2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this pageDraining the Colorado: Portrait of a Basin
Alexander Heilner
Friday, October 18 - 9:00AM to 9:30AM
Kimball Arts 143
The contemporary Colorado River is actually not a single entity at all, but rather an infinitely complex system of tributaries, dammed reservoirs, infrastructural incursions, and syphons that disperse the water everywhere but its natural path. It is a climatic node, whose form depends upon snowfall in distant mountains, evaporation as it flows through the desert, and groundwater fluctuations in its surrounding terrain. The river is a social, economic, political, and spiritual totem for tens of millions of people who depend upon it, and its diminishment threatens to unravel their communities if it cannot be mitigated. Human variables affect every drop that flows – or doesn't flow – through its channels, so millions of people will have to make difficult decisions very quickly in order to save the river as we know it.
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