WASHINGTON â Arizona and other Western states just lived through the driest year in more than a century, with no drought relief in sight in the near future, experts told a House panel Tuesday.
The period from last April to this March was the driest in the last 126 years for Arizona and other Western states, witnesses said. It caps a two-decade stretch that was the driest in more than 100 years that records have been kept â and one of the driest in the past 1,200 years based on paleohydrology evidence, one official said.
âWe have never seen drought at the scale and intensity that we see right now, and it is possible that this may be the baseline for the future,â Elizabeth Klein, a senior counselor to the secretary of Interior, said in her testimony.
Advertisement: “It’s important to understand this is not a crisis but a drought that is expected when you live in the desert,” said SRP spokesperson Patty Garcia-Likens. “Salt River Project, Arizona cities and Central Arizona Project have planned for times like this.” Charlie Ester, SRP’s manager of watershed management, said that from the agency’s perspective, Arizona has been in drought conditions since 1995. “One of the things that we do at SRP is we always plan for drought conditions,” Ester said. “That sounds very simple, but it was not always the case.” Ester said areas of the state that are not served by SRP or CAP could be hit hardest.
Arizona and other Western states just lived through the driest year in more than a century, with no drought relief in sight in the near future, experts told a House panel Tuesday.
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