Gary Wockner
Posted: 01/31/2012
Over five trillion gallons -- that's how much water is drained out of the Colorado River every year leaving it bone stinkin' dry.
I know, I was there.
A couple months ago I stood in the sand about 75 miles south of Mexicali, Mexico and scanned the horizon -- sand and barren dirt as far as the eye could see. It's a startling sight, not so much for what you see, but for what you don't. Many decades ago that scene was one of the largest wetlands in North America, nearly two million acres of water and grass and one of the largest desert migratory bird oases on the planet.
We humans, busy as beavers, have dammed, diverted, and drained the Colorado River until there ain't nothing left. The river starts high in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, but just feet away from its headwaters also starts the dams and diversions. Of the five trillion gallons, cities and farms in the U.S. take the vast majority of it. A small portion, 10 percent, still flows into Mexico, but then is quickly diverted for cities and farms south of the border.
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