OPINION: Vital natural habitats raped & pillaged out in the wild west
“Disappearing Rivers,” a Center for American Progress (CAP)-commissioned report, was introduced to a Washington, D.C. audience recently. The report was unsparing in its criticism of developers, public utilities, irrigators and the mining industry.
Looking at 11 western states, the CAP report addressed what’s built along waterways and how water is diverted and disrupted for power generation and dams, all with resultant pollution. Combined, our activities are threatening fish and wildlife with extinction and endangering local communities.
In the introduction to a website created to promote its study, CAP states that “every 2.5 minutes, the American West loses a football field worth of natural area to human development.” Human interference, the report continues, has altered nearly half of all Western rivers; more than 140,000 river miles, enough to circle the Earth nearly six times, have been affected.