Monday December 19, 2022
AP News —
The first weeks of 2023 will be crucial for Southwest U.S. states and water entities to agree how to use less water from the drought-stricken and fast-shrinking Colorado River, a top federal water manager said Friday.
“The coming three months are absolutely critical,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau told the Colorado River Users Association conferees ending three-day annual meetings in Las Vegas.
“To be clear, the challenge is extraordinary,” Beaudreau said of a withering two-decade Western drought that scientists now attribute to long-term, human-caused climate change. “The science tells us it’s our new reality.”
Beaudreau closed the conference with a call for water managers, administrators and individuals throughout the West “to develop solutions to help us all address the crisis.”