Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

Re:Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Somed... by cbr on Thursday January 30, 2014 @04:03PM (#7153344)

    Pretty much every drop of the Colorado River
    is owned by someone.

The river is actually overcommitted:

    When the Colorado River Compact was drafted in
    the 1920s, it was based on barely 30 years of
    streamflow records that suggested an average
    annual flow of 17.5 million acre feet past Lee's
    Ferry. Modern studies of tree rings revealed
    that those three decades were probably the
    wettest in the past 500 to 1,200 years – and
    that the natural long-term annual flow past
    Lee's Ferry is probably closer to 13.5 million
    acre feet, as compared to the natural flow at
    the mouth of 16.3 million acre feet.  This has
    resulted in more water being allocated to river
    users than actually flows through the Colorado.

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Re:Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Somed... by SomeCallMeTim on Friday January 31, 2014 @05:14PM (#7159528)

I had heard that, but I didn't find the reference quickly, and I had to post. Didn't want to make unsubstantiated claims. Thanks for the follow-up. :)

As a result we've been in violation with a treaty with Mexico over the lack of promised water volume over most of that time as well. Again, too busy to find the link.

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