Trailer Park Water Fight

In a drought year like this, competition for water is getting fierce. This was in the Police Dispatch section of the local Tucson Weekly:

A dispute involving a man and a neighbor who said he was only trying to help the man with his rainwater-harvesting efforts ended with the neighbor getting bashed on the head with an empty garbage can, according to a Pima County Sheriff's Department report.
Deputies who were called to the scene interviewed the man, who said he collected rainwater runoff from the roof of his trailer in garbage cans. He said the neighbor came over, ostensibly to help him, but overturned one of the cans almost directly on top of him.
The neighbor said he had noticed a mud stain in one of the garbage cans and wanted to help by cleaning the can with a hose, but he accidentally sprayed the man with water. That's when the man picked up the empty garbage can and struck him, the neighbor said.
After a witness to the incident backed up the neighbor's story, the rainwater-collecting man was taken to jail on suspicion of assault with a garbage can.

Let's try to keep it civil out there people.

A New(ish) Twist on Conservation Justification

In the West you often hear of cities seeking new water supplies by prodding farms to conserve, thereby freeing up water that can be transferred from ag uses to urban uses.  But this article from Durango, CO discusses efforts in that state to encourage additional urban conservation in order to maintain ag uses.  Colorado has seen fairly aggressive efforts to re-allocate water from ag to urban in recent decades and there has been a lot of concern about the effects this will have on rural communities if irrigated agriculture starts to dry up.

California and New Mexico have also had experience with this and similar concerns.  This concern shot down legislation that would have created a mechanism to finance water transfers in Arizona last year.  So now the farming communities are looking for ways to protect their economies and the farmers that support them.  It's a conversation worth having.