Politicians, water experts and policymakers gathered Tuesday at a Deseret News panel discussion with the goal of "elevating" the national discourse on the topic of water and drought in the West.
Here are some takeaways:
Politics are partisan, but water is not.
Benji Backer, president and founder of the American Conservation Coalition, said bridging the gap between rural and urban communities is crucial when it comes to managing resources such as water.
“At the end of the day, we need sound decisions that work for rural and urban Arizonians and to bridge the gap between where we are now and where we need to be doing things in the future," Backer said.
Water use is on all of us.
A 9% reduction in agriculture’s use of Colorado River water would double the amount of water available in the basin states, according to Rhett Larson, a professor of water law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. But that doesn't mean the problem is solely farmers', Larson said.
"We are all beneficiaries of the work that farmers do. And so it doesn’t do anyone any good to wag our fingers at farmers and tell them to fix it,” he said.
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