Pay Attention to the Colorado River Crisis

Navajo Generating Station. Photo by Connie Crawford

Here's a little light reading for the weekend: Pro Publica's series Killing the Colorado. The analogies to our own situation with the Rio Grande are acute: highly subsidized cotton farming, urban sprawl, demand for water outgrowing supply and, thus, water importation. The water problem in the west exemplified by the situation with the Colorado River, is human driven and not climate driven although, often the power needed to "solve" water shortages releases tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (Read End of the Miracle Machines in the series.)

Since sprawl and growth are such sacred cows here in El Paso, read the 'Water Witch'. (Apologies to my Wiccan friends.) Be sure to use the interactive map showing the sprawl of Las Vegas. Wish we had one for El Paso. Of course, it would probably make the ticky-tacky building sprawlers of El Paso lustfully drool.

The environmental reporter who investigated for the Pro Publica series, Abrahm Lustgarten, was recently interviewed on NPR. You can listen to that interview by going HERE.

Since this is video Friday, here is a whimsical look at the Navajo Generating Station of Page, Arizona. Subtitle: "Combining Carbon and Oxygen for a Warmer Tomorrow!"




Help El Paso Naturally turn El Paso "Green".