"Fifty years ago Aldo Leopold hailed theColorado River delta as North America’s greatest oasis: Two millionacres of wetlands, cienegas, lagoons, tidal pools, jaguars andmesquite scrublands. Today it’s a wasteland.
The mighty Colorado River nolonger reaches the Sea of Cortez. Its entire annual flow has divertedand spit out into hay fields, water fountains in front of Vegashotels and thousands of golf courses. The Colorado has been suckedup to the last drop.
It’s once lush delta is nowa salt flat, as barren as Carthage after Scipio Africanus tookhis revenge on Hannibal’s homeland. This estuary used to be oneof the wonders of the world: a vast wetland, teeming with morethan 400 species of plants and animals. In fact, like the Nile,another desert river, nearly 80 percent of the riparian habitatfor the entire Colorado River was once clustered near the mouthof the river. The shallow lagoons in the delta region are hometo the Vacquita dolphin, at four feet in length the world’s smallest,which is now on the brink of extinction, with only 100 animalsknown to exist. Dozens of other endemic species are in the sameshape.
And not just animals are introuble. The delta was once the cultural mecca of the CopachaIndians, who made a good living fishing the estuary. But thesedays the fishing boats are beached and the Indians and Mexicanresidents are in grinding poverty, forced to work multiple jobsin distant tortilla factories, maquiladoras and wheat fields.". The Glenn Canyon dam will come down...might be a while but this wrong will be made right
