Your Help is Needed to Protect the Green and Colorado Rivers

Recently Patagonia participated in a Save the Colorado River campaign funding meeting that provided over $150,000 (including $25,000 from Patagonia) to over a dozen outstanding nonprofits working to protect and restore the ecological health of the Colorado River and its watershed. The Save the Colorado River campaign is a partnership between business and philanthropic groups, founded by New Belgium Brewery and including Patagonia, CLIF Bar, Teva, Kenney Brothers Foundation, the Environment Foundation, Environment NOW, National Geographic and Clean Water Fund. Learn more at:   www.savethecolorado.org
 
Through Save the Colorado River and the Our Common Waters campaign, we encourage you to read on and lend your voice to a coalition of 20 conservation groups who are fighting to stop the proposed Flaming Gorge Pipeline water project…

Please sign the petition at StopFlamingGorgePipeline.org

The Colorado River Watershed today faces many challenges, as our need for water in the west continues to grow.

From hopeful beginnings at the headwaters of its longest tributary, the Green River…

Photo: G. Thomas, via Wikimedia Commons

to the dry and cracked landscape of the Delta, 50 miles south of the Mexico border.  Where the mighty River once met the Sea of Cortez in a rich estuary, it is now reduced to this:


Screen-grab from Pete McBride's short film about the proposed Flaming Gorge Pipeline project.

These conditions will only get worse as human consumption increases and climate change threatens to jeopardize the snowpack that feeds the river.

Hit the jump to read more about the proposed Flaming Gorge Pipeline project, and watch Pete McBride's image-rich video trailer.

As the population of the Front Range of Colorado continues to grow, developers and water utilities are looking to divert, ship and sell more water to the region. A coalition of 20 Colorado conservation groups is opposing the "Flaming Gorge Pipeline," a proposed water project that would divert 81 billion gallons of water each year from the Green River near Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Southwestern Wyoming. The pipeline proposes to pump the water 560 miles up and over the Continental Divide and down to the Front Range of Colorado.


Screen-grab from Pete McBride's short film about the proposed Flaming Gorge Pipeline project.

This pipeline is being called exorbitantly expensive (up to $9 Billion total, the most expensive water in Colorado history) and would irrevocably harm the Green River in Wyoming and Colorado and the Colorado River downstream. The project puts the ecology of the river and various aquatic species at risk, and in addition threatens local recreation economies and many existing water users, including farmers in Western Colorado and agricultural users throughout the Southwest.


Screen-grab from Pete McBride's short film about the proposed Flaming Gorge Pipeline project.

The pipeline would drain an average of 20-25% of the Green River’s flow each year.

Better alternatives exist to meet Colorado's future water supply needs including aggressive water conservation, better land-use planning and growth management, water re-use and recycling, and cooperative water-sharing agreements with farmers.

The coalition created an online petition and is asking the public to sign today. 

The petition will close on Sept. 12th. The Colorado Water Conservation Board will vote on whether to fund a study for the Pipeline. The vote is scheduled for Sept. 13/14.  Read more about it on the petition website.  Sign soon, and please share with your friends.