The mighty Colorado River serves 40 million people in seven states and two states in Mexico. It also irrigates 5.5 million agricultural acres of land, including 15% of American agriculture and about 90% of the nation's winter vegetables.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.