Hey there, it's the MPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis, a cover politics. I'm Gui

Menabustia and I also cover politics. And I'm Dominic Amoncina, our senior political

editor and correspondent. And today we're taking a look at how climate change and politics

are intersecting in the state of Arizona, specifically how conservative farmers are

dealing with historic water shortages on the Colorado River. And then you were just

in Arizona reporting on this. What attracted you to this story? Well, the Colorado River

basin has been seeing more exacerbated conditions. It's been undergoing a 20-year drought, so

that's not necessarily new. But there have been added swings in temperature and continued

overuse of the river water, which leads to shortages. And farmers and communities

have seen their water levels drop and cut their utilities cost rise. And this really

affects particularly the agriculture community about 80% of the water from the Colorado River

goes to agriculture, which gives us our produce during the winter months. A lot of people

don't know this, but a lot of our leafy greens that we eat in salads come from Yuma, Arizona

and Southern California, which is primarily known for being a desert area, but that's

how we get salads. You said it was about agriculture, but is the Colorado River also critical

for the water supply for people to drink as well? Yes. So particularly, it also is really

big for utilities and water use within cities. So it flows into major cities like Los Angeles

and Phoenix, Arizona. Those are kind of the big water users there. And Hemenna, there

was news that because of these shortages, there are actually going to be cuts to the water

supply. How's that going to work? So three states, Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona reached

a deal. They all decided to cut their water use by what's called three million acre feet

of water. So an acre foot is an acre and then one foot of volume. So kind of think about

...