From Las Cruces, New Mexico to Moab, Utah, Drought & Exploitation Threaten the Flow of Two Major Rivers
On May 20, 2013, I visited Canyonlands by Night & Day, along the Colorado River at Moab,
Utah. Although the Colorado spread from bank to bank, I would not have
guessed that as I watched, the river crested. Only afterwards did I
hear from a local resident that the river had crested that day in Moab.
Although the drying environment in the High Southwest is obvious, for a
while that day I believed that the river was still rising.
When
I arrived at the dock, the evening river tours were still hours away.
On that lazy afternoon down by the river, I found the place almost
deserted. As I roamed the promenade above the river, no other humans
appeared. As I looked down, I could see water rushing past the dock.
The water was swift, turbulent and cold. Anyone falling into that
torrent would have quickly drowned.
Looking upstream at the U.S. Hwy. 191 Colorado River Bridge, I could see
high water marks well above the observed water level. After studying
stream flow data from the Cisco Water Resources Station,
operated upstream by the U.S. Geological Survey, I uncovered the
story. Only two years prior, the Colorado River crested in Cisco, Utah
on June 9, 2011. That day, the discharge was at almost 50,000 cfs, with
a gauge height of over sixteen feet.
It was on that day that the Colorado River flooded the lower reaches of the Moab UMTRA
Superfund site. The flood destroyed a new riverside bicycle path and
lapped at the edges of the toxic, nuclear waste dump commonly known as
the Moab Pile. Despite a documented paleo-flood history of far greater floods, the wizards of the UMTRA cleanup world had elected not to protect the nuclear waste dump from increased river flow.
At Cisco, on the afternoon of May 20, 2013 the Colorado River
temperature hit a mean low point of about 58 f degrees. Discharge,
(measured in cubic feet per second) peaked at 12,500 cfs on the prior
afternoon. The flow rate held at around 12,000 cfs on May 20, and then
fell steadily to 6900 cfs by May 24.
Perusing
the excellent database available at the USGS website, I was able to
select data from any recent timeframe. Over the 94-year history of the
Cisco gauge, I found that the Colorado River averaged 20,000 cfs
throughout the May 19 – May 25 period. Several days after my 2013
visit, the discharge rate at Cisco stood at only thirty-five percent of
average. With Moab being downstream from Cisco, we can extrapolate a
one-day delay for all Moab statistics. Thus, as I watched, the river
crested in Moab on the afternoon of May 20.
Almost one year prior, the river crested on May 25, 2012 at just over
4000 cfs. Between the two years, average flow at the crest of the
spring flood in Moab was less than twenty-eight percent of the
ninety-four year average. During my October 6, 2012 excursion on the
Canyonlands by Night and Day 
Dine
& Unwind dinner tour, a river depth of eighteen inches prevented
our boat from traveling more than a mile upstream. Near the riverbanks,
the air smelled of rotting plants and other undesirable effects of low
water. On that tour, the discharge rate of the river at Moab stood at
forty-two percent of the long-term average.
The main water sources for the Upper Colorado River Basin
are myriad mountain streams and the small rivers that they feed. As we
know from archeological evidence, by 1000 CE the Colorado Plateau had
entered into a protracted and severe drought. By 1300 CE, not one human remained alive
within the confines of the Colorado Plateau. The devastation brought
by drought, overpopulation and internecine warfare had driven everyone
from that former land of plenty.
Although there was no single event that caused the Great (Anasazi) Disappearance, misuse of natural resources played a major role. With their penchant for building grand, wood-beamed kivas and multifamily dwellings, Pre-Puebloan
cultures within the Colorado Plateau denuded huge swathes of the land.
Eroded wastelands created by their handiwork are still visible on satellite photos of the area. The Chaco River in Chaco Canyon is a perfect example. Major parts of the Chaco River watershed are parched and rutted.
It was only five years ago that I first heard dire, scientific predictions of prolonged drought in the Four Corner States
of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. Today, Western U.S. drought
maps show unprecedented environmental distress prevailing in parts of
New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado. Somewhere between the
headwaters of the Rio Grande River in Northeastern New Mexico and the
panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma is the vortexual center of the Great
Western Drought.
Not
coincidentally, that area has seen the longest-standing overgrazing of
cattle anywhere in the U.S. What once were rolling grasslands now
support only scrub and mesquite. Facing starvation of their bedraggled
herds, ranchers are now removing cattle from those public lands. As
drought destroys all but the heartiest plant life, scientists tell us
that the grasslands are unlikely to recover.
A recent article in the Los Angeles Times chronicled the devastating
effects of drought throughout the Rio Grande Valley. While New Mexico’s
venerable Elephant Butte Reservoir stands at only three percent of its
1980’s levels, the State of Texas is suing New Mexico for pumping too
much of its own groundwater.
Whether
legal or not, the extensive pumping of groundwater for irrigation and
household use is causing the Rio Grande to recede underground. In the
near future, the flowing river may disappear entirely from the surface
of the land. Near Las Cruces, New Mexico, pictures show families with
young children wading barefoot across the Rio Grande. Each day, the
rivulets contract, leaving a relative trickle in the river as it bends
toward, El Paso, Texas.
Split by the U.S. Continental Divide,
the Rio Grande Valley and the Colorado Plateau are two separate, yet
adjacent watersheds. With their close geographical proximity, the
environmental problems experienced in each are different only by degree.
Gripped by drought, the Rio Grande Valley is a harbinger of a bleak
future for the adjacent Colorado Plateau. As the Anasazi overused their lands and natural resources, so too are we.
In
less than one year, the first tar-sands extraction-solvents will enter
the Colorado River watershed at a Book Cliffs mine near Moab. Uintah
County and the State of Utah are eager to facilitate planned
destruction within the Book Cliffs landscape. As proof, Uintah County
is using public money to pave the aptly named “Seep Ridge Road” from
Interstate I-70, all the way to the strip mine. Every drop of tar sands
oil-sludge coming from that mine will move by truck or rail to
refineries elsewhere in the country. Requiring huge inputs of energy at
the mine, plus shipping and refining costs well above that of
traditional oil extraction, the strip mining of tar sands in the Utah
desert is a game of diminishing returns. In the alchemy of turning
solid rock into oil, we consume so much energy
that only an unwitting or cynical investor would see value in light of
such widespread environmental destruction. Just because we can turn
rock into oil does not mean that we should.
Recent state and federal approvals for mineral extraction in the Moab
area include a new hydraulic (in-situ) potash mine in Dry Valley near
Canyonlands National Park. Its industrial facilities may soon be
visible from the now pristine Anticline Overlook. Elsewhere, near Moab,
oil and gas leases spring to life in unexpected and environmentally sensitive locations, such as Dead Horse Point. If the land is not within a designated national or state park, almost every acre is fair game for mining.
During my May 2013 visit to Moab, I found what appeared to be a clandestine oil-shale strip mine.
Hidden by a butte from the Valley City Road, only a wrong turn on a
new, unmarked dirt road took me to that place. Located near the
southern rim of the Salt Valley, the mine and its access road do not
appear on any map. As the crow flies, the mine exists only a few miles
from the southern boundary of Arches National Park.
Nowhere could I find a corporate name, road sign or scrap of paper
indicating who was digging into the previously untouched land.
It is with boundless energy and enthusiasm that mining, petrochemical
and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) interests have rammed mining and
drilling applications through a broken process. Despite the efforts of environmental groups to publicize this slow-motion rape of Southeastern Utah, new plans continue for a water-lift and hydroelectric plant on the Colorado River near Moab. Although rarely making more than regional news, a Nuclear Power Plant at Green River, Utah will soon break ground. Not since the Uranium Boom of 
the 1950s has Emery, Grand or Uintah County seen such levels of unchecked mineral exploration and exploitation.
As the result of unchecked extraction and processing in the 1950s, the Moab UMTRA Superfund site still faces decades of publicly financed cleanup. Yet today, we set in motion myriad water wasting or aquifer destroying projects
in the desert. Any single mineral extraction or power-producing
project may look good to investors or consumers. However, when taken as
a whole, the Colorado Plateau and its namesake river may soon follow
the Rio Grande River to a point of no return.
In matters of drought and depopulation, we must concede that the Pre-Puebloan (Ancients) were the real experts. In the High Southwest, if we stop and listen, the Spirit of the Ancients is all around us. In the end, through overuse of natural resources, the Ancients helped change their 
weather
cycle toward hotter and dryer. Today, drill rigs, gas compression
sites and diesel equipment of every variety pollute both water and air,
drowning out the Ancients’ warning cries.
Over a two-day period during my July 2013 visit to Moab, the monsoon
unleashed torrents of rain. Water visibly eroded the ground at the Moab Rim Campark,
where I stayed. Still, when compared to the deep snowfields that once
lingered into summer in the high country; these thunderstorms produced a
mere drop in the bucket. Wondering how the Moab Pile might have fared
under such a sudden deluge, I went to see for myself. Although the
UMTRA Moab site is now six million tons lighter and smaller than it was
five years ago, erosion channels marked its sides. Was that runoff of
toxic and nuclear waste contained in catch basins or did it run
directly into the Colorado River?
While
looking across the Moab Pile toward the Moab Rim, I saw a huge face in
the rocky crust of the canyon wall. After a few moments, I realized
that successful removal of six million tons of contaminated soil allowed me to see the Ancient Spirit of Moab
from that spot. Locked in stone for half of eternity, he seemed to
say, “Remember those who lived here long before. Learn to respect the
land and its resources. If you do not, you too shall experience a
devastated landscape, unfit for human habitation”.
By James McGillis at 04:55 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link
