As a once-in-a-millennium drought diminishes the Colorado River, it has forced the region into a debate over how to allocate and preserve its primary water source. More than 40 million people rely on the river as their primary water source — far more than were ever expected when a 1922 compact divided it among Western states and long before the arrival of Climate Change.
As the region grows hotter and drier and the river dwindles, it confronts existential questions: How to balance the needs of farmers with those of growing cities? Who should bear the burden of cutbacks? And what approaches to conservation will succeed?
ProPublica set out to answer some of these questions, including identifying the biggest users of Colorado River water and scrutinizing one city’s big bet to conserve that water.
With The Desert Sun, we investigated one of the biggest consumers of Colorado River water: the farmers of California’s Imperial Valley. There has been ample reporting over the years on the valley’s outsized claim to the Colorado River – it is the single largest user. But which individuals actually receive that water and what they do with it has been a closely held secret. The irrigation district refused our request for that information. Our investigation revealed the answers.
Separately, ProPublica examined Las Vegas’ efforts to conserve water. No metropolitan area is more reliant on the Colorado River than Southern Nevada. And one of its leading conservation programs has been turf removal — from yards, roadway medians and open spaces in neighborhoods. The strategy has significance beyond the region, as other cities looking to conserve their water supply are adopting Las Vegas’ strategy. As Las Vegas prepared to double down on turf removal as the solution to its water problems, we investigated whether it would succeed or whether this approach had passed the point of diminishing returns.
These investigations both required sophisticated analyses of land use as well as old fashioned document-based and shoe-leather reporting. They were presented with dazzling visualizations that made them captivating to read and easy to understand. And they revealed new and important information about the West’s biggest challenge.
