Newsweek, December 2025
The people most vulnerable to water contamination from the Colorado River are minority and low-income groups, according to a new essay. The essay comes as part of a series of articles released on December 3 in a report by the Colorado River Research Group titled “Colorado River Insights, 2025: Dancing with Deadpool.” “Key findings include a distinctly segregated pattern in where people of color live, and highly disproportionate access to household drinking water and exposure to pollutants for the basin’s minority populations,” the essay authors, Bonnie Colby and Zoey Reed-Spitzer, wrote. Newsweek has contacted one of the authors outside of regular working hours via email for comment.
Why It Matters
While millions of Americans are exposed to drinking water containing harmful contaminants nationwide, more research is highlighting that it is often minority groups that are disproportionally impacted by water contamination. For example, a 2023 study led by researchers from Harvard found communities with higher proportions of Black and Hispanic/Latino residents were more likely to be exposed to harmful levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in their water supplies than people living in other communities.
