Leaders in the Western United States are scrambling to secure precious water supplies for their states and cities as they battle the worst drought conditions in 1,200 years with little, if any, relief on the horizon.
Irrigation districts in many parts of the Southwest are already warning farmers to expect less water from rivers such as the Rio Grande this year, even as demand has surged following months of below-average precipitation. And in the Pacific Northwest, experts are forecasting one of the driest summers on record, noting that more than 70% of the region is already considered to be in drought, with nearly one-quarter experiencing “extreme drought.”
To that end, federal water managers gathered for a virtual meeting on Thursday to share their proposals for keeping rivers flowing, including the Rio Grande, a major water source for millions of people, as well as thousands of miles of farmland stretching across Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.
That effort includes offering compensation to farmers in some areas who forgo their annual irrigation allotments, as state and regional water managers seek to keep water flowing.
So far, over 200 irrigators in New Mexico and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District have enrolled in the program, according to the Associated Press. But officials concede that the fallowing program is only a temporary solution.
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Casey Ish, a water resources specialist with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, told the Associated Press on Thursday that officials there are now targeting fields that are “less productive” or that need to be rested. “For us, this is just one tool and one way the district is trying to help the state manage the state’s compact debt, but we certainly don’t anticipate pulling a third or half the district into a fallowing program year over year,” Ish said Thursday. “That’s not sustainable from a price point or an ag point.”
Still, it’s unlikely the West will receive an abundance of new water supplies in the near future, so officials have been forced to work with what they have.
Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned of a drier-than-average spring season ahead in its annual spring outlook and said historic drought conditions will likely “worsen” in the West in the coming months.
“Severe to exceptional drought has persisted in some areas of the West since the summer of 2020 and drought has expanded to the southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley,” Jon Gottschalck, of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said in a news release.
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“With nearly 60% of the continental U.S. experiencing minor to exceptional drought conditions, this is the largest drought coverage we’ve seen in the U.S. since 2013.”
