At the height of the California drought that began in late 2011, Los Angeles imported 89 percent of its water from more than 200 miles away, according to the University of California Los Angeles. Most of its water comes from Northern California and the Colorado River. Los Angeles gets most of its water from someplace else. Phoenix has developed alternative sources, including water that has been stored underground, but the $500 million of infrastructure needed to get that water to all parts of the city is still years away, according to Yale Environment 360. “ They are in the bullseye of global warming, too.” “They could be affected by a mega-drought,” Andrew Ross, a sociology professor at New York University and author of Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City, told Yale Environment 360. It is a tributary of the Gila River, and both face climate change impacts. The Salt River provides about 60 percent of the Phoenix metro area's water needs.
Which defies logic, for many people," Cynthia Campbell, the city's water resource management adviser, told the Phoenix New Times. "We're sitting in the middle of the desert, trying to grow a city. And that's just one water issue the city of 1.6 million is grappling with. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)Īfter years of negotiations, Arizona and six other Southwestern states that rely on the Colorado River for drinking water have agreed to a drought contingency plan, and Congress has passed legislation to put it into effect.īut officials in Phoenix, the state's capital and largest city, know the day is coming when they can no longer rely on the Colorado River for 40 percent of their water needs. Officials in Phoenix, Arizona, know the day is coming when they can no longer rely on the Colorado River for a large part of its water supply. In a more controversial move, the city is building a system to treat sewage water and turn it directly into drinking water, according to CNN. To reduce El Paso's reliance on groundwater, the city has built a huge desalination plant that converts brackish water into drinking water. In 2013, Texas sued New Mexico saying the state was taking more water than it was entitled to under the 80-year-old Rio Grande Compact, according to the Texas Tribune.Īs in many places, part of the struggle is balancing the needs of farmers, who need to irrigate crops, and city dwellers, who need fresh drinking water.
Snowfall this winter has helped, but that water has to run from Colorado through New Mexico before it reaches El Paso. The city of nearly 700,000 gets its drinking water from the Rio Grande, now called the Rio Sand in places. Sitting in the Chihuahuan Desert and receiving only about 9 inches of rain annually, El Paso, Texas, is particularly vulnerable. "The question is: When the bad times come will there be enough water for everybody?" "The state is growing so fast that we're constantly playing catch-up when it comes to building resilient water supplies," Robert Mace, executive director of The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, told AP. With drought a continual threat, water is a big worry in the Lone Star State. The state's population is expected to double by 2050 to more than 50 million people, according to the Associated Press. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)Ībout 1,000 people arrive in Texas every day. Sitting in the Chihuahuan Desert, El Paso, Texas, receives only about 9 inches of rain annually.
0 kommentar(er)
