Gary Wockner: The dam truth about the Colorado River

The latest research about the Colorado River is alarming and also predictable: In a warming world, snowmelt has been decreasing while evaporation of reservoirs is increasing. Yet no politician has a plan to save the diminishing Colorado River.

If you followed the news about the Colorado River for the last year, however, you’d think that a political avalanche had swept down from Colorado’s snow-capped peaks and covered the Southwest with a blanket of “collaboration” and “river protection.”

I won’t call it fake news, but I will point out errors of omission.

First, the Colorado River is not protected. The agreement that was reached — called the “Drought Contingency Plan” — does not protect the river nor its ecological health. The agreement protects the federal government’s, the states’, the cities’, and the farmers’ ability to 100% drain the river bone dry every single year.

Nearly 5 trillion gallons of water flow in the Colorado River every year and every single drop will continue to be drained out, starting at the Continental Divide in Colorado all the way down to the delta in Mexico where the river still does not, nor is ever planned to, reach the Sea of Cortez.

Second, one of the two elephants in the room, climate change, hangs over the Colorado River. The current drought, due to the climate change that is already occurring, has decreased the flow in the river by about 20%, and the predicted increase in climate change may decrease the flow by another 30% by the year 2050.

READ ENTIRE COLUMN