The Drought Making Water Conditions Dire
Many of the catchments are intended to be relatively low maintenance, designed to refill themselves at least partially during rainfall. However, Arizona is, along with the rest of the West, going through a record megadrought that is altering the daily fabric of life in the region. Even 2021’s aggressive monsoon season—which has been the third-wettest on record—hasn’t been enough to pull Arizona of drought.
“We usually get a break from hauling water in August after monsoon rains refill much of our water catchments,” Joseph Currie, habitat planning program manager, who oversees AZGFD’s water-catchment efforts, said in a release. “However, due to this extreme drought, we haven’t stopped hauling water from 2020. We anticipate having to haul more water this year than we ever have before.”
The Drought Monitor showed on Wednesday that all of the state was still in some form of drought, with much of the northern half of Arizona in either extreme or exceptional drought. Arizona is about to see an even tighter squeeze when it comes to water: Last week, officials declared the first-ever water shortage in the history of the Colorado River, which will cut Arizona’s water allocation by 18%. Those cuts will mostly hit farmers, though the natural world will also suffer.
