About a week ago, I participated in a student program with EcoFlight in which eight students flew over the Colorado River Basin in small Cessna 210 planes. The aerial perspective left me with an unavoidable reality and a pit in my stomach. The water that ranchers, farmers, and municipalities desperately cling to is almost nowhere to be seen in the West
On April 6, the Biden administration released an analysis on water-saving investments to preserve water in the Colorado River Basin. $15.4 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure law combined is being invested in drought resistance and climate change resilience in the West. Investments will work in “collaboration with Colorado River Basin States, Tribes, water managers, farmers, irrigators, and other stakeholders.” These water savings could not come soon enough.
The Western United States has been experiencing and adapting to drought and climate change for the past twenty years. Since 1865, Western Colorado has undergone a 4 degress fahrenheit increase. Mesa County in particular has undergone a 4.2 F increase.
As the climate crisis exacerbates, streamflow is expected to suffer as a direct result. For every 1 F rise in temperature, streamflow is expected to be reduced by 3-9%. With hotter and dryer temperatures, soil moisture is expected to decrease. This will lead to uninhabitable soils with direct consequences on the economy of the West.
EcoFlight is a small nonprofit based out of Aspen, Colorado. EcoFlight’s mission is to “educate and advocate for the protection of remaining wild lands and wildlife habitat using small aircraft.” The nonprofit’s educational programs aim to “encourage an environmental stewardship ethic among citizens of all ages.”
Every year, EcoFlight participates in its Flight Across America program (FLAA). This program gives passionate undergraduate and graduate students the chance to fly over the Western United States and focus on an environmental issue.
This year’s focus was water. Along with fellow Colorado Mesa students Evani Gomez, an Environmental Science major and Natasha Kostovski, an Outdoor Recreation major, I was one of 2023’s eight students.
This four-day educational experience provided aerial perspective over areas of critical concern and featured expert speakers from areas within the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basin. The Biden administration’s Colorado River investments will directly address these areas.
The Colorado River Basin supplies water to nearly 40 million people and 7 states, not to mention Mexico, 30 Native American tribes, and irrigates 4.4 million acres of agricultural land. Millions of homes are powered by electricity generated by dams at Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
Of the Biden Administration’s investments, $233 million is being invested within the Gila River Indian Community to install a water pipeline project estimated to reuse 20,000-acre feet of water a year and help raise elevations at Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States.
Native American tribes have been ignored for decades in discussions of the Colorado River and its allocations. Tribes were not consulted or included in the initial Colorado River Compact of 1922.
When select tribes finally received water rights, they were not given the proper infrastructure or resources to access the water, despite millions of dollars being poured into water development on non-Indigenous lands.
Despite being long ignored, Indigenous communities are extremely efficient with water. Around Santa Fe, New Mexico, indigenous people have been using gravity-powered irrigation ditches called acequias for thousands of years. Acequias divert water into crops and capture runoff to flow back into streams and rivers. By returning water to rivers, these acequias conserve water that would have flowed offsite.
Gilbert Quintana of the Mora Land Grant explained to EcoFlight students that acequias do not just save water, but they bring life to his community. As a child Quintana worked with his father to care for and repair their acequias, before this his father did the same with his grandfather, and his grandfather did the same with his great-grandfather.
Their hard work ensured water would bring life to their crops and fields in an arid climate. Devastatingly, more than 70 of these irrigation ditches were recently destroyed in the Calf Canyon and Hermit’s Peak fires. Quintana explained the extremity of this blow stating, “I will never see my homeland repaired.”
Another $20 million is being invested by the Biden Administration in surface water storage and groundwater storage projects within the Imperial Valley.
The Imperial Valley is responsible for using 80% of California’s 4.4 million acre-feet water allocation per year. The Biden administration states, “These projects are essential tools for stretching limited water supplies and increasing conservation in the Colorado River Basin.”
Water savings in the Imperial Valley will be necessary in conserving water for the entire river basin. National Geographic filmmaker and photographer Pete McBride spoke at the final presentation of the EcoFlight trip. He has recently been documenting water usage by agriculture in the Imperial Valley.
Not only is water use unsustainable, but many of the plants being grown in the Imperial Valley should not traditionally be grown in the desert. An example of this is water-loving alfalfa.
To make matters worse, Saudi-owned farms pump groundwater and then fly it back to Saudi Arabia in the form of alfalfa hay. He also explained the mind-blowing fact that cow misters at farms, which spray hot cows with cool mist, even hold more senior water rights than Colorado Citizens.
The Biden administration also recently released an analysis on possible water cuts. Although the administration declined to publicly defend a side, possible options included: water cutoffs based on seniority water rights, reducing allocations evenly across all states, or simply leaving water allocations as they currently are. Although the administration refused to publicly endorse
one of these three options, the administration defended its authority to make sure basic water needs are met even if this means setting the traditional “first in time, first in line” priority system aside.
This ensures senior water users’ rights are fulfilled before newer water rights in times of need.
This analysis pressures uncooperative and over-consumptive states to work together to reduce water use or face federally imposed reductions.
The aerial perspective of the Colorado River Basin provided me with this stark reality. The river is dwindling, and the precious resource is slipping further and further out of our hands as we continue to use more and more.
But there is hope, over the course of the FLAA trip we spoke to stakeholders with extremely different perspectives and interests. However, they all shared one common agreement, we must work together, and we must find compromises.
Zane Kessler of the Colorado Water District spoke to FLAA students in Aspen and stated, “In a world of uncertainty the only thing certain in a hotter, drier future is we will all need to work together.”
We must come together to address water shortages. States, political parties, agriculturalists, and municipalities must collaborate to reduce our water use collectively or we will face the irreversible consequences of a waterless West.
– Sophia Dow, junior environmental science student.
Eco-flight is a non-profit organization based in Aspen, Colorado that coined the term ‘conservation-aviation.’ This non-profit commemorates a late pilot friend; John Denver. This organization works to address conservation issues in the western slope and bring more attention to the issues surrounding the effects of climate change.
I always used to say that I go where the wind blows me, and that’s exactly how this trip has felt for me. I would like to thank Ecoflight on behalf of my peers and I who gave me this amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
From the moment this trip began, we were overcoming struggles with weather and wind. We were constantly changing the itinerary and making things work. I would not have preferred it any other way; I was able to see how genuine the people involved truly were. Overall, this trip brought awareness to the controversy sparked amongst the upper and lower basins of the Colorado River Watershed.
Right now, a large group of people who rely on the Colorado River feels threatened as the drought progresses. There are superb efforts in Las Vegas where their population is growing but their water consumption has been decreasing consecutively over the last three years. Las Vegas has been a steward for water conservation efforts and sustainable living.
The upper basin believes that these water rights have not been distributed properly and went to waste. The upper basin believes that any more water given to the lower basin is “enabling overuse” to push the lower basin to be more sustainable/conservative of the water we have.
The people in New Mexico, specifically within the Pecos watershed and local farmers, are barely scraping by as their water quality and access have recently been derailed by a 400,000-acre fire. These people believe that water is their most precious resource; proceeding with gold, silver, and billions of $$ worth of precious minerals. As an organic farmer and an eighth-generation farmer, Ralph Vigil expresses how “If I don’t have water I don’t have a farm.”
Groups in the upper basin believe that any more water given to the lower basin is “enabling overuse” to push the lower basin to be more sustainable/conservative of the water we have. These groups in the Upper Basin do not want to surrender Lake Powell. The controversy lies in the fact that Lake Powell is at 22% capacity and is just above the power pool. The argument lies that if the power pool is dropped we should just divert the water to Lake Mead; sacrificing the current hydropower infrastructure.
There are a lot of things that need to happen to solve this issue. Ultimately, it is going to take a group effort to manage the depleting resources the river offers. The river has often been described as a ‘bloodline’ or a part of the Earth’s circulatory system that stems life all along the Western slope. During this time of crisis, the Colorado River watershed has been trying to take water from one another; insinuating how the water rights and current infrastructure are outdated. Ralph illustrates how “Not all stakeholders share scarcity equally… I’m not going to take from you and you are not going to take from me. So we have to come together.” One thing that is crucial to solving this problem is the upper and lower basin states need to work together and manage these resources. All of their concerns are valid but a more sustainable practice must be implemented to protect the western slope and its ‘bloodline.’
– Natasha Kostovski, senior outdoor recreation program student
