Endangered Rivers

Topping the list is the Colorado River:

American Rivers, a leading non-profit dedicated to the conservation of rivers and riparian corridors across the U.S., recently unveiled its annual list of the nation’s most endangered rivers. The mighty Colorado earned the #1 spot, thanks mostly to outdated water management practices in the face of growing demand and persistent drought. “This year’s America’s Most Endangered Rivers report underscores the problems that arise for communities and the environment when we drain too much water out of rivers,” says American Rivers’ president Bob Irvin. “The Colorado River...is so over-tapped that it dries up to a trickle before reaching the sea.”
Indeed, 36 million of us drink water from the Colorado. The river responsible for cutting the Grand Canyon irrigates nearly four million acres of farmland where some 15 percent of the nation’s crops are grown. But according to American Rivers, over-allocation and drought have placed significant stress on water supplies and river health—and another summer drought is on the way. A 2013 study by the federal Bureau of Reclamation finds that there isn’t enough water in the Colorado to meet current demands and that the flow will be as much as 30 percent less by 2050 due to climate change. That reduced flow threatens not only endangered fish and wildlife but also the river system’s $26 billion recreation economy....The Colorado is far from the only U.S. river in trouble. The runner-up on American Rivers’ 2013 list is Georgia’s Flint River, where excessive agricultural and municipal demands are taking too much water out. The story is similar for several other rivers on the list: Texas’ San Saba, Wisconsin’s Little Plover, and the Catawba in North and South Carolina.

It would probably help if alfalfa and cotton weren't major crops in Arizona.   Teddy Roosevelt has a legacy as an early environmentalist, but water resources development in the American West is not a tremendous achievement in the environmental field.