The Colorado River Compact

Deciding how to share water is pretty important stuff when there isn't much of it around. Today we dive into the Colorado River Compact. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:41Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:51Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. And we're just a few river rats hanging out, thinking about rivers and such.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  That's right. If you live in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, or California, this one's for you.

• 2:10Josh Clark?

  Or if you're interested in water supply, this one's for you as well. If you like really difficult interstate treaties, I think you'll like this one as well.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  There's one person out there that's like, oh, my God, guys. Finally.

• 2:29Josh Clark?

  So, yes, we're talking about the Colorado River. We're talking about the compact of water sharing among those states, the basin states, they call them, which is a pretty cool name, of sharing the water that comes out of the Colorado River, which is about of almost a 1,500 mile long river that winds through the southwestern US all the way into Mexico. And it helps feed all of those states, and most of which should not have the populations that they have and wouldn't otherwise were it not for their ability to tap into the water from the Colorado.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  That's right. And by the way, I remembered halfway through your opening salvo that this was a listener suggestion. So I looked it up real quick, and this is from George Baumchin.

• 3:21Josh Clark?

  Oh, nice. Thanks a lot, George. This is a good idea.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree. So I bet George lives in one of those states. But like you said, the Colorado River, very important. It provides, I think Julia helped us with this, and it supports roughly 10% of Americans and $1.4 trillion economically. So it is a very, very important river system that starts there in the Rocky Mountains and then flows generally southwest. And there are all sorts of tributaries and things that feed into it. As we'll see, that has become a bone of contention here and there, but a lot of it is there are bones of contention because this river compact that they forged in 1922 to say, hey, how are we going to divide this water up?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Everybody wants to use this stuff. It's, it's, it's up now this year, right? In 2026?

• 4:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  And they're trying to figure out, you know, what to do about the next 20 years. And there's, especially between California and Arizona, but a lot of the states have bones of contention with one another on how this water is used.

• 4:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because there's almost a self-defeating pickle that they've been in just from sharing this. By having access to that water, they've been able to boom like cities like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, the list just goes on. They are able to have these huge populations in golf courses, in industry, in agriculture, in the Imperial Valley in California because of the Colorado River. So that's attracted more and more people, which means you need more and more water. So those bones of contention have grown over the years. And now that it's 100 plus years old, yeah, there's an issue. There's a problem with this that we're going

• 5:13Josh Clark?

  to see because this river is like, I can't take anymore.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, yeah, and we're going to get into that stuff, too, because there's not as much water as they thought there would be. And it seems like it's getting, it's not coming back to the boom days for reasons that we're going to talk about. But one thing we should talk about is why water is so important out there. And obviously, one of the reasons is because there's not much of it. Highs out in the desert can reach over 125 degrees with great regularity, annual rainfall. And this is near the Hoover Dam. And, you know, we did a great episode, I think, on the Hoover Dam. Between Nevada and Arizona, annual rainfall there is about four inches. So the Colorado River is the thing. It's the most key thing that we have at our

• 6:04Speaker 02

  disposal to keep things alive.

• 6:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's mother lifeblood life giver. That's what they call it there.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:12Josh Clark?

  So let's talk about the Hoover Dam. Not just the Hoover Dam. That one gets all of the credit. There's also the Imperial Dam, too.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:20Josh Clark?

  That diverts water to the All American Canal, which is a very smart, I think, name because it's one of those things where if you dispute the water going there, they could be like, well, you don't like the All American Canal? Do you hate America?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 6:35Josh Clark?

  So there's the Boulder Dam, now the Hoover Dam, and the Imperial Dam, and both of those help bank water for what we know as the lower basin states, and the upper basin states are the ones responsible for essentially filling those water banks.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  That's right. So back when this, you know, in 1922, when this thing was first enacted and ratified, well, I guess it was ratified a little more slowly over time, as we'll see. But California and Arizona were developing much more so than places like, you know, Colorado and Wyoming. So as far as the upper and the lower basin, the lower basin areas were really exploding at the time. If you were closer to those headwaters, you didn't have those dams. There weren't opportunities to sort of divert that water to save up for the future, maybe. So all of that water was going downstream where they were collecting it and using it, which is sort of where the animosity began, I think.

• 7:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and the upstream states and groups that were using that water were like, well, wait a minute, we want water too. Like, what's, what's gonna happen? We need something, we need somebody to come in and figure out like how we can get our water too. And there was a Supreme Court decision that really scared the upper states, the upstream states, which was the doctrine of prior appropriation, which was applied to water rights. And the prior appropriation basically means if you were the first one to start using something, from that point on, you have seniority. So if you ever come up against a conflict between you and somebody else, if you're the senior one, you automatically get preference. And

• 8:20Josh Clark?

  California and Arizona had been using this water through water projects before, say, like Colorado or Wyoming or Utah. And that meant that they were going to get the short end of the stick, no matter what, just because California and Arizona had these booming populations.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And, you know, to be clear, that Supreme Court decision was basically that that first in time, first in right, applied across the state lines. So

• 8:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, good point.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  You're sharing this river, but they were using it. So like, sorry, that you can't now take that away from them, essentially.

• 8:54Josh Clark?

  No.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  But like you said, Colorado and Wyoming and other states, New Mexico were like, well, we want to grow one day and do these big projects too. We're just not there yet. It's 1922. Give us a break. So they got together to negotiate this thing, the Colorado River Compact in Santa Fe, New Mexico in November of 1922.

• 9:12Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Nuts and bolts wise, it was kind of cool. It's the first time more than three US states divided water among themselves. And we're going to talk a little bit more about the law of the river because it's got a lot of like tendrils to it, but that established what would evolve over time as what's called the law of the river.

• 9:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. So here comes Herbert Hoover into our story. If you were waiting for Hoover to show up, by God, here he is.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  President?

• 9:40Josh Clark?

  No, he was the Secretary of Commerce under President Warren G. Harding. But he did such a good job. He eventually became president and they renamed the Boulder Dam, the Hoover Dam, thanks to Herbert.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:51Josh Clark?

  Right? Or because of Herbert. So he steps in and says, hey, guys, we need to figure out what's going on here. We need to figure out how to basically let these water thirsty states do their projects because these are great projects. We can all agree. But at the same time, we need to make sure that these upstream groups, when they want to do their own projects, if they ever do, they'll have the water that they need. But we want development throughout the system. That's the key, right? And most people don't know what Herbert Hoover sounds like, but that was an exact impersonation of what he sounded like and the way he talked.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. But here's the deal. He was like, you know, let's not divide it up by states. Let's not apportion it state by state because that just makes too much sense. He said, let's split it, split up the Colorado River Basin into two equal parts and allot equal amounts to each half. So you've got the upper basin and your lower basin allotments, and we'll talk about numbers here in a second.

• 10:52Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  But within those, then you distribute by state. Like you've got the upper portion, splitting it between, I guess, everything but California and Arizona, right? Aren't they the only two in the lower basin?

• 11:06Josh Clark?

  No, Nevada, I think is as well.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Oh, Nevada. That's right. Okay.

• 11:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  So. The one proposal that they initially came up with, though, kind of one of the key early things was they promised the Lower Basin, all right, you're going to get some extra water here because you've already got these projects, you're kind of grandfathered in because you've got these projects and developments underway. So you're going to get some extra water. And nobody really liked it. The Lower Basin didn't even like this idea to begin with.

• 11:35Josh Clark?

  No, Julia helped us with this, and she turned up a quote from one of the men who was involved in this compact in 1922. He was the one from the representative from New Mexico. He said, "I will register my vote as a yes, but I do it only because to my mind, it is the least objectionable of the attempts that have been made to frame the idea expressed in it, and not because I approve it."

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, he held his nose and voted yes.

• 12:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and he apparently was not the only one who did that. So they met 27 times. They finally signed the Colorado River Compact. And another great Hoover quote is that, "This was a problem of more extreme complexity than will ever be appreciated by the outside world." And just after researching this for a little bit, I kind of understand where he's coming from. The amount of stuff that you would have to take into consideration to do this even remotely fairly, with your eye on development, is just, I can't imagine keeping all that stuff together and coming up with it, let alone coming up with one that you could get seven different states to finally sign on.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  There's no way. I mean, they all signed on, but no, like you said, no one really thought it was super fair.

• 12:50Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  So the compact, like I said, divided things up into the Upper and the Lower Basin, and that divide actually has a place, like a physical place, which is Lee Ferry, L-E-E-F-E-R-R-Y.

• 13:03Josh Clark?

  Not Lee Perry.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Not Lee Scratch Perry. That is at the border where the river passes from the upper watershed to the lower watershed. And that is where this really unique place, quite frankly, where all the tributaries upstream come together in this one beautiful single stream before splitting back up again to other branches on the other side. So they looked at that and said, hey, Lee Ferry looks like probably a pretty good spot to divide this into Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah. And then, like Josh would one day say, Arizona, California, and don't forget Nevada, Chuck.

• 13:40Josh Clark?

  For sure. So yeah, it's also just for you Grand Canyon fans. It's not the same Lee's Ferry. This is Lee Ferry and it's nowhere near it.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  I think if you're a Grand Canyon fan, you gotta know that by now.

• 13:56Josh Clark?

  You'd hope so, but what if you're new to being a fan of the Grand Canyon? You know, you don't wanna.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 14:00Josh Clark?

  I don't wanna set them up to make fools of themselves around the campfire.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  So they, this is one of the problems and we're gonna talk about this later too, but they, they did a little bit of research on water flow because they had to figure out like, all right, how much water is that even? And what they measured was 16.4 million acre feet. Splitting that up into almost 50% each, 7.5 million acre feet per basin in perpetuity, with the rest left over for Mexico. And we're gonna talk about that, but just so you know, a water, a one acre foot of water is enough water to submerge an acre of land to the depth of one foot.

• 14:41Josh Clark?

  I came up with that one.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  I knew I wasn't gonna have to make the joke.

• 14:46Josh Clark?

  I knew that you knew I was gonna make that joke.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  You can't read that without thinking what Josh, how Josh waters his lawn.

• 14:53Josh Clark?

  That's how I would farm too. I would just submerge the acres of land to the depth of a foot and be like, wow, I'm done with irrigating for the year.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  That's right. Here's your rice and cranberries. So an acre of land at the depth of one foot or 325,851 gallons of water. So they measured 16.4 million acre feet of that and split it in half with the rest going to Mexico.

• 15:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Mexico was like, hey, what about us? And they're like, you get 1.5 million acre feet. Just, just from us, for friends, as friends. Mexico, we love you guys. And they're like, oh, we love you back. So I think they split Mexico's allotment between the upper and the lower basin equally.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:33Josh Clark?

  Right? There is also another group of stakeholders that kept getting overlooked and are still overlooked to some degree, and that are the Native American tribes whose reservations draw water from the Colorado River. And the only appearance they made in the compact was nothing in this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States of America to Indian tribes.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  What does that even mean?

• 15:57Josh Clark?

  It means that the Indian tribes are going to have to fend for themselves in court if they want any of this water. And apparently, every time they did, the states, the seven basin states, at least some of them would lobby behind the scenes, use their clout to try to get the Native Americans from, to get them denied their access to the water.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course they did.

• 16:20Josh Clark?

  I think there are 30 tribes that have a claim on it, and right now, I think 23 are legally drawing water from the Colorado to fulfill their needs, but that means that seven have not had a chance to in over 100 years.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  That's right. So as far as how this actually works, over a 10-year period, the Upper Basin has to deliver at least 75 million acre feet of water to the Lower Basin, and they measure it there at Lee Ferry. That's like, that's why the dividing point is there, they're actually measure this water. And the Upper Basin can store whatever they have left over after they've delivered that to the Lower Basin and their portion to Mexico.

• 17:03Josh Clark?

  And then one other thing, you kind of already mentioned it. Those projects that were already underway or really close to being developed.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:14Josh Clark?

  They were allotted extra water until I think Lake Mead reached 5 million acre feet, the reservoir. So yeah, after that, it was like, nope, you get your water from the same allotment as everybody else.

• 17:29Speaker 02

  That's right. And once those projects are done, like for all new projects, if you're in the Lower Basin, you got to start using your reserve, or your allotment, rather.

• 17:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I think that fan of complex interstate treaties is really happy right now.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  I imagine so.

• 17:44Josh Clark?

  You want to take a break, then?

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 17:47Josh Clark?

  Okay, we're taking a break.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

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• 21:18Josh Clark?

  So you can imagine that there was a lot of problems once they came up with this proposed plan to get everybody on board. And in fact, Arizona didn't sign on until 1944, like a couple decades later.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:33Josh Clark?

  And the other six were like, okay, we need to just rewrite this a little bit so this can proceed forward without Arizona. And I guess Arizona and California have always had this standoff, this angry kind of tiff, a row, something like that, over water rights. And California typically wins that one.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. What I couldn't find out is what did they do in the meantime?

• 21:59Josh Clark?

  I guess they just took as much water as they wanted.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. It's not like they said like-

• 22:04Josh Clark?

  That's my guess.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, all right. That's the one thing I couldn't quite find.

• 22:08Josh Clark?

  Because I mean, they wouldn't go like 20 years without, they'd be like, well, we're just gonna go without water. I would think not. I would guess they'd just take whatever they wanted. What I don't understand then is if they did that, why did they finally sign on if they had unlimited water? You know?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, that listener who is really into the river projects, they're gonna write in, I'm sure.

• 22:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we need to hear from them.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  All right, so now I promised to talk the law of the river. That is the more complex set of laws and compacts and court decisions and contracts and all these guidelines and stuff that have been issued over the years. It's all together called the law of the river, but the Colorado River Compact is sort of the spine of this.

• 22:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  But we do have to mention these because a lot of them have popped up over the years. There was the Boulder Canyon Project Act, which we previously mentioned in 1928. That officially ratified the river compact, but that's where the Hoover Dam came from, Boulder Dam at the time, and that All-American Canal. And that's when they officially apportioned everything out. Within that 7.5 million for each, Arizona got, for the lower basin that is, Arizona got 2.8 million, California got 4.4, Nevada got 0.3 million. Yeah, and the upper basin went with a percentage, right?

• 23:27Josh Clark?

  Yes, I think Colorado got the most at 51% and Utah 23, New Mexico 11, and Wyoming 14, right?

• 23:35Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 23:35Josh Clark?

  So that was, that's how they finally got it apportioned. That upper basin, that wasn't until 1948 when they finally divided it all up.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:45Josh Clark?

  And one reason that that could wait is because even still today, those upper basin states use way less than their allotment of water. I think California uses more water than all of the Upper Basin states combined.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm sure.

• 24:00Josh Clark?

  Even though the allotment is is different.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:03Josh Clark?

  And I think that the Upper Basin states have basically had to bow to the idea of progress and just let the lower basin states use more than their allotment of water.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. There was another, and like you said, that was 1948 for the Upper Compact. 1963 comes along, you have Arizona v. California, where the decision was handed out. They were they were basically like, what do we do with the surplus water in the lower basin? And this decision said California, Arizona split it at 50 50. But also, these five Native American reservations and some wildlife refuges and recreational areas, like they get some water, too.

• 24:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's also, you kind of mentioned how tributaries can become a its own bone of contention or point of contention.

• 24:54Josh Clark?

  The, I guess California was using tributary water before it got to the Colorado River. Because like you said, all those tributaries branch together and come together at Lee Ferry and then branch out again. I guess California was just tapping into one. Like, don't do, don't, don't mind us.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:12Josh Clark?

  We're just taking Upper Basin water from one of the tributaries. And the court was like, that's fine. That doesn't count as Colorado River apportionment.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was 1964, right? With that decree?

• 25:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and Arizona went, California.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  There was the Colorado River Basin Project Act of 1968. That basically just greenlit a bunch of projects on both sides, you know, both basins, upper and lower. But the key part of this one, I think, was it said, all right, if there are any overcap reserves during water shortages, California gets the rights to those.

• 25:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because they had the earliest projects. So they had that first in, first right thing. Also, that act created the Central Arizona Project, which brought water to Phoenix and Tucson. And the population of Arizona doubled since 1993, when the Central Arizona Project was finally completed. Doubled because of the water that was diverted to Arizona from the the Colorado River.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's gorgeous out there. I lived out there. People always loved Arizona, but they were thirsty. So this really helped out.

• 26:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. It gets kind of dry out there.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I lived in Yuma and you know, that's where, well, we'll see, Yuma plays a part.

• 26:29Josh Clark?

  Huge part.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Surprise pop up appearance by Yuma coming up, everybody.

• 26:32Josh Clark?

  Yep. Uh, let's see, there's also a review mandated reviews every five years. The Department of the Interior was directed to take over managing this thing. And then in 1973, thanks to the Nixon administration of all people, the Endangered Species Act basically said, "You need to prioritize environmental protection over development projects when it, when they conflict." Which, wow, like, is that still in force?

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably not. Uh, one thing they decided to do in 1974 was give Mexico better water. Uh, so the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act said, "All right, let's get some salinity control going over the water that we're sending down to Mexico." So, uh, you know, they, they need good water down there.

• 27:21Josh Clark?

  And then along came a drought, a drought that lasted from the year 2000, in the year 2000, to 2023. And by 2007, the basin states were like, "Hey, hey, uh, the river's not flowing quite as much as it used to." So they got together and they basically like, "We need to coordinate these discharges from Lake Mead and Lake Powell down to the, the lower basin states because the, these allotments were not, the, the river's not keeping up with the allotments anymore. We need to rethink this." And they started to really take, um, notice of this, this change that the river was undergoing, starting in 2007.

• 28:05Josh Clark?

  And since then, it's just gotten worse and worse and become more and more critical.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Uh, that led to 2019 with the drought contingency plan, um, which is basically just like, "Hey, we all need to work together with conservation here." Uh, because this drought is, is murdering us.

• 28:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that meeting was like when they cut to the control tower in airplane and everybody's just losing their minds.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:30Josh Clark?

  That's what that meeting looked like.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 28:33Josh Clark?

  Chuck, I feel like we've reached another great place for a break. What say you about taking a break?

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 28:55Josh Clark?

  You know, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next unless something starts to feel off, because what we eat and how our bodies respond to it is complicated.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  That's right. From the very first bite, food kicks off a chain reaction, signals moving between the gut, the brain, and the immune system. The constant back and forth, we can't see and often don't fully understand. So we want to introduce to you Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from iHeart Ruby Studio. It's hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Eating Interrupted explores everything from food allergies and intolerance and why they seem to be on the rise, to how digestion changes as we age, and what it's really like to live with a chronic GI condition.

• 29:38Josh Clark?

  Through personal stories and expert insight, listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect, and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 30:00Josh Clark?

  World Mental Health Day takes place in October, and it's really meant to be more than just awareness. It's about actually taking the next step and getting support if you need it.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  But a lot of people still talk themselves out of therapy. They think it's too expensive, they're not sure if it'll actually work, they don't know how to find the right therapist, or they just get overwhelmed trying to navigate the whole system.

• 30:19Josh Clark?

  And that's exactly what Rula is built to fix. Rula makes therapy feel a lot more approachable, a lot more human. You can find a therapist who actually fits your needs, not just whoever's available. And with insurance, sessions average around $15 copay.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can sign up in just a few minutes, you can get matched with the right provider, and even book something as soon as the next day.

• 30:38Josh Clark?

  And it's not just about starting. Rula helps you stay consistent and actually make progress, because taking care of your mental health isn't a one-time thing. So if you've been thinking about therapy, don't talk yourself out of it. This is a really easy way to take that first step.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  So turn off the talk track that's keeping you from progress and head to rula.com, that is R-U-L-A dot com, to find a therapist the easy way.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  All right, so we're back. We mentioned that long drought and conservation efforts that were happening and are happening but aren't nearly enough. And we need to talk about some of the reasons why it's not enough and what's going on out there. And one of the problems is that, you know, I mentioned early on when they calculated the flow of the river at 16.4 million acre-feet per year. This was one hydrology study that was done in Yuma, Arizona, of all places.

• 31:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's the pop-up.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  It's very strange. They went down to Yuma. It was based on a single set of measurements. If you don't know where Yuma is, it's hundreds of miles downstream from Lee Ferry.

• 31:58Josh Clark?

  Some people are like, "Oh, oh, okay."

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it didn't make a lot of sense to do right there and much less just do one. So they had another available study, even at the time, there was a survey from a hydrologist named Eugene "Clyde" LaRue, who hiked hundreds of miles all up and down the Colorado River, taking measurements all over the place.

• 32:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  And that had about a million and a half gallons less per year.

• 32:29Josh Clark?

  Acre-feet even.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  And they said, "Let's go with that other one because 16.4 million is a higher number and we think that's just the one we should go with." And that was a big mistake.

• 32:41Josh Clark?

  That's ultimately what they did. I saw that that LaRue study was widely available. People knew about it and they were like, "Nah." That means that the agreement overstretched the water supply from the Colorado River from the very first day. It was never able to supply all of the water that was being divided among the states.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 33:04Josh Clark?

  That was a huge, huge problem from the outset, right? And in fact, scientists have estimated that the basin states have been taking about a million acre-feet per year over what the river can supply for decades.

• 33:22Josh Clark?

  And right now, they think that the river's producing about 13 million acre feet per year. So even if they had gone with LaRue's estimate, 15 million acre feet, it would be producing less now. And not all of it is because more water is being drawn from it than it can provide. And a lot of that instead has to do with the fact that 70% of the Colorado River's water flow comes from snow melt from the Rockies. And I don't know what to tell you if you don't believe in climate change, but the Rockies ain't been getting nearly as much snow every year in general as it used to.

• 34:00Josh Clark?

  And as a result, the Colorado River has shrunk to 80% of its flow compared to, I think, the 1990s.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that's a big problem. Another problem is how this water is being used and how it's always been used. If you're talking residential use, commercial use, industrial use, that's only about 20 to 25% of the Colorado River.

• 34:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, get this.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  The rest of that is agriculture and specifically agriculture to mainly grow alfalfa and hay to feed cattle. And if you're wondering, why in the world did anyone ever decide to raise cattle out in the middle of the desert? It's because of the 1877 Desert Land Act. I think you can walk us through that, but Julia found a quote, though, from a guy from a Vox Media article named Kenny Terella. He said, "If policymakers and agricultural researchers were to start our food system from scratch, they probably wouldn't put a bunch of cows in the middle of a desert."

• 35:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and there's a lot of reason for that. They suck up a lot of water because that half of that water going to just grow hay, that doesn't include all the water the cattle drink themselves. Their hooves compact the arid soil more so that soil is less able to hold moisture when it does get water. And yeah, the reason that it happened is that Desert Land Act, like you said, that was essentially created to send people out to improve the desert, go figure out good stuff to develop the desert. And the idea- Idea in and of itself was good. You could just go up and be like, I want some land, please. And they would give you some land and you would go farm it. There were two keys. One, you didn't have to live there.

• 35:43Josh Clark?

  And two, corporations got a bunch of like people to go in and act as their agents, dummies essentially, and get that land that they then turned around and sold to the corporation for next to nothing. The corporations put huge amounts of land together and started raising cattle on it. So cattle corporations have had a stranglehold on this area for a very long time. And they've been able to dictate a lot of the water policy, which is why agriculture is such a huge part of water consumption in this area.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And you know, like you mentioned earlier, that the snow melt not happening. There's been such a drop that basically we're in danger of what's called the Deadpool State, which is water flowing into a dam, but not enough water coming in to flow back out. So they're basically saying that, what is this, Lake Powell?

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Later this year, I guess this is 2026, the water level might drop so low that it's not even going to spend those turbines anymore. And that means you're not generating hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam anymore. And that's a big, big problem.

• 36:50Josh Clark?

  And then the next problem beneath that is that the water level isn't even high enough to make it through the pen stocks, which basically are like, we're not even messing with the turbines anymore. We're just trying to get water out of the reservoir down to the lower basin states. If the water levels go below those pen stocks, that means the water's not going to make it downstream, which means that all of those areas have been choked off from their source of water, which is really, really bad, like catastrophic level bad. The electricity is bad enough, but the water is just, that would do it for those areas.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So they're trying to figure this out, obviously, because this is a big. Uh, problem is the river compact is, is coming due for re-upping or renegotiating or whatever. Uh, in 2024, uh, the basin states got together and they were like, all right, here's our proposals for 2026, uh, to deal with what we're dealing with now and also to try and, you know, safeguard against the future and do it maybe in a more fair way. And the lower basin approach, California, Nevada and Arizona, they said, all right, let's have conservation measures that are triggered based on average capacities of, of everything combined, like not just our portion and we all share these reductions

• 38:11Speaker 02

  together as well. And we're committing to being, you know, a part of that.

• 38:15Josh Clark?

  Yes. And the upper basin said, nah, we're not going to go along with that. Is in fact, we're not going to commit to any cuts whatsoever because frankly, you guys have been using all the water up to this time and we are sick of it. We're not going to do anything.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  It's what it seems like, right?

• 38:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Um, and so, yeah, they're like California, Arizona, they're like Nevada, you're okay. Sorry, you're wrapped up in this, but California and Arizona have been using way more water than was their share. And so now we have this conflict between the lower basin approach and the upper basin approach and the stalemate, it keeps getting kicked down the road and they just blew past their most recent deadline of February 13th, 2026.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:59Josh Clark?

  Which was a Friday the 13th, which is also my anniversary too.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 39:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but this was a.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  Happy late anniversary.

• 39:06Josh Clark?

  Thank you very much. Uh, but as far as the basin states were concerned, it was not a happy Friday the 13th.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  No, it wasn't. How long you been married, by the way?

• 39:15Josh Clark?

  Uh, let's see, 14 years now.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  That's Josh math though. What would Yumi say?

• 39:21Josh Clark?

  She would say, that's close. It's 14.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  14? That's nice. Nice work.

• 39:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, thank you. I didn't have to come up with a percentage or anything.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Right, right. Or Big Macs.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  So in January of this year, I mean, that was February, they blew past the deadline. But the feds basically said in January of this year, like, hey, like, this is getting tiresome. And basically, sort of like the parents walking in the room and saying, hey, if you guys don't get a framework together yourselves and work together, we're going to do it for you. And we know nobody wants that. They released a 1,600 page report with options, basically saying, hey, this is, we're going to do this for you if you don't work it out.

• 40:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And remember that prior appropriation doctrine?

• 40:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:11Josh Clark?

  That's essentially what will be enforced. That's like the basic option that the federal government would probably choose if the states don't come up with their own plan.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:23Josh Clark?

  And that means Arizona is toast and California is going to be just fine. Because California has the oldest projects and I think Arizona has some of the youngest projects. That's a, that, yeah, I don't know what's going to happen with that. Again, they just blew past their deadline. I saw that California is trying to figure out how to do desalination projects.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:49Josh Clark?

  Which would help a lot of stuff, but that's, I mean, they're, they're going to have to bill, I think, $40 billion worth of infrastructure to do it, which I don't think they have that in their pockets right now.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Didn't we do a desalination episode like 15, 16 years ago?

• 41:06Josh Clark?

  I don't know if it was that long ago, but we definitely did one. It was about desalination, saving the world, basically, because of the impending water crises.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  Feels like a long time ago.

• 41:16Josh Clark?

  It does. That COVID, it really messed time up, didn't it?

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Also, just lots of time passing.

• 41:23Josh Clark?

  That too.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  That really messed up time.

• 41:26Josh Clark?

  You got anything else, my man?

• 41:28Speaker 02

  I got nothing else. System's a little shorter, but I hope we cleared it up some for the basin states. Get your act together, everybody. You got to work together. The feds are going to step in and slap your wrists.

• 41:36Josh Clark?

  There you go. Well, since Chuck talked about feds slapping wrists, of course, it's time for listener mail.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, this one goes back. I don't know if we read something like this or not, but I know during the Julia Child episode, we couldn't think of the name of the pants, the short pants.

• 41:55Josh Clark?

  Coolots?

• 41:56Speaker 02

  A lot of people said cigarette pants. You said coolots.

• 41:58Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  The word I think I might have been looking for, Vicky points out, was probably capris.

• 42:04Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Or clam digger pants.

• 42:07Josh Clark?

  Sure, I've heard that, too.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  That's what Vicky says. And funny story, guys, I heard about capri pants on TV. When Mary Tyler Moore was selected as Rob's wife in The Dick Van Dyke Show, she specifically didn't want to be wearing pearls in a petticoat and a dress like Mrs. Cleaver in Donna Reed. So producers finally gave in and said, all right, you can wear those capri pants, which she really had to fight for. But the pants were considered risque at the time, and they said that she could never be filmed from the backside wearing those pants.

• 42:35Josh Clark?

  Huh. I've long thought, wow, you never see Mary Tyler Moore's bottom in The Dick Van Dyke Show. Now I know why.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  And that's from Vicky Reed.

• 42:46Josh Clark?

  She, I've always thought she dressed so adorably in that.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:50Josh Clark?

  She was adorable in that show. What a great show, too.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  Mary Tyler Moore is a treasure.

• 42:55Josh Clark?

  She is. Who was that, Vicky?

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Vicky Reed.

• 42:59Josh Clark?

  Thanks a lot, Vicky Reed. We appreciate you. Capri pants, clam diggers, whatever you call them, they're pants, and they're shorter than normal. If you want to be like Vicky and get in touch with us and help us out, we love being helped out. You can send it via email to [email protected].

• 43:22Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, MyHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 43:37Josh Clark?

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• 44:21Josh Clark?

  these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the Voices of Vivgard. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of Vivgard on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. I am here to talk to you about Dude Wipes, who offer fragrance-free wipes that are made with 99% water and plant-based ingredients. So they're gentle enough for sensitive skin, but they're tough enough for even the worst messes. Water cleans better, and Dude Wipes flushable wipes deliver textbook freshness and ultimate clean. And just like human body molecules, Dude Wipes are made with 99% water. Plus, they're plastic-free.

• 45:06Josh Clark?

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