Population, Immigration, and the Drying of the American Southwest
Paper Explores Looming Water Crisis Driven by Immigration Policy
The looming water crisis in the American Southwest – and the role of immigration-driven population growth – is the topic of a paper published this month by the Center for Immigration Studies and authored by New Mexico journalist Kathleene Parker.
The paper, 'Population, Immigration, and the Drying of the American Southwest,' online here, explores the link between the possibility of the potentially catastrophic economic and environmental water crisis and the fact that the Southwest is the fastest-growing region of the world's fourth-fastest-growing nation – a growth rate earlier cautioned against by various presidential commissions. It also looks at how that growth rate is driven by historically unprecedented immigration – legal and illegal – into the United States, the world's third-most-populous nation after China and India. Immigration is responsible for more than half of the population growth in the Southwest this past decade, and nearly all of the growth in the largest southwest state, California.
Such high immigration has happened absent discussion or acknowledgement of its impacts on population or limited resources, such as water. Parker presents evidence that indicates there is insufficient water for the region's current population, much less the larger future populations that will result if immigration continues at its present high rate.
The paper focuses on the drought- and growth-depleted Colorado River, including the high probability that the first-ever drought emergency could be declared on the river by early 2011 and the possibility that Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir and a depression-era wonder of engineering, could run dry in the not too distant future, with hydroelectric production threatened even sooner.
This would imperil all of the Southwest, Nevada and Las Vegas – which depends on Lake Mead for 90 percent of its water – in particular, but also cities like Albuquerque, which uses Colorado River water via the San Juan-Chama diversion project. Such relatively junior water rights could be at risk in the midst of a profound or long-term water shortage on the Colorado River.
The legal allocation of the Colorado in the 1920s was based on a combination of flawed river-flow data and a failure to understand that the Southwest, historically, is a far more arid region – based on recent scientific research – than first believed. That concern is based on normal weather patterns, with the possibility of even further depletion of the river, the Southwest's main source of water, should global warming happen.
Yet the water crisis unfolds in an atmosphere where, as pointed out by prestigious scientific groups like the National Academy of Sciences and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, the extent of the crisis is not being sufficiently acknowledged or the advisability of the region's high growth rate considered by leaders. That high growth rate, in turn, is driven by U.S. immigration policies that do not consider the implications of a growth rate that, if trends hold, could mean one billion Americans by late this century.
Six states are dependent upon Colorado River to provide water to roughly 60 million people, and that number could double over the next four decades if immigration is not returned to far lower levels in the near future.
Parker, now of Rio Rancho, N.M., earlier worked as a correspondent for the Santa Fe New Mexican in the 1990s, covering Los Alamos, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Jemez Mountain region. She also freelanced for the Albuquerque Journal, covering the aftermath of the Cerro Grande fire and other topics, and she recently authored an article, for a major forestry magazine, on the Cerro Grande fire. She often teaches adult-education courses on population and environmental topics, has worked widely on water issues in Colorado and New Mexico, and frequently writes commentaries.
The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Bryan Griffith, (202) 466-8185, press@cis.org. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Other recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
1. Immigration and Economic Stagnation: An Examination of Trends 2000 to 2010 (Backgrounder)
2. Foiling Terrorists by Keeping Them Out (Blog)
3. ICE Finds Huge New Tunnel at Border, But Are Congratulations Really in Order? (Blog)
4. USCIS Takes Small Steps Forward on Alien Worker Programs (Blog)
5. Tories May Have Overreached vis-a-vis Language Requirement for Spouses (Blog)
6. Fading DREAMs (Blog)
7. Immigration Lessons from the Chandra Levy Murder Case (Blog)
8. ICE to Sanctuaries: Just Say No to Holds (Blog)
Background
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.
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