THE MEGADROUGHT SERIES
How Will The Colorado River React To New Rules?
Chapter One — The Upper Basin
“Water problems in the western United States, when viewed from afar, can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: all we need to do is turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, cut down the almond trees, and kill all the lawyers.” ~David Owen, “Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River”
A Primer on the River and the Megadrought
It’s been several months since my last story about the megadrought. Things on the river have changed in the short term, but not so much for its future. In case you missed it, here is a quick series reprise.
The Colorado River watershed is big — about 246,000 square miles big. That’s just shy of the size of the state of Texas. It is a lifeline for those living in the Intermountain West, flowing through seven states and two states in Mexico. It serves as the water supply for some 40 million people and power to states as far away as Nebraska by virtue of its two major dams at Lakes Powell and Mead.
In hydrology, the basin is divided into two areas: the Upper Basin, which comprises Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, and the Lower Basin, which includes Arizona, Nevada…
