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Opinion: We Are Just 5 Feet Away From the Possibility of Deeper Water Cuts to Save Lake Mead

/in , /by /Arizona Republic by Joanna Allhands

This is escalating quickly.

The July 24-month study for the Colorado River reservoir system is skirting dangerously close to what might be considered a doomsday provision within the Drought Contingency Plan.

If Lake Mead is projected to fall below 1,030 feet any time within two years, the plan states, Arizona, California and Nevada must reconvene to decide what additional steps they will take to keep Mead from falling below 1,020 feet – an elevation that many consider the crash point. The next milestone below that is “dead pool,” where no water leaves the lake.

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At Shrinking Lake Mead, a New Coalition says Status Quo on Colorado River is Failing

/in , , /by /Arizona Republic by Ian James and Anton L. Delgado

With the concrete towers of Hoover Dam in the background and the depleted waters of the nation’s largest reservoir below, an unlikely group of allies — conservation activists, businesspeople and officials representing cities and farming communities — on Thursday called for halting all plans that would take more water from the shrinking Colorado River.

The 10 people who spoke at the news conference said they’re part of a new coalition demanding a moratorium on new dams and proposed pipelines, including a proposal to transport Colorado River water to sustain urban growth in Utah.

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How Water Rights Work in Colorado — and Why Severe Drought Makes Them Work Differently

/in , , /by /The Colorado Sunby Michael Booth

Whether you’re a kayaker or an angler or a hard-core gardener in Colorado, we get that this water thing is confusing.

If the eastern half of the state is getting plenty of water and the western half is literally burning up, why are we still pumping so much water east over the divide to already-green Front Range communities? Why did Colorado River supervisors at state Parks and Wildlife tell us to stop fishing the river one week, and then say the next week, “No problem, go ahead, we found some water”?

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A Massive Plumbing System Moves Water Across Colorado’s Mountains. But This Year, There’s Less To Go Around

/in , , /by /KUNC / Aspen Public Radio by Alex Hager

High up on Colorado’s Independence Pass, a narrow, winding road weaves through the evergreens and across mountain streams, up and over the Continental Divide at more than 10,000 feet. At one point that road crosses a canal.

It’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it, but that canal is part of water infrastructure that makes life on Colorado’s Front Range possible.

The state has a geographical mismatch between where water shows up and where much of the population has settled.

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Severe Drought Threatens Hoover Dam Reservoir – and Water for US West

/in , , /by /The Guardianby Oliver Milman

Had the formidable white arc of the Hoover Dam never held back the Colorado River, the US west would probably have no Los Angeles or Las Vegas as we know them today. No sprawling food bowl of wheat, alfalfa and corn. No dreams of relocating to live in a tamed desert. The river, and dam, made the west; now the climate crisis threatens to break it.

The situation here is emblematic of a planet slowly, inexorably overheating. And the catastrophic consequences of the extreme weather this brings.

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Amid a Megadrought, Federal Water Shortage Limits Loom for the Colorado River

/in , , /by /NPR

The Colorado River is tapped out.

Another dry year has left the watershed that supplies 40 million people in the Southwest parched. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is pushing the nation’s two largest reservoirs to record lows. For the first time, a shortage is expected to be declared by the federal government this summer.

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After Decades Of Warming And Drying, the Colorado River Struggles to Water the West

/in , , /by /KPBS

A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is pushing the nation’s two largest reservoirs to record lows. For the first time this summer, the federal government will declare a shortage.

 

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The Colorado River is Drying Up Faster Than Federal Officials Can Keep Track. Mandatory Water Cuts are Looming

/in , , /by /The Colorado Sunby Michael Booth

Ablunt new report based on June runoff conditions from the Colorado River into Lake Powell and Lake Mead shows the reservoirs fast deteriorating toward “dead pool” status, where stored water is so low it can’t spin the massive hydroelectric power generators buried in the dams, and large swaths of Arizona farmland going fallow.

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Opinion: San Diegans Don’t Face the Water Woes Seen in Much of the State. But Conserve Anyways

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call for all Californians to reduce their water use by 15 percent amid a severe drought across most of the state won’t be met with the same urgency in San Diego County as elsewhere because of a decades-old effort to diversify water supplies here and because of a new court order.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declined a legal challenge by Imperial Valley farmers that had the potential to threaten the San Diego County Water Authority’s access to Colorado River supplies. This is why San Diego County is being asked to conserve but is not one of 50 counties in the state subject to Newsom’s stricter drought decrees.

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After Decades Of Warming And Drying, the Colorado River Struggles to Water the West

/in , , /by /KUNCby Luke Runyon

The Colorado River is tapped out.

Another dry year has left the waterway that supplies 40 million people in the Southwest parched. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is pushing the nation’s two largest reservoirs to record lows. For the first time this summer, the federal government will declare a shortage.

Climate change is exacerbating the current drought. Warming temperatures are upending how the water cycle functions in the Southwest. The 1,450-mile long river acts as a drinking water supply, a hydroelectric power generator, and an irrigator of crop fields across seven Western states and two in Mexico. Scientists say the only way forward is to rein in demands on the river’s water to match its decline.

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