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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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Lake Powell’s Levels Projected to Drop Below Critical Threshold

/in , , /by /12 News

Lake Powell’s water levels are on the cusp of dropping below a critical benchmark and federal officials don’t expect the reservoir’s supply to be replenished until May.

As of Thursday, the lake’s levels were hovering inches above 3,525 feet, which is the threshold local officials set as the “target elevation” while drafting the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan Agreements.

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Lake Powell’s Water Levels Declining, Officials Worry About Generators and Drought

/in , , /by /ABC 4by Jordan Verdadeiro

3,490 feet is the minimum elevation at which the generators in Lake Powell can run, according to Gene Shawcroft, the general manager for the Central Water Conservancy District and Utah’s Colorado River Commissioner.

He says 3,525 feet was the buffer level, water leaders decided on, to move forward with a plan after witnessing record drought conditions.

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What’s ‘Average’? Snowpack Determines Health of Colorado River, and Our Understanding of It Is Changing

/in , /by /Cronkite Newsby Alex Hager

High in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, under thin air and bluebird skies, the Colorado River Basin is slowly replenishing its savings account. Craggy peaks become smooth walls of white, and snow piles up against conifer trunks, covering even the deepest, darkest corners of the forest in a glimmering blanket.

Snow that accumulates on the western slope of the Rockies eventually becomes water in the Colorado River. Some of it will flow as far south as Mexico, running through kitchen faucets in cities and suburbs along the way, or watering crops that keep America fed.

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