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Things Are Getting Crazy On The Colorado River

/in , /by /The Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard

The Colorado River may not look like it, but it’s one of the world’s largest banks. The river is not only the source of much of the American West’s economic productivity – San Diego, Phoenix and Denver would hardly exist without it – but its water is now the central commodity in a complex accounting system used by major farmers and entire states. Now, when talking about the river, water officials across the West use terms like bank, payback and surplus. Often the analogies to finance don’t stop there – they put money behind deals that dictate who gets water and who does not.

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Arizona Lawmakers Under Pressure To Approve Seven-State Colorado River Drought Plan Before Federal Deadline

/in , /by /The Colorado Sun (Denver)by Jason Blevins

Years of drought planning between the seven Western states that rely on the overtaxed, climate-withered Colorado River comes down to Arizona lawmakers in the next two-and-half weeks. With a federal deadline of Jan. 31 for the states to forge a collaborative Drought Contingency Plan, Arizona remains the lone holdout. The plans for each of the states — California, Arizona and Nevada in the Lower Basin, and Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming in the Upper Basin — outline strategies for reducing demands on the Colorado River before water storage in the already record-low Lake Mead and Lake Powell drop to catastrophically low levels.

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Leading Women In Water, Colorado River Drought And Promising Solutions — Western Water Year In Review

/in , /by /Water Education Foundation (Sacramento)by Douglas E. Beeman

The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges. These were among the topics that Western Waternews explored in 2018. Western Water, the Foundation’s flagship publication, has provided in-depth coverage of significant water resource issues in California and the Southwest for more than 40 years. In 2018, we took Western Water news entirely online to make it more accessible to a broader range of readers.

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Trump’s Rule A Wild Card For Western Water Supplies

/in , /by /E&E News (DC)by Ariel Wittenberg and Jeremy P. Jacobs

The Trump administration’s proposal to limit the Clean Water Act’s reach over wetlands and waterways would likely complicate efforts to protect and manage the parched West’s most important and imperiled source of water. At risk: the Colorado River — water provider for 40 million people and vast swaths of cropland — which is already reeling from a crippling drought and rising water demands. Trump’s proposed waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule would strip federal protections for ephemeral streams that only flow after rain or snow and wetlands without continuous surface water connections to waterways. That’s particularly important in the Colorado River Basin.

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How Best To Share The Disappearing Colorado River

/in , /by /High Country News (Paonia, Colo.)by Paige Blankenbuehler

As early as 2020, hydrologists forecast that the level of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir on the Colorado River, could drop low enough to trigger the first water shortages in its downstream states of Arizona, Nevada and California. The three states in the river’s Lower Basin have long feared shortages. But the continued decline of Lake Mead reflects a reality they can no longer ignore: Demand for the river’s water, which supports 40 million people from Wyoming to California, has long outpaced the supply.

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40 Million Americans Depend On The Colorado River. It’s Drying Up.

/in , /by /Mother Jones (San Francisco)by Eric Holthaus

Prompted by years of drought and mismanagement, a series of urgent multi-state meetings are currently underway in Las Vegas to renegotiate the use of the Colorado River. Seven states and the federal government are close to a deal, with a powerful group of farmers in Arizona being the lone holdouts. The stakes are almost impossibly high: The Colorado River provides water to 1 in 8 Americans, and irrigates 15 percent of the country’s agricultural products. The nearly 40 million people who depend on it live in cities from Los Angeles to Denver.

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Metropolitan Water District approves Colorado River shortage plan

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Tuesday approved a plan for sharing Colorado River delivery cuts if a shortage is declared on the drought-depleted river.

The vote by the district, which imports water to the Southland, represents another step in a years-long attempt to forge a shortage agreement among the seven states that depend on the Colorado for drinking and irrigation supplies.

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7 Southwestern States, Including California, Expected to Miss Deadline on Colorado River Drought Plan

/in , /by /KTLA 5 (Los Angeles)

With drought entering a second decade and reservoirs continuing to shrink, seven Southwestern U.S. states that depend on the overtaxed Colorado River for crop irrigation and drinking water had been expected to ink a crucial share-the-pain contingency plan by the end of 2018. They’re not going to make it — at least not in time for upcoming meetings in Las Vegas involving representatives from Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and the U.S. government, officials say.

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Controversy, Concerns Surround Drought Contingency Plan

/in , /by /Imperial Valley Pressby Richard Montenegro Brown

After four public workshops, the Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors will be asked Monday to approve an agreement that addresses California’s part to save the drought-plagued Colorado River as well as bolster supplies of water to Lake Mead. IID General Manager said staff will recommend the approval of the intra-California drought contingency plan agreement between IID and Metropolitan Water District, but the decision ultimately lies with the board.

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Judge Hears Arguments on DCP Injunction

/in , /by /Imperial Valley Pressby Richard Montenegro Brown

Imperial County Superior Court Judge L. Brooks Anderholt could rule as early as today on whether to grant an injunction that would stop Imperial Irrigation District from taking part in a plan to prevent shortages on the drought-plagued Colorado River. The plaintiff, local farmer Mike Abatti, says a previous ruling by Anderholt that favored Abatti over IID and its equitable distribution plan precludes the district from entering into any new contracts that have to do with water because water rights are tied to the land and are a property right of the agricultural user. That case is currently under appeal by IID.

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