U.S. may cut water to state

[Kadie]

U.S. may cut water to state

Southwest drought slashes Colorado River flows.

By Stuart Leavenworth -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 27, 2004

The Bush administration is threatening to impose unilateral water cutbacks on California, Arizona and Nevada if the three states can't come up with a plan to deal with a historic drought on the Colorado River.

Following five years of dry weather, the two largest reservoirs on the Colorado are roughly half-empty and dropping fast, and Interior Department officials are urging water agencies to work together on a contingency plan or have one imposed on them.

"We need the three basin states to get their act together and deal with shortages," said Assistant Interior Secretary Bennett Raley in a recent meeting with water officials from California, Arizona and Nevada. If the three states can't work out a plan, he said, the Interior secretary "will have to do it."

For years, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and other fast-growing cities in the region have depended on surplus water from the Colorado - supplies that exceed their entitlements. Now, the Southwest is shifting to a much drier period, and states are facing not only the loss of surplus but also cutbacks that could affect tens of millions of people.

more... http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/environment/story/9076344p-10002238c.html

[Ready4Change]

1. I've considered moving out there...

And this is one of the reasons I haven't. It isn't that I don't want to deal with water shortages. It's that, if I and many others don't move out there, the shortages won't be as bad.

[jcldragon]

2. I've noticed

that my neighbors don't spray off their sidewalks & driveways with their water hoses like they used to. I think my joke about watering the concrete, so that we could have more of it, might have gotten through to them....