by Nat Lash, ProPublica, and Janet Wilson, The Desert Sun
As the Colorado River snakes through the deserts of the Southwest United States, its water is diverted to cities, states, tribes and farmers along its course.
Agriculture has always been the largest use of the Colorado River, and California’s Imperial Irrigation District, established in 1911, has among the earliest claims and by far the largest claim to the river. The district — and by extension, the farmers it serves — has access to enormous amounts of cheap water from the shrinking river. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court have upheld the farmers’ rights to the water.
The river’s reservoirs cratered last year, with Lake Mead falling to its lowest level since it was filled in 1937. As the federal government weighs paying more than half a billion dollars to the irrigation district and its farmers to use less water, The Desert Sun and ProPublica sought to find out who was using the water and what they did with it.
The district refused to tell us and denied public record requests, saying that identifying individual customers would create “uncertainty, fear and turmoil.” So we used satellite data, combined with records on who owns and farms each field in the valley, to estimate for the first time exactly who benefits from the vast supply of water, and how they use it.
Read the full story on ProPublica’s website.
by Nat Lash, ProPublica, and Janet Wilson, The Desert Sun
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