The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“Keeping rivers healthy and sustainable,
not dried up”
A new coalition of businesses is reminding lawmakers that a healthy Colorado River is vital to healthy business.
Protect the Flows represents 250 businesses from the river’s seven basin states, including nearly 100 businesses from Colorado and 20 from the Gunnison Valley. Protect the Flows met with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar on Wednesday, July 20, and on Monday, July 25 Colorado representatives met with Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet and Representative Scott Tipton.
“The whole thrust behind this is that the Bureau of Reclamation is in the process of doing a supply and demand study for the Colorado basin,” said Protect the Flows Colorado coordinator Molly Mugglestone.
The Colorado River Basin Water Supply & Demand Study, expected to be complete in July 2012, seeks to define imbalances between the Colorado River’s water supply and demand for that water over the next 50 years. The study also aims to identify mitigation strategies to resolve those imbalances.
“This will be the bureau’s final assessment of what are we going to do in the next 50 years about the Colorado River, and that is the reason why the coalition formed. As far as we know, this is the first time businesses have organized themselves to advocate for the health of the river,” said Mugglestone.
According to Mugglestone, Protect the Flows wants decision makers to ensure that the assessment goes beyond traditional consumption issues like agriculture and serving municipalities to include the preservation of a healthy flow in the river itself in support of recreation and the environment.
The coalition points out that outdoor recreation along the river is a multi-billion dollar recreation economy. In Colorado alone, an Outdoor Industry Foundation study credits outdoor recreation with contributing more than $10 billion to Colorado’s economy every year.
“We are trying to meet with the people who are making decisions about how water is going to be used in the next 50 years,” Mugglestone said. “It’s not that we want to take water away… we’re not saying us versus them. We’re really just saying remember the tourism aspect of it, and realize people spend billions of dollars to recreate and be around rivers, so we need to have them be healthy and sustainable and not dried up.”
In addition to meeting with decision makers, Protect the Flows businesses have signed onto a letter addressed to Salazar, Colorado River Basin governors and members of Congress in all seven basin states urging them to keep the river flowing in support of local economies along its banks.
Mugglestone cites the diversity of businesses involved in the coalition as evidence of the significance of healthy rivers. Major players like Patagonia are involved, but so are small and sometimes unexpected businesses like Terri’s Hair and Nail in Dolores, Colo. Closer to home, supporters range from Maxwell’s in Crested Butte to Acli-mate Hydration Drink.
“It’s a broad group of businesses that have come together under a common goal,” Mugglestone says. For more information, visit http://protectflows.com/.
