Inherent necessity

A shrinking river...A Southern California family using an acre foot of water from the Colorado per year...
An acre foot is the size of a football field covered in a foot of water. The Colorado River produces 440,000 million acre feet of water to Southern California every year. Can it keep producing this amount?
The river touches seven states and all take what they can from it.
Building the dam was the first inroad to having access to the Colorado in a way only imaginable at the time. Before the dam, the river was seen as a menace when it would go "out of bounds" flooding the valleys of southern California.
Now the river is a necessity. And with all necessities the price keeps rising.
Who will afford it? Well, who had the dam built in the first place? No, not who built the dam. Who wanted it built and why and what happened to these people?
Nevertheless, both the river and the dam have become necessities now, but what of the future?