Southwest states could be doing a better job at conserving water this year than in any year in the past decade.
New numbers show the lower basin states — Nevada, California and Arizona — may only use about 7.3 million acre-feet by the end of the year, as reported by the Daily Star. The full allocation for the states is 7.5 million acre feet.
John Fleck, director of the University of New Mexico Water Resources Program, said they had initially thought the savings would be even greater.
“But we are still doing well. This is the best we have done in a decade even though population has been growing, foreign productivity has been growing. So we shouldn’t view this as bad news,” Fleck said.
Fleck credits various conservation efforts by states like Arizona to leave more water in Lake Mead, which has been hitting records low all summer. He said this kind of work will have to continue to deal with the ongoing drought on the Colorado River.
