The mayor of this desert city likens the U.S. West’s water crisis to planning for a meteor. ‘You can see it coming, but you can’t get out of the way’

The mayor of Cave Creek, a desert city in Arizona, has compared the U.S. West's water crisis to planning for a meteor strike, as the town's primary water source, the Colorado River, is dwindling due to climate change, demand, and overuse. With nearly all of its water coming from the river, the town has already had to make cuts and faces the possibility of even more reductions under a new federal plan.

The uncertainty surrounding the crisis extends across seven U.S. states, tribal nations, and Mexico, with farmers deciding which crops to invest in, Phoenix potentially facing water cuts for the first time, and Nevada suing the Interior Department and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation over the impact on the Las Vegas region. The situation is exacerbated by a record snow drought, which has left two of the largest reservoirs on the Colorado River, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, at record lows, and other reservoirs in the region also hitting their lowest levels in decades.

Brief written by urgent.news from Fortune's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.