Can past policies save future Colorado River users?
Amanda Pampuro
BOULDER, Colo. (CN) — In 1858, the U.S. Army ordered Second Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives to provide the government with a better understanding of the Colorado River by exploring the length of the waterway in a steamboat.
The New Yorker’s narrative of the trip is rife with accounts of the watercraft running aground in the rocky, twisting river that ran from Colorado to the Pacific Ocean through mountains and canyons. Over the course of his trip, Ives came to rely on directions toward deeper water from native Chemehuevi, who easily navigated the river on light, bundled reed rafts.
“This was supposed to be a demonstration of American power to the Native people,” University of Colorado historian Patty Limerick told attendees of the 45th Colorado Law Conference on Natural Resources on Thursday, where this year's gathering has been curated to reflect on past lessons learned in managing one of the western U.S.’ most important water sources.
Several key agreements adapting the century-old Colorado River Compact to the aridifying region’s ever-decreasing water availability are set to expire next year, prompting Limerick to urge river stakeholders to heed lessons from Ive’s ill-fated expedition.
“Ives had a chance to address his nation and say ‘we need to rethink this,’” Limerick said. “But Ives did not say to his nation that the rivers of the west are not what you think they are and you are not going to assert power over them.”
Forty million people living in the southwest U.S. and Mexico depend on the Colorado River, including 30 Native American tribes. In addition to generating power for 2.5 million people, more than half of the river’s water nourishes 5.7 million acres of crops.
Several century-old agreements govern the law of the river, including the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which doled out 17.5 million annual acre-feet of water to numerous stakeholders, an amount that was unsustainable even then.
While the Colorado River supplied an average of 15.2 million acre-feet per year through the 20th century, water flows have decreased by roughly 4 million acre-feet over the last 100 years. Colorado State University hydrologist Brad Udall warned that future shortfall projections may prove once again to be overly optimistic.
“Our current climate projection is beyond awful,” Udall said. In addition to current science projecting global temperatures to increase 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, and by 5 degrees over land, Udall criticized the Trump administration’s drastic cuts to vital climate change science, which he characterized as “insanity.”
“Why talk about global climate issues in a Colorado River conference? I’m now convinced we have to prepare for the worst-case scenario,” Udall said.
Decades before climate change became a common concern, the Colorado River was divided into upper and lower basins, which were each promised equal 7.2 million annual acre-feet of water. With populations booming first in California, lower basin water use has always outpaced upper basin consumption. Even as the lower basin has made drastic cuts to water use in recent years, the imbalance continues to drive tension, as the states negotiate future agreements, and the upper basin seeks equal rather than proportional cuts across the system.
Three key agreements determining water cuts are set to expire next year: the 2008 interim guidelines, Minute 323 to the 1944 Water Treaty with Mexico, signed in 2017, and a 2019 drought contingency plan. With negotiations ongoing, many stakeholders say updated governing documents must reflect modern environmental and industrial strains on the river, as well as the historical wrong of excluding native tribes from water policymaking.
“Tribes have been fighting for decades for water that was theirs prior to colonization,” said Lorelei Cloud, a member of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s first indigenous chair.
Cloud argued that future water policy must be rebuilt on indigenous knowledge.
“We have a different relationship with caring for the river, and that should have been built in the foundation of that system,” Cloud said.
The Colorado Law Conference will continue through Friday, giving spotlight to indigenous tribes of the Colorado River as well as federal administrators.