Colorado River Blues Redux: Going, Going...Gone? (2008 --> 2021)

This is a repost of an article I published on 2 December 2008: Colorado River Blues: Going, Going...I did not intend to add 'redux' to the title and repost it until a few minutes ago. I read a Tweet from friend and colleague Michael van der Valk, who re-Tweeted the post preceding this one, Ground Water: The Water Budget Myth, one of my all-time favorites. I had been reading current depressing articles about water woes in the Colorado Basin. So I thought it might be enlightening to see what was occurring in late 2008. Some of the links may be broken. I added a CRB map, which was absent from the original post.

Interesting to see Wall Street's current interest in the CRB. Could The Water Knife be far behind? 

Enjoy! 

This post is appropriate, given that I am in Las Vegas for the NGWA's Ground Water Expo. The year 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the NGWA. I'll be curious to see whether the economy affects attendance. The Expo is in Las Vegas every other year, and I think we broke 6,000 attendees in 2006.

I am staying at the venerable Las Vegas Hilton, which, when I arrived in Nevada 32 years ago, was the second-largest hotel in the world after a Moscow hotel. Now I doubt if it is in the Top 15 in Las Vegas, much less the world. That's how this town has changed. The State of Nevada had fewer than 500,000 residents when I arrived in 1976; now, the Las Vegas area alone has over 2 million.

But the LVH has kept up with the times, though - Barry Manilow is playing the showroom. Awesome, dude!

I'm ensconced in a huge suite on the third floor, all for just $125 per night. I'm not sure what I did to deserve this treatment. But I'm still being charged $13.99/24 hours for WiFi, so I guess I'm not THAT special.

Great seeing Kevin McRay, NGWA's Executive Director, and Brent Murray, chair of AGWSE, NGWA's largest division. Two good guys.

Sorry for the digression.

So here is the "appropriate" post, but it's is not good news. Bad enough the economy is tanking, but alas, the Colorado River is not doing much better, according to Patty Henetz's article, published in the 29 November 2008 edition of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Here are the first few paragraphs:

The drought gripping Utah, Southern California and the rest of the Southwest this century shows no sign of ending. Scientists see it as a permanent condition that, despite year-to-year weather variations, will deepen as temperatures rise, snows dwindle, soils bake and fires burn.

That's grim news for all of us in the West, perhaps most especially for the 10 million residents along the northern stretch of the Colorado River -- Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming and Colorado -- whose water rights are newer, and therefore junior, to those in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

Making matters worse, the Colorado -- the 1,450-mile-long lifeline that sustains more than 30 million souls and 3.5 million acres of farmland in seven states, 34 tribal nations and Mexico -- is in decline, scientists warn.

But the best is yet to come.

Dozens of scientific studies issued since 2004 have documented the Colorado's decline.

The river's annual flow has averaged 11.7 million acre-feet this decade, according to federal records. In 2002, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation measured only 6.2 million acre-feet passing Lee's Ferry below Glen Canyon Dam, the lowest flow of the decade. Even after this year's above-average precipitation, Lake Powell and Lake Mead combined are at 57 percent capacity.

A 2007 U.S. Geological Survey report found that, by 2050, rising temperatures in the Southwest could rival those of the nation's fabled droughts, including the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Hotter weather is expected to reduce Colorado River runoff by at least 30 percent during the 21st century.

If the USGS is correct, and if this century's trend persists, average annual flow in the Colorado could fall to 8.2 million acre-feet per year.

Imagine that. The Law of the River requires 9 million acre-feet to pass Lee's Ferry on the way to the Lower Basin and Mexico. Under a strict interpretation of the law, the Upper Basin could be left with nothing.

You can read the rest of the article. Even Peter Gleick and Pat Mulroy would not be able to make things right.

But at least Las Vegas is using less water these days.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the CRB...I was in the Phoenix area (Tempe, actually) several weeks ago with some colleagues. At Arizona State University's remarkable Decision Theater we got a taste of high-tech decision-making. It is part of the Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS).

We heard some interesting things, but one in particular made an impression on me. One of the folks told us that in the Greater Phoenix area, if you go to a local politician/water manager with a predictive model that shows a future with less precipitation, you're out of luck. They're not even thinking about that possibility. Heads in the sand, or what?

I think I am getting close to finding someone who is "thinking about the unthinkable" regarding Southwest water and depopulation, particularly in the Colorado River Basin.

"Las Vegas is Everyman's cut-rate Babylon.  Not far away there is, or was, a roadside lunch counter and over it a sign proclaiming in three words that a Roman emperor's orgy is now a democratic institution - 'Topless Pizza Lunch'."  ~Alistair Cooke

"Do you know what we call tourists in Las Vegas? We call them 'marks'." - desk clerk, San Remo Hotel, Las Vegas, NV

This is a repost of an article I published on 2 December 2008: Colorado River Blues: Going, Going...I did not intend to add 'redux' to the title and repost it until a few minutes ago. I read a Tweet from friend and colleague Michael van der Valk, who re-Tweeted the post preceding this one, Ground Water: The Water Budget Myth, one of my all-time favorites. I had been reading current depressing articles about water woes in the Colorado Basin. So I thought it might be enlightening to see what was occurring in late 2008. Some of the links may be broken. I added a CRB map, which was absent from the original post.

Interesting to see Wall Street's current interest in the CRB. Could The Water Knife be far behind? 

Enjoy! 

This post is appropriate, given that I am in Las Vegas for the NGWA's Ground Water Expo. The year 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the NGWA. I'll be curious to see whether the economy affects attendance. The Expo is in Las Vegas every other year, and I think we broke 6,000 attendees in 2006.

I am staying at the venerable Las Vegas Hilton, which, when I arrived in Nevada 32 years ago, was the second-largest hotel in the world after a Moscow hotel. Now I doubt if it is in the Top 15 in Las Vegas, much less the world. That's how this town has changed. The State of Nevada had fewer than 500,000 residents when I arrived in 1976; now, the Las Vegas area alone has over 2 million.

But the LVH has kept up with the times, though - Barry Manilow is playing the showroom. Awesome, dude!

I'm ensconced in a huge suite on the third floor, all for just $125 per night. I'm not sure what I did to deserve this treatment. But I'm still being charged $13.99/24 hours for WiFi, so I guess I'm not THAT special.

Great seeing Kevin McRay, NGWA's Executive Director, and Brent Murray, chair of AGWSE, NGWA's largest division. Two good guys.

Sorry for the digression.

So here is the "appropriate" post, but it's is not good news. Bad enough the economy is tanking, but alas, the Colorado River is not doing much better, according to Patty Henetz's article, published in the 29 November 2008 edition of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Here are the first few paragraphs:

The drought gripping Utah, Southern California and the rest of the Southwest this century shows no sign of ending. Scientists see it as a permanent condition that, despite year-to-year weather variations, will deepen as temperatures rise, snows dwindle, soils bake and fires burn.

That's grim news for all of us in the West, perhaps most especially for the 10 million residents along the northern stretch of the Colorado River -- Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming and Colorado -- whose water rights are newer, and therefore junior, to those in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

Making matters worse, the Colorado -- the 1,450-mile-long lifeline that sustains more than 30 million souls and 3.5 million acres of farmland in seven states, 34 tribal nations and Mexico -- is in decline, scientists warn.

But the best is yet to come.

Dozens of scientific studies issued since 2004 have documented the Colorado's decline.

The river's annual flow has averaged 11.7 million acre-feet this decade, according to federal records. In 2002, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation measured only 6.2 million acre-feet passing Lee's Ferry below Glen Canyon Dam, the lowest flow of the decade. Even after this year's above-average precipitation, Lake Powell and Lake Mead combined are at 57 percent capacity.

A 2007 U.S. Geological Survey report found that, by 2050, rising temperatures in the Southwest could rival those of the nation's fabled droughts, including the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Hotter weather is expected to reduce Colorado River runoff by at least 30 percent during the 21st century.

If the USGS is correct, and if this century's trend persists, average annual flow in the Colorado could fall to 8.2 million acre-feet per year.

Imagine that. The Law of the River requires 9 million acre-feet to pass Lee's Ferry on the way to the Lower Basin and Mexico. Under a strict interpretation of the law, the Upper Basin could be left with nothing.

You can read the rest of the article. Even Peter Gleick and Pat Mulroy would not be able to make things right.

But at least Las Vegas is using less water these days.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the CRB...I was in the Phoenix area (Tempe, actually) several weeks ago with some colleagues. At Arizona State University's remarkable Decision Theater we got a taste of high-tech decision-making. It is part of the Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS).

We heard some interesting things, but one in particular made an impression on me. One of the folks told us that in the Greater Phoenix area, if you go to a local politician/water manager with a predictive model that shows a future with less precipitation, you're out of luck. They're not even thinking about that possibility. Heads in the sand, or what?

I think I am getting close to finding someone who is "thinking about the unthinkable" regarding Southwest water and depopulation, particularly in the Colorado River Basin.

"Las Vegas is Everyman's cut-rate Babylon.  Not far away there is, or was, a roadside lunch counter and over it a sign proclaiming in three words that a Roman emperor's orgy is now a democratic institution - 'Topless Pizza Lunch'."  ~Alistair Cooke

"Do you know what we call tourists in Las Vegas? We call them 'marks'." - desk clerk, San Remo Hotel, Las Vegas, NV