PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 3, 2026
Last fall, on Sept. 10, Utah State University’s Jack Schmidt spoke at the University of Maine’s School of Earth and Climate Sciences about the Colorado River Basin’s diminishing waters. The river supplies seven U.S. states with drinking water, irrigation and hydroelectric power. But overuse and consecutive dry years have drained the river’s reserves. Now it is March and negotiations remain stalled. Schmidt stressed a critical factor about the river that is often ignored: how the river water is used. Fifty-two percent of the river system’s clean water is pumped into fields and orchards, over half of which is used for livestock feed. We have difficult choices to make. Will we wait until the rivers run dry and soldiers stand guard around reservoirs while people stand in line with empty bottles for a drink of clean water? Or will we take our own action and remind each other, as Rosie the Riveter once did, that “We can do it”? ~ Nestor Walters, a Ph.D. student in Earth and climate sciences at UMaine