Blinding heat

Longer term, the Colorado River poses issues that no amount of tribal water can resolve. Beset by climate change, overuse, and drought, the river and its reservoirs, according to various researchers, may decline to the point that water fails to pass Hoover Dam. In that case, the CAP would dry up, but so would the Colorado Aqueduct which serves greater Los Angeles and San Diego, as well as the All-American Canal, on which the factory farms of California’s Imperial and Coachella valleys depend. Irrigators and municipalities downstream in Mexico would also go dry. If nothing changes in the current order of things, it is expected that the possibility of such a debacle could loom in little more than a decade.

Tomgram: William deBuys, Exodus from Phoenix | TomDispatch.

Mexicali is already getting hotter and dryer, with the city’s water table being refilled by the keeps complaining about the All-American Canal, supplied by − you guessed it − the Colorado River. Mexicali and Calexico are already gearing up for a fight with San Diego, where the canal ends.

Then there’s Tijuana. It’s right by the sea but to its people the sea is where water eventually ends up, not a source of potable water. There have been talks of a desalination plant, but so far they’ve gone nowhere.

I have friends in both cities. What happens when conflict arises?