The market-oriented environmental group that helped
McDonalds get rid of Styrofoam wants to save the Colorado River
Basin. The Environmental Defense Fund recently launched its
Colorado River Basin Initiative, a project that begins by
re-evaluating the Colorado River compact. The compact has dictated
water use in the basin for the past 70 years. EDF hopes to build
consensus among the vast number of basin stakeholders by balancing
economic interests with environmental policies that protect rivers
and wetlands. To do that, the group has gathered a team of
scientists, attorneys, economists and computer analysts to identify
key controversies in the basin and offer suggestions to policy
makers. The four-to-five-year project, estimated to cost up to
$250,000, will include computer modeling of projected power needs,
a recovery program for four endangered native fish, and marketing
of Native American water rights. For more information and a 14-page
copy of Conflict on the Colorado River, contact the Environmental
Defense Fund, 5655 College Avenue, Oakland, CA 94618
(510/658-8008).
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline New look at a river basin.
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