Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsHoover Dam, less than an hour’s drive from the Las Vegas Strip, holds back water from the 242,000 square miles of the Colorado River Basin to form the 248 square miles of Lake Mead. The reservoir’s level has been dropping steadily because of aridification, and over-allocation of the lake’s water, exposing rock known as the “bathtub ring” not seen since the 1930s.
The Colorado River is in trouble in ways that the white settlers who claimed it in the 1800s, and the powerful government and industrial leaders who later negotiated rights over it in the early 1900s, never imagined — or intentionally ignored. There's not nearly enough of it to go around. There never has been.
Now, some 40 million people in the seven states that depend on the Colorado River for life and work are in jeopardy because of climate change, drought, population growth and overallocation.
The problem isn't obvious at the river's headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park, where the stream silently curves its way south. But as the river flows through Colorado, then Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico, the scope of the multi-faceted problem comes into focus.
Over the past six months, a team of CPR news journalists traveled through the basin states and Mexico to talk to farmers, ranchers, residents, business owners and water managers who depend on the Colorado River. We wanted to tell the story of the river that shaped life in the West and the people who live here. Our reporting is now available as a multimedia project called "Parched," a collection of stories, photos and a podcast about how we got here and the solutions that may help save the Colorado River.
Here's a look at the places we went, and some of the folks to whom we spoke, in bringing you "Parched."
How the Colorado River got its name
The Colorado River, as we know it today, rises on La Poudre Pass in the Never Summer range and drops down into the Kawuneeche Valley in Rocky Mountain National Park. But it has not always been the Colorado River.
Up until July 25, 1921, this stretch of water was the Grand River — the Colorado River officially began far downstream at the confluence of the Grand and Green rivers in Utah's canyon country. But Colorado congressman Edward Taylor worked for the name change, believing the river ought to start in the state with which it shares a name.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK - A blanket of snow covers the Kawuneeche Valley and the headwaters of the Colorado River in Rocky Mountain National Park, March 2023. Snowpack in the Headwaters region is 130 percent above average this winter, but people responsible for managing this river say that won't make up for more than 20 years of drought.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK - Trees burned in the 2020 East Troublesome fire, in the Kawuneeche Valley of Rocky Mountain National Park, March 2023. Snowpack in the Headwaters is 130 percent above average this winter; what that means for the over-allocated river water and the 7 states that depend on it remains to be seen.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK - Trail signs in the Kawuneeche Valley beside the buried Colorado River in Rocky Mountain National Park, March 2023. If you look carefully the sign indicates La Poudre Pass is 7.5 miles up the valley. That's where the Colorado River rises.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsGRAND LAKE - Buoys mark the intake of Colorado River water from Grand Lake at the Alva B. Adams tunnel, March 31, 2023, in the town of Grand Lake. By the time the river tumbles out of nearby Rocky Mountain National Park, between 20-40 percent of its flow has already been diverted by the Grand Ditch catching water off the Never Summer Mountains, and siphoned off over Las Poudre Pass and into the Cache La Poudre River, bound for customers on the Front Range. The Adams tunnel sends water into the Big Thompson River on the Eastern side of the mountains, also destined for the Front Range.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsGLENWOOD CANYON - Paddleboarding and rafting on the Colorado River near the mouth of Grizzly Creek, in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado, July 2022. The river is a crucial water source for around 40 million people in seven states, from the Front Range in Colorado to the farms and cities of Southern California. It's also an important part of the tourism, travel and recreation economies.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsGLENWOOD SPRINGS - The Colorado River, rail lines for BNSF freight and AMTRAK at left, and Interstate 70 on the right, all squeeze together in the river’s valley downstream of Glenwood Springs in September 2022.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCOLLBRAN - James Eklund, a former member of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, with a photo of his grandfather at the family’s Norse Sky Ranch near Collbran, Colorado, Oct. 22, 2022. Eklund’s family were among the first white settlers here in the Plateau Creek Valley — the creek is a tributary of the Colorado River.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCOLLBRAN - Cattle on the Norse Sky Ranch along Plateau Creek on the Western Slope, during bright fall colors, near Collbran, Colorado, Oct. 22, 2022. The Eklund family owns the ranch and were among the first white settlers in the valley.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCAMEO - Traffic on Interstate 70 in De Beque Canyon passes by the Cameo Diversion Dam, also known as the Grand Valley Diversion Dam near the mouth of Plateau Creek, on the Colorado River. The Government Highline Canal carries water from the diversion further west, providing irrigation for the peach growers and vineyards of Palisade, farmers and ranchers in the Grand Valley, and the City of Grand Junction.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsPALISADE - Against the bone dry background of the Little Book Cliffs to the north, vineyard workers toss buckets to gather and carry harvested grapes in Palisade. The Government Highline Canal provides water for irrigation for the peach growers and vineyards of Palisade.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsGRAND JUNCTION - A tree swing on the bike path that winds through the Two Rivers area of Grand Junction, with the Colorado River in the background. The area, once home to a car junkyard with thousands of wrecks, is about to be redeveloped.
Holding water
The Colorado River flows west out of Colorado and into Utah where it carves its way down through canyon country. It helped create these canyons.
The river then travels beside Arches National Park, around Moab, underneath Dead Horse Point and into Canyonlands National Park where it's joined by the Green River that flows down out of Wyoming.
Near Hite, Utah, the first signs of the Colorado River's impoundment behind the Glen Canyon Dam become evident as the river begins to form Lake Powell. The lake is also fed by the San Juan River and is located in what is now Glen Canyon National Recreation area.
At that dam, over the state line in Page, Arizona, and at nearby marinas and recreation areas, even the most casual observer can start to see constricting shorelines and so-called bathtub rings, or exposed layers of discolored rock that were long underwater.
Jeremy Wade Shockley/For CPR NewsNAVAJO CITY, NEW MEXICO - Navajo Dam in New Mexico impounds water from the San Juan, Piedras and Los Pinos rivers, creating the Navajo Reservoir, which supplies water to the Jicarilla Apache Nation, and provides boating and fishing. Below the dam, the San Juan River flows into the Colorado River. March 5, 2023.
Jeremy Wade Shockley/For CPR NewsDULCE, NEW MEXICO - Jicarilla Apache Water Administrator Daryl Vigil, who is also the former Chairman of the Colorado River Basin Ten Tribes Partnership, at Lower Mundo Lake, a recreational fishing area on the Jicarilla Apache Nation, near Dulce, N.M. The tribal partnership has played a key role in conserving Colorado River water.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsPAGE, ARIZONA - The Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River, February, 2023. Completed in 1964, the structure created the reservoir of Lake Powell, a kind of water bank designed to help control and guarantee water delivery to states in the Lower Colorado River Basin in years of low flow, and also to generate hydroelectric power. But Lake Powell itself is depleted, and it is silting up. The white "bathtub ring" on the red rocks on either side of the dam is created by mineral deposits left by the receding waterline.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsPAGE, ARIZONA - Lines carrying hydroelectric power generated by Colorado River water flowing through Glen Canyon Dam turbines, February 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsPAGE, ARIZONA - Wahweap Marina, squeezed by the dropping and encroaching shoreline of Lake Powell on the Colorado River behind the Glen Canyon Dam, February 2023. Much of the lowlands in the background of Wahweap Bay were once underwater in the years after the dam was built.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsPAGE, ARIZONA - The Colorado River flows south below the Glen Canyon Dam in February 2023. Tamarisk can be seen growing along the shoreline in the light at right. The nuisance plant has come to clog the shorelines and bottomlands of the Colorado River in canyon country, thriving because dams along the river ended the annual floods that were once the river’s natural state of being. According to the National Park Service, “prolific non-native shrubs displace native vegetation and animals, alter soil salinity, and increase fire frequency.”
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLEE'S FERRY, ARIZONA - Indigenous peoples lived in this region for centuries before white settlers began to arrive and push them aside. One of them was John D. Lee, who established the first commercial river crossing here on January 11, 1873. A plaque commemorates Lee, and a few of the original buildings, partially restored, still stand. The ferry is long gone - the Navajo Bridge downriver now carries car and commercial truck traffic - but the spot is now the traditional launching point for Colorado River trips down the Grand Canyon. February 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLEE'S FERRY, ARIZONA - Heading out for a day of fishing from Lee's Ferry, south of Page and the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona, February 2023. The original ferry first crossed near this point in the 1870s. The Navajo Bridge over Marble Canyon between Bitter Springs and Jacob Lake opened in 1929. A second bridge opened 66 years later, and the original span is now a pedestrian crossing. During rafting season, this launch point is thick with private and commercial whitewater boaters headed for their first day running the Grand Canyon. On this cold February morning, with a rising sun illuminating the Vermillion Cliffs in the distance, the boat launch was mostly quiet.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsHOOVER DAM - Completed in 1936, about an hour’s drive from the Las Vegas Strip, Hoover Dam holds back water from the 242,000 square miles of the Colorado River Basin to form the 248 square miles of Lake Mead. The reservoir’s level has been dropping steadily for decades because of climate change, population growth and demands, and overuse of the lake’s water, exposing shoreline rock not seen since the 1930s, and leaving a “bathtub ring” of dried mineral deposits.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsHOOVER DAM - Cars and RVs parked on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam in October 2022 show the scale of depleted water levels on Lake Mead. The white rock known as the bathtub ring is created by minerals from lake water drying as the level drops.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsHOOVER DAM - A view of Hoover Dam from the Arizona side of depleted Lake Mead.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAKE MEAD MARINA, NEVADA - A red, white and blue anchor surrounded by rocky desert, indicates the entrance to the Las Vegas Boat Harbor and Lake Mead Marina, October 2022.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAKE MEAD MARINA, NEVADA - Fisherman Pedro Contreras drains his boat on the ramp at Boulder Beach, October, 2022.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAKE MEAD MARINA, NEVADA - The Las Vegas Boat Harbor in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, October 2022, and the “bathtub ring." The photograph was made standing approximately at the same shoreline height as what was once "full pool," a water level not seen since 1983. The water level isn't the only thing dropping at Lake Mead. Visitor numbers to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area dropped to about 5.6 million people in 2022, compared to 7.6 million visitors the year before.
Moving and conserving water
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAKE MEAD, NEVADA - The Southern Nevada Water Authority’s Low Lake Level Pumping Station, near Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam, October, 2022. It enables water to be taken from the lake for Las Vegas customers from below 895 feet, or the point at which there’s not enough water to pass through the dam and onto California and Arizona. The facility came on line in April 2022. Together with the new straw SNWA put deep into Lake Mead, it cost more than $1.5 billion.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA - The Fountains of the Bellagio draw nighttime visitors on the Las Vegas Strip, October 2022. The fountains do not use Colorado River water; the Bellagio accesses groundwater, which it recycles over and over, to power the fountains outside and inside the casino and hotel.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA - A dive crew works daily from a barge to maintain the water cannons underneath the choreographed fountains at the Bellagio on the Las Vegas Strip, October 2022.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA - Approximately 60 percent of Southern Nevada's water is used outdoors, a lot of it on residential landscaping, and is counted against the state's Colorado River water allowance.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA - Cameron Donnarumma of the Las Vegas Valley Water District's water waste patrol, Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, in the Summerlin neighborhood of Las Vegas. The region's water authority patrols neighborhoods looking for properties where sprinklers and irrigation systems violate the law.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA - A landscape crew tears out the grass of a small front yard in a residential area of Las Vegas, October, 2022. Once the grass removal is complete, in this case, they’ll lay down a spread of artificial turf in its place. At other homes, the crew creates desert landscapes of rock, sand and climate-appropriate plants. Las Vegas provides rebates to homeowners to cover the cost.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA - Jeannie Zei holds two of her puppies while standing on her home’s treasured front-lawn grass in October 2022. Both the city and state have enacted stringent new laws designed to sharply reduce the amount of water Las Vegas and its environs use as water levels continue to fall in nearby Lake Mead on the Colorado River, including forbidding new housing developments from planting any grass at all. She protested those restrictions and others. Grass is a matter of homeownership pride for her.
Watering the desert
The Glen Canyon and Hoover dams hold back some of the largest bodies of fresh water in the United States. They, and a series of other dams, feed aqueducts and canals that deliver Colorado River water to consumers as far away as Tucson, Phoenix and Yuma in Arizona, as well as Los Angeles and San Diego. The water also reaches farmers on the Colorado River Tribes Reservation and California's Imperial Valley.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsLAKE HAVASU, ARIZONA - Water for the Central Arizona Project Aqueduct begins its journey east and south from the Mark Wilmer Pumping Plant on Lake Havasu, a reservoir created by the Parker Dam impounding the Colorado River, 150 miles south of Hoover Dam.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsVICKSBURG, ARIZONA - The Central Arizona Project’s aqueduct near Vicksburg, Arizona, February 2023. The CAP delivers Colorado River water impounded behind the Parker Dam at Lake Havasu to farms and cities including Phoenix and Tucson.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsTUCSON, ARIZONA - Margot Garcia sits in the dining room of her Tucson home, January 2023. She was among city council members in the 1970s who passed a tiered pricing system for water, charging more for water going to homes further from, and higher than, the central city. She was recalled, but elements of the system remain in place.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsTUCSON, ARIZONA - Tucson Water’s Natalie DeRoock pauses for a photo while explaining how the city channels its Colorado River allotment via the Central Arizona Project into recharge basins like the one behind her, that effectively bank water in underground aquifers. January 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsTUCSON, ARIZONA - The sun sets behind the mountains of the Sonoran Desert city of Tucson, January 2023. The city began using Colorado River water via the Central Arizona Project in 1992. Up until then, it mostly relied on groundwater, and in the 1970s developed what many consider to be the first tiered pricing system for its water, charging more for water going to homes further from, and higher than the central city. The city council members who crafted that law were recalled, but elements of the system remain in place.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsEL CENTRO, CALIFORNIA - Horizon Farms owner John Hawk in his pickup truck east of El Centro, California, on Jan. 27, 2023. Hawk farms about 3,000 acres of vegetables and alfalfa, all of which are irrigated solely by Colorado River water delivered to his Imperial Valley operation via the All American Canal. Like many growers in the Imperial Valley, he’s switching from flood irrigation to sprinklers, which cuts his water use by as much as 50 percent, but also greatly increases his costs.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsEL CENTRO, CALIFORNIA - Sprinklers irrigate a field of onions on Horizon Farms, east of El Centro, California, January 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsEL CENTRO, CALIFORNIA - A contract lettuce harvesting crew at work at Horizon Farms, east of El Centro, California, Jan. 27, 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsEL CENTRO, CALIFORNIA - A truck on Interstate 10 passes over the All American Canal east of El Centro, California, January 2023. The canal delivers the only source of water to the Imperial Valley between the U.S.-Mexico border and the Salton Sea.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCOLORADO RIVER INDIAN TRIBES RESERVATION - Sand Hill Cranes take flight on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Farm south of Parker, Arizona, February 2023. The Big Maria Mountains Wilderness is in the distance, on the other side of the California state line.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCOLORADO RIVER INDIAN TRIBES RESERVATION - Irrigation pipes and sprinklers on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Farm south of Parker, Arizona, February 2023. The federal government created the reservation in 1865 originally for the Mohave and Chemehuevi, who had lived in the river valley for centuries before white settlers arrived. Hopi and Navajo people were forced to relocate to the reservation in later years. Under law, CRIT is entitled to divert 719,248 acre-feet of the Colorado River annually.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCOLORADO RIVER INDIAN TRIBES RESERVATION - Colorado River Indian Tribes Farm Manager Joshua Moore shores up a berm next to a field flooded with irrigation water ahead of spring cotton planting, south of Parker, Arizona, February 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCOLORADO RIVER INDIAN TRIBES RESERVATION - Moving sheep on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Farm south of Parker, Arizona, February 2023. CRIT Farms sells to customers across the globe.
Recycling water and finding alternative sources
From California to Colorado, water managers and entrepreneurs are considering and implementing new ways to wean customers off Colorado River water.
In California's Orange and San Diego counties, we saw desalination, or turning seawater into potable water, at scale. Some homeowners are looking to recycling graywater for their backyard pools and to water gardens. In Aurora, Colorado, we toured a large-scale water recycling plant.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA - Surfing the tap water in Carlsbad, California, January 2023, not far from the seawater intakes for the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant on Pacific Coast Highway. The plant supplies about 15 percent of San Diego County’s drinking water.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA - Maintenance work in the reverse osmosis building at the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, where dissolved salt and other minerals are separated from the water, in more than 2,000 pressure vessels containing 16,000 reverse osmosis membranes, January 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA - Clear, pure drinking water gets pumped through these pipes at the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, January 2023. The plant went into service in 2015 and produces 50 million gallons per day, supplying drinking water for 400,000 people, or more than 10 percent of San Diego County's population.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA - Clear, pure drinking water, the finished product, at the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, January 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA - Justin Fox, owner of Carlsbad Solar in Carlsbad, California, on the deck of his backyard swimming pool, January 2023. Fox says the pool will be topped off by a refrigerator-sized appliance in his garage made by Hydraloop that recycles graywater.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA - A refrigerator-sized appliance, made by a European company called Hydraloop, that recycles graywater, stands waiting to be hooked up next to the washer and dryer in the garage of Justin Fox, in Carlsbad, California, January 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA - At a community garden, the telltale purple containers denote access to recycled water used for irrigating plants. January 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsAURORA, COLORADO - South Platte River water arrives at the Peter D. Binney Purification Plant near Aurora Reservoir in Aurora, Colorado, March 23, 2023. The water is pumped from 17 wells along the South Platte River Banks, 34 miles away, into the holding bay pictured here, where floating plastic devices help minimize algae from growing. From there it's pumped into the purification process, advanced ultraviolet light oxidation, filtration, and activated carbon absorption. The purified water is then pumped into the Aurora water supply. It's one of the ways Aurora seeks to reduce its reliance on Colorado River water.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsSwirvine Nyirenda, who works in strategic and long-range planning for Aurora Water, at the Peter D. Binney Purification Plant near Aurora Reservoir in Aurora, Colorado, March 23, 2023.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsAURORA, COLORADO - Aurora Water’s Greg Baker stands near a frame of ultraviolet light tubes that will be inserted into the pipe behind, where the light is used as part of the water purification process at Peter D. Binney Purification Plant near Aurora Reservoir in Aurora, Colorado, March 23, 2023. The water there is pumped from 17 wells along the South Platte River Banks, 34 miles away.
To Mexico and the Colorado River Delta
There was a time before all the dams, diversions, overallocation and commodification, when the Colorado River flowed freely into Mexico and created a vast, fertile, wildlife-rich delta before finally draining into the Sea of Cortez.
The Indigenous Cucapah thrived there, as did agriculture.
Those days are over. The river often never even reaches the sea, and the delta has largely dried out. But efforts are afoot to re-wild the delta and reconnect people to the land, perhaps pointing the way for others to restore depleted basin lands north of the border.
Kevin J. Beaty/DenveritePARQUE LAGUNA GRANDE, MEXICO - A branch of the Colorado River flows through the Sonoran Institute's Laguna Grande Restoration Area, south of Mexicali in Mexico's Baja California state. The surrounding farmland and desert were once lush wetlands before the United States constructed dams north of the border. Feb. 1, 2023.
Kevin J. Beaty/DenveritePARQUE LAGUNA GRANDE, MEXICO - Francisco Zamora, senior director of programs for the Sonoran Institute, photographs wildlife on the institute's Laguna Grande Restoration Area south of Mexicali, Mexico. Feb. 1, 2023.
Kevin J. Beaty/DenveriteMEXICALI, MEXICO - Antonia Torres González holds a photo of her mother inside Museo Comunitario Cucapah, the museum about northern Mexico's Indigenous tribes that she runs south of Mexicali, in Mexico's Baja California state. Feb. 2, 2023. She welcomes the work to re-wild the river delta, but hopes the work also means the rejuvenation of the Cucapah.
Kevin J. Beaty/DenveriteMEXICALI, MEXICO - Green and fallow fields south of Mexicali, in Mexico's Baja California state, on Feb. 2, 2023. Some of these brown tracts were not irrigated to preserve water in the area.
Kevin J. Beaty/DenveritePARQUE LAGUNA GRANDE, MEXICO - An employee rides to an irrigation channel on the Sonoran Institute's Laguna Grande Restoration Area outside of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. Feb. 2, 2023.
Kevin J. Beaty/DenveritePARQUE LAGUNA GRANDE, MEXICO - A branch of the Colorado River flows through the Sonoran Institute's Laguna Grande Restoration Area, south of Mexicali in Mexico's Baja California state. The surrounding farmland and desert were once lush wetlands before the United States constructed dams north of the border. Feb. 1, 2023.
More about the Colorado River
The most endangered river: A conservation group considers the Colorado River the epicenter of the nation’s water and climate crisis.
Lake Powell dangerously low: As the reservoir dries up, there’s growing concern about the future of hydropower production.
What happens if the river keeps drying up: It could trigger a chain-reaction of legal wrangling that could lead to some water users being cut off from the river.
Tribes fight for inclusion: Leaders of native tribes who depend on the river say a century-old agreement is fueling water inequalities.
Where’s the water going?: Much of it gets absorbed by soil baked dry by hotter temperatures due to climate change.
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