California Water and Infrastructure Report - July 7, 2022 - PR

California Water and Infrastructure Report A Special Report on the Colorado River Crisis July 7, 2022

by Patrick Ruckert Published weekly since July, 2014 An archive of all these weekly reports can be found at both links below: http://www.californiadroughtupdate.org https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaDroughtUpdate For a free subscription to the weekly report: Send me an email-- patruckert@gmail.com

A Note to Readers This week's report is entirely dedicated to the crisis on the Colorado River.

The Colorado River, which provides water to 40 million people in the Southwest and electricity for millions, is now at a flow rate that has never been experienced since the region began developing 150 years ago. The average flow of the river up through the 1990s was about 15 million acre feet per year.

For the past several years the flow rate has been just a little more than 12 million acre feet per year.

Some forecasts foresee the flow rate reduced to 9 million acre feet per year, not that far into the future.

As an economic power, the river supports $1.4 trillion of economic activity and 16 million jobs.

This report shall discuss first the agreed division of the river's water between seven states and the nation of Mexico, followed by a quick summary of the Colorado River water management system.

Next we will summarize the present condition of the river, the major reservoirs of Lake Mead and Lake Powell, and the threat to the continuing generation of electricity.

The report will also give an outline of the most recent efforts at conserving the water in both reservoirs.

The most recent announcement by the Bureau of Reclamation that another 2-4 million acre feet per year must be conserved has sent a shock wave to the seven states that share the river's water. The states must present their plan to accomplish this requirement by mid-August, just five weeks from now.

Of course, the governments of the regions and the water management system officials have been discussing and proposing measures and legislation to address this crisis. Some of that will be covered in this report, though it will not be comprehensive.

This is an unprecedented crisis and means dramatic changes for all those who depend upon the river.

While short-term action is already underway, the medium and long-term policies to address this, perhaps permanent new reality, are only to be found in a fundamental change in the nation's political and economic policies that unleash once again the spirit and determination that build such great infrastructure projects as the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State, the Central Valley Project in California and the Tennessee Valley Project. I will present a summary of two such projects below.

The last section of the report consists of excerpts and links to more recent articles from the media.

The Colorado River Compact The Colorado River Compact was signed by the seven states of the compact in 1922, and revised several times in the century since. Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico were designated Upper Basin states and California, Arizona and Nevada as the Lower Basin states. This compact determined that the water would be shared equally among the upper and lower basins. Later, in 1944, an international treaty between the U.S. and Mexico was signed, allocating Colorado River water to Mexico.

The annual division of the water today totals 16 million acre feet-- almost 4 million acre feet below the current annual flow. Here is how the water is divided: Colorado: 3.86 million acre feet Utah: 1.71 million acre feet Wyoming: 1.04 million acre feet New Mexico: .84 million acre feet California: 4.4 million acre feet Arizona: 2.8 million acre feet Nevada: .30 million acre feet Mexico: 1.5 million acre feet

At the time of the signing of the compact in 1922, the allocation was based on the expectation that the flow of the river would be an average of 16.4 million acre feet per year. As was noted above, in recent years the flow has been a little more than 12 million acre feet per year.

The river and its water projects is under the authority of the Bureau of Reclamation, a division of the Interior Department. Deliveries to major water users of the water must contract with the U.S. Secretary of Interior for annual deliveries.

The Colorado River Water Management System

Hoover Dam The two great dams on the river, Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam, created the first and second largest reservoirs in the country, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Both dams were constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation. Hoover Dam was constructed between 1931 and 1936, and inaugurated by President Franklin Roosevelt. Glenn Canyon Dam was completed in 1966. The two dams are also the first and second largest generators of hydroelectric power in the Southwest.

Glenn Canyon Dam and Lake Powell There are two other large and significant projects that transfer water from the river long distances. The first is the Colorado River Aqueduct. The second is the Central Arizona Project The Colorado River Aqueduct, was originally conceptualized by William Mulholland, the builder of the Los Angles Aqueduct (completed in 1913). The aqueduct is a 242 mile system, built and managed by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. It transfers 1.2 million acre feet of water

annually from the river, across the Mohave and Colorado deserts to the southern California, and is a primary source for water for the area.

Colorado River Aqueduct The Central Arizona Project delivers 1.5 million acre feet of Colorado River water, 336 miles into central and Southern and Central Arizona. The project provides water to nearly one million acres of irrigated agricultural land areas, and to Phoenix and Tucson. It was completed in 1993.

The Central Arizona Project

The Current Crisis, in Summary The entire basin has been in a megadrought since 2000. The Rocky Mountain snowpack, the main storage reservoir for the river, has for many years of this period been well below its historic average. In addition, the climate has been warmer over these two decades, resulting in aridification of the soil, meaning that much less moisture is stored in the soil, and the melting snow will more likely replace that lost moisture, rather than flowing down streams to the river. The most recent three years have seen just 52% of the average annual water flows, as compared to the previous 30 years.

With the volume of the river flow being 12 million acre feet annually for the past several years, while the water withdrawn has remained at the past historical level, the water in both Lake Mead and Lake Powell has been declining. Presently, Lake Powell is at 23 percent of capacity and Lake Mead is at 26%. Both reservoirs continue to decline at an alarming rate.

Even with two significant measures already recently taken to restrict withdrawls from the river, that has not been adequate to stem the decline.

Lake Mead at Hoover dam, Nevada, USA Lake Mead at the Hoover dam showing the dramatic fall in water levels in recent years which, at their height, reached the top of the white "bathtub ring."

With 40 million people and millions of acres of agricultural land dependent on withdrawals, the crisis will only get worse, and, as we already know, dramatic and unprecedented restrictions on withdrawls are just moments away, so to speak.

Hydro-power generation from both dams has also been impacted with Hoover Dam producing just 75 percent of its capacity and Glen Canyon Dam producing only 60 percent of its capacity.

The Glen Canyon Power plant has a capacity of 1320 megawatts and produces around five billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power annually. Presently it is producing just 870 megawatts.

What Action Has Already Been Taken While on the subject of electrical production, we will first note that the Department of the Interior took action recently to ensure Lake Powell's production. The Bureau of Reclamation ordered the dam to hold back more water in the reservoir, not sending it downstream to Lake Mead. Also, an additional 500,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming will be released to increase water levels in Lake Powell, Those measures, together, will add almost a million acre feet to Lake Powell this year.

It is not just the electricity production that is at risk, but even Powell's water delivery system itself.

Last year, the Bureau of Reclamation declared the first-ever water shortage in the Colorado River Basin for 2022. That went into affect January 1, and water deliveries to Arizona have been cut by 20 percent, and cuts of 5 percent each to Nevada and the nation of Mexico.

Arizona, California, and Nevada developed an additional plan for voluntary reductions, the “500+ Plan,” meaning that the states agreed to make at least another 500,000 acre-feet of cuts in 2022 and 2023 from what they normally take from Lake Mead.

Due to the low water level, only five of the eight turbines at Glenn Canyon Dam operate on a daily basis, though all eight must be kept in working order. Luna Anna Archey/High Country News But, the big one was just announced two weeks ago by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation that the states must cut their withdrawls from the river by two to four million acre feet a year for the next two years at least, and agree among themselves on how to do that by a deadline of mid-August, just five weeks from now. If the states cannot agree to such a plan, then the Bureau will immediately impose one.

How that will be done, is at this time, unknown. But, California with its annual 4.6 million acre feet of withdrawls from the river, will surely see large cuts. And California’s Imperial Valley, an agricultural powerhouse, which has the right to take 3.1 million acre feet annually, surely will be forced to cut.

Some Legislation and Other Proposals Pipelines? Desalination? Turf removal? Arizona commits $1B to augment, conserve water supplies.

The Colorado River’s precipitous decline pushed Arizona lawmakers to deliver Gov. Doug Ducey’s $1 billion water augmentation fund — and then some — late Friday, their final night in session.

The idea is to build a seawater desalination plant on the Sea of Cortez, southeast of the Colorado’s dried-up delta. That project, perhaps a decade in the future, would pipe treated water to Mexican farmers south of Yuma. Arizona would then purchase and use part of Mexico’s share of the Colorado River.

Another idea is to scale up a test plant that the Metropolitan Water District has built to treat wastewater in Los Angeles for reuse there. Arizona’s support for that project would allow it to take part of California’s share of the Colorado.

One legislator in Arizona has even proposed a pipeline from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River. All studies show that is not only a pipe dream, but one that would take ten years to build, after permitting, would cost $20 billion and only deliver 600,000 acre feet of water annually. Keep in mind that all the states must cut another 2-4 million acre feet annually beginning this year. So, 600,000 acre feet would not even be a “drop in the bucket.”

Addressing the Medium and Long-term Measures Required As I wrote above, “While short-tern action is already underway, the medium and long-term policies to address this, perhaps permanent new reality, are only to be found in a fundamental change in the nation's political and economic policies that unleash once again the spirit and determination that build such great infrastructure projects as the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State, the Central Valley Project in California and the Tennessee Valley Project. I will present a summary of two such projects below.”

While Arizona, for example, is proposing that it fund the building of a desalination plant in Mexico, and in return that nation would re-allocate its Colorado River water to that state, a much more ambitious project from the 1960s should be back on the table.

California must reverse the insane decision of the Coastal Commission to deny Poseidon a permit to build the second large desalination plant in California. While that will not have a big impact, it could signal a complete change in direction in the state toward building water infrastructure.

Two projects that were proposed during the era of the John Kennedy administration, and were moving through the Congress and being acted on, must be revived now.

The project initiated by President John Kennedy reflected his commitment to building water infrastructure. He created a commission to explore and implement the building of very large nuclearpowered desalination plants, with the first to be built in Southern California. Hearings and legislation in the Congress pushed the project forward, and even after he was assassinated, in 1964, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Atomic Energy Commission signed a contract to build the first one in Huntington Beach, CA, in the exact spot the Poseidon company proposed to build a desalination plant, but in May was rejected by the California Coastal Commission.

Here is a link to my report on the project of Kennedy: “Nuclear-Powered Desalination in California– Parts I-IV” May 29, 2015 http://www.californiadroughtupdate.org/2015/05/29/nuclear-powered-desalination-in-california-partsi-iv/ But, over the next few years, the nation changed, for the worse. With the Vietnam War, the rise of environmentalism and the 1971 destruction of the Bretton Woods financial system, the nation began a fifty year decline, not building what the nation and future generations required, but turning the economy into a gambling casino. So, the Kennedy plan died a slow death.

The same fate occurred with the second major project that must be revived today. In the same period as the Kennedy plan, the Parsons Engineering Company of Pasadena CA, proposed what they called “The North American Water and Power Alliance” (NAWAPA). A project that would create a North American Water Management System, including Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Simply summarized, it begins in Alaska, bringing waters from the northern rivers down the Canadian Rocky Mountain Trench, with offshoots to the Canadian Prairie Provinces, then entering the U.S. Two major channels then go to the Mid West and the Southwest states and Mexico. More than 100 million acre feet of water annually would ensure adequate water supplies for centuries. I include both a link to a video of the project, and a map of the project below.

NAWAPA XXI Animated Overview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NdKsZrG9RA&t=62s

Documentation What follows is a selection of articles from the media, some I excerpt and some I just provide the links.

Feds tell western states to cut back on water from Colorado River — or else Savannah Maher Jun 23, 2022 https://www.marketplace.org/2022/06/23/feds-tell-western-states-to-cut-back-on-water-from-coloradoriver-or-else/ Hosted by Kai Ryssdal The Colorado River is an economic engine for the west. It supports $1.4 trillion dollars of economic activity annually and 16 million jobs, according to a study by an Arizona State economics professor.

Seven states and more than a dozen tribal nations rely on the Colorado River for municipal water supplies and to irrigate their crops.

The river is in the midst of an historic drought. Reservoirs have reached dangerous new lows and the federal Bureau of Reclamation just asked the seven states that rely on the river to cut their water use by a lot. The states have 60 days to make an emergency plan. If they miss that deadline, the authorities will step in and impose cuts.

Speaking before a recent Senate committee, Camille Touton with the Bureau of Reclamation issued a warning: Find a way to use less — close to a quarter less — or the feds will do it for you.

“It is in our authority to act to protect the system. And we will protect the system,” Touton said.

John Entsminger said he heard that as a threat. As head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, he’s one of the water managers tasked with brokering this emergency conservation deal. And, he said, it’s not going to be easy.

“Well, I think every sector, every water user, needs to share in the pain,” he said.

The pain will be shared between corporate use, municipal use, and the region’s biggest water suck:

farming and ranching.

“There’s just no way to do this without agriculture using a lot less water,” said John Fleck, a water policy researcher at the University of New Mexico.

Fleck said that means fields going dry in places like California’s Imperial Valley and Yuma County, Arizona. And that will take a toll on those regional economies.

“This is scary stuff,” Fleck said. “You know, we need to recognize that it’s not just a math problem that can be solved by engineering, we need to recognize the human toll that this takes on communities.”

Federal officials warn of impending water crisis in the American Southwest Alex Findijs June 23, 2022

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/24/fkkg-j24.html

Feds seek ideas on how to manage a drier Colorado River • Tony Davis • Jun 27, 2022 Updated 15 hrs ago https://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/feds-seek-ideas-on-how-to-manage-a-drier-coloradoriver/article_ea3cef66-f594-11ec-af3d-cf4609f685bf.html

The Water War That Will Decide The Fate Of 1 In 8 Americans Eric Holthaus Grist https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-water-war-that-will-decide-the-fate-of-1-in-8americans_us_5aec8e67e4b0c4f19322456e

Bloomberg via Getty Images The confluence of the Little Colorado River, foreground, and the Colorado River is seen in Grand Canyon National Park in this aerial photograph taken above Grand Canyon, Arizona, U.S., on Thursday, June 25, 2015.

Lake Mead is the country’s biggest reservoir of water. Think of it as the savings account for the entire Southwest. Right now, that savings account is nearly overdrawn.

For generations, we’ve been using too much of the Colorado River, the 300-foot-wide ribbon of water that carved the Grand Canyon, supplies Lake Mead, and serves as the main water source for much of

the American West.

The river sustains one in eight Americans — about 40 million people — and millions of acres of farmland. In the next 40 years, the region is expected to add at least 10 million more people, as the region’s rainfall becomes more erratic.

'It's such a strange thing to see': Photos show Lake Mead on the verge of becoming a 'dead pool' Luis Sinco Fri, July 1, 2022 at 8:30 AM·3 min read https://news.yahoo.com/strange-thing-see-photos-show-153045740.html

Lake Mead water decline: 5 things to know

By Marvin Clemons Las Vegas Review-Journal July 1, 2022 - 9:08 am https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/lake-mead-water-decline-5-things-to-know2601396/

The dried earth cracks on the shoreline as water levels continue to drop at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area on Thursday, June 23, 2022, in Boulder City. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images

How Dry Can the Colorado River Basin Get? Looking to the past's data to better predict the future July 01, 2022 https://www.usu.edu/today/story/?story=how-dry-can-the-colorado-river-basin-get Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the Utah Water Research Laboratory's newsletter. It has been edited lightly for style.

As drought conditions persist in the Colorado River Basin, managers, researchers and the public are all left wondering: Just how bad can the drought get?

At the Utah Water Research Laboratory, graduate student Homa Salehabadi and Director David Tarboton sought to answer this question by using historical drought data to project flowrates of the Colorado River as future drought scenarios. Guided by the idea that if it has happened in the past, it might happen again in the future, they found that future drought conditions could produce even lower flow rates than the present drought. This suggests a need for alternative management strategies in the

Colorado River Basin.

“The hope is that this research provides easy-to-use, openly available, documented scenarios for water managers to evaluate different release and management alternatives,” Tarboton said.

What will happen to the Colorado River? What we know about looming water cuts Opinion: Lake Mead and Lake Powell are tanking, forcing Colorado River users to radically slash demand quickly. Here's what we know about how that might play out.

Joanna Allhands Arizona Republic June 30, 2022 https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/joannaallhands/2022/06/30/what-know-colorado-riverwater-cuts/7759981001/

California farmers depend on Colorado River water Southern California farms, including these vegetables and date palms in Imperial County, rely upon good access to the Colorado River. Water agencies including the Imperial Irrigation District and Coachella Valley Water district enjoy senior rights to the river, which irrigates crops valued in the billions of dollars across southern California.

Of the state’s 4.4 million acre-feet of water from the river, almost 90% goes to agriculture.

Mike Wade | Jun 24, 2022 [Mike Wade is executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition.] https://www.farmprogress.com/commentary/california-farmers-depend-colorado-river-water

‘A subtraction problem:’ A shrinking Colorado River faces sharp, sudden cuts Daniel Rothberg June 24th, 2022 at 7:30 AM

https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/a-subtraction-problem-a-shrinking-colorado-river-facessharp-sudden-cutsefbfbc

Lake Mead sits behind the Hoover Dam on Friday, April 8, 2022. The reservoir has dropped to record low levels. (Tim Lenard/The Nevada Independent) Within the next two months, Colorado River negotiators face a daunting task: Develop ways to reduce use by an enormous amount, or the federal government will make the cuts on its own.

Earlier this month, the federal government told the seven states in the Colorado River Basin that reservoir levels are so low they face a pressing crisis that warrants large-scale conservation, even as water users negotiate long-term operating guidelines for a shrinking river in an arid future.

The ongoing drought and climatic conditions facing much of the West are “unprecedented,” said Camille Calimlim Touton, who leads the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency responsible for managing water infrastructure across the region. Touton told federal lawmakers on June 14 that Colorado River users must reduce diversions by a substantial amount: 2 to 4 million acre-feet.

One acre-foot, alone, is a massive amount of water. It is enough water to fill one acre, about the size of a football field, to a depth of one foot. It is 325,851 gallons of water and weighs about 2.7 million pounds. Multiply that by two to four million, and that is how much water the states are being asked to conserve. For perspective, Nevada has the legal right to consume 300,000 acre-feet, about 1.8 percent of all the legal entitlements in the Colorado River system. Together, Arizona, Nevada and California used about 7 million acre-feet from the Colorado River last year.

The cutbacks are necessary, Touton explained, to stabilize Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the two largest reservoirs on the Colorado River. Over the past year, both reservoirs have hit record-low levels and have continued to drop. If they drop further, the West faces extreme risks in the production of hydroelectric power — which is shepherded across the region — and the deliveries of water downstream for millions of residents and farmers in the Southwest.

The size of the cutbacks is not necessarily a surprise. Nearly all of the state water officials and experts I’ve spoken to have crunched the numbers and come to a similar conclusion. But the speed at which the cuts must be made presents a challenging task for negotiators.

So where will all this water come from?

The water is likely to come from a combination of places, and the cuts will be felt by all sectors. In an interview, John Entsminger, the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said that “every sector has to share the pain,” including urban, agricultural and industrial users.

Lake Powell, just upstream from Glen Canyon Dam. At the time of this photo, in May 2021, Lake Powell was 34% full. (Ted Wood/The Water Desk)

Pipelines? Desalination? Turf removal? Arizona commits $1B to augment, conserve water supplies Brandon Loomis Arizona Republic June 27, 2022 https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2022/06/27/arizona-lawmakers-bankbillion-dollars-augment-and-save-water/7736861001/ The Colorado River’s precipitous decline pushed Arizona lawmakers to deliver Gov. Doug Ducey’s $1 billion water augmentation fund — and then some — late Friday, their final night in session.

Before the votes, the growing urgency for addressing the state’s oncoming water shortage and the long timeline for approving and building new water projects nearly sank the legislation.

Just over a week after the federal government warned that the seven states that use the Colorado must make major new cutbacks by next year, Democrats held out until they got an additional $200 million commitment for water conservation, which they argued could help Arizonans much faster than the costlier seawater desalination plan that the governor has touted.

What Happens If Glen Canyon Dam’s Power Shuts Off? Lake Powell is drying behind one of the Southwest’s largest hydropower plants. https://www.circleofblue.org/2022/world/what-happens-if-glen-canyon-dams-power-shuts-off/ Glen Canyon Dam forms the massive reservoir of Lake Powell. Water in Powell is released through turbines in the dam, generating power that electrifies homes, businesses, rural coops, and irrigation pumps across six states and more than 50 Native American tribes. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue

By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue – June 6, 2022 • Glen Canyon Dam is operating at 60 percent of its hydroelectric capacity.

• Hydropower generation will likely shut down when Lake Powell’s elevation drops below 3,490 feet. Currently the lake is at 3,534 feet.

• Besides the kilowatt-hours it generates, Glen Canyon provides key services to the electric grid.

The country’s second largest reservoir and a lynchpin in the intermountain electric grid, Powell is more dirt than water these days. The reservoir holds just 27 percent of its full capacity. In April it dropped to

a level not witnessed since Glen Canyon Dam was completed nearly six decades ago. Water in Powell is released through turbines in the dam, generating power that electrifies homes, businesses, rural coops, and irrigation pumps across six states and more than 50 Native American tribes.

Glen Canyon Dam is now operating at about 60 percent of its designed hydroelectric capacity, according to Nick Williams, the Upper Colorado River Basin power office manager for the Bureau of Reclamation. Rated for 1,320 megawatts — roughly the size of a large fossil fuel plant — the dam is now capable of only 800 megawatts.

The failure of Glen Canyon Dam to produce hydropower, in isolation, would be bothersome for energy markets but not a catastrophe. It would raise the cost of electricity for 5 million retail power customers, increase greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity generation, and eliminate key gridsupport services that hydropower provides.

But a loss of generating capacity at Glen Canyon at the wrong time — in the summer, for instance, when electricity demands are high — combined with other power station outages could contribute to an electric supply contagion, grid strain, and blackouts in the western states, according to a recent reliability assessment from a national energy watchdog.

The idea is to build a seawater desalination plant on the Sea of Cortez, southeast of the Colorado’s dried-up delta. That project, perhaps a decade in the future, would pipe treated water to Mexican farmers south of Yuma. Arizona would then purchase and use part of Mexico’s share of the Colorado River.

Another idea is to scale up a test plant that the Metropolitan Water District has built to treat wastewater in Los Angeles for reuse there. Arizona’s support for that project would allow it to take part of California’s share of the Colorado.

Some, including Bowers, have promoted the idea of piping water from Mississippi River drainage during flood years. Buschatzke said he has spoken to officials in Kansas about their interest in participating, though he said he has not heard anything from Interior Department officials about backing such a plan.

Governor signs $1.2B water plan as Arizona faces cutbacks Jul 6, 2022, 12:52 PM

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS https://ktar.com/story/5142681/governor-signs-1-2b-water-plan-as-arizona-faces-cutbacks/ PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation Wednesday that will provide $1.2 billion over three years to boost long-term water supplies for the desert state and implement conservation efforts that will see more immediate effects.

Arizona may not get the full $1 billion for water. But there's still reason to celebrate Opinion: It's up to future lawmakers to fund the full billion dollars for water conservation and augmentation projects. That's unfortunate - and still a win.

Joanna Allhands Arizona Republic June 28, 2022 https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/joannaallhands/2022/06/28/arizona-has-not-set-aside-1-

billion-water-yet/7752570001/ Arizona set aside $1 billion for water. Sort of. The details matter here.

The money was split over three years. But it will be up to the next Legislature to set aside the remaining two-thirds of that cash – something that may or may not happen, depending on its priorities and, more likely, whatever happens with the economy.

(My bet? A downturn is coming. Don’t count on the full billion.)

Nevada conserves Lake Mead, but big cuts to the river still may come

By Colton Lochhead Las Vegas Review-Journal June 25, 2022 - 10:18 pm https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada-conserves-lake-mead-but-bigcuts-to-the-river-still-may-come-2598538/ Federal officials’ call for massive cuts along the Colorado River has water managers in the American West scrambling to find common ground before the federal government comes down with its own proverbial hammer.

It’s a blow Southern Nevada is well positioned to absorb, thanks to a two-decade head start on conservation and significant investments in infrastructure to ensure water continues to flow in the Las Vegas Valley even in the worst of conditions.

“We’re far and away the best positioned,” said John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

For more than 20 years the authority has pushed for conservation efforts to reduce the valley’s water consumption. And those efforts have paid off.

Nevada consumed 242,000 acre-feet of water in 2021, roughly about 80 percent of the 300,000 acrefeet of Colorado River water its entitled to annually under a series of agreements that stretch back 100 years. That’s more than 80,000 acre-feet, or about 27 million gallons, less than the Las Vegas Valley consumed in 2002 when there were 800,000 fewer residents.

CAP not sure how much Colorado River water cities will get in 2023 AZ in negotiations with Colorado River basin states on additional cuts Central Arizona Project (CAP) officials are scrambling to figure out how to cut even more of its share of Colorado River water.

By: Courtney Holmes Posted at 9:03 PM, Jun 23, 2022 https://www.abc15.com/weather/impact-earth/cap-not-sure-how-much-colorado-river-water-cities-willget-in-2023 Central Arizona Project (CAP) officials are scrambling to figure out how to cut even more of its share of Colorado River water.

The water accounts for 36% of the state's water supply and is largely used to reduce groundwater usage in Phoenix and Tucson areas.

U.S. Department of Interior announced last week that Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming will have cut 2-to-4-million-acre feet from their usage has triggered intensive negotiations between the states and the Republic of Mexico about how to get that done. The plan aims to keep Lakes Mead and Powell from dropping to critical levels in 2023.

The newest cuts are over and above the 592,000-acre feet that Arizona agreed to leave in Lake Mead during Tier 2a reductions resulting from the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan.

Colorado outlines its plan for how the state will deal with water shortages worsened by climate change and population growth

By Michael Elizabeth Sakas July 6, 2022 https://www.cpr.org/2022/07/06/colorado-water-shortage-drought-plan/ Colorado’s water leaders have released an updated blueprint detailing how the state will manage and conserve water supplies as climate change and population growth strain the system in unprecedented ways.

The first Colorado Water Plan was released in 2015 after back-to-back years of historic drought and sought to address the possibility that the state might not have enough water in the next few decades.

Farmers and ranchers are already short 2.6 million acre-feet of water each year, and the draft plan finds that gap might increase to nearly 3.5 million acre-feet by the year 2050.

Colorado tells Lower Basin states to cut water use to meet federal demand to conserve • By Mary Shinn mary.shinn@gazette.com • Jul 6, 2022 https://gazette.com/news/government/colorado-tells-lower-basin-states-to-cut-water-use-to-meetfederal-demand-to-conserve/article_705cc0fc-fd57-11ec-ae81-0b4b0d45de79.html Colorado has no plans to make additional cuts to water use next year to meet the Bureau of Reclamation's demand to conserve millions of acre-feet of water, a step needed to preserve power production in Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Instead, Colorado officials insist that other states should do the cutting.

"I think that at this point, we stand ready to hear what the Lower Basin has in mind," said Amy Ostdiek, a section chief with the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

Ostdiek told The Gazette the Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah — dramatically reduced their water use in 2021 because of drought conditions. Specifically, they cut 1 million acre-feet in use in 2021 compared with 2020, bringing it down to 3.5 million acre-feet.

But, at the same time, total water use in the Lower Basin has not been cut enough to preserve levels in the lakes, said Ostdiek, who is chief of the Interstate, Federal, and Water Information Section.