Western lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, want to know — exactly — how much snow and water is in the Colorado River Basin. The legislators Thursday introduced a bill focused on improving how the basin measures its water supply. … The bill highlights focus areas for the program, like being more responsive to changing weather and watershed conditions, informing water management decisions at local up to interstate levels, and building the program’s capacity so it can adapt to new forecasting and measurement capabilities. The bill would also support different measurement technologies like imaging spectroscopy, machine learning, and integrated snowpack and hydrologic modeling. It would increase the program’s budget from $15 million over five years to $32.5 million over five years.

Other Colorado River Basin news:

• Courthouse News Service: Ninth Circuit revives Arizona wells caught in tribal water quarrel
• ABC15 (Phoenix, Ariz.): Exclusive look inside the massive pipelines keeping Arizona hydrated
• West Valley View (Tempe, Ariz.): Water storage project moves into next stages across West Valley
• Arizona Daily Star (Tucson): Opinion: My journey alongside the Colorado River