Why the Colorado River Doesn’t Meet the Sea

The US retains 95 percent ofthe Colorado River’s water and Mexico gets what’s left over. Most years this is about 1.5 million acre feet, roughly the same amountthat Sonoran desert farmers were using to irrigate their bean and onion fields in 1922.

Just before the Colorado crosses theUS/Mexico border 75 percent of its flow is diverted into the All-Americancanal. From there the water is flushed into wasteful irrigationsystems and it eventually trickles down into the Salton Sea, oncean important stop on the Pacific flyway for migratory birds nowa toxic soup of fertilizer and pesticide runoff. Instead of a bird paradise, the Salton Sea has become a killing ground, theavian equivalent of cancer alley.

The water that eventually makes it to Mexico-much of it run-off from Arizona and California alfalfa and cotton fields– is nearly as salt-laden and toxic as that in the Salton Sea. The situation is so extreme that the Bureau of Reclamation was compelled to build a $211 “reverse-osmosis”desalination plant at Yuma, Arizona. But that plant, built in1992, has only operated for a year.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2001/03/14/why-the-colorado-river-doesn-t-meet-the-sea/

>> Nearby cities can’t help because many have already auctioned off all of the water
>> they had allotted for sale to agricultural users and oil and gas companies.

The ONLY thing that matters is the profit $$$$