“Deal is reached to keep Colorado River from going dry, for now,” read the headline of a New York Times article last May 25. It implies Washington and river basin bureaucrats saved the Colorado River in a last-minute meeting. This miracle was achieved by agreeing to pay California farmers and American tribes $1.2 billion to “temporarily” use less water.

To be fair, this will reduce water usage in Arizona and southern California, if enforced. But land developers will keep building and people will keep moving in. The only thing taxpayers in the rest of the country will get is a guaranteed supply of more expensive broccoli and lettuce. The Times reporter, however, did acknowledge in passing that the record snowpack also helped. That was in May. In June El Niño made it rain, and it continues to do so as of this writing on the eastern slope.

In late July, CBS’s “60 Minutes” produced a segment on the water crisis featuring Colorado state expert, Brad Udall.  When asked “what’s happening on the Colorado River,” Udall responded, “Well, it’s a signal of the long-term problem we’ve been seeing since 2000, which is climate change is reducing the flows of the Colorado significantly.” Later in the interview, however, he identified the real issue: “… We have a fully utilized system. We’ve over-allocated it and we now need to think about how to turn some of this back, because the only lever we control right now in the river is the demand lever. We have no control over the supply.”

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The system is over-allocated, so what is a politician to do? Well, in May, Gov. Jared Polis convened a task force to study “drought security.”  That’s right, folks, after 23 straight years of lower-than-average precipitation, the governor convenes a task force. Well, I’ve got news for you, we got task forces coming out our ears.

I wrote in a Podium last September that long-term USDA data shows Colorado precipitation has not declined. Also, that, “temperatures in Colorado show no strong warming (or cooling) trend during the last 120 years.” Sadly, the “experts” fail to mention these facts.

Most eastern-slope Coloradans don’t realize snowpack in the Rockies supplies virtually all their fresh water. Denver’s population has grown 174% since 1970, in part due to 70 miles of pipe from the Dillion Reservoir. That big sucking sound further down river is the population growth in California and Arizona: Phoenix at plus-432%, Las Vegas at plus-1,000 % and Los Angeles at plus-50%. Agricultural usage has remained steady; thus, the root cause of the water crisis is too many people in the desert, not climate change. The entire desert southwest depends on snowmelt in Colorado and Wyoming.

Fortunately, snowpack has remained relatively steady since 1938. Dr. Roy Spencer, leading climate researcher and recipient of NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, analyzed snowpack in the Rockies concluding, “…there has been no long-term trend in snowpack in the upper Colorado River watershed.” 

The “experts” talk about drought in the desert southwest as if it is unusual, and in doing so, they violate the public’s trust.

Presently the 34 up-stream reservoirs that feed Lake Powell are at 88% capacity (Lake Powell Water Database). This includes Flaming Gorge 90%, Blue Mesa 89% and Navajo 74%. Lake Powell has risen 44 feet in the last 12 months, while Lake Mead is up 20.5 feet. These two huge reservoirs, however, are still well below capacity (38% and 33%, respectively), while the off-take remains above naturally sustainable levels.

In the final analysis, more people out here is not sustainable. The experts created this problem and now talk about drought in the desert southwest as if it is unusual! Remember when the railroads conned people into moving out here in the late 1800s?

Roy Johnston is a retired university professor who holds a Ph.D. in plant science and genetics. He is also a retired corporate executive.