Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
Editor's note: This article is published through the Colorado River Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative supported by the Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water, and Air at Utah State University.
MOAB — The sun begins to break from an overcast sky as Jennifer Jones describes how popular this section of the Colorado River has become in recent years, while standing near the banks of the snowmelt-charged river.
She points over the river toward Fisher Towers, a striking red sandstone formation tucked underneath the snow-capped La Sal Mountains from her vantage point. While many people come to southeast Utah to visit Arches or Canyonlands national parks, she points out Fisher Towers is a national recreation trail growing in popularity. In fact, the land she's standing on — overseen by the Bureau of Land Management — and practically everywhere in the immediate area is about as popular as any national park, drawing just over 3 million visitors in 2019.
"That was sort of our last 'normal year.' Then we had 2020 — and 2021 was pure insanity," says Jones, assistant field manager of the bureau's Moab office. "2022 was a lot less of the pure insanity and 2023 was just working its way back up."
Several companies have set up in this area just to offer rafting opportunities along the Colorado River. Of course, recreation is just one aspect of the Colorado River's importance.
A bald eagle jets across the majestic vista as Jones speaks to a group of reporters, researchers and water managers huddled in a circle around her on this mild and windy April evening. Later, the group is met with a pair of herons, a beaver and other wildlife as it ventures down a small section of the river just outside of Moab city limits. Those creatures are a fraction of the wildlife that survives because of the river.
Yet, the river is mostly known for the impact it has on humanity. More than 40 million people — including over half of all Utahns — rely on the Colorado River for water. Many more North Americans benefit from the river through the produce grown within its basin.
It's arguably the most important river in the U.S., adding all of these components together.
However, the Colorado River's future is in peril after long droughts and ongoing overconsumption among its users, which are now seven U.S. states, a part of Mexico and more than two dozen Native American tribes. These two issues are why the nation's two largest reservoirs — Lake Powell and Lake Mead — have fallen toward the brink of collapse in recent years, says Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.
The reservoirs play a key role in how the river is consumed. Both received sizeable bumps from a banner year across the basin in 2023 and will rise more in the coming months, but both have a long way toward a full recovery.
"2023 was a good year. It was the third-largest natural flow in the Upper Basin — the second-largest unregulated flow. That was great, but it would take four to six more years of again, and again, and again to bring the system back up to where it was," Schmidt explains.
Recent projections, he said, indicate the basin won't get "bailed out" by this year's snowpack runoff, but 2024 won't be "a catastrophic year" for the basin, either.
This all comes as the existing Colorado River agreement comes to an end. All of the river's users appear to agree on the root cause of the river's struggles and that something needs to be done about it; however, they remain far from a "consensus" on managing the river in the long term.
It's an issue that will be addressed as water users hash out the Colorado River Post 2026 Operations Plan over at least the next two years.
It's also a topic the newly formed Colorado River Collaborative aims to monitor closely, given its importance to Utah and the West. The group consists of many members of the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, which has produced hundreds of articles about the struggling Great Salt Lake since 2022.
Newsroom participants in the new collaborative are:
- Deseret News
- Fox 13
- KSL.com
- KSL-TV
- KUER
- Moab Times-Independent
- PBS Utah
- RadioWest
- Salt Lake Tribune
- St. George News
- Utah Public Radio
The group includes several researchers from USU's Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water and Air, as well. The collaborative will report on the river's role in Utah, current river science and the river's struggles and practices being used across the basin to ensure the region has enough water for future generations.
As is the case with the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, articles may be shared across different newsroom partners in the future.
"These next few years will be critical to the future of Utah, and our collective relationship with water in the West," said Anna McEntire, managing director of the institute. "We value the relationship we've had with journalists and other members of the Great Salt Lake Collaborative and, now, this new Colorado River Collaborative."
