Since 1960, when the gates were closed on the newly built Glen
Canyon Dam, the Colorado River has only rarely flowed to the
sea, and the river’s delta started to fade. Water users in the
United States saw Lake Powell, the reservoir behind the dam, as
a bounty for booming cities in the desert. Communities in the
Colorado’s delta saw a river disappear. In a new chapter of an
age-old story, the upstream sovereign controlled the resource
while the downstream sovereign bore the costs. “Poor Mexico”
people said, “so far from God and so close to the United
States.” This history makes it all the more remarkable that on
November 20, 2012, Mexico and the United States turned a new
page in their relationship to the Colorado River, joining
together to restore flows to the Colorado River Delta. Leaving
behind unilateralism, the two countries united to sign the most
important bilateral Colorado River agreement since the 1944
Treaty. The term of the agreement is short – five years– but the
framework it sets and the tools it