As adjacent Western states, California and Nevada share similar
issues related to drought and limited water resources. Both
states are participants in the 1922 Colorado River Compact and
the 2003 and 2007 Quantification Settlement Agreements to
allocate Colorado River deliveries. Also, about two-thirds of
Lake Tahoe lies in California and one-third in Nevada, and the
two states have formed a compact to work together on
environmental goals for the lake.
The Colorado River runs more than 1,400 miles starting as a
trickle of snowmelt in northern Colorado. It becomes a roaring
torrent as it cuts through canyons and five Western states. Now
after more than a century of dam building and development along
the river, it ends as a trickle again at the Arizona-Mexico
border. The river was once the lifeblood of the Cocopah, or
River People. The Cocopah Tribe has begun trying to return a
sliver of that landscape to what it once was. On this day you
hear the wind blowing and the traffic from Interstate 8 as cars
and trucks cross the Arizona-California border less than a mile
away. The Colorado River, or what’s left of it, meanders south
to Mexico with hardly any sound.
Anthem Country Club just replaced all 18 greens and fairways.
That effort is expected to save around 30,000,000 gallons of
water a year. … The course has been closed since last June to
make the changes and just reopened last Friday. The Southern
Nevada Water Authority is requiring golf courses to reduce
their water budgets by 2024 or face a significant penalty.
… A water savings of 30,000,000 gallons of water per
year is equivalent to filling up 600,000 50-gallon bathtubs. If
Anthem Country Club saved that much water a year for 30 years,
the Southern Nevada Water Authority says that would about fill
up the entire Luxor pyramid.
On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’re
discussing the future of the Colorado River, one of the
country’s most important sources of fresh water. Forty million
people in seven states, 29 federally recognized tribes, and
northern Mexico depend on the Colorado River, but it’s drying
up fast. It could lose 50 percent of its flow by 2050 if
temperatures continue to rise. The River also irrigates 5.5
million agricultural acres of land, including 15% of American
agriculture and about 90% of the nation’s winter vegetables,
according to Utah Water Resources. How is climate change
affecting the flow of the Colorado River?
A tiny Nevada toad at the center of a legal battle over a
geothermal power project has officially been declared an
endangered species, after U.S. wildlife officials temporarily
listed it on a rarely used emergency basis last spring. “This
ruling makes final the listing of the Dixie Valley toad,” the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a formal rule published
Friday in the Federal Register. The spectacled, quarter-sized
amphibian “is currently at risk of extinction throughout its
range primarily due to the approval and commencement of
geothermal development,” the service said. Other threats
to the toad include groundwater pumping, agriculture, climate
change, disease and predation from bullfrogs. The
temporary listing in April marked only the second
time in 20 years the agency had taken such emergency action.
The Bureau of Reclamation is for the first time legally
signaling its intent to make major cutbacks in water deliveries
from Lake Powell to Lake Mead and the Lower River Basin to
protect the reservoirs that are on the edge of collapse. In
online presentations last week, the bureau said it’s working
through a formal process that could lead to cutting deliveries
from Powell by 2 million to 3 million acre-feet annually and
possibly more. That could happen if states in the Lower River
Basin — Arizona, California and Nevada — can’t reach agreement
by Jan. 31 on how to slice their take from the river, the
agency said. The bureau didn’t specify when cuts would begin or
how they would be divided among states, saying those questions
will be answered later. But “it means that we’re looking at
unprecedented reductions in supplies.”
It’s hard to overstate how crucial this snow season is for the
western United States. Regions such as the West that receive a
great deal of their precipitation in the form of snow face a
number of challenges when snow droughts occur, including
shrinking water supplies. And western water supplies are truly
shrinking as some states are facing their second or third
drought year in a row and a large part of the region is stuck
in a 20+ year megadrought. Hanging over all of this is climate
change–influenced aridification in the Southwest that is
increasing evaporative demand, causing water supplies to
dwindle from rising temperatures even when there is adequate
precipitation.
The Colorado River Compact is 100 years old. A University of
Arizona conference and the upcoming Colorado River Water Users
Association will mark the anniversary. But there’s no reason to
celebrate. Twenty-two years into a drought and with reservoirs
at all-time lows, the federal government may soon intervene in
the states’ management of the river. The Compact has failed.
Don’t blame the river. We need a new system that manages with
the river and provides all users with fair shares. In 1922, the
seven Colorado Basin states used an optimistic estimate of the
river’s annual flow to allocate the waters. The states chose
the biggest estimate because that made it easy to agree.
Everyone could pretend the river could satisfy all anticipated
demands. That was the first mistake. -Written by Karl Flessa, an Arizona resident since
1977 and an emeritus professor of geosciences at the
University of Arizona.
For researchers seeking to understand the effects of climate
change on the weather of the North American Southwest, the
answer lies in traveling millions of years back in time on
wings of wax—leaf wax. … When the plant dies, those waxes
turn into dust that floats on the wind, then drifts down to
form layers preserved in marine and terrestrial sediments.
Trapped within those sediments is a timeline tracing pictures
from prehistoric times: which vegetation flourished, or the
intensity of the rainfall. … Monsoons today will likely
follow the Pliocene pattern and intensify, but also expand
their range in Southern California. … Monsoons will help
with drought as the Southwest dries. But they will be stronger,
dropping inches of rain in a short time and causing more
frequent flooding.
As Colorado River water users prepare to meet in Las Vegas next
month, the reality they face is one of growing uncertainty with
few simple options left on the negotiating table. The math is
well understood: There are more demands for the river than
there is water coming into its reservoirs. But cutting
back at the scale necessary — and on a voluntary basis — has
proven painstakingly difficult this year as top officials from
across the Colorado River watershed have failed to reach a
settlement. If the cuts are inevitable based on physical
realities, questions remain about what form they will take.
Will they be voluntary? Mandatory? Both? And how would they be
enforced?
On November 24, 1922, representatives of the seven Colorado
River basin states—Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico,
Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming—gathered in Santa Fe, N.M., to sign
the Colorado River Compact, cementing into law a regime for
dividing the river’s water. Without exception, these men were
newcomers to a region inhabited since time immemorial by Native
American Tribes. Two of them represented states just a decade
old, none represented states more than 75-years-old, and their
purpose was to enable colonial settlers to establish a foothold
through irrigation-driven economic development.
Federal wildlife officials have declared the boom-or-bust
lesser prairie chicken a threatened species in Colorado, and
endangered in states to the south, a goal of a long
environmental campaign but a disappointment to farmers who fear
new restrictions. … Wildlife scientists and advocates
say the bird is a leading indicator of healthy continuous
grassland and prairies, and the species once ranged across
nearly 100 million acres in the Southwest with a population
possibly in the millions. It’s now limited to a range of a few
million acres broken up by row crops, overgrazing and oil and
gas development, with aerial surveys putting the population at
32,000 across five states. … With a threatened
designation, farmers and ranchers are able to continue most
land uses but face new reviews on significant changes.
100 years ago, Wyoming signed onto a deal to divide the water
that flows through the Colorado River basin among seven
states. It’s based on a formula — one likely based on
mistaken beliefs about the river itself — that did not award
extra credit for living in the mountains where the snow piles
up. Instead, the states signed a compact allocating the
water where it would readily be put to work. It meant the
more populated states of California, Colorado and
Arizona would get the biggest shares.
… But more than two decades into a punishing
drought that climate scientists say will likely intensify with
more warming, the system can no longer supply everything
that some 40 million people in a warming and drying region
desire from it, or that grocers nationwide sell from its
verdant fields.
As California enters a fourth year of drought, experts warn a
likely drier-than-average winter means little relief for much
of California and Nevada. Nearly 41% of California and 43% of
Nevada is in extreme drought, according to the latest
California-Nevada Adaptation Program report prepared by program
manager Julie Kalansky. The U.S. Drought Monitor indicates that
over the last month drought conditions have not changed very
much. There was little to no precipitation throughout the
region to start off the water year in October, though a system
of storms in early November moistened the landscape and brought
some snow to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. So far 2022 has
been California’s driest and Nevada’s 8th driest in nearly 130
years of recordkeeping.
With the federal government calling for major cuts in water use
to address the historic shortage on the Colorado River, the
leaders of 30 agencies that supply cities from the Rocky
Mountains to Southern California have signed an agreement
committing to boost conservation, in part by pledging to target
the removal of one especially thirsty mainstay of suburban
landscapes: decorative grass. The water agencies, which supply
Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Santa Monica, Burbank, San Diego
and other cities, have committed to a nonbinding list of
actions, including creating a program to remove 30% of
“nonfunctional” grass and replace it with “drought- and
climate-resilient landscaping, while maintaining vital urban
landscapes and tree canopies.”
Colorado River Commission Chairman Herbert Hoover gathered the
seven states’ representatives at opened at 11:00 a.m. Nov. 15,
1922, for the 17th meeting in their efforts to forge an
agreement to share the Colorado River. They had been holed up
at Bishop’s Lodge outside Santa Fe for five days, wrestling
with how to divide the river. By that point in the negotiations
they had settled on a general framework, dividing the river
into an “upper” and “lower” basin, but were stuck on the
question of how much water the upper states would be required
to send each year to the lower states. Hoover intentionally set
a later starting time that day to give the upper river states
plenty of time to caucus among themselves to consider his
proposal from the previous day that the Upper Basin deliver 82
million acre-feet every ten years plus a 4 and ½ million acre
foot minimum annual flow.
Salvador Polanco-Gamez is a “water waste investigator” for
the Las Vegas Valley Water District. It’s a government job
where they are tasked with finding and enforcing violations of
water waste under Nevada’s strict conservation laws. Those
strict laws regulating water waste are working — southern
Nevada recorded a 26% drop in water use since 2002 — and could
become one possible path forward for Utah’s own efforts to save
water and preserve the Great Salt Lake. Gamez and his fellow
investigators are part of that water-saving success. “We look
for water waste which is prohibited in southern Nevada,” he
said. … Technically, any water that hits a gutter is
considered “wasted.” The Southern Nevada Water Authority has
mandatory restrictions on time of day, day of week and length
of watering.
Mark Kelly, the incumbent Democratic senator from Arizona, is
facing a strong reelection challenge from far-right Republican
nominee Blake Masters, in a race that could be key for control
of the Senate. Last month, during a televised debate between
the two candidates, Masters went on the attack, criticizing
Kelly’s positions on several issues. Toward the end of
the debate, after skewering Kelly on inflation and the border,
Masters hit him on a more niche issue: federal water cuts on
the Colorado River. … it is no surprise that drought has
emerged as a key issue in the region ahead of this week’s
midterm elections. Senators and representatives in close races
have talked about drought in debates and campaign ads …
After about a decade of grinding its way through the federal
permitting process, Ormat, a geothermal company, was building a
new power plant in Dixie Valley to produce renewable energy.
… But soon came another legal snag. The company
halted construction in August while federal agencies meet to
discuss whether the project should move forward. The
rugged, remote corner of Nevada’s Great Basin region found
itself at the epicenter of a confrontation between some of
President Biden’s, and the nation’s, most pressing priorities:
renewable energy, wildlife conservation and Indigenous
rights…. environmentalists and tribes are pressing the
Biden administration to begin land and water protections at
Dixie Valley and elsewhere. The administration’s decision could
affect not just Ormat’s plans and this patch of Nevada but also
projects and landscapes across the country.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority wants other western water
districts to conserve resources in the face of the region’s
20-year drought, saying it’s wasteful to grow certain
water-intensive crops in parched desert landscapes. But records
show the agency is not heeding its own advice. … The
Imperial Irrigation District gets more Colorado River water
than the entirety of Nevada and Arizona combined. This is why
Nevada water officials have urged changes in how water from the
troubled river is used. … The Great Basin Ranch, as it’s
known, is owned and operated by a public agency — the Southern
Nevada Water Authority. And the only crop that is grown on that
land? Alfalfa. 8,600 tons of it last year alone.
With the nation’s two largest reservoirs continuing to
decline, federal officials announced plans Friday to revise
their current rules for dealing with Colorado River shortages
and pursue a new agreement to achieve larger reductions in
water use throughout the Southwest. The Biden
administration announcement represents a renewed push to scale
back water use along a river that has shrunk significantly in
the face of a 23-year megadrought worsened by global
warming. With water levels dropping at Lake Powell, the
Interior Department said operators of Glen Canyon Dam may need
to release less water, which would affect flows in the Grand
Canyon and accelerate the decline of Lake Mead.
Momentum is building for a unique
interstate deal that aims to transform wastewater from Southern
California homes and business into relief for the stressed
Colorado River. The collaborative effort to add resiliency to a
river suffering from overuse, drought and climate change is being
shaped across state lines by some of the West’s largest water
agencies.
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop 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 was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this 24×36
inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson River, and
its link to the Truckee River. The map includes Lahontan Dam and
Reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming areas in the basin.
Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and geography, the
Newlands Project, land and water use within the basin and
wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant from the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan Basin
Area Office.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Truckee River Basin, including
the Newlands Project, Pyramid Lake and Lake Tahoe. Map text
explains the issues surrounding the use of the Truckee-Carson
rivers, Lake Tahoe water quality improvement efforts, fishery
restoration and the effort to reach compromise solutions to many
of these 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 Nevada Water provides an
overview of the history of water development and use in Nevada.
It includes sections on Nevada’s water rights laws, the history
of the Truckee and Carson rivers, water supplies for the Las
Vegas area, groundwater, water quality, environmental issues and
today’s water supply challenges.
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.
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 issue of Western Water examines the challenges facing state,
federal and tribal officials and other stakeholders as they work
to manage terminal lakes. It includes background information on
the formation of these lakes, and overviews of the water quality,
habitat and political issues surrounding these distinctive bodies
of water. Much of the information in this article originated at
the September 2004 StateManagement Issues at Terminal Water
Bodies/Closed Basins conference.
