The historic Colorado River Compact was 100 years outdated on Thursday, as The Gazette famous in a report observing the event. And if you happen to’ve by no means heard of that groundbreaking settlement divvying up water from the West’s most identifiable river, you’re undoubtedly not alone.
The compact and the river it governs — and, for that matter, water basically within the arid West — are simple to take with no consideration. Exterior the world of politics, water coverage is a boring topic. Most residents alongside the Entrance Vary, throughout the state and within the six different states that signed the compact a century in the past — most likely don’t understand what an epic problem it has been to safe the water that comes out of the faucets of their houses.
We can’t afford to take it with no consideration, nonetheless, and the disaster going through the Colorado River particularly is emblematic of the West’s total water wrestle.
As The Gazette’s report reminded us, our state’s defining river immediately is in higher peril than it has been at any time in historical past amid the West’s explosive progress and a 23-year drought that has restricted the river’s flows 12 months after 12 months.
The river now serves greater than 40 million individuals with water for residential and agricultural use in addition to via electrical energy generated by the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams. Compact members Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming are within the Colorado River’s higher basin, and Arizona, California and Nevada are within the decrease basin. It’s the lower-basin states with their burgeoning populations which are feeling probably the most essential scarcity. As we speak little water makes its option to Mexico, the place the Colorado River ends its run and empties into the Sea of Cortez.
What’s being finished about it?
The U.S. Division of the Inside not too long ago referred to as for extra cooperation between the compact’s members as a result of water ranges down river in Lake Mead and Lake Powell are so low that energy era could must be curtailed. The Inside Division’s Bureau of Reclamation not too long ago introduced a brand new program to pay farmers in lower-basin states as much as $400 for every acre-foot of water they don’t use.
But, conservation efforts alone appear to be half-measures that inevitably result in diminishing returns. As we requested right here not too long ago, what if we began placing extra water into the Colorado River basin as a substitute of ratcheting down ever additional how a lot is taken out of it? Improve provide, in different phrases, as a substitute of futilely attempting to curb demand. Some are taking on that problem.
Arizona’s state authorities is laying plans with Mexico for a collectively developed desalination plant that will flip seawater into recent water alongside the Arizona-Mexico border, the place the Colorado River empties into the Sea of Cortez. That has the potential to decrease water use downstream and depart extra up river in upper-basin states.
There’s additionally nice potential in new know-how enabling water reuse, which isn’t a lot a type of conservation as it’s turning outdated water into new. Israel recycles and reuses almost 90% of its water and Spain over 30%, a water professional not too long ago wrote in a Gazette commentary.
That type of modern considering is what’s wanted to present the compact, and the river itself, a brand new lease on life.
Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board