In the Coachella Valley, water continues flowing to artificial lakes and lush golf courses, even as the Colorado River reaches new lows. Critics say it’s time to limit heavy water use. But elected leaders have taken a different approach.
Golf courses. Ponds. Acres of grass. Cascading waterfalls. Displays of water extravagance zip past each day when Sendy Hernández Orellana Barrows drives to work.
“They wanted to basically fabricate this mirage oasis of what they thought the desert could be, with these never-ending golf courses and lagoons,” Hernández Orellana said. “But the reality is that with climate change, we need to start walking away from that.”Colorado River in Crisis is a series of stories, videos and podcasts in which Los Angeles Times journalists travel throughout the river’s watershed, from the headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to the river’s dry delta in Mexico.
Hernández Orellana, who works as a conservation program manager for a nonprofit group, is president of the, which she co-founded with two friends and her husband, Colin Barrows, a naturalist and desert advocate.
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