Saving the Colorado River

Clean Water Fund is very excited to be a part of a great coalition of companies and foundations that are working to protect the Colorado River from the source to the sea. The effort, called the “Save the Colorado River” campaign — www.savethecolorado.org — is led by New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins, CO. In addition, the coalition includes the companies Patagonia, Clif Bar, Teva and National Geographic; foundation partners include Kenney Brothers Foundation, Environment Foundation, and Environment Now. Gary Wockner, Clean Water Fund’s Colorado Program Director serves as the Campaign Coordinator for the Save the Colorado River campaign.

Save the Colorado is primarily a philanthropic coalition that donates money to non-profit environmental groups up and down the Colorado River basin. In 2010, Save the Colorado helped donate over $160,000 to eleven non-profits from Colorado to Southern California. In addition to philanthropic work, Save the Colorado is assisting organizations with their communications work through the Save the Colorado website, blog, and facebook pages.

The Colorado River provides drinking and irrigation water for over 30 million people throughout the Southwest U.S., from the Front Range of Colorado to Southern California and Mexico. The river is severely depleted all along its journey. At the very top of the basin in Colorado, the river has been named one of the “Most Endangered Rivers in America;” at the bottom — 1,500 miles downstream — the river is drained dry and no longer meets the Gulf of California. In fact, 5 trillion gallons of water are drained out of the Colorado River every year.

One of the first big coalition efforts Save the Colorado is assisting with is helping to stop the proposed “Flaming Gorge Pipeline” — a massive scheme to drain 250,000 acre feet of water out of the Green River, a Colorado River tributary, near Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Southwest Wyoming. The Pipeline would pipe and pump the water 560 miles across Wyoming, up and over the Continental Divide, and down to the sprawling Front Range of Colorado.

The proposed pipeline would be exorbitantly expensive and a disastrous step backwards for water supply policy and river protection in Colorado and the Southwest U.S. Colorado should not be using the public’s money for such outlandish schemes; instead, the state should focus on sustainable water supply solutions that do not drain our rivers, including aggressive water conservation, water re-use and recycling, and cooperative partnerships with farmers.

Save the Colorado is partnering with twenty conservationgroups in Colorado to help stop the project and convince the State of Colorado not to fund or study the project. Partners have created an online petition, www.StopFlamingGorgePipeline.org where the public can sign on. The deadline to sign is September 9th, so please hurry and sign. We need your help — please sign the petition, and share/blog/facebook it with your friends.

Please help Clean Water Fund help Save the Colorado River!

Back to Colorado Currents