Rio Grand Under Siege

Mighty Rio Grande Now a Trickle Under Siege

On maps, the mighty Rio Grande meanders 1,900 miles, from southern Colorado's San Juan Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico. But on the ground, farms and cities drink all but a trickle before it reaches the canal that irrigates Bobby Skov's farm outside El Paso, hundreds of miles from the gulf.

Now, shriveled by the historic drought that has consumed California and most of the Southwest, that trickle has become a moist breath.

"It's been progressively worse" since the early 2000s, Mr. Skov said during a pickup-truck tour of his spread last week, but he said his farm would muddle through — if the trend did not continue. "The jury's out on that," he said.

Drought's grip on California grabs all the headlines. But from Texas to Arizona to Colorado, the entire West is under siege by changing weather patterns that have shrunk snowpacks, raised temperatures, spurred evaporation and reduced reservoirs to record lows.

In a region that has replumbed entire river systems to build cities and farms where they would not otherwise flourish, the drought is a historic challenge, and perhaps an enduring one. Many scientists say this is the harbinger of the permanently drier and hotter West that global warming will deliver later this century. If so, the water-rationing order issued this month by Gov. Jerry Brown of California could be merely a sign of things to come.

Arizona, a party to a Colorado River water-sharing compact among seven states, already is bracing for a first-ever reduction in its allotment within a couple of years should the river's main reservoir, Lake Mead, continue falling beneath its current historic low.

Since coming to office two years ago, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has elevated water management in the West to an agency priority. "The challenge is systemic and persistent across the West," Michael Connor, the deputy secretary of the interior, said in an interview. "We need better infrastructure, better operation arrangements, better ways to share water and move water."

Source: The Newyork Times

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