Michael Berry Inquiry Contract-WRD 104 The Colorado River Basin Crisis The Colorado River Basin is one

of the largest river basins in the United States, stretching over seven states in the Western U.S.and it is in crisis. It faces many immediate and long-term problems involving the overuse of its water; this bodes ill not only for the seven states which depend upon it for water, but the rest of the country as well. Fed by the snowfall and precipitation in Wyoming and Colorados mountains, the Colorado Rivers water meanders through Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and California, then into Mexicowhere what is left of it dumps into the ocean. The rivers water is used for farms along all these seven stateswho in turn supply much of the countrys foodand also supplies much of their urban population with water. The overuse of the water is so bad that by the time the water reaches the coast and dumps into the Pacific, it is already as salty as the Pacific Ocean. The overuse and overreliance on Colorado River water and the degrading quality are problems the Western states have grappled with for decadesbut a new threat has emerged to what little water security they have. Fracking, an oil and gas extraction method that involves pushing a massive amount of chemically enhanced, 500-degree water into the ground, has enabled the industry to find new recoverable reserves in the U.S.a vast amount of which lies in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The Green River Shale Formation has an estimated three trillion gallons of shale oil, of which about half is recoverableand it sits across much of Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. This new source of oil comes with many problems regarding water supplies, and has far-reaching implications. This topic is very important to me, as I care a great deal not only about environmental problems we face in a moral sense, but also in a practical, economic sense. The system we have set up around the Colorado River Basin has drawn my fascination for a whileit is so illogical. I

want to further my understanding of the complex issues surrounding the subject by formally investigating the new threats the Basin faces, and how the Basin states could possibly deal with it. To me, it is an important and pressing issue that should be looked into by every American. To this end, there are many questions I want to delve into. How do the Basin states plan to handle the large influx of fracking companies? How are the fracking companies going to get the water, and how will that impact the Upper Basin state economies? How will fracking change the water quality of the water downstream that sustains so much of the US agricultural industry? Why would states allow fracking if their water supply is already strained? How much water would the industry useand how much agriculture would have to be shuttered? These questions are pressing, and also expose larger questions. Such larger questions include: Why is so much of our agriculture in the Colorado River Basin, and why do we overuse the water when we could farm somewhere else? Why do we have so many people living in land with so water? Will our dependence on oil or Basin dependence on water win out in the end? What is the US, as a country, willing to sacrifice for oil? These questions may help guide a conclusion on whether or not fracking will be successful or even allowed in these states. They could illuminate possible fates of those dependent on Colorado River waterfor better or worse. The issue of fracking in the Upper Colorado River Basin has huge implications on all of America, not just the seven states that depend upon the waterand these implications need to be considered now, before fracking gets into full swing.