Someone recently asked us: You’re the Great Basin Water Network. Why do you work in the Colorado River Basin? It’s a fair question that I’ve answered before.
At GBWN, we understand geography and human constructs. The Colorado River Basin and the Great Basin are not the same watershed, but they are inherently connected by proximity and pipes. And those connections are why we do the work where we do.
The genesis of our organization begins with the Colorado River System. The Southern Nevada Water Authority wanted a 300-mile pipeline to export Great Basin waters to augment Nevada’s supply in Lake Mead. Thanks to your support and our network of allies, we stopped that effort to illegally augment Lake Mead. But the SNWA still maintains a massive agricultural operation on the ground where clashes with agricultural families in Lincoln and White Pine County persist. The SNWA is not continuing to farm and ranch in the Great Basin because they like beef and lamb. They are maintaining beneficial use on Great Basin water that could, one day, be piped to Vegas.
The future of the west as we know it depends on the Colorado River.
Consider that towns in the Great Basin and other western watersheds are outside of the Colorado River System but systematically dependent on it. Denver, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles are among that cohort. The greater Salt Lake City metropolitan area, for example, is in the Great Basin. But 26 percent of the region’s consumptive water use derives from the Colorado River via the Central Utah Project. Furthermore, Los Angeles imports water from Owens Valley, which is the western extent of the Great Basin, and the Colorado River. Denver, in the Platte River Watershed, is a city that, somewhat ironically, personifies the Colorado River for easterners and flatlanders. But the water is piped in.
In short, what happens on the Colorado River doesn’t stay on the Colorado River. It ripples and flows outward. However, the Colorado River System’s reach isn’t what it once was — with a 20 percent reduction in average flows hitting the southwest in the past quarter century. And with the ongoing efforts that we’ve mapped by Upper Basin communities to take more, the threats are numerous.
Some people want to believe water is still available.
That’s why you will find on our website lots of materials about the inter-connected relationship we have with other watersheds. What happens here doesn’t stay here.
