Colorado River Crisis Fueled by Ignored 1916 Study, Says Hydrologist

A hydrologist fears that the Colorado River crisis may have been fueled by experts ignoring a study that came out in the 1910s.

Shemin Ge, a hydrogeologist at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, believes that parts of the Colorado River crisis occurring today, could be traced back to a decision made in 1922, she said in a presentation at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting on Thursday.

The flow of the Colorado River has declined by around 20 percent over the last century, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates. This is of huge concern considering the river provides water to around 40 million people. It feeds into major reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead that provide water and hydropower to basin states. Both of these reservoirs have dropped a considerable level in recent years. Lake Mead is currently just over 30 percent full, and there are estimates that it could inch closer to dead pool levels in the coming years.

In 1922, there were seven men in charge of the Colorado River Commission. They decided to split the water of the Colorado River, which runs 1,450 miles through seven states—the Upper Basin, which is Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah, and the Lower Basin which is made up of Arizona, California, and Nevada.

However, this decision was based on an assumption that the Colorado River had 16.4 acre-feet of water running through the Lees Ferry area of Arizona each year, according to Ge. An acre-foot represents the amount of water needed to submerge an acre of land to the depth of a foot

The commission did not in fact, consider another estimate from 1916 that stated the Colorado River actually discharged only 15 million acre feet of water in this area. This calculation was made by hydrologist Eugene Clyde La Rue.

"It's intriguing how such good work at the time was ignored, whether it was intentional or just out of ignorance," Ge, who is also a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the university, said in a press release on the presentation. "There's so much we can learn from history to improve how we're managing our water. Right now, I don't think we're doing enough."

According to Ge, La Rue took his estimates by hiking across much of the Colorado River and collecting data on its water.

He personally took measures of the depth as well as how fast it was flowing.

Ge described this method as a "low tech" but "elegant" way to do it. It is a method still taught in geology courses today, Ge said.

The Colorado River Commissions estimate however was based on data that had been gathered at just one site.

"They took the larger number," Ge said. "A larger number probably made the allocations easier to negotiate because there was more water to divvy up."

Newsweek has contacted Shemin Ge for further comment.

Nowadays, experts believe the Colorado River has a water flow of about 13 million acre-feet per year—this could drop further in the coming years due to drought, paired with an overconsumption of water in the surrounding regions.

Ge is concerned that the Colorado River Compact is still allocating water based on the larger estimate.

"We're not talking enough about how much water is in the Colorado River," Ge said. "We talk about droughts, infrastructure and water conservation. But shouldn't the first order of business be to see how much water we actually have? It's much less than we think."

According to the press release, the seven states within the Colorado River Compact are working to revise agreements and guidelines by 2026.

The southwest has been plagued by an ongoing megadrought for many years. A particularly wet winter in 2023 has allowed the Colorado River, and its reservoirs, to replenish slightly.

However climate change is making seasonal rainfall unpredictable, and rare. Many experts are calling for improved water conservation efforts.