SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO – Morelos Dam, the last dam on the Colorado, normally diverts the river’s entire flow west, into the Canal Reforma, for farms in the Mexicali valley. In Spanish, it’s called “Presa Morelos,” where “presa” means “dam.” But Francisco Rosas, a Mexicali farmer, told me that it has a second meaning – …
SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO – Apologies. This is kinda convoluted, but it’s what happened. One of my journalistic techniques is to try to put myself in a place where something interesting is likely to happen, something real, and then wait. So at lunchtime today, I parked in the shade of the San Luis Bridge on …
Continue reading ‘A pickup, stuck in the Colorado River sand’ »
Hydrologically speaking, the end of a river is a complicated thing. A couple of miles down the levee road on the U.S. side of the border with Baja in Yuma County, Ariz., I came across this farmer yesterday pumping groundwater to irrigate some sort of palm orchard (with some lovely bonus citrus). This is a …
When last we met, I was waxing poetic about the memories of water in San Luis Rio Colorado: I asked Medina, who kindly served as translator for a monolingual norteño, when San Luis had last seen water in the Rio Colorado. “1998,” he said. What struck me was how he said it without hesitation, and …
SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO – Manuel Campa was very particular. His town’s name is often shortened to merely “San Luis”, but standing in the dry bed of the Colorado River this morning, the full name mattered very much. “It’s the only city that has the name ‘Rio Colorado,’” he said. The sandy riverbed beneath the …
LOS ALGODONES, B.C. – I made it to Yuma with time to spare this afternoon, so I dumped my bags at the motel and drove around to the Andrade border crossing and through the little town of Algodones (best dentists in North America!) to Morelos Dam. I couldn’t find the angle to get the picture I wanted, …
Continue reading ‘Presa Morelos: when in doubt, make a bird list’ »
There used to be a marina at Hite, Utah, on the upper end of Lake Powell. The Park Service abandoned it in the early 2000s, when the reservoir dropped out from underneath it. They also fixed the sign.
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 …
Continue reading ‘The fate of the Colorado River delta: shared blame’ »
When I give talks about western water and the Colorado River they usually end, or sometimes start, at Morelos Dam. Built from 1948-50, it spans the river between Baja California Norte and Arizona, scooping up the last of the great river and diverting it west, to the farmlands of the Mexicali Valley. Visiting the Lower …
Continue reading ‘Morelos Dam, Minute 319 and replumbing the Colorado River Delta’ »