By Felicia Fonseca | The Associated Press
Farmers in central and southern Arizona would take the hit from a projected shortage in Colorado River water, but the state’s major metropolitan areas would be shielded.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released projections Friday that show a 2 percent chance of Lake Mead in Nevada reaching the trigger point in 2015 for a shortage declaration and a 50 percent chance in 2016. Arizona would see its 2.8 million acre-foot allocation reduced by 11.4 percent, or 320,000 acre feet that is sold to non-American Indian agricultural users and stored underground.
The cuts would force farmers to rely partly on wells to pump water for their fields but aren’t deep enough to require Arizona to pull from its water savings bank.
