Report says pollution threatens Colorado River

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 | 10:55 a.m.

The Colorado River, which supplies roughly 90 percent of Southern Nevada's drinking water, was called the most endangered river in the nation by an environmental group today.

Human waste, radiation and toxic waste pose the greatest threat to the Colorado River, which is a source of water for more than 25 million people in Nevada, California and Arizona, the American Rivers group and its partners said in an annual report.

The report, released this morning, lists 10 rivers facing the most environmental threats in the coming year.

The report says the Colorado River, which stretches through the West, has human waste from septic systems seeping into the river, the rocket fuel booster perchlorate draining into Lake Mead and radioactive groundwater leeching into the river in Utah.

"The Colorado River is not yet the most polluted river in the country, but it could become so if the current problems are allowed to fester," Rebecca Wodder, president of American Rivers, said.

"A concerted national solution is necessary to problems that reach far beyond the banks of the river."

Water officials say the water is safe, and the levels of contaminants are below state and federal standards.

While water in Lake Mead is traditionally of "excellent quality," there is a "grave concern" because of the drought and the declining water levels that can produce pollution, Allen Biaggi, administrator of the Nevada Environmental Protection Division, said.

Biaggi noted that the Energy Department and the state of Utah have been working for years to stop radioactive tailings from leaking into the river at Moab.

The report cites a concern that the tailings could be washed into the river during a flood or an earthquake.

J.C. Davis, spokesman for Southern Nevada Water Authority, the supplier of the Las Vegas Valley's drinking water, said there is no cause for alarm for those who rely on the Colorado.

"I would certainly not characterize the Colorado River as an imperiled river," Davis said. "The Colorado is not in danger from a water quality perspective."

State and local scientists are monitoring the river for perchlorate and radiation, Davis said. Industry, watched by state and local water officials, is removing perchlorate from the ground water and its levels are dropping, he said. Perchlorate discharges have been cut in half in the past six or seven years.

"We want the best water quality we have have, both for us and for downstream users," he said.

The limit for radiation in the drinking water is 30 parts per million, Davis said. In Lake Mead the level is 4 parts per million or less. "I certainly wouldn't get alarmed when it is not even remotely near the limit in the Safe Drinking Water Act," he said.

Kerr-McGee, the company that manufactures ammonium perchlorate to boost rocket engine performance, has cut in half the amount of the chemical's daily levels to about 200 pounds a day entering Lake Mead, Davis said. By the end of the year the industry expects that level to drop to 100 pounds a day.

That translates into a level of about 6 parts per billion, the limit suggested by California scientists, although a healthful level has not been determined.

One part per billion is equal to one drop of contaminant in 500 barrels of water.

Perchlorate can also slow down thyroid activity in infants and children and cause mental retardation or other physical disabilities.

The report comes as Congress is set to consider proposals to allow the Defense Department more exemptions from environmental laws.

Environmental groups, such as American Rivers, fear that weakening environmental regulations could let the military off the hook for its share of the cleanup at Kerr-McGee and the uranium mill tailings in Moab.

Last year the Environmental Working Group, an environmental watchdog, tested winter lettuce irrigated by the Colorado and found that perchlorate levels were four times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency's recommended safe dose for a glass of drinking water, said Bill Walker, vice president of the group on the West Coast.

The EPA is considering a 1 part per billion limit of perchlorate in drinking water, a standard that is under independent scientific review.

Nevada and local water officials are concerned about the ongoing drought along the Colorado River.

The main concern with the drought is water levels continuing to drop, meaning a greater chance of pollution, Tom LaPorta, chief of the state Bureau of Water Quality Planning, said.

"The ongoing drought situation for the Colorado River Basin is exacerbating our water quality problems," said John Weisheit, of the environmental group Colorado Riverkeeper. He lives next to the river in Moab, Utah. The presence of salt, phosphorous, nitrates and heavy metals is increasing, he said.

New evidence suggests that disposing of the tailings in an underground salt formation might be an affordable and workable solution, said Bill Hedden with the Grand Canyon Trust. He urged the Department of Energy to study the proposal.

"There's a chance that this new solution could be the best one and cost effective," Hedden said. The government needs to include it in its environmental studies, he said.

However, scientists have warned that a flood or an earthquake could send the radioactive tailings, including heavy metals and nitrates, down the river.

American Rivers' Eric Eckl said that the next 12 months will determine whether a "vigorous" cleanup will begin.

Instead of cutting community funding assistance programs, Congress should help struggling communities clean the water they send downstream, the report said.

Congress should direct federal and state agencies to develop a binding action plan and authorize federal funds to restore water quality throughout the river basin, American Rivers said.

"For too long we've ignored the connection between ground and surface water," said Robert Glennon, professor of law at the University of Arizona and author of a recent book, "Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters."

Each of the Colorado's problems is caused by contaminated groundwater entering the river, Glennon said.

Each year since 1986, American Rivers and its partners in the river protection movement have released the America's Most Endangered Rivers report to highlight rivers nationwide from reaching crucial crossroads.

Besides the Colorado, others on the watch list are the Big Sunflower River; the Snake River; the Tennessee River; the Allegheny and Monogahela rivers in Pennsylvania; the Spokane River in Washington state; the Housatonic River in Connecticut; the Peace River in Florida; Big Darby Creek in Ohio; and the Mississippi River.