When I first became interested in the Colorado River delta a few years back, I wrote a piece for the newspaper explaining why I’m partly to blame for its fate:

I know the collapse of the Colorado River delta ecosystem is not entirely my fault.

But I couldn’t help but feel a little personally responsible as I had lunch in Isabella’s in Downtown Albuquerque last month with Karl Flessa. I kept glancing uncomfortably at my cup of water.

Now that the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority is delivering San Juan-Chama water into our community’s water system, I was in essence drinking water that once would have made the thousand-mile journey from the mountains of southern Colorado to the Colorado River delta.