U.S.-Mexico Agreement Returns Water to the Colorado River Delta

Brian Clark Howard details "an innovative effort to restore small parts of the two-million-acre (8,100-square-kilometer) Colorado River Delta," where "[thanks] to dams and canals that have diverted water to farm fields and cities, the Colorado no longer reaches the sea, and its delta has been desiccated."

A 2012 agreement between the United States and Mexico would end that dry season. "Under a 2012 agreement known as Minute 319, the delta is to receive 158,088 acre-feet (195 million cubic meters) of water by 2017, when the agreement expires. Although that's less than one percent of the river's pre-dam flow, it will have a meaningful impact on wildlife," according to the article.

"Two-thirds of the water has already been provided, in equal parts by the U.S. and Mexican federal governments, as a single pulse of 105,392 acre-feet. It was released last March from Lake Mead through Hoover Dam. Over a period of about eight weeks, it flowed down the Colorado and into the river's original channel at Morelos Dam in Mexico."

The article goes on to describe the "dramatic" effects of that water for the delta as well as the details of the agreement.