The summer of 2002 brought record low flows to the Colorado River. This shot of the Big Drop Three rapid in Cataract Canyon in Canyonlands National Park at a flow of 2,700 cubic feet shows how recreation can be impacted by a declining Colorado River. Now Arizona State University economists have put a dollar figure on how a drying up of the river would impact the economies of surrounding states/NPS, Neal Herbert
The prospect of the Colorado River running dry anytime soon is hard to fathom. But if it ever does, it will have a devastating effect on the economies of the seven states that rely on the river's life-giving waters, according to a study prepared by Arizona State University researchers.
"Without the full availability of Colorado River water at current levels, the combined economy of the Basin Region is estimated to fall by over $1.4 trillion," the study's executive summary states. The loss would extend to more than 16 million jobs -- with $800 billion in wages -- in the states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and southern California, it adds.
Put another way, the jobs tied to the river that would be lost are equal to 12.2 percent of national private employment.
Since the mid-20th century, intensive water consumption has dried the lower 100 miles of the Colorado River such that it no longer reaches the sea except in years of heavy run-off; and the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) anticipates significant shortfalls between projected water supplies and demands in the Colorado River Basin in the coming decades.
"We've long suspected the impact of the Colorado River to be quite large, but the results of this study help to quantify it,' said ASU economics professor Timothy James, lead author of the study. 'The detailed analysis reveals how deeply intertwined the economy of the region is with the river's health."
Worries about the Colorado River's flows and the many demands on it are not new, but stretch back decades, and even more than a century if you consider Major John Wesley Powell's admonition that there simply wasn't enough water to go around in the West. The writer Marc Reisner reiterated the message a bit more vehemently in Cadillac Desert, the American West and its Disappearing Water.
More recently, in 2010, Jonathan Waterman, author of Where Mountains are Nameless, Arctic Crossing, Kayaking the Vermilion Sea, and In the Shadow of Denali, took his best shot to convince local, state, and federal officials -- and all the souls who live from Colorado and Wyoming to southern California -- that there is no possible way the Colorado River can survive, let alone sustain, the demands being made on it.
In Running Dry, A Journey From Source to Sea Down the Colorado River, Mr. Waterman cast the Colorado as a diseased coronary artery running through the Southwest. He clearly diagnosed the disease by analyzing the math attached to the water that feeds the various watersheds draining into the Colorado, and the over-appropriated demands on them. He talked with the director of the Glen Canyon Dam that reins in the Colorado before it can sweep tumultuously through Grand Canyon National Park, and in doing so contrasted the ongoing stand-off between hydro-generation and the natural ebb and flow of river flows the canyon needs to stay healthy.
The nine units of the National Park System that help define the river basin -- Rocky Mountain, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Curecanti, Arches, Canyonlands, Dinosaur, Glen Canyon, Lake Mead, and Grand Canyon -- have been sculpted through time by the currents of the Colorado River and its tributaries.
Today, while the drainage's slacking waters might not outwardly impact the appearance of these parks, they impact them just the same. Fisheries suffer from reduced currents and dropping reservoirs. River runners see the Green, Yampa, and Colorado rivers changed by the lower flows. Vegetation and wildlife in the parks that rely on the rivers are impacted.
The very force that has created these national parks and which in many cases defines many of them is substantially at risk. The growing recreational uses, as a consequence are at risk as well.
Now the economics of the river have come to the forefront in The Economic Importance Of The Colorado River To The Basin Region. Authored by Professor James, Dr. Anthony Evans, Eva Madly, and Cary Kelly at Arizona State's L William Seidman Research Institute, W. P. Carey School of Business, the study works to drive home how a drying up of the Colorado River, for practical purposes, would cripple the surrounding states.
* Economy of the West Crucially Dependent on the Colorado River: Nearly 2/3rds of the CO River Basin's Economic Value Vanishes if the Colorado River Runs Dry
* $871 billion in labor income could be lost EACH YEAR if Colorado River water was no longer available to businesses, industry and agriculture.
* All business sectors risk economic losses if we further deplete this resource. The five PRIVATE SECTOR industries basin-wide that would decline the most are:
--Real Estate & Rental ($174.3 billion)
--Healthcare & Social Services ($148.6 billion)
--Finance & Insurance ($137.1 billion)
--Professional, Scientific & Technical Services ($130.6 billion)
--Retail Trade ($96.2 billion)
If there was just a 10 percent drop in the Colorado River's flow, it would cost the seven states $143.4 billion in lost Gross State Product, the authors estimated, 1.6 million jobs, and $87.1 billion in salaries. A 50 percent decline would chop $717.1 billion from GSP, 8 million jobs, and $435.7 in income, they added.
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Comments
In the 1800's it was widely believed that "Rain follows the plow." Now we seem to believe that "Rain follows more and more development."
Will we ever learn that the truth that drives all this is simple. It's an unshakable belief that Dollars follow more and more development. But what about the future?
Some among us care not for the future because it might limit a few of the dollars in our pockets.
It's simply wisdom vs greed.
An article in today's Las Vegas Sun asks, "When Will Las Vegas Run Out of Water?" Even if the worst case predictions are wrong, as another recent story points out, Lake Mead doesn't have to dry up entirely to create major economic problems for not only S. Nevada, but parts of Arizona and S. California as well.
This article from NOAA notes that on July 11, 2014, Lake Mead "reached its lowest water level since the lake was first filled during the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s."
"Runoff in the Upper Colorado River Basin was 94 percent of average in 2014... but only 47 percent of normal in 2013 and 45 percent in 2012, according to the Bureau of Reclamation."
The 2014 National Climate Assessment "also warns that the current drought could be just beginning. Southwest paleoclimate records show that severe mega-droughts at least 50 years long have occurred in the past several thousand years."
No one can accurately predict what the snowpack in parts of Colorado and Utah (the major source of Colorado River water) will be in coming years, but if the trends for the past 15 years continue, there's cause for serious concern.
Does anyone know if all the recent rain in that area did anything for Lake Mead?? Did it rise at all?
http://www.arachnoid.com/NaturalResources/
Looks like that rain didn't help much.
It's all in this book, published already a quarter century ago:
Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. Still one of the best accounts ever written about how the American West got overbuilt. No surprises here, good people, unless you really believe that water transfers encourage limits to growth. Come to think of it: Is that not what we are being told about "renewable" energy, too? If we can now make the desert into a solar power plant, all of our problems will be over! Once, water flowed uphill toward money; now money is following the sun.
Hmmm, could millions upon millions of new residents of the Southwest be a good thing or a bad thing for the Colorado River Basin? Simple question, I believe. A conservative asks the question. What will the reality of all this be if politicians decide? Do any of you consider the impacts of open borders obviously intended blatently to add voter rolls to the Democratic Party? Does anyone think it's purely for humanitarian motivations? Obama, the sensitive Mother Theresa incarnation? We are doomed if his case carries the day, seriously.
The "reality" of this situation may well come from Mother Nature rather than politicians, especially if recent trends in the amount of water coming down the river continue. If that's the case, a lot of people will face very difficult situations, and it will be both sad and interesting to see the posturing and finger-pointing that will occur by politicians at many levels.
I'm afraid you have it right, Jim. It's gonna be ugly no matter what. It will be ugliest of all for many people who bought homes there without doing their homework first as well as for people who have lived there all their lives without paying attention to what was happening around them.
But it will be okay. They can simply blame the President -- whoever he or she happens to be at the time.
I would suggest the people to be impacted decide on what (and who) decide. Politicians have quite a different agenda than who deals with the consequences. They will be gone with their golden parachutes supporting them into the far future (and their heirs). Has anyone noticed the increase in the 1% ownership of all the wealth that exists, under this admin.? The middle class is going down friends.
I do apologize if I've gotten to deep on the subject (as opposed to shallow:).
May surprise you Lee but this is one place I agree that government (state and local) has failed. You won't find a stronger advocate of property rights, but municipalities allowing or even encouraging development that stretches beyond the water resources, available now or into the future, is pure malfeasance. And people who buy these properties without understanding the water implications are just plain stupid.
What makes it worse is that they (governments and people) complain after the fact and want to take from those that planned well to make up for their own shortfalls.
And just think. We might have had two MORE dams on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. Then David Brower defied the president, Lyndon Johnson at the time. As for "blaming" the president, that is exactly who to blame, starting with Hoover and FDR. They saw these mega dams as make-work projects and thought little of the environment.
Although a different technology, it is much the same with President Obama today. How much do wind and solar power do to SOLVE the problem of climate change rather than simply add to the excuse for growth? Old argument: Stop the floods! New argument: Stop climate change! Old argument: We must flood the canyons to save them. New argument: We must cover the deserts with renewable energy to save them. Save them from what? They got along just fine until too many people came along, but THAT point we ignore.
I prefer not to ignore it, but then, I believe that population is still the problem. EC is right. Why should I pay for everyone else's frivolity? As for moving to Seattle for OUR water, forget it. We are having a low snowpack, too. But yes, feel free to visit, since our tax structure, like so many others, is built on the idea that tourists grow the economy so WE don't have to pay.
Oh Mamma Mia! I agree with EC! And he agrees with me!
This is truly an historic moment!
Well, I don't know if I would go THAT far!
You think Seatle has that mentality. You should come to Breckenridge - or probably any other resort town. The lifty can come here for 22 days and vote himself subsidized housing and child care and millions to "save the plant: and leave at the end of the season. Who pays - the tourist, the condo investor and the second home owner, all of which account for that lifty's job but none of which can vote.
[political conclusion excluded]