Colorado River named 'most endangered'

Brandon Loomis, The Arizona Republic | USATODAY

PHOENIX -- Mounting pressures on the Colorado River's supply make it the nation's "most endangered river" this year, the nonprofit American Rivers will announce Wednesday with its annual ranking of troubled waters.

Those pressures include an ever-expanding population, a climate that the government predicts will shrink Rocky Mountain snowmelt and plans to build new pipelines to carry the river away.

The Colorado, the lifeblood of the Southwest, is at a crucial moment in its history, American Rivers says, and Congress and the states that tap its waters must plan for better use — and re-use — of its water to meet a growing need.

"The current trends are not sustainable," said Matt Niemerski, western water-policy director for American Rivers.

The ranking follows a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation report released in December that predicted that by 2060, the need will outstrip the supply by 3.2 million acre-feet of water. Each acre-foot — 325,851 gallons — is enough for at least two families in the region. The bureau assumed that the regional population will grow from about 40 million in this decade to as much as 77 million in 50 years.

American Rivers has published "America's Most Endangered Rivers" every year since 1986, and the Colorado has made the 10-river cut seven times. It has topped the list twice before, most recently in 2010. The group reorders the list annually to draw attention to particular rivers when a related policy decision is looming.

This year, the group wants Congress to boost a WaterSmart program that is slated to get about $30 million next fiscal year for grants to water-conservation programs, Niemerski said. Such grants could help water providers build desalination or other treatment plants, or plan for smarter management.

"We need to start this work now," he said.

Arizona is entitled to 2.8 million acre-feet of Colorado River water a year, and 1.5 million of it flows through the Central Arizona Project canal from the state's western edge to Phoenix, Tucson and points in between.

A CAP official was puzzled by the group's choice to elevate the river's threat status based on a government report that actually could signal the start of better regional water planning.

"We all recognize (the Reclamation report) as a call to action," said Chuck Cullom, CAP's Colorado River program manager. He also mentioned a new agreement with Mexico allowing for storage of some of that country's allocation in Lake Mead to ease shortages in drought years.

"We've taken aggressive steps in the past year to protect and enhance the river," Cullom said.

American Rivers also targeted a proposed Lake Powell pipeline to St. George, Utah. The Washington County (Utah) Water Conservancy District wants to build a 139-mile pipeline to siphon 86,000 acre-feet to southwestern Utah — a region that in the last decade boomed in an echo of Las Vegas.

Conservancy Associate General Manager Barbara Hjelle said it's Utah's water by right, and it's needed. Opponents in Utah say St. George wastes more water than Phoenix and others, though Hjelle calls the comparison unfair because her relatively small city relies heavily on hotels and other big water users that drive up per capita water use.

"A realistic assessment of water-conservation options," she said, "will reveal to a reasonable person that conservation will not take care of water demand in Washington County in decades to come."

Supply pressures threaten to price young farmers out of the business, said Kate Greenberg, western organizer for the National Young Farmers Coalition and a supporter of the American Rivers report.

American Rivers' "Most Endangered Rivers of 2013"

1. Colorado River, Southwest. Outdated water management.

2. Flint River, Georgia.Outdated water management..

3. San Saba River, Texas. Outdated water management..

4 .Little Plover River, Wisconsin. Outdated water management.

5. Catawba River, Carolinas. Coal ash pollution.

6. Boundary Water, Minnesota. Copper and nickel mining.

7. Black Warrior River, Alabama. Coal mining.

8. Rough and Ready and Baldface creeks, Oregon. Nickel mining.

9. Kootenai River, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana. Open-pit coal mining.

10. Niobrara River, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming. Sedimentation.