Tuesday Top of the Scroll: As Colorado River shrinks, California farmers urge ‘one-dam solution’
For years, environmentalists have argued that the Colorado River should be allowed to flow freely across the Utah-Arizona border, saying that letting water pass around Glen Canyon Dam — and draining the giant Lake Powell reservoir — would improve the shrinking river’s health. Now, as climate change increases the strains on the river, this controversial proposal is receiving support from some surprising new allies: influential farmers in California’s Imperial Valley. In a letter to the federal Bureau of Reclamation, growers Mike and James Abatti, who run some of the biggest farming operations in the Imperial Valley, urged the government to consider sacrificing the Colorado’s second-largest reservoir and storing the water farther downstream in Lake Mead — the river’s largest reservoir.
Related articles:
- Colorado Sun: Here’s how Colorado uses its water amid climate change
- Rolling Stone: The climate crisis could mean the twilight of the American West
- Live Science: Will El Niño end the Southwest’s megadrought?
