The Impending Demise of the Colorado River

As most people in the Western United States know, we are experiencing an extended drought. The aridness in the West has resulted in a severely diminished flow of water along the Colorado River. In fact, the river no longer discharges into the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. From that now dormant coastal estuary, most wildlife disappeared long ago. In 2022, with the advent of a limited pilot-program, a tiny amount of Colorado River water will flow again to the sea.

That is a hopeful sign during an otherwise bleak hydrological environment in the West. Ironically, humankind’s misplaced desire to control that once mighty river could result in a destructive wave traveling from Glen Canyon Dam all the way to the Sea of Cortez. Stay with me to the end of this article to learn how such an apocalyptic fate for the iconic river is possible.

Why is the Colorado River failing? Historical and updated river-flow data allows us to predict its demise. There is no longer an “if.” Now it is all about “when.” As less rain falls and the snowpack diminishes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, another phenomenon takes hold. For some it consists of blind ignorance. For many, it is the irrational human need to utilize and be wasteful of water. Either scenario raises demand for water, as if it emanates from an unlimited source.

One tankless water heater manufacturer promotes “endless hot water, which is now available” with their system. A nearby neighbor in Southern California defies current “one-day-each-week” outdoor watering limits. He runs his lawn sprinklers daily, often before sunrise to avoid detection, then follows up by hand-watering his entire front yard. Each day, almost ten gallons of potable water flows down the gutter past our house. Our front lawn is dead. His lawn is lush, green, and currently going to seed. In Southern California and now throughout the Southwest, a green lawn is the sure sign of a scofflaw. The attitude of many people throughout the Southwest, is one of entitlement. For them, cheating on their water budget or ignoring their legal limits is a way of life.

In the Upper Colorado River Basin, the drought now brings Lake Powell to its lowest elevation since initial filling in the 1960s. How low is it? In April 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), which operates the major dams throughout the Colorado River system made a surprise announcement. From Flaming Gorge Reservoir, Wyoming’s largest, they released 500,000-acre-feet of water. From there, the water flowed down the Green River, and then into the Colorado River. The plan was to replenish and stabilize the water level in Lake Powell.

The USBR has touted this plan as a prudent way to keep power flowing from the hydroelectric turbines at Glen Canyon Dam, at least through 2023. Ironically, the original public proposal for the Glen Canyon Dam, promoted it as a “flood control dam,” not as a lynchpin in the electrical grid. Because the reservoir was beautiful and grand when at least half full, Lake Powell also became an indispensable recreational resource. Few people realized that the reservoir rested on soft and porous sandstone. In addition to relentless evaporation, the reservoir “banks” about fifteen percent of its water volume each year.

For almost fifty years, the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station (NGS) operated near the Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Arizona. Utilizing coal mined at Black Mesa, Arizona, its furnaces polluted the air, and its pumps withdrew vast quantities of water from Lake Powell. While wasting over ten percent of its power conveying its own cooling water and coal supply, NGS also broke records for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution. Although there was onsite wastewater recycling, losses due to both steam turbine generation and cooling tower evaporation made the NGS the largest single user of water in the Upper Colorado River Basin.

The main purpose of the NGS was to annually pump 50,000 acre-feet of “excess” Colorado River water over four mountain ranges to both Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. Along the way, Arizona diverted vast amounts of water into shallow desert aquifers near the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant. The idea was to later mine that water from the desert and supply it to Phoenix. Currently, a large aqueduct is under construction there. Since the scheme has no precedent, no one knows if or for how long this desert water mining will work.

Despite the excessive air, water and ground pollution associated with the NGS, for decades it was like the monster that would not die. Not until the vast over development of natural gas resources in the Four Corners Region did the NGS's economic costs outweigh its job-related or power production benefits. In 2019, twenty years into a regional drought of millennial proportions, the NGS finally shutdown. If we are looking for a culprit in the current desiccated condition of Lake Powell, the NGS would be a prime target for investigation. In fact, the same flawed arguments that allowed the construction of Glen Canyon Dam go hand in hand with the commissioning of the NGS in the mid-1970s.

In 2022, all of us who now rely on the Colorado River have both an environmental and an economic bill to pay. How long can we collectively afford to subsidize lush green golf courses in Page, Arizona, alfalfa fields in the Imperial County, California, cotton growing in Pima County, Arizona, or my neighbor’s green lawn? More importantly, do humans have the capacity to create and implement a plan that will save the Colorado River system? Taking shorter showers, eliminating public fountains and decorative turf will not be enough to turn that tide.

What we need now is a clear-eyed look at the entire Colorado Riverway, from the high mountains to the low desert and everywhere in between. Affected states still adhere to the outdated Colorado River Compact of 1922. A century ago, all the states touching the Colorado River watershed agreed to over allocate its resources for generations to come. Politics played its role, with water rights assigned according to historical usage and population density. As a result, the compact granted the irrigation district in Imperial County, California (population 180,000), the largest single claim on Colorado River water. Why? Because long before huge dams and hydroelectric power allowed for the long-distance pumping of river water, inventive farmers directly tapped the river. In fact, a Colorado River dike which broke early in the 20th century resulted in the forming of the Salton Sea. Near Blythe, California resourceful farming families have succeeded in transforming the desert into cropland.

The Colorado River Compact expires in 2026. Often acrimonious discussions regarding its replacement are already underway. The participants include the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming), the Lower Basin (Arizona, California, and Nevada), Mexico and several tribal nations. According to a 2019 federal Drought Contingency Plan (DCP), as Lake Mead falls below 1,045’ elevation, the USBR must now declare a “Stage 2b Water Shortage Emergency”. On August 8, 2022, the reservoir stood at 1,229’ elevation, only four feet above a DCP Stage 3 declaration.

As a temporary measure, Congress recently approved $4 billion for emergency drought mitigation within the Colorado River Basin. Much of that money will go to pay Indian tribes and alfalfa growers in the Imperial Valley not to plant crops. The various USBR shortage decrees have flown by so quickly, it is hard for even the experts to keep track of water allocations. As of August 16, 2022, a Department of Interior declaration cut 2023 water allocations to Arizona by 21%, with smaller cuts to Nevada and Mexico. Senior water rights in California assured that there would be no cuts to its water deliveries in 2023.

In a surprise move, the Department of the Interior also allowed the acrimonious and unfruitful negotiations among the signatories to the “Law of the River” to proceed. It is an election year, and no one wanted to restrict anyone’s water rights further than already agreed upon. While Nero fiddled, Rome burned. While recalcitrant negotiators wrangle over cutting the allocations of others, but increasing their own, the Colorado River is not participating in the discussions.

Protracted negotiations or litigation will extend any true solution until it is too late to save hydroelectric production at both Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams. Achieving the “dead pool” elevation of 3,370’ at Lake Powell and 895’ at Lake Mead, when water can no longer pass through either dam, becomes more likely over time. Prior to dead pool, there will be too little water in the reservoirs to send down the penstocks and spin the electrical turbines. The USBR interim plan to “balance the two pools” will delay the inevitable, but not change the outcome.

In 2022 and 2023, a physical danger lurks in the “minimum power pool,” coming soon to Lake Powell. With typical 20th century hubris, the designers of Glen Canyon Dam did not anticipate a future time when its hydroelectric plant would go offline. As of September 6, 2022, Lake Powell was at an elevation of 3,523’, or almost seventy-eight feet lower than two years prior. The lake’s elevation rests just thirty-three feet above minimum power pool. At minimum power pool, there will not be sufficient "head" for gravity to send water down the penstocks and spin the turbines.

Unless weather patterns and water usage change drastically, that critical level will come sometime in 2023. Below minimum power pool, the reservoir will still have millions of acre-feet of sequestered water. What it will lack is a safe method of releasing any of that water through the dam. To fully grasp this eventuality, picture the Grand Canyon becoming a permanent dry wash. Still, a potentially unsafe method of water release from Glen Canyon Dam does exist. It involves what are known as “diversion tunnels” or the “outlet works.”

To facilitate construction of the dam in the 1950s, engineers first bored two enormous tunnels through the canyon walls. They then constructed a coffer dam, which temporarily diverted river water through the new diversion tunnels. The resulting outlet works could divert and convey even a large spring flood safely downstream. Luckily, no major floods occurred until after the 1964 commissioning of Glen Canyon Dam. Upon completion, crews dismantled the coffer dam, and closed the enormous gates at the head of the diversion tunnels.

All went well until the spring of 1983. In anticipation of summer electrical generation needs, the USBR kept Lake Powell at an elevated level. As spring wore on, there were huge snowstorms in the Upper Basin watershed, followed by rainstorms and rapid snow melt. Quickly, water in Lake Powell reached the top of the dam. Only hastily constructed plywood and lumber bulwarks atop the dam kept it from a disastrous overtopping. Unable to divert sufficient water through the hydroelectric plant, the operators “opened the floodgates,” better known as the outlet works.

For weeks, enormous outflows subjected the unlined sandstone tunnels to unanticipated stress. As a result, the outflow ejected huge chunks of raw sandstone downstream of the dam. Contemporary reports by persons not authorized to speak publicly told of the dam humming or thrumming, as if in major distress. Soon thereafter, the water level of Lake Powell dropped far enough to allow closure of the outlet works and resumption of water release solely through the hydroelectric station. Chastened, the dam’s operators never again let the lake rise even close to capacity prior to the end of spring runoff. Ironically, this conservative approach to reservoir management meant that Lake Powell would never again approach “full pool.”

The 2022 emergency release of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir has bought the USBR one more year before the prospect of a minimum power pool at Lake Powell. In their version of Two Card Monte, dam operators are accepting 500,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge and reducing deliveries downstream to Lake Mead by a similar amount. As Oz famously said in the Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” Likewise, should we pay no attention to the huge amount of water retained in Lake Powell?

If you were to write a disaster movie script, you would include a scene in which veteran Glen Canyon Dam workers face the prospect of reopening the compromised outlet works. In releasing any remaining water from Lake Powell to Lake Mead, they fear the cracking and ultimate destruction of Glen Canyon Dam. In the next scene, they would open the creaking gates of the outlet works. For a time, everything would work correctly. Then, they would hear a low harmonic sound emanating from the dam. Soon, the humming would become a roar. Too late to save themselves, the workers would run for the exits, only to have the dam disintegrate around them.

The result would be the immediate draining of the second largest reservoir in America. Almost immediately, the biggest flood on the Colorado River since the creation of the Grand Canyon would ensue. At Lake Mead, downstream, the wave would surge to a height greater than any tsunami in history. As the surge created by the wave would impinge on Hoover Dam, that too would disintegrate. Farther downstream, the remaining dams would fall one after another. Within hours, the once sequestered contents of the Colorado River would rush into the Sea of Cortez, creating a saltwater tsunami.

Such a catastrophe cannot happen, you say. In 1983, the dam almost failed. There is nothing to say that our next attempt to save the Colorado River will not result in its untimely demise. Thousands of years hence, descendants of survivors in the Southwest might tell tales of a Great Flood, from which their ancestors survived. Other than not including an ark full of animals, that story has a familiar ring.

Email James McGillis

In Southern California, Rain Barrels Allow Cost Effective Water Storage - 2015

 

In Southern California, Rain Barrels Allow Cost Effective Water Storage

In California, and throughout the West, residents who care about long-term environmental viability are monitoring and changing their water usage habits. Here at Casa Carrie, we have been replacing water-hungry outdoor plants. Our new landscape features succulents capable of growing in our now warmer, drier climate. In our parkway, we replaced eighty percent of the lawn with slabs of Arizona sandstone. In our shower and tub, we have five-gallon buckets ready to capture water previously lost during the warm-up process.

In November 2014, we purchased two fifty-gallon rain barrels. At that time, I assumed that Southern Californians would want to save every gallon of rainwater runoff possible. While that may be true, companies that sell rain collection barrels focus their marketing efforts on consumers in the Midwest, where summer storms are often plentiful.

An accompanying brochure scolded us not to leave our rain barrels out in freezing weather. If freeze damage occurs, it will void our warrantee. “Store your rain barrel indoors during winter months”, we were admonished. Copywriters of the brochure may wish to add “In cold climates” to their verbiage. At Casa Carrie, in Simi Valley, California, we rarely have frosty nights, even in midwinter. Unlike many Midwestern or Eastern states, Southern California gets almost all of its rainfall during the winter, between November and March.

After visiting our local Do-It Center, Home Depot and Lowe’s Home Improvement Center, we realized that not one brick and mortar store in our area stocked rain barrels of any kind. I can picture Midwestern marketing types believing the hype that “it never rains in Southern California”. If so, who in Southern California would want a rain barrel? My answer is that every homeowner in Southern California should want one or more.

After a Google search, I located the “Good Ideas 50 gal. Khaki Rain Wizard” on the Home Depot website. At just under $100 each, I ordered two, plus a sturdy plastic stand for each barrel. With free shipping from Michigan to California, the total cost for two barrels and stands came to $285. With a $150 rebate expected soon from our local water agency, our net cost for two barrels and stands was $135.

In December 17, 2014, four cartons arrived via United Parcel Service. Shipped from Michigan, the cartons looked like they had traversed an international war zone. Fortunately, the barrels, stands and hardware packages arrived mostly undamaged. Setup consisted of unpacking, and then using a wrench to thread the brass spigots into pre-threaded plastic holes near the base of each barrel. I found it difficult to tell if I was cross-threading the spigot as I turned the wrench. I suggest drop-shipping your barrels to a local Home Depot and then having them install the spigots, free of charge. After setup, the stands were strong and wide enough to stay upright, even on uneven ground. With their faux whiskey barrel appearance, the barrels blended nicely into our garden.

After placing each barrel under a rain gutter downspout, all we needed was some rain. By the next morning, we received about one third inch of rain, which quickly filled both barrels. Actually, one barrel was full and the other had a small pinhole leak on the “winter-storage hanging knobs” found near the top of each barrel. By the time I discovered the leak, I had recycled the shipping cartons. My easiest recourse was to keep the barrel and try to patch the hole with some glue. So far, that process has not been successful.

Reflecting on “quality control” back at the factory, I thought, “Hey, it’s a rain barrel. Shouldn’t it at least hold water?” Maybe the “Good Ideas” people should use an inspection lamp to check for pinhole leaks and then cushion the protruding knobs prior to shipment. An upgrade in the shipping cartons and heavier packing tape might help avoid damage to both the cartons and the barrels on their long trip to California.

After fixing the leaky barrel, I will have 100 gallons available for rainwater storage. With a net price after rebates of $135, that meant my first hundred gallons of rainwater cost me $1.35 per gallon. Luckily, we were able to use all 100 gallons before the next storm hit. Although the second storm brought less rain, runoff again filled each barrel. By then, my cost for stored rainwater had dropped in half, to $.68 per gallon. At first, that seems like a lot of money for such a modest collection of water. However, we can now reap the benefits of chlorine-free garden water for decades to come.

Now, in mid-February 2015, blizzards and freezing weather continue to lash New England. Boston has received over six feet of snow in less than a month. Here in Simi Valley, California, it is eighty degrees Fahrenheit outside and there is no precipitation in the forecast. Since December 2014, Mother Nature has filled our rain barrels three times. Along with the other buckets that we used to collect rain and shower water, we have saved and reused over six hundred gallons during this rainy season alone.

Here is an idea for homeowners all over Southern California and the West. Rather than letting your rainwater run into storm drains, install rain barrels and residential cisterns throughout California. If all homeowners participated, California and the West could save untold amounts of our most precious resource, which is clean potable water available to all.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 12:37 PM | Environment | Comments (1) | Link

In California, Private Lakes Scramble for Sustainable New Water Sources - 2015

 

In California, Private Lakes Scramble for Sustainable New Water Sources

In 2014, California state government began to take the Great Western Drought seriously. The state legislature passed bills to authorize the sale of over $7.0 billion in “water bonds”. That legislation aimed to add more long-term water storage, clean up polluted groundwater and regulate indiscriminate water mining. For the first time, California required local and regional water officials to manage their ever-shrinking supply of groundwater. Although the legislation may provide some relief a decade hence, we expect to see little relief from current water shortages.

About eighty percent of the developed water supply in the state goes to the seemingly insatiable needs of California’s agribusiness. Even so, the governor recently asked all Californians to reduce water usage by at least twenty percent. During 2014, Northern California scored better on water saving than Southern California. Did necessity or indifference drive Southern Californians to use more water per capita than their northern neighbors?

In Orange County, California, Lake Mission Viejo is a reservoir created solely for the private recreation of its members. With a surface area of 124 acres and an average depth of thirty feet, that “fake lake” comprises 3,720 acre-feet of water. According to water management standards in the U.S., a water supply of that size could support 3,720 suburban households for one year.

Rather than devoting lake water to the needs of all Californians, the association that owns Lake Mission Viejo dedicates the lake to the exclusive water sports and scenic enjoyment of its members. Although the Lake Mission Viejo Association is exploring ways to reduce water usage in and around the lake, currently they fill their lake with up to eighty-eight million gallons of drinking water each year.

In the 1960s, during the creation of Westlake Village, California, developers dammed up Lower Triunfo Canyon, and then dubbed the seasonally dry arroyo "Westlake". Upon completion of the planned community, the Westlake Lake Management Association (WMA) became responsible for dredging, maintaining and refilling the lake as necessary.

As the ongoing water crisis in California intensified, WMA found that traditional groundwater sources for its own “fake lake” were dry. In order to keep Westlake full and its surrounding property values high, WMA recently tapped potable (culinary) water supplies. With summer evaporation rates of over 900 gallons per minute, seasonal inflow of potable water at the lake is equal to a two-outlet fire hydrant fed by a twelve-inch water main.

Similar to Lake Mission Viejo, there is limited public access to the shoreline at Westlake. One can enjoy a sunny winter afternoon on the patio at Boccaccio’s Restaurant, and then stroll along a promenade adjacent to the lake. In keeping with the tranquil atmosphere of the place, all private watercraft on Westlake are either electric boats or sailboats. From a residential perspective, Westlake is an idyllic setting. With the tightening of domestic water supplies throughout California, residents and visitors alike should enjoy the lake while they can.

In the second half of the twentieth century, development of new “fake lakes” in the desert-like conditions of Southern California was still a viable business option. Lake Mission Viejo and Westlake are prominent examples of a Southern California trend that ended when developers finished filling Lake Mission Viejo with imported water in 1978. At both lakes, unscrupulous or ignorant developers sold aspiring Southern California homeowners “lakefront property” adjacent to potentially unsustainable bodies of water.

In 2014, many water wells ran dry throughout Southern and Central California. Hardest hit were the poor and working class communities of the San Joaquin Valley. Ironically, irrigation districts in the same area consume almost half of the developed water supply in the state. In that area, farmers cherish their nut tree crops, which are notorious water wasters. There are credible estimates that it takes one gallon of irrigation water to create a single almond. With 944,000 acres of nut tree crops planted in Central California, just “a can a week” is all that the Almond Board of California TV ads ask us to consume. If their ads admitted that production of just one can of almonds requires several hundred gallons of water, how many of us would buy a can each week?

Many San Joaquin Valley farm workers and their families bathe with buckets of cold water and rely on donated bottled water to survive. Meanwhile, residents of Westlake Village and Lake Mission Viejo, ply their exclusive lakes on electric boats, eating California almonds and drinking Perrier.

It is a free country and if you have the money, you can buy the resources for your own pleasure. With luck and money, you can keep an unsustainable lifestyle going long enough to sell your fake lakefront property to the next true believer. If I owned lakefront property in either community, I would sell my property and move away while the lakes are full and the unsuspecting are still ready to purchase. After all, every bubble must someday burst.

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By James McGillis at 04:49 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Drought & Exploitation Threaten the Flow of Two Major Rivers - 2013

 

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”.

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By James McGillis at 04:55 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Mount Whitney is Now Eleven Feet Higher; Mammoth Mountain is Ever-Drier - 2013

 

Mount Whitney is Now Eleven Feet Higher; Mammoth Mountain is Ever-Drier

In 1959, I first visited Mammoth Mountain, California and the Sierra Nevada, the range within which that mountain resides. On the way north from Los Angeles, we could see Mount Whitney, which at 14,494 feet in elevation was the highest peak in the continental U.S. In summer 2012, when I made my most recent visit to Mammoth Lakes, Mount Whitney had grown to 15,505 feet in elevation. Was the Sierra Nevada changing that rapidly?

The answer to that question is, “Yes” and “No”. If Mount Whitney gained more than a fraction of an inch in those fifty-three years, I would be surprised. What changed is scientists' ability to estimate the true shape of the oblate spheroid we call Earth. With ever more accurate satellite data, they can now accurately peg Mt. Whitney within a worldwide elevation database. Geologically, little has changed in the Sierra Nevada during those five decades.

During that same time, what has changed in the Sierra Nevada and throughout much of the Western U.S. is the weather. The two words that come quickly to mind are, “warmer” and “drier”. Add to those adjectives, the term, “less predictable”. Winter storms can still hit with what feels like vengeance. Without notice, in November 2011 an unprecedented windstorm toppled expanses of forest without notice. Although a typical night-skier at Mammoth Mountain may feel the security of the nearby lodge, a hiker on the Mount Whitney Trail that same night might face death from exposure.

In the 1960’s, snow at Mammoth Mountain seemed as reliable as clockwork. Snowstorms started in October or November, followed by an inevitable succession of winter storms. By Easter time each year, it could be sunny and warm on the slopes or cold and snowy. “Sierra Cement”, as we called the spring snow, could fall one day after sunshine. In those days, snowmaking equipment did not exist in the Central Sierra Nevada. Most years, there was good skiing until Memorial Day. Even into the late 1980's, the mountain often remained open for skiing through the Fourth of July weekend.

Gradually, yet inexorably, the weather patterns changed. In the late 1970’s, all of California experienced an extreme drought. First, the Golden State turned brown and then the skies turned black with smoke from ever-larger wildfires. An entire generation of toddlers learned not to flush the toilet unless necessary. Restaurants stopped serving water, unless requested. Auto repair facilities stopped offering complimentary car washes. California reservoirs were at an all-time low. Then, after several years of drought, heavy snow returned to the Sierra Nevada. Almost immediately, water usage climbed back to pre-drought levels.

“El Niño”, and his sister, “La Niña” were to blame for California’s erratic weather, or so we were told. When the fisheries off the coast of Peru experienced higher December ocean temperatures, California would soon feel the effects of drought. “El Niño”, in this case, referenced the supposed December birthday of the “Christ Child”. Although there is no record of Jesus having a sister, if cold ocean temperatures arrived near Peru, “La Niña” heralded cold, wet winters in the mountains of California.

In the early 1980’s, the media began mentioning the “Greenhouse Effect” and later, “Global Warming”. “El Niño” events connected weather systems in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres, it seemed. Yet the transport or communications mechanisms between Peru and California were puzzling. The milder term, “Climate Change” had not yet gained politically correct usage. As scientists documented the interrelationship of global weather and ocean temperatures, two camps developed.

The first camp was the “Believers”. “If scientists tell us it is true, it must be true”, the Believers said. The second camp was the “Deniers”. “If scientists tell us it is true, there must be a vast conspiracy, so believe none of what they say”. Over time, a third camp arose, which I call “Rationalists”. This group says, "Over time, if I see it with my own eyes and feel it with my own body; I can determine what is true and what is not".

In the 1960’s, the snow on Minaret Road was so deep, that rotary snowplows created a two-lane canyon leading to the ski area. In the 2010’s, the snowplows still make their circuits, but snow walls twenty feet high do not occur. In recent years, the snowstorms have arrived later in the fall and ended earlier in the spring. Overall, the ambient temperature is higher and the air is drier.

In 2012, I asked Plush Kokopelli to spend the snow season at Mammoth Lakes and to report what he found. Although the first storms arrived late, during January and February 2013 more snow fell. Plush Kokopelli reported the possibility of a good snow year in the Sierra Nevada. Then, in March, things warmed up and it felt like spring in Mammoth Lakes. By late April, after a few brief storms, the snow season appeared to end.

In late April, the U.S. Forest Service plowed the road around Lake Mary. Although the road remained closed to vehicular traffic, Plush Kokopelli took a hike around the lake. On that hike, he observed the ice begin to recede from shore. Upon returning the next day, all of the ice had melted, leaving open water where an ice field had so recently resided. California Department of Water Resources reports told us that as of May 2, 2013, the Central Sierra Nevada snowpack, including Mammoth Mountain, stood at twenty-three percent of “normal”.

It may not be rational to send Plush Kokopelli to report on the weather from Mammoth Mountain, but for me, “seeing is believing”. The snow season appears to be over and a hot, dry summer in the Sierra Nevada awaits. Still, as of this writing, no one in California is mentioning the word, “drought”.

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By James McGillis at 05:00 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link