Serving as the “lifeline of the
Southwest,” and one of the most heavily regulated rivers in the
world, the Colorado River provides water to 35 million people and
more than 4 million acres of farmland in a region encompassing
some 246,000 square miles.
From its headwaters northwest of Denver in the Rocky Mountains,
the 1,450-mile long river and its tributaries pass through parts
of seven states: Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico,
Nevada, Utah and Wyoming and is also used by the
Republic of Mexico. Along the way, almost every drop of the
Colorado River is allocated for use.
The Colorado River Basin is also home to a range of habitats and
ecosystems from mountain to desert to ocean.
Intel’s Sept. 24 groundbreaking ceremony for the $20 billion
expansion of the Ocotillo campus in Chandler brought out all
the top officials. … But it’s unlikely any of them would have
been there until Intel overcame one key issue to doing business
in the desert: Water. It takes a lot of water to run a
manufacturing plant. In addition to the potable water needed
for a workforce of several thousands, they also need a lot of
water for their cooling towers.
Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Southern Nevada on
Monday and is scheduled to talk about climate change and
investing in climate resilience. … Harris is expected to
emphasize that water shortages have a ripple effect on U.S.
farmers, food supply, and economy – and that climate change
will continue to make extreme weather including droughts and
heat more frequent, costly, and harmful, according to the White
House communications team.
Drought continues to spread back across Colorado after a dry
summer and start to fall, with nearly all the state at least
abnormally dry just three months after more than half the state
was drought-free. This week’s report from the U.S. Drought
Monitor shows 95% of Colorado is abnormally dry or worse,
compared to 45% of the state experiencing those same drought
conditions on July 13. Sixty-six percent of the state is seeing
moderate drought conditions or worse; 29% of Colorado is
experiencing severe drought or worse; and 14% is seeing extreme
drought conditions.
Two years ago, this unprecedented megadrought prompted all
seven [Colorado River Basin] states to agree, for the first
time, to a dual drought contingency plan — one for the upper
basin and one for the lower. … But in the upper basin,
though the states agreed to their own drought contingency plan,
they still haven’t agreed on the biggest, most controversial of
the plan’s elements: setting aside up to 500,000 acre-feet of
water in a special, protected drought pool in Lake Powell.
On a warm August morning, a group of volunteers gathers in the
high desert about 20 miles outside of Gunnison, Colorado. Here,
surrounded by sagebrush and armed with branches and stones,
they are ready to help restore a critical wildlife habitat.
Volunteers are here to work on a wet meadow restoration
project. A wet meadow is a riparian area in the arid sagebrush
landscape. … Volunteers like Payten Maness weave willow
branches into protective barriers. The team will also build
with sagebrush and stones collected nearby.
With the population of the United States doubling over the past
50 years, at least 40 states are now anticipating water
shortages by 2024. … Consider the Colorado River basin.
Located in the southwestern U.S. and stretching almost 1,500
miles from the Continental Divide to the Gulf of California,
the Colorado River is a critical municipal water resource for
nearly 40 million people throughout seven states.
The Metropolitan Water District, which provides water to six
counties in Southern California, announced a partnership on
Wednesday, Oct. 13 with Arizona water agencies to collaborate
on planning for what could become one of the nation’s largest
water recycling plants, producing up to 150 million gallons
daily to serve more than 500,000 homes. Central Arizona Project
will provide $5 million and the Arizona Department of Water
Resources will provide $1 million for environmental planning of
the Regional Recycled Water Program, which will purify treated
wastewater to produce a new, drought-proof water supply for
Southern California.
Arizona environmentalists have followed through on their threat
to sue the federal government over stray cows in the San Pedro
Riparian National Conservation Area. The Tucson-based
Center for Biological Diversity and the Phoenix-based Maricopa
Audubon Society accuse the Bureau of Land Management of
violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to keep
trespassing cattle away from a rare plant called the Huachuca
water umbel.
The first major snowstorm of the season continued to develop
across parts of the Intermountain West on Tuesday as
forecasters said the robust storm system was impacting areas
from Montana to Arizona. Winter storm warnings were in place
for parts of Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and Idaho. Snow
began falling across parts of Nevada, Idaho and Montana as
early as Monday morning. …
In the small city of Oakley, Utah, the drought conditions
parching much of the West have depleted the natural springs
that supply water to the community. During each of the past
several summers, local leaders worried that quenching any major
fire might empty the city’s water tanks. The city issued
water-use restrictions this past April and residents cut back,
but officials heard a consistent message from their
constituents, said Mayor Wade Woolstenhulme. “If you guys are
so low on water, why do you keep giving out building permits?”
Deep in the Cameron Peak burn scar northwest of Fort Collins,
Colorado, nestled among charred hills, lies an oasis of green –
an idyllic patch of trickling streams that wind through a lush
grass meadow. Apart from a few scorched trees on the periphery,
it’s hard to tell this canyon wetland was surrounded by the
largest wildfire just more than a year ago. Credit the industry
of beavers.
People who live in the Southwest know it’s been especially hot
and dry the past couple of years, but a new government report
shows those conditions are actually historic. Precipitation
across multiple basins in six states from January 2020 through
August 2021 was the lowest recorded since researchers started
tracking with gauges in the late 1800s. Meanwhile, the 20-month
stretch had the third-highest average daily temperatures since
researchers started measuring with instruments.
After water levels at a California dam fell to historic lows
this summer, the main hydropower plant it feeds was shut down.
At the Hoover Dam in Nevada — one of the country’s biggest
hydropower generators — production is down by 25%. If extreme
drought persists, federal officials say a dam in Arizona could
stop producing electricity in coming years. Severe drought
across the West drained reservoirs this year, slashing
hydropower production and further stressing the region’s power
grids.
[G]rowers in the Palo Verde Irrigation District are taking part
in a new $38-million program funded by the federal Bureau of
Reclamation, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California and other water agencies in Arizona and Nevada. The
farmers are paid to leave a portion of their lands dry and
fallow, and the water saved over the next three years is
expected to translate into 3 feet of additional water in Lake
Mead, which has declined to its lowest levels since
it was filled in the 1930s following the construction of Hoover
Dam.
Lake Mead is considered full when its stores reach 1,220 feet
above sea level or more, but the reservoir is projected to sink
to 1,066 feet above sea level by the end of the year, revealing
rock that has been submerged since it began filling in the
1930s. With every foot that Lake Mead falls, the basin comes
closer to triggering substantial cutbacks for certain water
users along the river. … [I]f lake levels continue to
decline, future cutbacks could impact the 30 Native American
tribes with lands in the basin.
Experts in government, agriculture, water management and the
environment stressed during a U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday
the danger that droughts fueled by climate change pose in the
West, including the Colorado River Basin. During a
hearing before an Energy and Natural Resources Committee panel,
witnesses said long-term solutions and an investment in water
infrastructure are needed to combat the effects of climate
change.
State and federal officials told a Senate panel Wednesday that
there may be long-term solutions to the historic drought
gripping the West, and the water shortages that come with it,
but that the short-term outlook remains grim. The hearing comes
against the backdrop of a 20-year-long drought has left about
90% of the West affected. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said
tree-ring and soil evidence indicates that the region may be
going through the worst drought in 1,200 years – certainly the
worst in the 100 years or so that records have been kept.
Cities in Southern California rely largely on water flowing
through aqueducts from the Colorado River and the Sierra
Nevada. But some parts of the region, such as Ventura County
and northwestern L.A. County, don’t have access to Colorado
River water and depend entirely on the water that comes from
the Sierra through the State Water Project. … Los
Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced an agreement on Tuesday,
saying the city’s Department of Water and Power is assisting
the region by taking less water from the State Water Project,
helping to preserve those supplies so that other districts will
get the water.
The Colorado River Water Conservation District staff plans to
present its own framework for a water-savings plan — separate
from one the state of Colorado is developing — at its October
board meeting. The Glenwood Springs-based River District
undertook its own investigation of a plan — known as demand
management — that would pay water users to consume less and
send the saved water downstream to Lake Powell.
On the third day of a six-day trip down the Yampa River, we
started walking. A slurry of flash rainstorms had rattled our
tents the night before and raised our hopes the river would
rise. It didn’t. When our bottoms ground to a halt on the
riverbed, we grudgingly rolled up our boats–inflatable
one-person kayak-shaped pack rafts—shouldered our 60-pound
backpacks and started lumbering down the naked channel. If we
were going to reach the end of the river before our own food
ran out, we had to keep moving.
A cooperative effort to restore habitats along the Lower
Colorado River Basin is seeing the re-emergence of several
threatened and endangered species. The Central Arizona Project
(CAP) is part of a program, begun in 2005, that has reclaimed
or restored more than 1,100 square miles of wetlands and
woodlands along the river. The Lower Colorado River
Multi-Species Conservation Program (MSCP) is designed to
protect 27 species, including eight listed under the Endangered
Species Act… the 50-year project is a joint effort between
Arizona, California and Nevada.
The first-ever official shortage on the Colorado River has
intensified a debate over how to provide water for 40 million
people across the Southwest and irrigate fields of thirsty
crops like wheat, cotton and alfalfa. Few voices outside
government are more influential than that of the Walton family,
billionaire heirs to the Walmart Inc. fortune, who have long
advocated water markets as a key part to solving the region’s
woes. But some environmental groups say the Waltons drown out
other, nonmarket approaches.
U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly announced he will chair a congressional
hearing on the ongoing drought in western states, including
Arizona. Kelly will chair the Subcommittee on Water and Power,
part of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on Oct. 6.
The senator requested the hearing in August, after the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation declared a shortage of the Colorado River
for the first time.
As Arizona enters what is likely to be its third decade of
unprecedented drought, the proposed Resolution Copper mine just
east of Superior at the site of Oak Flat has become a symbol of
the fight over economic development, dwindling water supplies,
and the preservation of Native American heritage and publicly
owned open spaces. On Tuesday, the San Carlos Apache Tribe
released a water study on the deep mining project that
describes a region in crisis and a proposed mine that will use
250 billion gallons of water …
Colorado’s top fire officials expected the worst for 2021. The
previous year’s wildfire season was not only the largest on
record but one of the longest. Only 30 percent of the Cameron
Peak fire was contained by the beginning of October and the
East Troublesome fire didn’t ignite until two weeks later.
Firefighters and fire experts said Colorado was primed for
larger fires given the prolonged drought and warming
temperatures worsened by climate change.
American Whitewater floated a plan last year to expand
protections for recreational river flows in Colorado. Maybe,
the nonprofit protector of rivers thought, communities should
not need to build whitewater parks to secure rights for
recreational flows. … Colorado officially recognized
recreation in a river as a beneficial use of water in 2001,
enabling riverside communities to file for water rights to
support whitewater parks. Those recreational in-channel
diversion water rights, or RICDs, set a minimal stream flow
between structures to support “a reasonable recreation
experience.”
Drought—a year with a below-average water supply—is a natural
part of the climate cycle, but as Earth’s atmosphere continues
to warm due to climate change, droughts are becoming more
frequent, severe, and pervasive. The past 20 years have been
some of the driest conditions in the American west on record.
Two major California water agencies have settled a lawsuit that
once threatened to derail a multi-state agreement to protect
the Colorado River. The Imperial Irrigation district is the
largest recipient of water from the river. That group reached a
deal to store water in Lake Mead and join drought contingency
efforts if dry conditions worsen and mandatory cutbacks are
issued. Robert Schettler is a spokesman for the district.
Arizona’s 2021 monsoon will end this week as one for the record
books, but which records and which books could vary
depending on where you live. … By the end of August, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ranked this
monsoon as the seventh-wettest season in the state since
1901. Since June 15, the official start of the monsoon season,
4.2 inches of rain have fallen at Sky Harbor International
Airport. The season ends Thursday.
New projections show that Lake Mead and Lake Powell could reach
“critically low reservoir elevations” sooner than expected,
spurring experts to say that “bold actions” will be needed to
change course. The Bureau of Reclamation report released
Thursday shows an 88% chance that Lake Powell could fall below
3,525 feet by next August, a level that would endanger
hydropower production, with chances Lake Mead will hit critical
levels in the next few years.
Two years ago, a pact to safeguard the West’s shrinking water
supplies took effect at a ceremony high above the Colorado
River. On a terrace overlooking Hoover Dam, water officials
from seven states that rely on the river had gathered to sign a
deal in hopes of preventing reservoirs from falling to
critically low levels. The audience that broke into applause
included officials from major water districts across the West
that supply water to Denver, Phoenix and Los Angeles. But
notably absent from the May 2019 ceremony were representatives
of California’s Imperial Irrigation District, the single
largest user of Colorado River water.
Importing muddy water from the Mississippi
River to save Arizona from drought could be as simple as
landing a man on the moon. As droughts force local
communities to find alternative solutions to water shortages,
Arizonans could turn to importing flood water in the
future. An interstate pipeline would be a lengthy project
in terms of time and effort that in a race against time isn’t
an immediate answer, rather a commitment that would test the
resolve of the state Legislature and Arizonans.
So Southern Californians didn’t decrease their water usage in
July, despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request for a voluntary 15%
cutback? Well, of course not. The dusty lake beds, the dry
spigots, the serious water-use cutback orders and the most
frightening wildfires (so far, anyway) have been in Northern
California, and that’s where Newsom focused his most dire
warnings.
Why doesn’t L.A. pump its underground water up, process it to
remove the impurities and distribute it locally in the L.A.
area? The answer: L.A. does pump and use local groundwater —
but other water sources are important for replenishing the
supply. Until the first half of the 20th century, some
areas in Los Angeles County had very high groundwater and
springs that residents could use as a water source, said
Madelyn Glickfeld, co-director of the UCLA Water Resources
Group.
Major League Baseball and the Colorado Rockies announced plans
to restore 30 million gallons of water into the Colorado River.
The commitment comes after the river experienced its driest
12-month period on record over the past year. The
sustainability effort will see MLB partner with environmental
organizations Green Sports Alliance, Change the Course and the
Colorado Water Trust. MLB estimates that the 30 million gallons
of water are equivalent to the amount used by the Rockies at
Coors Field throughout a season.
Though summer rainfall brought some relief to the Southwest,
the unrelenting drought there is about to get worse with La
Niña on the horizon, according to David DeWitt, director at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate
Prediction Center. … La Niña is a natural phenomenon marked
by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures across the
central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator, which
causes shifts in weather across the globe. In the Southwest, La
Niña typically causes the jet stream — upper-level winds that
carry storms around the globe — to shift northward. That means
less rainfall for a region that desperately needs it.
The U.S. government released projections Wednesday that
indicate an even more troubling outlook for a
river that serves 40 million people in the American West.
The Bureau of Reclamation recently declared the first-ever
shortage on the Colorado River, which means Arizona, Nevada and
Mexico will get less water than normal next year. By 2025,
there’s a 66% chance Lake Mead, a barometer for how much river
water some states get, will reach a level where California
would be in its second phase of cuts. The nation’s most
populated state has the most senior rights to river water.
Phoenix is a rapidly growing metropolitan area in a desert. As
the population increases, it will be more and more challenging
to supply water, food and energy — three essential resources
that are interconnected in complex and competing ways.
Inside the tower is a U.S. Geological
Survey streamgage that will mark
its centennial year of monitoring the river on
October 1, 2021. At a time when jazz music was exploding
and liquor was
prohibited, the streamgage began
collecting information about the water’s
level and flow. USGS scientists chose the site in
1921 because it was readily accessible and strategically
located to study the hydrology of the Colorado River drainage
basin. Now, seven states within
the basin depend on the river for water
supply and hydropower production.
As Arizona’s population continues to swell by record numbers,
cities and towns housing the transplants are looking for ways
to increase their water supply. That search has pitted the
growing Town of Queen Creek against counties along the Colorado
River. Cibola, Arizona in La Paz County sits near the
border with California directly on the river. The population
ranges from 250 to 350 people depending on the time of year
according to La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin. She
said the river gives life to the town’s two main industries of
recreation and farming.
Last month, the Bureau of Reclamation declared the Colorado
River’s first shortage in CAP water deliveries, with the first
cuts in water use going into effect in January. With more water
shortages looming this is forcing desert dwellers to turn to
alternate supplies of water. Rain water harvesting is not a new
concept but local governments, utilities and individuals are
increasingly turning to rain to save the desert.
There isn’t much in Cal-Nev-Ari besides a cluster of homes,
some businesses and an unpaved airstrip. But the town’s
new dominant property owner believes the desert outpost might
have something else: an underground river of sorts that doesn’t
run dry. Jerry Tyler, president of mining firm Heart of
Nature, told the Review-Journal last month that there appears
to be something like a river flowing beneath the remote
community south of Las Vegas and that it replenishes when water
is pumped out.
Two major California water agencies have settled a lawsuit that
once threatened to derail a multi-state agreement to protect a
river that serves millions of people in the U.S. West amid
gripping drought. The Imperial Irrigation District, the largest
single recipient of Colorado River water, sued the Metropolitan
Water District twice in the past two years. The agencies
announced Monday they have reached a settlement that resolves
both lawsuits.
Back when the Colorado River Compact was being negotiated about
100 years ago, water was not viewed as a problem. Officials
deemed there was plenty to go around. Fast forward a century
and the seven Colorado River Basin states – particularly the
three lower basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada –
are using more than the system can sustain….Chris Harris,
executive director of the Colorado River Board of California,
says the basin states must grapple with the “new normal” of
reduced flows in a river system once thought to provide ample
water for the West….Harris says it’s not just the
sustainability of the Colorado River system that needs
addressing, but the wider Western water reliability of the
federal Central Valley Project (CVP) and California’s State
Water Project (SWP).
More than 94 percent of the West is in drought this week,
according to the US Drought Monitor, with six states entirely
in drought status: California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and
Montana. Parts of the West saw record-setting rainfall that
brought some slight relief to the region, but most areas remain
dry. Against the backdrop of climate change-fueled drought,
wildfires have charred nearly 6 million acres of vegetation
across the region. Fire experts say that dry and windy
conditions create a prime environment for wildfires to spark
and spread.
Utah’s drought-induced water crisis has softened somewhat after
a string of monsoons, but the state’s water supplies are far
from safe, with reservoirs across the state falling below 40%
full, state officials told lawmakers Tuesday. Only a massive
snowpack this winter can assure adequate supplies going into
next year, and even then, Utah’s water future remains uncertain
in the face of long-term drought and climate change. In
July the entire state was in extreme or exceptional drought and
Utah’s two largest lakes hit their lowest levels ever.
The scientific consensus is that human-caused climate change
has in recent decades raised average temperatures in the West
about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and nearly two full degrees
on maximum temperature days, according to Matthew Lachniet, a
geoscience professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
The days of Coloradans putting off climate change as a worry
for hurricane-ravaged Louisiana or a water-challenged Middle
East now seem to be over. Following are just a few of the
ways “climate change now” made its full force known in the
Rocky Mountains this year and showed its impact on everyday
life.
Las Vegas visitors can still snap selfies with the mermaids
swimming among tropical fish in the Silverton Casino’s massive
aquarium and gaze at the colorful dancing water displays of the
iconic Bellagio fountains — for now. But southern Nevada and
much of the American West are struggling to cope with a
worsening drought that has strained municipal water supplies,
agricultural operations and wildlife populations.
It’s always alfalfa season in Arizona. In most other parts of
the country, the perennial crop grows tall enough to harvest
just a few times a year. But in the sun-drenched Southwest, the
irrigated fields allow the crop to grow year-round, to the tune
of 8.5 tons harvested for every acre and $397 million a year.
All farmers need to do is add water. At least that’s been the
case for the many decades that alfalfa has boomed and bloomed
in the Arizona desert, providing feed to the region’s
megalithic dairy industry. Now, accelerating climate change and
depleting water availability could change this.
Water management in the western United States is rooted in an
adversarial system that is highly sensitive to climate change.
Reforms are needed to ensure water management is efficient,
resilient and equitable moving forward.
-Written by Dylan R. Hedden-Nicely, Associate Professor of
Law and Director, Native American Law Program, University of
Idaho College of Law.
For years, trucks have hauled thousands of gallons of water
nearly every day to 3,000 water catchments throughout Arizona
to help keep wildlife hydrated during the drought. That work
still continues, but Mother Nature has been a huge help in
recent weeks. … The constant monsoon rains have filled
nearly every Arizona water catchment to its brim.
Corporate America is making a new kind of climate pledge. In
recent months, multiple tech giants have pledged to use their
reach and resources to join the fight for water conservation.
Facebook made an announcement at the end of August declaring
their efforts to “be water positive by 2030.” And just this
week, Google made a similar announcement to make its data
centers more efficient and support water security in the
communities it operates in.
The razorback sucker fish could be downlisted from an
endangered species to threatened in the next year or so,
according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This week,
environmental groups sent the agency a letter in opposition to
the move. The letter argues the razorback sucker is still in
trouble, despite recoveries it’s made in the last 30 years,
which is when it was first listed as federally endangered. The
fish is native to the Colorado River, which is facing historic
shortages due to the west’s megadrought.
A $1 trillion infrastructure bill that received bipartisan
support in the Senate last month includes billions of dollars
for Western water projects and programs. The Biden
administration has called the infrastructure bill, which
includes $8.3 billion for Western water infrastructure,
“the largest investment in the resilience of physical and
natural systems in American history.” Of the $8.3 billion
dedicated to Western water, $450 million is set aside for a
competitive grant program to fund large-scale projects that
advance water recycling….That program could help pay for
a massive recycling project in California that would
leave Nevada with access to more water in Lake Mead.
The Colorado River Basin is enduring two decades of drought,
and water shortages are on the horizon. But scientists say this
isn’t the worst-case scenario. The region has undergone longer,
deeper droughts in the past. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with
paleoclimatologist Matt Lachniet of the University of
Nevada-Las Vegas about how knowing the past can help us plan
for a warmer, drier future.
This whole reservoir system along the Colorado River Basin was
designed to get us through the drought years. Why isn’t it
working? A glimpse into the history of the system, how it was
designed and the impacts of climate change sheds light on why
it was destined to fail — and why it may never recover.
For the past two decades, the southwestern United States has
been desiccated by one of the most severe long-term droughts—or
‘megadroughts’—of the last 1,200 years. And now, scientists say
the risk of similar extreme megadroughts and severe single-year
droughts will increase in the future as Earth’s temperature
continues to rise, according to a new study in Earth’s Future
sponsored by CPO’s Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and
Projections (MAPP) program and led by NASA’s Goddard
Institute for Space Studies (GISS).
Both the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers shrunk in 2021, another
bad water year in a two-decade megadrought brought on by a
warming Western United States. Demands on the rivers —
from growing cities, agriculture, wildlife and international
treaties — are hitting the reality of a reduced supply of water
in both rivers. In August, federal officials declared the
first-ever shortage on the Colorado River lower basin,
triggering a plan to reduce water usage in several states and
Mexico.
The Bureau of Land Management is rounding up more than 700
horses living on public land in northwest Colorado, a sharp
reduction of a herd that officials say is too large and roaming
in dangerously dry conditions. Over the last week, contractors
have used helicopters to corral mustangs living in the Sand
Wash Basin, which includes 155,000 acres of public land managed
by the federal agency in the northwest corner of the state.
As drought-stricken California considers constructing new dams,
a new study finds that many of the state’s existing structures—
despite efforts to prioritize healthy water temperatures— are
failing the cold-water ecosystems that depend on them. The
study, published in PLOS One, crunched data from 77 cold-water
streams across California to characterize their “thermal
regime” — that is, their annual temperature fluctuations over
an eight- to 12-year period.
The Bureau of Reclamation recently declared a water shortage on
the Colorado River, but that hasn’t stopped states from
proposing new water projects. Just about every drop on the
Colorado River is accounted for. But climate change has reduced
the amount of water in the system. Gary Wockner is with
Save the Colorado, a conservation group that is tracking new
projects.
For months, the city of Needles has endured not just scorching
hot weather but the possibility that its single water well
could fail, a potentially life-threatening risk for this Mojave
desert community of 5,000 residents. Yet over recent
weeks, word arrived that state officials — flush with billions
of dollars in surplus tax revenue — intend to hand over $2
million to pay for a new well that could be operational later
this year. City officials are now breathing easier…
A 20-year, climate change-fueled megadrought has dealt a double
blow to Blue Mesa this summer. The dry conditions have led to
lower levels directly, but the lake is also hurting from
drought problems in other states. For the first time, the
federal government is taking emergency action by taking water
from Blue Mesa to help out another reservoir — Lake Powell on
the Utah-Arizona border….The water taken from Blue Mesa is
being used to make sure hydroelectric power turbines at Lake
Powell can keep spinning and generating electricity for
millions of people in the West…
This morning’s operations missive from the federal-state-local
Middle Rio Grande operations group (by “Middle” here we mean
central New Mexico) notes a release of ~100 cubic feet per
second of imported San Juan-Chama Project water for
environmental flows, an effort to help the struggling Rio
Grande silvery minnow. SJC water is removed from the Colorado
River Basin in the San Juan mountains of southern Colorado,
through a series of tunnels beneath the continental divide, for
use in the Rio Grande Basin.
Rare earth elements are finding their way into Colorado water
supplies, driven by changes in climate, finds a new study
published in the journal Environmental Science &
Technology. Rare earth elements are necessary components
of many computing and other high-tech devices, like cell phones
and hard drives. But there is growing recognition that they can
be hazardous in the environment even at low levels of
concentration.
Reclamation’s 24-month study is a staple forecasting
product for the federal agency that manages a chain of dams in
the watershed, including those that control lakes Mead and
Powell, the country’s largest reservoirs — and currently two of
its most consequential. The reservoirs are a key source of
drinking water for about 40 million people, plus they store
water that irrigates millions of acres of farmland and
generates electricity for the Southwest. The reservoirs are
also alarmingly dehydrated right now — about one-third full,
the lowest since they were first filled. The entire basin
is on alert.
As a headwaters state, Colorado has many interstate compacts
that set rules for how the state must share the rivers that
originate within its borders with downstream states. On several
of these rivers, water users have had to modify their water use
to meet compact requirements. That day may be coming for
the Colorado River. A new report explores what Colorado
River water users can learn from experiences with compact
administration on other rivers.
The federal agency that distributes electricity from hydropower
plants in the Upper Colorado River Basin will ask its
customers, including more than 50 here in Colorado, to help
offset rising costs linked to Lake Powell’s inability to
produce as much power due to drought. The Western Area Power
Administration (WAPA), which distributes Lake Powell’s
electricity, is gathering public comments and asking its
customers how best to cope with long-term drought conditions
that have pushed Powell and other reservoirs to historically
low levels.
For the first time in history, the federal government has
declared a water shortage on the Colorado River, which serves
as a lifeline to more than 40 million people in western states
like Arizona and California. States that are used to
receiving substantial amounts of water from the river are going
to be receiving considerable cuts in water availability. The
river has served as a source of affordable hydraulic power and
provides water for irrigation systems to countless farms in the
region.
The climate crisis is making wild weather much more common.
Since Sunday evening, we’ve seen all kinds of destruction in
New Orleans as Hurricane Ida hit – winds, flooding, way too
much water. And meanwhile, in America’s West, they’re dealing
with fires and a historic drought – not enough water. And as
the West gets drier and drier, how water is used attracts a lot
of controversy.
Expect legislation next winter in the Colorado General Assembly
that would seek to curb potential speculation in Colorado
water. But whether water speculation actually poses a problem
remains hotly debated. A report released Aug. 13 by a state
work group charged with studying how to strengthen Colorado
anti-water-speculation law identifies eight concepts to thwart
possible water hoarding that should be studied further. One
would eliminate or reduce the agricultural tax benefit for
lands from which water is removed following a water rights
purchase and transfer.
They all remember when the San Luis Valley brimmed with water.
South of San Luis, Ronda Lobato raced the rising floodwaters in
San Francisco Creek every spring to fill sandbags that
protected her grandparents’ farm. North of Center, potato
farmer Sheldon Rockey faced so much spring mud that he had to
learn to extract his stuck tractor. Outside Monte Vista,
Tyler Mitchell needed only a hand shovel on the family farm
near Monte Vista to reach shallow underground flows in the
Valley’s once-abundant water table.
Nicole Horseherder lives in Hard Rock, Ariz., population 53.
Hard Rock sits on the Black Mesa, which takes its name from the
numerous coal seams running through the plateau in western
Arizona. Horseherder’s home has no running water, as it
is prohibitively expensive to drill down to the nearest aquifer
that has potable water. Twice a week, she drives her
20-year-old, three-quarter-ton GMC pickup—towing a 500-gal.
tank mounted on a flatbed trailer—to a community well 25 miles
away. Coal and water have dominated
Horseherder’s life and work for the past decade.
A team from Los Alamos National Laboratory is about to
launch research high in the Colorado Rockies that will help
demystify water availability and support predictions across the
arid West. Los Alamos is supporting the Department of
Energy’s (DOE’s) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement’s
(ARM’s) Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory
(SAIL) campaign that kicks off September 1 near Crested
Butte. SAIL will collect data from the East River Watershed in
the Upper Colorado River Basin. The Los Alamos team will
oversee the SAIL observatory for this period, which ends in
June 2023.
The little-known federal Bureau of Reclamation just made
history by ordering some state governments to cut back their
usage of water on the Colorado River due to a historic drought
affecting the river basin. As a proud Coloradan, I was
alarmed to see this unprecedented announcement since it signals
the start of a new era of increased heavy-handedness in the
federal government’s management of state matters. -Written by Laura Williamson, political writer and a
contributor for Young Voices.
California farmers near the Arizona border with the
oldest rights to Colorado River water will reap $38
million over three years to not plant some of their fields
and leave extra water in the rapidly declining Lake Mead
reservoir.
Water is flowing once again to the Colorado River’s delta
in Mexico, a vast region that was once a natural splendor
before the iconic Western river was dammed and diverted at the
turn of the last century, essentially turning the delta into a
desert. In 2012, the idea emerged that water could be
intentionally sent down the river to inundate the delta
floodplain and regenerate native cottonwood and willow trees,
even in an overallocated river system. Ultimately, dedicated
flows of river water were brokered under cooperative efforts by
the U.S. and Mexican governments.
Water is flowing once again
to the Colorado River’s delta in Mexico, a vast region that
was once a natural splendor before the iconic Western river was
dammed and diverted at the turn of the last century, essentially
turning the delta into a desert.
In 2012, the idea emerged that water could be intentionally sent
down the river to inundate the delta floodplain and regenerate
native cottonwood and willow trees, even in an overallocated
river system. Ultimately, dedicated flows of river water were
brokered under cooperative
efforts by the U.S. and Mexican governments.
The California State Water Resources Board (SWRCB) has given
the city of Needles $3 million for drinking water
infrastructure, according to a press release. The funding will
support a new drinking well and booster station. The City of
Needles worst fears were realized In July when the only well
that supplies the community with portable drinking water
failed. The city was able to identify the replacement
part and repaired the well within 24 hours.
A drought in California has led to a spike in the state’s water
prices, nearly doubling the value of futures contracts for the
essential commodity this year and creating opportunities in
water-related investments. As of Aug. 24, the Nasdaq Veles
California Water Index , which represents the weighted average
price of water-rights transactions across five major
markets in California and is published weekly, has climbed
by roughly 87% year to date to $923.54 per one-acre foot.
It has been a very active monsoon season, especially in
Arizona. However, here in Southern California, we do not expect
much rain during the summer, and the totals we have seen thus
far will not be a drought buster.
On Aug. 16, the U.S. federal government declared a Colorado
River water shortage for the first time. This unprecedented
action was triggered by the precipitous drop in Lake Mead’s
water level: It’s at 1,067 feet above sea level, or about 35
percent full. …. The economic impacts to the states that tap
water from the Colorado River are significant, with no relief
in sight.
In late spring, Antonia Torres González’ tears rolled freely at
the rare sight before her: the Colorado River flowed again in
what is usually a parched delta. Torres González, a member of
the Cucapá tribe who grew up in the river delta, couldn’t help
but relive memories of childhood romps in the once-lush
waterway in northwestern Mexico. … On May 1, 2021, the river
once again flowed in its delta thanks to an agreement between
the United States and Mexico dubbed Minute 323.
This year’s unprecedented shortage declaration for the Colorado
River should galvanize all Colorado Basin states to redouble
their efforts to curtail wasteful and unnecessary uses of water
and build more resilient communities. The issue gains urgency
with the realization that next year is unlikely to bring
significant relief. Action now is needed to maintain the supply
drinking water in 2022, 2023, and beyond.
There’s less water. What do we do? As the reservoirs behind
Hoover and Glen Canyon dams on the Colorado drop to record
lows, as irrigators in central New Mexico struggle to water
crops after an early start and early end to their irrigation
seasons, as I spend countless hours with reporters from across
the country looking for help understanding all of this, as my
own river goes dry, it remains the central question. And I do
not know the answer.
The heightened need for handwashing during the pandemic posed a
challenge for the many homes without water. For many years, the
rugged topography and remoteness of the Navajo Nation made
piping water to homes challenging. Since 2003, IHS and a
network of partners have reduced the number of Navajo homes
without water access from 30 percent to 20 percent. New funding
from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES)
Act provided the Navajo Area IHS with $5.2 million, targeted
specifically to increasing water access on the Navajo Nation.
California farmers are living in the drought future they
thought would take 20 more years to arrive. Last week, for the
first time, federal officials declared a water shortage for the
Colorado River, which provides water to 40 million people in
seven western states and turns dry desert into fertile
farmland, including in California. The situation has
economy-wide ramifications.
It’s been a wet monsoon season. Sky Harbor has seen 3.35
inches of rain so far, which far surpasses the 2020
“non-soon.” So is the long drought in the Southwest
over? Not by a long shot, experts say.
As drought and climate change strangle the Colorado River, a
small county in Utah nevertheless continues forging ahead with
a billion-dollar pipeline to suck more water from it to sustain
its growing population. The proposed Lake Powell Pipeline, a
140-mile straw from one of the country’s largest reservoirs to
Washington County in southwestern Utah, has sparked backlash
from other states in the Colorado River basin and
environmentalists, and now has the Biden administration in a
difficult position.
Arizona has water issues. But they are not nearly as deep
or widespread as those pummeling northern California. Some
areas there are facing mandatory 40% cuts in use. In Redwood
Valley, residents have been asked to live on 55 gallons a day –
barely enough to take a bath and flush the toilet a few times.
Meanwhile, thousands of farmers and others – even those
with senior water rights – have been barred from diverting
water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. As have irrigators
along the Klamath River near the Oregon border, which also is
seeing massive numbers of fish die. -Written by Joanna Allhands, Arizona Republic
columnist.
The front lawn came with the house we moved into a couple years
ago. The patch of Bermudagrass was smaller than an average
putting green and easy to mow. The splash of deep green was
cute as far as that goes, but it was out of place on a street
that had largely made the transition to colored rock and
water-smart landscaping. Beyond the postcard aesthetics, it
made zero sense to continue to water a lawn in the desert.
Setting aside the politics of climate change and our arid land
with its endless water crisis — a basic definition of “desert”
— there were no children at home to play on it. -Written by John L. Smith, an author and Nevada
Independent columnist.
The Colorado River Basin covers more than 246,000 square miles
in seven U.S. states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico,
Arizona, Nevada, and California) and Mexico. Pursuant to
federal law, the Bureau of Reclamation (part of the Department
of the Interior) manages much of the basin’s water supplies.
Colorado River water is used primarily for agricultural
irrigation and municipal and industrial (M&I) uses; it is
also important for hydropower production, fish and wildlife,
and recreational uses.
Water cuts aimed at farmers amid the West’s megadrought have
set the stage for bitter legal and political fights over one of
the most overlooked water uses—the right of water to remain in
streams to sustain fish and endangered species, lawyers say.
The drought is poised to call that right into question, pitting
drinking water providers and food growers against
conservationists who want to keep streams wet so that fish can
survive. … The Interior Department’s Bureau of
Reclamation this week announced a first-ever water
shortage in the Colorado River Basin …
The federal government declared a water shortage on the
Colorado River for the first time, triggering mandatory
water consumption cuts for states in the Southwest,
as climate change-fueled drought pushes the level in Lake Mead
to unprecedented lows. Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the
US by volume, has drained at an alarming rate this year. At
around 1,067 feet above sea level and 35% full, the Colorado
River reservoir is at its lowest since the lake was filled
after the Hoover Dam was completed in the 1930s.
Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly is calling for a U.S.
Senate subcommittee hearing on this week’s first-ever Colorado
River shortage declaration. It comes as region-wide drought has
heightened stress on western water resources. KNAU’s Ryan
Heinsius reports. Kelly wants the Senate to examine how
the decision could impact Arizona cities, tribal communities
and farmers. As a member of the Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, he says he’s concerned about the region’s dwindling
reservoirs.
In the wake of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) declaring
a federal water shortage of the Colorado River Basin, NGWA is
again stressing the need for increased funding for aquifer
recharge and water reuse projects in the western United States.
On August 16, the USBR declared its first-ever water shortage
of the Colorado River Basin, which will trigger a smaller
amount of water distributed from Lake Mead and cuts to
individual state water allocations.
According to the Arizona Game and Fish Department, in the
1940s, sportsmen built water catchments in the desert in an
effort to stabilize wildlife populations for hunting and
fishing. More than 80 years later, the department now maintains
hundreds of these catchments, filling them with millions of
gallons of water every year, but they are doing so with a
different purpose in mind: to keep wildlife in Arizona alive
through the drought and dry monsoons.
In this summer of wildfires, heat waves and drought, there was
another bit of bad environmental news out of the West this
week. Federal officials declared a water shortage at Lake Mead,
the huge reservoir on the Colorado River near Las Vegas,
setting off sharp cuts in water to Arizona farmers next
year…. The declaration, and the mandatory supply cuts,
had long been expected. What is less certain is how much the
reductions will help. Will more cuts be necessary, and, if so,
when?
Tucson Water plans to start discharging water containing low
levels of PFAS compounds from its south-side water treatment
plant into the Santa Cruz River in early October — if it gets a
state permit for the discharge by then. The utility is building
a pipeline to take the water from that treatment plant near
Interstate 10 and Irvington Road to the river near Irvington.
It also has submitted a permit application for the discharge to
the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.
In North America, the countries that share the Colorado River
Delta are experiencing a similar reality as their own
diplomatic relationship is shaped by cross-border water
exchanges. And like Israel and Jordan, the U.S. and Mexico are
now considering the role desalination might play in sharing
this vital resource. … Establishing a desalination
facility jointly operated by the U.S. and Mexico could help
“bolster resilience in the Colorado River Basin,” according to
the Binational Study of Water Desalination Opportunities
in the Sea of Cortez.
The I-Team has learned a federal water shortage declaration on
the Colorado River is expected on Monday. That would trigger
some mandatory cutbacks. Lake Mead, where we get 90% of our
water, is at record low levels right now. Valley residents are
urged to conserve water. Now, the I-Team is taking a look at
residents who are considered to use the most.
A two-decade-long megadrought along the Colorado River is
pushing seven Western states and parts of Mexico into a formal
shortage declaration, forcing water delivery cuts to the
Southwest that are just the beginning of the pain climate
change promises to bring to the region. Climate scientists and
water managers have long seen this declaration coming, but
what’s alarming them is the speed with which the hot and dry
conditions over the past four years have shrunk the river’s two
main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, to levels not seen
since they were first filled.
Western water scarcity is prompting big law firms in the
Colorado River Basin to advise their clients to pursue
conservation measures — but also to buy more water. A projected
shortage and first-ever water cuts announced Monday by the
Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation means that cities,
industry, and commercial businesses need to prepare for the
likelihood the current 21-year megadrought in the region
represents a “new normal.”
Southern California’s powerful water agency on Tuesday issued a
supply alert, calling on the region to conserve vital resources
and prepare for continued drought — a move that brings the
state’s largest population center closer to the tough water
restrictions imposed on communities elsewhere. The move comes
one day after U.S. officials declared the first-ever water
shortage on the Colorado River, which is a key source of
water for the region.
In response to worsening drought conditions, the board of
Southern California’s regional water wholesaler will consider
declaring a Water Supply Alert that calls upon residents to
voluntarily conserve the precious resource. According
to officials with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California (MWD), Southern California’s water supply has been
severely impacted by extreme drought in both the Northern
Sierra and the Colorado River, saying crucial storage
reservoirs have never been lower.
The federal government on Monday declared a first-ever water
shortage on the Colorado River, announcing
mandatory cutbacks next year that will bring major
challenges for Arizona farmers and reduce the water
allotments of Nevada and Mexico. The declaration of a shortage
by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has been anticipated for
months and was triggered by the spiraling decline of Lake Mead,
which stores water used by Arizona, Nevada, California and
Mexico.
U.S. officials on Monday are expected to declare the first-ever
water shortage from a river that serves 40 million people in
the West, triggering cuts to some Arizona farmers next year
amid a gripping drought. Water levels at the largest
reservoir on the Colorado River — Lake Mead — have fallen to
record lows … underscoring the acute water challenges
for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is
being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate
change.
When Father Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit priest and explorer for the
Spanish crown, came into what is now southern Arizona from
Mexico in 1692, he was greeted by irrigated farms sprawling
incongruously across the Sonoran Desert. The Tohono O’odham,
among the first tribes Kino encountered near what is now
Tucson, and others had been growing crops along Arizona’s
waterways for thousands of years.
Officials in Lower Colorado River Basin states want to slow the
decline of Lake Mead’s water levels over the next few years by
paying Southern California farmers not to plant crops. It’s not
a plan that Bill Hasencamp, manager of Colorado River resources
for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California,
considers a “drought buster,” but it will reduce lake level
decline by up to 3 feet over the next three years, he said.
In the American West, water has always been a challenge. Prior
to the arrival of European explorers and settlers, there’s
broad evidence that droughts and water cycles heavily affected
Native Americans. For example, the people who built the Gila
Cliff Dwellings may have left the area when water supplies
dwindled. Later settlements by the descendants of Europeans
also followed water, with settlements placed near rivers so
there would be something to drink and grow food with.
In part one of this article, I covered the American West’s
water problems, as well as some of the ways they have been
solved with big engineering projects so far. Now, with climate
change and growth both pushing the limits of water supplies,
people are asking for even bigger projects, like a pipeline
from the Mississippi River to somewhere in the Colorado River’s
basin. Let’s talk about those ideas, even bigger ones, and why
none of them might be a good idea. -Written by Jennifer Sensiba, a long time efficient
vehicle enthusiast, writer, and photographer.
A harvester rumbles through the fields in the early morning
light, mowing down rows of corn and chopping up ears, husks and
stalks into mulch for feed at a local dairy. The cows won’t get
their salad next year, at least not from this farm. There won’t
be enough water to plant the corn crop. Climate change, drought
and high demand are expected to force the first-ever mandatory
cuts to a water supply that 40 million people across the
American West depend on — the Colorado River.
If the Colorado River were a bank account, it would be running
toward the red. The river, the lifeblood for several Western
states, is being squeezed by overuse and plunging supply — as
temperatures stay on the upswing year after year, and thirsty
soils rapidly absorb the bulk of moisture from a dwindling
annual snowpack. The conclusion is “inescapable,” Colorado
River District Manager Andy Mueller said Monday.
As we lumber toward a renegotiation of the operating rules on
the Colorado River, one of the challenges folks in basin
management face is the differing understandings of the Law of
the River. There’s stuff we all know, or think we know, or
stuff Lower Basin folks think they know that Upper Basin people
may disagree with, and stuff Upper Basin folks think they know
that Lower Basin people may disagree with.
The “bathtub ring” at Lake Mead has become a familiar sight.
The water level in the lake is the lowest it has been since the
Hoover Dam, which created the lake, was built in the 1930s.
Those low levels have been decades in the making. … The
record low levels mean that later this month the federal
government is expected to declare an official water shortage on
the Colorado River which feeds Lake Powell. That shortage
declaration will mean a 20% cut in Arizona’s allotment of
Colorado River water.
Lawmakers and water utilities in the West are urging residents
to conserve water as reservoirs hit record lows amid climate
change-driven megadrought. Among the calls to action is a
reminder for residents to make choices that lessen use of
municipal water when it comes to maintaining landscaping in
desert surroundings. About 30% of water usage for the
average American family is used for the outdoors, such as
watering lawns and gardens, according to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.
A thick, white band of newly exposed rock face stretches high
above boaters’ heads at Lake Powell, creating a sharp contrast
against the famous red desert terrain as their vessels weave
through tight canyons that were once underwater. It’s a stark
reminder of how far the water level has fallen at the massive
reservoir on the Utah-Arizona border. Last year, it was more
than 50 feet (15 meters) higher. The level at the popular
destination for houseboat vacations is at a historic low amid
a megadrought engulfing the U.S. West.
Bureau of Reclamation Deputy Commissioner Camille Calimlim
Touton today named Jacklynn (Jaci) L. Gould as regional
director for the Lower Colorado Basin Region. Gould has more
than 29 years of experience with Reclamation. … As regional
director, Gould will lead over 800 employees in the region,
which encompasses the last 700 miles of the Colorado River to
the Mexican border, southern Nevada, southern California, and
most of Arizona. She will oversee hydropower operations and
maintenance for 15 facilities …
Large water agencies like Denver Water and Aurora Water say
they do have ongoing conservation efforts they take seriously,
but that fast population growth on the Front Range overwhelms
potential savings and they need new water storage. It
would be much better for Colorado’s environment, the
conservation groups respond — not to mention cheaper — to
acquire water by using less of it, rather than spending
billions of dollars on dams and diversions of Western Slope
water.
A developer has withdrawn two of the three proposals to
build a series of hydroelectric dams in the Little Colorado
River watershed, projects that had drawn opposition from
several tribes and environmentalists. Phoenix-based Pumped
Hydro Storage LLC relinquished preliminary permits
for the Salt Trail Canyon and Little
Colorado River proposals on July 26. … The
company left in place an application for a third
proposal in nearby Big Canyon.
A “mega-drought” across the Southwest will force the federal
government to declare a water shortage on the Colorado River
this month. The decision would be historic for the watershed,
which serves 40 million people in seven states: California,
Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. The
river system provides irrigation that turns desert into
farmland and is an important source of drinking water and
hydroelectric power.
For decades, the Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs, which
bracket the Grand Canyon, have been the major savings accounts
for water in the Western United States. Built on the Colorado
River, the country’s two largest reservoirs have enabled
Western farms and cities from Los Angeles to Denver to have a
stable water supply throughout a relentless 21-year
megadrought. But today, Lake Powell and Lake Mead are hovering
at close to 33% of their full capacity, historic lows not seen
since the dams were first built.
More than 40 million people rely on the Colorado River in the
West, and every drop of it is used. But with climate change,
there’s now less water to go around. To try and avoid a
multi-state legal battle over this precious resource, Colorado
and other states are considering paying people to keep more
water in the river.
Across the U.S. West, shifting climate patterns are wreaking
havoc. An early start to fire season is scorching rural Oregon
and parts of Northern California. Record temperatures have led
to deaths of hundreds of residents of Seattle and Portland,
Ore. Lake Mead, the massive Colorado River reservoir outside
Las Vegas, is at its lowest point since its 1935 federal
construction, threatening water supplies to Arizona, Southern
California, Nevada and Mexico. In Arizona, 99% of the land
is undergoing years-long drought that has accelerated. Large
swaths of the region are now in extreme distress and the
picture may well get worse…
The future of Utah’s relationship with the Colorado River began
to take shape in downtown Salt Lake City on Friday, as the
newly created Colorado River Authority of Utah held its first
meeting. The organization, created by the Utah Legislature
during the 2021 session, was formed “to protect, conserve, and
develop Utah’s Colorado River system interests,” according to
the agency’s website. The agency, which is officially under
Gov. Spencer Cox’s office, consists of six appointed members
representing water interests from around the state.
Seven years ago, a pulse of water on the Colorado River at the
U.S.-Mexico border temporarily reconnected it to the Pacific
Ocean. Scientists used the so-called “pulse flow” to study what
plant and animal life returned to the desiccated delta along
with water. Armed with that knowledge, scientists and
conservation groups are trying a new and more targeted strategy
to bring water back to the final 100 miles of the Colorado
River this year. It’s an attempt to reconnect portions of the
river left dry from decades of overuse, and it’s happening in
one of the driest years the basin has ever seen.
Concerning news about Utah’s extreme drought keeps coming. On
Wednesday, Utah’s Department of Natural Resources said the
drought continues to have “a stranglehold on the state,”
despite wild weather swings that dumped rain in some areas.
Washington Post Columnist David Von Drehle recently wrote an
opinion piece about the drought gripping the West. He spoke
with KUER’s Pamela McCall about the situation.
In late June, Simon Martinez drove along one of the dirt roads
crisscrossing the parched rocky shrubland on the Ute Mountain
Ute Tribe Farm & Ranch Enterprise, a 7,700-acre agricultural
operation owned by the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in the far
southwestern corner of Colorado. In normal times, he would be
driving past giant circular fields of corn and alfalfa
irrigated by 110 rotating sprinklers called pivots. But most of
the fields are barren this year, casualties of an unprecedented
drought — “the worst in 30 years,” said Martinez …
The water levels of two major water bodies — including a major
reservoir — have reached historic lows in recent days amid
extreme drought conditions in the western United States. Water
levels at Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir in the
country, reached a record low — below 3,555.10 feet, the
previous record low, reached in April 2005. As of Monday, the
elevation at the reservoir straddling the border between
Arizona and Utah was at 3,554.51 feet, according to data
tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
In the state that perfected if not invented the American
summer, the smell of 17 million gallons of spilled sewage
lingered last week on a Southern California beach. There were
bare rocks where snow once capped the Sierra Nevada and bathtub
rings where water once glistened in Shasta Lake. Wildfires
roared across the West, threatening the electrical grid, the
smoke so thick it could be seen from space, pluming into the
jet stream, delaying planes in Denver, turning the sun red in
Manhattan, creating its own weather.
Today, in Episode 3 of Drought Week, we take a journey through
the American Southwest to Las Vegas, down to Arizona’s Sonoran
Desert and through California’s Mojave Desert. We speak to a
social scientist, a folklorist and a politician about their
efforts to understand the plants and animals affected by this
historic drought. We’ll focus on three iconic plants: Joshua
trees. Saguaro cactuses. And, well, lawn grass.
A bill recently introduced in the U.S. Senate aims to provide
billions of dollars to improve access to clean water in tribal
lands. One of the senators who introduced the bill, Sen.
Michael Bennet, D-Colo., wrote in the foreword of a report
about tribal water access within the Colorado River Basin that
one estimate states 48% of households within tribal lands lack
clean water or sufficient sanitation.
The water level in Lake Powell has dropped to the lowest level
since the U.S. government started filling the enormous
reservoir on the Colorado River in the 1960s — another sign of
the ravages of the Western drought. … The water
level has plunged as the American West experiences what
scientists are calling a “megadrought.” Too little water
is coming into the lake, and too much is being sent downriver
to maintain levels in Lake Mead, which is also
at historically low levels.
Creeks, rivers and lakes that are fed by melting snow across
the U.S. West are already running low as of mid-July 2021, much
to the worry of farmers, biologists and snow hydrologists like
me. This is not surprising in California, where snow levels
over the previous winter were well below normal. But it is also
true across Colorado and the Rocky Mountains, which in general
received a normal amount of snow. You’d think if there was
normal amount of snow you’d have plenty of water downstream,
right? … But another less studied way moisture can be lost is
by evaporating straight into the atmosphere.
With water levels falling rapidly at Lake Powell on the
Arizona-Utah border, federal officials are taking what could be
the first of several steps to prop it up. This month the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation started a six-month effort to raise the
lake around 3 feet by the end of 2021 by releasing 181,000 acre
feet of water from three upstream reservoirs. It comes as the
lake just Sunday fell below its lowest level on record.
American culture is reckoning with some of the negative impacts
of our history. … In the past few weeks alone, St. Paul,
Nashville, and St. Louis governments and activists are having
substantive policy discussions about making reparations –
including direct payouts of money – to African Americans, to
atone for the historic sin of slavery. Reparations
discussions also have included making necessary amends to
indigenous people. … The concept of “ecological
reparations” takes the conversation another step forward.
– Written by Gary Wockner, who lives in Colorado and
is active in river protection around the world.
When the current drought began in 2000, the three Lower Basin
states that take water from the lake (Arizona, California
and Nevada) suddenly awakened to the problem. After several
years of difficult negotiations, they agreed on a Drought
Contingency Plan (DCP) that, with previously agreed cuts,
would bring the lake into balance. Hoping the drought
would lift before too long, the DCP negotiators agreed to
spread the cuts over coming years in response to changing lake
levels. However, as the drought continues and intensifies, the
Drought Contingency Plan is looking more like a Drought
Certainty Plan. -Written by former Secretary of the Interior Bruce
Babbitt.
Monsoon season in the Southwestern United States is providing
relief to parts of the region that are desperate for any kind
of precipitation, but life-threatening flash floods and
lightning are also part of the deal. On Thursday night, a
downpour in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Ariz., brought heavy rain,
lightning and National Weather Service cellphone alerts of “a
dangerous and life-threatening situation.” … [T]his year
has already seen a dramatic difference — a 200 percent increase
in precipitation over the last two months in parts of the
Southwest.
On the side of a dirt road in Gunnison County, a herd of cattle
is cooling off in the water of an irrigation ditch. Doug
Washburn, range manager for Spann Ranches in southwestern
Colorado, points at the hills surrounding the operation’s
northern headquarters. … Colorado’s Western Slope
is considered a climate hot spot where temperatures
are increasing faster than the global average. This warming has
contributed to more than 20 years of dryness,
which scientists are calling a megadrought.
Lake Powell will soon hit its lowest level since Glen Canyon
Dam started trapping the Colorado River’s water in 1963 — even
with emergency releases of water from reservoirs upstream. The
Bureau of Reclamation announced Thursday that the lake
elevation will soon drop below 3,555.1 feet above sea level,
the record set in 2005, back near the start of a 20-year dry
cycle plaguing the Colorado River Basin….The increasingly
dire situations at Lake Powell and its downstream partner Lake
Mead illustrate the stress on the Colorado River system….
Confronting the historic drought that has a firm grip on the
American West requires a heavy federal infrastructure
investment to protect existing water supplies but also will
depend on efforts at all levels of government to reduce demand
by promoting water efficiency and recycling, Interior Secretary
Deb Haaland said Thursday.
Southern Arizona has been under the strongest category of
drought since early last year. With a strong start to monsoon,
the area should soon show a bit of recovery. It takes more than
just a handful of good rainfalls to recover from such a bad
drought. … The drought is one of the reasons why Pima County
has had so many flash flood warnings this year. Soil that has
not seen rain in a while is not as absorbent as regular soil,
so heavy rainfalls over dry ground lead to flash flooding more
often. This also causes problems on the roads.
The Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, will visit Denver
to address the worsening drought and wildfire
conditions. The biggest area of concern is the deep
drought on the western slope. Haaland will be in Grand
Junction Friday talking about wildland fire preparedness and
response. On Saturday, Haaland will be in Ridgeway discussing
Colorado’s outdoor recreation economy.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced the selection
of Michael Norris as the Area Manager of its Lower
Colorado Basin Region Yuma Area Office. He has served as the
Deputy Area Manager for seven years. In his new capacity,
Norris is responsible for delivery of Colorado River water to
the Yuma area and Mexico, groundwater and salinity management,
resource management, engineering and construction.
A new report issued today by seven environmental non-profit
organizations examines ten strategies to bolster climate
resilience and mitigate the impact of climate change in the
Colorado River Basin, which is currently grappling with a
historic megadrought. A crucial source of water for over 40
million people, the Colorado River is facing severe declines in
stream flows and a looming federal shortage declaration as a
result of a decades-long drought and increasing temperatures.
The mountain spring that pioneers used to water their hayfields
and now fills people’s taps flowed reliably into the old cowboy
town of Oakley for decades. So when it dwindled to a trickle in
this year’s scorching drought, officials took drastic action to
preserve their water: They stopped building. During the
coronavirus pandemic, the real estate market in their
1,750-person city boomed as remote workers flocked in from the
West Coast and second homeowners staked weekend ranches. But
those newcomers need water — water that is vanishing as a
megadrought dries up reservoirs and rivers across the
West.
Through her new documentary, “Where There Once Was Water,”
Brittany App introduces innovative ways to conserve water,
restore ecosystems, and reconsider our relationship with the
natural world. The film follows her venturing through
California and the Southwest in search of people practicing
wise water management.
A historic drought has desiccated much of the American West,
bringing reservoir levels to record lows and stoking fears of
catastrophic wildfires across the region. We spoke with two
members of the Water Policy Center research network and experts
on the Colorado River: Dr. Bonnie Colby of the University of
Arizona (she’s also a member of the Colorado River Research
Group) and John Fleck of the University of New Mexico. Prepare
to be surprised: we encountered some delightful optimism in
this wide-ranging conversation.
As the West descends deeper into drought, climate and water
experts are growing increasingly alarmed by California’s
severely shriveling reservoirs. On Monday, Shasta Lake — the
largest reservoir in the state — held a scant 1.57 million
acre-feet of water, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation, or about 35% of its capacity. A series of
satellite images captured by NASA show just how dramatically
the water level has fallen.
Rick Daniels lies awake at night worrying about a rusty
contraption in a forlorn field, littered with discarded pipes
and fire hydrants. It is the only water pump in Needles that
meets state water quality standards, running 23 hours a day to
keep up with demand, according to Daniels, the city manager.
That’s a thin margin in one of America’s hottest cities, an
urban speck in the desert near California’s border with
Arizona. If this lone pump fails, 5,000 residents face the
ultimate risk of taps running dry, as temperatures soar past
120 degrees …
At least 70 large wildfires are burning across the US west and
nearby states – engulfing more than 1m acres in flames – as
fears mount that shifting conditions can worsen an already dire
situation. Significant areas of these states are in the grips
of drought conditions that are considered “extreme” and
“exceptional” – the most severe categories. In California,
a rapidly growing wildfire south of Lake Tahoe jumped a
highway, prompting more evacuation orders and the cancellation
of an extreme bike ride through the Sierra Nevada on Saturday.
The growing crisis on the Colorado River came into sharper
focus last week when the Bureau of Reclamation began emergency
releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir to shore up
Lake Powell’s declining levels, now at historic lows. The
move will bolster Powell’s level by 3 feet in hopes of
preventing it from dropping to a point where Glen Canyon Dam
would not be able to generate electrical power, according to
the agency’s Upper Colorado regional director Wayne Pullan.
While the historic June 15 low for Lake Mead has drawn
headlines – “its lowest level on record since the reservoir was
filled in the 1930” – we’re about to hit a similar milestone
upstream at Lake Powell that has received less attention, but
may in fact be more important. It was co-author Eric Kuhn who
drew this to my attention – I hadn’t noticed. He notes that
sometime around July 24 give or take our eyeballing of the
Colorado Basin River Forecasting Center graph, Powell will
cross elevation 3,555 feet above sea level. That was the
previous post-filling low, on April 8, 2005.
Whether you’re a kayaker or an angler or a hard-core gardener
in Colorado, we get that this water thing is
confusing. … The drought and the overarching
impacts of climate change have already generated multiple
stories in 2021 and will be a big part of news coverage from
here on out. We get reader questions along the way about the
severity of the drought and what it means for Colorado
residents — here are a few of those questions, and some answers
from some key experts.
Emergency water releases from reservoirs upstream of Lake
Powell are underway to preserve the nation’s second-largest
reservoir’s ability to generate hydroelectric power. The Bureau
of Reclamation started releasing additional water Thursday from
Flaming Gorge reservoir in Wyoming. Additional water releases
from Blue Mesa reservoir in Colorado and Navajo reservoir in
New Mexico are planned to commence later this year. Emergency
releases could last until at least December, and could extend
into 2022. Lake Powell is projected to hit a record low in
July. It’s situated on the Colorado River, a drinking and
irrigation water source for more than 40 million people in the
Southwest.
The North American monsoon has returned to Colorado, and the
rain has brought some much-needed relief to some of the driest
parts of the state — after multiple back-to-back years of
almost no summer rain. … Gov. Jared Polis has recently
declared a drought emergency for the region and the rest of
western Colorado. … The seasonal moisture from the
tropics creates afternoon cloud cover that protects …
drought-stricken creeks from baking in the sun. The rain helps
lower the risk for wildfires. The timing of the monsoon is
vital to Colorado’s ecosystem, which evolved on its schedule.
A study from UNLV shows some interesting results about how much
water people used during Governor Steve Sisolak’s stay at home
order in March 2020. Researchers at UNLV wanted to know the
impact staying at home had on water use. Researchers looked at
water bills from Henderson before the stay at home order and
several months after the order was in place. The study found
usage at home soared, outpacing pre-pandemic usage at homes,
businesses and schools.
Colorado’s high altitude hay meadows, a significant water user
in the state, could be re-operated to yield more than 40
percent in water savings, according to a new report. The report
is based on a major high tech research initiative to see if
ranch-scale water conservation techniques, in which farmers are
paid to voluntarily stop irrigating their fields temporarily,
could produce enough saved water to help protect the Colorado
River from unplanned shortages due to drought and climate
change.
The water levels behind the Colorado River’s biggest dams are
fast-approaching or already at record lows. The historic
21-year megadrought that is squeezing some Western states’
water supplies will also likely start showing up in energy
bills, because those dams can’t produce as much electricity.
The problem is most acute at the Upper Colorado River basin’s
largest reservoir: Lake Powell.
Standing at the edge of a precipice, under a scorching sun in
eastern Utah, you can see nothing but the state’s infamous red
rocks and towering buttes for miles. … But if you happen to
glance down at the dizzying depths of the canyon that lies at
the bottom of the desert sandstone mountains, you’d see a lush
oasis, blooming with green vegetation, the Price River snaking
through the rock even on the hottest of summer days. And if you
scrambled down, and watched patiently for long enough, you
might even spot some beavers – the very architects of this
thriving wetland landscape, smack bang in the middle of the
desert.
Drying juniper berries litter the ground as Rusine Stanley
plunges a water hose into empty tanks in her backyard. As
bubbles begin to gurgle, each tank fills to the brim. …
Brittle branches break at the touch as Stanley runs her hand
through a juniper tree on her 10-acre property. Its
needle-like leaves are yellowing, each more than the last. This
backyard is a microcosm for a phenomenon that
silviculturists and researchers are tracking
across northern and central Arizona, where the
Southwest’s relentless drought is killing juniper
trees across thousands of acres.
The punishing heat wave continues in much of the West. However,
for some in places in the Southwest including Arizona, the
long-awaited monsoon will bring milder temperatures and
rainfall. It may just arrive a little bit too fast, raising
flash flooding concerns in the area. … Rainfall amounts of
anywhere from a half inch to 1 inch are possible, said the
National Weather Service in Phoenix. Upper-end amounts of 2 to
4 inches aren’t out of the question.
As concerns flare over record-low water levels at Lake Mead, a
new UNLV study shows that COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home orders
— and a subsequent societal shift to remote work — may be
exacerbating the problem. The study, recently published in the
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, found that
Las Vegas Valley residential water use soared during the
pandemic, outpacing even combined pre-pandemic usage across
Southern Nevada’s three main property types (residential,
commercial, and schools).
The Colorado River makes an impressive 1,400-mile journey from
Colorado, all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border. It starts as
snowpack in Rocky Mountain National Park in Northern Colorado
and makes its way westward to Utah. The Utah portion of the
river course starts on the Colorado Plateau before heading to
Moab, where the water sweeps by Arches and Canyonlands national
parks – both amazing landscapes eroded into canyons and mesas
by the Colorado and Green rivers.
With the west in extreme drought, Lake Mead, fed by the
Colorado River and formed by the Hoover Dam, reached historic
lows in June. The water level continues to fall, continuing a
trend that began more than 20 years ago. The Federal government
is expected to declare a water shortage in the lower basin of
the Colorado River by 2022 at the latest, which will trigger
mandatory water cuts in Arizona and Nevada. These cuts will
particularly impact farmers. But they are likely to hit
indigenous communities particularly hard …
Caddisfly swarms along the Colorado River in Laughlin are
annoying most residents, but scientists see them as an
opportunity. Dr. Michael Cavallaro, entomologist and pest
abatement manager for Bullhead City, is working on a project to
find a permanent solution to the swarms, which have become a
nuisance for residents and businesses. He thinks the residents
should feel honored, since caddisflies swarm only in healthy
ecosystems with high-quality, clean water.
[S]ince 2000, scientists say the river’s flow has dwindled
by 20% compared to the previous century’s average. This year is
the second driest on record, with the flow into Lake Mead just
a quarter of what would be considered normal. … In June,
the level of Lake Mead plunged below 1,075ft, a point that will
trigger, for the first time, federally mandated cuts in water
allocations next year. The Bureau of Reclamation expects this
historic low to spiral further …
For the past few weeks, the American West has been confronting
a hellish climate nightmare of scorching heat waves, a severe
drought, and raging wildfires. And it’s not just the
West—or even the United States. In
typically chilly Siberia, ground temperatures reached
a blistering 118 degrees Fahrenheit. The Middle
East has been gripped by a searing heat wave and a drought
that has especially hammered Syria. In late June, a
small Canadian village was almost completely consumed
by wildfire. China is also bracing for another year
of extreme weather…
In the gray light of dawn, hundreds of swallows darted over a
pool of standing water in an irrigated field along the Colorado
River. The birds were attracted to the early-morning mosquitos
swarming the saturated landscape. … Across the Western
Slope, birds and other wildlife have come to depend on these
artificially created wetlands, a result of flood irrigation.
But as the state of Colorado grapples with whether to implement
a demand-management program, which would pay irrigators to
temporarily dry up fields in an effort to send more water
downstream, there could be unintended consequences for the
animals that use irrigated agriculture for their habitat.
Development of a sprawling, politically charged Arizona housing
development has been stopped, with the Fish and Wildlife
Service’s newly revealed rescinding of a Trump administration
decision. The agency’s about-face caused the Army Corps of
Engineers to suspend its dredge-and-fill permit for the
28,000-home The Villages at Vigneto project, according to court
documents. … The 2017 document “concurred that the Corps
of Engineers’ granting of a Clean Water Act section 404 permit
for the Villages at Vigneto Development was not likely to
adversely affect threatened and endangered species or their
critical habitat.”
[A]fter years of an unrelenting drought that has quickly
accelerated amid record temperatures and lower snowpack melt,
[Lake Mead] is set to mark another, more dire turning
point. Next month, the federal government expects to declare
its first-ever shortage on the lake, triggering cuts
to water delivered to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico on Jan.
1. If the lake, currently at 1,068 feet, drops 28 more
feet by next year, the spigot of water to California will start
to tighten in 2023.
The confluence of the tiny San Pedro River and the much larger
Gila was once one of the richest locales in one of the most
productive river ecosystems in the American Southwest, an
incomparable oasis of biodiversity. The rivers frequently
flooded their banks, a life-giving pulse … The
confluence now is a very different place, its richness long
diminished. A massive mountain of orange- and dun-colored
smelter tailings, left from the days of copper and lead
processing and riddled with arsenic, towers where the two
rivers meet. Water rarely flows there, with an occasional
summer downpour delivering an ephemeral trickle.
The Colorado River is tapped out. Another dry year has left the
waterway that supplies 40 million people in the Southwest
parched. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is
pushing the nation’s two largest reservoirs to record lows. For
the first time this summer, the federal government will declare
a shortage. Climate change is exacerbating the current drought.
Warming temperatures are upending how the water cycle functions
in the Southwest. The 1,450-mile long river acts as a drinking
water supply, a hydroelectric power generator, and an irrigator
of crop fields across seven Western states and two in Mexico.
With a federal water shortage declaration looming for the
Southwest, Denver Water is trying to help. Normally nearly 20%
of the city’s water comes from Grand County, which is filled
with streams that make up the headwaters of the Colorado River.
In a normal year, 60% of the water in Grand County is diverted
from streams high above Grand Lake and captured near Winter
Park and sent to the other side of the Continental Divide for
agricultural and municipal water supply, mostly on the Front
Range.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday it plans to
propose reclassifying a rare Colorado River Basin fish called
the razorback sucker from endangered to threatened status after
a multiyear and multistate effort throughout the Southwestern
U.S. to replenish its populations. A proposed formal relisting,
to be published Wednesday in the Federal Register, would
classify the fish as no longer on the brink of extinction. But
it would require continued management of the razorback’s
survival in the Colorado River and several key tributaries. The
Fish and Wildlife Service first said it would recommend the
change in 2018.
The Bureau of Reclamation Tuesday announced the selection of
Tonya Hart as the Regional Engineer of the Lower Colorado Basin
Region. In this capacity, she oversees and provides direction
for the Region’s engineering activities in Arizona, Southern
Nevada and Southern California. Additionally, she oversees the
operations and maintenance of Reclamation’s Boulder City
campus. Hart most recently served as a Supervisory Civil
Engineer in the Geotechnical Services Division of Reclamation’s
Technical Service Center (TSC) located in Denver,
Colorado.
The Bureau of Reclamation urges those recreating on or along
the Colorado River through Glen and Grand canyons to exercise
increased caution as summer energy demands may cause rapid
changes to the river’s flow. Unscheduled fluctuations in water
releases may occur without notice. Vessels should be secured to
withstand potential changes in water levels and campers should
avoid setting camp where a sudden river rise could reach tents
or other camping supplies.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to
downgrade a Colorado River fish, the razorback sucker, from
“endangered” to “threatened.” The razorback sucker was listed
as endangered in 1991 due to habitat loss and predation by
introduced exotic species. Wildlife officials say the
population has recovered to tens of thousands of fish in the
Green, San Juan, and Colorado rivers, meeting the criteria for
downlisting. However, the Fish and Wildlife Service
acknowledges many razorback suckers born in the wild do not
reach adulthood.
Lake Mead, which provides water for 25 million people in
the American West, has shrunk to 36 percent of its capacity.
One rural California community has run out of water entirely
after its well broke in early June. Fields are sitting fallow,
as farmers sell their water allotments instead of growing
crops, putting the nation’s food supply in peril. As the West
withers under extreme drought, legislators in the US House of
Representatives have introduced HR 4099, a bill that would
direct the Secretary of the Interior to create a program to
fund $750 million worth of water recycling projects in the 17
western states through the year 2027.
The expected water cuts from the Colorado River as a result of
the Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) will likely mean higher
water utility rates, according to Fitch Ratings. The U.S.
Congress passed the DCP in 2019 to protect water levels in Lake
Powell and Lake Mead which provide water to Colorado River
basin states. Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New
Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and Mexico entered into the DCP,
which mandates how water cuts will occur when the lakes drop to
certain levels, called tiers.
A pair of governors on Sunday called on the federal government
for help and pushed for solutions as their states grapple with
recording-breaking temperatures, drought and wildfires that
officials have said is being driven by climate change.
… The bipartisan plea follows a meeting last
week between President Joe Biden and other Western governors
during which he announced new federal response plans to help
address the wildfire threats and extreme heat being driven by
climate change. They include extending seasonal hiring, adding
“surge capacity” by training and equipping additional
personnel, and adding fire detection resources.
Massive buildings are sprouting from our desert landscapes,
their footprints normally more than a million square feet. The
structures are filled with computer servers processing and
storing huge amounts of data. … Duff is the only city
council member to vote no on a recently approved $800 million
data center – rumored to be for Facebook – after discovering
the facility would eventually use 1.75 million gallons of water
every day for cooling their rows of servers once fully
operational. This as state reservoirs like Lake Mead and rivers
like the Colorado are so low that federal restrictions are
likely to be triggered on Arizona’s water allocation as early
as next year.
The United States and Mexico are tussling over their dwindling
shared water supplies after years of unprecedented heat and
insufficient rainfall. Sustained drought on the middle-lower
Rio Grande since the mid-1990s means less Mexican water flows
to the U.S. The Colorado River Basin, which supplies seven U.S.
states and two Mexican states, is also at record low levels. A
1944 treaty between the U.S. and Mexico governs water relations
between the two neighbors.
In Sept. 2020, the 7-year-old female mountain lion pictured
above was dehydrated and burnt on the bottom of her paw pads.
The pain made it unbearable to walk. According to data
from a satellite tracking collar and camera footage, seven
months later she is chasing deer, mating, and has even
travelled hundreds of miles through the San Gabriel Mountain
wilderness in southern California, on those once lifeless feet.
… She was found at the edge of a Monrovia resident’s
backyard pond, where she crawled in search of water during the
Bobcat Fire …
For thousands of years, an Arizona tribe relied on the Colorado
River’s natural flooding patterns to farm….Now, gravity sends
the river water from the north end of the Colorado River Indian
Tribes reservation through 19th century canals to sustain
alfalfa, cotton, wheat, onions and potatoes, mainly by flooding
the fields. Some of those fields haven’t been producing lately
as the tribe contributes water to prop up Lake Mead to help
weather a historic drought in the American West…. As
Arizona faces mandatory cuts next year in its Colorado River
supply, the tribes see themselves as major players in the
future of water.
Gov. Jared Polis formally declared a drought emergency Friday
for almost two dozen western Colorado counties. Colorado’s
Drought Task Force, Agriculture Impact Task Force and Municipal
Water Task Force will remain active and responsive to local
needs, a release from the Colorado Water Conservation Board
states Friday.
Skiers and snowboarders pray for snow so they can shred the
slopes. Climatologists and hydrologists have an entirely
different and more critical reason to cross their fingers for
the “white gold.” The West’s historic drought has many impacts,
including water shortages, more severe wildfire seasons and
unprecedented heat waves, to name a few. Intense droughts are a
result of many factors, one of which scientists have recently
begun to analyze with more scrutiny: snow drought.
You’d think that spending $200 million to help shore up
our shrinking water supply would be a monumentally good thing.
And it could have been, if there weren’t so many stipulations
on how that cash must be spent. Lawmakers plopped $160
million into a newly created drought mitigation fund – a hefty
chunk of change that some have called “unprecedented.”
They set up the fund, according to the budget bill,
because “many regions in this state lack access to
sustainable water supplies to meet their long-term water
demands and need financial assistance to develop water supply
and conservation projects.” -Written by Arizona Republic columnist Joanna
Allhands.
As a warming climate reduces the river’s flow, [Utah State
University scientist Jack] Schmidt, 70, is making what could be
his most important push to shape the fate of his beloved
waterway. He and his colleagues are working to inject a dose of
scientific reality into public debate over water resources
that, the team says, is too often clouded by wishful or
outdated thinking. The biggest delusion: that there will be
enough water in a drier future to satisfy all the demands from
cities, farmers, power producers, and others, while still
protecting sensitive ecosystems and endangered species.
We’re in the final weeks of our moving sale as we prepare to
head to new quarters next month, so you still have a little
time left to knock 30 percent off the price of our water maps,
Layperson’s Guides, DVDs and more. Use the code
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discount and get those updated maps, guides and DVDs you’ve
wanted.
A project to generate electricity in the Little Colorado River
Basin may have stalled. Conservation groups were concerned
when a Phoenix-based company proposed building dams on the
Navajo Nation to generate electricity. Their concerns grew last
year, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a
preliminary permit for feasibility studies. But the
company has missed deadlines that would move the project
forward. … The company has also failed to receive
approval for the project from the Navajo Nation, which would be
a critical step in the process.
With a record-shattering heat wave suffocating much of the
Pacific Northwest and a drought-fueled wildfire season already
well underway in New Mexico, Arizona and California, President
Biden will attend a virtual meeting with leaders of Western
states on Wednesday to discuss strategies to minimize
weather-related disasters this summer. Jen Psaki, the White
House press secretary, told reporters that the president
planned to bring together members of his cabinet and the
Western governors to assess “the devastating intersection of
drought, heat, and wildfires,” as well as “prevention,
preparedness, and response efforts for this wildfire season.”
