One hundred years ago, 30-ton steamboats made their way up the mouth of the Colorado. Now, at low tide, there is no longer enough water flowing downriver to float the Cucapa's 20-foot-long pangas and their cargo. For all his hard work, Figueroa ended the day mired in the nearly dry riverbed, a mile short of his destination, his fish losing much of their freshness and value.The US overallocated the Colorado years ago (setting a baseline that was too high), and -- as today's "high flows" equal yesterday's "average flows" -- those allocations are even more imbalanced. Mexico, as the recipient of "left-overs" is getting less and less, with terrible environmental, economic and social consequences that do not make the gringos look like good neighbors.
"Malo viento," he kept saying. But it was the river, not an "evil wind," that had let him down.
Dams, drought, climate change, urban growth, industrial agriculture and politics on both sides of the border are to blame, and none of those adverse conditions will reverse any time soon.
Reservoirs have been drawn down to historically low levels, and some scientists predict that under the influence of climate change, the river's annual flow could drop by 50% over the next 40 years.
Despite heavy snowfall in the central Rocky Mountains this year, river managers in the U.S. continue to advise the states that depend on the Colorado River to prepare for water shortages within five years.
Measures to shore up U.S. reserves, meanwhile, are likely to make water even more scarce in Mexico.
For many years, Mexico has benefited from an unofficial surplus over its meager original allotment of river flow. The extra water comes from a combination of underground seepage from an unlined diversion canal in California, and storm runoff that makes its way south of the border.
The U.S. is in the process of stanching the fugitive flow by lining much of the All American Canal, a 90-mile-long irrigation ditch in California's Imperial Valley. Plans also are underway to build a small reservoir to catch 60% to 70% of the surplus surface water before it reaches Mexico.
The extra water has been a boon to crops in the arid Mexicali Valley and a godsend to the Colorado River Delta, where the Cucapa and hundreds of other poor fishermen eke out a living. Marine biologists believe that the corvina and other fish rebounded from the brink of extinction largely as a result of periodic high flows that flushed through the mouth of the river.
"To the extent it survives at all, the environment down there lives off the slop, off unplanned releases," said Peter Culp, a water lawyer and consultant to the Tucson-based Sonoran Institute, a nonprofit group that has been working on delta restoration.
Across the city, shiny black and blue barrels dot the rooftops of new housing developments, barrels in which residents store water for use when none is flowing through their faucets. Often, the shutdowns last days.
In Lomas de la Presa, a middle-class neighborhood where some houses cost the equivalent of $40,000, resident Raul Natzu said the water flows about four hours a day. "There's enough for essential uses, but no water for flowers or anything outside."
In ramshackle neighborhoods like Puesta del Sol, where people erect makeshift dwellings from plywood, cinder blocks and surplus garage doors, water doesn't flow at all. Instead, residents buy what they can afford from roving trucks. They store the water in rain barrels and dole it out as needed to bathe, flush toilets, and wash dishes and clothes.
Bottom Line: As water in the west gets scarcer, the weak will suffer.