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Colorado River. I’m emotionally attached to Colorado River. I’ve hiked by the river in Colorado Rockies and canyons of Utah and Arizona. I was stun by Hoover Dam as an engineering marvel. I was moved by the beauty and size of Mead Lake, America’s largest reservoir. And now I read: "The drying of the West; the Colorado river and the civilization it waters are in crisis" (The Economist, Jan. 27, 2011).

Nowadays, the visitor at Lake Mead notices a wide, white band ringing the cliffs. Nicknamed "the bathtub ring", this discolor- ation comes from minerals that were once deposited on the volcanic rock by the Colorado River and have become visible as its level has dropped. The main reason why Lake Mead, currently only 40% full, has been getting emptier is a decade-long drought. The other is the rapidly increasing demand for the river’s water. The Colorado provides much or most of the water for many cities and farms in seven states—Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California—before it peters out in the sands of Mexico. In the northern states, its water supports cattle empires. In its southern stretch, especial- ly in California’s Imperial County, the river irrigates deserts to produce America’s winter vegetables. And all along the way, aqueducts branch off to supply cities from Salt Lake City and Denver to Phoenix and Los Angeles. The Las Vegas valley gets 90% of its water through two long channels drilled through the rock: the first taps the lake at 1,050 feet above sea level, the second at 1,000 feet. Lake Mead’s water level is now near its record low, at 1,086 feet. Within a few years it could leave Las Vegas’s first intake, or even both, dry. A third intake at 890 feet is fiendishly difficult to built through a fault line filled with water and fractured earth and will not be ready until 2014.

I know how a SW desert looks when the water supply from Colorado River is ceased. I’ve walked by Salton Sea [GALLERY].

Colorado River water supply

 2011-02-20 

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Krešimir J. Adamić