One family makes sense of losing its Colorado River water
Pinal County farmers suffer more drastic cuts than cities in Arizona’s tenuous drought plan.
Land previously used to grow cotton will be fallowed this year as Arizona’s growing cities use more of Lake Mead’s water./Ash Ponders for High Country News
The furrows in a 60-acre patch of dirt on Rodney and Tiffany Shedd’s Arizona farm still hold cotton scraps from last year’s crop. This year, that patch will stay barren for the first time in recent memory, thanks to the decline in Colorado River water for farms across Pinal County, one of America’s cotton-growing centers. The farmers’ supply was cut because Arizona’s growing cities are taking more water than ever.
“We will fallow from here to the white tank,” said Rodney Shedd, driving past the barren field and pointing toward a water tower nearby.
And that’s just the start of water-slashing, due to drought, climate change and a proposed state plan to prop up the over-allocated Colorado River and its shrinking reservoir. Lake Mead has supplied the Shedds’ farm for decades through the $4 billion Central Arizona Project, or CAP.
