was overallocated to the lower basin states, arizona, california. there s been this tension with colorado, utah, wyoming, the upper basin states where all that snow pack has been diminishing. that was the water table for the western united states and now it s gone. we re in the 23rd year of this worst drought in 1,200 years now and so now what the government, federal government and those water managers are saying, it is everybody, incumbent on everybody, the tribes, farmers, city dwellers, to conserve in ways they never have before. in nevada, they ve been paying people to rip up their lawns. the governor of california last week was in front of a desalination plant. he s talking about doubling down on desalination, trying to harvest storm water that s coming in the rivers. if you could catch that water, store it, that could help through the drought as well. there s a ton of ideas, even
© Provided by Xinhua CHONGQING, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) Deng Xingyu, a 77-year-old farmer, toils year in and year out on his small patch of land, planting
diabetes. every measurement i took was high in arsenic. the only way that can happen is if it s naturally occurring and has gradually accumulating in the lake bed over thousands of years. reporter: preventing dust storms requires getting more water into the great salt lake with the west in the grip of a drought that s lasted 20 years. this is the bear river. it s fed by melting snow from the mountains here, and it s the main source of water for the great salt lake. but right now it s flowing at just 15% of what it would normally be doing at this time of year. here we go. reporter: joel ferry runs a farm along the bear river. he s also responsible for the state s water. on his farm, he s made big changes in the way he irrigates. to make sure that there s enough to go around. reporter: in his new job, he has to convince both farmers and city dwellers to treat water as a precious resource. we ve got to figure this out. it s not going to be cheap, but
Running the gamut from a group dubbed "Crypto Visionaries" to one called "The New American Rancher," they come in all ages from all backgrounds with preferences for how they want to live.