Water in the West: Documenting the change

Above: The sharp curves within the northwestern arm of Glen Canyon form a stunning backdrop for the dramatic gap between the high-water line, marked by white calcium carbonate depositions, and the black mass of water below. Photo by Elliot Ross.

Elliot Ross

Elliot Ross was raised in part on Colorado's eastern plains in a ranching family focused on weather and water. As he pursued photography, he dreamed of assignments that would take him to wild places around the world. Yet after years of working with elite photographers in New York, he returned home in 2018 to find that "water was more of a conversation than it had been when I left," he said.

His time as a Ted Scripps Fellow brought him back to his Western roots, using his camera "to understand this most precious resource that we have - that a lot of us, myself included - take for granted [that it] runs clean out of the tap."

In 2024, for the second half of his Scripps Fellowship, Ross is focusing on issues of water equity and justice to foster conversations about the disadvantaged populations who do not have the same access to this vital resource, especially tribal nations in the region.

Water equity is a timely topic. When regional leaders begin creating the 2026 interim guidelines for the Colorado River, Native American tribes will join the negotiating table, and "hopefully, for the first time they'll be addressing the inequities of the 1922 Colorado River Compact through indigenous inclusion," said Ross.

As water levels have dropped in the upper region of Glen Canyon, many valleys are buried in suffocating silt - some upwards of 200 feet deep.

Below: Elliot Ross' wife, Genevieve, navigates the soupy, silt-filled aftermath of a flash flood in Iceberg Canyon, which removed about two feet of silt from the canyon in one day. This image "illustrates how quickly deposited sediment has been washed out," said Ross, visualizing geologic change on a human timeline. Photo by Elliot Ross.