A trickle of water might save Colorado River Delta

The Colorado River Delta was once a watery labyrinth of willow thickets, mesquite and cottonwood, bigger than the state of Rhode Island and teeming with bird and animal life. Today it is a barren expanse of salt-stained mudflats where the river used to meet the sea south of Yuma.

About 90% of the delta's wetlands and natural habitat dried up over the last half century, as water from the Colorado was captured in reservoirs and diverted to farms and cities from Las Vegas to Mexicali.

For more than a decade, conservation groups in the U.S. and Mexico have tried unsuccessfully to restore North America's largest desert estuary. Now the Sonoran Institute is warning that unless restoration is undertaken before a prolonged dry spell, which many scientists are predicting, it could be too late.

In its forthcoming analysis of the delta, the nonprofit Arizona institute paints a dire picture of the once-vibrant ecosystem. But it also puts forth a proposal for replenishing much of the area by replacing a tiny fraction of the river water that once flowed through the delta, saying it would be enough to restore much of the area's natural wealth.

Under the institute's plan, the delta would get about three-tenths of a percent of the river's historic annual flow, making it one of the more modest claims on a river that serves 30 million people. But even that amount could be a hard sell.

Eight years of drought in the Colorado watershed have raised the likelihood of shortages in the near future, and as officials in the U.S. and Mexico look for creative ways of limiting future cutbacks, every drop will count.

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