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Audio by Cristina Lau
Water Use in the Four Corners
In the Four Corners, water is life. We depend on water for our lives and our livelihoods. Water use varies from town to town and from person to person. This pie chart shows how we put our water to use.
Agriculture: Water for Food
Most of the water we have available goes to irrigate crops. Much of that water goes to raise alfalfa, which is used to feed livestock. Some of that water goes to raise food for people.
Pie graph shows: 80-90% of water used in Four Corners region
Cities, Towns, and Taps: Water for Health and Comfort
Cities, towns, and local governing bodies use their water to supply homes and businesses in their communities.
Pie graph shows: 7% of water used in Four Corners region
Mining and Industry: Water to Fuel Our Lives
Our limited water resources are also used for mining gold and copper, and to extract oil and gas for energy. Water left over from mining can harm the environment and is difficult to clean or reuse.
Pie graph shows: 1% of water used in Four Corners region
The Environment and Recreation: Water for Life and Relaxation
Some water remains in the environment. This water helps plants and animals live. This water also provides for recreation, allowing people to raft down rivers, fish in streams, or view spring wildflowers. Water flowing through the environment attracts people to enjoy the outdoors.
Pie graph shows: 5% of water used in Four Corners region
Water Rights: who gets water and how much?
Laws that determine who gets water and how much were written when fewer people lived in the region. These laws often ignored rights held by Indigenous communities. Decisions made in the past have made water a controversial topic, causing ongoing legal arguments about water use and tribal rights. Legal battles over water rights have been argued before the U.S. Supreme Court many times.
Tribal Water Rights
Tribal water rights are generally more senior to other water rights in the region and cannot be taken away even if the water is not being used. Of the 30 federally recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin, 22 have recognized rights to the water in the Colorado River and 12 tribes have unresolved water rights claims. Tribes continue to build the pumps and pipes to be able to put their water rights to use.
Acequias
Acequias are community managed water systems. Made of ditches and channels, they distribute water to parciantes—members who own water rights in the community. The San Luis People’s Ditch in Colorado currently irrigates more than 2,000 acres of crops. It is the state’s oldest acequia with water rights that date back to 1852.
Prior Appropriation
Water distribution in the Four Corners follows an order defined by “prior appropriation.” Under this system, people who claimed water rights earlier (“older water rights”) get to access their water before people with rights that were claimed more recently (“younger water rights”).
Colorado River Compact
In 1922 seven U.S. states—including Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico—agreed to the Colorado River Compact. The compact defines how much water each state may legally withdraw from the Colorado River system. It also defines how much water each state must share with the other members. Later it was discovered the Compact overestimated the amount of water available in the river system. That overestimate has led to disagreements among participating states. Drought and the decreasing amount of water in the region places further strain on the states bound by the agreement. How can water be shared with everyone and support all water needs in the region?
Water can be hard to come by here
Farmers and ranchers must deal with drought
The Four Corners is mostly desert, making water hard to come by during any year. During droughts, when rain is less frequent, farmers and ranchers have a hard time getting water to grow crops and raise livestock. As droughts become more frequent in the Four Corners, they’re finding new ways to cope. Some have switched to crops that use less water. Others are learning how to grow crops on smaller areas of land, which cuts the amount of irrigation water they need. To preserve soil moisture, some farmers also avoid watering crops during the hottest parts of the day and plow their fields less often.
Not everyone here has access to clean drinking water
In the Four Corners, a person's access to water depends on whether their community has a pipeline that brings them safe, clean drinking water. Many Indigenous and Hispanic/Latinx communities within the Colorado River Basin lack such access.
Navajo communities work to boost their access to water
More than a third of Navajo households lack running water. To get water, household members often must drive long distances to fill barrels and haul them back home. Some of the sources they get water from are contaminated with chemicals from abandoned uranium mines.
While many communities have water rights, a lack of government funding has prevented the building of pipelines to bring water to homes. More money is also needed to create water quality monitoring programs to ensure the water is safe to drink.
Communities have partnered with scientists, nonprofit groups and government agencies to raise money, plan, and get approval to build pipelines and wells which will bring safe, clean water to communities. In the meantime, these organizations are developing temporary solutions such as installing household water tanks to increase storage capacity and increasing the number of water deliveries.
Be a water manager!
In the Four Corners, water is distributed among many users and for many different uses. Often, specific users and types of use are given priority over others. what one user or community does with water impacts those downstream.
With limited water in the region, how can we share water fairly with all who need it? Here, you’re in charge of deciding how much water is available, how water is distributed, and how water is used.
How to Share When There’s Little Water to Spare? Be a Water Manager!
How would you manage water in the Four Corners? In this game, the balls represent how much water falls in a year. How much do you think should go to each different use during a rainy year? How about during a drought or extreme drought?
Ready to play?
- Press the reset button
- Turn the wheel to fill the cloud with water
- Choose where you want the water to go
- Choose how much water you want to fall
[Caption for water availability bar graph] This graph shows the total amount of water that fell during rainy, drought, and extreme drought years. Scientists measure a 'water year' as the total rain and snow that falls from October through September.
Water connects all life in the Four Corners
To live in this dry landscape, people, wildlife, and plants must make the most of what little water is available here. They face a delicate balance of survival. A warmer, drier climate threatens the existence of some desert species. Such a climate could also threaten our ability to live here in the future.
Wildfires play key roles in our environment
Here in the Four Corners, wildfires occur naturally in our forests and grasslands. To live here, some plants and animals have evolved to survive wildfires.
For example, Ponderosa pines grow thick bark to protect them from burning. Pine needles on the forest floor fuel smaller wildfires instead of large and hot fires, helping these trees survive.
Small fires can be good for the environment because they clear the forest floor of grasses which produce more fuel and lead to more intense fires.
In open grasslands, wildfires suppress the growth of trees and shrubs that would otherwise take over the landscape. Wildfires also recycle nutrients back into grassland soils.
Warmer and drier seasons lead to more wildfires
Wildfires have long been a part of local environments. In recent decades, less rain, along with warmer temperatures have dried grasses, bushes, and trees, which more easily burn and lead to more wildfires.
If warmer and drier conditions continue, these fires could be deadly to our native plants and animals.
Proper fire management can lessen the risks. Prescribed burns and the removal of invasive plants can limit how often fires happen and how intense they become and thus protect our local environments.
Water connects life and landscape in the Four Corners
Plants, animals, landforms, weather events, and their connections to water all play an important role in shaping what people see in the environment and how people interact with and learn from the natural world.
Rain
Rain brings water and life to the Four Corners; but just ten to twenty inches fall here each year. Zuni, Hopi, and Pueblo farmers have created ways of farming that make good use of that limited water. They grow crops with traditional practices that rely on water from seasonal storms and irrigation.
Mountains
In the spring, snow from the mountains melts and flows into our rivers, bringing water to plants, animals, and people. The Navajo call the month of April T’aachil, or growth of early plant life. During this time Indigenous, Latinx, and rural communities clean irrigation ditches and prepare their water systems for the planting season.
Yucca
When water’s available, yucca plants store water in their leaves and roots to help see them through drier times. Many Indigenous communities, including the Pueblo Nations and the Navajo, weave yucca leaves into baskets. They also crush the roots of some yucca species in water to make soap and for ceremonial uses.
Coyote
Coyotes drink water from rivers, streams, and water holes. In moist ground, they will even dig shallow “wells” to reach the water below.
Our water comes from two main rivers
Here in the Four Corners, we are part of the Colorado River Basin. Our main rivers are the San Juan and the Dolores. Water from snow, ice, and rain flows into our streams, creeks, and rivers, which then flow into the Colorado River.
The water cycle in this dry land begins in the fall and winter when snow falls high in the mountains. In spring, melting snow rushes into our rivers. In summer, thunderstorms can create flash floods. Under intense sun and heat, the snow melts away, the rivers become dry, and the water evaporates back into the air.
This cycle has gone on for millions of years. Over time, rivers and flash floods have carved deep canyons through the soft sandstones of the region. Climate forecasts now point to a warmer future, which means more droughts for all Four Corners life, including people, plants, and animals.
The landscape connects us all
Snow, ice, rain, rivers, and wind shape the mountains, mesas, and canyons we see in the Four Corners. As people came to live here, they began to name and give meaning to these landmarks. The landmarks continue to be sacred features of Indigenous homelands.
Mount Hesperus
Near Durango, Colorado, Mount Hesperus marks the northern edge of the traditional lands of the Navajo. Called Dibé Nitsaa, the mountain remains a sacred site for Indigenous communities today.
Goosenecks of the San Juan River
The San Juan River has carved this section of its canyon for millions of years. Here, the river bends sharply back and forth like the folded neck of a goose. The river flows six miles through these twists and turns, while a straight line from end-to-end spans just a mile and a half.
The canyon walls record a long history of people living here. On them, you can find petroglyphs by the Navajo, Ute, and ancestral Puebloans.
Shiprock Peak
Navajo call this important feature Tsé Bit’ a’ í —“the rock with wings.” This sacred site, the remnant of an ancient volcano, soars 1,583 feet above the desert plain.
Lake Powell
Lake Powell formed in 1963 behind the Glen Canyon Dam. When the dam was built the Colorado River flooded the canyon. The rising water covered the cliff-side dwellings and rock art of the ancestral Puebloans who once lived here.
We Are Water
What does water mean to you? To your community?
The Four Corners is home to deserts, forests, and grasslands. It is also home to our communities. From desert, to forest, to our communities, all life here depends on water.
In years with enough rain and snow, we’re grateful to have water to sustain us. In years of low rainfall, we worry about the lack of water and ongoing drought.
We all have stories of the scarcity of water. Will we have enough to drink? To raise our crops? Will there be enough water in rivers and reservoirs for recreation? What about the environment?
Together we celebrate water, worry about it and argue about it. We can also come together to create the water future we want for our region.
Join We are Water to explore the water we share, the water that sustains us. Learn what water means to communities in the Four Corners. Add your voice to the stories of water here.
What has water meant to you? What do you think the future of water use will look like both for your community and for others?
Map + Land Acknowledgement
We honor and acknowledge the traditional territories and ancestral homelands of the Navajo, Jicarilla Apache, Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute, Southern Ute, and Pueblo Nations. Their relationship with the land we call the Four Corners continues to this day. The region is also home to descendants of Hispanic and European Americans who first arrived here starting in the 1500’s.
Partner Logos and Partner Acknowledgements
With support from rural communities and their libraries, We are Water creates a place to talk, explore, and learn about water together. We are Water springs from a collaboration between libraries, scientists, Indigenous scholars, educators, and researchers.
We are Water is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant Nos. 1907024 and 1906951. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in We are Water are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.