By Elizabeth Zach, RCAC staff writer
The Four Corners region of the United States – the meeting point of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah – is in a severe drought with no end in sight, leaving farmers, ranchers, water regulators and tourists facing restrictions on usage.
“We’ve been on this pattern where conditions have dried out, we haven’t seen much relief through last summer or into the winter months and here we are going into the summer of 2018 with over two-thirds of the region already in drought,” Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center in Nebraska, told the Denver Post. “So that’s alarming to say the least.”
Federal officials are pressuring the four states to finalize emergency plans in case of potential shortages of water from the Colorado River, which serves 40 million people in both the United States and Mexico.
“We face an overwhelming risk on the system, and the time for action is now,” Brenda Burman, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner told officials at the Imperial Irrigation District in Southern California, a major user of water from the Colorado River.
To read more, go here: https://www.denverpost.com/2018/05/23/colorado-southwest-drought/
