Reagan Waskom and Taylor Hawes to testify today at senate hearing about #ColoradoRiver demand

From the Northern Colorado Business Report (Steve Lynn):

Reagan Waskom, director of the Colorado Water Institute at Colorado State University, and Taylor Hawes, director of the Nature Conservancy’s Colorado River Program in Boulder, will testify on the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado River Basin Supply and Demand Study.

U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, will chair the hearing. He initiated the hearing to explore the Colorado River Basin’s future.

Released in December, the study forecasts a shortage of at least 2.8 million acre feet in Colorado River water by 2060.

Meanwhile, real estate values in the Colorado River Basin could drop with the streamflow. Here’s a report from Jason Blevins writing for The Denver Post. Here’s an excerpt:

The Department of the Interior’s three-year Colorado River Basin Water Supply & Demand Study revealed demands on the river outstripping supply in the coming decades, with a projected imbalance of 3.2 million acre-feet of water by 2060. That amounts to a possible 20 percent decline in Colorado River basin stream flows over the next five decades.

A survey of real estate brokers in the basin estimated that a 20 percent decline in flows would cut riverfront real estate sales prices by an average of 9.5 percent and river-view property values by 5.7 percent.

The survey of brokers in Sedona, Ariz., Aspen and Grand County and Farmington, N.M., showed the price premiums paid for riverfront and river-view property would wither as stream flows dwindled. And any decline in natural amenities — which are intricately entwined with real estate values and the overall economies of many communities in the Colorado high country — could stymie economic growth.

More Colorado River Basin coverage here and here.