Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

If you think the recent drought in the Colorado River basin is unusually severe, think again. Though dry weather throughout the 240,000 square mile drainage has lowered Lake Powell levels enough to expose canyons that have been underwater for decades, things could easily get worse.

That’s the conclusion of a new report from the National Research Council (pdf). Examining tree ring data from across the basin, the report’s researchers found that the region has experienced much more severe droughts over the past 500 years than the current one (see Michelle Nijhuis’ definitive piece on this research for HCN) . They postulate that the average annual flow of the river is probably closer to 13 million acre feet than the 16.4 million acre feet average on which the Colorado River Compact was based. In other words, over time there will be a lot less water to divvy up between rapidly growing states than originally thought.

Interestingly enough, Pat Mulroy, who manages the Southern Nevada Water Authority, has held up the report as proof that conservation won’t solve water problems, as reported in the Las Vegas Review Journal. Instead, sprawling Las Vegas needs to find new sources of water, she says, namely the aquifer that lies beneath Lincoln and White Pine counties north of Sin City.

Mulroy, as told by the Journal, had this to say:

“It confirms a lot of things that we’ve been saying,” said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. “It says there’s no way you can conserve your way out of this. There has to be a larger solution somehow.”

For the Las Vegas Valley, which gets 90 percent of its water from the Colorado, that solution is to develop an alternative supply, Mulroy said.

“In my mind, it underscores the critical need for Nevada to diversify.”

Sounds like that old Manifest Destiny mindset still survives. Instead of thinking of ways to use less of something — minerals, energy, land, water — we just move in and conquer a new place, as though there is an infinite supply to be had “out there.” Problem is, there’s not many “out theres” left anymore, even in the West. Perhaps it’s time to change the way we think.