And I don't know about you, but we 'mericans aren't doing a real good job with the water in the west at all.
There's a difference, you see. Our nation was settled (seized?) from east to west. Water is different on both sides of the Mississippi, and all the laws and compacts were written before we knew how water worked in the west. Had the US been settled West to East the Missouri River would be the longest in the world and water retention would be completely different.
The Colorado has a couple of obvious fuck ups that are going to become apparent in the next 50 years and I do not have any idea what people are going to do, or more importantly what they are going to drink. I actually suspect that a canal will be dug between the Columbia/Snake and the Colorado to 'add water' to the Colorado. That ought to be a pretty fancy public works project...
And the Missouri would not be named the Missouri. Snake maybe? Montana?
That's interesting and something I have never thought about before, the direction in which the country was settled. It makes sense though...I wonder how different things would be?