00:09This river has been here for five million years.
00:13Oh, hey. Hi.
00:17None of us could survive here if the river didn't exist.
00:21But now that the river is shrinking,
00:24we are forced to decide who gets to have the water.
00:30The 40 million Americans who rely on the Colorado River
00:34are facing the prospect of their water running dry.
00:37The mega drought exacerbated by climate change
00:39is jeopardizing that river's future.
00:41And there are real fears that this crucial water supply
00:44is on the brink of disaster.
00:47It's disappearing.
00:49And now everyone is fighting for their peace.
00:54I'm a third generation farmer,
00:57and I farm about 3,500 acres in the desert southwest.
01:01Farms in Imperial Valley grow over 200 different types of crops.
01:05The American public wants to buy them and we want to sell them.
01:09If you're eating a salad in the months of November to April,
01:13it's produced in the desert off the Colorado River water.
01:16If you want to continue this great tradition
01:19that we're having down here,
01:20it's time that we start fighting for it and say no more.
01:25Native Americans, you know, we're getting left out.
01:31This is my home, my ancestral grounds.
01:35The playing field ain't leveled.
01:37We've always been tripping out into the desert
01:39and just put into your obscurity.
01:43And that's made us tougher, you know.
01:46As more people settle in the desert,
01:49it's putting a strain on another resource, water.
01:53When we were kids, there were fewer than 5,000 people in this community.
01:57And now there's well over 100,000.
01:59Now it's becoming a city.
02:02Restaurants, hotels, golf courses.
02:05It's not stopping.
02:06It won't stop.
02:08There'll be more people.
02:10The only limiting factor that I can see would be water.
02:16It takes a lot of water to grow enough hay
02:20to sustain a big herd of cattle.
02:26This river is what keeps my ranch alive.
02:30Hopefully we'll be able to survive and get through all this.
02:35I pray for that.
02:38The system really wasn't meant for us.
02:41It was meant for everybody else but us.
02:44And we're trying to push our way into this system
02:46and find the seat at the table.
02:48We have 30 tribal nations that are ready to take over.
02:52And make a decision and save our river.
02:57The next 100 years begins now.
03:01If they can't work out the negotiations, what?
03:06What's going to happen?
03:08And the experts are now believing that ultimately the fight
03:11over the Colorado River is going to end up in the courts.
03:14We want the voices of the farmers to be the loudest voice
03:18and the last voice.
03:21I'm putting my money on our historic water rights.
03:25They sure don't know that.
03:26We all are enemies when the gate opens.
03:31We never aspire to gold and glory.
03:34Here we're just trying to survive.
03:36The laws and regulations that are in place right now
03:39do not benefit tribes.
03:41My hope is for the river to reach the places that it's been held back from.
03:47And to greet the ocean like it used to.
03:51There's only one prayer.
03:53Water, water, water.
03:55The lifeblood.
03:56The life of the desert.
04:00We need to change how we think about water.
04:04Our decisions are going to outlive every one of us.
04:07We're going to be the ones that future generations look back on.
04:11And saying we did or didn't do enough.
