House OKs bill to ban mining on 1 million acres around Grand Canyon insidetucsonbusiness.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from insidetucsonbusiness.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
House OKs bill to ban mining on 1 million acres around Grand Canyon
Julie Jacobson/AP
FILE - In this Oct. 5, 2013 file photo, the Grand Canyon National Park is covered in the morning sunlight as seen from a helicopter near Tusayan, Ariz. An attorney for Grand Canyon superintendent Christine Lehnertz says her future at the national park is up in the air. Kevin Evans said Tuesday, March 5, 2019, that he advised Lehnertz not to return immediately to the Grand Canyon after she was cleared of accusations and fully exonerated in a federal investigation. Evans says he s negotiating her employment status with the National Park Service but would not go into detail. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)
Rivers and lakes are the most degraded ecosystems in the world. Can we save them?
We rely on fresh water for drinking, food, and sanitation, and they’re in trouble. But freshwater issues are becoming a higher priority for conservationists.
ByStefan Lovgren
Email
When Grand Canyon National Park was established a century ago, the Colorado River running through it was treated as an afterthought. In the decades following, states scrambled to squeeze every drop of water out of the Colorado for farming and drinking, with a cascade of huge dams constructed along its course.
Native fish like suckers and chubs, found nowhere else in the world, were replaced with invasive catfish and bass that were more attractive for anglers. In time, the mighty river that had once carved out one of America’s most iconic landscapes was reduced to a trickle, no longer able to fulfill its destiny of reaching the sea.