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Problems with Colorado River water could trickle down to Tucsonians

Posted by: Maven on May 28, 2009 at 6:14 am

From the Arizona Star:

For many years, many local officials and others with water expertise have seen the Colorado River as a regional plumbing system, providing water to thirsty cities, farms and Indian tribes. But at a congressional subcommittee hearing Wednesday in Tucson, speakers from a host of government agencies agreed that it’s time to give equal weight to water-quality issues plaguing or threatening the Colorado River, such as sewage discharges, pharmaceuticals, invasive mussels, uranium, salinity and a rocket-based jet fuel known as perchlorate.

The bottom line is that if more attention isn’t paid to these problems soon, they could filter from the Colorado River down to Tucson, which lies at the end of the 330-mile Central Arizona Project canal-pipeline system, said the subcommittee chairman and the head of one of the agencies.

The speakers said more federal attention is needed for these problems. The solution is not just more money, but a big-picture approach that looks at the problems as a whole rather than separately, they said. The Lower Colorado needs a massive, regional approach like those now being applied to cleaning up or restoring other major ecosystems such as Puget Sound, the Everglades and the San Francisco Bay, speakers said.

Read more from the Arizona Star by clicking here.

May 28, 2009 · Filed Under Colorado River & the Southwest

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