Running Out of Water

In March 1934, Benjamin Baker Moeur, then governor of the state of Arizona in the United States, became extremely agitated upon hearing that the neighboring state of California was preparing to build a dam on the Colorado River to deliver more water to growing cities in Southern California. The river, which in its lower reaches forms the border between California and Arizona, had recently shriveled to a fifth of its normal water flow after 5 years of parching drought across the western part of the country.