There isn't enough water in the Colorado to serve all the demands we place on the river, and there never was. This was evident to some people, like the great Western explorer John Wesley Powell, who at an irrigation congress in 1893 announced, "Gentlemen, you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights, for there is not sufficient water to supply the land."
Powell was driven from the hall by a chorus of boos and catcalls. But time has proved him right. It was thought that Hoover Dam would put an end to 50 years of conflict over the water of the Colorado. It has not. We still delude ourselves into thinking that it will; only a few years ago, in 2003, then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton came out to the dam to sign 24 agreements transferring water rights among various claimants — Indian tribes, irrigation districts, Western cities, the government of Mexico. And she proclaimed, "With these agreements, conflict on the river is stilled."
