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Severe drought and mandatory water cuts are pitting communities against each other in Arizona:
As the climate crisis intensifies, battle lines are beginning to form over water. In Arizona -- amid a decades-long megadrought -- some communities are facing the very real possibility of losing access to the precious water that remains.
Outside the city limits of Scottsdale, where the asphalt ends and the dirt road begins, is the Rio Verde Foothills community. Hundreds of homes here get water trucked in from Scottsdale, but those deliveries will end on January 1, 2023.
That's because last summer, for the first time ever, drought conditions forced the federal government to declare a tier 1 water shortage in the Colorado River, reducing how much Arizona can use.
[...] "We are what I call the 'sacrificial lamb' for the bigger areas," Irwin told CNN. "In my opinion, look somewhere else -- we need to be able to sustain ourselves."
The scarcity of water in the state is pitting small towns against fast-growing metropolitan communities.
[...] Arizona's population growth and extreme drought have increased demand for water in limited supply. Kathleen Ferris, a senior research fellow with the Kyl Center for Water Policy in Arizona, says water scarcity in the state has resulted in the "haves" and the "have nots," and likened the coming water battles to the days of the Wild West. "Once you have your water rights, you defend it," Ferris said. "That's the way it works."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2022, @08:15AM (2 children)
The politicians are the deniers. The whole system is screwy.
I live in Colorado. Every year in the winter and spring, they will measure the snowpack (it's not just for skiing, that's where all the water comes from) and tell you how it compares to average. Usually - big surprise - it's pretty close to average. Sometimes it's 80% of normal, sometimes 120%, whatever. Right now it's 92% of normal [usda.gov]. This was a weird winter, it didn't snow at all in November or December, but it snowed like crazy in February. The thing about snowpack, nobody can mess with it. It comes from natural snowfall and it melts when it melts, and the only comparison is to the historical measured averages.
Then, every year just like clockwork, they will tell you the whole state is experiencing a drought [drought.gov]. Right now 100% of the state is at least "abnormally dry" and 83% is some sort of "drought," somewhere from moderate to exceptional.
I have been on rafting trips where they have closed part of the river because water levels were too high, during a "drought."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2022, @10:17PM (1 child)
You should look past the "we had average snowpack everything should be dandy" logic. It is more complicated, and one normal year doesn't make up for lots of drought years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02 2022, @01:27AM
The thing is, every year is a normal year for snowpack, and every year is also a "drought." Maybe one year in ten is not a statewide drought.
If you have such a deep understanding of what is really going on, maybe you could enlighten us?