The 100-year-old water truce among seven states of the Southwest may be moving toward open hostilities again as the life-giving but drought-decimated Colorado River is at a tipping point, federal officials say. The Colorado is the most endangered river in America, according to the conservation nonprofit American Rivers.
The river basin is at its driest period in 1,200 years, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton told Congress in June. She said the states — including Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico in the upper basin and Arizona, Nevada and California in the lower basin — must agree to conserve 2-million-to-4-million-acre-feet of river water next year to avoid collapse of the river system, including hydropower production on Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
The call to conserve that massive amount of water might be compared to the approximate 3.5 million acre-feet consumed by the four upper basin states each year, according to Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River District. The three lower basin states consume about 8.5 million acre-feet annually, he said.
The call for conservation could impact the Front Range directly because Denver, Colorado Springs and many other cities are highly dependent on Colorado River water diverted through tunnels beneath the mountains. Colorado Springs Utilities relies on the Colorado to meet 70 percent of its needs.
The Gazette dispatched a team of reporters, a photographer and a videographer to the diminishing riverscape to tell the stories of those struggling with the 22-year megadrought.
The river stretches for 1,450 miles from the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park to the Gulf of California in Mexico, although its waters are used up before reaching its natural terminus. It is the primary source of water for some 40 million people and provides agricultural irrigation, hydropower generation, fish and wildlife sustenance, and recreation to much of the Southwest.
Recurring themes emerged as staff members learned about how the drought and the aftermath of recent wildfires are affecting farmers and ranchers, tourism, the dams, tribal reservations, politics, conservation and average citizens.
Those include:
• Everyone takes from the river and is asking too much of it.
• Some farmers, ranchers and growers are among the first to feel the pinch, leaving their fields go fallow and forcing up the price of some commodities. .
• Scorching wildfires can leave watersheds damaged for years, further diminishing supplies and creating ongoing increased costs for ratepayers.
• Cities in multiple states are calling for voluntary cutbacks. Los Angeles and Las Vegas have issued restrictions.
• Some people who live, work and recreate on river water that accumulates from snow runoff and rainfall say drought conditions ebb and flow. They are optimistic water levels will rebound. But in many locales levels have reached historic lows.
• Meeting the Bureau's call for conservation will require cities and farms and ranches to conserve more. But it's unknown what that might entail.
•People realize that there will be sacrifices but say that working together will produce the best results.
Look for The Gazette’s series, “Tipping Point: The Colorado in Peril,” beginning July 17 and running Sundays through August in print and online at gazette.com.
