Colorado River

he would never return from.

June 2nd of 2015 marked the sixth of eight days rafting down the Colorado River, and it had been smooth sailing thus far.

Yet around 4pm that day, as the team rested on a cliffside near a geothermal hot spring named Pumpkin Springs, Morgan approached the lead guide and asked to talk to him in private.

Then, as they strolled out of earshot, Morgan asked permission to take some time off that afternoon.

But after 48 hours of Morgan's continued absence, they began to fear the worst.

The general consensus among the search and rescue teams was that Morgan had suffered some kind of fatal accident Some suspected he tripped or stumbled while walking near the edge of a cliff, but after sweeping the surrounding areas, Morgan's body was nowhere to be found.

Rescue personnel then considered the possibility that Morgan had fallen to the river and drowned, yet despite an extensive search of the lower portions of the Colorado River, no human corpses were discovered.

It seems bizarre that Morgan couldn't be found after wandering off from the group, as he was wearing brightly colored clothes and carried a purple water bottle.

What river runs through the Grand Canyon?

The Colorado River.

What country is Pad Thai originally from?

What country is Pad Thai from? Honestly, Thailand.

What river runs through the Grand Canyon?

The Colorado River.

What country is Pad Thai originally from?

What country

And then the federal government should do what the state and locals can't.

And so the Hoover Dam was an example of seven states that had been fighting over the Colorado River for decades, and who was gonna get the water, and everybody knew there needed to be a dam built.

But who was gonna pay for it, and who was gonna benefit from it? And the federal government was able to convene all of the stakeholders and serve as the sort of mobilizer to have it built and then be able to equitably provide water.

I mean, this is something only the federal government can do.

As we begin tonight's story, we're travelling back to October 1928 to a small town in Utah where a young married couple are preparing for a honeymoon unlike most others.

Their names are Glenn and Bessie Hyde, and instead of spending their first weeks of marriage relaxing somewhere comfortable, they've decided to take a wooden boat down the Colorado River, traveling through some of the most remote and challenging country in America.

It's an ambitious journey, particularly for the time.

There were no mobile phones, no GPS devices and very few opportunities to contact the outside world.

They passed through the stretches of spectacular scenery, with enormous canyon walls rising above the river and long sections where the only sounds were the water moving around the boat and the wind travelling through the rocks.

There were difficult moments of course.

Colorado River could change quickly with calm stretches giving way to rapids that require careful navigation.

Glenn was confident in his ability to manage the boat and Bessie gradually became more familiar with the routines of life on the river.

The AG's office in Arizona has become a key player in some of the nation's biggest energy and climate debates.

Like, how should Western states respond as the Colorado River shrinks because of climate change? Can a state that has strong tech and data center ambitions also balance its power and water needs? And what will it take to do all of that while keeping electricity affordable? So today, I want to sit down with Attorney General Mays to talk about her race, those big questions, and why Arizona is a state to watch as the country grapples with its energy and climate future.

Here's our extended conversation.

It's Monday, October 26th.

And then in general, I think Arizonans are worried about data centers.

I took a pretty strong stand against them, or at least in favor of putting a pause on new data centers because we don't know what our water future is in Arizona.

We just took a 30% cut on our Colorado River water supplies.

I think it's insane to be moving full speed ahead with 50 new data center projects, which is what our utilities are saying that are in the queue, so to speak, for new service.

They're probably putting the fires out.

And then the four corners, the Rio Grande, the Colorado River, You know, the Four Corners, I think it's probably the most prettiest part of our country, John.

The Grand Canyon, all those areas, I, as a child, I just loved going out there.

But they got tsunamis and floods.

So the rivers are overflowing now in the Rio Grande, the Colorado River.

So I guess that's good news.

It is good news, absolutely.

All right.

Look at the water crisis.

The Washington Post is highlighting Queen Creek, Arizona, where residents are suddenly opening their mail to find five hundred dollar monthly water bills because for decades they relied on cheap, abundant water from the Colorado River.

But the mechanism of how water rights work in the West is brutally hierarchical.

How so?

As the Colorado River dries up, the allocation tiers dictate who gets cut off first.

Agricultural and senior water rights holders are protected while newer residential municipalities are forced to turn to incredibly expensive alternative groundwater pumping or open market water purchases just to keep the taps running.

Wow.

But every single one of these deals.

You know, I looked at another one, beautiful property, like two miles of Colorado River frontage, incredible on the western slope, close to a highway, close to a big city.

But there are oil wells everywhere

on the