Watch: Western Cities Are in a Bind as the Colorado River Runs Dry

The feds just slashed water rations in response to severe drought conditions.

A previously submerged boat photographed at Lake Mead near Boulder City, Nevada, on May 10, hints at the direness of the West's water woes. John Locher/AP

This video story was created by Pattrn and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

One hundred years ago, Western states and Mexico signed a pact to divvy up water from the Colorado River, based on century-old science and historic river flows. How times have changed. Today, 40 million people across seven states rely on the Colorado as their primary water source. But with the river’s flow dwindling, key reservoirs like Lake Mead and Lake Powell running insanely low, and water restrictions getting more intense, battles are raging over who gets this life-giving liquid—and how much they get. Below, our Climate Desk partner Pattrn (an affiliate of The Weather Channel) sketches out this dire situation in about three minutes. Check it out.

 
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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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