Hope you can join us for the 2012 State of the Rockies Conference! http://youtu.be/X0YEID_5nI4

Whether we turn on a faucet in Los Angeles, Denver, or Phoenix, the water that flows out of it depends on the Colorado River for its supply. And the Colorado River depends on national and private forests as its source, a 1964 Colorado College graduate who works for the Obama administration said during February’s 2011-2012 Monthly Speaker and Conference Series.

Sponsored by Colorado College’s State of the Rockies Project, the event was held Monday, Feb. 6, in the Gates Common Room of Palmer Hall on the CC campus. This sixth and final Speaker Series was as well attended as previous presentations, drawing about 175 students, faculty and members of the general public.

The series is titled “The Colorado River Basin: Agenda for Use, Restoration and Sustainability for the Next Generation,” and has featured experts talking for the past six months about issues surrounding the Colorado River. Topics have ranged from legal problems regarding water rights and allocations to engineering challenges going into the future.

The February event presented CC alum Harris D. Sherman, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s  Under Secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment. In that position, he oversees the U.S. Forest Service and its 50,000 employees, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The Denver native previously served under Gov. Bill Ritter as Executive Director of Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources.

During his presentation “Healthy Forests for the Colorado River Basin,” Sherman said water from the Colorado River and other rivers in the nation rely on good forest management.

“Our ability to protect this green infrastructure is every bit as important as our ability to build dams, canals, water treatment plants and other infrastructure,” he said. “Most people don’t realize that half of the water we drink comes from national forests, along with state and private forests.”

Sherman said 66 million people get their water from national forests, including 27 million along the Colorado River Basin.

But the U.S. Forest Service is facing a host of challenges in managing its 155 forests:

• Climate change has brought drought conditions in southern and western states and record precipitation in the northern tier, resulting in massive wildfires, flooding and erosion. The trend is expected to persist: Precipitation in the Colorado River Basin is running 35 percent to normal;
• Catastrophic wildfires are mounting in size – Texas, New Mexico and Arizona had the largest wildfires in history last year. In the past decade, nine states have had record-setting fires, including Colorado’s Hayman Fire in 2002. The amount of annual burned acreage continues to increase, from 7 million in 2000 to 9 million in recent years, with predictions of excesses of 10 to 15 million, depending on the drought. Wildfires can adversely affect wildlife, erosion, flooding, tourism and recreation;
• Many homes abut forest land. Colorado leads the pack with 341,175 homes lying in what’s called a wildland-urban interface.
• Money is tight, and there are an estimated 65 to 80 million acres of national forest land needing restoration. Another 325 million acres of state and private forests fall into that category. Restoration costs $200 to $2,000 per acre, depending on the method, from prescribed burns to thinning techniques using machinery.
• Warmer winters have led to the proliferation of the bark beetle, which has led to the largest epidemic in history. The destructive beetle has impacted 41 million acres of forest land. Colorado has been hit the hardest, with 6.6 million acres affected by the disease. In addition to aesthetics, health and safety issues are arising from the destruction.

Despite the challenges, Sherman said the U.S. Forest Service is addressing the problems through creative solutions. Partnerships and collaborations are a key factor. The city of Denver, for example, is paying the Forest Service $17 million to work on 40,000 acres of national forest land to help protect five watersheds.

“We call this payment for eco-systems services. The Hayman Fire resulted in tremendous erosion, which almost brought Denver’s water system to its knees. They had major problems with filtration and water treatment issues,” Sherman said. “Denver’s now decided to be proactive.”

The Forest Service also is looking at how to create new markets for wood products. Because the housing and pulp and paper industries do not use as much wood as in the past, there aren’t as many avenues to sell trees that have been thinned or expired. One possibility is to convert wood chips to electricity. But Sherman said that hasn’t yet reached the point where it’s economically feasible.

Other efforts include educating homeowners to create clear areas between their houses and forest land and working with environmental groups about the benefits of thinning forests and replanting.

During a question-and-answer session, a student asked whether the Forest Service views fires as a natural process that has benefits. Sherman said the philosophy that all fires are bad has changed in recent years.

“For a long time, the Forest Service didn’t let fires burn because they were not good. The result: We’ve ended up with these vast, dense, monolithic forests, which is partly why we have the condition we have today. Fire has to be carefully controlled; we do 3.5 million acres a year of prescribed fires. But when you have a fire near a community or an area that has a high amount of recreation, you have to be careful. When they get out of hand, you have an unfortunate situation. It’s a balancing act.”

The monthly Speaker Series will culminate with the State of the Rockies Project annual conference, April 9-10, on the CC campus. A stellar lineup of officials working on the future management of the Colorado River Basin will give presentations, and organizers will release the annual Rockies report card.

Check the Rockies website, http://www2.coloradocollege.edu/stateoftherockies/conference.html, for more information regarding the conference.

The Navajo Nation and the wetlands of Mexico have something in common: Both should be at the table of discussion when it comes to water rights of the Colorado River Basin, according to two experts in their fields.

More than 175 Colorado College students, faculty and area residents heard the speakers’ cases for their causes Monday, Jan. 30, during the fifth presentation of the 2011-2012 Monthly Speaker and Conference series, sponsored by Colorado College’s State of the Rockies Project.

The series is titled “The Colorado River Basin: Agenda for Use, Restoration and Sustainability for the Next Generation,” and features experts talking each month through February about issues surrounding the Colorado River.

The January event, held in the Gates Common Room in Palmer Hall on campus, presented two skilled professionals:

• Bidtah Becker, a member of the Navajo Nation and an attorney who works for the Water Rights Unit of the Navajo Nation Department of Justice, where she focuses on legal protection of the Nation’s water rights; and
• Dr. Osvel Hinojosa-Huerta, Director of the Pronatura Noroeste’s Water and Wetlands Program and the Associated Director of the Birds Program of Pronatura Noroeste, based in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico.

Despite having century-old legal backing for water rights, the Navajo Nation, whose reservation lies almost entirely within the Colorado River Basin, is still fighting to quantify its water rights and get safe drinking water delivered to its 180,000 residents, Becker said.

It’s estimated that Navajos have the highest rate of water-borne illnesses of any Native American nation in the United States, she said. Reservation residents truck in their water in tanks and use anywhere from 10 to 100 gallons per person per day, compared with the average U.S. consumption of 160 gallons per person per day, according to Becker.

But a project she has been working on, the $1 billion Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project, is underway to help accomplish the goal of improving the health of the Navajo Nation by delivering clean drinking water, and fostering economic development on the reservation, which stretches across New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.

“It’s so exciting,” Becker said. “This project was unspeakable for decades, but when you talk about a resource like water, over time, people start doing the right thing. We all need access to water.”

Hinojosa-Huerta, whose contributions to environmentalism include efforts to restore the Colorado River delta, also provided evidence that progress is being made. Since 1997, his conservation organization, Pro Natura, has been working on creating international relationships for water policy and restoration of the delta.

Water rights for the Colorado River currently are over-allocated by 16 percent, he said. The river, one of the most regulated in the world, has 10 major dams and 80 major diversions, which he said have led to the loss of 80 percent of wetlands, significantly reduce river flows and decreased the population of Riparian-related birds. Drought conditions in the past few years haven’t helped, either.

But an initiative to restore the delta and improve environmental conditions at priority sites in the U.S. and Mexico recently has made strides, he said. Negotiations and collaborations between the two countries on how to manage the basin have resulted in new strategies and tools, Hinojosa-Huerta said.

For example, 30 percent of the effluent from a wastewater treatment plant is being used for wetlands use, and agricultural drainage in the largest wetland in the delta is being desalted by the Yuma Desalting Plant in Arizona, to protect the area, called Cienega de Santa Clara.

“What we learned is that bi-national cooperation is possible and essential – 10 years ago it wasn’t possible to talk about an agreement for restoration. Now that’s exactly what’s happened,” Hinojosa-Huerta said. “We have a good regulatory framework, and we know that with the right policies and support from different stakeholders, we can make it work. Water allocation is feasible. Protection of wetlands is feasible.”

Asked by an attendee during the question-and-answer period whether any mechanical methods can be utilized to increase water supply – such as covering reservoirs to reduce evaporation — Hinojosa-Huerta said conservation and efficiency appear to be the current mode of thinking.

When another audience member asked whether water supply can be protected from “enemies like fracking,” an oil and natural gas drilling process that uses copious amounts of water, Hinojosa-Huerta said that legal allocation of water will be necessary to secure adequate supplies for human consumption and environmental protection.

The final speaker event will be held Monday, Feb. 6, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Gates Common Room in Palmer Hall. Harris D. Sherman, a CC alum and the Under Secretary for Natural Resources for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will present “Healthy Forests for the Colorado River Basin.”

He oversees the U.S. Forest Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service and previously served as Executive Director of Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources, under Gov. Bill Ritter.

The monthly Speaker Series culminates with the State of the Rockies Project annual conference, April 9-10, on the CC campus. A stellar lineup of officials working on the future management of the Colorado River Basin will give presentations.

Check the Rockies website, http://www2.coloradocollege.edu/stateoftherockies/speakerseries.html, for more information regarding upcoming events.

The next State of the Rockies Speakers Series event is next Monday, January 30th, 2012 at 7pm in the Gates Common Room of Palmer Hall on the CC campus. Join us for the talk, titled, Unheard Voices of the Colorado River Basin: Bringing Mexico and Native American Tribes to the Table.

We’ve just posted two new videos from Will and Zak up on the Rockies YouTube channel. The first details their journey from Flaming Gorge to Lodore Canyon, the second from Desolation Canyon to the Grand. Here’s the first video.

For the second video and the other Source to Sea videos visit the Rockies Project YouTube channel.

We’ve just posted new photos to the Rockies Project Flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com//photos/stateoftherockies/sets/72157628012069841/show/. Here are some of the best from their time in the Grand Canyon:

Will paddles through a side canyon of the Grand.

Zak tackles some rapids in the Grand.

In the last few weeks our Rockies Project Field Researchers left the Grand Canyon, crossed Lake Mead, traveled over Hoover Dam and down through Black Canyon and have just crossed Lake Mohave. Up next is Lake Havasu and Parker Dam before continuing south towards Mexico. Follow their progress through their SPOT GPS here: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=03tlc4QaiXLxIl397nG6BRPCsFzK69usD.

Take a look at some of the newest photos from our two field researchers paddling down the Colorado River on our Rockies Flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com//photos/stateoftherockies/sets/72157628012069841/show/.

The 2011-2012 Monthly Speaker and Conference series, sponsored by The Colorado College’s State of the Rockies Project, continues to draw hundreds of students, faculty and area residents. The series, titled “The Colorado River Basin: Use, Restoration and Sustainability as if the Next Generation Counts,” features experts talking each month through February about issues surrounding the Colorado River.

On Monday night, Dec. 5, in the Gates Common Room in Palmer Hall, the project presented “”Perfect Storm for the 21^st Century” Three experts participated:

• Moderator Beth Conover, a founding partner at Econover LLC, a consulting firm specializing in environmental issues;
• Stephen Saunders, founder of Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and former deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and
• Jeff Lukas, an associate scientist for Western Water Assessment, where he studies climate change and its impact on the environment.

Saunders told about 175 people attending that “global warming” is a misnomer because it doesn’t convey the real danger of the condition and that humans are mostly to blame for it. His preferred phrase is “climate disruption.”

Quoting the 1970s comic strip character Pogo, Saunders said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

The Colorado River Basin, Saunders said, is in the “bull’s-eye” for climate disruption because studies show the area has increased in temperature more than any other part of the United States.

Climate disruption is said to be caused by emissions from cars, factories and other human creations that create a greenhouse effect, trapping heat in the atmosphere. This increases evaporation on oceans, lakes and rivers, which brings tremendous energy into the skies that have created massive tornadoes and hurricanes, scientists say, as shown by the many this year.

But the energy in the sky doesn’t result in rains that replenish the earth’s water bodies like the Colorado River, explained Lukas during his talk. Much of it evaporates before reaching the bodies, a phenomenon he calls “evapotranspiration.”

“The evapotranspiration dial is being turned up in a big and consistent way,” Lukas said.

Lukas also pointed to evidence in tree rings that droughts are a recurring condition in world history. Combining a natural drought with climate disruption could be a real disaster, Lukas said.

Lukas and Saunders proposed efforts to reduce emissions in America to lessen the process, and to use less water for agriculture and more water for human use. Upping reclamation water use was also suggested.

During a Q & A period, the speakers were asked about the factor of population growth on bleeding the Colorado River dry. While both acknowledged that population growth in the West was a problem, they said most scientists see climate change as a greater danger to the river.

A student asked if there were efforts to enable the Colorado River to complete its journey to the Sea of Cortez, a feat that would have no utilitarian value. Since 1998, the river has run dry before reaching the delta because of overuse.

The speakers were doubtful that any effort toward that would be successful. “No one in the basin is compelled to do that,” Saunders said.

There is, however, at least one person, and he’ll be one of the speakers at the next event on Jan.30, titled “Unheard Voices of the Colorado River Basin: Bringing Mexico and Native American Tribes to the Table.”

Scheduled to speak are Bidtah Becker, a lawyer and member of the Navajo Nation Department of Justice who focuses on protecting Navajo water rights; and Osvel Hinojosa-Huerta, the director of the Water and Wetlands Program whose contributions to environmentalism include efforts to restore the Colorado River delta.

There will also be another update on two young men from Colorado Springs who in October set out on their goal of paddling the entire length of the Colorado River.

The Conference and Speaker series continues through February. For more on its speakers and events, go to http://www2.coloradocollege.edu/stateoftherockies/speakerseries.html.

Written by Rockies Project writer Mark Barna

Join the State of the Rockies Project tonight for our fourth Speakers Series event of the year as we host a panel on- The Colorado River Basin and Climate: Perfect Storm for the 21st Century? The talk will be held at 7pm in the Gates Common Room of Palmer Hall on the Colorado College campus.

The Colorado River Basin is at the nexus of environmental and demographic pressures that will converge in the 21st century; what will the result be? The region’s projected population growth means increased water demand on the Colorado River from municipalities, industry, agriculture and recreation.  International and federal agencies from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to the Bureau of Reclamation have predicted a significant decrease in water availability throughout the Basin due to a changing climate.  Some expert studies predict that by 2050 the river system will not be able to supply all of its allocated shares two-thirds to nine-tenths of the time. Furthermore, the Basin’s diverse geographic attributes from the headwaters high in the peaks of the Rockies to the arid deserts of the American Southwest make it difficult to predict the impacts of a changing climate. How are future generations of Colorado River water users going to cope with these changes? What can the current water managers of the Basin do to prepare for a changing climate? Different proposals have been made from adapting to the changing climate through measures like increased water efficiency to augmenting water supplies from other river basins.  What will the projected climate of the Colorado River Basin look like and what are the possibilities for addressing the water needs for the future?

For the fourth State of the Rockies Project Speakers Series event of the year, the Project will be hosting a panel on: The Colorado River Basin and Climate- Perfect Storm for the 21st Century? The panel will consist of three experts dealing directly with climate change in the Basin. Beth Conover will be the moderator for the evening’s event. Beth is a Colorado native and has spent much of her education and career in the environmental field. This includes being the editor of the recently published book How the West Was Warmed, as well as being the founding partner of the consulting firm Econover LLC.  Stephen Saunders is the Founder and President of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, which works to protect the West and its climate by bringing about action to reduce heat-trapping pollution and to prepare for the impacts of a disrupted climate. He has spent much of his career in government addressing environmental issues. Jeff Lukas is an Associate Scientist for the Western Water Assessment. Jeff’s research focuses are climate variability and climate change in the interior West and their impacts on human activities and ecosystems, extraction of multi-century climate records from long-lived conifers, and the application of tree-ring data to water resource management.