(2 of 4)
Indeed, the North Platte River is merely damp sand for long stretches. Local stores carry postcards of a lush, green Scotts Bluff that bears only a passing resemblance to the bare, tan-colored mesa that rises from the Nebraska prairie and once served as a landmark for settlers heading west on the Oregon Trail. Even the weeds have deserted miles of pasture, leaving nothing behind but swirling dust, starving antelope and bawling calves hungry for milk their mothers can't produce.
This year's bitter combination of high temperatures and low rainfall has been the harshest in a four-year cycle, and it has prompted the state to take action. A new task force has been charged with solving the state's water problems. Part of its charter is to prevent future disputes with Wyoming over distribution of water from the North Platte River. The decades-long fight recently cost Nebraska $20 million and has been stepped up by the 2002 drought.
Federal farm-loan managers estimate that 90% of farmers in the area are in financial trouble. Jones says he would be broke it were not for his wife's schoolteacher salary. "Everyone's asking everyone else, 'What are you doing?'" Jones says. "We all know what to do when it rains. But nobody knows how to farm when it doesn't." --With reporting by Amanda Bower/New York
Colorado LOCAL FARMERS ARE SUFFERING THROUGH THE WORST DROUGHT IN MEMORY. SO WHY IS THE GOLF COURSE GREEN?
Ron Gillen has a face like his farmland-brown and a little bit broken. "I don't know how we're going to make it," the farmer says as he looks at some of his cows huddling under a bridge to escape the burning sun. Gillen, 66, has only 20 cows left from a herd of 450. After three years of drought in southwestern Colorado, Gillen's fields are parched, his irrigation water is spent, and he has been selling off land and livestock to cover debts. His banker keeps telling him that he should find some other line of work, that farming these days "is pretty grim." But after a lifetime of farming, Gillen says, "where would I go to find work? Welcoming people at Wal-Mart?"
Thirty miles away in the city of Durango (pop. 15,000) at El Patio Bar & Grill, misting machines spray diners to keep them cool. Lawns are lush, and the golf course has fairways greener than fresh limes. But according to the widely used Palmer monthly drought index, the region around Durango is suffering the worst drought in the U.S. In June the Missionary Ridge fire, northeast of town, burned 70,000 acres. Only 2.86 in. of rain have fallen all year. And Durango, which since 1877 has had first rights to the water that flows down the Florida River and the local Animas, can hold only a seven-day supply in its reservoir. So the city uses up most of its entitlement, consuming 6 million gal. of water a day to preserve an oasis environment on a semidesert plateau. The golf course alone absorbs half a million gallons a day, water that would otherwise flow downstream and feed the Colorado River. "We created an artificial environment here, and we are trying to keep it," says city manager Robert Ledger. "The water we don't use ends up in a fountain in Vegas."