When it comes to the Colorado River, history often repeats itself—but it doesn’t have to.
hat’s the take-home message from CU Boulder hydrologist Shemin Ge, who will present a little-known piece of history from the river Thursday at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco.
The story of hydrologist Eugene Clyde La Rue, Ge said, may help to explain the current water crisis facing many states in the American West.Ge’s presentation centers around a decision made in 1922, when the seven men who made up the Colorado River Commission came to an agreement to divvy up water on the Colorado River. This waterway winds over 1,450 miles and through seven states. The commission relied on an estimate from the U.S. Reclamation Service suggesting that 16.4 million acre-feet of water ran through the river at Lees Ferry, Arizona, every year. (An acre-foot equals the amount of water you’d need to submerge an acre of land to a depth of 1 feet).
Read more at: University of Colorado Boulder
La Rue collects measurementss from Nankoweap Creek near the Grand Canyon. (Photo Credit: USGS)