If you turn labels off, and Google Earth the CA - MX - AZ border, you can spot the All-American canal diverting the Colorado river across actual Saharaesque fie

If you turn labels off, and Google Earth the CA - MX - AZ border, you can spot the All-American canal diverting the Colorado river across actual Saharaesque fields of sand dunes long before you see the thin grey lines of Interstate 8 right next to it. It feeds that large patch of green/farms/food entirely surrounded by sand, and drains north into the inland sea created by the first botched attempt at diverting in the 1900s. That’s arguably the least important part of the state that isn’t desert (anymore), and a small scale version of what we’ve done to the Central Valley.