The drought in western USA is profound. It is called the climate crisis. It is very real.

July 22, 2022
By Conrad Swanson

With each passing decade (click here) the Colorado River flows with less and less water. Reservoirs that capture water in the wet years are dwindling. Some are dangerously low.

Scientists see no end in sight. Rather, they expect the drought to continue, maybe even worsen.

This is the aridification of the American West....

Aldo Leopold, Colorado River delta, Baja California, Mexico

...Paddling the delta in 1922, naturalist Aldo Leopold was entranced by the flourishing world beyond the tip of his canoe. “Verdant walls of mesquite and willow . . . a hundred green lagoons,” he wrote. “The river was everywhere and nowhere.”...

The Colorado River is riddled these days with dams. There is little water coming to the dams either.

The Dams of the Colorado River.

Colorado River (click here) is one of the major North American rivers which originates from the Rocky Mountains and flows for 1,450 miles to the Gulf of California. The river drains an area of about 246,000 sq miles in 2 Mexican states and 7 US states. Over 238,600 sq miles of its drainage basin is in the United States. It has one of the most developed river systems in the world. The primary stem of the Colorado River has 15 dams while its tributaries have hundreds more. The dams can hold over four times the river’s annual flow and supply municipality and irrigation water while generating hydroelectricity.

Hoover Dam

Glen Canyon Dam

Grand Valley Diversion Dam

Morelos Dam

After a 1944 United States Mexico Treaty (click here) the Morelos Dam was built in 1950 across the Colorado River. It is located about 1 mile below the junction of the California border and the Colorado River between the town of Los Algodones, Baja California, in northwestern Mexico and Yuma County, Arizona in the southwestern United States.

The Colorado River leading to the Delta to the Gulf of California has been tapped repeatedly for water to the western USA. Major conservation companies such as the Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society has been trying to preserve the delta to bring more water from the dams to the freer flow of the river. 

The delta of any river is where it meets a larger body of water, ie: Mississippi River delta is in Louisiana while the headwaters of the river are far more north.

The headwaters of the Colorado River is Rocky Mountain National Park (click here). There is a reason why this is a national park and it is to protect the Colorado River. At it's peak the Colorado River was incredible. I hate that word "was." The Colorado should never be a trickle. Protecting the land guarantees clear and plentiful water. Until the Climate Crisis hit and now the great rivers of the USA are under threat. The snow pack was the real headwaters. 

When I reflect on the severity of the climate crisis I look to other options for cities and states to find water. Then I realize how completely stupid the oil pipelines are. Yes, the Keystone XL (click here) is not about hugging trees and worrying about little critters regardless of being endangered, it is more or less about protected aquifers. 

Environmentalists, conservationists, ornithologists and botanists, just to name a few, are more than people that have nothing more to do with their time except cause problems for capitalism ambitions. Earth is the only place in this universe that human beings have a carefree life with an abundance of food and water. The people that have had to lawyer up in order to protect this country from it's own corrupt politics really rather just do their work, be respected when they make testimony and have their words carry brevity to protect everyone from the conditions that now face the people that rely on the Colorado River.