Much of the western US is facing a drought. What’s the best way to deal with it?
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How does extreme heat and drought affect everyday people in the West?
It's Consider This, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, how extreme weather, drought, and dwindling water levels in the Colorado River are all connected. It's been one of the hottest summers on record for many parts of the western United States. Some cities, like Phoenix, have had temperatures reach above 115 degrees, and that means a high attendance at cooling centers around the city. KJZZ reporter Catherine Davis-Young spoke with a man named Jonathan Nelson who's relied on some of these cooling centers.
I come in every day because the heat is really, really bad. I've been in the hospital because of the heat. I've been in kidney failure because of the heat.
Nelson has been homeless in Phoenix for 15 years, but he says this has been his hardest summer yet. If not for this site, he says he might not survive.
I'd probably be dead. Honestly, I'd probably be dead because of the heat. And I know it's killing a lot of people out there, too.
On top of the health risks associated with heat, much of the western U.S. has been dealing with drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. In times like these, water and access to it becomes a contentious issue. Consider this. As the western U.S. deals with heat and drought, a new federal proposal aims to reallocate access to water from the Colorado River. What impact could that have on more than 40 million people who rely on that water? From NPR, I'm Rob Schmitz.
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It's Consider This from NPR. When it comes to water, what happens in Colorado does not stay in Colorado. Over the last 25 years, water levels in the Colorado River have been steadily dropping, causing crucial reservoirs across the West to dry up, impacting more than 40 million people in seven U.S. states, dozens of tribal communities, and Mexico. On Friday, the federal government offered a solution. It proposed a 10-year framework to reallocate access to water from the Colorado River among a handful of states. This comes at a time when states like Colorado itself are going through yet another historic drought. Joining us now is Russ Schumacher. He's a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, and he advises the state on climate matters.
Welcome, Russ. Thanks for having me. So, Russ, tell us a little more about this plan.
In the West, with water in the Colorado River Basin, there's a somewhat complicated compact that was established a little over 100 years ago about who gets to use how much water in the Colorado River. It's divided between the upper basin states, which are Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, and the lower basin states, California, Arizona, Nevada. And so essentially the upper basin states and the lower basin states get an equal allocation of water from the Colorado River Basin, but there's not as much water in the system now as there was in the 1920s when that compact was established. There's more demand for water because a lot more people are living in the West. And so it's led to this complicated situation of negotiations between the upper basin and lower basin states and the federal government about what to do with the declining water supplies.
And the plan that was released by the federal government indicates that the lower basin states especially would be subject to reductions in use of Colorado River water.
What will that mean for those states, for the states in the lower part of the river?
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