In spite of institutions which can and should fix the massive misuse of water resources around the Colorado river, each local and state government is fighting each other to win the last drop. But they don’t have to. If we truly democratized our economy, we would diagnose and fix the underlying problem—raising cows in the desert.
“…the entire water crisis in the American West comes down to cows eating alfalfa in a landscape where neither belongs. That the delta of the Colorado could be reborn with the water that today goes to produce a third of 1 percent of the nation’s cattle production. That the federal government sets aside 250 million acres of open land for ranchers who produce less than 10 percent of America’s beef. That no amount of water conservation in the home, on the golf course, or in the swimming pools and fountains of Los Angeles and Las Vegas will make a difference as long as half of the country’s water supply is used to fatten cattle.”