Colorado River Update: We’d Be Drowned Under A Hundred Feet Of Water!

Hi Friends of the Colorado River!

We’d be drowned under a hundred feet of water, right where we’re standing below, if the disastrous “Whitney Dam” project is built.

Yesterday, our legal team visited the site of the proposed Whitney Dam project along Homestake Creek in Eagle County, Colorado. Just southwest of Vail, this beautiful valley contains some of the most delicate wetlands — called “fens” — in Colorado.

The Holy Cross Wilderness Area surrounds the valley, and the beautiful creek flows through the entire area creating an unusually rare landscape with public access and near-pristine environmental qualities just two hours from Denver.

All of that is intensely threatened by the cities of Colorado Springs and Aurora which want to drain around 6 billion gallons of water per year out of this Creek and siphon the water over to the Front Range to feed their never-ending desire for metastasizing growth.

Next week, the U.S. Forest Service is expected to issue a “Special Use Permit” to those cities allowing them to begin drilling test holes to determine the best site for the massive, valley- and river-destroying dam.

The cities’ proposal would require an Act of Congress to change the boundary of the Holy Cross Wilderness Area, so greedy are they to destroy this valley that they will stop at nothing to grab its water and slake it over the lawns of suburban sprawl a hundred miles to the east. 

To that we say: NOT ON OUR WATCH.

Our legal team is poised to challenge this permit, which will likely be the first in what could be a decades-long water war to stop this valley from being destroyed. Homestake Creek flows down into the Eagle River, which flows down into the Colorado River several miles west of this valley. 

It’s your support that keeps us working hard!

Our policy is “No New Dams And Diversions” in the Colorado River ecosystem, and we’re drawing yet another line in the sand here in beautiful Homestake Valley in Western Colorado. This project was highlighted on the front page in the Denver Post last weekend as one of the next big dam fights in the American West, and we are right in the middle of it.

We greatly appreciate your support! We’re a lean, mean, river-saving machine — every dollar you donate goes directly to our work to stop these ridiculous dam projects.

Please donate online by clicking here.

Thank you!

Gary Wockner, Director, Save The Colorado