Personal-care product company Tom’s of Maine will donate a million dollars to preserve and restore the nation’s water supply by working with the Nature Conservancy on a three out of four possible projects. Why three of four potentials? The company is asking the public to vote for their favorite water protection project. the top three will receive $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000 in funding, in addition to a guaranteed base level of support for each.
Remaining funds from Tom's of Maine will go to support the Conservancy's North American freshwater program, including on-the-ground projects along rivers and in river basins as well as water use and management projects to ensure that more of our natural waterways are protected.
Potential project areas include:
The Colorado River Basin covers areas of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and irrigates nearly 4 million acres of cropland in the US and Mexico. It also supplies hydropower plants that generate more than 10 billion kilowatt-hours annually, according to the USGS. Like many areas of the country, the river basin suffers from supply and demand imbalances. The USGS is conducting a reclamation study that will define the extent of those imbalances and develop and analyze strategies to resolve those imbalances under a range of conditions that could occur during the next 50 years.
With Colorado’s population expected to grow from about 5.5 million now to as many as 10 million by 2050, water concerns are increasing in the semi-arid state. More than 85% of water used in Colorado is by agriculture, the state’s second-highest economic driver.
Tom’s of Maine founder Tom Chappell also founded Ramblers Way, a clothing company that just launched a Cradle to Cradle Certified organic wool clothing line.
