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It includes your tap water use and the “virtual water” used to produce your food, electricity, gas and home goods.

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The Colorado River rarely reaches the sea. Here's why

Nathan Rott

The country's two biggest reservoirs are on the Colorado River. Water levels at Lake Powell have dropped steeply during the two-decade megadrought. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption

The country's two biggest reservoirs are on the Colorado River. Water levels at Lake Powell have dropped steeply during the two-decade megadrought.

For most of its 6 million-year existence, the Colorado River ran from the Continental Divide, high in the Rocky Mountains, downward and west, through forest and red rock, to a lush delta at the northernmost tip of the Gulf of California. Its winding descent carved, among other wonders, what people now call the Grand Canyon.

Environment

The western megadrought is revealing america's 'lost national park'.

Today, the Colorado is so siphoned and stalled by canals and dams that only a trickle of its water ever reaches the sea. Its terminus is now a salt flat.

A new study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, looks at where all of that water is going .

Nineteen percent of the Colorado River is consumed by the natural environment — wetlands and riparian areas, the study found. The rest is taken by people, primarily to grow feed for livestock.

Water for cattle-feed crops — alfalfa and other grasses — accounted for roughly one-third (32%) of the Colorado River's annual flow, the study found. Agriculture accounts for about three times the usage of cities.

"We consume every single drop," said Brian Richter, a senior freshwater fellow for the World Wildlife Fund, president of Sustainable Waters and the study's lead author. "And yet, there's never been a complete and detailed accounting for where all that water is going. So we felt it was about time to do that."

The study, which builds on prior research and offers the most detailed analysis of how the water is used to date, looked at two decades of data starting in 2000, a time frame that coincides with the rapid expansion of cities and what scientists have called the worst megadrought in the region in at least 1,200 years .

A study published last year found that during the megadrought, human-caused global warming decreased the Colorado River's natural flow by roughly the amount of water that can be stored in Lake Mead — the nation's largest reservoir.

It's long been known that the Colorado River — and the 40 million people who rely on it — are facing a crisis. Water is overallocated. More is promised to cities and irrigators than typically exists. Climate change is shrinking the available pool.

Water users in seven states, Native American tribes, and the federal government are in sticky negotiations over how to divvy up the diminishing resource in the future. The current guidelines for how the river is allocated expire in 2026 and the two factions of states, divided by the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) and Lower Basin (California, Arizona and Nevada), still can't agree on how to reduce demand.

"Right now there's very intense negotiations taking place over how the river's water will be shared in the future," Richter said. "We wanted those negotiators to have these data in front of them so those debates could be well-informed."

Livestock feed uses most of the diminishing water

Irrigation — water for 5 million acres of cropland — uses more than half of the Colorado River's annual flow, the paper found. The vast majority of that went to alfalfa and other grasses to support the country's beef and dairy industries.

"They're growing the things that we want and are willing to pay for," Richter said.

It's estimated that livestock farming produces between 11.1 % and 19.6% of the world's climate-warming emissions.

In the less-populated Upper Basin, irrigation accounted for nearly 90% of the water consumption.

"It is a fact that agriculture uses a lot of water," said Sharon Megdal, director of the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Arizona. "And what that really means is that there will be the most opportunity for reductions in water use through, whether you call it precision agriculture, climate-smart agriculture, or more efficient water use.

"I think our ability to adapt is being tested and will continue to be," said Megdal, who wasn't involved in the study. "But I have some confidence that we will be able to."

The Biden administration has spent more than $670 million on two dozen water conservation projects in California and Arizona. Last year, Lower Basin states (California, Arizona and Nevada) agreed to cut back their use in the short term. Many farmers are taking steps to prepare and adapt .

"We all need to become far more water literate because there are some hard choices ahead," said Felicia Marcus, a fellow at Stanford University's Water in the West Program and former chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board.

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For Mining in Arid Regions to be Responsible, We Must Change How We Think About Water, Say UMass Amherst Researchers

A research team led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in collaboration with the University of Alaska-Anchorage and Columbia University, has conducted the widest-ever hydrological tracer analysis of the Dry Andes region in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, home to the majority of the world’s lithium deposits and other elements, such as copper, critical to the green energy transition away from oil and toward electricity. But the Dry Andes, as well as other hyper-arid regions, is also extremely sensitive to any activity, such as mining, that may disrupt the presence, composition and flow of both surface and subsurface water. Until now, however, there has been no reliable, comprehensive understanding of exactly how the hydrological systems in extremely arid landscapes work, which means that environmental regulators don’t have the information they need to best manage the mining industry and the transition to a more environmentally sustainable future. The research appears in PLOS Water .

“We’ve been thinking about water all wrong,” says Brendan Moran, the paper’s lead author and a postdoctoral research associate in geosciences at UMass Amherst. “We typically assume that water is water, and manage all water the same way, but our research shows that there are actually two very distinct pieces of the water budget in the Dry Andes, and they respond very differently to environmental change and human usage.”

Water is especially important for lithium, the crucial component of the powerful batteries in such things as electric and hybrid cars and photovoltaic systems. Lithium doesn’t like to be in solid form and tends to occur in layers of volcanic ash— but it reacts quickly with water. When rain or snowmelt moves through the ash layers, lithium leaches into the groundwater, moving downhill until it settles in a flat basin where it remains in solution as a briny mix of water and lithium. Because this brine is very dense, it often settles beneath pockets of fresh surface water, which float on top of the lithium-rich fluid below. These fresh and brackish lagoons and wetlands often become havens for unique and fragile ecosystems and iconic species such as flamingos, and they are also composed of different kinds of water—so how does one tell types of water apart?

Moran and his co-authors, including David Boutt , professor of geosciences at UMass Amherst, and Lee Ann Munk, professor of geological sciences at the University of Alaska, had previously developed a method to determine how old any given sample of water is and trace its interaction with the landscape by using 3 H, or tritium, and the ratio between the oxygen isotope 18 O and the hydrogen isotope 2 H. Tritium occurs naturally in rainwater and decays at a predictable rate. “This lets us get the relative age of the water,” says Moran. “Is it ‘old,’ as in, did it fall a century or more ago, or is it ‘contemporary’ water that fell a few weeks-to-years ago?” 

The ratio between 18 O and 2 H additionally allowed the team to trace how much evaporation the water had been subject to. “The 18 O/ 2 H ratio is like a specific fingerprint, because different water sources—streams or lakes—will have different ratios. This lets us know where the water came from and how long it has been near the surface and out of the ground.”

For this new research, Moran and Boutt worked with stakeholders in the Dry Andes to sample nearly every water source in the entire region—an unprecedented feat, given how inhospitable and sparsely inhabited the Dry Andes are—and to measure their various isotopes.

Doing so allowed them to discover that old and young waters don’t really mix and behave very differently.

“The deep, old groundwater sustains the hydrological system throughout the Dry Andes,” says Boutt. “Only 20% - 40% of the water is contemporary surface water—but that’s the water that is most sensitive to climate change, storm cycles and anthropogenic uses like mining. Scientists used to think that surface water was the most stable water because it was constantly being recharged by runoff, but in extremely arid places, like the Dry Andes, that isn’t true. And the problem is, this new understanding of how water works hasn’t been incorporated into any management system anywhere.”

The implications of this are immediate, and Moran says that among the most important is to protect the various conduits—streams, rivers, seeps etc.—by which fresh, young rainwater flows into the lagoons and wetlands that are so environmentally critical. It also means that managers need to develop different methods for managing young and old waters—there is no one-size-fits-all approach that will work.

Perhaps most importantly, Boutt points out, “What we see in the Dry Andes is representative of hydrology in all extremely arid regions—including the U.S. West. It’s not limited to lithium mining, either.” 

“Water across the globe’s arid regions works the same way,” adds Moran, “and so water managers the world over need to be aware of the age and source of their waters and implement the right policies to protect their differing hydrological cycles.” 

Related: How Environmentally Responsible is Lithium Brine Mining? It Depends on How Old the Water Is

A groundbreaking study in 2022 was the first to comprehensively account for the hydrological impact of the mining of lithium, a key component in the transition away from fossil fuels.

More: The Science Behind the Life and Times of the Earth’s Salt Flats

Research from 2023 led by UMass Amherst was the first to characterize two different types of surface water in the hyperarid salars—or salt flats—that contain much of the world’s lithium deposits.

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New study explores water use in the Colorado River Basin. Irrigation among Utah’s priorities.

The final 100 miles of the Colorado River is a shell of its former self — nearly 10 miles wide at the turn of the century, steamboats would transport carriages and early-model cars from Mexicali to San Luis in Mexico’s Baja California state.

Jaguars, beavers, deer and coyotes roamed the fertile riparian ecosystem and farmers had more water than they knew what to do with.

Now, a weave of concrete canals brings water to sprawling industrial farms situated in the Mexicali Valley, with much of the natural riverbed dry and the wildlife sparse. Tides still drive water from the Gulf of California into the valley a few times a year, but the days of a lush river delta in northern Mexico are long gone.

So, where did all the water go? Researchers on Thursday published one of the more comprehensive analyses of the Colorado River basin attempting to answer the question.

“What we’ve never had is a complete, holistic picture of where all of the Colorado River water goes,” said Brian Richter, president of Sustainable Waters and a lead author of the study.

Richter said that includes an accounting of how all the water in Mexico is used, water that’s exported out of the basin and water from the Gila River, a major tributary of the Colorado River that flows through parts of New Mexico and Arizona.

The answer will likely come as no surprise. According to the study, published in Communications Earth & Environment, irrigated agriculture is responsible for 52% of overall consumption in the basin, and 74% of direct human consumption.

Of that 52%, crops grown to feed cattle, like alfalfa, account for 32% of all water consumed from the Colorado River.

In the upper basin, which consists of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, the study found crops grown to feed cattle use 90% of all water diverted toward irrigation — that’s three times the amount of water used for municipal, commercial or industrial use combined.

Richter’s team of researchers calculated the water budget for specific crops by using satellite imagery of agricultural land, then factoring in things like climate and length of growing season to determine consumption.

“If somebody is going to make a statement about how much of the Colorado River goes to irrigated farms, we wanted to make sure they have the right statistics,” Richter said.

The remaining 48% is broken down into three categories in the study — about 18% goes to municipal, commercial or industrial uses, while 11% is lost to evaporation in reservoirs.

Evapotranspiration accounts for the last 19%, which Richter essentially defines as water for the river ecosystem, consumed by riparian and wetland vegetation. It’s a novel approach to a study of this nature, Richter said.

“Usually when people do a water budget for a river system, they’re only paying attention to the human uses. We wanted to change that conversation,” he said.

Consider these other key findings from the study:

In Mexico, 80% of Colorado River water is used for agriculture, while just 7% is left for the river’s ecosystem and 13% for municipal, industrial or commercial use. The river was overconsumed, meaning more water was taken from the river than was supplied during spring runoff, in 16 of 21 years from 2000 to 2020. Users are overconsuming about 20% of the river’s water, the study found.

The lower basin uses more water for agriculture than the upper basin — 54% of Colorado River water in the lower basin (Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico) is used for crops and livestock, compared to 48% in the upper basin. In the upper basin, 24% of Colorado River water is consumed by the ecosystem compared to 14% in the lower basin. About 15% of the water in the upper basin is lost to evaporation in reservoirs — in the lower basin, that figure is at about 10%.

The study comes as water managers from Colorado River basin states are working on new management plans ahead of 2026, when current guidelines are set to expire. Negotiations are tense, and the states so far have yet to reach an agreement . Meanwhile, scientists estimate flows in the river have decreased by roughly 20% over the last century, with warming temperatures resulting in a 10% decrease in runoff.

Richter said he hopes the study can be of use as negotiations continue.

“We wanted to make sure those negotiators have the most accurate and the most complete estimates of where the water is going as a foundation,” he said.

By Kyle Dunphey, Utah News Dispatch

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: [email protected] . Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter .

Copyright Utah News Dispatch, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence.

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A petition has been filed with the state appealing water rates. Here's what that means

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include a statement by the Affordable Water for Corpus Christi coalition.

Dozens of individual residents and some of the largest corporations operating in the Corpus Christi area are disputing the recently implemented water rate increases to a state board.

About 30 individual customers – as well as corporations Valero, Flint Hills Resources and LyondellBasell – are listed in the March 28 petition to the Public Utility Commission of Texas as out-of-city-limits ratepayers.

The appeal is intended as protection for ratepayers, according to a statement sent by the Affordable Water for Corpus Christi coalition late Tuesday.

"In January, the City of Corpus Christi dramatically increased its rates for residents and employers outside the Corpus Christi city limits in a way that significantly exceeds the City’s cost of providing that water," the message states. "The new rates are economically harmful to the impacted residents and businesses and are inconsistent with state law that requires any such rate increases to be “just and reasonable.”

Should the commission agree with petitioners, that would mean inside-city-limits customers may pick up the difference in revenue, according to a city memo.

Responding to the appeal, the Public Utility Commission could “deny and/or reduce the increase and order refunds of the amount exceeding the ordered rates after the effective date,” the document shows.

“A decision by the PUC denying the utility rate increases to out of city customers would not prevent payment of utility related obligations but could effectively require in city utility ratepayers to subsidize the out-of-city customers to the extent of the prohibited extraterritorial utility rate increases,” it states.

Water rates for inside- and outside-city-limits customers became effective Jan. 1.

According to a city memo, statute allows for municipal water providers’ customers to appeal water rates “by filing a petition of at least 10% affected outside city limits customers within 90 days of the effective date of an extraterritorial rate increase.”

The water rate model used by the city to assess bills aren’t one-size-fits-all.

It takes into account meter sizes, type of customer – residential, commercial or large-volume users – and whether the customer is inside city limits or outside city limits. It also incorporates a cost tier for a certain amount of water usage over a base rate.

A pamphlet issued by Corpus Christi Water notified residential, commercial and large-volume users outside city limits that bills were anticipated to increase.

For example, city officials consider water services of about 6,000 gallons per month to be the usage of an average residential customer.

For outside-city-limits residents with an average-sized meter, costs for the first 2,000 gallons dropped by about 4.6%, from $19.39 in 2023 to $18.39 in 2024, according to a table included in the petition.

Over the 2,000 gallons minimum, rate tiers per 1,000 gallons increased from about $3.11 to $5.08, the documents show.

Of the largest users of water operating outside city limits – typically for industrial processes that require a large volume of water –  the cost of a meter 10 inches or larger rose from $969 per month to $2,907.

 Costs for the first 10,000,000 gallons dropped from $40,382 to $24,202 per month. However, usage above 10,000,000 gallons increased from $1.95 to $3.94.

Raw water per 1,000 gallons also rose from 97 cents to $1.12 for all retail customers, according to city records.

City officials “organizing for long- and short-term next steps to include verification that signatories do reside outside city limits,” the memo states.

The city of Corpus Christi’s service area includes about 500,000 customers, putting roughly 35% of accounts outside the city limits.

Should the commission agree with petitioners, the decision would apply to all customers outside city limits, wrote City Manager Peter Zanoni in a message to the Caller-Times.

For the time being, the city will continue to use its budget as though the water rates will not change for out-of-city limit customers, he wrote. But there is also review for some of the possibilities.

“We are checking to see if refunds are either cash payments or credits to future bills,” he wrote. “To accomplish either, we would need to increase all inside city limit customers rates or eliminate positions and services. We would recommend the former.”

A model with more equitable rates for large-volume users increased revenue by $11.5 million over nine months, Zanoni wrote.

The City Council is anticipated to discuss the petition in executive session during Tuesday’s meeting.

More: Here's what your Corpus Christi utility bill will look like in the New Year

More: Here's how building a desalination plant may impact water rates in Corpus Christi

MMSD urges Milwaukee-area residents to use less water to reduce impact of heavy rains

The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District is urging Milwaukee-area residents to cut water use because a combined sewer overflow started Tuesday evening.

Residents in the city and a number of surrounding suburbs served by the sewerage district are asked to take shorter showers, save laundry and dishes for another day, and empty rain barrels regularly. 

The overflow started at 5:40 p.m. when the main deep tunnel was 76% full.

Milwaukee has a combined sewage system in which both stormwater and wastewater from homes and businesses flow through the same pipes before it is treated. If heavy rains cause the water reclamation facilities and deep tunnels to fill to capacity, the sewerage district must discharge untreated water into Milwaukee’s three rivers and Lake Michigan to prevent wastewater from backing up into homes and businesses. 

By federal law, the sewerage district is allowed six overflows per year. The district has been able to capture and clean an average of 98.6% of wastewater since 1994. 

There was one sewage overflow in 2023 after a record-setting February storm dumped more than 2 inches of rain in 24 hours. At that time 230 million gallons of untreated wastewater were discharged into local waterways. There was also one overflow in September 2022, which released 756 million gallons of wastewater. 

The sewerage district is working to soak up more rainfall by restoring habitat and creating more green infrastructure . 

Residents can receive a water drop alert by texting WATERDROP to 414-296-4422.

Caitlin Looby is a Report for America corps member who writes about the environment and the Great Lakes. Reach her at [email protected] or follow her on X @caitlooby .

Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to this reporting effort at jsonline.com/RFA or by check made out to The GroundTruth Project with subject line Report for America Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Campaign. Address: The GroundTruth Project, Lockbox Services, 9450 SW Gemini Dr, PMB 46837, Beaverton, Oregon 97008-7105.

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‘Total Disgrace’: Anger, Frustration as Mass Heating Failures Across Russia Leave Thousands in the Cold

P ODOLSK, Moscow region – Residents throughout Russia affected by unprecedented winter heating outages in recent days have expressed their frustration and urged local authorities to restore heating in their homes.

In Podolsk, a town some 30 kilometers south of the capital Moscow, at least 149,000 residents — nearly half of its population — were left without heating when a heating main burst at a nearby private ammunition plant.

“It’s a total disgrace. There is no heating and no hot water. We have to sleep in sleeping bags,” Yuri, a local resident, told The Moscow Times.

“I have no words to describe how bad the situation is," said Yuri, who declined to provide his surname. "We have had no heating for almost six days."

Heating issues have affected residents in the Moscow region, where temperatures have plunged to as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius in the past week, as well as people in the Far East Primorye region , the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg , Penza , the southern Voronezh and Volgograd regions and more.

In the Tver region, a group of residents filmed an appeal to President Vladimir Putin, saying that they “are freezing from the cold” in the village of Novozavidovsky.

“We're literally being killed by the cold,” a woman in the video said, adding that they have been sending requests to local authorities since September after their houses were connected to a boiler room whose power was reportedly insufficient.

“This is some kind of torture and extermination of the population 100 kilometers from Moscow,” she added.

Residents of the Moscow region town of Elektrostal lit a fire in the street to draw the authorities’ attention to the heating problem.

“It’s impossible to stay in our houses. We're freezing!” a group of women in the video said.

Suffering from subzero temperatures, residents are placing the blame on local authorities and utility services for failing to take necessary precautions and not taking action to resolve the situation.

“We are sending complaints everywhere but no one listens to us. We have portable heaters working in every room, but the temperature inside is still 10 degrees Celsius,” Yelena from Podolsk said.

“There is a clinic and a hospital, as well as kindergartens, where there is no heating. And we have no answers, no assistance, no explanation,” Yelena added.

Podolsk authorities opened temporary heating centers and declared a state of emergency.

Local authorities linked the heating problems to the fact that the town is heated by a boiler plant owned by the Klimovsk Specialized Ammunition Plant, a private ammunition factory and one of the largest weapon cartridge production enterprises in the country.

“The facility is under tight security conditions, which limits our ability to oversee winter preparations,” the Moscow region’s Vice Governor Yevgeny Khromushin said last week. “We were unaware of the problem for nearly a day.”

An unidentified Moscow region official and two senior executives at the plant were arrested on suspicion of providing unsafe services, Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said in a statement Tuesday.

Investigators said that Podolsk’s deputy mayor was accused of misusing authority by issuing a readiness certificate for the boiler house at the plant.

In the neighboring Tver region, the authorities opened a criminal case over the laundering of over 84 million rubles ($938,993) in heating bills paid by residents, the Astra Telegram channel reported this week, citing unidentified sources. According to investigators, the heads of the local water intake and boiler house misappropriated the heating payments for personal use.

Reacting to the heating failures, Putin on Tuesday asked Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov to provide heat and electricity to the affected residents.

The outages appear to be the latest effect of several decades of crumbling infrastructure in Russia which have been linked to endemic corruption and mismanagement.

The overall decay of Russia's municipal infrastructure surpassed 70% in 2022, the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia reported .

According to Sergei Pakhomov, head of the State Duma’s Construction, Housing and Utilities Committee, water pipes that were 90 years old or even older were still in use as recently as two years ago in some cases.

Housing, utilities and communal services are a common source of problems for Russians during the winter.

In St. Petersburg, residents regularly complain about extensive ice coverage on city streets and sidewalks, with many people ending up in the hospital over the years due to slipping and falling accidents.

In the Siberian republic of Khakassia, two villages were left without electricity last month due to apparent issues with outdated communication systems.

In the winter of 2020, five people in the Perm region were killed after a pipe burst.

When asked about the latest heating outages, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the problems and linked them to poor municipal infrastructure, saying that people “had to endure a lot of inconvenience in the cold and without electricity.”

"Despite all the titanic efforts to update all housing and communal services systems, there's still a certain part that remains considerably deteriorated. These programs will continue, but it is impossible to update all pipes and all housing and communal services systems in 10-15 years,” Peskov said.

As for now, residents affected by heating issues appear to lack optimism that the problems will be solved efficiently.

"It's been a week since we've had heating, and the temperature in my apartment is around 11 degrees Celsius,” Podolsk resident Lidiya told The Moscow Times.

“Unfortunately, no one knows when it will be repaired,” she added.

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General Officer Assignments

The Chief of Staff of the Army announces the following officer assignments:

Maj. Gen. Kimberly M. Colloton, deputy commanding general for Military and International Operations, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, D.C., to deputy chief of engineers, Office of the Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army; and deputy commanding general, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, D.C.

Maj. Gen. Lance G. Curtis, deputy chief of staff, G-4, U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort Liberty, North Carolina, to commanding general, Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

Maj. Gen. Christopher L. Eubank, commanding general, U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to chief of staff, U.S. Strategic Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.

Maj. Gen. Clair A. Gill, deputy director for Regional Operations and Force Management, J-3, Joint Staff, Washington, D.C., to commanding general, U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Novosel, Fort Novosel, Alabama.

Maj. Gen. Gavin A. Lawrence, commanding general, Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, to deputy chief of staff for Logistics and Operations, U.S. Army Materiel Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

Maj. Gen. Kevin C. Leahy, commander, Special Operations Command Central, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, to commander, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, Operation Inherent Resolve, Iraq.

Maj. Gen. Michael C. McCurry II, commanding general, U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Novosel, Fort Novosel, Alabama, to chief of staff, U.S. Army Futures Command, Austin, Texas.

Brig. Gen. Stephanie R. Ahern, director of Concepts, Futures and Concepts Center, U.S. Army Futures Command, Adelphi, Maryland, to commandant, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

Brig. Gen. Sarah K. Albrycht, commandant, U.S. Army Military Police School, U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, to provost marshal general, U.S. Army, and commanding general, Army Corrections Command, Washington, D.C.

Brig. Gen. Guillaume N. Beaurpere, commanding general, U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, Fort Liberty, North Carolina, to chief of staff, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.

Brig. Gen. Chad C. Chalfont, deputy commanding general (Maneuver), 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Cavazos, Texas, to commandant, U.S. Army Armor School, U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Moore, Georgia.

Brig. Gen. Kendall J. Clarke, deputy commanding general (Operations), 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, New York, to director of Concepts, Futures and Concepts Center, U.S. Army Futures Command, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia.

Brig. Gen. Jasper Jeffers III, deputy director for Special Operations and Counter-Terrorism, J-3, Joint Staff, Washington, D.C., to commander, Special Operations Command Central, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.

Brig. Gen. Shane P. Morgan, commandant, U.S. Army Field Artillery School, U.S. Army Fires Center of Excellence, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to deputy director for Regional Operations and Force Management, J-3, Joint Staff, Washington, D.C.

Brig. Gen. Jason B. Nicholson, commanding general, U.S. Army Security Assistance Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, to director, Strategy, Plans and Policy, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-3/5/7, U.S. Army, Washington, D.C.

Brig. Gen. Michael J. Simmering, commandant, U.S. Army Armor School, U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Moore, Georgia, to commanding general, First Army Division East, Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Brig. Gen. Brian D. Vile, commandant, U.S. Army Cyber Warfare School and Chief of Cyber, Fort Eisenhower, Georgia, to deputy director, Future Operations, J-3, U.S. Cyber Command, Fort Meade, Maryland.

Brig. Gen. Scott D. Wilkinson, commanding general, U.S. Army Special Operations Aviation Command; and deputy commanding general-Futures, U.S. Special Operations Command, Fort Liberty, North Carolina, to chief, Legislative Liaison, Office of the Secretary of the Army, Washington, D.C.

Col. (Promotable) Jeremy A. Bartel, chief of staff, U.S. Army Central, Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, to commander, Special Operations Joint Task Force-Central, Operation Enduring Sentinel, Qatar.

Col. (Promotable) James T. Blejski Jr., assistant chief of staff, G-3, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to director of intelligence, J-2, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.

Col. (Promotable) Robert G. Born, deputy commander (Support), 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Cavazos, Texas, to deputy commander (Maneuver), 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Cavazos, Texas.

Col. (Promotable) Kirk E. Brinker, deputy commander (Support), 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), Fort Liberty, North Carolina, to deputy commander, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Liberty, North Carolina.

Col. (Promotable) Kevin S. Chaney, project manager, Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, Program Executive Office Aviation, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, to deputy, Program Executive Office, Command, Control and Communication (Tactical), Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

Col. (Promotable) Kenneth C. Cole, deputy commander (Support), 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to deputy commander, U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence, Fort Rucker, Alabama.

Col. (Promotable) Ronald L. Franklin Jr., NATO Branch Chief, J-5, U.S. European Command, Germany, to senior defense official and defense attaché, U.S. Defense Attaché Office, Russia.

Col. (Promotable) Rogelio J. Garcia, deputy commander (Support), 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, to commandant of cadets, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.

Col. (Promotable) Peter C. Glass, deputy director/chief of staff, Futures and Concepts Center, U.S. Army Futures Command, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, to deputy commander (Support), 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Cavazos, Texas.

Col. (Promotable) Joseph C. Goetz II, commandant, U.S. Army Engineer School, U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, to commander, Pacific Ocean Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Shafter, Hawaii.

Col. (Promotable) Phillip J. Kiniery III, deputy commander (Operations), 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to commandant, U.S. Army Infantry School, U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence; and director, Future Soldier Lethality Cross Functional Team, Army Futures Command, Fort Moore, Georgia.

Col. (Promotable) Paul T. Krattiger, deputy commander (Support), 1st Armored Division, Fort Bliss, Texas, to deputy commander (Operations), 1st Armored Division, Fort Bliss, Texas.

Col. (Promotable) Matthew J. Lennox, deputy commander, Cyber National Mission Force, U.S. Cyber Command, Fort Meade, Maryland, to deputy commander, Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber, U.S. Army Cyber Command, Fort Eisenhower, Georgia.

Col. (Promotable) Robert J. Mikesh Jr., project manager, Integrated Personnel and Pay System–Army, Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems, Arlington, Virginia, to deputy program executive officer, Enterprise Information Systems, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

Col. (Promotable) Jin H. Pak, commandant, U.S. Army Quartermaster School, U.S. Army Sustainment Center of Excellence, Fort Gregg-Adams, Virginia, to commander, 19th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, Eighth Army, Republic of Korea.

Col. (Promotable) Allen J. Pepper, senior defense official and defense attaché, U.S. Defense Attaché Office, Iraq, to commander, U.S. Army Security Assistance Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

Col. (Promotable) Brendan C. Raymond, director of integration, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8, U.S. Army, Washington, D.C., to deputy commander (Support), 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colorado.

Col. (Promotable) Adam D. Smith, deputy commander for operations, U.S. Army Recruiting Command, Fort Knox, Kentucky, to The Adjutant General of the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Human Resources Command; commander, U.S. Army Physical Disability Agency; and executive director, Military Postal Service Agency, Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Col. (Promotable) Kevin J. Williams, chief of staff, Joint Task Force–Red Hill, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Honolulu, Hawaii, to deputy commander (Operations), 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

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