DILLA UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF HYDRAULIC AND WATER REASOURCES
ENGINEERING
WATERSHED MANEGMENT
ESSAY NOTE ON COLORADO RIVER

DONE BY:
NAME ID NO
ABDI ABERA GUDINA 2044/18
ABDI DEBELA BULCHA 2093/18
ABDULBASIT ABABIYA HAJI 7544/18
DIBORA NEGESSU EDOSSA 2668/17
FIREHIWOT MEBRATU BAHIRU 0866/17

Submitted to: Inst. Desalegn K. (Ms.)

Submission date April 13, 2023

DILLA ETHIOPIA
 Table of Contents
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ II
CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................................. 1
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Physiography .................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Plant and animal life ......................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Economic development .................................................................................................... 2
CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................................ 4
2. WATER RIGHT ...................................................................................................................... 4
2.1 The Special Nature of Tribal Water Rights ...................................................................... 4
2.2 Quantified Rights ............................................................................................................. 4
2.3 The Colorado Mainstream Reservations .......................................................................... 5
2.4 Central Arizona Tribes ..................................................................................................... 5
2.5 Upper Basin Tribes........................................................................................................... 5
2.6 Outstanding / Unresolved Tribal Claims.......................................................................... 5
2.7 The Path Forward ............................................................................................................. 6
CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................................................ 7
3. WATER POLICY.................................................................................................................... 7
3.1 General ............................................................................................................................. 7
3.2 The most consumption form of the river ........................................................................ 10

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 CHAPTER ONE
1. INTRODUCTION
Colorado River is Major River of North America, rising in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado,
U.S. and flowing generally west and south for 1,450 miles (2,330 kilometers) into the Gulf of
California in northwestern Mexico. Its drainage basin covers 246,000 square miles (637,000
square kilometers) and includes parts of seven states Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico,
Nevada, Arizona, and California. For 17 miles the river forms the international boundary
between the U.S. state of Arizona and Mexico. The river drains a vast arid and semiarid sector of
the North American continent, and because of its intensive development it is often referred to as
the “Lifeline of the Southwest.”

1.1 Physiography
For more than a thousand miles of its course, the Colorado has cut a deep gorge. Where the river
system is joined by lateral streams the Virgin, Kanab, Paria, Escalante, Dirty Devil, and Green
rivers from the west, and the Little Colorado, San Juan, Dolores, and Gunnison from the east a
transverse system of narrow, winding deep canyons has been cut. Each entering river and each
lateral creek has cut another canyon, and thus the upper and middle parts of the Colorado basin
are traversed by a labyrinth of deep gorges. The longest of these unbroken trunk canyons through
which the Colorado flows is the spectacular Grand Canyon, extending from the mouth of the
Paria to the Grand Wash Stream. Other canyons cut by the river include Marble Canyon, Glen
Canyon, and Cataract Canyon. Canyonlands National Park encompasses another of these regions
at the juncture of the Green and Colorado rivers in southeastern Utah.

Farther downstream the lower Colorado is flanked by two great deserts, the Mojave and the
Sonoran. In a subsection of the Sonoran Desert comprising the Colorado and Yuma deserts lies
the Salton Trough (Salton Basin), a large structural depression extending to the northwest from
the head of the Gulf of California for a distance of 150 miles. At one time the gulf extended
farther to the northwest, above the point at which the Colorado now enters. As the river brought
its load of silt from the mountains and hills above to the gulf, however, it gradually erected a vast
natural dam, and the waters on the north were separated from those on the south. The Colorado
then cut a channel into the lower gulf. The upper waters, cut off from the sea, gradually
evaporated, forming a large area of desert land extending to about 235 feet below sea level.

In 1905 floodwaters caused, about three miles south of the California-Mexico border, a break in
diversion controls of the Imperial Canal. As a result, the waters of the Colorado rushed into the
Salton Sink, creating the Salton Sea, about 70 feet deep, 50 miles long, and 10 to 15 miles wide,
with a total water area of some 300 square miles. The break threatened to inundate the
agriculturally rich Imperial Valley and to permanently block a major railroad route. Because of
the imminent danger, the railroad repaired the break and in 1907 completed a line of protective
levees. Today the Salton Sea acts as a receiving basin for wastewater from irrigation projects in

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the Imperial and Coachella valleys, which in turn receive their water from the Colorado via the
All-American Canal.

1.2 Plant and animal life

The Colorado River drainage area encompasses a wide range of natural environments from
Alpine tundra and coniferous forests in its headwaters and upper elevations; through semiarid
plateaus and canyons supporting piñon pine, juniper, and sagebrush; to the truly arid landscapes
dotted with creosote bush and other desert plants in the lower basin and delta. The distribution of
animals varies with these habitats. Large mammals such as the elk, mountain sheep, pronghorn,
mule deer, mountain lion, bobcat, and coyote (and formerly the grizzly bear and gray wolf)
occupy the middle and upper elevations. Beavers, muskrat, and birds, including the bald eagle,
favor stream banks lined with willow, cottonwood, and tamarisk. Modern river development has
radically disrupted native species and habitats in the Colorado basin. Accidentally introduced in
the mid-19th century, the tamarisk shrub has spread rapidly along the river, consuming large
amounts of water because of its deep-running roots and the high transpiration rate of its leaves.
Large predators were systematically eliminated to support the ranching economy. River otters
once flourished in the lower reaches. Four native fishes (the humpback chub, bony tail chub,
Colorado squawfish, and razorback sucker), purposefully eradicated in the mid-20th century,
subsequently have been protected at great expense under the Endangered Species Act.

1.3 Economic development

In 1922 the Colorado River Compact was concluded by the seven states that constitute its
drainage area to facilitate federal investment in dams and reclamation. The river was divided at
Lees Ferry, Ariz., into the lower compact states Arizona, Nevada, and California and the upper
compact states Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico; the total annual flow of the
Colorado River was estimated to be 17 million acre-feet (the volume of area that would cover
one acre to a depth of one foot) at Lees Ferry, of which 15 million acre-feet were equally, yet
somewhat ambiguously, divided between the lower and the upper compact states. A treaty in
1944 allocated 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year to Mexico. It was later discovered that the
initial estimate of Colorado River supplies was based upon an abnormally wet period and that
substantially less water was available than the amounts specified in the agreements.

The first major development of the Colorado began in 1928, when Congress passed the Boulder
Canyon Project Act. The act authorized the construction of Boulder (now Hoover) Dam, a
multipurpose water-storage project that was a major engineering feat of its time; since its
completion in 1936, the dam and Lake Mead, which it created with its impounded waters, have
become major tourist attractions. The Colorado River system thus was the first drainage basin in
which the concept of the multipurpose dam was employed e.g. for hydroelectric-power
development, irrigation, recreation, flood control, and navigation.

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Many additional projects have since been undertaken. In the mid-1960s Glen Canyon Dam was
completed, impounding Lake Powell. The dam was a controversial project: opposition to its
construction helped shift policy from building large dams toward concepts of water management,
environmental protection, and policy analysis. Three other large multiple-storage projects
upstream have been completed on major tributaries. These are Flaming Gorge on the Green
River in Wyoming and Utah, Aspinall (Curecanti) on the Gunnison River in Colorado, and the
Navajo on the San Juan River in New Mexico and Colorado.

Shortly after the completion of Hoover Dam, planning and construction began downstream on
the Parker Dam. From Lake Havasu, the reservoir impounded by the dam, water is transported
some 250 miles across California to supply a portion of the water needs for Los Angeles and
most of the water supply for San Diego. Davis, Imperial, Laguna, and Morelos dams further
regulate flow and diversion in the lower basin.

The facilities described above do not serve all the demands for water from the Colorado. In 1945
the Colorado–Big Thompson Project, the first federal inter basin water-diversion project in the
United States, was completed. Water was diverted by tunnel beneath the Continental Divide in
Rocky Mountain National Park to help irrigate cropland in northern Colorado. Another large
project, the Frying pan-Arkansas, diverts water from Frying pan River, a Colorado tributary,
under the Swatch Range of the Colorado Rockies and into the Arkansas River to supply water for
the rapidly growing municipal areas of Pueblo and Colorado Springs. On the Blue River, another
tributary, the city of Denver has built Dillon Reservoir, the water of which is piped beneath the
Continental Divide to the large and growing Denver conurbation. Tunnel diversions also deliver
water from the Colorado to the Rio Grande, Great Basin, and North Platte drainages.

In 1963 a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court made explicit the amount of water apportioned
among the lower-basin states, as well as the amounts that had been implicitly “reserved” for
Indian tribes and federal public lands. This decision paved the way for funding of the Central
Arizona Project (completed in the 1980s), which transferred water to the cities of Phoenix and
Tucson. The project consists of a mountain tunnel through which water from the southern end of
Lake Havasu is pumped up and into an aqueduct that flows southward to the two cities.

Laced with innumerable dams, both large and small, that impound the total flow of the Colorado
and by increasingly severe competition for whatever small quantities of water might remain, the
basin remains fraught with litigation and controversy. Water projects must now undergo
thorough environmental-impact studies in accordance with federal environmental protection
legislation. Controversy between the United States and Mexico over the salinity of water
delivered to Mexico was addressed in an international agreement in 1972, which led to
desalinization experiments in the lower basin and irrigation management and projects for the
disposal of saline water in the upper basin.

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 CHAPTER TWO
2. WATER RIGHT
Tribes with reservations in the Colorado River Basin currently have quantified rights to divert
about 20 percent of the basin’s annual average water supply, while over a dozen others still have
outstanding claims. Yet, as the Colorado River Research Group has noted before, existing uses
of basin water already exceed reliable supplies, even though many tribes are not fully using the
water already allocated to them. Understandably, tribes want and deserve to enjoy the full
benefits of their rights. Other water users, however, are concerned about how tribal water rights
and uses integrate with already existing and planned future non‐Indian uses of basin water. These
competing interests have long been viewed as on a collision course. But, in fact, much progress
has been made over the fifty plus years since Arizona v. California (1963) to satisfy tribal rights
without displacing other existing uses. It has not been easy. Making additional progress will also
be difficult, but is an essential step forward in basin management.

This reality jumped from the pages of the 2012 Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand
Study (“Basin Study”), and is being explored further in an ongoing joint study by the Bureau of
Reclamation and the Ten Tribes Partnership, now tentatively scheduled for completion in
December 2016. Given the salience of tribal rights both to tribal and non‐Indian users this article
provides an introduction to what we currently know about tribal water rights in the basin. This
article provides context for emerging policy discussions focused on providing tribes with more
flexibility and opportunity in the use of their water, perhaps through voluntary transfer
mechanisms such as leasing and forbearance agreements.

2.1 The Special Nature of Tribal Water Rights

The U.S. Supreme Court first recognized tribal reserved water rights in the 1908 decision,
winters v. United States. The rights exist at the formation of the reservation because of the
necessity of water to establish a permanent homeland on these lands. These rights exist
independent of use and cannot be lost by nonuse. Tribal water rights were also acknowledged in
the 1922 Colorado River Compact, but no specific allocations were made until 1963. In Arizona
v. California, the Court reaffirmed tribal reserved rights and quantified rights for tribes with
reservations adjacent to the Colorado River in Arizona, California, and Nevada. Further, the
Court directed that water consumed under tribal rights be counted as part of the allocation made
to the state in which the reservation is located. Since this decision, other tribes in the basin and
throughout the American West have been working with widely varying degrees of success to get
their rights quantified and to find the means to be able to put these rights to use.

2.2 Quantified Rights

The Basin Study usefully divided its discussion of tribal rights into three parts: those along the
main stem in the Lower Basin, those in Central Arizona with rights to water from the Central
Arizona Project, and those in the Upper Basin. Collectively, the report identified established

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tribal diversion rights of 2.9 million acre‐feet per year (maf/yr)—of the total river flow of nearly
15 maf/yr.

2.3 The Colorado Mainstream Reservations

The first reservations in the basin to have their rights quantified were the Chemehuevi, the
Cocopah, the Ft. Yuma (Quechan), the Ft. Mohave, and the Colorado River Indian Reservation.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Arizona v. California established total diversion rights of about
952,000 acre‐feet per year or consumptive use rights based on a maximum number of irrigated
acres, whichever is less. About 75% of this water is for use on the Colorado River Indian
Reservation, primarily in Arizona. While the Court used the “practicably irrigable acreage”
standard to quantify these rights, it made clear that the tribes are free to use the water on
reservation for whatever uses they determine. These tribal rights are regarded as having been
fully perfected before the 1922 Compact and are first in line to be satisfied even when there is
insufficient water for uses under rights established after the Compact. As shown in the table
below, total diversions in 2015 to the five reservations exceeded 790,000 acre‐feet, about
161,000 acre‐ feet less than their declared rights.

2.4 Central Arizona Tribes

There are ten tribes with reservations in central and southern Arizona interior from the Colorado
River but within the Colorado River basin. Most of these tribes now hold quantified water rights,
established through Congressionally‐approved settlement agreements, and are seeking to put
these rights to use. In many cases, their ability to do so has only been made possible by the
existence of the Central Arizona Project and through contracts for CAP and other water
authorized under these settlement agreements. The following table summarizes the quantified
rights for each of these tribes. Much of this water is already consumed, often by non‐Indian users
under leasing agreements. Many of the tribes are increasing on‐reservation uses as well

2.5 Upper Basin Tribes

There are five tribes with reservations wholly or partially located in the Upper Colorado River
Basin. Four of the tribes Jicarilla Apache, Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Navajo are party
to water settlements that quantify at least some of their rights and establish legal rights to divert
and use the water from specified sources. One of the tribes the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah
and Ouray Reservation is party to a long‐pending settlement agreement.

2.6 Outstanding / Unresolved Tribal Claims

According to Reclamation’s Basin Study, there are 13 tribes with some or all of their claims still
unresolved. Three of these tribes (Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray
Reservation, and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe) are in the Upper Basin. Ten (Havasupai Tribe, Hopi
Tribe, Hualapai Tribe, Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, Navajo Nation, Pascua Yaqui Tribe, San
Carlos Apache Tribe, San Juan

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Southern Paiute Tribe, Tohono O’odham Nation, Tonto Apache Tribe, and Yavapai Apache
Nation) are in the Lower Basin. A few of these claims are close to resolution while many others
are not.

2.7 The Path Forward

The story of tribal water use in the Colorado River Basin is checkered, with some tribes having
quantified rights and functioning projects, others with clear rights but without the infrastructure
needed to benefit from those rights, and still others lacking both quantified rights and the
opportunity to put them to use. Moving forward with efforts to provide the Colorado River tribes
with the water needed to sustain communities and build economies is both a legal and moral
imperative. The challenge is to do so in a way that embraces creative, flexible, and efficient uses
of water, often in partnership with non‐Indian water users. Most of the modern progress has
come through negotiated settlements, some of which empower the tribes to lease water to off
reservation users. Long delayed, but now increasing, uses of tribal water are occurring at a time
when existing uses already exceed reliable supplies of water. Negotiated settlement agreements
have worked through some of these issues already, but much more remains to be done. In this
regard, we are encouraged by the increasingly collaborative tone of Colorado River policy‐
making, and by the ongoing tribal study emerging from the leadership of the Ten Tribes
Partnership and the Bureau of Reclamation. We hope that effort can be a springboard to more
meaningful engagement of all Colorado River tribes.

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 CHAPTER THREE
3. WATER POLICY

3.1 General
Colorado River water is shared by states, the federal government, American Indian tribes and
Mexico, resulting in many compromises, interstate compacts, a U.S. Supreme Court decree and
an international treaty. Collectively, this is known as the Law of the River. The need to equitably
distribute the river’s resources resulted in the historic 1922 Colorado River Compact. The
Compact divided the river into Upper and Lower Basins and apportioned the right to exclusive
beneficial consumptive use of 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado River system in
perpetuity to the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) and the Lower
Basin (Arizona, California, and Nevada). The Compact provides that the Upper Basin states will
not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry, Arizona, the dividing point between Upper and
Lower Basins, to be depleted below an aggregate of 75 million acre-feet for any period of 10
consecutive years.

The Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 authorized construction of a dam along the river,
construction of the All-American Canal to connect the river to the Imperial and Coachella
valleys and it also divided the water among the Lower Basin states. Congress in 1947 officially
designated the dam as Hoover Dam. In 1944, a U.S.-Mexico treaty resulted in an annual 1.5
million acre-feet allocation to Mexico. Four years later, the Upper Colorado River Basin
Compact created the Upper Colorado River Commission and apportioned the Upper Basin’s 7.5
million acre-feet among Colorado (51.75 percent), New Mexico (11.25 percent), Utah (23
percent), and Wyoming (14 percent).

The 1956 Colorado River Storage Project Act authorized construction of the Wayne N. Aspinall
Unit in Colorado, the Flaming Gorge Unit in Utah, the Navajo Unit in New Mexico and the Glen
Canyon Unit in Arizona. In 1968, the Colorado River Basin Project Act authorized construction
of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) and made the priority of the CAP water supply subordinate
to California’s apportionment in times of shortage. It also directed the secretary of the interior
and the basin states to prepare long-range operating criteria for the river’s reservoirs. The 2003
Quantification Settlement Agreement incorporated an Imperial Valley to San Diego County
water transfer. This was followed by a 2007 agreement among the seven Colorado Basin states
that established a new water release formula between Lake Powell and Lake Mead to help meet
increased demand for water.

In 2012, the U.S. and Mexico signed Minute 319. Minute 319 established new rules for sharing
Colorado River water through a five-year pact. Mexico, with limited storage capacity, would be
able to store some of its Colorado River water in Lake Mead. In exchange, should a shortage be
declared in the Lower Basin, less water would be sent to Mexico?

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A continuation of Minute 319, called Minute 323, was finalized in September 2017. One focus of
Minute 323 is to provide water to habitat restoration sites, and to maintain and expand them to as
many as 4,300 acres. Mexico will continue to store water in Lake Mead and both governments
will provide funding and other resources for research projects along the border and throughout
the region.

Minute 323 requires that the U.S. contribute $31.5 million to conservation projects in Mexico
focused on improving infrastructure. These projects are expected to save about 200,000 acre-feet
of water each year. The money will come not only from the U.S. government but from the
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Southern Nevada Water Authority, Imperial
Irrigation District and Central Arizona Water Conservation District. In return for their funding,
these water agencies will receive a portion of the saved water. In addition to funding for
conservation projects, the U.S. government and nongovernmental agencies will fund $18 million
for the habitat restoration and monitoring.

The idea of a Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) emerged in 2013 as an overlay to
the 2007 shortage-sharing agreement. After the intense drought of the early 2000s, stakeholders
had breathed a sigh of relief with a high flow on the river in 2011, only to be followed by the
lowest consecutive years on record. Suddenly, the possibility of Lake Mead dropping to dead
pool (when the water level is so low that it cannot drain by gravity through Hoover Dam’s
outlets) didn’t seem far-fetched.

After six years of negotiations, the DCP was signed into law in 2019. The Upper Basin portion
of the plan protects elevations at Lake Powell and authorizes storage of conserved water in the
Upper Basin. The Lower Basin DCP requires Arizona, California and Nevada to contribute
additional water to Lake Mead storage and creates additional flexibility to incentivize voluntary
conservation of water to be stored in Lake Mead. Yet persistent drought continues to strain the
river and the DCP have proved insufficient to protect water levels in Lake Powell and Lake
Mead. In 2022, the first-ever shortage declaration required additional reductions in use for
Arizona and Nevada, and federal officials announced even deeper cuts in use would be required
throughout the Colorado River Basin in 2023 and beyond.

Federal officials are proposing a plan to cut water allotments to states dependent on the Colorado
River system to combat dwindling water levels on one of the country's most important bodies of
water.

The U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Reclamation released a draft environmental impact
statement on Tuesday that details revisions in the operations of Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams,
which could potentially evenly cut water allotment for water delivered to California, Arizona and
Nevada by as much as one-quarter in order to prevent the Colorado River depleting reservoirs
from falling to critically low levels.

It proposed three possible scenarios.

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The first of three possible scenarios involves no federal intervention and would rely on the seven
states that take water from the Colorado River to come to a deal to prevent dead pool levels that
would threaten power production, something they have so far failed to do.

The second option concerns the amount of water released from Glen Canyon Dam, which would
be reduced based on water rights. This would mean fewer cuts for California, which has the most
senior water rights, and more severe cuts for Arizona and Nevada.

The third scenario would entail water cuts spread evenly by the same percentage across all states,
which could prompt legal challenges from states like California with more senior water rights but
could avoid worse consequences for states like Arizona and Nevada and tribal communities that
could struggle under larger cuts.

The alternatives presented in the draft analyze measures that may be taken to protect system
operations in the face of "unprecedented hydrologic conditions" while providing equitable water
allocations to Lower Basin communities that rely on the Colorado River System, according to a
statement by the Bureau of Reclamation. The Colorado River Basin supplies drinking water to
40 million people in the U.S., as well as two states in Mexico, fuels hydropower resources in
eight states and remains a crucial resource for 30 Tribal Nations as well as agriculture
communities across the West, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. "Failure is not an
option," Interior Department Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said in a statement.
"Recognizing the severity of the worsening drought, the Biden-Harris administration is bringing
every tool and every resource to bear through the President’s Investing in America agenda to
protect the stability and sustainability of the Colorado River System now and into the future."

The proposal comes after a decade’s long mega drought has reduced water levels in the Colorado
River and Lake Mead and Lake Powell -- the two largest reservoirs in the world -- to record-low
levels. Water levels in June 2022 at Lake Mead were dangerously low to hitting "dead pool"
status, which is below the surface elevation needed to generate power.

The first-ever water shortage was declared for Lake Mead in August 2021, which prompted a
reduction in water releases to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico in 2022. Atmospheric river events
have inundated the West with an excess of precipitation -- much of which did not cross over the
Sierra Nevada mountain range. However, once the snowpack starts to melt, water levels along
the Colorado River system will be slightly replenished. The West cannot rely on one good year
of moisture to combat the effects of a drought plaguing the region for nearly two decades, federal
officials said. “Drought conditions in the Colorado River Basin have been two decades in the
making,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said in a statement.
“To meet this moment, we must continue to work together, through a commitment to protecting
the river, leading with science and a shared understanding that unprecedented conditions require
new solutions.”

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The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million Americans, fuels hydropower
resources in eight states, supports agriculture and agricultural communities across the West, and
is a crucial resource for 30 Tribal Nations,” the White House said in a press release on Thursday.
“Despite recent heavy rain and snow, the historic 23-year drought has led to record low water
levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead.”

3.2 The most consumption form of the river

The Colorado River has been tapped for use by humans for almost 1,500 years.

Today, more water is exported from the Colorado River Basin than any other river basin in the
United States. In Colorado, water is diverted over the Continental Divide to supply Denver and
other Front Range cities. Water is diverted in Utah to the Salt Lake Valley, in New Mexico to the
Rio Grande Basin to serve Albuquerque, in Wyoming to serve Cheyenne and in California to the
southern coastal plain of Los Angeles and San Diego. Much of the river’s water is diverted for
irrigated agriculture, including the Palo Verde, Imperial and Coachella valleys in California, in
central Arizona and the Yuma region, and in Mexico. (For a more in-depth look at the various
Colorado River stakeholders, see the Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River.)

As part of its diverse environments, the Colorado River boasts more than 30 fish species found
nowhere else in the world. However, 50 percent of all native fish in the Colorado Basin have
either gone extinct or are considered vulnerable. The river itself was originally muddy, brown
and seasonally warms (the source of its name Colorado) but is now clear and cold due to dams
and reservoirs. The Colorado River was the last major area of the 48 contiguous states to be
explored. In 1869, an expedition led by John Wesley Powell first explored and mapped the
Colorado and Green rivers.

In 1905, the Colorado River broke through a series of dikes built to serve agriculture in the
Imperial Valley, flooding an ancient seabed as it had done so historically and forming today’s
Salton Sea.

Recreation is also a significant part of the Colorado River system. The Colorado River Basin is
used by millions of people annually for activities ranging from rafting to snow sports and
generates billions of dollars in revenue.

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