Finding a river in the West that still behaves like a Western river -- one that rises and falls with the annual rush of melting snow -- is tough.
Many of the region鈥檚 major streams are controlled by dams. Their flows come at the push of a button. Instead of experiencing dynamic flows, dammed rivers are evened out. Floods are mitigated and managed, seen as a natural disaster rather than an ecological necessity.
But one major Western waterway has achieved almost mythical status for its wildness: the Yampa in northwestern Colorado. As climate change intensifies, and water in the West grows more scarce, those who depend on the river are left wondering how best to protect it.
鈥淚t's a different story every time鈥�
On a narrow beach inside the Yampa鈥檚 picturesque canyon through Dinosaur National Monument, guides hammer stakes to keep seven yellow inflatable rafts from drifting downstream. Within eyeshot, whitewater is churning, sending an ominous roar up the towering sandstone walls.
鈥淲hat we're doing is we're scouting the rapid and when we scout a rapid and we basically come down to get a different perspective,鈥� said John Saunders, a river guide and an instructor at Colorado Mountain College, while perched on a rocky outcropping.
Saunders points out the features of Warm Springs, one of the river鈥檚 more technical sections. His wavy white hair is tucked into a helmet. He sports a small silver earring in one ear.
The river is beige and roiling, like a latte in a blender on high speed.
鈥淎s the water comes around the corner you start to see waves picking up,鈥� Saunders said. 鈥淭hey're not predictable. They're crashing. You've got foam piles and haystacks on top of the waves.
鈥淚t looks intimidating.鈥�
Saunders is helping guide this five-day trip down the Yampa. It鈥檚 organized by conservation groups -- American Rivers and Friends of the Yampa -- and the whitewater outfitter OARS. American Rivers receives funding from the Walton Family Foundation, which also provides support for 皇冠网址鈥檚 Colorado River coverage.
About 30 people -- including water professionals, scientists, elected officials and journalists from across the Colorado River Basin -- are getting are getting up close and personal with the Yampa.
A seasoned river runner, Saunders has made this trip more than 10 times, and said this frenzied stretch never looks the same.
鈥淚t's a different story every time we come,鈥� he said.
This rapid is a good illustration of what makes the Yampa so unique. It changes day to day.
That might sound like a small detail, but its variability is a defining feature, making the Yampa one of the last of a breed. The river is fed by small reservoirs in its headwaters. Scientists say they鈥檙e not large enough to significantly change the river鈥檚 flow, and it still holds a semblance of the river that existed before people showed up.
鈥淭his river is a relic in some ways,鈥� said Kent Vertrees, the Friends of the Yampa board chair.
We chatted in collapsible chairs at a narrow campsite called Compromise after a cold, rainy day on the river. It鈥檚 a fitting title given the growing pressures on not just the Yampa, but rivers all across the West.
鈥淚n today's world, where most rivers have been dammed, diverted and dewatered to the point where they're not functioning as rivers do or used to,鈥� Vertrees said. 鈥淭his river still has that functionality.鈥�
That鈥檚 not an accident. It comes despite varying interests -- cities, farmers, recreationalists, energy companies -- all wanting a piece of the river. Every so often water planners鈥� eyes turn toward the Yampa鈥檚 water-rich channel, seeing its untamed flow as something to be siphoned for human use.
鈥淲e do have a lot of growth happening in Colorado and all of the states in the Colorado basin,鈥� Vertrees said. 鈥淲e've been far enough away to this point to preserve the flows of the Yampa. There have been projects that have come up in this area, and none of them have stuck.鈥�
For example, environmental groups stymied an effort to dam the river in the 1950s. The proposal was part of a broader effort to build large-scale water storage in the Colorado River basin. More recent plans to pipe the river鈥檚 water to Colorado鈥檚 fast-growing Front Range through a project called the Yampa River Pumpback has led to a whole new resurgence in activism around the Yampa, Vertrees said. The trucker hat he wears sports the phrase, 鈥淲ild and Free.鈥�
鈥淲e protect lands. We protect rivers. Can we continue to protect this river for a variety of reasons and protect those flows? I'd like to think we can,鈥� Vertrees said.
鈥淚t had never happened before鈥�
While the Yampa had one of its highest flows in years this spring and summer, it was a different story in the record-breaking hot and dry summer of 2018.
Erin Light is the state engineer in charge of managing and measuring water in the Yampa River and its tributaries for the Colorado Division of Water Resources. In her Steamboat Springs office, she recounted one event last summer that redefined the river.
鈥淚t was a big deal, number one because it had never happened before,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd number two, it encompassed the entire Yampa River.鈥�
She鈥檚 talking about the call. By late summer the Yampa was depleted, its limited snowpack sapped. Record-breaking summer heat caused water temperatures to rise, leaving state officials to shut down tubing and fishing in the river through Steamboat Springs.
Further downstream, a senior water right holder couldn鈥檛 divert their entire share, and so to make them whole, Light and her team of commissioners went out in the field to turn off other users with a lesser priority. That鈥檚 when the Yampa became the newest member of a whole class of Western rivers: ones where more water is promised to people in the form of water rights, than in the river itself.
鈥淪ometimes we joke about it being -- or maybe not joking, it鈥檚 just a statement we use -- that it鈥檚 the last frontier. And when it comes to water I think we are the last frontier,鈥� Light said.
When she and her team criss-crossed the river valley last summer, they were alarmed by what they saw. More than 60% of the ditches and headgates used to pull Yampa river water onto hay weren鈥檛 measuring the amount they were using.
鈥淚t was like 800 structures that don't have measuring devices,鈥� Light said. 鈥淎nd so notices went out to all of those folks.鈥�
Irrigating in Colorado without a measuring device is illegal. Light is now telling irrigators they have to measure what they take. That message, sent via letter to multi-generational ranches and farms, isn鈥檛 going over well with everyone.
鈥淭here really is a resistance to come up to the 21st century,鈥� Light said. 鈥淚t's not how their grandfather did it.鈥�
Rancher Jay Fetcher wasn鈥檛 affected by the call last summer, but he has been on the receiving end of one Light鈥檚 measurement notices. His family鈥檚 property sits along the Elk River, a Yampa tributary. He put in the required measuring devices.
Agricultural communities along the Yampa, and throughout the Colorado River basin, he says, are feeling the pressure that comes with water scarcity.
鈥淭he amount of water it takes me to flood irrigate that meadow would take care of 3,000 people for one year if it were shipped to the Front Range,鈥� Fetcher said.
Realizing that his irrigation water could eventually be of interest to those cities, Fetcher says he鈥檚 trying to make the case that irrigated agriculture has more value than growing cattle feed.
鈥淚 think with Colorado getting thirstier, with more people, we who use the resource -- the river, through our water rights -- have to think about what other benefits are provided by our flood irrigation that Colorado enjoys,鈥� Fetcher said.
It鈥檚 not likely that water will be so scarce that his supplies will ever be taken from him forcibly, Fetcher said. But he鈥檚 wary of programs that promise to pay farmers for some of their excess supplies, or build more flexibility into the rigid legal structures of Western water management.
鈥淚 don't think that someone will come to the ranch and say you're using too much water you're wasting it,鈥� Fetcher said. 鈥淚 think it'd be more up to us. 鈥極K, if you pay me to line my ditches I will sell you so many cubic feet of water.鈥� But I think we have to be careful with that.鈥�
For her part, Light says her focus on bringing Yampa Valley irrigation infrastructure and cultural attitudes into the modern era is meant to protect the value of agricultural water rights. No one鈥檚 showing up on Jay Fetcher鈥檚 doorstep just yet looking to buy his water. But that might not always be the case, Light said. States in the Colorado River鈥檚 Upper Basin, including Colorado, are looking at establishing a program where farmers could be paid to fallow portions of their land and send the saved water to the river鈥檚 dwindling reservoirs.
鈥淲hen you bring in demand management and the potential that someday you you'd be paid to fallow your ground, that brings it maybe more in perspective,鈥� Light said. 鈥淭hat there's more potential buyers or options out there are ways to get paid other than just to a municipality or industrial company.鈥�
Having 鈥渢he hard conversations鈥�
Back at camp, on the rafting trip through Yampa Canyon, those same worries weigh on Jackie Brown, a recent appointee to the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the state鈥檚 top decision-making authority on all things water.
Years ago, the first time Brown rafted the Yampa, she got tossed from her boat in the Warm Springs rapid. Without a helmet and only a life jacket to hold on to, Brown was swept through the turbid water. That experience, she said, set her on a new professional path.
鈥淭o have the river kindly spit me out, unscathed, that was fate that it spit me out,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淭hen all of a sudden I went on this trajectory to being sort of obsessed with the uniqueness of the river.鈥�
Brown says there鈥檚 a degree of uncertainty to the river鈥檚 future right now. Major projects to divert the river鈥檚 water, like the Yampa River Pumpback, remain stalled, but could be started up again.
Discussions to pursue more stringent federal protections for the river, like a Wild and Scenic designation, have been put on the back burner.
The Trump administration鈥檚 recent changes to the Endangered Species Act could have effects on the four designated fish species that call the river home. That鈥檚 one recovery program environmentalists say is one of the key tools to keep water flowing in the river.
Climate change is already and will continue to be a stressor, diminishing the river鈥檚 flows and tipping the scales toward longer and more intense droughts.
But, Brown said, moments of crisis can also bring people together. Barriers between various stakeholders in the Yampa Valley, like city leaders, rafting outfitters, ranchers and environmentalists, are slowly being taken down, she said.
鈥淚 think we're really at a time in water development and water resource management when we've built relationships to have the hard conversations,鈥� Brown said.
鈥淚 would certainly hope that we could be smarter than to develop this for more use.鈥�
The Yampa remains essential to the people who depend on it for their livelihoods, Brown said. But it鈥檚 just one wild tributary in the overtaxed, overallocated Colorado River Basin watershed, where there鈥檚 a growing recognition that the system is tapped out.
鈥淚 would hope that conservation and creativity would outweigh sacrificing areas like this.鈥�
This story is part of a project covering the Colorado River, produced by 皇冠网址 and supported through a Walton Family Foundation grant. 皇冠网址 is solely responsible for its editorial content.
