Nestor Walters is a Ph.D. student in Earth and climate sciences at the University of Maine. All views are the writer’s own.

Last fall, on Sept. 10, Utah State University’s Jack Schmidt spoke at the University of Maine’s School of Earth and Climate Sciences about the Colorado River Basin’s diminishing waters. The river supplies seven U.S. states, Schmidt explained, with drinking water, irrigation and hydroelectric power. But overuse and consecutive dry years have drained the river’s reserves.

Schmidt and his colleagues released a white paper, appropriately enough, on Sept. 11, outlining concerns for a deficit of 3.6 million acre-feet or 1.17 trillion gallons. It is not a prediction, they clarified in the paper, but it “spotlights the need to take additional and immediate action … to reduce water consumption.” 

Now it is March and negotiations remain stalled. If we search “Colorado River news updates,” we read headlines such as “Western US states fail to negotiate crucial deal,” “River states tell feds ‘no deal’” and “Can the courts solve the Colorado River conservation conundrum?,” none of which speak to us, the citizens.

In his presentation at UMaine, Schmidt stressed a critical factor about the river that is often ignored: how the river water is used. Fifty-two percent of the river system’s clean water, according to a 2024 paper by Brian D. Richter, et al., is pumped into fields and orchards, over half of which is used for livestock feed: growing alfalfa and hay in July in 120-degree heat.

For context, a pound of meat requires 500 to 2,000 gallons of water. A pound of almonds, another 500-2,000 gallons. Data centers in the U.S. used 24 billion gallons of water in 2023. And the Colorado River was overconsumed, according to the Richter paper, for 16 out of 21 years between 2000 and 2020. 

Back in the early 1900s, Hugh Hammond Bennett, a USDA soil surveyor, noted concerns for the agricultural practices of the time. It was cheaper back then for farmers to cut down or burn away forests or grasslands; to plow, sow and harvest; then to simply move on to other fields. The topsoil became an uncultivable, hard-packed clay. For years Bennett announced his concerns and for years he was ignored. Then, in 1934, storm winds swept the drought-stricken Great Plains into the first “Dust Bowl.” 

The Dust Bowl exacerbated the Great Depression. People stood in lines for work and masses of people were hungry, truly hungry, the way few Americans can imagine now. We recovered, to the extent that we did, partly due to World War II industrial efforts and partly thanks to responsible land practices encouraged by Bennett and his colleagues. But citizens also contributed.

During World War II, everyone was involved in the effort. They bought war bonds, worked in factories and restricted themselves to rations in order to help feed the soldiers. Posters encouraged people to donate scrap metals, to plant food-saving mini-gardens and to conserve fuel by carpooling.

Suppose our leaders announced that they had negotiated a deal: if we all reduce our meat and luxury food consumption, ride public transportation a few times a week, cut down on cellphone use and e-commerce and the streaming services; if we do these things then the river — and we — could have a chance. And if we are willing to sacrifice to rebuild healthy communities and our country, then why should we wait for our leaders to tell us to?

This is not about fault or blame. It is about recognizing that the decisions made and the lifestyles formed years ago — even with the best of intentions — may be causing too much harm now. We have difficult choices to make and these are choices that our leaders cannot make for us. Will we wait until the rivers run dry and soldiers stand guard around reservoirs while people stand in line with empty bottles for a drink of clean water? Or will we take our own action and remind each other, as Rosie the Riveter once did, that “We can do it”?

Let us hope it will not take a Pearl Harbor-scale disaster to inspire in us that same kind of commitment.