About 40 million people and 5.5 million acres of cropland depend on the Colorado for drinking water and irrigation, but its flow has gradually diminished over the past two decades as the climate becomes warmer and more arid across the West. Now the arcane system of water rights governing the river entitles each state and Mexico to far more water than is actually available. The rules prioritize the longest-established uses of water, in many cases dating to the 1850s and 1860s.
Not really discussed much: the water mostly goes to food for cows and cars, not people
Not just fantasy. It was determined on gallons instead of some percentage of the water flowing. Nature doesn’t care about how many gallons humans want to divvy up.
Number of gallons of the water flowing during an unusually wet period, making the resulting number a fantasy relative to the amount of water normally available.