How the West is going dry

A view of the farms and ranches outside of Cedaredge, Colorado. — Chet Strange/The New York Times

ERIK Fritchman, a farmer who grows apples and peaches on a sunny mesa in Cedaredge, Colorado, should be tending his saplings right now, but with so little water, he is uprooting trees instead. Better that, he said, than watch them die of thirst.

Hundreds of kilometres downstream, the mayor of the tiny desert town of Kearny, Arizona, is warning residents they will run out of water soon unless they take drastic measures now.