2017 UPDATE: We’re taking action to stop the Dam attacks, and we need your help!

Hello Friends of the Colorado River!

The Colorado River is depleted and endangered – in fact, it is one of the most dammed, drained, and depleted rivers on the planet – but astoundingly, the threats by water agencies to take even more water out of the river are escalating almost every day. Further, climate change is predicted to drain even more water out of the river in coming decades.

Save The Colorado’s policy is “No New Dams and Diversions” and we are addressing every one of these threats – in the media, in the permitting processes for the dams and pipelines, and in court if we have to.

Please donate online to help us: http://www.savethecolorado.org/donate/

We are taking action to stop these attacks, and we need your help to do that! Please consider our work in your end-of-year non-profit donations – help us stop new dams and protect the Colorado River.

Here are the threats and what we are doing to stop them —

ONE: In the summer of 2017, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation gave a permit to the “Windy Gap Firming Project”. This project proposes to drain a new 9 billion gallons of water out of the Colorado River every year near Rocky Mountain National Park and pipe it over to the sprawling northern Colorado metro area. In October of 2017, we led a coalition of 6 environmental groups and filed a lawsuit in federal district court to stop the project.

TWO: Also in the summer of 2017, the Army Corps of Engineers gave a permit to the “Moffat Collection System Project”, which would drain a new 4.5 billion gallons of water out of the Colorado River every year and pipe it over to the Denver metro area. This project would massively expand “Gross Reservoir” in Boulder County, CO, and cause severe damage. We are now leading a coalition of environmental groups and intend to file a lawsuit to stop the project in early 2018.

THREE: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is considering a permit for the Lake Powell Pipeline

in Utah, a project that would take a new 24 billion gallons of water out of the Colorado River every year and slather it over a fast-growing county in southern Utah. We are locking arms with a coalition of Utah groups and will fight the project at every step.

FOUR: The Bureau of Reclamation is beginning to consider a re-engineering project of Fontenelle Dam on the Green River in Wyoming. This project would allow another 30 billion gallons of water every year to be diverted out of the Green River before it even reaches the Colorado River. We are helping to lead, and locking arms with, groups in Utah and Wyoming and will fight the project every step of the way.

FIVE: Several additional proposed new dams and diversions are starting to gain steam including:

• A new dam on the White River in Colorado.
• The “San Juan Headwaters Project” which would build a new dam/diversion on the San Juan River in Colorado.
• Two proposed new dams and diversions on creeks near Aspen, Colorado.
• The Price River Dam proposal in Utah.
• Irresponsible water use from the Animas-La Plata Project in Colorado.
• A new water diversion from a proposal for a nuclear powerplant in Utah.
• A “10 dams in 10 years” proposal that could impact the Green River in Wyoming.
• And numerous proposals to dam and divert more water out of the Colorado River for Tribal Water Rights Settlements.

We are keeping close track of all of these projects. We are reaching out to the public, media, and decision-makers urging them to change course and focus on alternatives that don’t further drain rivers. We are prepared to fight every project in court.

FINALLY: We are doing all of this while fighting Trump and Congress as they continue their scorched-earth policy against the environment and rivers in the American West. Specifically related to our mission, Congress and the Trump Administration are trying to fast-track or even terminate permitting process for new dams and diversions. They are also trying to completely gut the Clean Water Act which is an essential federal law that protects rivers facing dam threats. And finally, they are undercutting the public’s and non-profit groups’ ability to sue the federal government when we believe they broke the law for giving a permit to a new dam or diversion.

Through all of this we depend on your support to make it happen. We get a portion of our funding from companies and foundations, but it is support from individual people like you that makes a big difference in our ability to fight these new dam and diversion projects. Further, we are a small, grassroots, aggressive organization, and it is support from individual people that really tells our story and the story of the Colorado River. The next year is going to be a pivotal moment in the future of dams in the Colorado River system! Please join our team to protect the river!

Please donate online: http://www.savethecolorado.org/donate/
Or mail back the enclosed envelope today.

THANK YOU for your support!
Gary Wockner, PhD,
Executive Director, Save The Colorado