Thirst Gap: Learning to Live with Less on the Colorado River

The Colorado River comes to an end at the U.S.-Mexico border. The entirety of its flow, already heavily tapped upstream in the U.S., is sent into an irrigation canal to grow crops in the Mexicali Valley and to flow through faucets in Tijuana and Mexicali. The river’s final hundred miles have been mostly dry for decades. Environmental groups on both sides of the border are working together to let the Colorado flow again in its historic channel.

Las Vegas is known as a city of excess. But not when it comes to water. The desert metropolis relies on the Colorado River to keep its iconic casinos bustling. The short supply has caused city leaders to enforce some of the tightest water conservation measures in the West. Green lawns are enemy number one. This episode features interviews with Kurtis Hyde with Par 3 Landscape & Maintenance, a landscape company in the Las Vegas metro area, and John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Also, conversations with Devyn Choltko with the Las Vegas Valley Water District and homeowners Linda and Raymond Marston.

Farmers and ranchers use the vast majority of the Colorado River’s water. Getting them to voluntarily use less is difficult. The West’s water rights system incentivizes farmers to use all of their water to prevent their rights from losing value. Trying to balance the region’s water supply and demand will require farmers to use less. In this episode we visit western Colorado’s Grand Valley, an irrigated green pocket in the desert famous for its peach orchards. The area was the testing ground for experimental conservation programs that would pay farmers to dry up some of their land in an effort to boost the river’s flagging reservoirs. This episode features interviews with Troy Waters, a western Colorado farmer who relies on Colorado River water to irrigate his fields, and his son Calvin, who is preparing to take over the family farm. Plus, conversations with former Grand Valley Water Users Association general manager Mark Harris, and the association’s current general manager, Tina Bergonzini, about experimental conservation programs tested in the valley.

The Colorado River is in trouble. Its biggest reservoirs are at record lows. Shortages are likely to get worse. Demands from cities and farms are outstripping supply across seven U.S. states, 30 Native American tribes and northern Mexico. The river’s foundational, yet flawed, legal agreement -- the Colorado River Compact -- turned 100 years old in 2022. The anniversary was a somber one. Climate change is putting the compact’s most basic tenets to the ultimate test. The agreement’s fantastical promises, of an arid region flush with enough water to build massive cities and sprawling farms, have left the region’s key water source drained.Climate change is warming parts of the basin faster than any other reach of the U.S. If the first 100 years of river management represent an attempt to ring every drop from the river for human use, the next 100 years will bring a heavy dose of reality -- that we’ve stretched the river too thin and need to rely on it less. Who will be forced to give up the most? How do we decide who gets less? And how will the region adapt to a shrinking supply as the climate warms? This six-part in-depth audio series will attempt to answer those questions.