Arizona’s farmers are facing a water crisis, as the state diverts scarce Colorado River resources to booming population centers, reports Stephen R. Miller, in FERN’s latest story with National Geographic. To deal with the situation, farmers are drilling deeper into aquifers or selling off land, but pressures will only mount with climate change.
“Lacking deep snow in the Rocky Mountains to feed it, the Colorado River—which supplies some 40 million people and 1.75 million acres of irrigated land—has dwindled. Its enormous reservoirs have drained to half-empty, and research suggests that climate change will contribute to a further 20 percent drop in streamflow by 2050,” Miller writes.
Meanwhile, desert populations are booming.
A multi-state Drought Contingency Plan was signed earlier this year to maintain the water level of Lake Mead, outside Las Vegas, and avoid critical water shortages along the Colorado river system. But cuts had to come from somewhere. “They came mostly from the more than 500 farmers … who work this dusty swath of central Arizona and who will bear the brunt of the first mandatory water cuts in 2020. By virtue of being last in a long line of priority that determines who gets water, they now monitor the level in Lake Mead, waiting for the ax to fall,” Miller writes.
You can also read the story at FERN’s site.