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001551 2002] THE LAST GREEN LAGOON 907 By the time Lake Powell finally filled to capacity in 1980, the diversions of water along the Lower Colorado had depleted virtually the entire flow of the river in an average year, leaving little or nothing for the Delta. This was the Colorado River Delta that Philip Fradkin encountered on a canoe trip in 1980. In his book, A River -No More, Fradkin bleakly described the wasteland that was the Colorado River Delta. Instead of emerald green lagoons, abundant wildlife, and "awesome jungles"14 of cottonwood and willow, he found a vast expanse of cracked mud and inhospitable terrain, such that even "locating the end of the river had proved to' be a difficult' goal. "15 The extensive environmental damage chronicled by Fradkin and other visitors to the region, coupled with the Delta's apparently waterless future, led many environmentalists to conclude that the Delta was effectively dead, or at least damaged beyond repair .16 Notwithstanding this dire state of affairs, events over the last two decades have proved that the reports of the Delta's death were at least premature. In the early to mid-1980's, and again in the mid-1990's, El Niiio cycles produced heavy snowpacks and spring floods that surpassed the storage capacity of the reservoir system, leading to heavy flood releases from American reservoirs.17 For several years in each cycle, brief but substantial flood flows reached the Delta. The explosion of vegetation, wildlife, and fisheries that occurred as a, result of these isolated flows of water shocked even the experts. 1~ In a matter of years, the Delta's riparian habitat rebounded to more than 150,000 acres.19 As a result, the Delta now supports more riparian habitat than the entire stretch of the Colorado between the Grand Canyon and the Mexican border, even though that region is five times longer than the Delta.20 , Over this same period, the Delta has also survived - and thrived - on agricultural wastewater.21 Wetlands have sprung up at discharge locations of agricultural drains, most notably in the 14. See LEOPOLD, supra note 5, at 142. 15. FRADKIN. supra note 9, at 320. 16. Michael J. Cohen. et al., A Preliminary Water Balance for the Colorado River Delta, 1992-1998. 49J. OFARIDENV'T35. 36 (2001). 17. See Edward Glenn et al., New Value for Old Water, WORLD & I, Apr. 1997, at 204, 208. 18. See PIlT ET AL., supra note 2. at 821. 19. See generaUy DANIEL F. LUECKE Er AL., A DELTA ONCE MORE: REsToRING RIPARIAN AND WETLAND HABITAT ON THE COLORADO RIvER DELTA 1 (1999), available at http://www.edf.org. 20. See Briggs & Comelius, supranote 11, at 515-516. 21. See 0.. at 515.