Journalism of Courage
There is an intensifying crisis facing the Colorado River, which flows through southwestern US and northern Mexico. The 40 million people who depend on the river use significantly more each year than actually flows through the banks of the Colorado. (AP Photo)
First sliced up 100 years ago in a document known as the Colorado River Compact, the calculation of who gets what amount of that water may never have been appropriately balanced. (AP Photo)
“The framers of the compact — and water leaders since then — have always either known or had access to the information that the allocations they were making were more than what the river could supply,” said Anne Castle, a senior fellow at the Getches-Wilkinson Center at the University of Colorado Law School. (AP Photo)
However, during the past twenty years, the situation on the Colorado River has become significantly more unbalanced. A drought scientists now believe is the driest 22-year stretch in the past 1,200 years has gripped the southwestern US, affecting river flows. (AP Photo)
Until recently, water managers and politicians whose constituents rely on the river have avoided the most difficult questions about how to re-balance a system in which demand outpaces supply by a vast amount. Instead, the managers have drained the country’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, faster than nature refills them. (AP Photo)
Agriculture uses the majority of the water on the river, around 70% or 80% depending on what organisation is making the estimate. When it comes to the difficult question of figuring out how to reduce water use, farmers and ranchers are often looked to first. (AP Photo)
Indigenous tribes still don’t have full access to the Colorado River and its water. Although the compact briefly noted that tribal rights predate all others, it lacked specificity, forcing individual tribes to negotiate settlements or file lawsuits to quantify those rights, many of which are still unresolved. (AP Photo)
Alyssa Chubbuck, left, and Dan Bennett embrace while watching the sunset at Guano Point overlooking the Colorado River on the Hualapai reservation Monday, Aug. 15, 2022, in northwestern Arizona.(AP Photo)
