The Colorado RIver is best known for being the principal river of the southern United States and Mexico, but it soon could lose that title. Running about 1,500 miles long, the river is a vital source of water for agricultural and urban areas in the southern desert lands of North America. However over the past decade or so, the river has begun to deteriorate. There are many causes and solutions to the deterioration of the Colorado River.
The Colorado River is formed by small streams created by a huge amount of snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains. The ecology and flow of the river varies highly by region. The river is divided into two different regions, the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin. Beginning in the early 1900s, western states began to build dams in the Colorado river, diverting the water flow to fast growing cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, and Phoenix. The river now services over 30 million in the southwestern parts of the United States and Mexico (Patrick 1). Diverting the water of the nation’s seventh-longest river may be seen has a great accomplishment, however to others this is a great crime against nature. Over the past couple years the river has been running significantly low, since a drought has come up the southwest. At the lakes edge, “bathtub rings”, lines in the rock walls, can be seen showing the decrease in water level. It is recorded in some areas of the river that the water has lowered 130 feet since 2000. Some water resource officials say those areas will never be filled back to normal. The surrounding states must adjust to living with less water or further actions need to be taken to save the river’s water. There has been some talk about adding water to the river to replenish the river but nothing has hap...
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...es and reusing return flows before developing new diversion projects can help the Colorado River get back to normal (Johnson 13).
There are many causes and solutions to the deterioration of the Colorado River. The Colorado River is not the great river it used to be, with an abundant amount of healthy water, thriving wildlife and abundant plant life. With climate change, water salinity, pollution, and natural runoffs, the river’s water quality has deteriorated immensely. However, if communities and environmental groups join forces to research and raise money to find ways to help improve the Colorado River, it can get back to its original condition. This issues affects those who live by the river, concluding that I live somewhere near the river, I would love to see a change in the rivers condition to not only help the nature around it, but to help myself and others.
The one feature common to the Hoover Dam, the Mississippi River and the Three Gorges Dam is that they all try to control nature’s swings, specifically in the form of flooding. Before the Hoover dam was built, the Colorado river “used to flood spectacularly.but after 1900 the Colorado provoked a vehement response” (Pg 177). The response was simple, but large. The U.S. built several large dams, including the Hoover dam, on the Colorado to decrease its flooding and increase power and irrigation. Unfortunately, just as human control of the Colorado’s flooding increased, its organisms and habitats were detrimentally influenced, and the water became more and more salinated.
The negative aspects of Glen Canyon Dam greatly exceed the positive aspects. The dam’s hydroelectric power supply is only three percent of the total power used by the six states that are served by the facility. There is a surplus of power on the Colorado Plateau and with more and more power-plants being created in the western hemisphere, Glen Canyon Dam’s power is not needed (Living Rivers: What about the hydroelectric loss). Although the ‘lake’ contains twenty seven million acre feet of water, one and a half million acre feet of water are lost yearly due to evaporation and seepage into the sandstone banks surrounding the ‘lake’ (Living Rivers: What about the water supply?). The loss of that much “water represents millions, even billions of dollars” (Farmer 183). If the government were to employ more water efficient irrigation practices, as much as five million acre feet of water per year could be saved.
As dams became old and upkeep costs rose many were torn down. This allowed the river to flow freely again and the salmon population increased by 20%. It was discovered that the best way to increase the diminishing salmon population was to simply restore the rivers to their original state. In 2008, a judge ordered for the Columbia and Snake River dams to spill water, allowing the rivers to flow as they would naturally. This water flow allowed the salmon to swim along the currents, as they would have once done
Wealthy individuals and large corporations are purchasing the water rights for some of the US and even the world’s biggest aquifers. Among these individuals is oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens who believes water or “blue gold” is the new oil. Located in the Texas panhandle, Roberts County sits above the biggest underground aquifer in the US. The Ogallala Aquifer stretches from the Texas all the way up into South Dakota. Pickens has been buying up land and is now the largest landowner in the county with some 68,000 acres. As well as the water rights that allow him to personally pump up to half of the Ogallala Aquifer which he plans to sell back to residents and nearby counties in need, for a profit of course. “Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more.” Water is finite and shortages are sure to come in the future. Water just like any other scarcity will make for an excellent investment opportunity. Pickens and Mesa Water are acquiring a sufficient amount water rights and political power to turn America’s heartland into a dustbowl.
Since the days of Lewis and Clark men have dreamed of harnessing the "Father of Waters" in the interests of commerce and development. The long struggle which ensued required incredible ingenuity and determination on the part of engineers as well as enormous capital investment. The Mississippi River Commission, established in 1897, was the first federal program designed specifically to meet these requirements, and early systems, instituted by the Army Corps of Engineers, saw much success. Technological advancements in the fields of transportation, flood control, and natural resource management were needed and, eventually, emerged to provide the level of control possible today. This report will discuss the technological transformation of the upper Mississippi river and the motivation behind it from the middle 1800's.
What we have seen in late January has proved that the city of Phoenix needs one more water treatment facility. The tax revenue that will be lost if a water crisis every happen again will pay for the building of the new facility. The water department has known of this problem for years but has chosen not to rectify the hazard. City officials chalked up the high levels of sediment in the water to Mother Nature, but they acknowledge that a series of decisions by water officials could have worsened the problem. (Villa, Fehr-Snyder, 1) The water department knew and Frank Fairbanks knew that maintenance was required on rotating bases, on each facility and chooses to take two offline during the “winter” or “rainy months”.
The Charles River, always known as “having a healthy reputation for its extreme filth,” has a new lease on life ever since former governor Bill Weld took the dive heard round the world fully clothed around the same time the EPA announced a “Clean Charles” ready for swimmers by Earth Day 2005. Reactions concerning the river’s quality since Welds famous 1996 plunge have ranged from skepticism to complete dismissal of the cleanup promises, proving only that indeed, he “loved that dirty water.”
One of the ways Yuma’s geography impacted irrigation were the dryness and heat of the climate. Since essential nutrients are added to the soils by farmers, the overflowing of water from the Colorado River (due to excessive heat and evaporation leading to precipitation) pose threats to the irrigation and proper farming of crops. This called for solutions, like the Yuma Project, to build dams and levees to limit overflow. Consequently, geography had an impact on irrigation- Yuma’s hot climate made more overflow and opened the eyes of the Bureau of Reclamation on irrigation issues leading to fixes for
The Colorado River, before Yuma was built, ran wild. The Colorado River met up with the Gila River in the table-flat floodplains. When irrigation was first created people used gates to control the water flow to the fields. But, before they used the gates a dam had to be built in order to control how much water is flowing. After the dam was built the farmers would open the gates to the fields and let water run in, after the amount of water was needed the people would close the gates and the river kept flowing. This made farmer’s lives
Houston, home to two major water reservoirs, now grapples with the task of safely releasing water from these dams. Because of Harvey, they are at a dangerously high level that poses many safety concerns. If the water continues to rise, the reservoirs could break, and release a tidal wave of water into the already flooded city. However, some residents don’t agree with the releasing of water, even in controlled portions, because it adds to the flooding. “The Addicks and Barker dams hold back the reservoirs’ collective 410,000 acre-feet of water and if the dams fail, half the city could be underwater” (Planas, Satlin, et al, 2). The release of water could be a major threat to nearby homes as well while causing more flooding on the major roads, perpetuating the issue of transportation. The Army Corps of Engineers ultimately decided that waiting and praying that the reservoirs didn’t fail would be a poor decision, and came out with a statement saying they would be releasing rationed portions of water. The overflowing of the reservoirs and the possible increase of flooding is a direct impact of Harvey on Houston, and this continues to perpetuate issues they will face in the months to
McChesney, John. "Colorado River Crisis: Do Farmers Have the Water To Solve It?." Colorado River Crisis: Do Farmers Have the Water To Solve It?. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014. .
The need for a dam on the Colorado River was known decades before construction actually began due to the numerous destructive floods of the Colorado River. A need for water and electricity was also discovered to help with the development of the West. But there were many factors standing in the way such a large-scale construction project. Finally, in 1927 a bill detailing the project passed in Congress. Many construction companies began to look over the proposals but most agreed that the plan was too ambitious, too difficult, the project site was too unforgiving, and that the technology was not available to build a dam of that size[ii].
I had the pleasure of kayaking about fifteen miles of the Arkansas river, in Colorado, this summer. Flowing from its headwaters near Buena Vista, the Arkansas is a virgin river. Only a trickle during the winter, "The Ark," is reborn every spring with the life bearing waters of fresh mountain snow melt. The greening of river valleys throughout Colorado occurs during the month of June, and traveling from the east I realized how vital the snowmelt waters are to life in the western United States. Without water, something which we take for granted even in brutal summers, life in the west is a struggle.
Smith, Zachary A., and Grenetta Thomassey. Freshwater Issues: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2002. Print
Rogers, Peter. 2008. "Facing the Freshwater CRISIS. (Cover story)." Scientific American 299, no. 2: 46-53. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 4, 2010).