So my understanding here is that the largest consumer of water in most (all?) of the places served by the Colorado River is still agriculture. The article hints at fallout from this around 2/3 of the way through, when talking about grocery prices going up due to water scarcity (the hypothetical $14 head of lettuce).<p>Why do we still do so much farming in regions that have such marginal water supplies? Are there no better-irrigated places in the US to grow all these crops? Obviously all these farms can't move overnight, and presumably the owners of the farms wouldn't be happy with their revenue moving elsewhere, but it seems necessary.<p>Has farming been slowly (too slowly?) moving out of these water-strapped regions? Or are they just all sitting there, expecting someone else to bear the brunt of the problem? I know there have been shenanigans with farmers deliberately growing water-hungry crops because the water allocations have always been a "use it or lose it" system. That is apparently changing (far too late, IMO); do we expect this to have a meaningful impact?<p>Either way, I would suggest that it's a lot easier to move farming activities to regions with a more stable water supply (assuming such regions exist) than it is to move hundreds of cities of people.
The article doesn't pay much attention to the draw-down of aquifers, trouble mentioned in stories earlier this year.<p>"Bessire says far more groundwater is being pumped out than can be replenished, and most dry-area aquifers are disappearing, including two primary groundwater systems in the United States: California’s Central Valley aquifer, and the Ogallala Aquifer underlying heartland states from South Dakota to Texas. “If we lose these aquifers,” he writes, “we lose nearly 20% of the world’s grain crop, more than 40% of America’s beef production, and about 40% of the vegetables, nuts, and fruits consumed in the U.S."<p>[<a href="https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/02/11/major-aquifers-in-trouble-as-western-u-s-adapts-to-water-scarcity/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/02/11/major-aquifers-in-tr...</a>]<p>Head-in-the-sand? no, greed. "The [1922] compact negotiators also failed — or refused — to include the approximately 30 Native American tribes dependent on the river."
I've watched a number of friends, family, and acquaintances move out to Colorado over the past decade. Several of them even proclaimed that our home region, the upper midwest, was dying on their way out. I really try to avoid indulging in schadenfreude, but it's tough sometimes.
I am thinking of placing a water re-use system (where essentially I can filter my own use water, to reduce use by ~75%) and convince my gardening wife to xeriscape.<p>Question for more broad group: Will politicians end up moving agriculture development elsewhere to preserve the water? Will they build a de-salination pipeline from the rising ocean to the river? Strategist with opinions?
My prediction: The federal government will fund huge projects to build more water pipes from regions with water to regions without water. This will of course raise taxes and/or inflation, but it'll be worth it in the long run.
So Colorado, Utah and Wyoming - the states with the upper tributaries - were drawing water out at a much lower rate than they were entitled to by treaty, until about 2000, at which point the wheels started to come off.
John Oliver did a nice piece on this recently. Best clip I could find - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YykXkG2Mjz8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YykXkG2Mjz8</a>
Yet the Los Angeles river, with sources diverted away from saline lakes, has been cut in half over the years for pretend ecological issues. This is how the climate control ideology gains power.