Once-teeming Lake Mead marinas are idle as a 14-year drought steadily drops water levels to historic lows. Officials from nearby Las Vegas are pushing conservation, but are also drilling a new pipeline to keep drawing water from the lake.
Hundreds of miles away, farmers who receive water from the lake behind Hoover Dam are preparing for the worst. The receding shoreline at one of the main reservoirs in the vast Colorado River water system is raising concerns about the future of a network serving a perennially parched region home to 40 million people and 4 million acres of farmland.
If cuts do come, they’ll test the agreements forged in recent years between big, growing cities and farmers.
In California, home to 38 million residents, farmers in the sparsely populated Imperial Valley in southeast California have senior water rights ensuring that they get water regardless of the condition.
Kevin Kelley, general manager of the Imperial Irrigation District, defends his agency’s position at the head of the line and dismisses the idea that water should go to those who can pay the most or make the most compelling economic argument.
Imperial Valley farmers grow some 200 crops, Kelley said, from alfalfa to cotton and celery to zucchini. “There has to be a place in a diverse economy and a diverse Southwest for a place like this that grows food and fiber year-round,” he said.
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