Live in the Southwest for any amount of time, and you get used to very dry conditions, but the past dozen years have approached historic levels of drought. That has led the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to reduce the water released from Colorado River system reservoirs.
David Modeer, general manager of the Central Arizona Project which delivers water from the Colorado to central and southern Arizona, said the next two years will be pivotal.
So what is the future for agricultural water use especially in Maricopa and Pinal Counties? Sharon Megdal is director of the University of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center.