Some Colorado River tribulations today remind me of a folk story: A young man went to visit his fiancé and found the family trembling and weeping. They pointed to the ceiling, where an axe was embedded in a rafter.
The long-term drought and effects of climate change means more trouble for the millions of people that depend on the Colorado River.
In a statement released in early April, the Arizona Department of Water Resources, and the Central Arizona Project state that they expect the first-ever shortage declaration for the river in 2022, meaning substantial cuts to Arizona’s share of the water supply.
Scientists have few categories at their disposal to describe droughts, which are more complex than mere shortages of precipitation or surface water. For example, some local shortages can be invisible, as when water is transferred into a dry area from a distant source. Other shortages are chronic, with communities continuously requiring more water than is available, even in wet years. Some water shortages occur when water quality becomes so degraded that even though there may be plenty of water available, little of it is usable. With such variation in conditions, scientists need better language to conceptualize droughts.
As yet another season of drought returns to California, the mood has grown increasingly grim across the vast and fertile San Joaquin Valley. Renowned for its bounty of dairies, row crops, grapes, almonds, pistachios and fruit trees, this agricultural heartland is still reeling from the effects of the last punishing drought, which left the region geologically depressed and mentally traumatized. Now, as the valley braces for another dry spell of undetermined duration, some are openly questioning the future of farming here, even as legislative representatives call on Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a drought emergency. Many small, predominantly Latino communities also face the risk of having their wells run dry.
Sonoma County is facing a historic drought after two dry winters and, on Tuesday, county supervisors are expected to proclaim a drought emergency.
“We’re looking, today, at the lowest level our reservoirs have ever been since they were built,” said Brad Sherwood, the spokesman at Sonoma Water.
By the time this column is published, Northern California may be receiving some much-needed rain, and possibly some snow. However, late-season precipitation does not change the reality that California is in one of its periodic droughts after two dry years.
Major Northern California reservoirs are only about half-full due to scanty runoff from mountain snowpacks, farmers are getting tiny percentages of their normal water allotments, and local water agencies are beginning to impose restrictions on household use.
Longtime Bay Area residents are all too familiar with ground-parching droughts, those years when our hills are late turning green and early turning brown. Now it looks like we’ve entered another dry patch barely four years after emerging from the last one — an ominous sign that our meteorological cycles of boom and bust are picking up speed.
The water level of Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, has dropped more than 130 feet since the beginning of 2000, when the lake’s surface lapped at the spillway gates on Hoover Dam.
Twenty-one years later, with the Colorado River consistently yielding less water as the climate has grown warmer and drier, the reservoir near Las Vegas sits at just 39% of capacity. And it’s approaching the threshold of a shortage for the first time since it was filled in the 1930s.
Limited access to clean water remains a struggle for millions of Americans. And lack of water access is expected to become an even greater problem in the coming years across the U.S. and around the world.
Living in California means living with droughts – there’s no getting around it.
The devastating 2014-15 drought resulted in water shortages for our communities, farms and the environment, prompting California’s water leaders and decision-makers to implement early planning, improved collaboration, added conservation measures and new local supply projects to help balance the water needs of people and fish in preparing for the drought that is currently before us.
