A Water Awakening in the West
Posted October 7, 2010 in Living Sustainably, Saving Wildlife and WIld Places
In December 1996, during my first winter in the United States, my family decided to take a road-trip from our home in Houston, Texas through the southwest to go skiing in California and sight-seeing in Vegas. I remember vividly the lights and extravagance of Vegas, which I loved, and my exuberance at seeing snow for the first time. But I don’t remember all that much about driving through the west. I mostly recall being really bored. I was 11 after all and paid little more than scant attention to the landscape of the great southwest.
I had a chance to remedy that last month when a friend and I road tripped from Santa Fe, New Mexico to San Francisco, California. We drove over a thousand miles, my eyes and curiosity finally open to the wonder and stimulation the open road provides in America’s frontier. Our travels were breathtaking. We marveled at the adobe speckled hills in New Mexico, the mesas of Hopi country in Arizona, Utah’s gorgeous canyons, long stretches of utter isolation in Nevada, and then the beautiful valleys and meadows of Yosemite.
Having been working for NRDC’s water program for the past year, I had become aware of the myriad water issues facing the West. This trip allowed me to see the places I’d heard about first hand. Something in my brain clicked as I stepped onto the Navajo Bridge in Arizona, looking over the Colorado River. I already knew how vital it was for the region, but looking over the august river as it snaked out of the mountains in the horizon and meandered through Marble Canyon, the issues that I knew to be so critical suddenly felt immediate and urgent. As grand as the Colorado River was in that moment (and from the perch of the Navajo Bridge, the river is just astounding, majestic), I remembered that it has been stretched to its limits, and that the western region of this country, for which the river is a life line, is in the midst of a full blown water crisis.
(Photo: Andy Gupta)
Lake Mead, an integral part of the Colorado River system and the west’s water supply, has seen water levels drop for over a decade. Now, America’s largest reservoir is in danger of seeing its supplies dwindle to a level that will have wide ranging impacts across the west. If Lake Mead drops below 1,075 feet (at the moment it is hovering around 1,083 feet), the amount of water that Arizona and Nevada are allowed to take out of the system will be severely reduced, effecting millions of people in the region. The stark “bathtub ring” that marks historic water levels at Lake Mead is just another reminder that our rivers are over-stretched and that it’s time to develop new strategies to sustainably manage our water. And with the twin challenges of climate change and a growing population, our water supply will only face greater pressures over time.
Thankfully, people are beginning to see the writing on the wall. Some cities like L.A. and Las Vegas have even started to develop strategies to help mitigate and adapt to these challenges by investing in water conservation, efficiency and other tools that make up what NRDC calls the virtual river. People are certainly starting to wake up to these new water realities, but concerted action is necessary. A look at the increasingly sobering facts and the availability of viable solutions should hopefully provide some motivation. A trip to the Colorado River or Lake Mead could also help.
(CNBC Video. Airtime: Mon. Sept. 27 2010)
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