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Comment by rustybelt | Hacker News Reader

I've watched a number of friends, family, and acquaintances move out to Colorado over the past decade. Several of them even proclaimed that our home region, the upper midwest, was dying on their way out. I really try to avoid indulging in schadenfreude, but it's tough sometimes.

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Colorado's where the river's headwaters are: this is probably an even bigger deal for those in Utah, Arizona, Las Vegas, and Southeastern California.

Don’t forget Mexico who’s allocated 1.5 million acre-feet per year (59 cubic metres per second) by the Colorado River Compact [1].

Which I believe was drafted during the wettest decade in the Southwest’s history.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact

Wait, Mexico’s share is (as seems from both your comment and the link) specified in absolute terms rather than as a percentage like the US states? Leaving no allowance for that amount not existing?

More specific link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact#Provisi...

Minute 319 [1] determines how water allocations will change during conditions of drought or surplus. This is also covered a little at the end of the Wikipedia article.

In a max drought scenario (Lake Mead surface elevation <1,025 feet) it looks like delivery requirements would be reduced by 125,000 acre-feet, with different delivery thresholds above that range.

1. https://www.ibwc.gov/Files/Minutes/Min319_Env_Fact_Sheet.pdf

I believe that the water to be supplied to Mexico via the river was of such poor quality that we ended up either trucking or directly purifying a set volume of water downstream to meet our treaty obligations.

time to cut mexicos water before anything else then. not like they can fight us on it.

Yes, because who gives a fuck about treaties. After all, when your neighbor can't fight you it's a-ok to take their stuff. /s

better they have problems then we do

No it's not. What do you think is going to happen to the migration or border once agriculture and clean water supplies evaporate down there?

Do the right thing, fulfill the obligations. The consequences suck for everyone.

why should we fulfil our obligations to the mexicans before the arizonans? we should keep our obligations to our own country first. we literally cant fulfill all the obligations so some has to go. im not saying "screw mexico" but its a governments job to care for its own people at least before others.

Focusing entirely on the short term wellbeing of your own can be a big mistake. Sure, giving all the water to Arizona and ignoring the deal with Mexico is better for Americans long term. But what happens next?

Short term thinking is what gets us into these problems in the first place.

Sounds fair, as long as arizonians would stop culturing the crops painfully developped during thousands of years and generously shared with them by Mexicans (Tomatoes, pepper, corn), or Peruvians (Potatoes), or Argentinians and Bolivians (Peanuts), or Europeans (Onions, Lattice, Cabbage), or Africans (cup of coffee?), or Asians (return also the red jungle chicken please, and the apple native from Kazakhstan).

They can still culture the arizonian jackalope thistle and the sellfish redneck's muddy sweetgrass, and all the other members in the long list of wonderful crops developed there, of course.

That's a non sequitur if I've ever read one.

The fact is that the entire planet worked really hard so places like this can have an agriculture. Lets face it, Arizona didn't provided a lot in return to the science of agriculture.

And now some people is saying lets keep all the water, so people down the river don't have/don't deserve any?

A little understanding and maybe even gratitude would be a nice touch.

Think of it as a taste of what is to come when water will become more scarce. This is pretty much in line with predictions and the term 'water war' may well become commonplace in the near future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_conflict

The entire planet worked really hard so they could survive, it had nothing to do with being generous to other cultures or particularly to benefit the good people of Arizona.

"Fuck you, got mine"

Do you want a massive wave of unauthorized immigration? Because that's how you get a massive wave of unauthorized immigration.

Uhh, thing is, that’s been going on for the better part of two years now

And this is why we need nuclear proliferation.

That is somewhat true, but also in Colorado there's a plethora of westslope vs front range issues.

The Great Salt Lake is drying up: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/22/podcasts/the-daily/great-...

A complete ecological catastrophe. The local government has no plans to stop population growth to prevent overuse. They acknowledge the issue completely, but it is not politically viable to solve it. This a preview of what is to come.

I live in this area and I think it's important to provide a little context. Only this year did the Great Salt Lake set a record for the lowest level, and it's less than an inch lower than the last time it was at the lowest level we've measured, which was in 1962. Here's the interesting part: the highest point of the Great Salt Lake that has been measured was in 1985-86, so we don't really have enough data to know whether this is cyclical. Right now, it's just panic, but 25 years from now we could be firing up the pumps that are in the desert of the Great Salt Lake to pump out the water to keep the freeway from being flooded again, like it was in 1985.

I would listen to that podcast. The interviewer and interviewees were extremely sober about the situation. They described everything that was going on in detail. None of which is in dispute. The main problem is actually population increase which is driving overconsumption of water. That is not cyclic. Climate change is exacerbating the issue.

What caused the lake to fall to its second-lowest level ever recorded in 1962?

You know, if I go out and spend my 401K on lottery tickets, I could be rich and then 25 years from now I could drive my jetski down that flooded freeway. You ever drive a jetski? It really is a blast and I'm willing to bet that driving one down the freeway would be even more fun.

Don’t get too excited.

The major population centers in Colorado don’t rely on the Colorado river. Everything east of the continental divide/the Rockies is in a different watershed

Rain and snow which fall on the western slope do not inevitably flow westward.

There are a number of trans-mountain diversions of Colorado River water eastward under the continental divide.

Denver Water alone collects 50% of its drinking water from the tributaries of the Colorado River on the west side of the continental divide.

Water diverted from the Colorado River Basin, through trans-mountain diversions, makes up 60-70% of the water used by Colorado Springs.

For example, see https://www.denverwater.org/your-water/water-supply-and-plan...

Much of the water used by Fort Collins and Greeley comes from the western slope through the Adams Tunnel under Rocky Mountain National Park.

https://www.northernwater.org/

Wow. I knew about the straws, but I didn't know just what a large percentage of the water was coming from Dillon, etc...

Still though, the original point stands. The front range where everyone lives has a lot less to worry about than downstream users like Nevada and California.

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