Colorado River Update: EIGHT DAYS TO D-DAY

Hi Friends of the Colorado River,

It’s been 52 days since Camille Touton, Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, issued a 60-day directive to the 7 Colorado River states to create a plan to “conserve” 2 – 4 million acre feet of water in 2023. For reference, the River currently only has about 12.5 million acre feet of water in it, so to conserve 4 million would mean to stop diverting about 1/3 of the River. Commissioner Touton’s deadline runs out on Tuesday, August 16th, and the Bureau has scheduled a press conference for the same day to discuss all the chaos.

So far, the Upper Basin States — Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming — have proposed a Nothing Burger that actually commits to not one drop of water conserved. We’ve hammered against them, repeatedly pointing out in the media that those states are proposing and building new dam/diversion projects that would divert a new 400,000 acre feet of water out of the River every year. The media is paying attention, and we’re delighted to get highlighted in Daily Kos, which has over a million followers on facebook.

You can read the Daily Kos story here.

We’re also pleased to get highlighted in the Denver Post about our criticism of the State of Colorado’s lack of plan to conserve water in this Colorado River crisis. In addition to proposing to not conserve water, the State of Colorado also recently released its new draft of the “Colorado Water Plan”, which unfortunately continues to support new dams and diversions from the Colorado River, Cache la Poudre River, South Platte River, and others across the state.

You can read the Denver Post story here.

So far, the public has been closed out of the decision-making process and kept out of the closed-door meetings where the stakeholders are creating their plans. We will continue to keep you informed over the next months about how the crisis on the Colorado River plays out. We will also continue our loud calls for more water conservation and for stopping the planning and construction of new dams and diversions.

Thank you for all of your support!

You can donate online by clicking here.