A Story About the Embattled Colorado River,
the Growth of the West and the 75-Year History of
the Colorado River District.
The Colorado River is one of America’s wildest rivers in terms of terrain and natural attributes, but is actually modest in terms of water quantity. The Mississippi surpasses the Colorado’s annual flow in a matter of days.
Yet the Colorado provides some or all of the domestic water for
some 35 million Southwesterners, most of whom live outside of
the river’s natural course in rapidly growing desert cities.
The river fully or partially irrigates four-million acres of desert land that
produces much of America’s winter fruits and vegetables. It also provides
hundreds of thousands of people with recreational opportunities. To put a relatively small river like the Colorado to work, however, has resulted in both miracles and messes: highly controlled use and distribution systems with
multiplying problems and conflicts to work out, historically and into the future.
The Colorado River District was created in 1937 with a dual mission: to protect the interests of the state of Colorado in the river’s basin and to defend local
water interests in Western Colorado, a region that produces 70 percent of the river’s total water but only contains 10 percent of the state’s population.
About the Author: George Sibley is a freelance writer, retired educator and noted chronicler of western issues who has lived on Colorado’s Western Slope for 45 years.
