Posts

IID Files Opening Brief in Lawsuit Against MWD

/in , , /by /The Desert Reviewby Betty Miller

Following the Imperial Irrigation District’s recent win on a monumental water case in California’s appellate court against Michael Abatti, the water district is back in court filing the opening brief against the other large water district is Southern California, the Metropolitan Water District.

Last March, MWD took the unprecedented move to cut IID out of intrastate negotiations on the Drought Contingency Plan, promising to pay IID’s water bill to Lake Mead if water elevations shrank to 1,074 feet, triggering California’s response to the drought.

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IID Makes Annual Contribution to Colorado River Board

/in , , /by /Beyond Borders Gazette Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors approved their annual funding contribution to the Colorado River Board at their July 7 meeting.

The board met in their regular session to approve a $661,250 contribution to the Colorado River Board of California’s 2020-2021 budget to help achieve the mission to protect the Colorado River.

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Arizona Starts Talks on Addressing Dwindling Colorado River

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Felicia Fonseca

Arizona is getting a jump start on what will be a yearslong process to address a dwindling but key water source in the U.S. West.

Several states and Mexico rely on the Colorado River for drinking water and growing crops. But climate change, drought and demand have taken a toll on the river that no longer can deliver what was promised in the 1920s.

Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, California, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada have been operating under a set of guidelines approved in 2007. Those guidelines and an overlapping drought contingency plan will expire in 2026.

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A Key Player on Colorado River Issues Seeks to Balance Competing Water Demand’s in the River’s Upper Basin

/in , , /by /Water Education Foundationby Gary Pitzer

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.

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Opinion: Massive Lake Powell Pipeline Project Affects All Utahns, Not Just Washington County

/in , , /by /The Salt Lake Tribuneby Paul Van Dam

People generally think of the Lake Powell Pipeline as a southern Utah project, which it is. But we should not forget that the project, first conceived in 1995 and mandated by the 2006 Lake Powell Pipeline Development Act, would burden all Utahns.

Utah would bond for 50 years or more and Washington County would repay, only slowly, tying up much needed state funds at a time when the our ability to balance the budget will be challenging.

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Western Colorado Water Purchases are Stirring up Worries About the Future of Farming

/in , , /by /KUNC (Greeley, Colorado) and Aspen Journalby Heather Sackett and Luke Runyon

For five years, Zay Lopez tended vegetables, hayfields and cornfields, chickens, and a small flock of sheep here on the western edge of Colorado’s Grand Valley – farming made possible by water from the Colorado River.

Lopez has a passion for agriculture, and for a while, he carved out a niche with his business, The Produce Peddler, trucking veggies seven hours away to a farmers market in Pinedale, Wyoming.

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After 30 Years and $330 Million Spent, Water Agency Shelves Las Vegas Pipeline Plan

/in , , /by /Reno Gazette Journal by Benjamin Spillman

Citing conservation gains and a third straw to the bottom of Lake Mead, the Southern Nevada Water Authority on Thursday voted to shelve a proposal for a multi-billion pipeline that would have moved water from Northern and Eastern Nevada to Las Vegas.

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Questions Simmer About Lake Powell’s Future as Drought, Climate Change Point to a Drier Colorado River Basin

/in , , /by /Water Education Foundation (Western Water)by Gary Pitzer

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.

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Let’s Refill Lakes Mead & Powell Now

/in , , /by /Sustainable Watersby Brian Richter Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

As of Monday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s forecast for this year’s expected water supplies in the Colorado River is at 59% of average. That’s not good news.

If that prediction proves true, this will be one of the driest water years since Lake Powell was constructed nearly 60 years ago. The volume of water stored in Lake Powell each year is affected by three primary factors: the amount of water flowing into the reservoir after ‘Upper Basin‘ water users have extracted water for their use, minus water released from the reservoir to support Lower Basin water users, and minus evaporation from the reservoir itself. Lake Powell will lose – by my estimation — about 22 feet of water this year, or about 2.1 million acre-feet of storage.

At that point, the reservoir will be 60% empty.

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Supercharged by Climate Change, ‘Megadrought’ Points to Drier Future in the West

/in , /by /AZ Centralby Ian James

Since 2000, the West has been stricken by a dry spell so severe that it ranks among the biggest “megadroughts” of the past 1,200 years. But scientists have found that unlike the decades-long droughts of centuries ago, this one has been supercharged by humanity’s heating of the planet.

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