Several experts are issuing warnings about the future of the Colorado River, saying things are continuing to slide “toward system crash.”
Those experts include Anne Castle, the former Assistant Secretary for Water and Science with the U.S. Department of the Interior, Jack Schmidt, the Director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University, and Eric Kuhn, retired General Manager for the Colorado River Water Conservation District.
According to their most recent paper, if the Colorado River Basin experiences another dry year, it is likely that “reasonably accessible storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead would be mostly depleted, even if consumptive uses and losses are at or near historic lows. Run-of-the-river operations would shortly ensue. This would be an outcome with devastating consequences.”…