An Infinite Supply of Finite Resources 7 extracted each year from this High Plains Aquifer System was estimated
at several trillions of gallons.
Meanwhile, more dams were built and more water was diverted.
Most notable was the Colorado River basin with its iconic Grand Can-
yon. To divide the water spoils, seven states within the basin entered into
compacts and allocated surface water based on assumptions of annual
streamflow. Twenty-nine major dams and accompanying reservoirs went
up, as well as enormous pumping stations and hundreds of miles of
aqueducts and canals.
But the apportionments were based on flawed assumptions. The
water rights granted on paper far exceeded the physical water avail-
able. Mexico and Native Americans were conveniently left out. Water
that would normally flow to the Gulf of California was diverted for
other uses. Today, forty-four of every one hundred acres now irri-
gated with Colorado River water lie outside the basin’s natural to-
pography.^ In addition, one in six gallons stored in reservoirs is lost to
evaporation.
The practice of allocating a percentage of total water to upper-basin
states created incentives to hoard water upstream. In lower-basin states,
water allotments converted water into a marketable commodity that
was sold, traded, or banked. In regions like California’s Imperial Val-
ley, otherwise nonarable land was brought into production. Massive
produce farms became so reliant on Colorado River water that any rain
fall disrupted tightly established production schedules for planting and
harvesting.^ Power plants were constructed and massive amounts of
fossil fuels were burned to pump water up and over thousands of feet
of elevation to supply cities and cropland, some of it used for growing
cotton in Arizona.
Infighting among states and legal challenges to overturn court de-
cisions have been ongoing for decades. As scarcity and global warming
loom more ominously, states have schemed to protect their own inter-
ests. Over a recent fifteen-year time span, the Colorado River’s aver-
age streamflow has fallen by almost one gallon for every five gallons of
water discharged, when compared with the previous ninety-four years.
As much as one-half of the decline is due to unprecedented tempera-
tures, which are expected to become more extreme.^