15 million people rely on the Rio Grande — in 2 years, it may run dry

The Rio Grande, which stretches from Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico, is one of the most threatened rivers in the country — even more so than the Colorado River. The river fuels billions of dollars in agricultural production, and roughly 15 million people depend on it for drinking water. In Mexico, taps could run dry within a year. In two years, the river may be completely depleted, resulting in millions of Texans losing their source of fresh water. 

Sam Sandoval Solís, a professor at the University of California, Davis, said there is no technology that could pull the river back from the brink — conservation in cities or rainwater harvesting wouldn’t be enough. The only thing that can help now is reducing agricultural water use, writes Jack Herrera for Texas Monthly.

“Last year, one Houston-based company announced that it plans to build the world’s largest so-called green-powered data center [in Texas]. At the proposed scale it would require millions of gallons of water annually. Farther down the river, near the Gulf, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has snatched up more and more water rights. Every time SpaceX shoots off a rocket, it inundates the launchpad with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water; the company uses millions of gallons each year … All that water will need to come from the Rio Grande,” Herrera writes.