U.S. Water News Online
WASHINGTON -- Rocket fuel, human waste and uranium tailings make the Colorado River the nation's most threatened river, the conservation group American Rivers said.
The river wanders 1,500 miles from the peaks of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, snaking across Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California before flowing into the Gulf of Baja in Mexico, although in most years it is little more than a trickle when it reaches its delta. It provides drinking water for 25 million Americans.
The Big Sunflower River in Mississippi, which was the most endangered river last year because of an Army Corps of Engineers pumping and dredging project that the group said would destroy wetlands and stir up toxins in the river bed, was No. 2 on the group's list.
American Rivers president Rebecca Wodder said the Bush administration and Congress are partly to blame for cutting funds to help communities clean up waterways.
``The president's clean water record can be summed up in three words: soft on crime,'' Wodder said in a statement. ``The rivers on this year's list face particularly dire futures, but they are not unique. They are poster children for a nationwide trend towards more polluted waters and less effort to clean them up.''
The Bureau of Reclamation, which is responsible for Western water management, declined to comment.
The American Rivers report said nitrates from human waste from Colorado River towns in California and Arizona below the Hoover Dam have been measured in the water at levels four times higher than Environmental Protection Agency limits.
Perchlorate, an ingredient from rocket fuel, is measured near a Cold Ware missile production plant in Henderson, Nev., now run by Kerr-McGee Corporation. It can interfere with thyroid function and hormone balance.
Farther upstream, nearly 12 million tons of radioactive uranium tailings sit on the banks of the river, with contaminants seeping into the groundwater and threatening endangered fish.
The report also said dams along the Snake River in Wyoming, Idaho and Washington could harm salmon in the river, and said inadequately treated sewage is polluting the Tennessee River in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky.
List of Endangered Rivers
American Rivers, a Washington-based nonprofit conservation group, says the rivers on the list are not necessarily the ones with the worst chronic problems, but those they say are most in peril because of toxic chemicals, severe water shortages and other problems.
1) Colorado River. Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California.
2) Big Sunflower River. Mississippi.
3) Snake River. Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
4) Tennessee River. Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky.
5) Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.
6) Spokane River. Idaho and Wyoming.
7) Housatonic River. Massachusetts and Connecticut.
8) Peace River. Florida.
9) Big Darby Creek. Ohio.
10) Mississippi River. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
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