The Trump administration’s push to cancel national monuments could put drinking water for more than 13 million Americans at risk, according to an analysis released Thursday by a Democratic think tank.
The Center for American Progress (CAP) report evaluated 31 monuments designated by presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden that the group says are most at risk in the Interior Department review.
Collectively, those tracts include 21,000 miles of rivers and streams and affect more than 2,000 watersheds that feed metropolitan water systems across the West — including water supplies for Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Denver.
About 83 percent of rivers inside monuments are uniquely protected by the monuments, meaning they lack substantial conservation safeguards under other programs. If their monument status were to be revoked or diminished, much of that water supply could be open to dangers from mining and drilling.
