A river ran through it: America's thirsty West

I’VE SPENT MOST OF MY LIFE CHASING SNOW AND WATER around the West.

- BY PETE MCBRIDE

Rock formations emerge as Lake Powell recedes

I grew up on a cattle ranch in central Colorado, so I learned early on that food does not come from the supermarket and water does not originate at the tap. Melting snow feeds creeks and tributaries that eventually connect with the Colorado River, often described as the most loved and litigated body of water in the West. The icy, crystal-clear snowmelt flows 1,450 miles through seven states and 11 national parks, supporting on the way some 40 million Americans and 4 million acres of farmland. The delta where it ends in Baja and Sonora Mexico was once the largest desert estuary in North America, boasting so many migratory birds that the sky was often blocked by blankets of wings. Today it’s a cracked-earth wasteland, more a river cemetery than an oasis.

I’ve been documenting this slow-motion crash. Fifteen years ago, I made a source-to-sea journey down the Colorado River for National Geographic. The point was to photograph the river’s natural beauty, but also the many uses diminishing its flow. The river’s plumbing network fills sprinklers and faucets from Denver to Las Vegas to San Diego and every other major Southwest city, town, farm field, and feedlot in between.

Along the way, I learned for the first time that thanks to an outdated Colorado Compact—a century-old management agreement that expires this year—we allocate more water than the river actually supplies. The Colorado does not reach the sea anymore. It did for 6 million years, but ran dry sometime in the late 1990s.

Why? Simply put, there are too many straws in the drink. On top of that, in the past 2½ decades, drought and a changing climate have cut about 20% of that flow. Tree-ring science that confirms the river’s lower average annual flows also shows the American Southwest is facing its driest period in 1,200 years.