For the second year in a row, Arizona and Nevada will face cuts in the amount of water they can draw from the Colorado River as the West endures more drought, federal officials announced Tuesday.
The cuts planned for next year will force states to make critical decisions about where to reduce consumption and whether to prioritize growing cities or agricultural areas. Mexico will also face cuts.
Southern California water districts are grappling with what the fallout could look like if supplies from a critical source — the rapidly drying Colorado River — are cut next year.
The US Bureau of Reclamation warned at a U.S. Senate hearing in mid-June that seven western states had 60 days to voluntarily reach a deal: Cut Colorado River water use by 2 to 4 million acre-feet in 2023 or face federally-mandated cuts instead. It’s a massive amount — at least seven times more than Nevada is entitled to in a year.
Aug. 16, 2022 – Sandra L. Kerl, general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s 24-month projection for water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
“Today’s announcement by the Bureau of Reclamation is a reminder of just how important it is to increase water conservation across San Diego County and the rest of the arid West. An increasingly hot and dry climate is creating unprecedented challenges for water supplies that will impact life in the Southwest for the foreseeable future.
“The San Diego County Water Authority continues to participate in discussions about the future of the Colorado River. We also continue to highlight the value of the conserved water transfer agreement between the Water Authority and the Imperial Irrigation District, the cornerstone of the landmark Quantification Settlement Agreement, or QSA, negotiated in 2003, as well as our investments in concrete lining sections of the All-American and Coachella Canals to conserve water previously lost to seepage. Through the QSA, the Water Authority funds critical conservation efforts in the Imperial Valley that provide the San Diego County region 277,700 acre-feet of highly reliable, cost-effective conserved water supplies each year. Further, the QSA enables California to live within its historic 4.4-million-acre-foot annual Colorado River apportionment while providing a roadmap for current efforts to balance the complex economic, agriculture, environmental, most notably the Salton Sea, and water-use needs in the Colorado River Basin.
“The Water Authority has not been asked to make any voluntary reductions to Colorado River water supplied by IID under Reclamation’s call for additional basin-wide conservation. If cuts were deemed mandatory to IID through an official Secretarial declared shortage to Priority 3 water in California, the Water Authority would take a pro-rata reduction of its IID transfer supplies.
“Investments by San Diego County residents in other water sources and storage facilities will continue to shield the region from the worst effects of the drought. At the same time, the potential for mandated water-use reductions should inspire every San Diegan to decrease their water use, for instance, by taking shorter showers, reducing irrigation of decorative grass, and upgrading to efficient appliances.”
— Sandra L. Kerl, General Manager, San Diego County Water Authority
Drought-pummeled lawns across Los Angeles County will be a little bit thirstier for 15 days in September when officials suspend outdoor watering in several areas to repair a leaking pipeline, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California announced Monday.
The emergency repair will shut down the 36-mile Upper Feeder pipeline — which delivers water from the Colorado River to Southern California — from Sept. 6 to 20, the MWD said. The leak was discovered this year, and the pipeline has been operating at reduced capacity under a temporary fix while officials designed a more permanent solution.
The federal government this week will announce the drought forecast for the arid Colorado River Basin, as well as possible cuts western states must make to conserve more water from a supply serving roughly 40 million people.
The Bureau of Reclamation Tuesday will issue its projection for conditions over the next two years in the West’s most important water supply—and the news is expected to be bleak.
Two months ago, federal officials took the unprecedented step of telling the seven states that depend on Colorado River water to prepare for emergency cuts next year to prevent reservoirs from dropping to dangerously low levels.
The states and managers of affected water agencies were told to come up with plans to reduce water use drastically, by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet, by mid-August.
The California water wars of the early twentieth century are summed up in a famous line from the 1974 film Chinatown: “Either you bring the water to L.A., or you bring L.A. to the water.” Nearly a hundred years have elapsed since the events the film dramatizes, but much of the West still approaches water the same way. If you don’t have enough of it, go find more.
As politicians across the West confront the consequences of the climate-fueled Millennium Drought, many of them are heeding the words of Chinatown and trying to bring in outside water through massive capital projects. There are at least half a dozen major water pipeline projects under consideration throughout the region, ranging from ambitious to outlandish. Arizona lawmakers want to build a pipeline from the Mississippi River more than a thousand miles away, a Colorado rancher wants to pipe water 300 miles across the Rockies, and Utah wants to pump even more water out of the already-depleted Lake Powell.
It’s a picture-perfect day in Southern California. The sun is beating down on this Carlsbad beach, where volleyballs hit the sand and surfers paddle out into the waves. Just steps from here, the salty water lapping the shore is being transformed.
This beach neighbors the largest desalination facility in the Western Hemisphere. The Carlsbad Desalination Plant uses a complex web of pipes, tanks and specialized filters to pull salt and impurities out of ocean water, turning it into part of the drinking supply for San Diego County.
Water managers are feeling the crunch of a supply-demand imbalance along the Colorado River. Fresh water reserves are shrinking as climate change squeezes the river that supplies 40 million people and fields of crops across seven states. Some have proposed desalination technology as a way to augment that supply, easing the strain on a river that supplies a growing population from Wyoming to Mexico. Experts say it could be part of the solution, but likely won’t make much of a dent in the region’s water crisis.
At the Carlsbad plant, former seawater poured into a cup from a freshwater spigot. Michelle Peters, technical and compliance manager for plant operator Poseidon Water, held it and took a drink.
“At 10 a.m, the morning surfers were swimming in it off the coast in the ocean here,” she said. “Now it’s high-quality drinking water, ready for consumption.”
The drought continues to grip the west with no signs of letting up.
One of the hardest hit places is the Colorado River, which serves about 40 million people, including right here in the Coachella Valley.
But action is being taken.
California should invest tens of billions of dollars in water recycling, storage and desalination over the next two decades to shore up its supply as the state gets drier and hotter, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a proposal released Thursday.
It comes as drought continues to grip the U.S. West and the state prepares to lose 10% of its water supply by 2040, according to projections by the Department of Water Resources.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
