Report says Colorado River among world’s drying, polluted waterways

Monday, Nov. 29, 1999 | 10:25 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Sun reporter Mary Manning contributed to this story.

WASHINGTON -- More than half the world's major rivers are going dry or are polluted, including the Colorado River in Southern Nevada, a panel studying global water problems reported today.

The fouling of the waterways and surrounding river basins contributed to last year's total of 25 million environmental refugees -- people who had to move to find fresh water sources. Those refugees, none of them in the United States, for the first time exceeded the world's 21 million war-related refugees, the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century said.

Overuse and misuse of land and water resources has "seriously depleted and polluted" river basins, the commission said. It is "degrading and poisoning" the rivers' surrounding ecosystems and "threatening the health and livelihoods of people who depend upon them for irrigation, drinking and industrial water."

The main reason is lack of coordinated management of watersheds, which often cross national boundaries or -- as in the case of the Colorado River -- several state boundaries.

The Colorado, which irrigates more than 3.7 million acres of farmland, is so exploited and polluted by agriculture that little is left to protect the downstream ecosystem, the report said. The Colorado River delta near Mexico has turned from lush green to salty and desolate marshes, it said.

Agricultural and urban pollution discharges into the river along with great demand for water in communities all along its 1,735 miles have combined to pollute the water to dangerous levels, the report said.

The river, which provides water to more than 30 million people, passes through seven Western states, including Nevada, then into Mexico. Lake Mead, one of three manmade lakes on the Lower Colorado River, supplies most of the Las Vegas Valley's drinking water.

In recent years Las Vegas residents drinking Lake Mead water have been exposed to chemicals, pesticides, an outbreak of cryptosporidium -- a potentially fatal waterborne disease -- and the rocket fuel booster ammonium perchlorate once manufactured in Henderson. Many of those pollutants are carried into the lake through the Las Vegas Wash, but sources have not been identified for all of the pollutants.

The Colorado's problems become more acute downstream. Last week the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson signaled it will sue the Bureau of Reclamation for failing to provide clean water to wildlife and habitats along the Lower Colorado, which includes the river's stretch through Nevada, California and Arizona.

The worldwide findings are part of a report the commission expects to complete at a two-day meeting beginning today at The Hague, Netherlands. The panel -- backed by the World Bank and United Nations agencies on children, development, the environment and other issues -- has been charged with finding a way to ensure there is enough water for the world's growing population in the next century.

"We have to pay attention to how the world manages its water," said Adrienne Naber, a geologist who is a commission consultant.

"Production has to be increased, quality improved . . . to guarantee that we can meet the water needs of all the people on earth and protect the environment," she said.

The commission gathered information on the river portion of the study from specialists around the world and an analysis of existing material.

It concluded that of the 500 major rivers in the world, the Amazon in South America and the Congo in sub-Saharan Africa are the healthiest. Both have few industrial centers near their banks, the report noted.

"All the succes stories show that cooperation leads you everywhere," Naber said. The commission will recommend comprehensive regional planning among a long list of other remedies aimed at increasing water production while saving the environment, she said.

The final commission report and an action plan is to be presented for consideration to a world forum of government ministers and others, in March in The Hague.

Among other findings in the report: