"The agreement didn’t consider the needs of Native Americans, Mexico or ecosystems. Since its signing, the river has dropped, demand has skyrocketed and states have failed to agree on how to share it."
"On a chilly fall day, Eric Kuhn walked along a gravel path above the Colorado River in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The former head of the Colorado River District, a water agency based on the state’s Western Slope, paused where one of its tributaries, the Roaring Fork, spilled into the river, creating a two-tone stream of beige and dark brown at the confluence.
“About a third of the water that originates in the Colorado River can be accounted for right at this spot,” Kuhn said. The river is fed by melting snow which gathers each winter on the high mountain peaks of the southern Rocky Mountains.
“When I think of rivers, I think of, where’s the water coming from and where’s it going?” Kuhn said. “And what’s happened to this river over the last 100 years?”
In 2021 Kuhn co-authored “Science Be Dammed” with his colleague John Fleck, a water policy professor at the University of New Mexico. The book is a detailed examination of how the river’s foundational agreement—the Colorado River Compact —came together a century ago."
Luke Runyon of KUNC reports for Inside Climate News November 24, 2022.
Advertisement 
