I am a bit annoyed with the article. It has some good info, but, unfortunately, it is kind of histrionic and that seems to be what is getting most of the attention in comments. I have done some reading on water issues and the history of the Colorado River. We have been overusing its waters for decades, which has turned the mouth of the river into a salt flat instead of a rich swampland and riparian environment, but America doesn't really care because that part of the river is in Mexico. They began experimenting with bringing it back to life recently:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/pulse-life-mouth-coloradoAnyway, we have raked this river over the coals wastefully for decades. There is lots of room for improvement in terms of better practices. Perhaps they feel they need to be histrionic in order to get lazy-assed, overprivileged Americans to take the problem seriously, but the problem is not remotely new and it not remotely unsolvable. As things get more desperate, I predict the powers that be will get more hard-assed and that will go a long way towards fixing things that, currently, there simply isn't the political will to fix.