On The Colorado - Articles

This study, prepared by the Bureau of Reclamation and the seven states of the Colorado River basin (with technical asistance from a few contractors), was completed because Congress forced the issue through legislation and modest funding mechanisms. It must be appreciated, however, that the public has been asking the Natural Resource Committees and Reclamation to perform a long-term and basin-wide assessment for more than a half-century. The reason was to avoid the condition the basin now faces: human consumption has over-extended the natural supply, and water curtailments and empty reservoirs will be the consequence.

This study is unique in that the demand side is assessed for the first time and includes the projected impacts of climate change to year 2060. As important as this far-reaching study is, the National Academy of Sciences, for example, was not asked to provide an independent review of the methodology and conclusions.

The document is tame in explaining the persistant decline in the natural flow since 1906 (trend of decline). Why it took this long for Reclamation and the states to address this known rate of decline until now, is a serious miscalculation. Worst case scenarios of reservoir levels should have been provided to visually demonstrate the seriousness of the problem to the public, but instead the risk analysis graphics were poorly presented.

Whereas the graphics presented to the subcommittees of the Basin Study had exceptional interpretative values. For instance the graphics (not published for public review) of Trace 21, which was provided to the Modeling Assumption Sub-group in 2011. Trace 21 is a CRRS run that represents a persistent dry period in the Colorado River Basin that occurred between 1928 and 1982. See: Graph by Pulwarty and Melis, 2001 to visually understand this critical dry period.

The study offers an assumed hope that humans might actually start to curb their consumptive behavior, that corporations will lower their greenhouse gas emissions, and planning for smart growth will somehow not become an oxymoron.

In the last century, documents were provided to Congress to assess the supply side of the Colorado River, and generous funding for grandiose engineering projects soon followed.

The documents about the hydrology were not entirely correct, and in this post-construction era the water managers now understand that drying times can last for centuries and flood magnitudes can overwhelm spillway capacities.

Generous state and federal funding will not happen in this century for solving the problem of imbalances caused by over-reaching the demand side of the equation, which includes the subsequent damage brought upon the natural water cycle, and caused by the excessive human consumption of fossil energy fuels.

If funding is somehow pulled out of a magician's hat, the administrative record indicates clearly that maximum human consumption will continue and the problem will never be solved.

The age of abundance is over, with or without adjusting to climate change, and water managers must accept the supply the basin has been given and abandon the ideology of chasing the balloons of demand.

COMMENT LETTERS: BASIN STUDY
Living Rivers and Center for Biological Diversity

BASELINE INFORMATION

Click here to read a 1958 Arizona Highways magizine feature called "Flying the Colorado River."
Click here to read a 1983 Sunset Magazine article called the "Mighty and Troubled Colorado."
Click here to read this story by Brett Walton in Circle of Blue.

Modeling Contingency Planning

CLICK HERE to download the combined documents of the Colorado River Basin Supply and Demand Study (1,655 pages).

CLICK HERE for the two-page Fact Sheet.

2018 - Tribal Water Study of the Ten-Tribe Partnership (documents combined and starting with the press release). This study is a new feature of the 2012 Basin Study.

Here is the work of the other BASIN STUDIES in the arid lands onf the USA.

STUDY WEBSITE
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy.html

Email: ColoradoRiverBasinStudy@usbr.gov

U.S. mail to:
Bureau of Reclamation
Attention: Ms. Pam Adams, LC-2721
P.O. Box 61470
Boulder City, NV 89006-1470

Facsimile transmission: 702-293-8418

SECURE WATER ACT

WATER SUSTAINIBILITY

United Nations

2003 to 2016 - Integrated Water Resources Management

White House

2016 - Committents To Action On Building Sustainable Water Future. White House.
2016 - Long-Term Drought Resilience Action Plan. White House.
2016 - Presidential Memorandum Building National Capabilities for Long-Term Drought Resilience. White House.

ACADEMIC SYNTHESIS

2014 - Research Needs in the Colorado River Basin. CRGI.
2015 - Lower Basin. Unversity of California at Santa Barbara.
2016 - Upper Basin. Yale University.
2016 - Climate Change and the Colorado River: What We Already Know. CRRG.
2016 - Survey Results: Colorado River Water Users Association. Berggren.

REPONSE FROM ACADEMICS

CLICK HERE to read the letter from 23 academics to Sally Jewell.
CLICK HERE to read DOI's response letter of Febuary 9, 2016
Click here to read the response letter from Nevada's Colorado River Commissioner
Click here to read the response from Utah's Colorado River Commissioner
Click here to read the response from Colorado River Energy Distributors Association (CREDA)

PREVIOUS STUDIES

2010 - INTERIM REPORT No. 1

2010 - Public Comments

Public Options

REVISIONS OF TECHNICAL REPORTS
Technical Part B

Technical Part C

Tecnical Report D

2012 - FINAL SUPPLY AND DEMAND STUDY

LIST OF TIMELY COMMENTS

INDEPENDENT REVIEWS

2011 - Inflated demand scenarios. Pacific Institute and Western Resource Advocates.
2012 - Managment of Water Shortage Colorado River Evaluate Policy Viability Interstate Water. Wildman.
2013 - Adapting to a Changing Colorado River or Summary. RAND.
2014 - Understanding Uncertainties in Future Colorado River Streamflow. Vano et al. See reference to Seager et al HERE.
2014 - Research Needs in the Colorado River Basin. Colorado River Goverance Initiative.

EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH

Webinars

Click here to view screen shots of the January 9 webinar
Webinar of January 9, 2013 (Watch on You Tube)
Webinar of January 25, 2013
Click here to view screen shots of January 25 webinar

Webinar of April 3, 2013

Click here to watch the April 3, webinar
Click here to view the pdf of the April 3, webinar
Click here to view screen shots of the April 3 webinar

Public Relations

2013 - THE NEXT STEPS

The 50-year remedies are arbitrarily under the purview of the Bureau of Reclamation, the seven states, the tribes, and selected environmental groups. Their preliminary reports are overdue.

Click here to read the fact sheet called "Moving Forward."
Click here to see who is participating on the three official Workgroups
Click here to review the official website of the Basin Study

CONTINGENCY PLANNING

Resolution to adopt contingency planning to avoid shortages of water deliveries and hydropower generations. Upper Colorado River Commission.

FEDERAL CLIMATE CHANGE ASSESSMENT FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

2013 - Report: National Climate Assessment Development Advisory Committee (big file)

Links to ON THE COLORADO articles on this subject

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