Hidden Passage the journal of glen canyon institute Issue XIX, Fall 2013 Glen Canyon Institute An Answer for the Colorado River: Fill Mead First President Richard Ingebretsen by Wade Graham Board of Trustees Barbara Brower In this issue of Hidden Passage, we present Glen Canyon Institute’s Fill Mead First Scott Christensen plan to begin the transition to a more sustainable management system on the Ed Dobson Colorado River, by saving significant amounts of water lost to seepage and taking David Wegner large steps towards the restoration of Glen and Grand Canyons. The plan is Wade Graham buttressed by an important new hydrological study demonstrating that Tyler Coles consolidating water storage in Lake Mead and keeping Lake Powell at its Lea Rudee minimum active power pool elevation can save between 300,000 and 600,000 acre-feet of water per year. Executive Director Christi Wedig Change is coming to the Colorado River, for better or worse, both due to climate Program Director change and to ever-increasing demands on an over-committed resource. It is past Michael Kellett time for those who care about the river basin’s human and natural communities to Office and Projects Manager begin making common sense but determined changes to the way the river is Mike Sargetakis managed. Programs Coordinator Eric Balken A study of water supply and demand in the Colorado River Basin released last December by the Bureau of Reclamation confirms what everyone already Advisory Committee Dan Beard knew: we are sucking more water out of the river than nature is putting in. Philmer Bluehouse Ryan Brown Since the late 1990’s, water users in the seven Basin states and Mexico have Niklas Christensen been withdrawing about a million acre-feet more than rain and snowmelt Agustin Garza provide. Like draining a savings account, this has been done by drawing down Katie Lee Daniel McCool Lakes Powell and Mead, giant reservoirs that took over 20 years to fill, when Francis McDermott population and water demand were far less than they are today. Bruce Mouro Tom Myers According to the Bureau, users’ plans for yet more pipelines combined with Page Stegner the effects of global warming, which is steadily reducing the rain and snow Flake Wells Bill Wolverton falling in the basin, will push the annual deficit to from 3.2 to 8 million acre- feet by 2060. This is a cataclysmic shortfall considering that, from 1981 to 2010 the river has delivered just 10.8 million acre-feet a year into Lake Powell — well 429 East 100 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 below the 16 million acre feet expected by water planners 20 years ago. tel (801) 363-4450 fax (801) 363-4451 Both reservoirs Powell and Mead, which at one time held over three years [email protected] of water supply for the Basin, are now down to one-half that and falling fast. It www.glencanyon.org is clear from the science that the reservoirs are not going to be refilled. Hidden Passage The Bureau’s selected options for responding to the coming trainwreck Issue XIX Fall 2013 include some laudable conservation measures in cities and on farms, but also a number of schemes to “augment” the water supply of the Colorado River basin, Editor including a multi-billion dollar plan to pump part of the Missouri River 670 Wade Graham miles and a mile uphill from Kansas to Denver, and another plan to tow Arctic [email protected] icebergs down the Pacific Coast. Assistant Editor Mike Sargetakis Peddling such boondoggles has a long history: in decades past the Bureau and other agencies have straightfacedly proposed tunneling through multiple printed on 100% recycled paper mountain ranges to divert the Klamath River and the Columbia River Cover Photo: Philip Hyde southwards to slake the supposedly unquenchable thirst of the Southwest. In 2 the 1960s, the US government’s “Operation Ploughshare” Shifting water from Powell to Mead could be done at even planned to divert the Yukon south to Los Angeles using virtually no cost and stay within the mandates of the nuclear bombs to clear away inconvenient terrain. existing laws of the river. Indeed, the Bureau is already prioritizing storage in Mead: with the “equalization” policy Fortunately, none of these engineering schemes got off adopted the past two years, extra water has been released the drawing board, and the new crop shouldn’t, either. from Powell to Mead to keep the latter from dropping low Instead, we in the Colorado River Basin need to look at ways enough to trigger a politically-disastrous shortage to more efficiently use the water that we have — plenty of declaration by the Secretary of Interior. In effect, the Upper water for now and well into the future if we are willing to Basin states are already storing some of their water in Lake look beyond the status quo approach to managing the river. Mead. Finally in November, an agreement was signed with Mexico allowing it to store some of its water in Mead, too. Cities can keep [See article, page 12] getting more efficient: Las Vegas, for example, Maximizing has cut its per-capita storage in Lake Mead water use from 348 and using Lake Powell gallons per day to 240 for storage only in 20 years; Tucson during rare wet years residents use just 100 would keep Mead gallons per day. Farmers elevations higher, can too: agriculture protecting the water uses 85-90% of supply of Las Vegas, Colorado River water, Arizona, California water so heavily- and Mexico. It would subsidized that most also begin to heal the goes to grow thirsty, ecological damage low value cattle feed — Lake Powell has including 50 billion wreaked on Glen gallons a year for alfalfa Canyon and Grand that is shipped to Canyon, by exposing China. the majority of Glen Canyon’s 3,000 miles What is lacking in of side canyons and by the study’s options is sending downstream the easiest and cheapest the warmer water and — cutting waste in the higher flood flows that system. The two Cathedral in the Desert, 1966 Grand Canyon’s primary storage Photo: David Brower ecosystem requires. A reservoirs in the Basin, way to move some of the sediment Mead and Powell, lose huge volumes of water to evaporation blocked by Glen Canyon Dam into Grand Canyon would in the desert sun and seepage into the dry ground. Both likely also be required to fully reverse the canyon’s now stand half-empty. By consolidating the water in Lake precipitous ecological decline. Mead, which, unlike Lake Powell, directly supplies water to millions of people, the Bureau could save as much as The long-term problems of the Colorado River Basin 300,000 acre-feet a year — equal to the state of Nevada’s are enormous, complex, and politically fraught. But in the entire entitlement. short and medium terms, the Bureau of Reclamation ought to take the immediate, reasonable and doable steps in its The Bureau has failed to consider this approach in part purview to at the same time save a huge amount of water because it has collected data only on evaporation rates, not and begin the restoration of Glen and Grand Canyons, on water disappearing into the cracked sandstone nearly 400 miles of irreplaceable landscapes at the heart of underlying Lake Powell, which has sucked up a massive 18 the Colorado Plateau. million acre-feet since the dam was built. 3 FILL MEAD FIRST: A PLAN FOR SAVING COLORADO RIVER WATER & BEGINNING THE RESTORATION OF GLEN AND GRAND CANYONS by Michael Kellett The Colorado River Basin is facing an unprecedented water from Glen Canyon Dam are relentlessly damaging beaches and supply crisis. The massive Colorado River water management ecosystems downstream in the Grand Canyon. This outmoded system of dams, reservoirs, and diversions was built in approach to water management is undermining the goal of accordance with an interwoven set of laws, known as the “Law ensuring a sustainable water supply and healthy environment of the River.” The core of the Law of the River is the 1922 for the Colorado Basin. federal-state Colorado River Compact (Compact), which The Fill Mead First Plan allocated the river’s water among the seven Colorado Basin The Fill Mead First plan, proposed by Glen Canyon states — Arizona, California, and Nevada (the Lower Basin), Institute, can help to address these problems. Fill Mead First and Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming (the Upper would designate Lake Mead as the primary water storage and Basin). The Compact splits the flow of the Colorado River distribution facility for the upper and lower Colorado River between the Upper Basin and Lower Basin states, with each basins. Operation of Glen Canyon Dam would be changed to receiving an allocation of 7.5 million acre-feet of water per year. allow water to flow through the hydropower plant and outlet We now know that the Compact was based on inaccurate works as a run of river facility filling Lake Mead reservoir water supply projections. These early projections before impounding water upstream in Lake Powell. Powell overestimated the actual average river flow, underestimated would be kept close to the elevation of 3,490 feet above sea increases in population and water demand, and did not level — high enough to allow seasonal flow variations, flood foresee the long-term reduction of precipitation and water control, sediment distribution, power generation, reservoir- flow due to global climate change. Today, more water is based recreation, and a more natural water flow regime allocated under the Compact than actually flows in the through the Grand Canyon.