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.
A Native American tribe has agreed to lease more of its water
to help address dwindling supplies in the Colorado River Basin,
officials announced Thursday. The agreement involves the
Jicarilla Apache Nation, the New Mexico Interstate Stream
Commission and The Nature Conservancy. The tribe has agreed to
lease up to 6.5 billion gallons (25 billion liters) of water
per year to the state to bolster flows for endangered species
and increase water security for New Mexico. The water would be
released from the Navajo Reservoir in northwestern New Mexico
to feed the San Juan River, which flows into the Colorado
River.
You probably noticed a lot of weird weather in 2021. From
record-breaking deluges and tropical storms to drought-stricken
landscapes that erupted in wildfire, the nation seemed to lurch
from one weather-related disaster to the next. You’re forgiven
if you dismiss these events as unrelated, albeit unfortunate,
phenomena. But they actually share a common bond – they’re all
part of a new climate reality where supersized rainfalls and
lengthening droughts have become the norm.
There is just about a week left to apply for our inaugural
Colorado River
Water Leaders program in 2022, which marks the 100th
anniversary of the Colorado River Compact. The biennial program
is modeled after our highly successful Water Leaders program in
California, now 25 years strong. Our Colorado River program
will select rising stars from the seven U.S. states and
tribal nations that rely on the river – California, Nevada,
Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico – to
participate in the seven-month class designed for working
professionals.
We’re looking for a special kind of writer to join our team who
is eager to produce the kinds of insightful and challenging
stories we pursue, such as our latest Western Water article on
how drought and climate change are threatening to upend
collaboration in the Colorado River Basin. Are you a journalist
enthralled by the history, policy and science behind Western
water issues? Then you might be just the right person to join
our team.
There is just about a week left to
apply for our inaugural Colorado River Water Leaders
program in 2022, which marks the 100th anniversary
of the Colorado River Compact.
The biennial program is modeled after our highly successful
Water Leaders
program in California, now 25 years strong.
Our Colorado River program will select rising stars from the
seven U.S. states and tribal nations that rely on the river -
California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New
Mexico – to participate in the seven-month class designed for
working professionals. Class members will explore issues
surrounding the iconic Southwest river, deepen their water
knowledge and build leadership skills.
Climate scientist Brad Udall calls himself the skunk in the
room when it comes to the Colorado River. Armed with a deck of
PowerPoint slides and charts that highlight the Colorado
River’s worsening math, the Colorado State University scientist
offers a grim assessment of the river’s future: Runoff from the
river’s headwaters is declining, less water is flowing into
Lake Powell – the key reservoir near the Arizona-Utah border –
and at the same time, more water is being released from the
reservoir than it can sustainably provide.
Citing the extreme drought that had Utah in a chokehold last
summer, pummeling residents to conserve water, Gov. Spencer Cox
released Thursday what is the first chapter in “Utah’s
Coordinated Action Plan for Water.” … The plan taps the
expertise of multiple state agencies and builds on a list of
more than 200 recommendations to safeguard water supplies in
the fastest growing state in the nation, gripped by challenges
of new development amid an increasingly arid climate.
A riverbed that has been parched since the end of the 19th
century — a portion of the historic lifeblood of the Gila River
Indian Community — is now coursing again with water, luring
things like cattails and birds back to its shores. … The
revival of this small segment of the 649-mile (1045-kilometer)
Gila River, which has served the tribes that make up the Gila
River Indian Community — the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and the
Pee-Posh (Maricopa) — for roughly 2,000 years, was an added
benefit of a grassroots infrastructure overhaul, known as
“managed aquifer recharge,” or MAR, which aimed to restore
the local groundwater basin.
Gov. Doug Ducey says he’s all in for desalination to augment
Arizona’s water supply which has taken a big hit during the
prolonged drought. … Desalination has been talked about in
Arizona for a long time even with the construction of the
Central Arizona Project, which supplies most of the water used
by Phoenix and Tucson. Seven states use Colorado River water
and with unprecedented growth, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are
now at only 30% capacity and dropping.
Climate scientist Brad Udall calls
himself the skunk in the room when it comes to the Colorado
River. Armed with a deck of PowerPoint slides and charts that
highlight the Colorado River’s worsening math, the Colorado State
University scientist offers a grim assessment of the river’s
future: Runoff from the river’s headwaters is declining, less
water is flowing into Lake Powell – the key reservoir near the
Arizona-Utah border – and at the same time, more water is being
released from the reservoir than it can sustainably provide.
Rivers need water—a fact that may seem ridiculously obvious,
but in times of increasing water development, drought, and
climate change, the quantity of natural streamflow that remains
in river channels is coming into question, especially in the
Colorado River basin. Newly published research poses a tough
question in these days of falling reservoir levels and
high-stakes urban development: whether the continued
development of rivers for water supply can be balanced with
fish conservation.
Rep. John Kavanagh is in a turf war. Over turf. The Fountain
Hills Republican has proposed a state law to override any rules
of a homeowner association that requires lawns to be seeded
with real grass. Instead, it would permit residents to tear all
that out and replace it with artificial turf. And any dispute
would be resolved in court. His HB 2131 may get a fight from
the Arizona Association of Community Managers, the organization
that represents companies that manage HOAs. But an association
spokesman said Wednesday it was still studying the issue and
had no immediate comment.
The average temperature for the last six months is the hottest
recorded in Colorado and the country as a whole, according to
data released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. The next-highest six-month average temperature
peak in Colorado came during the 1930s Dust Bowl era, the data
shows. … Because the hotter, drier climate worsens water
supply issues, particularly in the Colorado River basin on the
Western Slope, climatologists have been keeping a sharp eye on
snowpack levels and drought conditions across the state.
Four major aqueducts along the Wasatch Front are the heart of a
system that ultimately delivers drinking water to more than 2
million people. A report on these structures details how three
of them cross the Wasatch Fault zone and the fourth is in an
area of risk for landslides or other ground movement. In the
event of the “Big One,” these aging water delivery systems
would fail and be offline for several months, maybe as long as
six months, as custom parts from out of state would have to be
shipped to Utah.
Gov. Doug Ducey has proposed setting aside $1 billion to remove
the salt from sea water and bring it to Arizona, a major legacy
project as he enters his eighth and final year in office. The
Republican governor previewed the plan but offered few details
in his annual state of the state address, delivered to a joint
session of the House and Senate. … Lawmakers also set aside
$200 million last year for future water infrastructure.
As we turn the page to 2022, we are cautiously
returning to in-person tours and events in mid-March with
our Lower Colorado River Tour. While the current COVID-19
strain, omicron, is expected to fizzle out by then, we will be
implementing precautions to keep everyone safe.
Our popular Water Leaders program celebrates its 25th
anniversary this year, and we’ll be planning a reunion
event this summer for all alumni going back to the first
class in 1997! … With the success of our Water Leaders
program in California, we’ve decided to launch a similar
program for the Colorado River Basin this
year. Applications are due by Jan. 28. Get more information
here and sign up for a virtual Q&A session today.
(Jan. 13).
Last month, a group of Colorado River users gathered in Las
Vegas to discuss the future of water in the Southwest. At the
same time, another group was having a similar discussion. A
group of conservationists called Save the Colorado met on Zoom
to talk about Glen Canyon Dam, climate change and tribal rights
to the Colorado River. Tribal nations were once excluded from
talks about how to divvy up the state’s water supply, but that
has changed over the years. Timothy Williams, chairman of the
Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, says that could play a big role when
states gather to renegotiate rights to the river.
For those who grew up in the Phoenix area, they know how
different our state looks in the present day, when compared to
20 or 30 years ago. Arizona has grown quickly, and much faster
than other states, and a new state report finds the growth is
only going to accelerate over the next 10 years, but can
Arizona handle that much growth?
Although they might not be as deadly as hurricanes or
heatwaves, landslides such as this can cost hundreds of
millions of dollars in economic damage … The
central region of British Columbia has always had wildfires but
now the province is even seeing blazes in coastal areas. The
models used to forecast inland debris flows simply wouldn’t
work for these regions, where the soils and vegetation differ
…. It’s a similar scenario in the United States, where fires
in the past few years have scorched areas of northern
California, Oregon and Washington that rarely burn.
On a warm November day in Yuma, Arizona, the desert sun is
beating down on a sea of low, green fields. Here, near the
banks of the Colorado River, Matt McGuire is surveying an
expanse of vegetables that sprawls into the desert landscape.
… [Farmers are] trying to use less, partly because some
day they might be given less. Agriculture uses about 80% of the
water in the Colorado River basin. Thanks to decades of drought
driven by climate change, the river’s shrinking supply has
forced mandatory cutbacks for some users. … Climate
scientists say more warm and dry weather is on the way, sending
reservoir levels even lower and creating a need for expanded
cutbacks.
Arizona rivers and reservoirs saw record low water levels last
year as megadrought and rising temperatures continue. The
forecast for 2022 isn’t much better. In this episode of Arizona
in Focus, Nancy Caywood, a farmer in Casa Grande, learns how to
live with less water and what that means for her future and
ours.
[Arizona] Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday proposed spending $1
billion from the state’s general fund over three years to help
“secure Arizona’s water future for the next 100 years.” In his
final State of the State address, the governor said the
budget he sends to lawmakers will prioritize water
infrastructure including desalination. … Long discussed as an
idea to deliver some of Mexico’s share of the Colorado River
without drawing down Lake Mead, seawater desalination on the
Sea of Cortez would pump treated water to Morelos Dam near Yuma
for distribution in Mexico. The U.S. parties paying into the
program would then take some of Mexico’s river water as
compensation.
The Navajo Nation is the size of West Virginia. Throughout the
Nation, the topography, precipitation patterns, and water
recharge are extremely diverse, but not well understood. Here
we talk with principal hydrologist Crystal Tulley-Cordova about
her work with the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources
and her research around the precipitation, recharge sources,
and opportunities for sustainable water use on the Navajo
Nation.
In late-December 2021, Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Basin named
David Arend as deputy regional director for the lower basin’s
regional programs and operations. Arend has nearly 20 years of
experience serving with Reclamation. … In his new capacity,
Arend will oversee a diverse group of core operational programs
in Arizona, Nevada, and Southern California. His new management
responsibilities include oversight of the Lower Colorado Dams
Office (Hoover, Davis, and Parker dams), Engineering, Power,
Safety & Occupational Health, Security, Public Affairs, the
Salton Sea Program, and the Region’s Phoenix Area Office.
The city of Phoenix last week outlined how it will voluntarily
contribute water to a regional plan to shore up the country’s
largest reservoir that delivers Colorado River water to three
states and Mexico. The river cannot provide seven Western
states the water they were promised a century ago because of
less snow, warmer temperatures and water lost to evaporation.
Water managers repeatedly have had to pivot to develop plans to
sustain it for the long-term.
The series of winter storms did Arizona reservoirs more good
than predicted and eased the drought — but have still left the
West in dire need of lots more of the same. The Christmas Eve
storm produced 20,000 acre-feet of runoff into Salt River
Project reservoirs, according to SRP’s watershed manager
Charlie Ester. The C.C. Cragin Reservoir, on which Payson
depends, rose by 10 feet and now is about 39% full. Roosevelt
Lake — fed by the Salt River — rose by about one foot. The
chain of reservoirs now stands at 70% full compared to 77% a
year ago. The Salt and Verde rivers plus Tonto Creek on Tuesday
were flowing at 2,678 cubic feet per second — about five times
normal.
The West is experiencing extraordinary and historic turmoil
surrounding water resources and drought, despite recent storms
that plumped up much-needed snowpack in the mountains. At the
Foundation, we are gearing up this year to focus even more on
the Colorado River Basin, the West’s iconic river that supplies
40 million people from Denver to Los Angeles and irrigates more
than 4 million acres of crops.
When a fire started spreading quickly in Boulder County,
Colorado, on December 30, destroying nearly 1,000 homes as
residents fled, the ground was dry. This was unusual: Boulder
typically gets around 30 inches of snow between September and
December. But last year, it had only a total of 1.7 inches over
the same period … It was so warm in Colorado that ski
resorts often couldn’t even make fake snow. In California,
though heavy snow fell in the Sierra Nevada mountains in
December, recent winters have seen extreme drought: Last April,
when the snowpack in the Sierras should have been at its
highest point, it was at just 4% of the average.
For generations, the Jensen family has farmed several hundred
acres in the middle of the Gunnison Valley growing the staple
crop of Utah, alfalfa. … For Stan Jensen, the big
question is how to get more organic material in the
ground. “In terms of drought tolerance, organic material
is everything,” said Jensen. “1% of organic material can hold 3
inches of water per foot.” Jensen said his land is at
about 2% organic material. “But if I were at 10%, I could be
good for a year and survive a drought.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox [R] unveiled his $25 billion budget
proposal last month near what was once the shore of the Great
Salt Lake. But instead of waves lapping behind him, the
waterline was barely visible in the distance. One of the
longest periods of prolonged drought in modern memory has
shrunk the lake by more than 10 feet in recent decades, just
one barometer in parched Western states that are feeling the
increasingly dire effects of a changing climate that is sapping
reservoirs, contributing to extreme fires and reducing snowpack
and river flow.
In Arizona, verdant fields of crops and a growing sprawl of
suburban homes mean a sharp demand for water in the middle of
the desert. Meeting that demand includes drawing from massive
stores of water in underground aquifers. But some experts say
they’re overtaxed, and shouldn’t be seen as a long-term
solution for a region where the water supply is expected to
shrink in the decades to come.
Decreasing precipitation and increasing temperatures are
changing the availability of water and increasing challenges
throughout the Southwest – especially here in Arizona. The
Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) are uniquely situated to
help. Let me introduce the CRIT. We have the
first-priority decreed water right in the Lower Colorado River,
and we farm approximately 80,000 acres on the Arizona side of
our reservation. The river runs through our reservation,
dividing our lands in California and Arizona. -Written by Amelia Flores, chairwoman of the
Colorado River Indian Tribes since December
2020.
Arizona, California, and Nevada have agreed to further reduce
their usage of Colorado River water over the next two years as
the states figure out ways to prevent critically low water
levels in Lake Mead. The river accounts for 40% of Arizona’s
water supply. The states were already preparing for mandatory
water cuts in 2022 resulting from the Tier 1 shortage federal
declaration.
The Central Arizona Project’s governing board took the first
steps Thursday toward approving Arizona’s share of a plan to
save a half-million acre-feet a year of Colorado River water in
order to prop up ailing Lake Mead. The plan, adopted
unanimously by the board, calls for Arizona users of the river
water — mostly those on CAP supplies — to shoulder more than
40% of that total, or 223,000 acre-feet in 2022. The cuts are
all supposed to be voluntary and temporary, and to be
compensated by either state or federal money, totalling $100
million a year for the entire conservation program.
The recent cold-weather wildfire in Colorado was a shocker, but
it “could absolutely” happen in fire-prone California as well,
with the advent of late-season wildfires already offering a
warning, a Cal Fire official said Sunday. Where California’s
wildfires used to blaze most intensely in September and
October, they’ve crept later into the fall in recent years with
some — like the December 2017 Thomas Fire — even burning in the
winter months, said Cal Fire Assistant Deputy Director Daniel
Berlant.
The Marshall Fire that erupted in Boulder County on Thursday,
Dec. 30 quickly became the most destructive in state history.
The fire consumed more than 6,000 acres, and forced more than
30,000 people to flee their homes. Officials estimate nearly
1,000 structures have been destroyed. It was a rare occurrence
for December in Colorado, but many experts say similar events
will become more common, fueled by extreme climate conditions.
We talked with Russ Schumacher, Colorado’s state climatologist
and director of the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State
University, about how those conditions set the stage for fire.
[A] new cause of conflict threatens [water
systems] already straining to respond to the region’s
worst drought cycle in 1,200 years. Instead of adjusting water
consumption to the reality of a changing climate, officials are
having to respond to the fallout of false claims that cuts in
water use are part of an elaborate government plan to starve
and depopulate the earth. Some of the talk of a violent
standoff last summer in Oregon’s Klamath River Basin was laced
with the language of this anti-government conspiracy theory.
When officials from California, Arizona and Nevada signed a
deal this month to take less water from the shrinking Colorado
River, a large portion of the water savings came through
agreements with two Native tribes. Indigenous leaders have also
been invited by the Biden administration to play a key role in
future negotiations on coping with shortages. The rising
involvement of tribes in discussions about managing the West’s
scarce water supplies marks a dramatic turn in a century-long
history of being left on the sidelines.
The American West is facing a historic drought, so many Western
states like Arizona, California, Colorado, and Wyoming have
embraced cloud seeding as a way to hopefully keep crops alive
and maintain water supplies. The United Arab Emirates unleashed
a fleet of cloud-seeding drones this past summer to help
residents in Dubai beat the heat. China recently announced
plans to develop an expansive cloud-seeding system over the
next decade to produce artificial rainfall over 224,00 square
miles across the country.
More than two decades of dry winters and drying Colorado River
reservoirs will finally produce a long-feared landscape of
drier farms in central Arizona starting this month. Desert
farmers, especially the 900 or more in Pinal County, start the
new year with massively reduced allocations from the canal that
delivers water hundreds of miles from the river. Their
irrigation districts are using state money to drill new wells
to replace some of the losses with groundwater, another
resource that’s at a premium in the fast-growing region.
Explore the lower Colorado River, where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Grassy yards would be banned at all new housing and commercial
developments in the Las Vegas metro area as officials try to
expand water use limitations and the region prepares for a
hotter and drier future. The Southern Nevada Water Authority
passed resolutions on Monday to prohibit the yards and the use
of evaporative cooling machines, also known as “swamp coolers,”
at the new developments. Swamp coolers are used by many people
instead of traditional air conditioners, but use more
water.
Last week, at Caesars Palace, a luxurious hotel on the Las
Vegas Strip, nearly a thousand water managers, scientists, and
government officials convened at the annual Colorado River
Water Users Association conference to discuss the future of the
imperiled watershed. The tone was one of urgency: The
Colorado River, which spans seven states, 30 tribal nations and
two countries, is carrying much less water than it used to. At
the same time, a lot more people are vying for what’s left.
The Arizona Diamondbacks ripped out the grass at Chase Field
ahead of the 2019 season, replacing it with synthetic grass. It
was a business decision, but it also ended up being a
water-conservation measure. The Phoenix-based major league
baseball team thought it would save 2 million gallons a year.
In the first season, the savings were closer to 4.5 million
gallons, which is roughly the annual water usage of 49
households in the Phoenix area, according to the Arizona
Department of Water Resources.
A small proposal that would nevertheless move water policy
considerably in the right direction is pending before the
federal Bureau of Reclamation. An investment company,
Greenstone, purchased some farm land along the Colorado River.
It proposes to sell the Colorado River water rights associated
with the land to the town of Queen Creek, which would use the
Central Arizona Project distribution system to transport it. It
would be enough water to support an estimated 6,000
households. -Written by Robert Robb, Arizona Republic reporter.
Photosynthesis involves a tradeoff between the uptake of carbon
and the loss of water. Intrinsic water-use efficiency is an
indicator of this tradeoff that is pivotal for understanding
plant responses to climate change. Global increases in
atmospheric CO2 concentration have increased intrinsic
water-use efficiency, but this relationship is also modulated
by water availability. Here, we have identified that a severe,
multidecadal drought in the American Southwest has caused some
of the largest increases in plant water-use efficiency ever
observed.
The Bureau of Reclamation released the spending plan for the
$210 million provided in the Extending Government Funding and
Delivery Emergency Assistance Act (P.L. 117-43). The
legislation provides Reclamation with $200 million to address
drought conditions throughout the West, as well as $10 million
for fire remediation and suppression emergency assistance
related to wildfires.
Communities rich and poor bore witness to horrific devastation
in 2021. In July, floods in China’s Henan province trapped
commuters in subway tunnels in the city of Zhengzhou, which
received a year’s rainfall in just three days. That same month,
raging waters in Germany’s Ahr Valley scoured farmland into
canyons and submerged riverside towns. … Across the
American West, intense heat and meager precipitation
produced tinderbox conditions. Water systems were at the
center of the story. Lake Oroville, the second-largest
reservoir in California, dropped to a record low, too depleted
to generate hydropower.
The Colorado River is drying up — and it’s fair to say Phoenix,
Arizona, would be drastically different without it. To reach
residents in the city, water goes through a 190-mile journey
through a system of canals. But decades of drought, low
snowpack in the mountains and overuse have put tremendous
pressure on the reservoirs that supply water to 40 million
people in the Southwest.
Lake Mead is shrinking. Last seen full in 1983, a 157 foot
“bathtub ring” of salty white mineral deposits is the visible
record of a slowly unfolding crisis. For the first time ever,
federal officials have declared an emergency water shortage for
the Colorado River. Nevada’s water cuts will take effect on
January 1, 2022. Extended droughts, extreme temperatures, and
chronic overuse of the Colorado river basin require our
attention. It’s a wakeup call to change the country’s reckless
relationship with desert water. Policymakers, farmers, and 40
million residents who depend on the Colorado River must find
ways to use less. -Written by Linda Stout, a longtime Las Vegas resident
and climate activist.
Sobering. Troubling. The new abnormal. Crazy bad. These were
the words used to describe conditions on the Colorado River at
the largest annual gathering of water managers and experts in
Las Vegas this week. … Water scarcity — and a sense of
urgency to address it — has underscored this year’s Colorado
River Water Users Association conference. In 2000, the storage
system was nearly full, but over the past two decades, the
river’s two largest buckets, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, have
fallen to just one-third of their capacity.
With rising temperatures and two decades of drought depleting
the Colorado River, some Southwestern states are spending
hundreds of millions of dollars to pay homeowners to tear out
their lawns and farmers to fallow their fields. But Utah, the
fastest-growing and second-driest state in the nation, is
pursuing a different strategy. Steered by the state’s
largest water districts, with the help of their legislative
allies, Utah has prioritized the pursuit of new pipelines over
large-scale conservation programs.
A big conference about the shrinking Colorado River – the main
source of water for millions of people in the Southwest – began
this week in Las Vegas. Discussions among dozens of scientists
and government officials focused on the West’s historic
drought. The Colorado River Basin is in dire straits. Opening
remarks at the Colorado River Water Users Association meeting
focused on the severe and prolonged drought that’s brought two
of the nation’s largest reservoirs to their lowest levels on
record.
Trying to stave off dangerously low levels of water in Lake
Mead, officials in California, Arizona and Nevada have reached
an agreement to significantly reduce the amount they take from
the Colorado River. The problem took on new urgency this summer
when the federal government declared a first-ever water
shortage in the 86-year-old reservoir near Las Vegas. The
agreement, which was signed Wednesday after four months of
negotiations, aims to keep an extra 1 million acre-feet of
water in the lake over the next two years.
You can picture the headline now, and it’s not a good one:
Hundreds of homes lack running water near one of Arizona’s
wealthiest cities. Homes with no wells or connections to a
formal water system have been allowed to proliferate in Rio
Verde Foothills, a 20 square-mile strip of county land
northeast of Scottsdale. For now, they rely on water trucked
in from Scottsdale. But that will soon change. -Written by columnist Joanna Allhands.
The Western megadrought is revealing a famed desert landscape
long drowned by a controversial dam. It’s raising questions
about the future of this oasis, and water in the American
West. Parts of the West got much-needed rain and snow this
week, but it comes as the region experiences one of its driest
periods in a thousand years. The drought, amplified by climate
change, is renewing debates about how to manage water in the
arid West. NPR’s Nathan Rott takes a look at one debate playing
out on the Utah-Arizona border over what some see as America’s
lost national park.
Climate change is unfolding as a water supply crisis in the
Colorado River Basin. Competition over water is on the rise,
but I hold out hope that these extraordinary conditions will
actually increase opportunities for stakeholders whose
interests have historically been set aside. … I’ve spent
decades working in the basin to improve water management,
looking for alignment between solutions for birds and other
wildlife and solutions for people.
As the year comes to a close and the holidays approach, don’t
forget to get your deal on our water book. Right around the
corner is our Lower Colorado River Tour in March; get the
details below to save the date. And don’t miss your chance next
Tuesday to learn more about applying for our inaugural
2022 Colorado River Water Leaders program.
Everyday there are sources of news about some aspect of the
severe drought affected by the Colorado River. However, no
regular updated news from the Imperial Irrigation District
seems to be the norm. Imperial Irrigation District’s long
history of established perfected water rights provides
questionable limited control of allocated river water. “Use it
or lose it” is a rule of the river. Using less water than the
permitted amount allows water agencies with junior water rights
to claim the unused water. -Written by columnist John Dantice.
Want to understand water speculation in Colorado? Let’s
say you’re in line at a pizza shop. Hear us out. There’s
a big sign at the pizza counter saying, “Limited quantities due
to climate change. Buy only what you can eat.” But the
guy in front of you buys five pizzas for $20 each. He starts
reselling them by the slice for $5 a piece. The store owner
says, “You can’t do that here.” The pizza glutton walks
away, saying, “Fine. I’ll put them in the freezer and I’ll eat
it all later.” … [S]peculation on water purely for
profit is supposed to be illegal already in Colorado. But under
current law, there’s no way of telling what’s in the water
buyer’s heart.
Across the Central Rockies, it’s been an unseasonably warm, dry
year. Denver smashed the record for its latest first measurable
winter snow. Colorado ski resorts delayed opening because
temperatures were too high to even produce fake snow. And Salt
Lake City was entirely snowless through November, for only the
second time since 1976. These snowless scenarios, while still
an exception, are set to become much more common as early as
2040, according to a paper published in Nature Reviews Earth
and Environment.
Over the last 20 years, the water flow in the Colorado River
has declined by roughly 20%. But some states in the river’s
basin, including Utah, haven’t adjusted to the dwindling
supply. And if it doesn’t make adjustments, Mexico and other
states in the Lower Colorado River Basin could demand the
Beehive State scale back its water use. That’s according to a
new report from the Utah Rivers Council that argues Utah is
currently using more water than it’s allowed to under the
Colorado River Compact, an agreement among states dating back
to 1922 that essentially divvies up the water in the river.
November brought unusually warm temperatures in Las Vegas and
elsewhere in the Mountain West, which made for some lovely fall
days. But not for our water supply. Those warm temperatures
that made for shirt-sleeve conditions in Las Vegas and much of
the Southwest were murder on the snowpack that feeds the
region’s rivers. In an example of how climate change is
threatening the viability of the West, the region emerged from
November with lower-than-average snowpack in every one of its
river basins, particularly in the Southwest.
Extreme weather events in 2021 shattered records around the
globe. Hundreds died in storms and heatwaves. Farmers struggled
with drought, and in some cases with locust plagues. Wildfires
set new records for carbon emissions, while swallowing forests,
towns and homes. Many of these events were exacerbated by
climate change. … Nearly all of the western United
States was gripped by a drought that emerged in early 2020.
Farmers abandoned crops, officials announced emergency
measures, and the Hoover Dam reservoir hit an all-time
low.
As Arizona tribal leaders prepare to take a greater role in a
regional forum on Colorado River issues, a new bill to
allow at least one tribe to lease water is making its way
through Congress, while another tribe tries to forestall
further cuts to water delivery. The tribes are increasingly
concerned that a persistent drought, worsened
by a 20-year-long period of hotter and drier
conditions in the Southwest, has already led to the federal
government’s first-ever shortage declaration for Arizona
water users. One tribe is worried that it may be asked to
reduce its own water deliveries.
For more than 20 years, Tanya Trujillo has been immersed in the
many challenges of the Colorado River, the drought-stressed
lifeline for 40 million people from Denver to Los Angeles and
the source of irrigation water for more than 5 million acres of
winter lettuce, supermarket melons and other
crops. … Trujillo talked with Western
Water news about how her experience on the Colorado River
will play into her new job, the impacts from the drought and
how the river’s history of innovation should help.
For more than 20 years, Tanya
Trujillo has been immersed in the many challenges of the Colorado
River, the drought-stressed lifeline for 40 million people from
Denver to Los Angeles and the source of irrigation water for more
than 5 million acres of winter lettuce, supermarket melons and
other crops.
Trujillo has experience working in both the Upper and Lower
Basins of the Colorado River, basins that split the river’s water
evenly but are sometimes at odds with each other. She was a
lawyer for the state of New Mexico, one of four states in the
Upper Colorado River Basin, when key operating guidelines for
sharing shortages on the river were negotiated in 2007. She later
worked as executive director for the Colorado River Board of
California, exposing her to the different perspectives and
challenges facing California and the other states in the river’s
Lower Basin.
Known for our popular Water Leaders
program in California – about to mark its 25th anniversary – we
are now launching a Colorado
River Water Leaders program in 2022, the 100th
anniversary of the Colorado River Compact.
The biennial program will select rising stars from the seven
U.S. states that rely on the river – California, Nevada, Arizona,
Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico – to participate in the
seven-month class designed for working professionals. Class
members will explore issues surrounding the iconic Southwest
river, deepen their water knowledge and build leadership
skills.
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.
Las Vegas, known for its searing summertime heat and glitzy casino fountains, is projected to get even hotter in the coming years as climate change intensifies. As temperatures rise, possibly as much as 10 degrees by end of the century, according to some models, water demand for the desert community is expected to spike. That is not good news in a fast-growing region that depends largely on a limited supply of water from an already drought-stressed Colorado River.
When you oversee the largest
supplier of treated water in the United States, you tend to think
big.
Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California for the last 15 years, has
focused on diversifying his agency’s water supply and building
security through investment. That means looking beyond MWD’s
borders to ensure the reliable delivery of water to two-thirds of
California’s population.
Twenty years ago, the Colorado River
Basin’s hydrology began tumbling into a historically bad stretch.
The weather turned persistently dry. Water levels in the system’s
anchor reservoirs of Lake Powell and Lake Mead plummeted. A river
system relied upon by nearly 40 million people, farms and
ecosystems across the West was in trouble. And there was no guide
on how to respond.
Managing water resources in the Colorado River Basin is not for the timid or those unaccustomed to big challenges. Careers are devoted to responding to all the demands put upon the river: water supply, hydropower, recreation and environmental protection.
All of this while the Basin endures a seemingly endless drought and forecasts of increasing dryness in the future.
Practically every drop of water that flows through the meadows, canyons and plains of the Colorado River Basin has reams of science attached to it. Snowpack, streamflow and tree ring data all influence the crucial decisions that guide water management of the iconic Western river every day.
Dizzying in its scope, detail and complexity, the scientific information on the Basin’s climate and hydrology has been largely scattered in hundreds of studies and reports. Some studies may conflict with others, or at least appear to. That’s problematic for a river that’s a lifeline for 40 million people and more than 4 million acres of irrigated farmland.
The Colorado River Compact of 1922
divided the river into two basins: The Upper Basin (Colorado, New
Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) and the Lower Basin (Arizona,
California and Nevada), established the allotment for each basin
and provided a framework for management of the river for years to
come.
Out of sight and out of mind to most
people, the Salton Sea in California’s far southeast corner has
challenged policymakers and local agencies alike to save the
desert lake from becoming a fetid, hyper-saline water body
inhospitable to wildlife and surrounded by clouds of choking
dust.
The sea’s problems stretch beyond its boundaries in Imperial and
Riverside counties and threaten to undermine multistate
management of the Colorado River. A 2019 Drought Contingency Plan for the
Lower Colorado River Basin was briefly stalled when the Imperial
Irrigation District, holding the river’s largest water
allocation, balked at participating in the plan because, the
district said, it ignored the problems of the Salton Sea.
Colorado is home to the headwaters
of the Colorado River and the water policy decisions made in the
Centennial State reverberate throughout the river’s sprawling
basin that stretches south to Mexico. The stakes are huge in a
basin that serves 40 million people, and responding to the water
needs of the economy, productive agriculture, a robust
recreational industry and environmental protection takes
expertise, leadership and a steady hand.
Sprawled across a desert expanse
along the Utah-Arizona border, Lake Powell’s nearly 100-foot high
bathtub ring etched on its sandstone walls belie the challenges
of a major Colorado River reservoir at less than half-full. How
those challenges play out as demand grows for the river’s water
amid a changing climate is fueling simmering questions about
Powell’s future.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
The Colorado River is arguably one
of the hardest working rivers on the planet, supplying water to
40 million people and a large agricultural economy in the West.
But it’s under duress from two decades of drought and decisions
made about its management will have exceptional ramifications for
the future, especially as impacts from climate change are felt.
Every other year we hold an
invitation-only Colorado River Symposium attended by various
stakeholders from across the seven Western states and Mexico that
rely on the iconic river. We host this three-day event in Santa
Fe, N.M., where the 1922 Colorado River Compact was signed, as
part of our mission to catalyze critical conversations to build
bridges and inform collaborative decision-making.
The Colorado River Basin’s 20 years
of drought and the dramatic decline in water levels at the
river’s key reservoirs have pressed water managers to adapt to
challenging conditions. But even more extreme — albeit rare —
droughts or floods that could overwhelm water managers may lie
ahead in the Basin as the effects of climate change take hold,
say a group of scientists. They argue that stakeholders who are
preparing to rewrite the operating rules of the river should plan
now for how to handle these so-called “black swan” events so
they’re not blindsided.
Dates are now set for two key
Foundation events to kick off 2020 — our popular Water 101
Workshop, scheduled for Feb. 20 at McGeorge School of Law in
Sacramento, and our Lower Colorado River Tour, which will run
from March 11-13.
In addition, applications will be available by the first week of
October for our 2020 class of Water Leaders, our competitive
yearlong program for early to mid-career up-and-coming water
professionals. To learn more about the program, check out our
Water Leaders program
page.
High in the headwaters of the Colorado River, around the hamlet of Kremmling, Colorado, generations of families have made ranching and farming a way of life, their hay fields and cattle sustained by the river’s flow. But as more water was pulled from the river and sent over the Continental Divide to meet the needs of Denver and other cities on the Front Range, less was left behind to meet the needs of ranchers and fish.
“What used to be a very large river that inundated the land has really become a trickle,” said Mely Whiting, Colorado counsel for Trout Unlimited. “We estimate that 70 percent of the flow on an annual average goes across the Continental Divide and never comes back.”
Summer is a good time to take a
break, relax and enjoy some of the great beaches, waterways and
watersheds around California and the West. We hope you’re getting
a chance to do plenty of that this July.
But in the weekly sprint through work, it’s easy to miss
some interesting nuggets you might want to read. So while we’re
taking a publishing break to work on other water articles planned
for later this year, we want to help you catch up on
Western Water stories from the first half of this year
that you might have missed.
We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! We may conjecture many things.
~John Wesley Powell
Powell scrawled those words in his journal as he and his expedition paddled their way into the deep walls of the Grand Canyon on a stretch of the Colorado River in August 1869. Three months earlier, the 10-man group had set out on their exploration of the iconic Southwest river by hauling their wooden boats into a major tributary of the Colorado, the Green River in Wyoming, for their trip into the “great unknown,” as Powell described it.
Even as stakeholders in the Colorado River Basin celebrate the recent completion of an unprecedented drought plan intended to stave off a crashing Lake Mead, there is little time to rest. An even larger hurdle lies ahead as they prepare to hammer out the next set of rules that could vastly reshape the river’s future.
Set to expire in 2026, the current guidelines for water deliveries and shortage sharing, launched in 2007 amid a multiyear drought, were designed to prevent disputes that could provoke conflict.
Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona
governor and secretary of the Interior, has been a thoughtful,
provocative and sometimes forceful voice in some of the most
high-profile water conflicts over the last 40 years, including
groundwater management in Arizona and the reduction of
California’s take of the Colorado River. In 2016, former
California Gov. Jerry Brown named Babbitt as a special adviser to
work on matters relating to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and
the Delta tunnels plan.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Imported water from the Sierra
Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as
drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those
supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped
up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on
imported water.
Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of
Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually
water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s,
Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it
derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
As stakeholders labor to nail down
effective and durable drought contingency plans for the Colorado
River Basin, they face a stark reality: Scientific research is
increasingly pointing to even drier, more challenging times
ahead.
The latest sobering assessment landed the day after Thanksgiving,
when U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Fourth National Climate
Assessment concluded that Earth’s climate is changing rapidly
compared to the pace of natural variations that have occurred
throughout its history, with greenhouse gas emissions largely the
cause.
As the Colorado River Basin becomes
drier and shortage conditions loom, one great variable remains:
How much of the river’s water belongs to Native American tribes?
Native Americans already use water from the Colorado River and
its tributaries for a variety of purposes, including leasing it
to non-Indian users. But some tribes aren’t using their full
federal Indian reserved water right and others have water rights
claims that have yet to be resolved. Combined, tribes have rights
to more water than some states in the Colorado River Basin.
The Colorado River Basin is more
than likely headed to unprecedented shortage in 2020 that could
force supply cuts to some states, but work is “furiously”
underway to reduce the risk and avert a crisis, Bureau of
Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman told an audience of
California water industry people.
During a keynote address at the Water Education Foundation’s
Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento, Burman said there is
opportunity for Colorado River Basin states to control their
destiny, but acknowledged that in water, there are no guarantees
that agreement can be reached.
Water means life for all the Grand Canyon’s inhabitants, including the many varieties of insects that are a foundation of the ecosystem’s food web. But hydropower operations upstream on the Colorado River at Glen Canyon Dam, in Northern Arizona near the Utah border, disrupt the natural pace of insect reproduction as the river rises and falls, sometimes dramatically. Eggs deposited at the river’s edge are often left high and dry and their loss directly affects available food for endangered fish such as the humpback chub.
Amy Haas recently became the first non-engineer and the first woman to serve as executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission in its 70-year history, putting her smack in the center of a host of daunting challenges facing the Upper Colorado River Basin.
Yet those challenges will be quite familiar to Haas, an attorney who for the past year has served as deputy director and general counsel of the commission. (She replaced longtime Executive Director Don Ostler). She has a long history of working within interstate Colorado River governance, including representing New Mexico as its Upper Colorado River commissioner and playing a central role in the negotiation of the recently signed U.S.-Mexico agreement known as Minute 323.
Nowhere is the domino effect in
Western water policy played out more than on the Colorado River,
and specifically when it involves the Lower Basin states of
California, Nevada and Arizona. We are seeing that play out now
as the three states strive to forge a Drought Contingency Plan.
Yet that plan can’t be finalized until Arizona finds a unifying
voice between its major water players, an effort you can read
more about in the latest in-depth article of Western Water.
Even then, there are some issues to resolve just within
California.
It’s high-stakes time in Arizona. The state that depends on the
Colorado River to help supply its cities and farms — and is
first in line to absorb a shortage — is seeking a unified plan
for water supply management to join its Lower Basin neighbors,
California and Nevada, in a coordinated plan to preserve water
levels in Lake Mead before
they run too low.
If the lake’s elevation falls below 1,075 feet above sea level,
the secretary of the Interior would declare a shortage and
Arizona’s deliveries of Colorado River water would be reduced by
320,000 acre-feet. Arizona says that’s enough to serve about 1
million households in one year.
As California embarks on its unprecedented mission to harness groundwater pumping, the Arizona desert may provide one guide that local managers can look to as they seek to arrest years of overdraft.
Groundwater is stressed by a demand that often outpaces natural and artificial recharge. In California, awareness of groundwater’s importance resulted in the landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 that aims to have the most severely depleted basins in a state of balance in about 20 years.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
Dramatic swings in weather patterns
over the past few years in California are stark reminders of
climate variability and regional vulnerability. Alternating years
of drought and intense rain events make long-term planning for
storing and distributing water a challenging task.
Current weather forecasting capabilities provide details for
short time horizons. Attend the Paleo Drought
Workshop in San Pedro on April 19 to learn more about
research efforts to improve sub-seasonal to seasonal
precipitation forecasting, known as S2S, and how those models
could provide more useful weather scenarios for resource
managers.
A drought has lingered in the
Colorado River Basin since 2000, causing reservoir storage to
decline from nearly full to about half of capacity. So far this
year, a meager snowpack in the Rocky Mountains hasn’t helped
much.
In fact, forecasters say this winter will likely go down as the
sixth-driest on record for the river system that supplies water
to seven states, including California, and Mexico.
On our Lower
Colorado River Tour, April 11-13, you will meet with water
managers from the three Lower Basin states: Nevada, Arizona and
California. The three states are working to finalize a Drought
Contingency Plan to take voluntary cuts to keep Lake Mead, the
nation’s largest reservoir, from hitting critical levels and
causing a shortage declaration.
California’s 2012-2016 drought
revealed vulnerabilities for water users throughout the state,
and the long-term record suggests more challenges may lie ahead.
An April 19
workshop in San Pedro will highlight new information about
drought durations in Southern California watersheds dating
back centuries.
Most people see the Grand Canyon from the rim, thousands of feet above where the Colorado River winds through it for almost 300 miles.
But to travel it afloat a raft is to experience the wondrous majesty of the canyon and the river itself while gaining perspective about geology, natural beauty and the passage of time.
Beginning at Lees Ferry, some 30,000 people each year launch downriver on commercial or private trips. Before leaving, they are dutifully briefed by a National Park Service ranger who explains to them about the unique environment that awaits them, how to keep it protected and, most importantly, how to protect themselves.
They also are told about the pair of ravens that will inevitably follow them through the canyon, seizing every opportunity to scrounge food.
Tickets are now on sale for the Water Education Foundation’s April 11-13 tour of the Lower Colorado River.
Don’t miss this opportunity to visit key sites along one of the nation’s most famous rivers, including a private tour of Hoover Dam, Central Arizona Project’s Mark Wilmer pumping plant and the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge. The tour also visits the Salton Sea, Slab City, the All-American Canal and farming regions in the Imperial and Coachella valleys.
Drought and climate change are having a noticeable impact on the
Colorado River Basin, and that is posing potential challenges to
those in the Southwestern United States and Mexico who rely on
the river.
In the just-released Winter 2017-18 edition of River
Report, writer Gary Pitzer examines what scientists
project will be the impact of climate change on the Colorado
River Basin, and how water managers are preparing for a future of
increasing scarcity.
Rising temperatures from climate change are having a noticeable
effect on how much water is flowing down the Colorado River. Read
the latest River Report to learn more about what’s
happening, and how water managers are responding.
This issue of Western Water discusses the challenges
facing the Colorado River Basin resulting from persistent
drought, climate change and an overallocated river, and how water
managers and others are trying to face the future.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
The Colorado River Delta once spanned nearly 2 million acres and
stretched from the northern tip of the Gulf of California in
Mexico to Southern California’s Salton Sea. Today it’s one-tenth
that size, yet still an important estuary, wildlife habitat and
farming region even though Colorado River flows rarely reach the
sea.
Since 2000, the Colorado River Basin has experienced an historic,
extended drought causing reservoir storage in the Colorado River
system to decline from nearly full to about half of capacity. For
the Lower Basin, a key point has been to maintain the level of
Lake Mead to prevent a shortage declaration.
A healthy snowfall in the Rockies has reduced the odds of a
shortage this year, but the basin states still must come to terms
with a static supply and growing demands, as well as future
impacts from climate change.
On our Lower
Colorado River Tour, April 5-7, you will meet with water
managers from the three Lower Basin states: Nevada, Arizona and
California. Federal, state and local agencies will update you on
the latest hydrologic conditions and how recent storms might
change plans for water supply and storage.
A troublesome invasive species is
the quagga mussel, a tiny freshwater mollusk that attaches itself
to water utility infrastructure and reproduces at a rapid rate,
causing damage to pipes and pumps.
First found in the Great Lakes in 1988 (dumped with ballast water
from overseas ships), the quagga mussel along with the zebra
mussel are native to the rivers and lakes of eastern Europe and
western Asia, including the Black, Caspian and Azov Seas and the
Dneiper River drainage of Ukraine and Ponto-Caspian
Sea.
This issue of Western Water examines the ongoing effort
between the United States and Mexico to develop a
new agreement to the 1944 Treaty that will continue the
binational cooperation on constructing Colorado River
infrastructure, storing water in Lake Mead and providing instream
flows for the Colorado River Delta.
As vital as the Colorado River is to the United States and
Mexico, so is the ongoing process by which the two countries
develop unique agreements to better manage the river and balance
future competing needs.
The prospect is challenging. The river is over allocated as urban
areas and farmers seek to stretch every drop of their respective
supplies. Since a historic treaty between the two countries was
signed in 1944, the United States and Mexico have periodically
added a series of arrangements to the treaty called minutes that
aim to strengthen the binational ties while addressing important
water supply, water quality and environmental concerns.
Lake Havasu is a reservoir on the Colorado River that supplies
water to the Colorado River
Aqueduct and Central Arizona Project. It is located at
the California/Arizona border, approximately 150 miles southeast
of Las Vegas, Nevada and 30 miles southeast of Needles,
California.
Situated in southwest Riverside County near the Santa Ana
Mountains – about 60 miles southeast of Los Angeles – Lake
Mathews is a
major reservoir in Southern California.
As one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world,
the Imperial Valley
receives its water from the Colorado River via the
All-American Canal. Rainfall is scarce in the desert region at
less than three inches per year and groundwater is of little
value.
This issue looks at the historic drought that has gripped the
Colorado River Basin since 2000 and discusses the lessons
learned, the continuing challenges and what the future might
hold.
The dramatic decline in water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell
is perhaps the most visible sign of the historic drought that has
gripped the Colorado River Basin for the past 16 years. In 2000,
the reservoirs stood at nearly 100 percent capacity; today, Lake
Powell is at 49 percent capacity while Lake Mead has dropped to
38 percent. Before the late season runoff of Miracle May, it
looked as if Mead might drop low enough to trigger the first-ever
Lower Basin shortage determination in 2016.
Read the excerpt below from the Sept./Oct. 2015 issue along
with the editor’s note. Click here to subscribe to Western
Water and get full access.
This issue looks at the dilemma of the shrinking Salton Sea. The
shallow, briny inland lake at the southeastern edge of California
is slowly evaporating and becoming more saline – threatening the
habitat for fish and birds and worsening air quality as dust from
the dry lakebed is whipped by the constant winds.
The shallow, briny inland lake at the southeastern edge of
California is slowly evaporating and becoming more saline –
threatening the habitat for fish and birds and worsening air
quality as dust from the dry lakebed is whipped by the constant
winds.
(Read this excerpt from the May/June 2015 issue along with
the editor’s note. Click here to
subscribe to Western Water and get full access.)
After much time, study and investment, the task of identifying
solutions to ensure the long-term sustainability of the Colorado
River is underway. People from the Upper and Lower basins
representing all interest groups are preparing to put their
signatures to documents aimed at ensuring the river’s vitality
for the next 50 years and beyond.
This 3-day, 2-night tour followed the course of the
lower Colorado River through Nevada, Arizona and California, and
included a private tour of Hoover Dam.
Newly elected to your local water board? Or city council? Or
state Legislature? This packet of materials provides you with the
valuable background information you need – and at a special
price!
This issue updates progress on crafting and implementing
California’s 4.4 plan to reduce its use of Colorado River water
by 800,000 acre-feet. The state has used as much as 5.2 million
acre-feet of Colorado River water annually, but under pressure
from Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and the other six states
that share this resource, California’s Colorado River parties
have been trying to close the gap between demand and supply. The
article – delayed to include the latest information from
Babbitt’s Dec.
This issue updates progress on California’s Colorado River Water
Use Plan (commonly called the 4.4 Plan ), with a special focus on
the Salton Sea restoration/water transfer dilemma. It also
includes information on the proposed MWD-Palo Verde Irrigation
District deal, the Colorado River Delta, and the legislative
debate in the national and state capitals.
With passage of the original Dec. 31, 2002, deadline to have a
Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA) in place for the
Colorado River, California suffered a cutback in the surplus
Colorado River flows it had relied upon by years. Further
negotiations followed in an attempt to bring the California
parties to an agreement. This issue examines the history leading
to the QSA, the state of affairs of the so-called 4.4 Plan as of
early March, and gives readers a clearer crystal ball with which
to speculate about California’s water future on the Colorado
River.
This issue of Western Water provides the latest information on
some of the philosophical, political and practical ideas being
discussed on the river. Some of these issues were discussed at
the Water Education Foundation’s Colorado River Symposium, “The
Ties that Bind: Policy and the Evolving Law of the Colorado
River,” held last fall at The Bishop’s Lodge in Santa Fe, New
Mexico – site of negotiations on the 1922 Colorado River Compact.
This issue of Western Water explores the issues
surrounding and the components of the Colorado River Basin
seven-state proposed agreement released Feb. 3 regarding sharing
shortages on the river, and new plans to improve the river’s
management. The article includes excerpts from the Foundation’s
September 2005 Colorado River Symposium held in Santa Fe, New
Mexico.
This issue of Western Water marks the 85th anniversary of the
Colorado River Compact and considers its role in the past and
present on key issues such as federal funding for water projects
and international issues. Much of the content for this magazine
came from the Foundation’s September Colorado River Symposium,
The Colorado River Compact at 85 and Changes on the River.
This card includes information about the Colorado River, who uses
the river, how the river’s water is divided and other pertinent
facts about this vital resource for the Southwest. Beautifully
illustrated with color photographs.
In 1997, the Foundation sponsored a three-day, invitation-only
symposium at Bishop’s Lodge, New Mexico, site of the 1922
Colorado River Compact signing, to discuss the historical
implications of that agreement, current Colorado River issues and
future challenges. The 204-page proceedings features the panel
discussions and presentations on such issues as the Law of the
River, water marketing and environmental restoration.
30-minute DVD that traces the history of the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and its role in the development of the West. Includes
extensive historic footage of farming and the construction of
dams and other water projects, and discusses historic and modern
day issues.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, illustrates the
water resources available for Nevada cities, agriculture and the
environment. It features natural and manmade water resources
throughout the state, including the Truckee and Carson rivers,
Lake Tahoe, Pyramid Lake and the course of the Colorado River
that forms the state’s eastern boundary.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and the country of Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch
map, which is suitable for framing, explains the river’s
apportionment, history and the need to adapt its management for
urban growth and expected climate change impacts.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to
Water Rights Law, recognized as the most thorough explanation of
California water rights law available to non-lawyers, traces the
authority for water flowing in a stream or reservoir, from a
faucet or into an irrigation ditch through the complex web of
California water rights.
The 20-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Marketing provides
background information on water rights, types of transfers and
critical policy issues surrounding this topic. First published in
1996, the 2005 version offers expanded information on
groundwater banking and conjunctive use, Colorado River
transfers and the role of private companies in California’s
developing water market.
Order in bulk (25 or more copies of the same guide) for a reduced
fee. Contact the Foundation, 916-444-6240, for details.
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people and 4
million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some 246,000
square miles in the southwestern United States. The 32-page
Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River covers the history of the
river’s development; negotiations over division of its water; the
items that comprise the Law of the River; and a chronology of
significant Colorado River events.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to
California Water provides an excellent overview of the history of
water development and use in California. It includes sections on
flood management; the state, federal and Colorado River delivery
systems; Delta issues; water rights; environmental issues; water
quality; and options for stretching the water supply such as
water marketing and conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of
the guide is a section on the human need for water.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
This 3-day, 2-night tour follows the course of the lower Colorado River through Nevada, Arizona and California, and includes a private tour of Hoover Dam.
As part of the historic Colorado River Delta, the Salton Sea
regularly filled and dried for thousands of years due to its
elevation of 237 feet below sea level.
The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when
the Colorado River broke
through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years,
creating California’s largest inland body of water. The
Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130
miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
The Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA), signed in 2003,
defined the rights to a portion of Colorado River water for San
Diego County Water Authority, Coachella Valley Water District,
Imperial Irrigation District and the Metropolitan Water District
of Southern California.
The Mexican Water Treaty of 1944 committed the U.S. to deliver
1.5 million acre-feet of water to Mexico on an annual basis, plus
an additional 200,000 acre-feet under surplus conditions. The
treaty is overseen by the International Boundary and Water
Commission.
Colorado River water is delivered to Mexico at Morelos Dam,
located 1.1 miles downstream from where the California-Baja
California land boundary intersects the river between the town of
Los Algodones in northwestern Mexico and Yuma County, Ariz.
The Colorado River Delta is located
at the natural terminus of the Colorado River at the Gulf of
California, just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. The desert
ecosystem was formed by silt flushed downstream from the Colorado
and fresh and brackish water mixing at the Gulf.
The Colorado River Delta once covered 9,650 square miles but has
shrunk to less than 1 percent of its original size due to
human-made water diversions.
The Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program aims
to balance use of Colorado River water resources with the
conservation of native species and their habitat. A key component
of the program is the restoration and enhancement of existing
riparian and marsh habitat along the lower Colorado River.
Lee Ferry on the Arizona-Utah border is a key dividing point
between the Colorado River’s Upper and Lower basins.
This split is important when it comes to determining how much
water will be delivered from the Upper Basin to the Lower Basin
[for a description of the Upper and Lower basins, visit the
Colorado River page].
The construction of Glen Canyon Dam in 1964 created Lake Powell.
Both are located in north-central Arizona near the Utah border.
Lake Powell acts as a holding tank for outflow from the Colorado
River Upper Basin States: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
The water stored in Lake Powell is used for recreation, power
generation and delivering water to the Lower Basin states of
California, Arizona, and Nevada.
John Wesley Powell (1834-1902) was historic and heroic for being
first to lead an expedition down the Colorado River in 1869. A major
who lost an arm in the Civil War Battle of Shiloh, he was an
explorer, geologist, geographer and ethnologist.
California’s Colorado River Water Use Plan (known colloquially as
the 4.4 Plan) intends to wean the state from its reliance on the
surplus flows from the river and return California to its annual
4.4 million acre-feet basic apportionment of the river.
In the past, California has also used more than its basic
apportionment. Consequently, the U.S. Department of
Interior urged California to devise a plan to reduce its water
consumption to its basic entitlement.
In 2005, after six years of severe
drought in the Colorado River Basin, federal officials and
representatives of the seven basin states — California, Arizona,
Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming — began building a
framework to better respond to drought conditions and coordinate
the operations of the basin’s two key reservoirs, Lake Powell and
Lake Mead.
The resulting Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and
the Coordinated Operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead (Interim
Guidelines) identified the conditions for shortage determinations
and details of coordinated reservoir operations. The 2007 Interim
Guidelines remain in effect through Dec. 31, 2025.
The turbulent Colorado River is one
of the most heavily regulated and hardest working rivers in the
world.
Geography
The Colorado falls some 10,000 feet on its way from the Rocky
Mountains to the Gulf of California, helping to sustain a range
of habitats and ecosystems as it weaves through mountains and
deserts.
This printed issue of Western Water examines how the various
stakeholders have begun working together to meet the planning
challenges for the Colorado River Basin, including agreements
with Mexico, increased use of conservation and water marketing,
and the goal of accomplishing binational environmental
restoration and water-sharing programs.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study and what its
finding might mean for the future of the lifeblood of the
Southwest.
The Colorado River is one of the most heavily relied upon water
supply sources in the world, serving 35 million people in seven
states and Mexico. The river provides water to large cities,
irrigates fields, powers turbines to generate electricity,
thrills recreational enthusiasts and serves as a home for birds,
fish and wildlife.
This printed issue of Western Water explores the
historic nature of some of the key agreements in recent years,
future challenges, and what leading state representatives
identify as potential “worst-case scenarios.” Much of the content
for this issue of Western Water came from the in-depth
panel discussions at the Colorado River Symposium. The Foundation
will publish the full proceedings of the Symposium in 2012.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
Colorado River drought, and the ongoing institutional and
operational changes underway to maintain the system and meet the
future challenges in the Colorado River Basin.
This printed issue of Western Water explores some of the major
challenges facing Colorado River stakeholders: preparing for
climate change, forging U.S.-Mexico water supply solutions and
dealing with continued growth in the basins states. Much of the
content for this issue of Western Water came from the in-depth
panel discussions at the September 2009 Colorado River Symposium.
This printed copy of Western Water examines the Colorado River
Delta, its ecological significance and the lengths to which
international, state and local efforts are targeted and achieving
environmental restoration while recognizing the needs of the
entire river’s many users.
This issue of Western Water asks whether a groundwater
compact is needed to manage this shared resource today. In the
water-stressed West, there will need to be a recognition of
sharing water resources or a line will need to be drawn in the
sand against future growth.
“In the West, when you touch water, you touch
everything.” – Rep. Wayne Aspinall, D-Colorado, chair,
House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, 1959-1973
Rapid population growth and chronic droughts could augur dramatic
changes for communities along the lower Colorado River. In
Arizona, California and Nevada, a robust economy is spurring
communities to find enough water to sustain the steady pace of
growth. Established cities such as Las Vegas and Phoenix continue
their expansion but there is also activity in smaller, rural
areas on Arizona’s northwest fringe where developers envision
hundreds of thousands of new homes in the coming decades.
With interstate discussions of critical Colorado River issues
seemingly headed for stalemate, Secretary of the Interior Gale
Norton stepped in May 2 to defuse, or at least defer, a
potentially divisive debate over water releases from Lake Powell.
With interstate discussions of critical Colorado River issues
seemingly headed for stalemate, Secretary of the Interior Gale
Norton stepped in May 2 to defuse, or at least defer, a
potentially divisive debate over water releases from Lake Powell.
In a letter to governors of the seven Colorado River Basin
states, Norton preserved the status quo of river operations for
five months, giving states and stakeholders a chance to move back
from the edge before positions had hardened on two key issues:
(1) shortage guidelines for the Lower Basin and (2) Upper Basin/
Lower Basin reservoir operations, particularly at Lake Powell.
But Norton served notice that she wants discussions on those two
issues to continue, possibly outside of the annual operation plan
(AOP) consultation process, which at least one observer described
as unwieldy.
Drawn from a special Colorado River stakeholder symposium held in
January 2002 at The Bishop’s Lodge in Santa Fe, New Mexico, this
article provides an overview of several Colorado River issues
that may or may not be resolved through consensus. Some of these
issues include providing water for the Colorado River Delta,
endangered species, dam re-operation and potential future trends
around the basin as they relate to the California 4.4 Plan,
drought and governance.
The situation is true anywhere: when resources are stretched,
tensions rise. In the arid Southwestern United States, this
resource is water and tensions over it have been ever present
since the westward migration in the 18th Century. Nowhere in this
region has the competition for water been fiercer than in the
Colorado River Basin. Whether it is more water for agriculture,
more water for cities, more water for American Indian tribes or
more water for the environment – there is a continuous quest by
parties to obtain additional supplies of this “liquid gold” from
the Colorado River. Sometimes the avenue chosen to acquire this
desert wealth is the court system, as exemplified by the landmark
Arizona v. California dispute that stretched for over 30 years.
Drawn from a special stakeholder symposium held in September 1999
in Keystone, Colorado, this issue explores how we got to where we
are today on the Colorado River; an era in which the traditional
water development of the past has given way to a more
collaborative approach that tries to protect the environment
while stretching available water supplies. Specific topics
addressed include the role of the Interior secretary in the
basin, California’s 4.4 plan, water marketing and future
challenges identified by participants.
Drawn from a special stakeholder symposium held in September 1999
in Keystone, Colorado, this issue explores how we got to where we
are today on the Colorado River; an era in which the traditional
water development of the past has given way to a more
collaborative approach that tries to protect the environment
while stretching available water supplies.
