Report a correction
Hoover Dam
The Colorado River rises in the Rockies and runs through seven states and Mexico, across some of the driest country on the continent. The Colorado Compact of 1922 divided the river's water between seven states, and the division rested on measurements from an unusually wet decade — the river has never carried as much water as the agreement assumes. That over-allocation is why the Colorado now rarely reaches the sea, and the root of the continuing water crisis in the Southwest. Mexico, at the bottom of the system, received no share until 1944.
Factual errors are corrected without argument once documented. What you send is read by a person and checked against sources — nothing changes automatically. See the editorial policy.