"The Colorado originates in the Rocky mountains and traverses seven US states, watering cities and farmland, before reaching Mexico, where it is supposed to flow onwards to the Sea of Cortez."

"Instead, the river is dammed at the US-Mexico border, and on the other side the river channel is empty. Locals are now battling to bring it back to life. There are few more striking examples of what has come to be known as 'environmental injustice' – the inequitable access to clean land, air and water, and disproportionate exposure to hazards and climate disasters. Water in particular has emerged as a flash point as global heating renders vast swaths of the planet ever drier.... [T]he 1944 treaty did not allocate Mexico any water for the river itself.... In the US, the Colorado serves over 35 million people, including several native tribes, seven national wildlife refuges, 11 national parks, and, supports $26m tourism and recreational industries, as well as farming.... At the Morelos dam, located between Los Algodones, Baja California and Yuma, Arizona, the river is diverted to a complex system of irrigation canals which nourish fields of cotton, wheat, alfalfa, asparagus, watermelons and date palms in the vast surrounding desert valley.... Following the dry riverbed south towards the Gulf of California evokes an eerie sadness...."

From "The lost river/Mexicans fight for mighty waterway taken by the US" (The Guardian).

I'm interested in this concept of the water's inherent destiny — that it "is supposed to flow onwards to the Sea of Cortez." No one is fighting for that result.