The clock is ticking for Utah and other Colorado River Basin states to decide how to divide the river's shrinking water supplies and some groups are reconsidering a centuries-old water distribution tradition at work across the arid American West.

Nick Saenz, a historian and member of the Hispanic Conservation Leadership Council, explained each spring, farmers are in a race against time to water crops before snowmelt disappears. In the tradition known as " acequia ," decisions are made democratically, and irrigation priorities benefit entire communities over any individual user.

Saenz said the plan offers a blueprint for how to share a scarce resource.

"That’s going to require us all working together," Saenz emphasized. "That’s going to require some concessions and some compromise,

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