U.S. Water News Online
PHOENIX -- While Arizona's big cities are weathering the drought through multiple water sources, the rural areas are being forced to drain lakes and tap depleted wells.
Flagstaff imposed mandatory conservation measures in May. The community of Navajo Mountain shut down a boarding school in July when water ran out, and Mayer barely kept its school open when a well failed in August.
In Phoenix, the lack of rain has mostly meant more sunny days.
Although Phoenix has asked residents to voluntarily cut water consumption by 5 percent, no city has enforced mandatory curbs, even after Salt River Project cut its deliveries by one-third in January.
Plentiful water supplies have allowed one south Phoenix resort to open a new water park and a recently opened north Phoenix resort to finish work on 4 acres of ponds, fountains, pools and a fake river, all of which will use up to 3 million gallons of water daily.
Phoenix has an ample supply of water because it gets some of its water from the Colorado River, while most rural communities draw from a limited number of lakes and wells, mostly on the same confined watershed. A drought on that watershed saps the local supply, leaving those communities with few options.
Phoenix and Tucson have developed multiple water sources drawing from geographically diverse watersheds with enormous storage reservoirs that can weather a few dry years. Lakes Powell and Mead alone can store enough Colorado River water to serve Arizona, California and Nevada for more than four years.
``The drought isn't nearly as bad as one would expect it to be around here because of the dams,'' said Grady Gammage, a Phoenix lawyer who serves on the board that oversees the Central Arizona Project.
But the drought's effects in rural Arizona have stretched border to border.
The Navajo Nation has been especially hard hit. Wells and basins began to dry up in last spring, leaving sheep and cattle with no water. Years of no rain and overgrazing stripped the land of food, and by early summer, tribal officials encouraged livestock owners to sell their animals or move them off the reservation.
Williams and Flagstaff both began watching surface water sources anxiously early last year, aware that with little or no runoff on the way, supplies would be stretched thin. They were. Flagstaff asked residents to conserve and then, when use actually rose, made the restrictions mandatory.
City officials are reviewing the drought policy and considering potentially tougher limits for this year if the drought persists.
Farmers and ranchers from Seligman to Safford found themselves forced to give up grazing lands early in the summer. When faced with the choice of buying feed for the cattle or selling the animals at a loss, most went to auction.
The Tohono O'odham Nation declared a drought emergency in May after livestock began dying from lack of food and water. Many tribal members lost nearly everything they owned.
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