While reading this WaPo article on imminent restrictions to the uses of the Colorado River, one of the most significant rivers of the American West, it occurred to me that I don’t really have a feel for its course or the cities it serves, unlike the Mississippi. The latter, I know without looking it up, starts a little north of the Twin Cities at Lake Itasca in Minnesota, goes through the Twin Cities, divides Minnesota from Wisconsin, Wisconsin from Iowa, Iowa from Illinois, serves Pepin, WI, which I only mention for its delicious restaurant, Harbor View Cafe, serves St. Louis and eventually ends up entering the Gulf of Mexico at NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana).
So let’s see a map!
The Colorado River
Source: American Rivers
Sourcing out of the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado River flows through Grand Junction, CO, Moab, UT, the artificial Lake Powell on the Utah / Arizona border, all the while picking up contributions from tributaries. Crossing Arizona, it passes into Lake Mead, another artificial reservoir formed by the operation of the famed Hoover Dam and that I’ve alarmed over before, and near Las Vegas, NV. Heading south, it passes by some smaller cities and forms the border between Arizona and California, before passing into Mexico and, at one time, eventually feeding into the Gulf of California, that gulf on the west side of Mexico formed by Baja California and the Mexican mainland, as it were. Now I read it no longer makes it there.
But going over this by river only isn’t a wise course. In the map above, the olive and turquoise areas serve to illuminate the Colorado River basin, and it’s that area to which the Colorado River provides water. This includes most of Arizona, including Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Flagstaff. The Water Education Foundation states the Colorado River provides water to 40 million people and more than 5 million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some 246,000 square miles. American Rivers suggests the number is 36 million.
Not quite sure what that means? The recent US Census effort suggests the United States has a population of roughly 330 million people. That means, roughly, that 10%-12% of the US population has some sort of direct dependency on the Colorado River.
In other words, the water source for 12% of the United States population is at risk of becoming inadequate.
So what’s going on?
First, population has been growing. Macrotrends has the last four years’ population estimates for the Las Vegas metro area growing at about 2.7% annually. That’s not small over twenty years. Phoenix is growing at a similar rate, according to World Population Review.
Second, everyone wants water without paying for it. Face it, this is an American tradition. Speaking as a four-time visitor to India, it’s not a world-wide tradition. There you ask for bottled water and you may be charged for it. But here we tend to use water with little thought; we even talk about spending money like water to describe the profligate.
Third, as this WaPo article notes, the Colorado River is being starved of water due to a drought:
The root of the problem is an ongoing 23-year drought, the worst stretch for the region in more than a millennium. Mountain snowpack that feeds the 1,450-mile river has been steadily diminishing as the climate warms. Ever-drier soils absorb runoff before it can reach reservoirs, and more frequent extreme heat hastens evaporation.
“The prolonged drought afflicting the West is one of the most significant challenges facing our communities and our country,” Beaudreau said. “The growing drought crisis is driven by the effects of climate change, including extreme heat and low precipitation.”
Climate change that we had a chance to ameliorate and foolishly threw away that chance over the last, at least, decade. California is beginning to bend a bit, at least:
Grass is the single largest irrigated “crop” in America, surpassing corn and wheat, a frequently-cited study from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found. It noted by the early 2000s, turfgrass, mostly in front lawns, spanned about 63,000 square miles, an area larger than the state of Georgia.
Keeping front lawn grass alive requires up to 75% of just one household’s water consumption, according to the study, which is a luxury California is quickly becoming unable to afford as the climate change-driven drought pushes reservoirs to historic lows. [CNN]
Lake Powell is nearly not a lake any longer.
The remarks of the fishing guides interviewed by the journalist are more than a little unsettling. I hope there’s a special explanation for the huge implied drop in water levels at Lake Powell.
Of course, if you look hard enough it’s possible to find some lemonade. In Europe, if they can gather the gumption and money, they have an unexpected chance to clear part of the Danube River in Serbia of dangerous World War II debris:
This week, low water levels on the Serbian section of the Danube River exposed a graveyard of sunken German warships filled with explosives and ammunition. The vessels, which emerged near the port town of Prahovo, were part of a Nazi Black Sea fleet that sank in 1944 while fleeing Soviet forces. More ships are expected to be found lodged in the river’s sandbanks, loaded with unexploded ordnance. [WaPo]
But that’s a real weak lemonade. The point here is to ask whether we are willing to do what’s necessary to continue to live in those areas of the country, such as no more green grass lawns and irrigating farms, or if it’s just time to move out.
