Colorado Signs A Historic Agreement With Six States To Deal With Drought

Denver, Colorado (AHN) - To deal with the water shortage and the worst drought in the history of the state, Colorado along with six other Western states adopted a landmark deal on Thursday.

According to the agreement, the seven states of the Colorado River Basin have decided to share Colorado River water in the times of shortage in the region, to collaborate on conservation projects and to maintain certain amount of water in reserve to deal with drought situation.

It took more than two years to formulate the agreement and finally approving it at the annual meeting of the Colorado River Water Users Association on Thursday.

"This is the most important agreement among the seven basin states since the original Colorado River Compact of 1922," U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, who signed the landmark drought plan in Las Vegas, told Rocky Mountain News.

Colorado River supplies water to more than 25 million people and 1 million acres of farmland. The states that agreed to share 1,450-mile river's water includes, California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

The agreement will be applied immediately and will run through 2026, aimed to improve the conditions of the river's two huge reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Some experts claim that the climate change can worsen the drought in the Western states due to warming speeding up the process of evaporation.

"Future hydrological inflows are very uncertain," Terry Fulp of the Bureau of Reclamation, told the USA Today. "There could be a chance (of restrictions) if the drought continues."