Drought and heat roundup: Arizona and Nevada face new water restrictions; corn and cotton harvests weak; how heat disproportionately targets the vulnerable

Heat and drought are gripping much of the Western U.S. Here's the latest news:

"With water levels in the Colorado River near their lowest point ever, Arizona and Nevada on Tuesday faced new restrictions on the amount of water they can pump out of the river, the most important in the Southwest," Henry Fountain reports for The New York Times. "And the threat of more cuts looms. This week, those two states along with five others failed to meet a deadline for agreement on much steeper cuts in water use, raising the prospect that the federal government will step in and mandate further reductions." 

The Bureau of Reclamation, the Interior Department agency which oversees water resource management, "announced it would withhold 592,000 acre-feet, or about 21% of Arizona's annual water allocation, out of the river for 2023. Nevada would see an 8% cut in its allocation -- 25,000 acre-feet -- and Mexico would see a 7% reduction in river flows across the border, or about 104,000 acre-feet," Chris Clayton reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

The drought has triggered the weakest cotton harvest in more than a decade and sent prices soaring. "U.S. agricultural forecasters expect drought-struck farmers to walk away from more than 40% of the 12.5 million acres they sowed with cotton and harvest the smallest area since Reconstruction," Ryan Dezember reports for The Wall Street Journal. "Back then, in 1868, yields per acre were less than a fifth of what they are today, but the market for cotton was vastly smaller too."

Drought and heat have also been hard on U.S. corn, production of which is expected to be 5% less than last year. In Kentucky, the forecast is down 26% even though most of the state got sufficient rain when the corn was tasseling; farmers say excessive heat in June stunted growth.

People who live in mobile homes comprise a disproportionately high percentage of indoor heat deaths, according to a paper recently published in the Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice. Residents typically don't own the land beneath their homes and often lack resources to bring down indoor temperatures or a meaningful voice in driving policy changes that could help them. Read more here. Heat hurts the most vulnerable in other ways: people of color, seniors, those with underlying health conditions, people addicted to opioids, and people without consistent housing are all more likely to die from extreme heat, Arianna Skibell reports for Politico.