A River No More: The Colorado River and the West

Description

Author: Fradkin, Philip L.

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Pub Date: 1986 (Second printing)

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Fair.  Binding tight.  No marks, tears,  folds.  Upper front cover corner slightly creased.  Some corner and edge wear.

Notes: It’s not Arizona in particular, it’s the seven states that use the Colorado River.  “There are some basic facts to consider about Arizona.  About one-half of the state receives less than ten inches of rain in a year, some areas receiving as little as three or four inches.  About 60 percent of the state’s water supplies come from underground sources, and the pumping of such water greatly exceeds its replenishment–by as much as a million acre-feet a year.  Arizona’s  basic allocation of Colorado River water is 2.8 million acre-feet a year.  About 1.2 million acre-feet are expected to be used in western Arizona along the river, and the remainder, an amount estimated at 1.6 million acre feet, with some loss due to evaporation, will be delivered to the central and southern portions of the state in the beginning years of the Central Arizona Project’s operation….Increasing upper-basin development, runoff averaging less than 1992 compact allocations, and growing Indian claims to water will eat into Arizona’s share.”  (Page 259).  If anything is true since this was written (1985)  it’s that the West is now in a historic drought,  the Colorado River is over-allocated and nobody’s busting their ass to fix the river’s problems.  Conservation?  We don’t need no stinkin’ conservation.