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Feats of engineering and human ingenuity have made it possible for the Colorado River, known as the “American Nile,” to irrigate 3.5 million acres of farmland and support 30 million people on arid lands throughout the western U.S. and northwestern Mexico.
Distant cities, including some of the fastest growing in the nation—L.A., Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, and Albuquerque—depend upon its waters and have transformed it into one of the most diverted and litigated rivers in the world.
The Colorado now reaches the sea only in the wettest of years and the Delta, once one of the greatest desert estuaries in the world, has been reduced to less than 10% of its original size.
The ongoing drought, now in its 9th year, has caused reservoir levels to drop by 50%.
A recent New York Times Magazine story about the river tells how this diminishing water will profoundly change life in the American West as climate models for the latter 21st century show up to 70 percent of the snow pack disappearing.
“There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,” Nobel laureate Steven Chu said, “and that’s in the best scenario.”
This Project is built around author Jonathan Waterman’s river journey from source to sea —the first ever— and is a call to arms for sustainable water solutions in the Basin and for environmental and cultural restoration on the Lower Colorado River.
“From Source to Sea” will focus tightly upon the Delta, which has been profoundly impacted by upriver water overuse and diversions upriver.
The project will draw an intimate portrait of a river in crisis and propose solutions for its restoration through a national media/public education campaign launched through the author by the National Geographic Society (NGS).
Waterman, a Sonoran Institute Fellow, will be joined by NGS photographer Pete McBride, filmmaker Michael Brown, Sonoran Institute representatives, and other experts, including Brad Udall of Western Water Assessment.
The Sonoran Institute has more than 10 years of experience working on water policy issues and restoration in the Lower Basin and the Delta.
While a fraction of its original size, the Delta is crucial to several threatened and endangered species and is a key stopover for birds along the Pacific Flyway.
It is also crucial to the cultural survival of indigenous communities on both sides of the border, particularly the Kwapa on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
Research shows that even modest freshwater flows could have a tremendous impact on the recovery of priority conservation areas.
The Delta facet of this project will show that riparian and cultural conservation can be achieved at a relatively low cost, through a one-time environmental release that will be initiated by the Kwapa tribe and monitored closely.