Colorado River Update: Save The White River on National Public Lands Day!

Hi Friends of the Colorado River,

Today is “National Public Lands Day,” and we here in the Colorado River basin are surrounded by some of the most beautiful public lands in all of America. Some of those lands are well known and celebrated, while others are more hidden and secret.

Today we highlight the plight and hidden secrets of the White River, which begins in northwestern Colorado and flows into Utah where it meets the Green River. Our most amazing friends at the organization Living Rivers in Moab, UT, have a new short film out about the White River in Utah which you can view here on @RigtoFlip’s page on X: https://x.com/rigtoflip/status/1837639255088418930

Surrounded by public lands — some pristine, others highly degraded — the White River enjoys a bit of solitude compared to its well-known cousin, the Yampa River in the next drainage to the North.  Amidst that solitude is also a huge threat of a massive dam and reservoir project upstream on the White in Rio Blanco County, Colorado.

Called the “White River Storage Project,” this threat would build a massive off-channel dam and reservoir along the White River, draining some of its water before the River reaches the state line with Utah. We’ve been closely bird-dogging the proposed Project and we are waiting for the Rio Blanco Water Conservancy District to submit its application to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, after which we will dig in with our team of scientists and attorneys. We will also highlight opportunities for you, the public, to engage against this project.

The proposed dam project would further degrade the river, flood ranch land, destroy delicate wetland ecosystems, and impact fish and other aquatic species. In addition, of course, it would drain additional water out of the Colorado River downstream. Further, Rio Blanco County doesn’t even have a real use for the extra water — in fact, there are more cows (~15,000) than there are people (~7,000) in Rio Blanco County. Finally, with so few people and such a small tax base, there’s no way possible to pay the hundreds of millions of dollars that the project would cost without a MASSIVE government subsidy.

On National Public Lands Day, please know that we are protecting the rivers that flow through the public lands of the Colorado River basin. Whether those lands and rivers are well known and celebrated, or more hidden and secret — like the White River — we are working hard to keep them alive and functioning.

Thank you for your support — you can donate online by clicking here.