exported Authored 3 sources

The River Is Dying

The Colorado River is in a 26-year megadrought; federal proposals would cut 40% of water allocations to Arizona, California, and Nevada, threatening 40 million Americans as Lake Mead approaches critical levels.

Sources (3)

Source	Publisher	Type	Date	Score
US Government Planning Dramatic Colorado River Water Cuts Due to Drought, Overuse US News & World Report	US News & World Report	news	2026-05	87%
Colorado River Basin Cities, Businesses, Farmers, Utilities, and Conservationists Unite to Call for $2 Billion in Federal Drought Funding The Nature Conservancy	The Nature Conservancy	think_tank	2026-05	89%
US's 2nd-biggest water reservoir to get a short-term fix amid Colorado River drought NPR	NPR	news	2026-04	90%

Full Script

Narration + Stagehand commands

Commands like [map.highlight] are Stagehand directives — they control the map renderer and pass through schema validation before any visual effect reaches the public output.

[map.view lat=36.5 lon=-112 zoom=5]
[entity.propose id="river:colorado_river" type="river" name="Colorado River" lon=-112.0 lat=36.5]
[entity.propose id="site:lake_mead" type="site" name="Lake Mead" lon=-114.7387 lat=36.1382]
[entity.propose id="site:lake_powell" type="site" name="Lake Powell" lon=-111.4836 lat=37.0709]
[entity.propose id="state:arizona" type="region" name="Arizona" lon=-111.0937 lat=34.0489]
[entity.propose id="state:california" type="region" name="California" lon=-119.4179 lat=36.7783]
[entity.propose id="state:nevada" type="region" name="Nevada" lon=-116.4194 lat=38.8026]
[entity.propose id="state:colorado" type="region" name="Colorado" lon=-105.7821 lat=39.5501]
[map.highlight ids="state:arizona,state:california,state:nevada" color="#E53E3E" opacity=0.6]
[map.highlight ids="state:colorado" color="#F6AD55" opacity=0.5]
[map.spotlight id="site:lake_mead"]
The Colorado River is in its twenty-sixth consecutive year of megadrought. Lake Mead — the largest reservoir in the United States — is approaching critically low levels that would trigger automatic cuts to the forty million Americans who depend on it.

[chat.say source="npm_lake_mead_fix_2026"]
[map.fit entities="site:lake_mead,site:lake_powell,state:arizona,state:nevada" padding=60 maxZoom=6]
[chat.say source="usnews_colorado_river_cuts_2026"]
The federal government has proposed a new water-sharing plan that would cut up to forty percent of current water allocations to Arizona, California, and Nevada. The Rocky Mountain snowpack — the river's primary source — hit a historic low this winter. Scientists say the water is not coming back.

[scene.title kind=chapter eyebrow="Clio Short" title="The River Is Dying" subtitle="40 Million at Risk"]
[scene.title kind=clear]
[map.view lat=35 lon=-115 zoom=4.5]
[chat.say source="nature_conservancy_colorado_2b_2026"]
Dozens of cities, agricultural districts, environmental groups, and utilities filed an emergency request with Congress this week: two billion dollars to manage what they called one of the most challenging hydrologic years in over a century of recordkeeping. The request comes as DOGE cuts gut the Bureau of Reclamation — the agency that operates the dams.

[map.highlight ids="state:arizona,state:california,state:nevada,state:colorado" color="#FC8181" opacity=0.5]
Seven western states signed the Colorado River Compact in 1922 — when the river ran higher than it ever has since. The math was wrong from the beginning, and now the reckoning is here.

[scene.title kind=outro title="The River Is Dying" subtitle="Follow Clio for more."]