With water levels in the Colorado River near its lowest point ever, Arizona and Nevada on Tuesday faced new restrictions on how much water they can pump out of the river, the most important in the Southwest.
And the threat of more cuts is present. This week, those two states, along with five others, failed to reach an agreement deadline to cut more water use, raising the prospect that the federal government would step in and demand more cuts. .
Colorado, which provides water to 40 million people in the United States and Mexico and supports billions of dollars in agricultural production across the region, is in the grip of a two-decade drought made worse by climate change. post-caused. At the river’s two huge reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the water level is only 28% of its total capacity due to reduced river flows and increased demand.
As the water crisis intensified last year, the federal government imposed restrictions for the first time about the amount of water you can drink. Tuesday’s cuts were smaller than booked a year ago and also affect Mexico. And they will be constrained by much larger cuts that the federal government in June asked states to negotiate among themselves and threatened to impose. if the states fail to reach an agreement.
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Officials said the big cut – involving 20 to 40 times more water than Tuesday – would be needed next year to protect the reservoirs and dams that create them and to stabilize the water supply. Engineers point out that if water levels continue to fall, the Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell near the Arizona-Utah border will eventually no longer be able to produce hydroelectricity.
Camille Camlimlim Touton, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that has the authority to apply the reduction measures, told a news conference: “Generally speaking, the states have not identified and through actions that are critical to system stability.
Negotiations between the seven nations have been slow, marked by the kind of finger-pointing that has featured complicated negotiations over Western water rights for most of the past century. John Entsminger, superintendent of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, in a letter to Ms. Touton and other officials this week, said that despite the apparent emergency, the negotiations have produced “There is nothing exactly about collective action that makes sense to help stop the looming crisis. ”
In an interview following Tuesday’s announcement, Mr. Entsminger said that the Bureau of Reclamation appeared to be encouraging countries to continue negotiations. “But they’re also starting to take steps to bring the tools together that they say they need to impose those cuts,” he said.
Jennifer Pitt, director of the Colorado River program at the National Audubon Society, said there was tremendous pressure on all stakeholders to come up with a plan for drastic cuts. “The water is not there,” she said. “It’s a rock-cold reality, and there’s no way politics can change that.”
Tuesday the announcement of the cuts was triggered by the fact that Lake Mead, the vast reservoir behind the Hoover Dam on the Arizona-Nevada border, is now about 175 feet lower than it was in 2000, when it is now. Southwest droughtN.
Combined with the larger cuts introduced last year, the new cuts mean Arizona will access 21% less water annually, compared to its previous allocation. Nevada’s total cut is now about 8% of its allocation. Mexico’s Total Cuts 7 percent of its allotted supply.
Mr. Entsminger said that conservation measures have been taken in Las Vegas and surrounding cities, including recent ban on submerged grass serves no purpose other than decoration, will allow people to pass new cuts.
In Arizona, the cuts so far have largely affected farmers in the central part of the state, who have had to abandon fields or switch to less water-intensive crops. Some farmers have left the business altogether.
When it comes to the drastic reductions Ms. Touton calls for, farmers will also be hit the most. Agriculture uses about three-quarters of Colorado’s supplies.
During discussions about the cuts, some agricultural groups floated the idea of farmers being compensated for taking some of their land out of production to save water. There is a sum in the recently signed Inflation Reduction Act that could potentially be used for such a program.
The call for stronger cuts reflects deep concerns within the Bureau of Reclamation about its ability to maintain safe operations and generate hydroelectricity, as flows into Colorado continue to decline.
Losing a steady supply of electricity from the Glen Canyon Dam could make the Western grid less stable. And the dam’s ability to cross any water downstream could be at risk.
Mr. Entsminger said that despite the dire situation, he thought an agreement between the countries to resolve the crisis remained unlikely. “I feel like we haven’t reached the point where everyone who uses river water accepts that everyone has to be part of this solution,” he said.
Ms. Pitt said that if the states go back to office in a month or two with the cuts, “the federal government, I’m sure, would be happy to do that because there’s no leader to be.” who wants to be in charge of deciding who won’t take the water.”
