LOGAN — The Colorado River and how it affects the rest of the state was the topic on KVNU’s For the People program on Tuesday. Brian Steed and Anna McEntire from Utah State University’s Janet Quinney Lawson Institute of Land, Water and Air were our guests.
When it comes to protecting water in Utah from Bear Lake, the Great Salt Lake or the Colorado River, Steed agreed there’s no easy fix.
“I think that’s right, and I think that when you look at the complications that we face…all of us care about it, but all of us have different opinions on how we best go forward from this point. And, it’s going to take all of us to kind of get together and figure out the best way. That’s what makes our jobs, I think,” Steed explained.
McEntire said they talked this week about why they do what they do.
“We just keep going back to this mantra of ‘when you know better, you can do better.’ All of us are busy people. The people that we try to reach have to know a little about a whole lot of things and no one has time to know everything about everything.
“So that gives us the opportunity for us to dig deep and better understand the issues and help communicate those critical pieces that we as citizens and policy makers and others need to know,” McEntire said.
Steed talked about the Colorado River and how it impacts the Wasatch Front.
“In truth, it’s not necessarily the place where we live here in Cache Valley, but everywhere on the Wasatch Front, because there was this decision made back in the day that the Wasatch Front was going to need an additional source of water.
“They went out and built an entire plumbing system called the Central Utah Project, and that plumbing system brings water over. What would flow into the Green River then eventually into the Colorado River, and now brings part of that over to Strawberry, and from Strawberry down into Utah Lake, and then brings it up from Utah Lake into the Wasatch Front.”
He said if Colorado River water was cut back in going to the Wasatch Front, they would make up the difference somehow and that would affect water resources in northern Utah.