The Colorado River is Shrinking

Colorado river crisis

The Colorado river is in crisis. Let’s see what’s causing the problem:

Each year, 1.9 trillion gallons of water is used from the Colorado River. The crazy thing is that 55% of the 1.9 trillion gallons of water is used on livestock feed. That’s around 1 trillion gallons of water used to feed livestock! The vegetables that are grown for humans to eat use up less than a quarter of the amount of water that is used to grow livestock feed.

The water footprint on food is unreal because of exactly how much water cows and other animals need. Environmentalists estimate that it could take 38 gallons of water to produce just one quarter pounder!!

The Colorado river supplies more than 40 million Americans with water and because of this the rivers water supply is being pushed to its limit.

Here’s a quote from a New York Times Article (Link Below):

“Thirty-seven percent of the water used in the Colorado River basin goes toward growing alfalfa and hay used largely to feed dairy cattle. That’s triple the water that residents in the region use to water lawns, take showers and wash clothes. Alfalfa is a thirsty crop, in part because of its lengthy growing season that allows for multiple harvests per year.”

Water scarcity has become one of the biggest environmental issues in the last decade. We all need to work together and figure how to save water though feeding livestock.

Here is the article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-water.html