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Colorado River States Agree to Federal Request to Hold Back Water in Lake Powell

/in , , /by /The Nevada Independent by Daniel Rothberg

In a letter sent Friday, the seven states that use the Colorado River agreed with the U.S. Department of Interior and recommended that federal water managers take an emergency action aimed at stabilizing a dwindling Lake Powell, one of the main storage reservoirs on the river.

Earlier this month, federal water managers warned the states, including Nevada, that they were considering an emergency action to hold water back in Lake Powell, an attempt to stabilize the reservoir at serious risk of losing the ability to generate hydropower and deliver water to Page, Arizona, a city with roughly 7,500 residents, and the LeChee Chapter of the Navajo Nation.

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Gary Croucher-Board Chair-San Diego County Water Authority-Primary

Working Together on Water Affordability

/in , /by

After weeks of work, I’m pleased to report that thanks to the improved relationship between the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and the San Diego County Water Authority, along with increased collaboration with other water agencies across Southern California, we helped reduce proposed rate increases to our wholesale water supplies by 7 percentage points over the next two years. This is good news for water ratepayers!

The bottom line is this: Instead of raising wholesale water costs by 17% over the next two years, MWD unanimously adopted consecutive 5% increases. This will allow MWD to cover increasing costs facing every sector of our economy, including our water industry, while limiting the impact on residents and businesses.

Collaboration on water affordability

My thanks to MWD Chairwoman Gloria Gray and MWD General Manager Adel Hagekhalil and their team of dedicated professionals, who heard water agencies’ concerns and presented a lower rate increase proposal that brought the MWD board together. It’s also important to note the role of San Diego County’s delegates, who sit on the MWD Board and played a key role in lowering the costs. These delegates (Lois Fong-Sakai, Gail Goldberg, Marty Miller, and Tim Smith) represent you and worked diligently over several weeks to help gain support from their colleagues for the rate proposal that prevailed.

Water Authority member agencies play key role

I also want to thank the retail water agencies across San Diego County that supported our region’s delegates by sending letters to MWD, including Escondido, Helix, Olivenhain, Otay, Santa Fe, Sweetwater, and Valley Center. It makes a huge difference for the MWD board, which meets in Los Angeles, to see that we are a united region.

Water affordability a priority

Water issues are not simple, and many challenges remain as the Water Authority takes on setting its rates for 2023. We all still face enormous challenges depending on the severity of drought conditions. For example, if Lake Mead water levels continue to drop, the ability to generate hydroelectric power at the Hoover Dam could grind to a halt. The demand and cost of electricity could skyrocket, which could severely affect the cost of water delivery. However, please be assured that your Water Authority Board will continue to make the affordability of water a priority.

(Editor’s note: The Helix Water District, Otay Water District, Olivenhain Municipal Water District, Santa Fe Irrigation District, Sweetwater Authority, Valley Center Municipal Water District, and the City of Escondido, are seven of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the metropolitan San Diego region.)

‘We Woke Up and We Lost Half Our Water’ How Climate Change Sparked a Multistate Battle Over the Colorado River.

/in , , /by /Intelligencerby Kyle Paoletta

The Colorado River’s 1,450-mile run begins amid the snowy pinnacles of the Rocky Mountains and ends in the subtropical waters of the Gulf of California. Over the millions of years the river has been running this course, it has gradually carved through the Southwest’s crimson limestone and shale to create a succession of unimaginably vast canyons: Ruby, Cataract, Marble, and Grand. The writer Marc Reisner described the Colorado as the “American Nile.” The Hualapai call it Hakataya, “the backbone.”

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Colorado River Named the Most Endangered in the U.S. by Conservation Group

/in , , /by /CPR Newsby Michael Elizabeth Sakas

The Colorado River is the epicenter of the nation’s water and climate crisis, according to an annual report from the conservation group American Rivers that ranked the waterway the country’s most endangered.

“The eyes of the world have been on the Colorado for a couple years now as the system has been quite literally crashing,” said Matt Rice, the group’s southwest regional director.

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Does All Snow in the Rockies Turn Into Water for Lake Mead?

/in , , /by /12 Newsby Michael Doudna

Lake Mead mostly relies on snowfall in the Rocky Mountains to refill its water levels.

However, after years of drought and increasing temperatures, is the cycle of snow, runoff, and refill still working?

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How Low Can the Colorado River Go? Drought Forces States to Face Tough Choices About Water

/in , , /by /AZ Centralby Brandon Loomis

Water managers from across the Colorado River Basin are preparing to negotiate new rules for allocating the river’s dwindling flow and sharing the pain of a deepening shortage.

They’re adapting the 100-year-old Colorado River Compact to a river that little resembles the bountiful gusher that negotiators from seven states and the federal government in 1922 thought — or hoped — would bless the Southwest forever. The stakes rise with every foot that Lake Mead and Lake Powell fall, as the states and the water users within them recognize they’re due for a tighter squeeze.

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Opinion: Dangerous Game of Chicken on the Colorado River

/in , , /by /The Salt Lake Tribuneby Kyle Roerink

Seven Western states and their leaders — all depending on water from the Colorado River — remain divided.

Split into basins by an imaginary border at Lees Ferry, Arizona, each state can share blame for the rapid depletion of reservoirs that once held over four years’ flow of the Colorado River. But now, Lake Powell and Lake Mead edge closer to empty. With water savings gone, the Lower Basin has been trying to cope, though the Upper Basin carries on business as usual. Meanwhile, 40 millions Americans depend on flows from this over-diverted river.

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Lake Mead’s Source: How’s the Snowpack in the Rockies?

/in , , /by /3 News Las Vegasby Jeff Gillan

Most of Lake Mead’s water has been on quite the journey. Much of it was born on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains.

How much snow hits the Rockies tells us how much water will come to Lake Mead.

“After a pretty good start to the season, we were looking pretty close to normal, or even slightly above normal, in a lot of areas at the beginning of January,” says Paul Miller with the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, which watches the snow and the river.

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Pinal County Farmers Are the First to Feel the Pain of Colorado River Cuts

/in , , /by /Fronterasby Anthony J. Wallace

Farming is in 30-year-old Jace Miller’s blood.

“I love my job, it’s the greatest way of life,” Miller said. “It’s the best profession in the world, in my opinion.”

His great great grandfather came to Arizona in 1917 and started a farm in Gilbert. Four generations later, Jace is still doing it. But that 100-year run is at risk of ending — Triple M Farms, named for the three Miller generations that work there today — is losing access to its most important resource: water.

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Can Cloud Seeding Help Quench the Thirst of the U.S. West?

/in , , /by /Yale Environment 360by James Dinneen

Not since Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800 A.D. has the American West been so dry. A recent study in Nature Climate Change found the period 2000 to 2021 was the driest 22 years in more than a millennium, attributing a fifth of that anomaly to human-caused climate change. The megadrought has meant more fires, reduced agricultural productivity, and reduced hydropower generation. Last summer, the United States’ two largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell — reached their lowest levels ever, triggering unprecedented cuts in water allocations to Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico.

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