Yuma County mother warns families about deadly canal hazards

More than 220 miles of open irrigation systems run through Yuma County, and Melissa Hull said that number is part of why she treats canal safety as a family emergency, not a seasonal slogan. After losing her 4-year-old son, Drew Hull, to an irrigation canal near the family’s Yuma County home in 2000, she has spent years warning parents that the county’s water danger is not limited to backyard pools.

Hull’s message is simple: canals deserve the same caution as a river or deep pool. She says families need layered protection, including fences, alarms, self-latching gates and close supervision around any water. That warning matters in a county where the irrigation system is built into everyday life, from the Yuma Project, authorized in 1904, to the first Colorado River water delivered to the Arizona side through the siphon on June 29, 1912.

The web of canals is still extensive. The Gila Gravity Main Canal, built in the late 1930s, delivers water for irrigation and domestic use to about 100,000 acres in the Yuma area. The Yuma Mesa Irrigation and Drainage District says it serves 25,000 acres and operates 23 miles of main canals plus 43 miles of lateral cement-lined canals. In the Wellton-Mohawk area, the irrigation district reports about 378 miles of main canals, laterals and return-flow channels. For families living near that system, the risk is not abstract. It is part of the landscape.

Hull has turned her loss into Dear Drew: Creating a Life Bigger Than Grief, published by Simon & Schuster, using the book to speak about grief, healing and the drowning death that changed her life. She brought that message to Barnes & Noble in Yuma on Saturday, May 23, where she planned a book signing and water safety gathering with free resources for families. The timing fit National Water Safety Month messaging in April and May, when local groups have been pushing prevention before summer heat sends more children and adults near the water.

The City of Yuma says the Greater Yuma Water Safety Alliance brings together community leaders, health care professionals, water safety experts, public safety representatives and concerned citizens. Onvida Health has hosted free monthly Water Safety Workshops in 2026, including sessions in May, June, July and August. Together, those efforts reflect the same reality Hull has lived for 26 years: in Yuma County, drowning prevention is public health work, and the strongest safeguard is preventing a child from reaching the water in the first place.