Tony Valdez wasn’t worried about the water level when he bought the Buckboard Marina three years ago. But that has changed.
The level of the waters of the Flaming Gorge reservoir is dropping at a fast pace and this year it has already had to dredge three meters (ten feet) so that the boats can continue using the marina. And now that the Flaming Gorge will supply water to the region in the midst of an emergency, Valdez fears the water level will continue to drop.
“It is our natural resource, and it is disappearing from us,” he lamented. “Water is the most precious commodity we have.”
A 20-year drought is taking its toll on the Colorado River basin with increasing force, with seven Western states bidding for its water under a 100-year-old deal. This fisherman’s and boater’s paradise on the Utah-Wyoming border is in the middle of that battle.
No one disputes the root of the problem: The agreement was signed at a time when temperatures were not so high, there was more water and anticipating a level of rainfall that no longer occurs, in part due to climate change.
Entrepreneurs like Valdez are realizing that recreation is just one of several components of the problem, and that growing demand in the more populous southern states (California, Nevada, and Arizona) is colliding with diminishing water availability in the upstream agricultural states: (Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming).
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is part of a series on the 100th anniversary of the historic “Colorado Compact,” a 1922 agreement that regulates the use of Colorado River waters. The series is a collaboration between the Associated Press, The Colorado Sun, The Albuquerque Journal, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Arizona Daily Star and The Nevada Independent, exploring the pressures on the river in 2022.
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Farmers, ranchers, businessmen, industries, municipalities and the government are fighting over water and nobody knows how this will end.
“It’s a difficult topic. Today everyone pulls for their side,” said Kyle Roerink, director of the Great Basin Water Network, a group that promotes resource conservation.
In August, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner (Director) Camille Touton allowed upstream states to continue working together on planning measures that emphasize voluntary water conservation.
Wyoming Water Manager Brandon Gebhart said that’s what his state has always promoted, while expressing alarm at the receding water level in the Flaming Gorge.
Fed by the Green River and surrounded by dramatic cliffs and scrubby desert, Flaming Gorge is by far the largest reservoir in the Upper Basin.
Built in the 1960s to store and control water from the Green River, which flows into the Colorado in southeastern Utah, Flaming Gorge is the third largest reservoir in the Colorado River system. It is currently at 75% of its capacity, compared to just 25% at the Mead and Powell, the two largest reservoirs downstream.
Trout abound in its waters and it is highly desired by boat owners, who look for solitary coves where their occupants can bathe.
But they should think twice before diving in where they did a few years ago. The depth is no longer the same.
In April, the Bureau of Water Management announced that it would let the water level in Flamning Gorge drop 4.6 meters (15 feet) to ensure that Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona continues to generate electricity 725 kilometers (450 miles) below.
The waters dropped 1.8 meters (six feet) from last year and 3.7 meters (12 feet) from 2020, reaching levels not seen since 2005.
Wyoming uses only 60% of its water under the 1922 agreement. The vast majority irrigates pastures and alfalfa crops for livestock.
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Photographer Rick Bowmer contributed to this report.
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Mead Gruver is at https://twitter.com/meadgruver
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