WASHINGTON – With a bleak future looming for Colorado River water users, local leaders and government officials urged Congress to continue funding a study of the basin during a Senate subcommittee hearing Tuesday.
“We need to make every drop count,” Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said at the Water and Power Subcommittee hearing held to find solutions to the Colorado River Basin’s seemingly dire future.
Looming shortage
A two-year study by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation found the river and its tributaries will not be able to provide enough water for its nearby communities in 50 years. The water supply will continue to diminish because of climate change and growing population, the report said.
“There’s strong evidence of the increasing temperatures, and these are projected to occur over the next 20 years,” said Mike Connor, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation.
The Colorado River Basin and its tributaries supply water to nearly 40 million people in seven states, including Colorado, the report said.
The study projected the river’s supply and demand during the next 50 years with input from tribe members, agriculture workers and conservation and recreational groups.
“Reclamation officials have emphasized that this is a planning study; it will not result in any decisions but will provide the technical foundation for future activities,” said Reagan Waskom, director of the Colorado Water Institute.
The study also offered possible solutions to address the basin’s future, including water conservation, reuse and augmentation efforts.
However, there was some disagreement about these options concerning the suggestion of large-scale augmentation programs, Connor said.
Study financing important
The study cost approximately $7 million, which was shared among the Bureau of Reclamation and other regional agencies, Connor said.
“Availability of funding to do studies such as this was extremely helpful,” said Don Ostler, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission.
The Department of Interior allotted $8.2 million to the WaterSMART program, which in part funded the Colorado River Basin study, in May to begin resolving this issue.
However, a House bill proposed cutting WaterSMART funding by 53 percent for the next fiscal year, Connor said.
“We can’t carry out these obligations without working closely with the states,” he said.
But Executive Director Kathleen Ferris of Arizona Municipal Water said federal assistance is not necessary now.
“It’s up to the states to try to develop solutions,” Ferris said. “Then if we need federal or congressional help, (we can ask), but I’m not sure we’re there yet.”
Potential impacts
American Rivers, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advocates for clean rivers, named the Colorado the most endangered river for 2013.
The basin has a $26 billion recreational economy with more than 5 million adults visiting each year and supplying about 234,000 jobs across seven states, said Taylor Hawes, the Nature Conservancy’s Colorado River program director.
“The region’s economic vitality and its rich natural heritage are at risk,” Hawes said.
The Colorado River and its tributaries supply water to about 5.5 million acres of agricultural land, the report said.
“We use that water to produce food with,” said Waskom of the Colorado Water Institute.
Tribal concerns
Chairman T. Darryl Vigil of the Colorado River Basin Tribes Partnership voiced tribes’ concerns about losing their water rights with decreasing supplies.
“The 10 tribes are very concerned that ... others with far more political clout are relying on unused tribal water supplies and will seek to curtail future tribal water use to protect their own uses,” he said.
The value of real estate will depreciate as the Colorado River declines during the next 50 years, according to a report from Protect the Flows. Riverfront properties in Aspen would decrease by 5 percent based on the projected river flows from the Colorado River Basin study.
“People like to live along healthy rivers,” Hawes said.
Paige Jones is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald. Reach her at pjones@durangoherald.com.
