Fed Climate Actions

Today there were two historic actions by the U.S. Federal Government responding to the climate crisis: President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Department of Interior imposed new water restrictions on the Colorado River.

The IRA law according to the White House makes the largest investment in clean energy by:

Lowering Energy Costs

• Families that take advantage of clean energy and electric vehicle tax credits will save more than $1,000 per year.

• $14,000 in direct consumer rebates for families to buy heat pumps or other energy efficient home appliances, saving families at least $350 per year.

• 7.5 million more families will be able install solar on their roofs with a 30% tax credit, saving families $9,000 over the life of the system or at least $300 per year.

• Up to $7,500 in tax credits for new electric vehicles and $4,000 for used electric vehicles, helping families save $950 per year.

• Putting America on track to meet President Biden’s climate goals, which will save every family an average of $500 per year on their energy costs.

Building a Clean Energy Economy

• Power homes, businesses, and communities with much more clean energy by 2030, including:

  • 950 million solar panels

  • 120,000 wind turbines

  • 2,300 grid-scale battery plants

• Advance cost-saving clean energy projects at rural electric cooperatives serving 42 million people.

• Strengthen climate resilience and protect nearly 2 million acres of national forests.

• Creating millions of good-paying jobs making clean energy in America.

Reducing Harmful Pollution

• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 1 gigaton in 2030, or a billion metric tons – 10 times more climate impact than any other single piece of legislation ever enacted.

• Deploy clean energy and reduce particle pollution from fossil fuels to avoid up to 3,900 premature deaths and up to 100,000 asthma attacks annually by 2030.

Federal water restrictions on the Colorado River are being imposed on seven Western states and Mexico. The crisis did not begin with current droughts and result largely from the original 1920’s compact that overestimated available water supplies.

Going, going,............?

The photo depicts the Colorado River in Grand Junction taken from the 24 Road bridge on July 24, 2021. Notice the contrast in colors? Less than one mile upstream, the Gunnison River converges on the right south bank side flowing into the Colorado River. Water from the Gunnison appears to be more muddy possibly due to significant irrigation by farms causing increased erosion that causes sediments to runoff into streams.

The Colorado River basin ecosystem with about 40 million people who depend on stable water supplies, hydroelectric power that lights Las Vegas, and food crops distributed around the world, as well as numerous wildlife, are in a significant crisis - an existential threat. Even without the devastating impacts of climate change, there are too many people taking water out of the River than is being created by nature. Water managers call this “over allocation.” People are blaming the current extreme drought conditions but for longer term reasons and solutions we need to revisit our ancestor’s decisions to understand the truth that:

The River is Dying from Dehydration!

How did we get into this situation and what can we do about it? That has been a primary subject of this blog for the past six years and major motivation for advocating people Conserve in order to Prosper. Some of the factors occurred at the start of America’s expansion westward. Politicians did not listen to the first director of the U.S. Geological Survey, John Wesley Powell, who famously rafted through the Grand Canyon. He advocated that western states could not support building huge cities moving in from the eastern U.S. Few people really listened to Nature’s distress call when numerous dams were built by Herbert Hoover’s Bureau of Reclamation and subsequent generations - as if nature needed humans to reclaim the barren land. These bathtub evaporation ponds were built 50 years before the government required environmental impact statements which fortunately stopped major dam construction projects more recently.

The information used to determine how much available water the Colorado contained was overly optimistic - only about 10 years of data during a wet decade was used to determine how much water could be taken out. The 1922 compact among seven western states and a treaty with Mexico was based on flawed decisions using insufficient information to literally drain the life blood out of the River basin. A very slow painful death during the past century.

The Colorado River hit a new low this week. For the first time in almost 100 years of the seven state agreement to share water, the Federal Government issued mandatory water restrictions! That means that we all will need to use less and pay more for water, including farmers in Arizona who are growing water intensive crops like alfalfa or in California growing almonds. Homeowners can convert grass to beautiful desert landscaping using drip irrigation for a fraction of the cost and water demand.

For more reports, there is much information in the news including these resources:

National Geographic - The Water Crisis

Vice News - 40 Million People Rely on the Colorado River, Now it’s Drying Up

Washington Post Opinions - What to do about the Colorado River’s megadrought ‘code red’

BBC News - Colorado River: First-ever shortage declared amid record US drought

The Colorado Mesa University newsletter (email subscription to Hutchins Water Center) stated on August 20, 2021 that:

“SHORTAGE DECLARATION
The Bureau of Reclamation has declared the first-ever official shortage for the lower Colorado River basin, which requires delivery cuts to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico under the 2007 Interim Guidelines for operating Lakes Mead and Powell. The determination was made in response to the Mead elevation projected in the August 24-month Study. This Fact Sheet by the Bureau explains how the declaration was made, how much deliveries will be reduced and details about drought response operations. Under the shortage, Arizona will lose about 18% of its Colorado River supplies, the largest cut. This Central Arizona Project page has details on how the cuts will be allocated and how the state is responding.

CO DEMAND MANAGEMENT DISCUSSIONS
The Colorado Water Conservation Board's August 18 Demand Management Workshop included a hydrology presentation by Brad Udall, a summary of the Colorado River District's stakeholder report on Demand Management by General Manager Andy Mueller, and an update from Upper Colorado River Commission Interim Executive Director Sara Larsen on their Demand Management work, as well as discussion of the CWCB's Demand Management Framework and related information. You can watch a recording of the meeting here. “

So let’s all do more to learn how we can try to regain our balance with nature by taking positive individual and collective measures. That seems like something we could all agree on!

Washington Post reports Grand Junction Area is in Climate Change Hot Spot!

Today, the Washington Post reported that the Western Slope area of Colorado and Utah is warming at twice the world’s average due to climate change!

“This cluster of counties on Colorado's Western Slope — along with three counties just across the border in eastern Utah — has warmed more than 2 degrees Celsius, double the global average. Spanning more than 30,000 square miles, it is the largest 2C hot spot in the Lower 48, a Washington Post analysis found.”

“Dry areas warm faster for lack of moisture to cool things down, said Chris Milly, a senior resource scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey. Land use, irrigation and natural variability could also help explain part of the disparity. Milly and another colleague recently found that much of the Colorado River’s climate-induced decline — amounting to 1.5 billion tons of missing water — comes from the fact that the region’s snowpack is shrinking and melting earlier. That’s as much water as 14 million Americans use in a year.”

“The city of Grand Junction recently analyzed whether it has enough water to supply its 30,000 customers even if the drought persists. In the near term, according to its utilities director Randi Kim, the city is fine. But it also looked over the next 50 years — and came up as much as 3,300 acre feet short, which would force it to tap water directly from the Colorado and Gunnison rivers. And that was without calculating the full impacts of climate change.”

To read more about this work from Chris Milly at USGS and predictions for the future of the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB), see this website and quote: “Continued warming in the UCRB will drive further loss of river flow. Another factor, which might add or subtract available water, will be changes in precipitation, which could either increase or decrease. Considering the effect of warming alone, and using estimates of the rate of warming from global climate models, it is estimated that by 2050 the flow will have decreased by 14 to 31%, relative to the historical average. When the possible changes in precipitation are included, the range of this estimate widens, with losses as great as 40% and, at the other extreme, a flow gain of 3%.”

When we moved to Grand Junction 8 years ago from Las Vegas, Nevada we were shocked at how people wasted precious water resources. In Las Vegas, water conservation is enforced with water recycling systems and expensive utility bills. In Grand Junction, many people plant grass landscapes using irrigation from the Colorado River that is not metered, low cost, and over watered running down the curbs. We’ve discussed water conservation for many years and many people just think if they don’t use it they will lose their water rights which is not true.

Due to the oil and gas industry dominating the area’s economy for many years, climate change has not been a subject many people wanted to discuss. In fact, the local university invited climate deniers to speak on campus a few years ago.

We purposely moved to a subdivision of Grand Junction that is not on the City water supply and obtain water from Grand Mesa lakes providing drinking water and drip irrigation. We planted native plants may of which do not need much water including lavender and trumpet vines. Water conservation is critical more then ever and it is time for public officials to mandate water restrictions as is being done in many other locations.

Highlights from UCRBWF

The 9th annual Upper Colorado River Basin Water Forum was held on November 13-14 at the Colorado Mesa University (CMU) in Grand Junction, CO. This year’s theme was “Tools for Adaptation.” The two-day conference consistently provides an outstanding overview of the multidisciplinary issues concerning conflicting interests in the region. Some of the diverse presenters and attendees (like students, professionals, and retirees) discussed topics including agriculture, energy, engineering, fishing, forests, law, management, parks, policy, politics, recreation, science, timber, tribal rights, and urban demands.

The general theme seemed to be that the upper basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico are not using their full share of water as determined by the 1922 compact while the lower basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada are using too much of their allotment. Overall, the Colorado River provides water to over 40 million people as well as food (or animal feed) to much of the United States and abroad. There is a treaty with Mexico to provide water as well as numerous tribal nations have made water rights settlements. The system of prior appropriation means who legally applied first gets the senior rights which includes California, many urban systems, and agriculture. The junior rights went to Arizona, tribes, and environmental uses. This is becoming really bad news to the four million people in the Phoenix area who will struggle to find adequate replacement for their water supply, as well as tribal people who are unable to build and use available supplies, and wildlife depending on adequate stream flow.

The river system has been overallocated, meaning more people claim rights to water than is available, creating more demand for groundwater especially during severe droughts. Supreme Court cases have been fought over state water rights and the 7 state compact agreement will need to be renegotiated or face federal intervention to preserve required lake levels for hydroelectric power generation. Some speakers described using the courts to resolve issues as high-stakes gambling. Ironically, to fund the Colorado Water Plan voters approved sports betting! Please see my original comments on the CWP submitted over four years ago.

To reach beyond conflicts, many presenters demonstrated positive results by creating collaborative partnerships. I’m most impressed with non-profit efforts by The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, and the Colorado Water Trust. Here is a link to the abstracts with biographies of the speakers.

So for some more highlights, here are a few essential notes:

• The US Geological Survey in 1916 got the science correct to forecast limited water supplies but the US Bureau of Reclamation’s incorrect oversupply predictions were used in the 1922 Compact with 7 states

• The two dammed reservoirs (Powell and Mead) account for loss due to evaporation of 1,000,000 acre-feet which is about 6% of the total supply

• Municipal water suppliers and industries are increasing efficient uses of water

• Tribal advocates for spiritual nature of water essential for sustainability over commodity mentality

• Northwestern New Mexico is building $1.1 billion dollar water supply for Navajo Nation and other tribes

• Southeastern New Mexico boom in shale gas uses 60,000 acre-feet of fresh water yet produces 100,000 acre-feet of waste brine solutions so new applications for water rights by industry are being put on hold with the new Governor over the past year

• Closing coal-fired power plants affects tribal incomes that will need compensation

• Population growth is largest in southwestern U.S. which cannot support resource demands

• Industry wants water banking and new aquifer storage and recovery systems

• Over use of surface water - groundwater causing ground subsidence in many areas

• Alternative Transfer Mechanisms are an alternative to “buy and dry” when housing developments are build on ranches to negotiate deals with multiple stakeholders

• Excessive outdoor water users need more utility and community enforcement

• Direct potable reuse is being adopted in several states to recycle water supplies

• Two book authors gave terrific keynote presentations: Eric Kuhn and Zak Podmore

• Colorado River water gets reused 17 times as it flows downstream

• A politician claims grazing is good for forests

• A US Geological Survey scientist states grazing causes 50% increase in sedimentation and that soil crusts are easily damaged and hard to restore

• River water supply forecasting is done by 15 federal centers including CBRFC

• The National Water Model v. 2 needs upgrading by federal agencies with support from big tech companies

• The National Water Map is one related product by USGS

• Training is available with the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies

• There is an ag water conference in Loveland, CO on December 2-3

• Augmented stream flow and management plans can keep rivers flowing

I’m grateful to the organizers and participants for this great educational forum!

Poster and Tour of Colorado River Park

The annual Upper Colorado River Basin Water Forum at CMU included my poster presentation of Las Colonias Park discussing the history of the uranium mill cleanup and development of the park. Here is a link to all the abstracts. The City of Grand Junction managers provided a tour of the park developments which are rapidly expanding to include new business construction focused on the recreation industry.

Here is a link to the previous blog after attending a concert at the amphitheater and the abstract for the poster presentation:

Las Colonias Park along the Colorado River in Grand Junction, CO: Transformation of a Radioactive-Hazardous Waste Dump to the City’s Premier Business-Recreational River Park

By Bill Dam

Many people associated with public-private organizations over several decades can be thanked for the cleanup and creation of Las Colonias Park. The site is located due south of Grand Junction’s downtown along the Colorado River and Riverside Parkway. The multi-use site includes an amphitheater for concerts, business park offices, picnic areas, gardens, bike path, restroom facilities, river access and more. A river park along a side channel of the Colorado River is being constructed for use by kids, kayakers, and stand-up boarders.

City of Grand Junction employees took great care to preserve the history of the site by including signs at the park in collaboration with Colorado Mesa University (CMU). According to the CMU history project, “Above all, the story of Las Colonias Park is the story of different people coming together to form communities. From the Spanish and Ute traders to the Hispanic migrants who built lives and homes on its banks to the more recent community-wide efforts to restore and preserve the riverfront, this stretch of land has been a convergence point for people and culture. After nearly 30 years of work, the land is poised to enter into a new era as a developed city park, but it is important that its history not be forgotten in the transition. The history of the Old Spanish Trail, the sugar beet industry, the uranium years, and the remediation and restoration of the land are all vital to the story of Grand Junction: these themes demonstrate both the various cultures and the economic changes that have shaped the Grand Valley.”

In 1950, the Climax uranium mill began operating to produce yellowcake uranium resulting in the byproduct of over two million tons of waste tailings. The uranium mill operated for about 20 years and then became an auto junk yard mixed with low-level radioactive waste. The State of Colorado began in the early 1970’s to deal with radioactive mill tailings that became used in concrete construction as the mill had offered “free sand.” In 1978, the U.S. Congress passed the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) and the program identified over 4,000 vicinity properties around the Grand Junction area that needed radon-radium mitigation. Department of Energy (DOE) built a new disposal site to remove the tailings away from the Colorado River.

After site remediation in 1994, the land was vacant for 20 years until the City obtained many sources of funding to enable redevelopment. Park construction occurred in phases including the Phase 2 amphitheater project with DOE providing federal permit reviews and a grant to support redevelopment of the former mill processing site as well as interpretive historical signs.

Transformation of Las Colonias Park was a grassroots effort by citizens with the Lions Club and many other organizations. Cleanup and redevelopment grew out of conflicts and collaborations between local, state, and federal agencies. A new wave of businesses, people attending concerts, as well as accessing the Colorado River are discovering the renewed beauty of Las Colonias Park.

A tour of Las Colonias Park is planned for Thursday, November 14 at 3:30 pm. Tour leaders include:

Trent Prall, City of Grand Junction Public Works Director, trentonp@gjcity.org

Ken Sherbenou, City of Grand Junction Parks and Recreation Director, gjparksandrec@gjcity.org

Bio: Bill Dam worked for the U.S. Department of Energy in Grand Junction, CO from 2012 to 2019 and recently retired from federal service to enjoy consulting and teaching. He served DOE as a site manager of many sites, including Las Colonias Park, as well as working on a variety of uranium mining and milling contaminated sites. Overall, he worked 25 years for four federal agencies and has over 10 years environmental consulting experience. He formed his consulting company Conserve & Prosper LLC to promote sustainability emphasizing energy and water conservation. Contact Bill at info@conserve-prosper.com

Rocky Mountain Dry

The severe drought in the Rockies and Colorado River basin continues which is a bummer to the ski industry and 40 million people who rely on the water supply as well as for the ag industry that provides food to much of the world. Check out the US Drought Monitor!

Update from the 7th Annual Upper Colorado River Basin Forum at Colorado Mesa University

Is there enough water available in the Colorado River Basin (CRB) to meet all our current and future needs and obligations? According to my synthesis of information from the 7th Annual Upper Colorado River Basin Forum on November 1-2, 2017, consider this:

·         Currently about 40 million people depend on CRB water for agriculture, domestic, and recreational supplies

·         The 1922 compact with 7 states overestimated supplies so now the CRB is overallocated

·         The federal government (Bureau of Reclamation) requires adequate reservoir levels for hydroelectric generation and could override the 1922 compact

·         States are developing Drought Contingency Plans with improved efficiencies increasing supply

·         Efficient applications of drip irrigation and native plants are encouraged but not yet required

·         A US treaty with Mexico attempts to deliver some water that historically flowed to the ocean

·         Farmers consume about 90% of CRB water and have some of the oldest priority water rights

·         Some farmers are reluctant to conserve in fear of losing water rights and money

·         Colorado water law of beneficial use makes the “use-it or lose-it” mentality illegal

·         In Colorado, about 70% of water originates in the Western Slope with only 30% of the population while 30% of the water originates in the Eastern Slope (including Denver) with 70% of the population

·         Denver’s population is expected to double in roughly 30 years so demand is increasing

·         Trans-mountain diversions and priority water rights can allow the Eastern Slope to take much more than current amounts

·         Wyoming is building new reservoirs (“water banking”) on the Green River

·         In New Mexico, the Elephant Butte reservoir near Albuquerque almost went dry during recent droughts which had to be channelized and loses 250,000 acre-feet to evaporation when at capacity

·         Most vegetables in US are grown in the Imperial Valley of California using CRB water

·         The recent 5-year drought resulted in many farms going dry (crops were fallowed)

·         Beyond CRB for human consumption, recreationists (boating, fishing, etc.) demand more supply

·         The climate is changing and resulting in more variability making long term predictions difficult

So is there enough water available in the Colorado River Basin (CRB) to meet all our current and future needs and obligations? I would say currently no and optimistically with significant changes in the amounts of water that we consume there is the potential for saying yes.  

The forum provided great examples of techniques to measure and forecast water supplies. I suggested to the organizers for next year that additional consideration be given to water quality that is degrading or improving depending on many factors.

In summary, the Upper CRB Forum organized by Colorado Mesa University provides an incredibly valuable exchange of information in a non-confrontational environment that seeks to improve our understanding of the world we live in and how we can become better stewards of our environment.

Test Your Knowledge of Chasing Water

Brian Richter (President at Sustainable Waters, adjunct professor at the University of Virginia, and Director of Global Freshwater Strategies for The Nature Conservancy) authored a wonderfully interesting book called Chasing Water: A Guide for Moving from Scarcity to Sustainability by Island Press, 2014.

Test your water knowledge by taking this fun quiz with five questions:

1. What is the last state in the U.S. to take up arms against another state over water rights?

2. How much money did Texas lose in revenues from the 2011 drought?

3. How much money is needed to upgrade drinking water systems in the U.S. over the next twenty years?

4. About how much Colorado River water is consumed by agriculture?

5. What is the easiest, most cost efficient way we can increase water supplies or reduce consumptive use?

Before I provide the answers that will hopefully 'wet your appetite' to read this book, many important reflections and impacts come from this book that are really helpful to me. These include Brian Richter's optimism that we all can and must do our part to make a difference, that we cannot leave our future up to dysfunctional organizations including governments, and we can learn from many individuals who've successfully dealt with issues including extreme droughts in Australia, environmental change in China, and improved irrigation technology in Israel.

Ok, now for the answers to the quiz:

1. In 1934, the Arizona governor sent 100-man state militia to stop California from completing Parker Dam on the Colorado River. The Interior Secretary intervened to enable federal funding for irrigation that created the Central Arizona Project in exchange for Arizona signing the Colorado River Compact in 1944. 

2. Texas lost an estimated $9 billion due to the 2011 drought mostly from losses on irrigated farms.

3. An estimated $384 billion is needed to repair the drinking water infrastructure in the US according to the EPA in 2013. Of course, in my opinion the amount could be much higher after revelations about issues like the lead pipe problems in Flint, Michigan which is an issue in many locations.

4. About 50% of the water taken from the Colorado River is consumed by agriculture.

5. Given the inefficiencies in using water by agriculture, such as with flood irrigation or growing unsustainable crops like cotton, we can make the biggest impact by helping to change farm practices such as by using drip irrigation and respecting the capacity of our natural environment to support us.

Updated October 8, 2016

Now that you've passed the test (or checked out the answers) to the the Chasing Water book that I reviewed in my previous blog post, here are Brian Richter's ideas for water sustainability. So what does water sustainability really mean anyway? He cites Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute who offered this definition: "the use of water that supports the ability of human society to endure and flourish into the indefinite future without undermining the integrity of the hydrological cycle or the ecological systems that depend on it." For example, Richter suggests extracting more than 20 percent of a river's daily flow can lead to ecological harm to fish, turtles, frogs and other sensitive species. Lakes and aquifers may be even more sensitive to withdrawals due to slow replenishment.

Here are seven principles to consider for sustainable water management:

1. Build a shared vision for your community's water future.

2. Set limits on total consumptive use of water.

3. Allocate a specific volume to each user, then monitor and enforce.

4. Invest in water conservation to its maximum potential.

5. Enable trading of water entitlements.

6. If too much water is being consumptively used, subsidize reductions in consumption.

7. Learn from mistakes or better ideas, and adjust as you go.

Western water law based on prior appropriation (first in time, first in right) allows control of senior to junior water rights for people but priorities for sustaining natural ecosystems depends on people advocating for the environment. Obstacles to water conservation cited by the author include challenging social norms (people love green grass even in the desert), water providers whose receipts depend upon sales, spreading fear of shortages, and political will for unpopular projects such as dams. 

Richter explains how he learned through personal connections that Australian landowners fought for the environment even during severe droughts to keep water flowing and prevent additional fish kills. A cap-and-flex system adopted in the Murray-Darling watershed enabled setting limits to priority distributions for consumptive use accounting for protecting ecosystems and being flexible with supply during wetter years. The government stepped in to purchase 400,000 acre-feet at a cost of $700 million to store and distribute water where needed for ecological preservation and areas significant to Aboriginal people. 

Australia set up a market-based system to trade water rights which improved accounting systems for water management such as adding efficient technology that can measure the hydrologic cycle and consumptive use. 

Ultimately, there is great power in creating partnerships that can transcend institutional bureaucracies - individuals in local communities and grassroots organizations can network with public and private groups to share in a common mission to find solutions to these challenging problems.

Colorado River District Annual Meeting

2016 Annual Water Seminar

The Colorado River District’s popular one-day Annual Water Seminar is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 16, 2016 from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm at Two Rivers Convention Center, 159 Main Street, Grand Junction, CO
Theme: “Colorado River Waves of the Future: Fitting the West to the River’s New Normal”

Cost, which includes lunch buffet, is $30 if pre-registered by Friday, Sept. 9; $40 at the door. For information, contact Meredith Spyker. at 970-945-8522
Registration Form

Speakers will address the Lower Basin living within its water means and dealing with its “structural deficit,” how the Upper Basin is planning to deal with low levels at Lake Powell, sorting through the confusing programs addressing ag fallowing, a discussion of Use It or Lose It myths and a panel addressing what comes next after the Colorado Water Plan, especially with declining financial resources – plus more.

Draft agenda:

• Temperatures Matter: Jeff Lukas, Western Water Assessment

• How the Lower Basin is Attacking the Structural Deficit: Suzanne Ticknor, Central Arizona Project

• How the Upper Basin is Attacking Low Water Levels at Lake Powell: Eric Kuhn, Colorado River District

• Sorting through the Demand Management Weapons: Water Banking/System Conservation – who’s doing what: Dave Kanzer, Colorado River District

• Lunch Program – “Killing the Colorado” author Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

• Use It or Lose It – Separating Truth, Myth and Reality: Justice Greg Hobbs

• Colorado’s Water Plan – What Now? Panel Discussion with Colorado Water Conservation Board’s James Eklund; Colorado State Representative Don Coram and Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment’s Anne Castle

Announcing Upper Colorado River Basin Water Forum

The Colorado Mesa University's Water Center will host the 5th annual Colorado River Basin Water Forum on October 28-29, 2015. Topics will include recent weather anomalies, managing flows for multiple purposes, and demand management. The 2015 forum is organized to be an interdisciplinary dialogue between academic, practitioner, and artistic perspectives on water issues affecting the Upper Colorado River Basin. Here is the website link for more information and to register for the forum.

News from the 2015 Colorado River District Water Seminar

At the annual Colorado River District water seminar held on September 10th, we heard numerous speakers discuss the essential need to conserve. The western U.S. is close to a crisis as the demand for water is greater than the supply! As Lake Powell and Mead reservoirs decline, we are approaching the minimum levels needed to generate hydroelectric power. Water availability affects rural and urban areas, agriculture, and the environment. These issues are interconnected and we must work together to resolve our conflicts.

Here is the Grand Junction's Daily Sentinel article on the conference.

Open comment period on Colorado Water Plan until September 17th

The Colorado Water Plan is open for public comment for about six (6) more weeks. Here a brief description provided by the Colorado Water Conservation Board:

People love Colorado: our population ballooned from 1 million in 1930, to over 5 million today, and is projected to grow even faster in the future. So how do we ensure that we are able to preserve what we know and love about our state alongside population growth? When it comes to our water, Colorado’s Water Plan has answers. This plan offers a strategic vision: a productive economy that supports vibrant and sustainable cities, productive agriculture, a strong environment, and a robust recreation industry. How can we achieve this vision for Colorado water? This plan provides the strategies, policies, and actions by which Colorado can address its projected future needs in a manner consistent with this vision. This plan will be accomplished through collaboration with basin roundtables, local governments, water providers, and other stakeholders. It represents a set of collaboratively developed policies and actions that all Coloradans and their elected officials can support and to which they can adhere.

Not only is Colorado River water in great demand in the western U.S., there are statewide conflicts between the East Slope (including the Denver area) and the West Slope (including Grand Junction). Currently, over a half a million acre-feet of water is diverted each year from the West Slope to go to the East Slope according to news reports. Future diversions will need to increase as the population is booming in the Denver area which will continue to put more pressure on West Slope to conserve. 

In my opinion, rather than West Slope supporters demanding that no more water be provided to East Slope users, which will be a losing battle due to voter populations, the entire state needs to adopt strict conservation measures taken by many other cities. For example, the tremendous waste of water in the West Slope is astounding to me after having lived in Las Vegas.  Here is an updated video taken at the same location as shown on the July 17th blog where the mortuary business watered grass during a rain storm! I've also noticed they routinely water at 9:30 am and 5:00 pm. By contrast, the City of Grand Junction Parks and Recreation sets irrigation to occur between 10 pm and 6 am to limit loss by evapotranspiration and growth of disease. Rain moisture sensors are used to obtain the proper amount of irrigation water. So far, the business has not responded to my email offering them free advice on proper irrigation techniques.