Argument Essay: The Colorado River Water Crisis

In this NPR, reporter Abrahm Lustgarten discusses the Colorado River water crisis and some of the not so natural causes to it. The shortages of water have previously been believed to be due to climate change caused droughts, but Lustgarten disagrees and argues that the shortages are a problem of water mismanagement. In the 1920s seven states came together and agreed to divide up the rivers water between each state. The problem was that they had overestimated the amount of water in the river and had given everyone more water then is actually there. Now as populations grow along the river, less and less water is available, and still no revisions are made on the amount of water that can be used. There are many agricultural impacts on the river, the largest being the large growth of heavy water using plants like cotton or alfalfa. The plants need high amounts of water to survive but their being grown in places like Arizona where water is naturally scarce. Even though the growth of these plants is completely illogical in this location and …show more content…
They did this by creating a giant concrete canal that diverts 10% of the rivers water into the heart of the state. To get the water to the central parts of Arizona a significant amount of power is needed to push the water, thus the Navajo generating station was created, a 3 generator coal fired power plant that happens to be the third largest CO2 emitter in the nation. There are many ways to increase the water flow of the river but Lustgarten states that it’s a slow moving crisis. Management and policies need to be reformed and a revised on the distribution of water, especially between the farm and city usage. Places like California are putting in ground water laws to try and conserve as much water as possible. Some reservoirs could be combined and some dams could be torn down which would also increase the

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Argument Essay: The Colorado River Water Crisis

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