Hispanic group launches Colorado River campaign

A new conservation campaign is sending a musical message to policymakers and Hispanics in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, urging them to protect the Colorado River.

Nuestro Rio launched its advocacy effort Thursday with events in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Albuquerque and Denver, aimed at raising awareness about the river's shrinking water levels. At the heart of the campaign was an original song called "Corrido de Nuestro Rio," or "Folk Song About Our River," with lyrics about family, tradition and culture.

"It's our river, the blood of my grandfather," the song implores. "And as Cesar Chavez said, 'Yes, we can' save our river."

Chronic drought, climate change and population growth are drying up the Colorado River, which provides water for seven states and Mexico.

Nuestro Rio organizers say Latinos have a special history with the river and need to be educated about how to preserve it. They are advocating for improved urban conservation, enhanced agricultural efficiency and instituting water banks. The organization claims 13,000 members across the West.

At the Las Vegas event, a mariachi band dressed in traditional garb performed the corrido, a song passing down oral history, as a handful of activists, politicians and locals ate tacos and discussed the diminishing water supply at the river's two huge reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

"You can see where the lake used to be and where it is today," state Sen. Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, said. "That should be a concern to us because we want this great resource to be available to our families."

In New Mexico, a small group of government officials and supporters gathered at the National Hispanic Cultural Center to talk about the Colorado River's connection to the Rio Grande and to hear Lenore Armijo sing the traditional ballad as she strummed on her guitar.

The song compares the river to a mother who gives her children life and love and talks about its origins in the Rocky Mountains and how it now barely trickles down to Sonora, Mexico.

Latinos have a long relationship with the Colorado, according to Nuestro Rio organizers. Chavez, a Mexican-American labor activist, organized farmworkers in fields irrigated with water from the river. Many of the states that receive water from the basin, Nevada, California, Arizona and New Mexico, also tend to have big Hispanic populations.

The effort is funded by the Walton Family Foundation, an education reform-focused charity operated by the children of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.