In the catalog of what can go wrong in farming, drought occupies a spot near the top. Farmers can borrow money, shoulder more expensive production costs and weather low prices. They can diversify their crops to prevent disease or hail from wiping them out. They can find cattle to rebuild herds after a disastrous sudden blizzard.

Last July, Arizona's state water board approved a large new development in Sierra Vista that would pump 3,300 acre feet of groundwater per year -- despite evidence that such pumping could decrease flow in the San Pedro River, one of the West's healthiest desert rivers.

As Drinking Water Week concludes, the American Water Works Association joins water professionals across North America in urging consumers to evaluate how they currently value, use and access water, and how to protect it into the future.

The old saying that "what goes up must come down" doesn't apply to carbon dioxide pollution in the air, which just hit an unnerving milestone. The chief greenhouse gas was measured Thursday at 400 parts per million in Hawaii, a monitoring site that sets the world's benchmark. It's a symbolic mark that scientists and environmentalists have been anticipating for years.

The bright green alfalfa fields appear like a surreal oasis tucked into the rolling hills of desert shrubbery that extend south as far as the eye can see. Here, 12 miles southwest of Towaoc, the Ute Mountain Ute Farm & Ranch Enterprise cultivates 7,600 acres of farmland thanks to a ribbon of water that flows south from McPhee Reservoir 50 miles to the north.

Water-guzzling Kentucky bluegrass and other nonnative turf can no longer be mandated by homeowners association covenants under a bill that passed the General Assembly and is awaiting a signature by Gov. John Hickenlooper. If Senate Bill 183 is signed into law, as expected, it also would stop HOAs from punishing homeowners whose lawns die during times of drought and water restrictions.

Colorado is moving quickly to develop a state water plan by late 2015, culminating more than a decade of work. “I think it’s exciting for Colorado, when you look at all the work that’s been done,” said Alan Hamel, who represents the Arkansas River basin on the Colorado Water Conservation Board.