What major cities rely on Colorado River water?

The Colorado River is an important water resource for areas outside of the basin, including Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, and San Diego for public (municipal) supply, and the Imperial Valley in California for agricultural water supplies.



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Within agriculture, livestock feed is the largest water user, at 55 percent. The majority of the water in the Colorado River basin — more than one trillion gallons — is used to grow feed for livestock, connecting the region's water crisis to how much dairy and meat we eat.

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The three “Lower Basin” states also receive 7.5 million acre-feet. Of that, California has the right to take up to 4.4 million acre-feet from the river each year; because they have the oldest legal rights to the river, Californians are also the last to see cuts during drought.

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Only about 10 percent of all the water that flows into the Colorado River makes it into Mexico and most of that is used by the Mexican people for farming.

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Climate change, a rising population, and unsustainable consumption of water in the southwest are threatening the very existence of the Colorado River that's been running through the center of the Grand Canyon for six million years.

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The Colorado River is drying up due to a combination of chronic overuse of water resources and a historic drought. The dry period has lasted more than two decades, spurred by a warming climate primarily due to humans burning fossil fuels.

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If the water levels dip much lower, the Colorado's northernmost reservoir won't have enough in the tank to both fill Lake Mead downstream and generate any hydropower, which would have devastating effects on the electricity grid in the western US.

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What happens if Lake Mead dries up forever? If Lake Mead were to run out of water, the Hoover Dam would no longer be able to generate power or provide water to surrounding cities and farms. The Colorado River would essentially stop flowing, and the Southwest would be in a major water crisis.

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About 85–90 percent of the Colorado River's discharge originates in melting snowpack from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming. The three major upper tributaries of the Colorado – the snow-fed Gunnison, Green, and San Juan – alone deliver almost 9 million acre-feet (11 km3) per year to the main stem.

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Key Points. Lake Mead has dropped by 70% due to droughts in the West and it will take many years to refill again, naturally. The reservoir is vitally important to millions of people as a source of water, electricity, and recreation.

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Using this measure the Mississippi River is the 15th largest river in the world discharging 16,792 cubic meters (593,003 cubic feet) of water per second into the Gulf of Mexico.

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In the years after his visit, the river was dammed and its waters were sent flowing in canals to farms and cities. For decades, so much water has been diverted that the river seldom meets the sea. Much of the delta has shriveled to stretches of dry riverbed, with only small remnants of its wetlands surviving.

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According to Eldorado Natural Spring Water, their water is unique because it originates as rain and snow east of the Continental Divide, ultimately passing through an aquifer that's 8,000 feet beneath the town. This makes it some of the purest water in the world.

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