Scientists: Check feds’ work on river

By Kyle Roerink

Monday, Oct. 26, 2015 | 2 a.m.

The nation’s top water scientists are worried about the Colorado River and how the federal government is managing it.

Officials from the Bureau of Reclamation, Nevada and six other states are researching what the next five decades will look like for the river. But nongovernmental scientists have been excluded from the process.

A group of 23 scholars recently sent Interior Secretary Sally Jewell a letter requesting that the National Academy of Sciences impanel a group of independent, apolitical scientists to parallel the government’s work.

One of the letter’s signatories, Victor Baker, said the Colorado River is one disaster away from irreversibly damaging the West’s water supply. Baker, a planetary and geoscience professor at the University of Arizona, spoke with The Sunday about what’s at stake for Las Vegas and whether people can trust the federal government’s science.

Why is an independent study important for Las Vegas and Hoover Dam?

Reservoirs are low, so there is a lot of concern about drought. If we get some wet years, the reservoirs will fill up. But when they are full, they are at maximum risk for failure. In a 50-year period, these extremes are going to be exacerbated by a tremendous amount of increasing use. Las Vegas has to be worried about that.

What are the government’s estimates of a disaster?

It’s a low chance. But what the government considered that low chance to be is too low. That should factor into the planning.

Do academics believe the federal government’s science?

The people who signed the letter aren’t saying the science is wrong, only that there should be a more inclusive way to look at it. A national academy committee has only one limitation: They actively pursue the truth wherever it goes. Agencies often are limited to the particular problems to which they are assigned.

How does your group want to expand on the government’s efforts?

The concern of the 23 signatories is that there is a broader range of questions they want to answer about flooding, groundwater, wildlife habitat and more.

The federal government has been researching the river basin for six years. Where has that study fallen short?

It’s not that the previous studies were wrong. But this is such an important issue, it would benefit from a true scientific perspective.

Is the situation on the Colorado River a climate crisis or an issue of humans trying to control nature?

As a flood scientist, I am concerned when people talk about floods as acts of God. I know nature leaves evidence of all these big things. The information is there if we are willing to go and understand it.

For how much longer can the nation be business as usual about the Colorado River?

Whether it can continue to operate over 50 years is why scientists want to have the larger picture looked at. It’s not a problem of the government did it wrong and we can do it right. It’s not solved with an election.