Colorado River Remains a Key Focus of the GWC
As the economic, ecological and cultural centerpiece of the American Southwest, the increasingly dire condition of the Colorado River remains a central focus of GWC activities.ÌýContinuing a recent tradition, the GWC joined with the Water & Tribes Initiative in June to bring basin officials, Tribal leaders, water users, and river advocates to discuss the situation in:Ìý Turning Hindsight into Foresight: The Colorado River at a Crossroads.Ìý With roughly 350 in-person (and 115 Zoom) attendees, participants were tasked with identifying past experiences and lessons that can inform current challenges, beginning with the experiences of the Ancient Puebloans displaced by drought in the 13th century, to efforts in the early 21st century to craft the soon expiring 2007 Interim Guidelines, to ongoing efforts to craft new rules guiding river operations after 2026.ÌýNot surprisingly, the conversation was a lively union of technical analyses of law, policy and hydrology nested within a spiritually rich foundation acknowledging the deeply personal impact that the declining river has on the people and creatures that call the region home.
Efforts to craft new (post-2026) reservoir operating rules on the river dominate most Colorado River discourse at the moment, with the ongoing Environment Impact Statement (EIS) process expected to result in a Draft EIS by December and a Final EIS (and Record of Decision) by next summer.Ìý Those efforts have largely stalled over the last year as the Basin States have, unsuccessfully, attempted to craft a joint Alternative to be included in the analysis, a difficult proposition given that every road forward is likely to result in declining water availability for every state, a painful but mathematically inevitable result of life in a basin where snowmelt-driven natural flows have dropped nearly 20% since 2000.Ìý This reality was the backdrop of a public forum in late June where I was paired with Rebecca Mitchell, the Colorado official tasked with representing the state in these negotiations.Ìý Speaking before the crowd in Crested Butte, neither of us found much reason for optimism in current trends in climate and hydrology, a situation only magnified by the shockingly low runoff of local streams resulting from what seemed like a relatively healthy winter snowpack.Ìý No amount of interstate negotiation—or threats of interstate litigation—can overcome the increasingly consequential impact of warming in the basin.
This tension between the river we thought we had and the river that now exists runs through much of the work of the Colorado River Research Group (CRRG), hosted by the GWC but comprised of over a dozen prominent Colorado River scholars spread across the basin (and beyond).Ìý CRRG members are currently drafting a detailed summary of key issues and, in some cases, prescriptions for the river system, focusing on issues affecting nearly all sectors and sub-regions of the basin. It is an increasingly alarming review of trends that, collectively, illustrate the erosion of all the safety nets in the basin: reservoir storage, groundwater reserves, federal drought response funding, and technical support from agencies and universities engaged in Colorado River problem-solving.
It is a challenging time in the Colorado River Basin.Ìý More than ever, the GWC is focused on developing new leaders to bring ideas and energy to a basin in need of answers.Ìý Ìý