“That is a little better than last year, but still extremely low. It only takes a few dry years to set us back.”

Kim Mitchell, senior water policy adviser at Western Resource Advocates, a Phoenix-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting water and land in the West, regarding the brief relief that this past winter’s precipitation brought to Lake Powell and Lake Mead of the Colorado River, which are still only at about 39 and 33 percents full, respectively. Federal officials are expected to ease water cuts for 2024 due to the slight improvement of the river’s health, but experts are still concerned about the impacts of a drying future. (Associated Press — Aug. 14, 2023)