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.
… The Colorado River Basin is in dire straits: The water
supply for 40 million people has been dwindling, and
climatologists say the climate future is bleak. State officials
have spent months mired in thorny negotiations over things like
how to split painful water cuts in the driest conditions — with
scant progress to report publicly. … The final plan
could determine everything from how key reservoirs store and
release water to who takes cuts in dry years and how
environments, like the Grand Canyon, will be impacted for years
to come. It will impact water supplies for cities, like Denver,
Phoenix and Los Angeles, ecosystems, a multibillion-dollar
agricultural industry, hydroelectric power and more.
Water scarcity, population growth and climate change are on a
collision course in the American West. That’s clear in cities
like St. George, a desert community surrounded by stunning red
rock cliffs and mesas in Utah’s southwest corner. The
population is booming and climate change is making heat more
intense and rain less reliable. But local leaders have a plan
to stretch the area’s water supply by turning to its sewage — a
solution that could help other drought-stricken cities,
too. … Reusing water that would have otherwise flowed
downstream to Lake Mead — the nation’s largest reservoir — is
the centerpiece of the district’s long-term water plan. But it
will come at a steep cost: over a billion dollars. … St.
George’s quandary is a microcosm of the challenges cities face
across the Western U.S. as overuse and drought strain the
Colorado River and the basin’s seven states fight over how the
river’s water gets distributed in the future.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced an investment of $1.1
million to the Colorado River Indian Tribes to assess the
Colorado River Indian Irrigation Project. The funding will
assist the tribe to review existing infrastructure and identify
necessary maintenance. It will also be used to identify
potential opportunities to install new equipment and utilize
updated technology to modernize the project. “We appreciate the
Colorado River Indian Tribe’s collaboration for many years on
implementing its decreed water rights and the Water Resiliency
Act,” said Acting Commissioner David Palumbo. “We look forward
to utilizing this funding to further this partnership.” This
assessment is intended to assist the Colorado River Indian
Tribes as they evaluate a potential title transfer of the
project in order to take direct ownership. This could allow for
water leasing and other opportunities that could
contribute to overall water savings in the Colorado River
Basin.
After months of deliberation, the New Mexico Water Quality
Control Commission on May 14 voted to prohibit any discharge of
treated “produced water” from oil and gas extraction to ground
and surface waters. Produced water flows back to the
surface during fracking and conventional oil and gas drilling
and contains chemicals used in the extraction process as well
as numerous other hazardous compounds, including arsenic and
benzene, both human carcinogens. New Mexico creates around
two billion barrels—84 billion gallons—of this toxic wastewater
each year. Cleaning through multi-stage filtration,
desalination and other processes could allow for the reuse of
produced water for irrigation and other commercial
applications, saving precious water resources. But
environmental advocates, scientists and the New Mexico
Environmental Department (NMED) have urged that proper
regulations are not yet in place to make such reuse safe.
Negotiations over a new operating plan for the Colorado River
are being hobbled by the federal government’s failure to take a
more aggressive role in the discussions, said current and
former state and federal officials Thursday. The critiques came
from a cadre of former water managers who took part in previous
deals on the waterway under both Democratic and Republican
administrations, speaking during the annual 45th Annual
Colorado Law Conference on Natural Resources at the University
of Colorado. “The current process kind of feels like the
conclave,” said Jim Lochhead, the former CEO of Denver Water
and former executive director of the Colorado Department of
Natural Resources, referring to the process of electing a new
Catholic pope. “We’re waiting for the black smoke or the white
smoke to come out of the seven-state negotiating meeting.”
… For eons, the Colorado River flowed through this canyon,
its pounding rapids carving the landscape. In 1963, though, the
government—determined to tame the river and feed the
Southwest’s unrelenting appetite for water—built Glen Canyon
Dam. Slowly, year by year, the giant reservoir it created
backed upstream, drowning 18 rapids whole and transforming 186
miles of what had been a rushing river into a wide, still,
man-made pool. After that, it was eerily quiet, the river
current slackening as it submitted to the lake. But if you
visit this place now, you’ll hear a rumble. And there, right in
front of you, you’ll see it: white water flashing in the sun. A
standing wave big enough to flip a boat. Water moving and
moving fast. A rapid, drowned for 60 years, is emerging from
the depths. To understand this story, we’ll need to time
travel.
Wyoming may be home to the famous bubbling geothermal features
in Yellowstone National Park, but that doesn’t mean the state
is a hot spot for generating electricity using heat from inside
the earth. A new federal assessment identified Wyoming as
part of a massive underground geothermal energy resource that
could generate electricity equal to 10% of America’s current
power supply, though state-specific research suggests only
modest potential for Wyoming. A May U.S. Geological
Survey’s report on geothermal systems in the Great Basin found
that the arid lands of Nevada and adjoining parts of
California, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and a sliver of
Wyoming’s western border with Idaho contain enough
geothermal energy to generate 135 gigawatts of electricity from
the upper 6 kilometers of the Earth’s crust.
The federal government is awarding Utah $3 million to purchase
conservation easements in southern Utah near Zion National
Park. The funding — awarded to the Utah Division of
Forestry, Fire and State Lands by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture — was announced Monday and will go toward ongoing
forest preservation efforts outside of the national
park. Called the Zion Connectivity Project, the state will
direct the funding at two properties totalling 766 acres near
the north section of the national park. A conservation easement
— a legally binding agreement between a landowner and
government that places restrictions on the land for
environmental purposes — will prevent the land from being
fragmented or developed. … The region contains a number
of springs and streams, including the La Verkin Creek, which
feeds into the Virgin River and eventually the Colorado
River. The creek supports six native species of fish,
like the Virgin River chub and Woundfin, both federally
endangered.
The spot where the Virgin River curves around the Temple of
Sinawava used to be the end of the line for some of Zion
National Park’s native fish. A dam was built here in 1957 to
house a water line. The concrete structure was only a couple of
feet high, but that was more than enough to trap fish
downstream and cut them off from around 80 miles of river.
… Now, fish can swim those miles as they please. After
several years of planning, the park removed the dam this
spring. Fish need to be able to travel freely throughout a
river’s path for a variety of reasons, (park scientist Roby)
Henderek said, and they require different types of habitat at
different life stages. Baby fish prefer calm backwater
sanctuaries. Adults have to swim upstream to lay
eggs. Between cities and farms diverting water and climate
change intensifying drought, native fish across the
Colorado River Basin face a lot of
challenges.
Colorado’s Front Range is mostly drought-free following an
above-average rainfall during May, while the Western Slope
continues to deal with persistent drought. The Denver area had
3.57 inches of rain last month, according to National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, with 2.16 inches
being the normal amount for May. … According to the U.S.
Drought Monitor, which was updated last Thursday, most of the
Front Range is not experiencing drought, while parts of
northeastern and southeastern Colorado are “abnormally dry” or
in “moderate drought.” “The much bigger drought concerns right
now are on the Western slope, where mountain snowpack was poor
this winter, and the snow melted out earlier than usual,”
(Colorado state climatologist Russ) Schumacher said.
“Fortunately they will be getting some rain this week, but
flows in the Colorado River system are
expected to be much lower than average.”
Monitors observing Lake Powell’s water levels are issuing a
dire warning: The second largest reservoir in the country, and
one of the most popular destinations for Arizonans and Western
tourists, will suffer yet another year of
drought and accelerated decline. Hydrologists
say this is the consequence of a lack of winter 2024 runoff,
itself the product of an unseasonably dry cold season. Experts
predict the winter melt, which is responsible for replenishing
the endangered lake, will total just 55% of the annual average.
… As the lake continues to shrink, surrounding states
disagree on how to reduce their 40 million residents’
collective water use to stave off the reservoir’s
total destruction. Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New
Mexico, Utah and Wyoming legislators are sparing over which
locales should decrease their residential, commercial, and
agricultural intakes.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Uinta Basin Railway
proposal in Utah published Thursday was a consequential ruling
when it comes to the National Environmental Policy Act, or
NEPA, narrowing the scope of the legislation and giving federal
agencies more room to conduct their own analysis with more
limited interference from courts. But it did not approve
the controversial 88-mile railroad that supporters argue will
drive economic growth in rural Utah by connecting the Uinta
Basin’s oil field with the national rail network. And the
high court did not address the concerns of Eagle County, which
sued to reverse the Surface Transportation Board’s 2021
approval of the railroad, arguing the agency did not adequately
consider the risk to communities and the Colorado
River with increased tanker traffic on riverside
tracks. … The arguments before the Supreme Court
centered on NEPA, not Eagle County’s concerns.
Concerningly low amounts of water are flowing from Rocky
Mountain snowpack this spring, a summer of drought looms across
swaths of the West, and the negotiators tasked with devising a
sustainable long-term water plan for the 40 million people who
rely on the Colorado River are running out of time.
Commissioners from the seven states in the Colorado River Basin
— Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, California and
Nevada — must create a plan that will govern how those states
divvy up the river’s water after the current guidelines expire
at the end of 2026. As the river shrinks due to drought and
climate change, the negotiators must decide who will take less
water — and they need to do so in the next few months. … The
negotiators, who met in Las Vegas this week, have repeatedly
said they are committed to finding a consensus solution, but
have not yet done so and have already blown past previous
deadlines set by federal authorities more than a year ago.
Native fish populations are returning more quickly than
anticipated in the Colorado River Connectivity Channel near
Granby. This news is according to the latest Colorado Parks and
Wildlife electrofishing survey of the trout population along
the newly constructed 1-mile river channel. In May, Parks and
Wildlife biologists estimated that approximately 848 brown
trout and 221 rainbow trout over 6 inches in length live within
the channel. The $33 million connectivity channel project
sought to establish connectivity along the Colorado River after
the construction of the 445-acre-foot Windy Gap Reservoir in
1985 disrupted flows in the region. The reservoir and dam —
which were constructed to help divert water to two northern
Front Range cities — impacted stream flows, caused sediment
buildup and decimated fish populations.
Many of California’s reservoirs have filled nearly to capacity
this year with runoff from the ample snowpack in the Sierra
Nevada. But the situation is very different along the Colorado
River, another vital water source for Southern California,
where a very dry spring has shrunk the amount of runoff
streaming into reservoirs. The latest forecast from the federal
Colorado Basin River Forecast Center shows that the river’s
flows into Lake Powell will probably be about 46% of average
over the next three months. … The snowpack in the upper
Colorado River Basin reached 89% of the median level on April
1, but the outlook worsened over the last two months because of
persistent dryness, warm temperatures and dry soils in the
mountains that have absorbed a portion of the runoff.
… The water level of Lake Powell, on
the Utah-Arizona border, sits at 33% of capacity. Downstream
near Las Vegas, Lake Mead is 32% full.
Some La Plata County residents are looking for alternate
sources of drinking water after a wastewater treatment system
malfunctioned, sending E. coli into the local waterways. The
wastewater treatment system serves Pine Winds Mobile Home Park,
where about 60 people live east of the La Plata River and west
of Durango. Rivulets of water crisscrossed the community’s main
road Monday, flooding its central leach field. The field
typically helps treat wastewater before it enters the
groundwater system or nearby creek that flows into the La Plata
River. The leach field is failing, said Nicole Rowan,
director of the water quality control division at the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment. “There’s too much
water in there, so it can’t slowly let the water flow through
it to properly treat it,” Rowan said.
Arizona’s governor and the GOP-controlled Legislature are at
odds over regulating groundwater pumping in the state’s rural
areas — and time is running out. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs
stood with local Republican leaders at the start of this year’s
session, optimistic that Republicans in the Legislature would
embrace her proposal to create rural groundwater management
areas. But almost four months later, talks have stalled and
frustration has mounted as both sides try to find a solution to
conserve water that’s increasingly becoming more scarce
amid a prolonged drought. Negotiators have not met
since early April, Hobbs’ office said. Around the same time,
Republicans and some interest groups grew frustrated with a
separate proposal by the Arizona Department of Water Resources
to slash overdraft in the Willcox Basin by a percentage that is
“unattainable,” said Sen. Tim Dunn, one of the Republican
negotiators.
The Colorado River basin has lost 27.8m acre-feet of
groundwater in the past 20 years, an amount of water nearly
equivalent to the full capacity of Lake Mead, the largest
reservoir in the United States, a new study has found. The
research findings, based on Nasa satellite imagery from across
the south-west, highlight the scale of the ongoing water crisis
in the region, as both groundwater and surface water
are being severely depleted. … With less
visibility has come less regulation: California only instituted
statewide management of its groundwater in 2014, and before
that, groundwater use was largely unregulated. Arizona, which
has seen big groundwater decreases, still does not regulate
groundwater usage in the majority of the state. … Since
2015, the basin has been losing freshwater at a rate three
times faster than in the decade before, driven mostly by
groundwater depletion in Arizona.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board, one of Colorado’s top
water policy agencies, has a new leader: Southern Ute tribal
member Lorelei Cloud. The 15-member board sets water policy
within the state, funds water projects statewide and works on
issues related to watershed protection, stream restoration,
flood mitigation and drought planning. On May 21, board members
elected Cloud to serve a one-year term as chair, making her the
first Indigenous person to hold the position since the board
was formed in 1937. Cloud said her new role gives Indigenous
people a long-sought seat at the table where water decisions
are made. … Part of the Colorado Water Conservation
Board’s purpose is to protect Colorado’s water interests in
dealings with other states, like the water sharing agreements
among seven states in the Colorado River
Basin. … She represents the San Miguel-Dolores-San
Juan basin in southwestern Colorado, which is part of the
larger Colorado River Basin, a key water source for about 40
million people across the West.
As the Colorado River’s giant reservoirs have declined during
the last two decades, even larger amounts of water have been
pumped and drained from underground, according to new research
based on data from NASA satellites. Scientists at Arizona State
University examined more than two decades of satellite
measurements and found that since 2003 the quantity of
groundwater depleted in the Colorado River Basin is comparable
to the total capacity of Lake Mead, the nation’s largest
reservoir. The researchers estimated that pumping from wells
has drained about 34 cubic kilometers, or 28 million acre-feet,
of groundwater in the watershed since 2003 — more than twice
the amount of water that has been depleted from the river’s
reservoirs during that time.
Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs and Northern Water voiced
opposition Wednesday to the Western Slope’s proposal to spend
$99 million to buy historic water rights on the Colorado River
from Xcel Energy. The Colorado River Water Conservation
District has been working for years to buy the water rights
tied to Shoshone Power Plant, a small, easy-to-miss hydropower
plant off Interstate 70 east of Glenwood Springs. The highly
coveted water rights are some of the largest and oldest on the
Colorado River in Colorado. The Front Range providers are
concerned that any change to the water rights could impact
water supplies for millions of city residents, farmers,
industrial users and more. … The proposed purchase taps
into a decades-old water conflict in Colorado: Most of the
state’s water flows west of the Continental Divide; most of the
population lives to the east; and water users are left to
battle over how to share it.
… Throughout the West, pretty much every last drop of
Colorado River is used and accounted for. The majority of
Colorado’s allotment of the river is used for agriculture.
Human-caused climate change is stretching the river even
thinner, and drought persists. That means that the people who
rely on the river have to get creative when it comes to
conservation, especially in Colorado, where the river begins.
… It’s all part of Colorado’s complex water law system,
which states that water released from reservoirs must be put to
a “beneficial use.” That usually means using it for things like
irrigation or industry. The environment, and even fish,
historically haven’t counted. But there’s a workaround:
hydropower. It keeps the water in the river, and under state
law, it qualifies as beneficial.
Hunters and anglers are voicing concerns about the possible
sale of hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in Utah
and Nevada. U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy, R-UT, and U.S. Rep. Mark
Amodei, R-NV, have introduced a last-minute provision to a
federal budget reconciliation package which would allow public
lands in both states to be sold to local governments or private
buyers. Supporters say it would help address the housing
shortage, improve public infrastructure, and it would allow
industries to expand their presence. But Devin O’Dea,
Western Policy & Conservation Manager with Backcountry Hunters
and Anglers, said the decision sets a negative precedent.
… Maloy says her amendment is a small provision in what
has been termed Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” She added that,
unlike Nevada, lands in Utah would be used to build needed
water projects and infrastructure as the
state’s population grows.
Above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation
continued to rapidly melt out western U.S. snowpack. Nearly all
western basins are now in late season snow drought, despite
many stations reaching near to above-average peak snow water
equivalent (SWE) during the snow accumulation season. Some
stations, including some in Nevada, Colorado, Utah, and New
Mexico, saw record early melt out. The rapid depletion of snow,
coupled with increased evaporative demand (the “thirst” of
the atmosphere), can rapidly dry the landscape. Landscapes
drying out earlier than normal can lead to an early start to
the fire season. Snowmelt this time of year is common, but
such rapid melt rates are not normal. In some instances,
above-normal temperatures such as these can cause snow to
sublimate (going from a solid to a gas) and reduce runoff into
streams and reservoirs.
Negotiations continue between the seven Colorado River basin
states over new rules dealing with use of the overallocated
river, and the clock is ticking. But one area of those talks
that’s not getting a lot of attention is the idea of setting
some water aside, and the details of how that might happen.
Kathryn Sorensen, director of research at the Kyl Center for
Water Policy at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute
for Public Policy, has been thinking and writing about this and
joined The Show to discuss. … “The idea of sort of setting
aside pools of water and holding them in Lakes Powell or Mead
is not new. It’s actually something we’ve been doing since
2007, and it’s an attempt to sort of separate certain amounts
of water from the prior appropriation system, which is the
system through which we generally allocate water here in the
arid West.”
For decades, hydrologists believed most spring snowmelt rapidly
enters rivers and streams. But a new study from the University
of Utah shows that most of it spends years as groundwater
before it spills into reservoirs – new research that could help
western water managers and farmers better plan each year.
Researchers collected runoff samples from river basins at 42
sites across the Mountain West, including Colorado, Idaho, New
Mexico, Wyoming and Utah. They used what’s called tritium
isotope analysis to determine the age of the water. In other
words, they were figuring out how much time had elapsed since
the water flowing in the stream was snow falling in the
mountains. Researchers found that a snowflake that falls and
melts will spend, on average, five years as groundwater before
it seeps into mountain streams. That means there’s a whole lot
more water stored underground than water managers account for.
The White House wants to cut funding for the project that
delivers Colorado River water to millions on the Wasatch Front
— but no one will say what those cuts would entail. Tucked 28
pages into President Donald Trump’s budget recommendations for
next year, released May 2, was a proposed funding cut to the
Central Utah Project to the tune of $609 million. Congress must
approve the final budget. The Central Utah Project is “the
largest and most complex water resources development project”
in the state, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation. The project is a complicated system of
reservoirs and pipelines that bring water from the
Colorado River system to the Wasatch Front for
irrigation, municipal and industrial uses, supporting the
region’s rapid growth. It also provides opportunities for
recreation, water conservation and fish and wildlife
protection.
Over the last decade, California has faced droughts, wildfires,
and rising temperatures that all underscore the importance of
carefully managing the surface and groundwater that irrigates
more than 9 million acres of California farmland and supplies
water to 40 million Californians. In a new special issue of ARE
Update, the authors assess the current impacts of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA),
analyze competition for scarce water allocations throughout the
Colorado River Basin and the successes of federal water
conservation projects in the basin, and consider how the
history of tribal water rights for surface water in California
differs from that of other western states, with implications
for future groundwater policy. … ARE Update is a
bimonthly magazine published by the Giannini Foundation of
Agricultural Economics.
Perched above the Dillon Reservoir on the side of a mountain
road in Summit County, Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday signed into
law three bills aimed at bolstering the state’s water
infrastructure. The measures come amid the backdrop of
chronic drought and increased water demand in the West which
have made finding a path towards water sustainability more
urgent. Negotiations between Colorado and six other states over
future use of the Colorado River, which serves around 40
million people, remain at a standstill. Speaking amid
on-and-off snow flurries and bouts of sunshine, Polis said the
bills signed on Thursday will help “build a sustainable,
livable future” by “securing our water for the state of
Colorado.”
Several parcels in southwestern Utah are getting a close look
as conservation advocates warn of the proposed sale of some
federal lands to local governments that mirror the path of a
disputed water pipeline project. Environmental groups are
monitoring congressional action on an amendment that would
allow the city of St. George and other local governments to buy
about 10,000 acres of federal lands. Water managers, too, are
keeping close tabs on the legislation but say the land in
question is needed for other projects for the growing desert
region, unrelated to the long-delayed Lake Powell pipeline. The
scattered parcels — part of a broader amendment inserted into
the House GOP’s tax, energy and national security megabill that
would mandate the sale of hundreds of thousands of acres of
public lands — have drawn interest because the sites align with
the proposed route of the pipeline that would draw Colorado
River water to St. George.
The Trump administration is preparing to announce its pick to
head the Bureau of Reclamation, a crucial position in deciding
the future of the Colorado River, a White House spokesperson
told the Arizona Republic. … The White House
expects to announce its nominee for Reclamation Commissioner in
a matter of weeks, according to the spokesperson. The nominee
will go through what could be a months-long process to be
confirmed by the Senate before taking office. … Trump’s
reclamation commissioner could be the only person on his
appointed Colorado River team who comes from the river basin
itself. So far, two of the three major federal officials who
most affect the Colorado River — Burgum and Travnicek — are
from outside the basin.
Arizona is doing its part and taking its hits to conserve the
Colorado River, Gov. Katie Hobbs said, and it’s time for
upstream states to do the same. The governor assembled a
roundtable of water users and officials on May 13 to present
what she called a unified front among the state’s interests in
defending Arizona’s share of the Colorado River as time runs
short for reaching a deal with other states that use the
water. … Gathered at Central Arizona Project
headquarters with representatives of cities, tribes, farms and
hydropower interests — all reliant on the river water that
flowing into the CAP’s canal — Hobbs said the state seeks a
compromise. Otherwise, supplies could become subject to
litigation, an outcome she said she’s preparing for in part by
seeking a legal fund from legislators.
New data suggest that a disappointing snowpack could result in
less water than previously thought for America’s two largest
reservoirs. Lake Mead is a vital water source for millions of
people across Nevada, Arizona, California, and parts of Mexico.
Its declining levels potentially jeopardize municipal water
supplies, agricultural irrigation, and hydroelectric power
generation. Officials previously raised concerns about the
water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, following a lacking
winter snowpack that threatened to stall progress made during
last year’s wetter-than-average season. The resulting
water supply is expected to be even lower than earlier
projections. Scientists now forecast runoff into Lake Powell to
reach just 55 percent of the average, down from the previous
estimate of 67 percent.
… The mountains that feed the Colorado River with snowmelt
are strikingly dry, with many ranges holding less than 50
percent of their average snow for this time of year. The low
totals could spell trouble for the nation’s largest reservoirs,
but those dry conditions don’t seem to be ringing alarm bells
for Colorado River policymakers. Inflows to Lake Powell, the
nation’s second largest reservoir, are expected to be 55
percent of average this year, according to federal
data released this week. … The federal offices that
manage Western water are in disarray amid layoffs and
restructuring since Donald Trump returned to the White House.
The Bureau of Reclamation, the top federal
agency for Colorado River dams and reservoirs, is without a
permanent commissioner. All the while, state and federal
policymakers are spending most of their time and attention on
drawing up new water-sharing rules.
The Trump administration is proposing a jaw-dropping $609
million cut to the massive Central Utah Project, which supplies
water to millions of people in northern Utah. … “The Budget
provides $1.2 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation and the
Central Utah Project. The Budget reduces funding for programs
that have nothing to do with building and maintaining water
infrastructure, such as habitat restoration. Instead, the
Budget focuses Reclamation and the Central Utah Project on
their core missions of maintaining assets that provide safe,
reliable, and efficient management of water resources
throughout the western United States,” the reduction item says.
The U.S. Department of Interior said Wednesday it extended more
than a dozen contracts with water-rights holders in California
and Arizona that aim to boost water funding and conservation
efforts in the Colorado River system for its seven western
states. Interior officials say it marked “major progress” with
the Bureau of Reclamation in securing a continuation of 18
short-term agreements with tribal, municipal and agricultural
water users in the lower Colorado River basin that will, they
said, “result in additional water savings” through 2026 and,
likewise, secure its short-term health as the region looks to
its post-2026 water-use guidelines for Lake Powell and Lake
Mead. … Scott Cameron, a senior adviser to U.S. Interior
Secretary Doug Burgum, said the Trump administration
was focused on strengthening the Colorado River system’s
drought response and “safeguarding the interests of western
communities” for more than 40 million citizens and hydropower
fuel resources in its seven states.
Layers of snowpack melted rapidly in Colorado in April, which
could lead to less water supply in the summer and higher
wildfire potential, according to data from the National
Integrated Drought Information System. The federal data,
released on May 1, indicate that “substantial and rapid”
snowmelt occurred throughout broad swaths of Colorado between
April 10-17. Several weather stations maintained by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture logged record snowmelt during that
week, compared to the same period in prior years. … How
quickly snow melts, and when it happens, can impact water
availability during hot summer months and affect how likely
wildfires are to occur in a region. An area that’s seen rapid
snowmelt in early spring could have dried-out vegetation by
summer, a potential fuel for blazes.
Environmental groups are demanding that the Trump
administration exercise the federal government’s authority to
curb wasteful water use in an effort to address the Colorado
River’s chronic water shortages. In a petition submitted
Tuesday, the Natural Resources Defense Council and nine other
groups called for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to enforce a
provision of federal regulations stating that water deliveries
in California, Arizona and Nevada “will not exceed those
reasonably required for beneficial use.” … The petition
takes aim in particular at wasteful water practices in
agriculture. … Leaders of the groups that submitted the
petition … suggested in it that the government should also
consider wasteful water use in cities and industries.
This article documents the current status of tribal water
rights
in California and explains why they differ from other
states. … In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in
Winters v. U.S. that through the creation of reservations,
tribes are entitled to water rights sufficient to meet their
homeland needs. … The Klamath Tribes in Oregon, the
Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe (PLPT) in Nevada, and five
reservations along the California-Arizona border hold
high-priority Winters rights to surface water crossing the
California state line. In each case, the sovereignty tribes
were able to exert over their rights increased when tribal
priorities aligned with state or federal interests.
… Many experts are calling for a collective reframing of
water as a scarce and essential common good.
… Extraction rights and pricing systems that fail to
account for the hidden effects (or ‘externalities’) that come
from using this common good lead to inefficient consumption and
can direct water-intensive activities to regions that are
already water-stressed. … Better pricing through targeted
water-use taxes and subsidies could help to manage demand,
improve access and support more sustainable use. For example,
chip manufacturers like Intel and TSMC have invested in
building semiconductor factories (or ‘fabs’) in Arizona – a
state known for its dry climate. … Better pricing could
have given these companies the incentives to locate their
facilitates in more water-abundant regions, easing pressure on
Arizona’s water system.
… Across Colorado, the snowpack peaked lower in major river
basins than the 30-year median, according to federal data from
1991 to 2020. The peaks were often earlier than usual, and the
snowpack is melting quickly — several weeks earlier than the
norm in some areas. Water managers and climatologists are
hoping for a rainy May and active summer thunderstorm season.
In dry years, farmers and ranchers can be short on irrigation
water in late summer. Reservoirs can have less extra water to
carry over into the next year. Fish and aquatic ecosystems can
suffer with less water in warmer rivers. Water managers across
the desert Southwest are in similar situations. Western
Colorado is a key water source for the Colorado River
Basin, where rivers and streams send water into an
immense reservoir, Lake Powell.
Snowpack was near normal for much of the upper Colorado River
basin this winter. By April 1, which is what hydrologists
typically consider to be the end of winter for water
measurement, the upper basin had received about 90% of its
historical median snowpack. … Despite the overall positive
snowpack report, hydrologists and drought forecasters are not
optimistic about runoff. Forecasters predict that through July,
runoff will be at 67% of average above Lake Powell, the largest
reservoir on the Upper Basin. “Dry soils across the West,
both going into the winter season and during the spring,
combined with a relatively hot, dry March have really
diminished our predicted streamflow for the summer,” said Nels
Bjarke, a hydrologist with the Western Water Assessment.
Housing developers and conservation advocates clashed over a
bill Thursday that would encourage the federal government to
open thousands of acres of public land in Clark County for
development, a move critics say will encourage sprawl and
supporters argue would lower housing costs. … The
resolution’s opponents cited concerns about water scarcity,
utility costs, urban sprawl, and the urban heat island effect.
… A joint study by Clark County and the City of Henderson
found that development under the Clark County Lands Bill could
increase daily water demand by 49 million gallons, or about 18%
of Nevada’s total allocation from the Colorado River.
Rapid melts across the U.S. West have caused snowpack to
disappear up to four weeks early in some areas — wreaking
potential havoc on the region’s water supply, federal
meteorologists warned Thursday. These conditions have
particularly affected parts of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico,
causing some basins to shift from above-average snowpack to
“snow drought,” according to an update from the
National Integrated Drought Information System
(NIDIS). That transition occurred in under a month, with
snow disappearing one to four weeks earlier than usual, the
NIDIS updated stated. … As for the Colorado
River Basin, the NIDIS update said that supply
forecasts for this region declined in comparison to April 1
projections, presumably due to dry conditions and early, rapid
snowmelt.
Interior Department veteran Andrea Travnicek on Wednesday
identified Colorado River policies, critical minerals
development and infrastructure as her top three priorities if
she is confirmed as Interior’s assistant secretary for water
and science. With a background that includes service in the
first Trump administration’s Interior Department and leadership
of North Dakota’s Department of Water Resources, Travnicek
noted that there are “a lot of discussions right now” related
to the 1,450-mile river and the allocation of its water. “We’ve
got some looming deadlines that are in front of us next year,
so we’re going to have to work really closely with those seven
states in the [Colorado River] basin,” Travnicek told the
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Across the country, the data collected at stream gauges managed
by the U.S. Geological Survey are used to implement drought
measures when streamflows are low, alert local authorities of
floods, help administer water to users on rivers and issue
pollution discharge permits required by the Clean Water Act for
communities across the country. But more than two dozen USGS
Water Science Centers that house the employees and equipment to
manage those gauges and equipment will soon have their leases
terminated after being targeted by the Department of Government
Efficiency. … The Moab (Utah) office operates and
monitors more than 30 stream gauges, eight water quality sites,
five meteorological sites, two groundwater monitoring sites and
one sediment monitoring site. Many of those … send
information in real time to federal, tribal, state and local
partners about floods and the flows of streams and rivers in
the Colorado River Basin.
Although the top post at the Bureau of Reclamation remains
without a nominee more than 100 days into the second Trump
administration, state officials say the empty seat will not
slow negotiations over a new Colorado River
operating plan. President Donald Trump has yet to put forth a
leader for Reclamation, which is responsible for dams,
reservoirs, canals and other infrastructure across 17 Western
states. David Palumbo, the agency’s deputy commissioner, is
currently serving in an acting capacity. But state
officials said the lack of a Senate-confirmed leader is
unlikely to hamper ongoing talks about how to share the
Colorado River, as well as any potential cuts when flows are
too low to meet the demands of some 40 million people and 5.5
million acres of farmland.
Mexico has agreed to send water to the United States and
temporarily channel more water to the country from their shared
rivers, a concession that appeared to defuse a diplomatic
crisis sparked by yearslong shortages that left Mexico behind
on its treaty-bound contribution of water from the borderlands.
… In a social media post, Mr. Trump accused Mexico of
“stealing” water from Texas farmers by not meeting its
obligations under a 1944 treaty that mediates the distribution
of water from three rivers the two countries share: the
Rio Grande, the Colorado and the Tijuana. In an
agreement announced jointly by Mexico and the United States on
Monday, Mexico will immediately transfer some of its water
reserves and will give the country a larger share of the flow
of water from the Rio Grande through October.
With seven states, 30 tribes and Mexico, the Central Arizona
Project and the Gila River Indian Community addressed the
uncertainty of the Colorado River Basin water
shortage at the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalist
Conference. Facing water shortages in the Colorado River Basin
in the early 200s, the 2007 Colorado River Interim Guidelines
and later the 2019 Drought Contingency Plans were created to
mitigate water use. These plans expire in 2026. New agreements
could potentially lead to less availability of water. “We’re
looking at a new water supply someday. It might not only be
Colorado River water going through the canal system,” said
DeEtte Person, communications strategist for the Central
Arizona Project.
Before the construction of Hoover Dam on the lower Colorado River, as well as a slew of smaller sisters downstream, the stretch downriver served as a biological oasis in the middle of the unrelenting Mojave and Sonoran deserts. The marshes and backwaters along the river’s edge provided sheltered areas for fish to spawn and rear their young, and mesquite and cottonwood-willow forests provided important habitat for numerous species of birds and other animals.
A new aquatic invader, the golden mussel, has penetrated California’s ecologically fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the West Coast’s largest tidal estuary and the hub of the state’s vast water export system. While state officials say they’re working to keep this latest invasive species in check, they concede it may be a nearly impossible task: The golden mussel is in the Golden State to stay – and it is likely to spread.
The 2024 Colorado River Water
Leaders cohort completed its seven-month program
with policy recommendations involving ”augmentation” –
projects that increase the availability and supply of water – as
the Colorado River Basin grows hotter and drier.
The cohort of
12 up-and-coming leaders included engineers,
lawyers, resource specialists and others working for public,
private and non-governmental organizations from across the
river’s basin. The cohort had full editorial control to choose
its recommendations.
State water management officials must work more closely with
local agencies to properly prepare California for the effects
of climate change, water scientists say. Golden State
officials said in the newly revised California Water
Plan that as the nation’s most populous state, California
is too diverse and complex for a singular approach to manage a
vast water network. On Monday, they recommended expanding the
work to better manage the state’s precious water resources —
including building better partnerships with communities most at
risk during extreme drought and floods and improving critical
infrastructure for water storage, treatment and distribution
among different regions and watersheds.
Six tribes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including two in
Colorado, have gained long-awaited access to discussions about
the basin’s water issues — talks that were formerly
limited to states and the federal government. Under an
agreement finalized this month, the tribes will meet every two
months to discuss Colorado River issues with an interstate
water policy commission, the Upper Colorado River Commission,
or UCRC. It’s the first time in the commission’s 76-year
history that tribes have been formally included, and the timing
is key as negotiations about the river’s future intensify.
… Most immediately, the commission wants a key number:
How much water goes unused by tribes and flows down to the
Lower Basin?
Sustaining the American Southwest is the Colorado River. But
demand, damming, diversion, and drought are draining this vital
water resource at alarming rates. The future of water in the
region – particularly from the Colorado River – was top of mind
at the 10th Annual Eccles Family Rural West Conference, an
event organized by the Bill Lane Center for the American West
that brings together policymakers, practitioners, and scholars
to discuss solutions to urgent problems facing rural Western
regions.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand 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 some 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.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
Learn the history and challenges facing the West’s most dramatic
and developed river.
The Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River Basin introduces the
1,450-mile river that sustains 40 million people and millions of
acres of farmland spanning seven states and parts of northern
Mexico.
The 28-page primer explains how the river’s water is shared and
managed as the Southwest transitions to a hotter and drier
climate.
A much-anticipated water bill brought by one of the most
powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill became public Thursday.
Senate President Stuart Adams’s SB 211, titled “Generational
Water Infrastructure Amendments,” seeks to secure a water
supply for decades to come. It forms a new council comprised of
leadership from the state’s biggest water districts that will
figure out Utah’s water needs for the next 50 to 75 years. It
also creates a new governor-appointed “Utah Water Agent” with a
$1 million annual budget that will “coordinate with the council
to ensure Utah’s generational water needs are met,” according
to a news release. But combing through the text of the bill
reveals the water agent’s main job will be finding an
out-of-state water supply. … The bill also notes the
water agent won’t meddle with existing water compacts with
other states on the Bear and Colorado rivers.
Moab is a growing town of 5,300 that up to 5 million people
visit each year to hike nearby Arches and Canyonlands national
parks, ride mountain bikes and all-terrain vehicles, or raft
the Colorado River. Like any western resort town, it
desperately needs affordable housing. What locals say it
doesn’t need is a high-end development on a sandbar projecting
into the Colorado River, where groves of cottonwoods, willows
and hackberries flourish. “Delusional,” shameful” or
“outrageous” is what many locals call this Kane Creek
Preservation and Development project. - Written by Mary Moran, a contributor to Writers on
the Range
The attention is on Southern California right now, but an
atmospheric river’s path will extend inland with potential
flooding — and possible drought relief. If you’re watching the
weather, it’s still a little early to tell whether these storms
will go where they can hope Las Vegas the most. That’s anywhere
in the Upper Colorado River Basin, where there’s a chance they
could produce snow to help the river that supplies 90% of the
water used in Southern Nevada. … The paths of this
year’s atmospheric rivers are unlike the ones that slammed
the Sierras last year. Those storms carried snow straight
east through Northern Nevada and Utah, feeding the Rocky
Mountains with snowpack levels that reached 160% of normal by
the end of winter.
Water regulation in Arizona has devolved into a game of
chicken. The governor and farmers are rivals revving their
engines, hoping their opponent will flinch first. Caught
in the middle is Gila Bend, a groundwater basin south of
Buckeye, where the state could decide to impose its most
stringent form of regulation, whether folks like it or not.
Both sides are using Gila Bend as a bargaining chip to win
support for competing legislative proposals. But to what
end? - Written by Joanna Allhands, Arizona Republic digital
opinions editor
Colorado legislators in 2022 passed a bill that delivered $2
million to programs across the state for removal of turf in
urban areas classified as nonfunctional. By that, legislators
mean Kentucky bluegrass and other thirsty-grass species that
were meant to be seen but rarely, if ever, otherwise
used. Now, they are taking the next step. The Colorado
Senate on Tuesday, Jan. 30 voted in favor of a
bill, Senate Bill 24-005, that would prevent thirsty turf
species from being planted in certain places that rarely, if
ever, get foot traffic, except perhaps to be mowed.
The U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee is holding an
important hearing Thursday on S. 2385, a bill to
refine the tools needed to help Tribal communities gain access
to something that most non-Indian communities in the western
United States have long taken for granted: federally subsidized
systems to deliver safe, clean drinking water to our homes.
… This is the sort of bill (there’s a companion on the
House side) that makes a huge amount of sense, but could easily
get sidetracked in the chaos of Congress. The ideal path is for
the crucial vetting to happen in a process such as Thursday’s
hearing, and then to attach it to one of those omnibus things
that Congress uses these days to get non-controversial stuff
done. Clean water for Native communities should pretty clearly
be non-controversial.
For as long as he can remember, Rob Sowby has heard people call
Utah the second-driest state in the nation. Over the years,
that claim has become nearly inescapable, echoed by everyone
from state departments, city governments and water conservancy
districts to national news outlets without a clear citation for
what data it’s based on. … Now a Brigham Young
University civil engineering assistant professor focused on
sustainable water supplies, he decided to get to the bottom of
it. Using precipitation data, he found that Utah is actually
the nation’s third-driest state, behind Nevada and
Arizona.
The Topock Marsh has seen a significant drop in water levels
recently, with dry patches visible and locals concerned about
the effects on wildlife. The 4,000-acre Bureau of Reclamation
marsh is adjacent to the Colorado River in the Havasu National
Wildlife Refuge. Managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
it serves as a recreation area and wildlife habitat for the
Tri-state.
Apply for our 2024 Colorado River Water
Leaders program to deepen your knowledge
of the inconic Southwest river, build leadership
skills and develop policy ideas with a cohort to improve
management of the region’s most crucial natural resource.
Our biennial Water Leaders program, part of our Colorado River Project,
selects rising stars from the seven states that rely on
the river – Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada,
Utah and Wyoming.
Get an overview of the program and tips on applying by watching
this virtual Q&A
session. Applications are due Jan. 22,
2024 and you can find
application materials here along with mandatory
program dates.
“I highly recommend the program to emerging water leaders.
The program’s immersive experience, relationship building and
mentorship opportunities cultivate leadership and collaborative
skills crucial for addressing complex challenges faced by all
those who rely upon the Colorado River now and into the
future.”
– JB Hamby, Class of ‘22 and Chair of the
Colorado River Board of California
After more than two decades of
drought, water utilities serving the largest urban regions in the
arid Southwest are embracing a drought-proof source of drinking
water long considered a supply of last resort: purified sewage.
Water supplies have tightened to the point that Phoenix and the
water supplier for 19 million Southern California residents are
racing to adopt an expensive technology called “direct potable
reuse” or “advanced purification” to reduce their reliance on
imported water from the dwindling Colorado River.
Join a
virtual Q&A session Dec. 7 to learn more about
applying for our 2024 Colorado River Water
Leaders cohort.
The biennial
program, which will run from March to September next
year, selects about a dozen rising stars from the
seven states that rely on the river – California, Nevada,
Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.
The climate-driven shrinking of the
Colorado River is expanding the influence of Native American
tribes over how the river’s flows are divided among cities, farms
and reservations across the Southwest.
The tribes are seeing the value of their largely unused river
water entitlements rise as the Colorado dwindles, and they are
gaining seats they’ve never had at the water bargaining table as
government agencies try to redress a legacy of exclusion.
The application window is now open
for our Colorado River Water
Leaders program, which will run from March to
September next year.
Our biennial program, part of our Colorado River Project,
is patterned after our highly successful California Water Leaders
programand selects rising stars
from the seven states that rely on the river -
California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New
Mexico – to take part in a cohort.
During the seven-month program designed for working
professionals, the cohort members explore issues surrounding the
iconic Southwest river, deepen their water knowledge and build
leadership skills.
“I highly recommend the program to emerging water leaders.
The program’s immersive experience, relationship building and
mentorship opportunities cultivate leadership and collaborative
skills crucial for addressing complex challenges faced by all
those who rely upon the Colorado River now and into the
future.”
– JB Hamby, Class of ‘22 & Chair of the Colorado River
Board of California
The states of the Lower Colorado
River Basin have traditionally played an oversized role in
tapping the lifeline that supplies 40 million people in the West.
California, Nevada and Arizona were quicker to build major canals
and dams and negotiated a landmark deal that requires the Upper
Basin to send predictable flows through the Grand Canyon, even
during dry years.
But with the federal government threatening unprecedented water
cuts amid decades of drought and declining reservoirs, the Upper
Basin states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico are
muscling up to protect their shares of an overallocated river
whose average flows in the Upper Basin have already dropped
20 percent over the last century.
They have formed new agencies to better monitor their interests,
moved influential Colorado River veterans into top negotiating
posts and improved their relationships with Native American
tribes that also hold substantial claims to the river.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand 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 some 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.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
When the Colorado River Compact was
signed 100 years ago, the negotiators for seven Western states
bet that the river they were dividing would have ample water to
meet everyone’s needs – even those not seated around the table.
A century later, it’s clear the water they bet on is not there.
More than two decades of drought, lake evaporation and overuse of
water have nearly drained the river’s two anchor reservoirs, Lake
Powell on the Arizona-Utah border and Lake Mead near Las Vegas.
Climate change is rendering the basin drier, shrinking spring
runoff that’s vital for river flows, farms, tribes and cities
across the basin – and essential for refilling reservoirs.
The states that endorsed the Colorado River Compact in 1922 – and
the tribes and nation of Mexico that were excluded from the table
– are now straining to find, and perhaps more importantly accept,
solutions on a river that may offer just half of the water that
the Compact assumed would be available. And not only are
solutions not coming easily, the relationships essential for
compromise are getting more frayed.
With 25 years of experience working
on the Colorado River, Chuck Cullom is used to responding to
myriad challenges that arise on the vital lifeline that seven
states, more than two dozen tribes and the country of Mexico
depend on for water. But this summer problems on the
drought-stressed river are piling up at a dizzying pace:
Reservoirs plummeting to record low levels, whether Hoover Dam
and Glen Canyon Dam can continue to release water and produce
hydropower, unprecedented water cuts and predatory smallmouth
bass threatening native fish species in the Grand Canyon.
“Holy buckets, Batman!,” said Cullom, executive director of the
Upper Colorado River Commission. “I mean, it’s just on and on and
on.”
As water interests in the Colorado
River Basin prepare to negotiate a new set of operating
guidelines for the drought-stressed river, Amelia Flores wants
her Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) to be involved in the
discussion. And she wants CRIT seated at the negotiating table
with something invaluable to offer on a river facing steep cuts
in use: its surplus water.
CRIT, whose reservation lands in California and Arizona are
bisected by the Colorado River, has some of the most senior water
rights on the river. But a federal law enacted in the late 1700s,
decades before any southwestern state was established, prevents
most tribes from sending any of its water off its reservation.
The restrictions mean CRIT, which holds the rights to nearly a
quarter of the entire state of Arizona’s yearly allotment of
river water, is missing out on financial gain and the chance to
help its river partners.
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.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand 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 some 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
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.
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
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
marked the first time in U.S. history that more than three states
negotiated an agreement among themselves to apportion the waters
of a stream or river.
The compact is the cornerstone of the “Law of the River” – a
complex set of interstate compacts, federal laws, court decisions
and decrees, contracts and federal actions that regulate use of
the Colorado River.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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 the San
Diego County Water Authority, Coachella Valley Water District,
Imperial Irrigation District and the Metropolitan Water District
of Southern California.
The QSA responded to California consistently using more than its
annual Colorado River entitlement of 4.4 million acre-feet.
Additionally, the water needs of six other Colorado River Basin
states had grown, making the river’s shared use increasingly
crucial.
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.
In 2005, the Interior Department launched a program to recover 27
species in the lower Colorado
River, including seven the federal government has deemed
threatened or endangered or threatened with extinction. The
species include fish, birds, bats, mammals, insects, amphibians,
reptiles, rodents and plants
The Lower Colorado River Multispecies Conservation Program has a
50-year plan to create at least 8,132 acres of new habitat
and restore habitat that has become degraded.
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.
