Extreme drought in the Colorado River Basin last summer forced the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which manages river flows in the Western U.S., to make a historic announcement: For the 2014 water year (October 2013 through September 2014), the agency will reduce releases of water from Lake Powell - the gargantuan reservoir on the Colorado River that parts of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah rely on for water - by more than 750,000 acre-feet. (An acre-foot is roughly the amount of water an American household uses in a year.) That's the lowest release level since the reservoir began to fill in the 1960s.
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