Colorado River Basin1st period APESLivvie Brookshire

Areas affected The Colorado River is a national

treasure, the lifeblood of the arid West and essential to daily life for farms, ranches, cities, suburbs and the tourism economy across Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming.

Availability of Water Demand for the Colorado River’s water

outstrips supply. The Bureau of Reclamation says: “Based on preliminary assessments, large supply-demand imbalances greater than 3.5 million acre-feet are plausible over the next 50 years when considering a water supply scenario that incorporates changes in climate.”

Causes Population growth is increasing the demand for water

while supply does not reach demand. Climate Change is causing a hotter, drier West. The Bureau of Reclamation concluded that climate change will reduce water flow in the Colorado River Basin approximately 9 percent by 2050.

The Colorado River Compact of 1922 is the cornerstone of the Law of the River. It was negotiated by the seven Colorado River Basin states and the federal government. However, it put the river on an unsustainable course. “Based on flows from a wetter time, the 1922 Colorado River Compact divvied out one-fifth more river water than what exists today.”

Major Problems This scarcity of water in the Colorado River

Basin will increasingly pit agricultural and recreational water interests against each other. Trampled in the tug of war will be the natural environment, threatening the health of the river and the wildlife and tourism economy that depend on it. More than 33 million people across Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Mexico depend on the Colorado River for their water supply.

Solutions The best solutions to this challenge emphasize

conservation, which is cheaper, faster and easier to implement than costly, wasteful new pipelines or impractical, energy-guzzling systems to turn salt water into drinking water. Conservation is the practical, flexible, common-sense option. Following the conservation laws of The Law of the River

Future plans - relying on the construction of a 700-mile pipeline that would travel from the Upper Missouri River through public and private land and pump water 2,000 feet up in elevation.(The idea of building our way out of this problem may be tempting but it’s not realistic. The pipeline would cost billions of taxpayer dollars and generate a prolonged public controversy.)

Pictures before

Pictures after