Colorado River Archives

Opinion: Concerning the Colorado River

June 3, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Pagosa Daily Post (Pagosa Springs, Colorado)by J.B. Hamby

My name is JB Hamby and I am a general election candidate for the Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors and fourth-generation resident of the Imperial Valley.

I read Mr. Hudson’s op-ed, “Clean Drinking Water, Considered, Part Five” and share much of his skepticism regarding the conversation happening along the Colorado River, its tributaries, and the special interests that surround it.

However, I did want to reach out and share some concerns with a few points raised in the editorial — specifically the comments on Imperial Valley.

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

June 3, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /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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New Front Opens in the Fight Over the Lake Powell Pipeline

June 2, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /The Salt Lake Tribuneby Brian Maffly

The water rights behind the proposed Lake Powell pipeline are not actually coming from the project’s namesake lake, but rather from the major reservoir upstream on the Green River.

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

May 22, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /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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One Planet: How Climate Change is Fueling Megadroughts in the Western US

May 20, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /KALW San Franciscoby Rose Aguilar and Malihe Razazan

On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’re discussing a new study from Columbia University about an emerging climate-driven megadrought in the Western US.

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Complex Dynamics of Water Shortages Highlighted in Study

May 19, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Cornell Chronicleby Syl Kacapyr

Within the Colorado River basin, management laws dictate how water is allocated to farms, businesses and homes. Those laws, along with changing climate patterns and demand for water, form a complex dynamic that has made it difficult to predict who will be hardest hit by drought.

Cornell engineers have used advanced modeling to simulate more than 1 million potential futures – a technique known as scenario discovery – to assess how stakeholders who rely on the Colorado River might be uniquely affected by changes in climate and demand as a result of management practices and other factors.

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Looming Drought Concerns Arizona Water Group

May 19, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Western FarmPressby Lee Allen

The Agribusiness and Water Council of Arizona likes to say it represents Arizona agriculture “from ditch bank to dinner plate” indicative of the fact that its members range from farmers and ranchers to irrigation groups and trade associations — all of them concerned about water flow along the 1,450-mile-long Colorado River.

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

May 15, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /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

May 14, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /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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Opinion: Here’s How Less than 10% of Farmland Could Solve the Colorado River’s Water Deficit

May 12, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /Arizona Centralby Bruce Babbitt

It is no exaggeration to say that a mega-drought not seen in 500 years has descended on the seven Colorado River Basin states: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California. That’s what the science shows, and that’s what the region faces.

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