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The River’s End: Amid Colorado Water Cuts, Mexico Seeks to Restore Its Lost Oasis

When the Colorado River reaches the U.S.-Mexico border, it pushes up against Morelos Dam. Nearly all the remaining water is shunted aside into an immense canal and flows toward the farmlands and cities of Baja California.

South of the dam, the last of the river disappears in the desert.

To Bridge the Cultures of Mexico’s Border Region and a Neglected Colorado Neighborhood, Just Add Water

San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico — Under the red girders of a nondescript toll bridge, waves gently lapped coarse sands in a gritty corner of this northwestern Mexican border city.

“There is usually no water and vegetation, and the ground looks like this,” local conservationist Alejandra Calvo-Fonesca said, gesturing toward the dusty shoreline of the Colorado River.

For a few months this winter, residents welcomed an unexpected surge of water in the river – a phenomenon they had not experienced since the spring 2014 “pulse flow,” when the United States released 107,000 acre-feet of water into the Colorado River Delta over a two-month period. That seminal event brought revelers in droves, eager to celebrate the revival of a historic waterway that is not only the city’s namesake, but a source of pride for its people.