WILD RIVERS UPDATE: Summer is winding down, and we are winding up to keep our rivers flowing!

August 14, 2024
Gary Wockner
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Hello River-Loving Friends!

It is your support that keeps us working! Please donate online here: http://savethecolorado.org/donate/

We’re excited to send out this newsletter which describes much of our expanded work and mission. We’ll cover all of the river-saving topics we are engaged in across the Southwest U.S. and beyond.

First, Save The Dolores River! For years we have watched the saga playing out on the Dolores River in Southwest Colorado and we’ve been wanting to engage in a way that forces the various water agencies to leave more water in the river. As you may know, the nail in the coffin for the Dolores is McPhee Dam — one the last big dam projects in Colorado — that was built and filled between 1983 and 1987. After that time, and especially into the year 2000 and afterwards, the Dolores River below the dam rarely flowed enough to provide for the ecological health of the river and its fish, let alone for recreational use by rafts and kayaks.

All of that COULD change.

In 2025, the management plans for the river are expiring and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has to create a process to extend or change those plans. We’ve argued for over a decade that Reclamation has already violated the current management plans, and so any new plan must not only be “new” but also dramatically different. Over the last 20 years, more diversions have occurred and the ongoing drought has ravaged the health of the watershed and the river below the dam. Times have changed and the management of the Dolores River must change with it.

For these reasons, and more, we will be petitioning Reclamation to launch a National Environmental Policy Act process to create a new management plan for the dam and river. The Dolores River deserves to live, and Flows For Nature must be in the new plan.

Second, our state water court challenges in Colorado continue to move forward. We’ve filed statements of opposition against the water rights for two consequential dam projects in Colorado – one in Boulder County near the Town of Lyons, and one in Grand County near Kremmling.

The project near Lyons is called “Coffintop Reservoir,” named after nearby Coffintop Mountain, and we’re proud to oppose the massive dam on the South St. Vrain Creek that would loom over the Town. These water rights battles can take a year or so to work their way through the court process, but we believe it’s important to oppose the water rights early, before the dam concept gets any farther through the permitting process.

We’re excited to continue our partnership with the University of Denver Environmental Law Clinic which is representing us in these cases in state water court. The Clinic has been an extraordinary partner for a small scrappy environmental organization like ours. Further, we’re helping to educate the next generation of river-protecting lawyers at the same time – a win-win! Stay tuned for the outcome of these court cases.

Third, we are ramping up our engagement in the new long-term Colorado River Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) being prepared by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It’s through this process – that will play out over the next 24 months – that the biggest change in the river’s management is likely to occur.

We are arguing hard that climate change is real, and that fewer dams, not more, are one of the answers to managing the system in a sustainable way. Right now, the Burea

u is managing the entire system on a month-to-month basis instead of having any eye on future sustainability.

This campaign dovetails with our “Decommission Glen Canyon Dam campaign” and will be a centerpiece of our advocacy throughout. The EIS process is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get the Bureau of Reclamation to consider decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam as an official “alternative” that can be carried forward into future policy as climate change intensifies. We are asking our supporters to send comments to BuRec Commissioner, Camille Touton, arguing that climate change must be taken seriously in the EIS process and Glen Canyon decommissioning must be considered.

The link to send an email is here: https://savethecolorado.org/send-email-to-the-u-s-burec/

Fourth, we are continuing to focus our fights against proposed new dams to a few projects where we think we can make a difference, rather than splattering our work over the entire Southwest U.S. These specific proposed new dams are in our crosshairs to oppose:

The White River Storage Project in Rio Blanco County, CO.
The West Fork Dam in Carbon County, WY.
The Whitney Reservoir Project in Eagle County, CO.
The “Defend The Fens” dam fights in Summit County, CO.
The Gross Dam fight in Boulder County, CO.
And maybe 1 or 2 others that rise to the surface.

So instead of fighting all 25 proposed new dams across the Southwest, we’ll focus on a few, but still play a supporting role to other groups who are leading in other watersheds.

Fifth, we’ve expanded our work around the U.S. by working in coalition with several groups – including one of our funders, Patagonia – to organize and communicate with federal and state governments against proposed new dam projects, and especially against expanding hydropower projects. We recently joined a coalition letter urging the Internal Revenue Service to NOT give tax credits to hydropower projects under the guise of clean energy supported by Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Not only does hydropower damage and destroy rivers, but the best new science also proves that most hydropower projects emit significant greenhouse gases as well.

In the same vein, we’ve also joined coalitions urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add dams and reservoirs to the EPA’s greenhouse gas reporting program. In addition, we’ve joined coalitions urging the State of California to not support the proposed massive “Sites Reservoir” on the Sacramento River, as well as joining coalitions calling for the removal of the lower four dams on the Snake River in Washington.

Sixth, we’ve started speaking out nationally about threats to rivers in various venues. We were excited to see our work discussed in the New York Times which highlighted our opposition to a proposed new federal rule. The NYTimes story titled, “Nature Has Value: Could We Literally Invest In It?,” discussed a proposal by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to list so-called “Natural Asset Companies” on the stock market allowing the public to invest in a broader concept of nature preservation.

However, upon reviewing the SEC proposal, we felt that it was filled with loopholes that, by further commodifying Nature, could simply be used as greenwashing for Nature and River destroyers, specifically by the dam-building industry.

Seventh, we stretched internationally this summer when we visited the first “Wild River National Park” on the planet – the Vjosa River in Albania. We were thrilled to make the trip, and to get to raft on the Vjosa, a spectacular river that starts in the mountains of Greece and flows down through Albania to the Adriatic Sea. Our friend and funding partner, Patagonia, had a strong hand in helping to designate the Park, and we’re interested in supporting even more Wild River National Parks – including here in the U.S. – wherever and whenever we can.

Finally, we continue to provide legal and technical support to our sister organization in Fort Collins, SAVE THE POUDRE, in its two-decade-long battle against multiple dam and pipeline projects. Save The Poudre is in the fight of its life against four large-scale proposed dam and pipeline projects proposed for the Cache al Poudre River.

These Poudre River court and permitting battles are intense, time-consuming, and long-term. We’re happy to provide support to Save The Poudre however we can. Our organizations are defenders of rivers, and we are standing straight and tall in front of the river-destroying freight train to seek a better outcome that protects and restores rivers instead of further drains them. We have a team of attorneys by our side who are passion-driven, river-loving, and law-enforcing.

Once again, we emphasize that we are a very small, very aggressive river-protection organization, and that it is solely YOUR SUPPORT that keeps us working and fighting to protect rivers across the West and beyond!

Please donate online: http://savethecolorado.org/donate/