Whiskey's for Drinking, Water's for Fighting Over

Executive Produced and Narrated by Robert Redford and Directed by award-winning filmmaker, Mark Decena, Watershed tells the story of the threats to the once-mighty Colorado River and offers solutions for the future of the American West.

In Watershed, we meet Jeff Ehlert, a fly fishing guide in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado rancher Dan James, Delta restoration worker Edith Santiago, Navajo Council member Glojean Todacheene, Rifle Colorado Mayor Keith Lambert, Los Angeles native Jimmy Lizama and a group of Outward Bound teens rafting down the Colorado River as they all reflect a compelling new water ethic—one that illuminates how letting go of the ways of old can lead to a path of coexisting with enough for all.

The Redford Center created Watershed as a inspirational social action tool for people who want to engage. Promoting personal water conservation pledges of 5% – symbolic of the small amount of the rivers’ flow required to reconnect the river to its delta – and garnering donations to help purchase the water rights necessary to restore the connectivity, Watershed is a central tool in a larger grassroots effort focused on saving the Colorado River and supporting the communities throughout the river basin.

LINK

In May ou will be able to stream Watershed to your TV or computer via the Whole Foods Do Something Reel Film Festival.

Save the Colorado

The Windy Gap Project, a proposed water project that threatens to reduce the Colorado River’s flows to less than 20% of its historic levels, is just one of a myriad of problems facing the Colorado River.

This Thursday TU is hosting a rally in downtown Denver on the corner of 16th street and Wynkoop to show support for keeping the upper Colorado River alive despite threats to its flows and future.

LINK (Via: Angling Trade)

Windy Gap is not the only threat to the Colorado. Kim Jordan, President and CEO of New Belgium Brewing Company, and Casey Sheahan, CEO of Patagonia, speak out on behalf of a river that desperately needs help.

Learn more at Save the Colorado.

July SOTM Entry: CO Carp

Below Newcastle, on the Colorado, Will Sands stuck this river monster.

The Power of Advocacy

A coalition of companies and advocacy groups have been very active in recent months urging action by the Interior Department to extend the moratorium on uranium mining on the lands surrounding the Grand Canyon.

An ad hoc coalition put together by the Pew Environment Group recently purchased this ad in the New York Times advocating an extension of the moratorium and it was signed by a number of Outdoor Industry leaders.

Well score one for the good guys.

Two days ago Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a six month extension of the moratorium and suggested he was leaning towards a full 20 year moratorium.

Needless to say the pro mining interests are not pleased.

We’ve seen enough, heard enough, and now we’re taking action

Partagonia CEO Casey Sheahan, and New Belgium Brewery CEO Kim Jordan, have penned an enviro essay about their campaign to save the Colorado River.

The Save the Colorado campaign will donate funding totaling $500,000 through a granting cycle twice a year for three years – 2010, 2011, 2012 – that will focus on three programmatic areas: 1) raising public awareness about the threats to the river, 2) promoting water conservation in cities that use Colorado River water, and 3) addressing the threats, and potential mitigations, of past and future dams, diversions and reservoirs.

The philanthropic campaign includes business and foundation partners from the top of the Colorado River basin all the way to the bottom. Colorado partners include New Belgium Brewing, Aspen Snowmass Environment Foundation, Kenney Brothers Foundation and National Geographic Maps. California partners include OARS, Patagonia and Environment Now.

LINK

Uranium contamination is just one of the myriad of threats facing the Colorado.

This year, Patagonia’s environmental campaign, Our Common Waters, spotlights the need to balance human water consumption with that of animals and plants.