A River Runs Out

In this excellent short (12 minute) film about the Colorado River, filmmaker Peter McBride wants to know how long it takes for the irrigation water from his farm in Colorado to reach the Sea of Cortez at the end of the Colorado’s reach. Answer: the Sea of Cortez has been beyond the reach of the Colorado since 1998. The picture, at about the 10 minute mark, of the sludge that passes for the river is disgusting. The statistic that the West is in the 20th year of a drought is accompanied by a picture of “bathtub rings” 100 feet high that mark how low Lake Powell has dropped since the drought began.

Bathtub Rings