My idea of ​​driving five hours across the desert from Indio to the Imperial Dam on the Colorado River outside of Yuma, Arizona in beautiful winter light was met with hundreds of millions of reports that no agreement could be reached on water. It was a reaction to an agency quarrel. of federal dollars pledged here and there. Seeing and describing a dam complex in Colorado about 40 miles from the US-Mexico border made me wonder if it would add something concrete (sic) when coots are flying .

Since it was on the border, it should have been assumed that nothing concrete, abstract, liquid, solid, animal, mineral, plant, or metaphysical could appear in any explainable form. I remember coming back after 30 when I was stuck in traffic on a busy street and started looking around at the hodgepodge of business signs in Spanish and English, the different bright colors on the walls and the amazing graffiti. I found out Year. As Ramon Ayala’s beautiful “Que Casualidad” plays on the radio, I start singing along, returning to the culture of chaos called the Border, untouched by the walled organizations of Bill Clinton and others. I was excited for a moment. It may still prove to be the case for all gunslingers in the cartel.

Downstream from the Hoover Dam, the Colorado River flows through the Imperial Dam outside Yuma, from where it flows in different directions. It’s the largest percentage of travel to California through the largest canal in the United States. Small quantities in Arizona and Mexico. Borders define this river. Mexico should only get silt-filled streams. The people that President Herbert Hoover called “wild Indians” should get absolutely nothing, despite treaty-recognised and federally-ruled riverside reservations with “advanced water rights.” . The land surrounding the river and its dam is federal, either military or Indian reservation. It feels as if the United States defeated Mexico and the Navajos, Utes, Apaches and other Native Americans yesterday, and the United States still occupies an area called Lamesilla in southern Arizona and New Mexico, is surrounded by the Colorado River. Part of the Gila River to the north and the Rio Grande River to the east, Mexico sold her to the United States in 1853 after years of losing California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, western Colorado, and New Mexico in 1853. (Gadsden purchase). Mexican-American War (1846-48). La Mesilla now includes: Air Force Base of the United States Marine Corps. Indian Reservations; Absentee Corporate Agribusiness; Yuma AZ and some small towns. The Imperial Dam on the Colorado River is lost in the middle of the vast American desert and military complex.

However, it is difficult to recognize the Imperial and Parker Dams that create Lake Havasu upstream. Both completely overshadow the importance of the mighty Hoover Dam to prevent flooding and bring hydropower to India’s approximately 1.5 million people. It irrigates 1,500,000 acres and provides water to 16 million people. Herbert Hoover, the Coolidge administration’s secretary of commerce, brokered a settlement in which the top states (Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah) and bottom states (California, Arizona, Nevada) would have 7.5 million acre-feet on each side. , leaving the decision of the two groups to distribute the water within that half. As president, in 1928 Hoover signed the final Colorado River Accords and his Boulder Canyon Project Act, which funded the Hoover Dam, downstream dams, and the National Canal, after his six years of wrangling in Congress. Did. He oversaw the start of construction of the Hoover Dam until its defeat by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.

The Colorado River Delta begins south of the Imperial Dam. Rivers deposit billions of tons of silt collected on their path from the Rocky Mountains to the Sea of ​​Cortez, control flooding by dams, and provide very rich soil if water can be channeled into irrigation canals and ditches. You can see an alluvial fan with lush greenery going south from the Teito Dam. It continues to widen and deepen until it ends in the rich agricultural valley of Mexicali, developed in the early 20th century.^th Primarily Americans like Harry Chandler of the Los Angeles Times who owned two million acres of land in the early 20th century^th century. The Mexicans forcibly recaptured his land in 1937, but foreign capital has since regained control of much of its farmland.

US Canal.

These three very rich valleys, the Imperial in California (including Palo Verde and Coachella north of the Salton Sea), the Yuma and Gila riverbeds in Arizona, and the Mexicali Valley, are all part of this delta. and now receives water from the Colorado River through a ditch. and ridges. No more major floods adding to the topsoil in this area. Only localized flash floods from the surrounding mountains and cliffs.

On his way home from the White House after the 1932 defeat, Hoover stopped near the construction site of the Hoover Dam (shortly thereafter renamed Boulder Dam until 1947) and told reporters following him: Instead of being wasted at sea, it will be used by humans. Civilization advances through the practical application of knowledge in structures such as the buildings constructed here along the continent’s great rivers. The extent of its value in human well-being is beyond calculation. “

In fact, the calculation of human well-being is better left “beyond calculation” in this area than Herbert Hoover boasts. Yuma County, Arizona has an average annual per capita income of $18,418, despite having a city of about 100,000 people and the military bases mentioned above. Arizona’s only poor county is dominated by Indian reservations, the largest being the Navajo, Hopi, Apache, and Tohomo Oodham. Imperial County is California’s poorest county, with an average per capita income of $16,409, but seven cities are surrounded by extensive plantations of row crops and date palms. If more profits stayed, incomes in these counties would likely be higher. A few small farms reportedly remain in the fields of absent agricultural corporations, but equipment yards, sheds and loading docks are common rather than farm homes.

But, of course, Hoover was thinking about the vast citadel of civilization on the coast, Los Angeles, and its suburbs.

We finally found a view of the Imperial Dam when we were allowed 15 minutes to enter the Hidden Shores Resort next to the dam’s front bay. I could see the branch canals and gates to the Yuma and Gila river canals, but I could barely see the gates that stopped the flow of the river and led most of it to the beginning of the All-American Canal. The entire Imperial Dam is carefully fenced and has strict No Trespassing signs put in place by the Federal Reclamation Service. There’s even a “look something” sign, presumably to discourage spies from taking pictures of Coutts or throwing anything at it. Water that makes it even worse than it is now. The government warns against eating too much fish caught in the U.S. canals due to high levels of mercury, PCBs, selenium and coots.

The resort appears to be a federal land management concession. Includes 800 vacation sites divided into RV hookups, rental homes, and privately owned homes. It advertises that it was “built with family values ​​in mind.” With its back to artillery range, the resort stands on the banks of an upstream tree-lined drive through the beautiful Arizona desert. Clubhouse, heated swimming pool, 9-hole golf course, small pitch and putt course, boat dock, and other family-friendly amenities. But clearly, the dam that created the bay in front of where people water ski, fish, or simply run boats is very off-limits and dangerous.

My intentions to see the Imperial Dam and possibly understand how it works were frustrated. Of particular interest to me are the three giant pools and their scrapers. The silt settles before the water flows into California’s All-American Canals, where it is scraped by the wreckage of the rivers that flow to Mexico. I wanted to know how the gates of the dam work and how much the gates could bypass the total flow of the river if the water allocation were changed.

I drove back to California on Interstate 8 and stopped at an intersection to view the National Canal through a fence put up by the Imperial Irrigation District. Driving through this little corner of the world where California and Arizona collide north of the border. The net informed me that over 500 people had died in that canal. The canals were wide, deep, fast-moving, and lined with cement. There is absolutely no way out. In recent years, however, the district has installed ropes with floats attached at specific locations across the canal. This canal monster runs along the border from Yuma to Calexico and is a much more dangerous obstacle than Trump’s Wall or Border Patrol. Its largest tributary, the Coachella Water District Canal, heads north across the Salton Sea to irrigate the fertile Coachella Valley and terminate at La Quinta’s man-made lake Cahuilla. paradigm.

Over the southern border of Yuma, 10,000 workers are reported to work in these fields a day during the winter months. Thousands of people work every day in Imperial County from Mexicali to Calexico during the winter months. Jobs are seasonal, housing is inadequate, rents are exorbitant, and governments are rarely helpful.

This trip was a failure. I didn’t get to see the Imperial Dam. Its fingers divide the stream into small channels. A large channel flows into California and a smaller channel into Yuma Valley and the Gila River. The smallest silt-filled stream to Mexico. There is a photo of it on the internet.

It seemed like I got a little bit of everything but the subject.I didn’t even get a chance to stand in a moment of devotion in Yuma prison before a photo of Ricardo Flores Magon, the first man arrested in the Mexican Revolution.^th avenue and 2^nd Street entering town on Winterhaven Drive, called Tacos Mi Ranchito. It’s the little orange box in the building surrounded by parked pickups. Good food, ironic company.