ST. GEORGE, Utah: For the first time, farmer Jimmie Hughes saw the 15 ponds he keeps for his cattle dry at the same time this year.
Now, he and his co-workers are forced to transport water tanks for two hours on dusty and mountain roads to water their 300 cows. “It’s just a day to day, we don’t make money,” Mr Hughes, 50, said one day late last month, amid another day of unshakable sunshine in a winter that has seen very little rain here in southern Utah.
The southwest is once again closing in on drought, causing cuts to farms and ranchers and putting back pressure on urban supplies. Extreme to exceptional drought is affecting between 57% and 90% of the lands of Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Arizona and is reducing a snow package that supplies water to 40 million people from Denver to Los Angeles. Angeles, according to the United States Drought Monitor. .
Jimmie Hughes, bottom right, ranches ranch in Mohave County, Arizona, where he and his co-workers often transport water down mountain trails to pasture areas. A stock tank that slowly fills up from a natural source is used to keep livestock supplied with water.
A water truck fills up in Mohave County, Arizona. The water is taken to other areas where livestock is grazed and stored for future use.
The team of government and academic agencies that produces the monitor defines drought as a period of unusually dry weather that causes problems such as crop losses and water scarcity.
The current drought, which began last year, is already emerging as one of the worst in the southwest. Utah and Nevada experienced their driest years in 126 years of federal records during 2020, while Arizona and Colorado had the second driest place and New Mexico the fourth, according to Brian Fuchs, a climatologist at the National Mitigation Center. Drought at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. . He said the southwest has been engulfed by drought for much of the past two decades, and that the latest came after one of the driest summers on record.
Dry
The southwestern United States has been hit by a severe drought and, in some places, a record since last year.
In the Elephant Butte irrigation district in southern New Mexico, farmers have already been warned that they are facing only 16% of their normal allocation in June.
“It’s horrible here,” said Gary Esslinger, treasurer-manager of Las Cruces district, New Zealand. He said the 6,500 farmers in the area have already taken a third of their 90,640 irrigable acres out of production from previous drought years and will likely keep them offline this year as well. New Mexico State Engineer John D’Antonio Jr. said his office is asking other farmers not to plant this year, if they can, as reservoirs across the state only contain 20% of what fan normally.
Drought conditions have also spread to California, where the snow cover was 58% of the average on Monday, according to historical records dating back just under a century. This increases the likelihood of drought that could contribute to forest fires and lead to cuts in agriculture, state officials say. A deluge of rainfall at the end of the winter rainy season could lower the risk of these results, but it is currently not in the forecast.
“We have time, but we have to keep our fingers crossed,” Fuchs said.
Meteorologists say the combination of a warming climate and changing atmospheric patterns that divert storms to the north make dry periods more frequent and pronounced. As a result, the landscape is not getting enough time to recover before the next drought begins, Fuchs said.
Colorado enjoyed a snow season above normal a year ago, but much of the spring runoff was absorbed by the still dry soil from the previous drought, he said. The state continued to suffer its largest recorded wildfires in late 2020.
The population of St. George, Utah, and its suburbs doubled between 2000 and last year.
Meanwhile, levels of southwestern reservoirs have been declining. The largest of these reservoirs, Lake Mead, is 41% full after years of falling Colorado River flow. Federal officials warn that it is on track to fall below the 1,075-foot threshold over the next two years, which would result in water cuts forced by the government on millions of users.
Complicating matters is the explosive population growth of the Southwest. Sant Jordi and its suburbs, nestled between red rock canyons and snow-capped mountains, totaled 188,000 people last year, more than double the 91,000 population in 2000, according to census estimates.
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“We’ve always been dry,” said insurance businessman Ed Bowler, who guided his pick by passing the rows of new homes on a one-day tour in late February. “But we didn’t have all these people.”
The last two summers have been the warmest recorded around Washington County. St. George spent 154 days last year without receiving measurable rainfall, shattering the previous record of 121 days since 1929.
In the long run, officials in southern Utah are looking at pipes in the water to help meet the needs of the area.
There are no other good options, said Zach Renstrom, general manager of the Washington County Water Conservation District. “Our plan B,” he said, “is that at some point you’ll have to say,‘ Stop. No more houses can be built here. ”
The southwest has been enveloped by drought for much of the past two decades.
Write to Jim Carlton at [email protected]
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