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...Now decades of climate change-driven drought, combined with the overpumping of aquifers, is making the valley desperately dry -- and appears to be intensifying the levels of heavy metals in drinking water.
Like a third of people who live in this high alpine desert, Mestas relies on a private well that draws from an aquifer for drinking water. And, like many farmers there, he taps an aquifer to water the alfalfa that feeds his 550 cows.
"Water is everything here," he says.
Mestas, 71, is now one of the hundreds of well owners participating in a study that tackles the question: How does drought affect not just the quantity, but the quality, of water?
The study, led by Kathy James, an associate professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, focuses on arsenic in private drinking wells. Arsenic, a carcinogen that occurs naturally in soil, has been appearing in rising levels in drinking water in the valley, she says. In California, Mexico, and Vietnam, research has linked rising arsenic levels in groundwater to drought and the overpumping of aquifers.
As the West grapples with a megadrought that has lasted more than two decades, and states risk cutbacks in water from the shrinking Colorado River, the San Luis Valley offers clues to what the future may hold....
