The drying delta

The Colorado River is running extremely low after nearly a decade of drought yet the demands on its dwindling water supply have never been greater. Cocopah Indians fish the rich waters of the Colorado river mouth in northern Mexico which come alive with Corvina for a couple of months each spring depending on water flow. Overtaxed by usage both north and south of the border the Colorado River is a mere stream by the time it reaches its end along the border of Baja California and Sonora in Mexico. As agricultural communities and large cities grow in the United States and draw more water from the meager supply the less flows into Mexico. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Jan. 27, 2009 3:41 PM PT

Agricultural runoff has created a heavily salinated estuary on the southeast delta of the Colorado River. Marine grasses and birds are thriving in this biosphere which is off limits to hunters and fishermen. Regardless, the Cocopah Indians, some of North America’s poorest people, have started fishing the waters desperate for income as their water supplies dry up depriving them of agricultural pursuits. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

El Mayor is a small Cocopah Indian village that lies on the banks of the Rio Hardy, a tributary of the Colorado in northern Mexico. Desperately poor, the Cocopah fish illegally in a nature reserve to gather enough money to get through the lean summer months when water is scarce. Laundry hangs from lines outside one of the homes in the small village. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Dry and barren land, recently burned by a bush fire, marks an area that used to be lush and fertile along the banks of the Colorado River which has receded greatly in recent years. The area, known as Hunters Hole, is now a favorite route of smugglers taking immigrants and drugs across the blighted landscape. Border patrol police do their best to keep them out of the area. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Surrounded by the dry low desert of southern California and Arizona, a field of lettuce rises like an oasis from fields irrigated by waters drawn from the Colorado River. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

The Ramirez family walks to their village of El Mayor along the still and polluted waters of the Rio Hardy, a tributary of the Colorado River. The Ramirez family are Cocopah Indians, amongst the poorest people in North America, and have relied on the waters for their livelihood and sustenance. Every year they say the waters diminish. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

El Mayor is one of many towns in the delta region that has been hit hard by the drought and depletion of resources to California‘s Imperial Valley and sprawling metropolis’ like Phoenix and Mexicali. Largely populated by Cocopah Indians the village is one of North America’s poorest. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Andres Lopez Gonzalez, right, relaxes at home with his family in impoverished El Mayor, a small Cocapah town about 35 miles south of the United States border. Gonzalez is not a fisherman but every spring he heads out into the dangerous waters of the delta to fish for Corvina. Often overloading their boats and with little maritime experience many Cocopah get stranded on isolated banks of the delta and lose their entire catch, a huge part of their annual income. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Fishing boats left high and dry along the banks of the Colorado River are readied for some illegal fishing in the protected waters of the Colorado River Delta. Massive tidal changes dictate when and where the Cocopah Indians can put in. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

The Cocopah fishermen got lucky this spring on their first day of fishing as thousands of Corvina were running with hundreds finding their way into boats that were rapidly overflowing with the lucrative catch. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

The Cocopah fishermen haul was massive but the teeming waters kept them in too long as the tide rapidly went low. As a result they were left to crawl through thick and deep mud along the exposed river banks as they made their way back to their vehicles to get their haul ashore. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)