Are We Killing the Colorado River?

“Killing the Colorado,” a joint reporting project by ProPublica and Matter, set out to tell the truth about the American West’s water crisis. As serious as the drought is, the investigation found that mismanagement of that region’s surprisingly ample supply has led to today’s emergency. Among the causes are the planting of the thirstiest crops; arcane and outdated water rights laws; the unchecked urban development in unsustainable desert environments; and the misplaced confidence in human ingenuity to engineer our way out of a crisis — with dams and canals, tunnels and pipelines.  See images that tell a bleak future. Listen in as Renee Montagne talks to Propublica's Abrahm Lustgarten about the Colorado River's falling water levels, and how flawed water policies and mismanagement are to blame — in addition to the drought.