Word: drought
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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...
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...
...mining town that once thrived on smelting gold and silver ore, Durango today is following Aspen and Telluride in remodeling itself as a tourist destination and a home for wealthy retirees seeking an outdoor life. The small town is quaintly restored, but the economy is sagging. Fires and drought have put an end to much of the hiking and whitewater rafting, restaurants are laying off staff, and many tourists have canceled trips. While the rest of the country keeps a nervous eye on the Dow Jones industrial average, everyone in Durango follows cubic-feet-per-second flow rates...
...west of Durango, in the Mesa Verde National Park, site of a fire in July, are the famous cliff dwellings of the Anasazi-or ancestral Puebloans, as they are now known-whose civilization flourished there until the end of the 13th century, when the combination of a 30-year drought, a population explosion and overuse of natural resources forced them...
...Plata project, which has been on the drawing board since 1968. It is still unclear whether Congress will appropriate the entire $350 million needed for the dam. Water flows toward money. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s pushed small farmers off the land and consolidated larger land holdings. The drought of today will force farmers like Gillen to sell off more of their land for housing subdivisions. The grass on those future lawns will probably be kept greener than his dying fields. -With reporting by Rita Healy/Marvel...