Tag Archive for: Colorado River Basin

Could the Colorado River Compact Adapt to Go With the Flow?

/in , , /by /E&E Newsby Jennifer Yachnin

Dwindling flows in the Colorado River Basin are stirring discussions about whether a 100-year-old agreement that governs how that water is divided needs to be overhauled. But there may be another option: don’t rewrite the law, instead reinterpret it.

Despite its status as the cornerstone of the “Law of the River” — the various agreements that dictate how the water is managed between seven basin states and Mexico — some key provisions in the Colorado River Compact remain unsettled.

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La Niña Lives! — And That’s Bad News

/in , , /by /Discover Magazineby Tom Yulsman

For two winters in a row, La Niña has steered desperately needed rain and snow storms away from the U.S. Southwest, exacerbating a decades-long drought that has shriveled reservoirs and spurred horrific wildfires.

Now, hopes that the climate pattern would relent and allow moisture to rebound next winter have suffered a serious blow.

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Tucson Votes to Give Up Some of its CAP water to Help Save Lake Mead

/in , , /by /KOLD News 13by Bud Foster

The Tucson City Council voted unanimously to give back about a third of its Central Arizona Project water allocation to help an ailing Lake Mead.

The lake, hit hard by a prolonged drought, is at 31% capacity and dropping. It provides water for 20 million people in Arizona, California and Nevada as well as large swaths of farmland.

“I feel that the city of Tucson is in a position where we can add water back to the lake, specifically Lake Mead,” said Tucson Mayor Regina Romero before the vote.

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IID Board Initiates Process to Develop, Implement Revised Plan to Manage Water Supply

/in , , /by /The Desert Review

In light of the current conditions affecting the Colorado River Basin, the Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors has initiated an accelerated process to develop a plan to manage its annual water supply by apportioning it among all categories of water users.

Referred to as the revised Equitable Distribution Plan, the intent is for the plan to be effective by July 1, 2022 and retroactive to January 1 of this year. The revised plan is being developed by the district in consultation with the board’s Colorado River committee.

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California Urban Water Use Rose 19% in March Despite Worsening Drought

/in , , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Jamie Ding

Despite official calls to increase conservation amid worsening drought, urban water use across California increased by nearly 19% in March, according to the State Water Resources Control Board.

The startling conservation figure was among a number of grim assessments water officials offered reporters Tuesday in a California drought outlook. Others included critically low reservoir levels and major shifts in the water cycle due to climate change.

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La Niña Likely to Continue, Intensifying Drought, Wildfires; Snowpack Hits 91% of Average

/in , /by /Water Education Coloradoby Jerd Smith

As warm spring winds whip the Eastern Plains, sapping soils of moisture, and the state’s reservoirs sit at below-average levels, water managers got more bad news Tuesday: this two-year drought cycle could continue through the summer and into the fall leading the state into its third year of below-average snowpack and streamflows and high wildfire danger.

Looking ahead the weather pattern known as La Niña, which has created the intense drought of the past two years, is likely to continue, according to Peter Goble, a climate specialist with Colorado State University’s Colorado Climate Center.

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Interior Department May Limit Lake Powell Water Releases to Protect Infrastructure, Hydropower Production

/in , , /by /The Colorado Sunby Chris Outcalt

In an effort to protect the infrastructure at Lake Powell and the ability of Glen Canyon Dam to generate electricity, the U.S. Department of the Interior may keep nearly a half million acre-feet of water in the Utah reservoir instead of releasing that water to the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada this year as scheduled.

Although it’s not clear the Department of Interior proposal would have any immediate impact on Colorado, it highlights the challenges of balancing a system relied on by 40 million people that has been taxed by water users and climate change. It’s also a reminder of the dire assessment of water in the West amid the driest two-decade stretch in the past 1,200 years.

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The Colorado River Basin Looks to Be Locking in Another Dry Year

/in , , /by /The Colorado Sunby Chris Outcalt and Margaret Fleming

The Colorado River Basin looks to be headed for a third straight dry year, according to the April report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.

Although the weather in March was more active than it was in January and February, it continued a trend of either below or well-below normal precipitation across much of the Colorado River Basin, according to Brenda Alcorn, a hydrologist at the NOAA forecast center.

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Colorado Hits a “Hard Pause” on Water Demand Management as It Waits for Other States to Catch Up

/in , , /by /The Colorado Sunby Chris Outcalt

Colorado is taking a “hard pause” on investigating the viability of demand management, a program that would allow the state to pay water users to temporarily and voluntarily conserve water and store what’s saved in Lake Powell for future use.

“No more energy spent on this right now,” Colorado Water Conservation Board chair Jaclyn Brown said this week. “Until the facts change; until someone brings us new information.”

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How Low Can the Colorado River Go? Drought Forces States to Face Tough Choices About Water

/in , , /by /AZ Centralby Brandon Loomis

Water managers from across the Colorado River Basin are preparing to negotiate new rules for allocating the river’s dwindling flow and sharing the pain of a deepening shortage.

They’re adapting the 100-year-old Colorado River Compact to a river that little resembles the bountiful gusher that negotiators from seven states and the federal government in 1922 thought — or hoped — would bless the Southwest forever. The stakes rise with every foot that Lake Mead and Lake Powell fall, as the states and the water users within them recognize they’re due for a tighter squeeze.

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