Ignored No More

Indigenous tribes lived with the water's flow for thousands of years. Then, they were shut out of decision making about the Colorado River. In this episode, we go to the Jicarilla Apache Reservation to learn what that's meant for tribes, and how it's contributed to the river drying up. We also meet someone from a very different background in Boulder, Colorado. Together these men are urgently trying to do the same thing: Get everybody to the table to come up with solutions together--solutions to serve everyone who depends on the river. Part 2 of a 10-part series.

For more CPR News coverage of the Colorado River, visited cpr.org/parched.

Host: Michael Elizabeth Sakas with Taylar Dawn Stagner
Written by Michael Elizabeth Sakas and Taylar Dawn Stagner
Editors: Rachel Estabrook, Erin Jones
Production and Mixing: Emily Williams
Theme song by Kibwe Cooper. Additional music via Universal Production Music.
Artwork: Maria Juliana Pinzón
Executive Producers: Kevin Dale, Brad Turner
Additional Editorial Support: Alison Borden, Kibwe Cooper, Jo Erickson, Luis Antonio Perez, Rebekah Romberg, Andrew Villegas
Thanks also to Jeremy Wade Shockley, Sarah Bures, Hart Van Denburg, Jodi Gersh, Kim Nguyen, Clara Shelton, Arielle Wilson.

Parched is a production of the Climate Solutions team of CPR News and Colorado Public Radio’s Audio Innovations Studio — part of the NPR Network.

Jicarilla Apache Water Administrator Daryl Vigil, who is also the former Chairman of the Colorado River Basin Ten Tribes Partnership, at Lower Mundo Lake, a recreational fishing area on the Jicarilla Apache Nation, near Dulce, N.M.

Dulce, New Mexico, is part of the Jicarilla Apache Nation Reservation, not far from the Colorado border. March 5, 2023.

Brad Udall, a climate scientist who has spent the last 10 years trying to warn water managers about the crisis on the Colorado River that’s now upon us. Photographed at his Boulder, Colorado, home on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023.

The chapter “Flooding the Sistine Chapel,” in Morris K. Udall’s book “Too Funny to be President,” on he kitchen table of Brad Udall, a climate scientist with Colorado State University who has spent the last 10 years trying to warn water managers about the crisis on the Colorado River that’s now upon us. Photographed at his Boulder, Colorado, home on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023.