U-T SPECIAL REPORT
The waterway starts in the snowfields of Wyoming and Colorado, then runs about 1,450 miles to Mexico.
Dozens of creeks and streams feed into it.
The river provides drinking water for more than 27 million people in seven states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Recreation areas along the river include Grand Canyon National Park.
BEHIND THE STORY
Abrahm Lustgarten at ProPublica has reported for six months on how oil and natural gas drilling affects water supplies in the Rocky Mountain West.
When the Colorado River emerged as an important piece of his coverage, Lustgarten started working with The San Diego Union-Tribune's David Hasemyer, who has written about uranium mining's impact on the waterway for more than a decade.
Together, they looked at the potential environmental and water-use consequences of increased mining and drilling in the river's watershed.
ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom whose mission is to pursue watchdog journalism in the public interest. The organization, based in New York City, began publishing in June.
To learn more about ProPublica and read the unabridged version of this story, go to propublica.org.
The Colorado River has endured drought, large-scale climate changes, pollution, ecological damage from dams and battles by seven states to draw more water.
Now the life vein of the Southwest faces another threat: Energy companies are sucking up the Colorado's water to support increased development of oil, natural gas and uranium deposits along the river's basin. The mining and drilling will likely send more toxins into the waterway, which provides drinking water for one out of 12 Americans and nourishes 15 percent of the nation's crops along its journey from Wyoming and Colorado to Mexico.
Tapping the watershed is enticing because its resources could help reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil. The region could contain more oil than Alaska's National Arctic Wildlife Refuge. It has the richest natural gas fields in the country and plenty of uranium deposits.
But scientists and water managers warn that in the rush to develop more domestic energy, the government is failing to understand that the river's economic and ecological value is as vital to U.S. interests as anything extracted around it.
The river is so beleaguered by drought and past pollution that one environmental study called it the nation's most endangered waterway. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla said the river's reservoirs could dry up in 13 years, depriving regions such as San Diego County of their main source of water.
In the eight years President Bush has been in office, the Colorado River watershed has seen more oil and gas drilling than at any time since 1984, when the government began keeping such statistics. Uranium claims have reached a 10-year high.
Last week, the administration auctioned off 148,598 acres of federal land for natural gas projects within range of two national parks near Moab, Utah. And a last-minute change in federal rules has paved the way for water-intensive oil shale mining in the watershed.