Letters to the Editor: To save the Colorado River, start from scratch on divvying water

” is somewhat misleading. The heart of the water crisis is Mother Nature not supplying enough precipitation for the Colorado River basin to meet the demands of the water-using states.The seven states that rely on the Colorado River must adjust their needs to what water is available based on percentages that can be negotiated. They should ignore the outdated “Law of the River” pact.As water availability varies, the states should ration usage based on priorities.

Water rights are standing law and are a form of property rights that have been thoughtfully litigated over the years. Acre-feet agreements, not percentages, were used because both crops and people need constant, regularly supplied quantities of a precious yet often unreliable resource. The “Law of the River” is not why we’re in this mess in the first place. We are in this situation because greedy politicians are enriched by indiscriminate agricultural, recreational and housing land developers. These are the same politicians who allow many other types of environmental degradation and destruction.This article brings to mind the Paolo Bacigalupi novel “The Water Knife.

A rarely mentioned fact about the consumption and distribution of increasingly scarce Colorado River water is that a significant portion of “thirsty” crops such as alfalfa grown in the desert environment of the Imperial Valley is sold and shipped overseas. This “virtual water” is a precious U.S. national resource that is being sold at a deeply discounted price to foreign nations, some of which engage in horrific human rights violations. This practice must cease.

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