Where Does the Water From Rivers Go, Anyway?

Come on, if we really have to answer this question, then we haven’t been doing our job properly. But of course, we don’t need a lot of convincing to get us talking about them. Rivers have been used since the beginning of life by different species and plants for drinking water. When humans came along, then we started using rivers for even more cool stuff, like navigation, agriculture, sanitation, hydroelectricity, sports, fracking, inspiration for books, and more! As is their natural course, rivers begin in the headwater and flow into another body of water, like lakes or the ocean. But where does the water go when it’s not reaching its natural destination? We look to the Colorado River.

For years now the Colorado River has been overused, relying on the water of other reservoirs, like Lake Mead and Lake Powell, to relieve its distress, and eventually dropping the reservoirs’ levels to three-quarters. While the reason for this has been a hypothesis for many years, a new study published the first water budget for the Colorado River, confirming that agriculture is responsible for 74% of direct human uses and 5% of overall water consumption. More specifically, 46% of all direct water consumption is used for cattle feed crops. Last year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation struck a deal between the seven states that rely on the Colorado River; California, Nevada, and Arizona are required to conserve 3 million-acre-feet of water through 2026. By 2023, the Colorado River is estimated to have lost around 19% of its volume, compared to the year 2000, and is estimated to drop to 30% by 2050.

That everything in the new study isn’t really new information, it comes as little surprise that many of the policy and legal reactions to what might otherwise be a bombshell may already be underway. California, as part of those Lower River States’ negotiations, has agreed to make long-term cuts to their allotment of the Colorado River. Though negotiations among the seven states are still perilous and tension-filled. Across Lake Havasu from California, Arizona’s governor is stumping for new solutions to the state’s groundwater woes. Solutions themselves TBD. But Arizona’s attorney general is considering using public nuisance claims to limit foreign companies' role in that “direct water consumption used for cattle feed crops.”

The water crunch in the Southwest has been a high-stakes and fascinating game for over a century. It doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon. Someone called us about putting together a script for a pilot. It’ll be better than Succession and only make trivial the lives and livelihoods of 40 million or so people. People’ll love it.?

If you like this article, keep reading our other stories of this very edition of TUWaterWays at https://www.tulanewater.org/tuwaterways and don't forget to subscribe.