Colorado is getting drier. After years of drought, our rivers are running lower, our reservoirs are shrinking, and every drop of water matters more than ever. The Colorado River Basin is facing unprecedented water shortages, and communities across our state are being asked to conserve.
And yet, there’s one industry that just keeps consuming more and more water. In the last 10 years, hydraulic fracturing operations in Colorado consumed 113 billion gallons of water—enough to supply the entire Denver metro area with drinking water for over 200 years.
As we work toward a just and equitable transition to a renewable energy future, understanding the true water cost of fossil fuel extraction is crucial. That’s why our friends at EcoCarto created an interactive quiz to help you grasp these enormous numbers.
Discover:
– How fracking water use per well has increased dramatically in the last decade
– How much water the average new oil & gas well consumes (spoiler: it’s more than 10 million gallons)
– How to make sense of what “billions of gallons” mean in terms of swimming pools, bathtubs, and household water use
The quiz takes about 5 minutes with 20 randomly selected questions. Each reveals the answer immediately, so you’ll learn as you go.
In a state where water is life, these numbers matter. Every gallon used for fracking is a gallon unavailable for agriculture, municipal use, or sustaining our rivers and ecosystems. As we transition to clean energy, we can protect both our water resources and our climate.
Ready to test your knowledge?
 Take the quiz: https://ecocarto.com/quizzes/
Would you rather just see all the answers and how we calculated them?
 View the answers: https://ecocarto.com/2025/10/
Together, we can build a future powered by renewable energy that respects our precious water resources.
