposed services on Dec. 26, 2024.

The work was to be performed by Agile Analytics, a then newly formed company for which Eggleston was the registered agent. Prosecutors allege that Ellsworth circumvented competitive bidding requirements and signed the contracts without a required review by state procurement agents.

Jury deliberations following the six-day trial took four hours on July 22 and left Ellsworth, a Hamilton Republican, potentially facing a six-month jail sentence for mishandling the two contracts awarded to Agile Analytics.

WYOMING

Microsoft annexation OK’d

CHEYENNE — Members of the Cheyenne City Council voted on July 14 to advance Microsoft’s request to annex nearly 3,460 acres on the city’s southeast edge, rejecting calls from some residents and council members to delay action so the city can develop stricter policies governing large-scale industrial projects.

The land is owned by ARP and Hammond Hardware Co., Old Horse Pasture Inc. and Lummis Livestock Company LLC. It would be used to house the future expansion of Microsoft’s data center operations.

The proposal generated several hours of public comment from residents, elected officials and Microsoft workers and supporters, pushing the July 13 council meeting until nearly 2 a.m. Many debated the project’s economic benefits against concerns about water use, environmental impacts, infrastructure demands, transparency from council members and the long-term effects of industrial development near residential areas.

Several residents living in the area urged the council to postpone the annexation until additional studies on the land could be completed and legally binding protections could be negotiated for nearby homeowners.

Residents also referenced a recent incident involving the city’s reclaimed water system, which the contractor building the Meta data center, Goat Systems LLC, contaminated with Cupriavidus gilardii bacteria earlier this year.

However, supporters of the annexation said Microsoft’s continued investment would strengthen Cheyenne’s economy, create well-paying jobs and build on the city’s decades-long growth as a technology hub.