(Salt Lake City, Utah) — For the second year in a row, Arizona and Nevada will face reductions in the amount of water they can draw from the Colorado River. Extreme drought, federal officials announced Tuesday.
Cuts scheduled for next year will force states to make important decisions about where to cut consumption and whether to prioritize growing cities or agricultural areas.
The cuts will put state officials under renewed pressure to plan for a hotter, drier future and population growth. Mexico will also face cuts.
"We are taking steps to protect his 40 million people whodepend on the Colorado Riverfor their lives and livelihoods," said the Bureau of Reclamation. said Camille Touton, the commissioner of the
The river supplies water to her seven states and Mexico, supporting an agricultural industry worth $15 billion annually. Cities and farms await official estimates of future water levels in rivers, which will determine the extent and extent of water supply cuts.
That's not all. In addition to the cuts already agreed, the Bureau of Reclamation said on Tuesday the state missed a deadline to propose additional cuts of at least 15% needed to prevent water levels in river reservoirs from dropping further.
For example, officials predict a further plunge in water levels in Lake Mead, the country's largest reservoir. The lake is now less than a quarter full.
READ MORE: See how much water has disappeared from Lake Mead in the last 30 years
We haven't collectively identified and adopted specific behaviors on a scale large enough to stabilize the system," Touton said.
After last year's strain on the agricultural industry, Arizona officials must decide whether to cause more pain to the growing city that depends on the river.
Grass Logging is not expected to have any tangible impact in Nevada, which already has some of the region's most aggressive conservation policies in place, including a ban on timber and a rebate program.
The Reclamation Bureau is "very focused on getting through this and carrying it over to next year," but the cuts will likely last longer, according to Oxford University hydrologist Kevin Wheeler.
``What science is doing is realizing that the drought will end, or actually get worse, and the cuts will need to go deeper. It is clear that these cuts need to be maintained until ," he said.
This reduction builds on a plan that seven states and Mexico signed 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 were made in Arizona and Nevada, as well as Mexico in 2022, as lake levels dropped last year and the federal government declared water scarcity for the first time in the region.
Authorities expect lake levels to drop. Next year we will trigger additional cuts to Nevada, Arizona and Mexico. No reductions are expected in states with high priority water rights.
Reservoir levels have been falling for years, faster than experts predicted, due to his 22-year drought exacerbated by climate change and river abuse.
READ MORE: America's clean water crisis extends well beyond Flint.
Scorching temperatures and reduced snowmelt in the spring will reduce the amount of water flowing out of the Rocky Mountains before the river meanders 1,450 miles (2,334 kilometers). decreased) to the southwest and the Gulf of California.
Already extraordinary measures have been taken. It maintains water in Lake Powell, another large reservoir on the Colorado River that straddles the Arizona-Utah border, located upstream from Lake Mead. 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 levels low enough to threaten hydroelectric production, federal officials decided to build another 480,000 acre feet (156 billion gallons or 592 million gallons) to ensure water availability. 10,000 cubic meters) of water will be withheld. Dams can still produce energy. Its waters usually flow into Lake Mead.
Tuesday's cuts will cause Arizona to lose slightly more water than this year, when supplies were cut by 18%. In 2023, it will lose another 3%, for a total reduction of 21% from its original allocation.
Mexico loses 7% of her 1. We receive 5 million acre feet 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%.
Naishadham reported from Washington.
AP is supported by The Walton Family Foundation for reporting on water and environmental policy. AP is solely responsible for all content. For full AP environmental protection coverage, visithttps://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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