Causes.com
| 5.23.23
States Agree To Significant Water Cuts To Save Colorado River
Should the federal government impose water cuts on the states that rely on the Colorado River?
Updated May 23, 2023
- The White House, Arizona, California, and Nevada reached a breakthrough deal to conserve water from the quickly diminishing Colorado River.
- The three states' water managers agreed to cuts equivalent to 13% of the total water used in the lower Colorado Basin. The federal government will pay around $1.2 billion to cities, irrigation districts, and Native American tribes that temporarily reduce water use.
- The deal wouldn't be possible if federal funds weren't available to pay farmers to sacrifice some of their land. Additionally, the heavy snowfall seen last winter allowed the deal to come together successfully at the last minute. Kathryn Sorensen, research director at the Kyle Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said:
"The good snowpack bought us the luxury of bringing forward a deal that wasn't quite as much as the federal government was hoping for but it does buy us time."
- The pact runs until the end of 2026 and marks the most considerable water reduction in modern times. Experts expect deeper cuts to be made after the agreement ends in three years.
What’s the story?
- As Southwestern states struggle to negotiate water cuts, federal officials may step in and impose reductions in the water supply for 40 million residents.
- The seven states that rely on water from the Colorado River – Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming — were given until Jan. 31 to come to an agreement on voluntary cuts to their water usage. The federal government requires the states to cut 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water, which is a third of the river's annual average flow.
- Six of the seven states, excluding California, submitted a proposal earlier this week agreeing to bring their water usage down by 2 million acre-feet. California submitted a separate proposal saying it will preserve 400,000 more acre-feet of water annually. Neither of these proposals constitutes a binding agreement.
- If the administration does have to step in, which seems likely, it will break the century-long custom of the state’s divvying up the river’s water on their own terms.
Are the cuts necessary?
- Water consumption from the Colorado River must decrease because of the significant decline in water levels from the river’s two significant reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. These satellite images of Lake Mead and Lake Powell show the stark decline in water levels in the last two decades:
Lake Powell captured in 1999 and 2021 by NASA Earth Observatory
Lake Mead captured in 2000 and 2022 by NASA Earth Conservatory
- Reservoir levels are plummeting fast due to the 23 years of megadrought in the region, leaving the states with little time to find other solutions to the impending shortage. Experts fear that if the drought continues, the reservoirs will reach “dead pool status,” where the water levels are so low that they become stagnant.
- The states have to make critical decisions on where to reduce their water usage and whether to prioritize urban areas or agricultural growth.
What’re they saying?
- Kevin Moran, director of state and federal water policy advocacy at the Environmental Defense Fund, urges people to realize the state's dire situation.
- Experts say there has never been enough water to meet everyone’s needs of the millions of residents relying on the river. Moran said:
“Think of the Colorado River Basin as a slow-motion disaster. We’re really at a moment of reckoning.”
- Negotiators for the states emphasized how unlikely it is that they will come to an agreement. Unlike the lower basin states, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming all get their water from the stream flow and maintain that they cannot significantly cut that supply. Officials say their water supply already lands at half of their allotment. New Mexico’s negotiator Estevan López said:
“Clearly, the lion’s share of what needs to be done has to be done by the lower basin states."
- The general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, John Entsminger, shared that the state has imposed some of the most extensive water-conservation strategies out of all the states. He continued:
“We’re using two-thirds of our allocation. You can’t take blood from a stone.”
- California negotiators say the state has senior water rights, meaning it is unlikely to be forced to reduce a considerable amount of its water supply. While the state uses the most water, much of it goes to farmers.
- Arizona's junior rights force the state to take most of the voluntary cuts. However, a large portion of Arizona’s water goes to Native American tribes. The deputy secretary of the Interior Department said the federal government would consider equity, public health, and safety when reducing water throughout Arizona. Still, Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community maintained that his community has a right to that water.
“That would be a rejection of the trust obligation that the federal government has for our water.”
Should the federal government impose water cuts on the states that rely on the Colorado River?
-Jamie Epstein
(Photo credit: iStock/Michael Vi)
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One of the reasons we have a Federal Government is to resolve disputes between states that they cannot resolve on their own, Remember, our legiator's take an oath of office to preserve the Constituion and protect the country, and by extension, all of the people that live here.
If our legislators hold true to their oath's of office and the agencies that they have oversight of do their jobs, they should be able to find a solution that best protects all of the people in each of the states competing for access to an increasingly scare resource. Everyone may have to lose a little as that may be the best solution for the common good.
The alternative would be an intervention by the courts, but the glacial pace of the courts to resolve issues would provide enormous hardships for people who may lose access to potable water.
As an aside: It would be an interesting statistic to show how much some major glaciers have shrunk during the interval between the time when a significant issue is identified and the time that the issue gets resolved by the courts. A calculation of the acre-feet of ice melted during this interval in most cases, I suspect, would be in the millions.
The arrogance and bullying nature of the individualism displayed by Americans is incredibly evident in this pending/developing crisis. The answers are right in front of us if we will but listen; the solutions have been developed and utilized before, but the wisdom of the Native American tribes who have been through these droughts and successfully managed them without the levels of technology we have at our fingertips are again ignored and dismissed.
When it comes to living within the environment successfully, the Native Americans have much to teach us, but we have not the courage, nor the wisdom, nor the patience, nor the intelligence to listen.
I look at the recent flooding of almost all of Calimexico and it said they received so much rain and the mountains are so full of multiple feet of snow that the dought in most of Calimexico was mostly ended or reduced substantially.
Then the story came out with all that rain that filled the few exsisting reservoirs that because they hadn't built additional reservoirs that 97% of that most valuable water went down rivers into the ocean. BRILLIANT!!!
This flooding will come back again someday. Calimexico start building reservoirs to capture rain and snow water runoffs. Start building at least 250 desalination plants in the next ten years to fill brand new reservoirs around big cities over 50,000 people.
80% of California water use is allocated to agriculture. Diversion and damming of rivers sacrifices fisheries for farming using taxpayer subsidized water to grow water intense crops like almonds and rice for export markets.
The agricultural industry has been criticized for continuing to grow high profit crops like almonds that are ecologically destructive especially during drought years especially since CA has been the driest it's been in 1200 years according to a UCLA. And another study found climate change is responsible for 40% of the current drought.
The State of CA has a water management plan but if they can't meet the reduction goals soon enough compared to the other states that have then Federal intervention is required especially since it may require the agricultural industry conversion to hydroponics which uses less water and/or desalination plants which may need investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure legislation.
The new California's Water Supply Strategy has 4 goals to address the projected 10% loss of CA water supply by 2050. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation will invest $309M into 20 projects supporting CA goals, and 3 states that effect CA water supply (ID, UT, WA)
(1) create storm water storage for 4M acre-feet of storm water
(2) recycle and reuse 800K acre-feet of wastewater per year by 2030
(3) employ more efficient water conservation techniques to free up 500K acre-feet of water
(4) desalinate more sea water
https://www.causes.com/comments/49371
https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/president-bidens-bipartisan-infrastructure-law-help-communities-reduce-vulnerability
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drought-gavin-newsom-plan-to-boost-california-water-supply/
https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-Water-Supply-Strategy.pdf
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DmData/TimeSeries.aspx
https://blog.ucsusa.org/pablo-ortiz/causes-and-consequences-of-epic-western-us-drought/
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/megadrought-southwestern-north-america
https://shastascout.org/whats-causing-californias-water-crisis-and-how-serious-is-it/
Well, some good news that may help if they can get this process up to industrial size in the near future!
'Researchers can now pull hydrogen directly from seawater, no filtering required
It could eventually produce cheap, renewable energy for coastal areas.'
https://www.engadget.com/clean-hydrogen-fuel-split-seawater-214042411.html
It's been time to build desalination plants. Yes, very expensive but worth the cost in the long run. The Middle East uses them and Australia too. It would create millions of jobs and solve our water shortage in California and the south western states. Instead of giving the Ukraine billions and billions of our money and most of it has been untraceable, congress could invest in our country instead.
If the states won't do it or their proposed cuts are not significant enough then yes, the fed. gov should step in. Given that we're probably going to see ongoingworsening drought conditions something will need to be done to try and provide water to residents and ag.. If action isn't taken then those areas and the rest of the country are just one step closer to a major disaster. Of course, we need to do more to cut our carbon footprint and try to ward off other env. disasters.
The American engineers of American history were absolutely terrible at planning for the future and still are to this day. I can say that quite heartily because I know all about the terror of fracking. Send down highly toxic and dangerous chemicals to make oil from a layer of the earth's crust underneath us and in doing so 3 bad things happen, first you get earthquakes and 2nd you get dead earth. Third you get chemicals polluting our underwater systems for vast reaches. What you want and what you get are two different things. When your work leads to heating the works to continuously hotter, you should lay Duan your leadership and give it to others who are not the rich. The rich declared war on the working and poor classes in America. They are our very own demonic forces from hell. We either poor up or shut up. We nail them our we praise them. Two sides of a coin. One side is organized crime and in the other is us. We have had enough. The earth and it's residents must make wise decisions to ensure the survival of earth. We America each year put out more pollution year after year and because laws are passed and manufacturing closed in America's borders due to less pollution laws the pollution is not lessened but moved internationally and the pollution continues. Their in greed and its still the nightmare we live in. It's all greed. Such wealth wouldn't have been allowed by our founders. Monopolies and global warming are two things we gotta war with besides the Republicans who hate democracy! Gonna be admit if peyote one day moving to Illinois from the west. I hear the west is going dry! Ain't no lie.
...ever read the piece about the photographer that wanted to travel length of Colorado River?
I support the water cuts by the federal government. But I am now wondering how much this is going to cost taxpayers. The "Greed Factor" has set in, and we all know very few farmers agreed to do this for free, or for the good of all. Most already get government subsidies of some sort. Now they get paid not to grow.
Re: SW Water Rights & Infinite consumerism - Finite resources
With reserve I believe that the Feds need to step in to disseminate water use. With incentives to encourage: better conservation, hydroponics warehouses, farming in geographically strategic areas, desalination, waste water reuse projects… Incentives to individuals and corporate levels.
Th prior agreement is from another time and because the states are not cooperating with each other, the feds will have to step up. They need to reach agreement on their priorities.
If no compromise reached ,the Federal Gov. must mediate.
why are local governments pretending like they didn't know this was on the horizen?
they have been repeatedly warned, but continued for the last 20 years calling water shortages a droubt....a droubt that lasts over 20 years is not a droubt, its climate change.
burry your head in the sand, because thats all you will have in comming years....sand.
IF the states involved cannot come to an agreement, they need a mediator. That should ONLY be the function of the Federal government when the states cannot agree, but it certainly is withing the scop of the states cannot resolve this themselves. An agreement, mandated or voluntary, is a requirement because whiile there has never really been enough water in that area it is now increasingly in a critical shortage and must not be wasted.
I live in the Colorado foothills of the Rockies, & I think a neutral mediator is necessary, or California & Nebraska will bully us all & slurp up the water.
And not for nothing, but while all of this massive drought is going on the California governor has mandated that every single town or city in the state add a substantial amount of housing. Whether or not, they have the space or infrastructure or not. It's ridiculous and has ticked off everyone because we are all more than aware we do not have the infrastructure (first of all water, but by all mean not only water) to support it. Local towns, cities, and citizens can't get around this horrendous mandate.
Decrease the usage or sit back and watch it disappear.
Every one of these dry Western States relies on the water they all share from the Colorado River. That arrangement cannot be changed now that each gets less water. This is the worst drought in more than 1,000 years. And things will continue to get worse because of the Global Climate Crisis. Hey--California get busy desalinating seawater using Solar and Wind Energy.
It appears Arizona and California can not realize they need to cut their fair share of irrigation water. Native American tribes are entitled to their share, but have never really used it.California thinks they have had snow in the Sierras and that is enough. They forgot they have been using aquifer water for several years. That takes ions to replenish. The USBR gave the six states the opportunity to come up with their plan to cut water. But few have really sat down and come up with a plan. So now it is time for the USBR to set up its water cutting plan. I feel for the Ditch Riders, I have seen where they have met big time resistance for irrigators, sometimes with guns.