The Colorado River, lifeblood of the West, is out of time. Seven U.S. states, plus two in Mexico, use water from the river, irrigating more than 5 million acres of crops and supporting more than 35 million people. We now take much more water out of the river every year than Mother Nature delivers, an imbalance resulting from political and legal decisions made a century ago and the increasing consequences of human-caused climate change, enabled by reservoirs that have provided a false sense of abundance and security. Yesterday (Jan.