EDF Calls for Swift Action on Common Sense Solutions for Colorado River
(WASHINGTON – May 28, 2013) Environmental Defense Fund
(EDF) will join representatives from the Department of Interior, Bureau of
Reclamation, seven Colorado River Basin States and Ten Tribes Partnership on
Tuesday to discuss “Next Steps” for the Colorado River, as described in the Colorado River
Basin Supply and Demand Study.
“The Colorado River Basin Study is a call to action,”
said Jennifer Pitt,
director of EDF’s Colorado River
Project and speaker at Tuesday’s event. “With water demand already
exceeding supply and populations of urban and rural communities expected to
grow throughout the Basin, the time for action is now. Communities that depend
on the Colorado River – for water supply or as the foundation of a $26 Billion
recreation economy – cannot afford to wait.”
For the next phase of the Colorado River Basin Supply and
Demand Study, EDF would like to see the recommendations presented in the first
phase of the study – more efficient use of existing urban water supplies, reuse
of waste water, better watershed management, improved agricultural techniques,
and modern solutions such as water banks – translated into new programs.
Reclamation’s announcement of funding for projects that will conserve more than
13,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water annually is a good start, and these
workgroups should be focused on creating quantifiable water savings.
“These common sense solutions are within reach,” Pitt
said. “The Basin Study identified more than 4 million acre-feet of solutions
that are faster, safer, and less expensive to implement than some of the more
controversial and costly proposals such as pipelines and similarly inefficient
alternatives that would rely on other regions for water.
“A number of these common sense solutions have already
been successful within the 7-state region and across the globe. That said, we
need to ramp up the implementation of such conservation tools and programs
immediately. There is no time to waste.”
Implementing an Upper Basin Water Bank should be a top
priority, Pitt added.
An Upper Basin Water Bank would encourage water
conservation by allowing users who save water to sell it to a bank that will
store it to increase water supply reliability for all water users in the Upper
Basin, putting money in the pockets of those who conserve and making more water
available for those who need it. Through careful operations, this banking
system can keep water in the river, promoting healthy flows, while creating a
market-based approach to conservation that strengthens local economies.
“Negotiating a water bank will be a challenge, but the
potential rewards are immense,” Pitt said. “I am hopeful that the Upper Basin
Water Bank discussions can include representation from conservation interests
to explore options for bank operations that give us healthy rivers.”
One of the world’s leading international nonprofit organizations, Environmental Defense Fund (edf.org) creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. To do so, EDF links science, economics, law, and innovative private-sector partnerships. With more than 3 million members and offices in the United States, China, Mexico, Indonesia and the European Union, EDF’s scientists, economists, attorneys and policy experts are working in 28 countries to turn our solutions into action. Connect with us on Twitter @EnvDefenseFund
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