US officials announced Tuesday that two US states that depend on water from the Colorado River will face more water outages as they endure extreme drought.
The move affecting Arizona and Nevada came as officials predicted water levels in Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, would plunge further than they are now. The cuts will put officials in these states under tremendous pressure to plan for a hotter, drier future and population growth. Mexico will also face cuts.
Currently, Lake Mead is less than a quarter full of her water, and across the seven states that depend on it, have announced proposals on plans to reduce additional water next year. missed the federal deadline to do so.
The Colorado River supplies water to her seven states in the western United States and her 40 million people in Mexico, supporting an agricultural industry worth $15 billion annually. Cities and farms in the region are eagerly awaiting official hydrological projections (estimations of future river levels) that will determine the extent and extent of reductions in water supplies.
That's not all. State officials are scrambling to meet a deadline set by the U.S. Rehabilitation Administration to reduce water use by at least 15% to keep river reservoirs level. from falling further.
A combination of forecasts and production cut deadlines is forcing the West to face unprecedented challenges and difficult decisions about how to plan for a drier future.
The Reclamation Bureau is "very focused on getting through this into next year," but cuts will need to be in place longer, says Oxford University hydrologist Kevin Wheeler. Stated.
"What science is doing is maintaining these cuts until we realize that the drought is over or is actually getting worse and the cuts need to go deeper." It is clear that there is a need," he said.
This reduction builds on a plan signed by seven states and Mexico in 2019 to help maintain reservoir levels. Under this plan, the amount of water allocated to each state will depend on the level of Lake Mead. Mandatory cuts in Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico in 2022 are set to come as lake levels drop last year, prompting the federal government to declare water shortages for the first time in the region.
Officials say hydrologists expect the lake's volume to drop even further, with additional cuts coming next year in Nevada, Arizona and Mexico. No reductions are expected in states with high priority water rights.
Twenty-two years of drought, exacerbated by climate change and river abuse, have caused reservoir levels to fall faster than experts predicted for years. Scorching temperatures and less snowmelt in the spring have reduced the amount of water flowing out of the Rockies before the river bends 1,450 miles (2,334 kilometers) southwest and empties into the Gulf of California.
Extraordinary steps have already been taken this year to maintain the waters of Lake Powell, another large reservoir of the Colorado River that straddles the Arizona-Utah border and is located upstream from Lake Mead. It is The lake's water flows through the Glen Canyon Dam, producing enough electricity to power 1-1.5 million homes each year.
After the water level in Lake Powell reached a level low enough to threaten hydroelectric production, federal officials decided to secure another 156 billion gallons or 592 million cubic meters (480,000 acres). feet) said to withhold water. Dams can still produce energy. Its waters usually flow into Lake Mead.
Tuesday's cuts will leave Arizona with slightly more water than it did this year, when 18% of its supply was cut. In 2023, it will lose another 3%, for a total reduction of 21% from its original allocation.
Mexico is expected to lose 7% of her 1.5 million acre-feet it receives from the river each year. It fell about 5% last year. This water is the lifeblood of northern desert cities, including Tijuana, and large-scale agriculture in the Mexicali Valley, just south of California's Imperial Valley border.
Nevada will also lose about 8% of its water supply, but most residents will not feel the effects. Because the state reuses most of the water it uses indoors, it doesn't use all of its allotted water. Last year the state lost 7%.