Water For The Wild West - A Journey Along The Colorado

Our journey starts at the source of the Colorado, high up in the Rocky Mountains, where bears, elk and Wapiti deer drink from a small trickle that builds to become the lifeline of America’s wild west. We only have to travel south a short way to find a battle raging about the river water: between ranchers and planters, water suppliers and biologists. We meet cowboys and fly fishermen in the Rockies, spend starry nights at the base of the canyon and descend into the inner world of the powerful Hoover Dam. Here we meet Fran, a Las Vegas water policeman, who imposes hefty fines on those who waste water. At daybreak, Andy, the "Zanjero" (the “water master”), starts up the enormous irrigation system of the Imperial Valley and shows us how planters are stealing water. Onesimo’s forefathers have always lived on and from the Colorado River. Now, however, the native American of the Cucapa tribe in Mexico can only look angrily at the brackish water in front of his wooden house: it is too shallow for him to take his boat and fishing nets out. He has not been able to catch anything for a long time. Seven US states are battling for the water of the Colorado, re-directing it into thirsty desert cities, to the endless vegetable plantations of the Imperial Valley, to the water rides in Las Vegas. Here where Onesimo lives in the delta of the legendary Colorado the great river is reduced yet again to a trickle.

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