Phoenix is planning to dip into its emergency water bank as a result.
Posted by Leslie Eastman
Federal officials are ordering the West to live within the limits of a Colorado River system drained by decades of over-allocation, drought, and policy delay.
California, Nevada, and Arizona allocations will be cut a combined 1.25 million acre-feet annually for the next two years, while the upstream states evade mandatory reductions for now.
Arizona will see the biggest cuts, while states upstream — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico — do not face any for now.
Meanwhile neighboring Mexico will reduce its intake by 250,000 acre-feet (about 310 million cubic meters) under a U.S.-Mexico treaty.
“We’ve been in this 26-year prolonged drought period,” said Andrea Travnicek, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for water and science. “We continue to see a prolonged drought in our future. So continuing to work together as a whole within the basin is going to be extremely important.”
The current rules governing the use of the river’s water are set to expire in October, and the seven states have been unable to reach a consensus on sharing it over the long term.
Arizona will see the largest cuts, with annual water deliveries reduced by 31%. As a result, the city of Phoenix is planning to dip into its emergency water bank.
Arizona’s large cut results from agreements and court fights over water rights more than 100 years ago.
The result was that Arizona got the lowest priority for Colorado water in times of shortages, and California the highest priority. That’s what the state is living with today.
The City of Phoenix has been preparing for this day.
The city’s plan starts with dipping into an emergency water bank for the first time since its creation more than 35 years ago.
The cuts could significantly affect Nevada, which has been enjoying robust real estate development as Californians flee the Golden State.
In Southern Nevada, Kyle Roerink, senior adviser at the conservation group Great Basin Water Network, said efforts to build a new airport and shopping malls and some public land sales have not progressed, reflecting the dire hydrology inked in the federal documents. Further cuts could slow real estate development in metro Las Vegas, he said.
River water levels are so low that hydropower plants may no longer generate power.
The river’s health often is determined by how much water is in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two largest human-made reservoirs in the U.S. Together, the reservoirs are at their lowest point since they began filling, according to a recent paper by Colorado River experts, and approaching levels where they could no longer produce hydropower.
Hoover Dam could lose the ability to generate hydropower if Lake Mead falls below its minimum power pool, reported as roughly 950 feet above sea level. At lower elevations, there is not enough usable water intake to operate the turbines.
It gives a whole new meaning to “Deadpool“.
The minimum level to generate power is 950 feet, and if the level drops to 895 feet, then that’s the dreaded Deadpool.
Deadpool is the point when water can no longer flow downstream from the dam, and if that happens, then the system as we know it fails.
Lake Mead’s reported water-surface elevation is 1,039 feet above sea level, about 190 feet below full pool and approximately 27% full.
Even though this plan is final, the threat of litigation looms.
Tribes, states or other groups are now able to sue Reclamation over its final plan, and could argue that the agency erred in how it conducted its environmental review.
Some tribes, like the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) in Arizona, have indicated that drastic federal water cuts could force a lawsuit. Many tribes in the basin also have water rights on paper that have never been fully realized.
GRIC Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said that while litigation is certainly not the community’s first choice, it is an option.
“The community … will not hesitate to turn to the courts to protect our interests and our future,” he said at a CU-Boulder water conference in June.
Perhaps the anticipated historic El Niño will bring the Southwest the rain and mountain snowpack needed to offer the Colorado River system some breathing room.
But precipitation alone will not solve a crisis worsened by decades of over-allocation, political procrastination, and an aversion to building the reservoirs, recharge projects, and other infrastructure needed to capture water when it actually arrives.
The real test will be whether Western leaders can move beyond emergency rationing and litigation long enough to prepare for both the next wet cycle and the inevitable dry one.
Finally, and as a much needed reminder, severe droughts have occurred periodically in this region of the US….long before Henry Ford invented the car.
It’s going to be Godzilla wet this winter, I bet.
The last 3 ‘major’ El Niños produced variable results. Two produced good Colorado basin runoff. One did not. So the coming ‘super’ one is still a water crapshoot.
I just had to do some work on the carburetor of my snow blower, purchased a $1 o-ring at McGuckins and threw away the breather tube which was rotted. I hope this didn’t jinx our ski season.
If I get weatherbell.coms free sat. summary right , this El Nino is weakening quite a lot.
That’s right, Mr S.-O.-Bob, JB has pointed directly to a travesty of failed ENSO metrics (‘measures’), the latest attempted ‘fix’ denoted by ‘rONI’ (relative Oceanic Niño Index).
Meanwhile, the actual SST in the key zone (‘3.4’) has been stuck at 29 & 2/5 degrees Celsius for ~ 12 weeks, the same period when every forecast seemed to predict a major increase.
Not recognizing any upper bound (@ur momisugly ~ +30 Celsius / ~ 86 Fahrenheit) for oceanic sea-surface temperatures has led them directly into a knockout punch, deliverable quite soon (by mid-Winter). Regardless whether ‘Scissor’ gets his ‘Godzilla – Wet Winter’ ski season.
Now they’re backpedalling faster than Wile E Coyote’s animated suspension routine.
Generations-to-come will learn from this colossal fiasco.
Please write on this again soon, or by next Sunday (after weatherbell.com‘s free Saturday Evening Post).
While true that the present multiyear relative drought is a contributing factor, it is not the main problem. When Glen Canyon dam was completed in 1964, the combined populations of metro Phoenix and metro Las Vegas was about 825k. It is now about 7.8 million. That is the main problem. Even if future growth in both was forcibly halted, it is agriculture (despite senior water rights) that will predictably suffer.
When the flood-season next returns, the armchair experts like RI will be pointing out that “the main problem” is that the authorities failed to raise the dams sufficiently to store all the excess snowmelt / runoff.
And that’s why longtime residents of the Intermountain West pay no attention whatsoever to Wisconsin Dairy Farmers or Florida retirees.
————
Here’s a little prediction for what will happen if the Fed Intervention goes as described above. Farms & communities will relocate (from AZ/NV) across state lines to St-George (Utah), in order to take advantage of the expanded aqueduct bringing Lake Powell water over to the upper Virgin River valley (Zion Canyon / Washington County). They’ve already built an Airport there to serve a metropolis 2-million strong. Said Airport straddles the AZ-UT border & is an easy drive from the Vegas metroplex.
————
Immediate relief from the present SNAFU could be obtained by cutting off Southern California (30 millions of people) from AZ-NV-UT-generated hydroelectric power and from the long-distance canals serving their otherwise dry-as-Death-Valley farmlands. Let lowland California desalinate ocean water (Pacific / Sea of Cortez), just like they do in Israel and the Persian / Arabian Gulf States.
Your comment is a bit harsh. Most here respect and value RI’s thoughts and insights.
With regard to desalination, California has 12 operational seawater facilities along its coast, alongside numerous brackish groundwater desalination plants located further inland.
Thanks for the pro-tip, Dr. Scissor of NCAR (Boulder CO), where your demented neighbors are pretty-much-equally-clueless about the backside of their beloved Front Range.
But … he’s been warned manifold-repeatedly on this very same topic.
[There’s a reason Wm. Shakespeare (never) wrote, ‘First we’ll kill all the Lawyers’]
He keeps returning to his sick misanthropic ‘depopulate the IM-West’ like a dog to his vomit.
Or, more diplomatically, A little learning is a most dangerous thing.
Just look at the numbers (population gain over past ~ half-century):
Phoenix-Tucson & Vegas-Metroplex: + 7 millions
So-Cal (San Diego, Orange, LA-Ventura+): +20 millions
Given these factoids, wherein lies the Problem?
Next up, let’s talk NAWAPA, or how the Intermountain West, from Sonora up to British Columbia, will crush both Coastal Californicators & your Rockies-Front-Range death cultists.
I have an idea. Lets just open the border even more and invite tens of millions of new consumers into that area of the country. (Cloward/Piven)
That will happen if the certifiably insane DEMwits get back in and squat on our country again. They have already said that would happen. November counts too. Signed, former, never again DEMwit.
Doesn’t California have several desal plants operating and in construction?
I wonder if they will get to the stage of recycling waste water.. that’s always fun for politicians 😉
California already does. By 2030, wastewater reuse is projected to be about 800,000 acre feet. Of course, all non potable uses—watering parks, golf courses, ag (almonds, citrus, plums, not produce), and industrial cooling. Buildout requires a separate water distribution system, so is highly dependent locally.
Injecting directly into groundwater aquifers for replenishment is very controversial, so not yet done. Those aquifers usually supply both ag and local potable water.
Sounds very much like Perth water system….
They had the option of injecting treated water into their aquifers, while cheaper, it was politically unviable, so they are expanding two of their de-sal plants and building a couple more.
Parts of Sydney use “recycled” water for parks and garden, using “with-holding” periods of locked games etc after watering..
… but the big one is in western Sydney where treated waste-water is used to supplement the environmental flows down the Hawkesbury River, thus saving water releases from Warragamba Dam.
typo… “locked
games” => “locked gates”“ By 2030, wastewater reuse is projected to be about 800,000 acre feet. Of course, all non potable uses”
What’s to prevent them from treating the wastewater discharge to the point where it is potable? Too expensive? It would sound like a crappy idea to the public? (no pun intended … sort of 😎 )
I think part of the problem was the high pressure dome over the west particularly New Mexico and Colorado this last winter. I saw a high temperature in the winter of 90F. That certainly caused a lot less moisture in the form of rain and snow. The Rio Grande river is very dry, the only water in the conservancy canal. If the El Nino produces a significant amount of moisture then things will improve. Of course the underlying problem of water use because of much greater population growth in major metropolitan will continue to stress available resources.
Back in the 80s in Los Angeles I had a patient who was a big wig with the Metropolitan Water District. He told me the politics was unbelievable particularly between northern Calif and southern Calif since the north supplied much of LAs water. Not much has changed!
“Finally, and as a much needed reminder, severe droughts have occurred periodically in this region of the US….long before Henry Ford invented the car.”
I have to assume that was meant tongue-in-cheek.
About that Inside Climate News post on X which Matthew Wielicki re-posted –
” Scientists published today the world’s first climate attribution study to link major fossil fuel emitters’ emissions to water loss in the Western U.S. Almost half of decreased snowpack and streamflow in the region, they found, is attributable to 122 oil, gas and cement producers.”
They are NOT going to stop with this nonsense without a knock-down, drag-out fight (figuratively!). In my view, skeptics of climate alarm have been giving up the high ground for a long time by conceding the primary attribution of *some* of the reported “warming” to emissions of CO2. NO ONE KNOWS that the CO2 emissions from oil, gas, and cement producers have had ANY perceptible influence on ANY climate variable. An inference from spectral details does not suffice for positive attribution.
The IPCC/CMIP models tell you NOTHING of value about incremental CO2 because of the rapid buildup of uncertainty in the time-stepped iteration.
ERA5 tells you that the “warming” tendency (say 4 W/m^2) of even 2XCO2 is vanishingly weak within the general circulation, as the dynamic range of energy conversion (in W/m^2) is thousands of times greater in both directions.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1knv0YdUyIgyR9Mwk3jGJwccIGHv38J33/view?usp=sharing
Thank you for your patient attention to these matters.
Correct on all counts!
The President (DJT) has recently re-posted the timeless video (from 30th of October 1974 A.D.) of the final half-minute of the bout Ali-Foreman.
(That’s 1/48th of the sum-total 24-minute 8th-round-KO-match)
Watch it closely, in order to comprehend that (in DJT’s view) —
This where we are right now,
… after ~ 47 years of Misfortune,
… it’s finally the moment (this year) to take out the trash.
May the gods save us all,
yours sincerely
— RLW
All natural resources have a limit. It is foolish to not recognize those limits and utterly stupid to know about them and act like they aren’t there. With a little due diligence and common sense we should be able to get a handle on this problem and figure out a usable guide for how much we can take from the Colorado river system.
We already have an interim federally imposed answer for present conditions—about a third less than now. The problem is that makes Nevada, Arizona, and California voters VERY unhappy. Bad news, they are partly legitimate voters. Good news, they mostly voted for Harris in 2024, so doesn’t really matter.
Not imposed equally across the 3 states.
Next elections dont have Harris but Senate and HR seats ups for grabs.
15 republican houses in those states up for election . So sad for them
Arizona27% CutFaces the steepest mandatory reduction; heavily impacts agricultural water allocations.
Nevada16% CutPrimarily managed through aggressive municipal recycling and indoor conservation.
California10% CutLower reduction percentage due to senior water rights, but represents a large volumetric loss.
So if the Dems pick up seats, they’ll solve the problem by having rain dances?
No, the problems will be blamed on Trump, and then the Dems will raise taxes and also come up with some super-dooper totally non-functional solution that will make money for the Dems and screw everybody else.
Dear Duker,
They can’t hear you;
they can’t read or comprehend what you’re showing them;
they can’t follow your arithmetic.
Just ignore them or put them out to (cow-) pasture
Maybe we should think about limiting population growth in the arid southwest. Nobody talks about that.
Without water, that will eventually happen all by itself.
Factoid. The last major California water reservoir, New Melones, was completed in 1979. That year, the California population was about 22.3 million. It is now about 39.4 million. Cut California off completely from the Colorado and let them deal with the consequences of their own stupidity.
It was their importation of non-native striped bass for sport fishing that caused the functional extinction of the delta smelt in 2018. They still waste lots of water on an inconsequential fish that no longer exists in the wild.
A Sacramento Delta fish isnt affected by Colorado river water
Since 1980 , Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Utah, Texas, and Idaho have far outpaced it in percentage growth
Anyway a lot of the water is for agriculture for the whole nation . Since 1980 LA has reduced its per capita use by 25%
Some urban water districts by much less
How much does LA use for hosing down the sidewalks.. or don’t they bother ?
Duker, actually it is, albeit indirectly. California has a water system that sends ‘winter’ water from the north where it is seasonally abundant to the south where it isn’t. The Sacramento delta smelt water release could be conserved and sent south via the existing water distribution system. Southern California is where Colorado water is otherwise consumed.
Florida will drown, & Wisconsin will be km-deep under glacier, before Tucson et al. succumbs to drought.
Really, a man’s gotta know his own limitations.
https://www.chemistry.ucla.edu/directory/whetten-robert-l/
this you ??
Dear SOB,
Pleased to see your question. Unlike the many Anonyms posting here, I am always, only & publicly, none other than me, myself & I. With my best wishes to whomever you are,
— Rob Whetten
Oh contraire, mon frere!
That’s all they wanna talk about.
Let’s limit your own population first …
… then you’ll have some ground (6′ under) for limiting someone else’s.
If water is scarce, the price will have to go way up until supply meets demand. That should help keep population down- especially now that we have a real border to Mexico.
However, Gov. Hobbs uses her crystal ball to determine that the drought will end yesterday.
[“long before Henry Ford invented the car.“]
Henry Ford didn’t invent the car …
1st self-powered road vehicle was Nicolas Joseph Cugnot’s in 1769;
1801 – Richard Trevithick’s ‘Puffing Devil’.
1807 – Francois Isaac de Rivaz of Switzerland invented the first internal combustion-powered automobile (Hydrogen ).
1885 – Karl Benz Tricycle;
1888- the first electric car Andreas Flocken’s ‘Elektrowagen’
1896 – the Ford Quadricycle;
but Ford revolutionised the way cars are built.
Columbus wasn’t the first to ‘Discover America’.
Rather he was that last one to do so.
Even so, Henry Ford was indeed the last to ‘Invent an Automobile.’
Columbus was the most important one to discover America. History always teaches that it doesn’t matter who got there first, but who is there now.
Yeah,yeah-so what?
I’ve been alive long enough to know that “Western leaders” don’t procrastinate just because of sheer incompetence, they wait for something to turn into full calamity and become a Federal Crisis Emergency where the “engineers” (like climate “scientists”) can claim that it will cost 10x what it would in reality cost to remedy. The 90% of waste going in to grift, new programs, shoring up looted state treasuries and pension funds.
Its easier to get Congress to write blank checks when the threat to human life and liberty are real—not because they care about human life and liberty, they don’t, that is why they let it get to crisis levels first so that the public is screaming for Congress to “DO SOMETHING” and something they most certainly will do.
The people of Arizona need to invest more in rain water harvesting. The short monsoon period puts about 11 inches of rain down on the surface in Tucson each year, much of which is going into storm drains. That needs to be captured as much as possible. A 3000 square foot roof can capture ~ 21,000 gallons. [ 7.4 gal / ft ^3].
I wonder what % of all the water used by households is to flush toilets? I bet it’s a high %. There must be a better way than flushing 2-3 gallons every time you flush. And, I should hope none of that Colorado River water ends up in swimming pools.
The Colorado River basin is over consumed because the consumers are getting dishonest and unrealistic price signals.
That, of course, is the hallmark of socialistic and communistic pricing schemes – shortages.
Agricultural water (52%) is $50 to $200 per Acre Foot (43,560 cf)
Municipal & Industrial water (18%) is $500 to $1,000 per AF.
Water at my house in July – $3,560 per AF. ($110/1,345 cf)
‘nuff said.
Yeah, it’s data & math. Give it a shot.
I’d say boost agricultural $/AF by 50% and run for high ground.
Less water means less alfalfa, less cattle and then you useless MSM hacks can whine about the price of beef.
And don’t give me any grief about my blue grass lawn. I paid for it.
Why am I downlisted??
I have actual numbers!
How much of the crisis is due to the unprecedented demand due to unfettered population growth? After all, it IS a massive desert.
Meanwhile, step away from the law-farers in order to check what is actually happening now in the Grand Canyon of the Rio Colorado (gorge):
https://ktar.com/arizona-news/15-missing-grand-canyon-flash-flooding
The dire threat in this — as in other ‘desert southwest’ waterways — has always been flooding, not drought … the latter being essentially a man-made condition of hydrological ignorance.
Q.E.D.
California should have the ability to provide its own water through desalination. Their acre-footage rights of prior appropriation on the Colorado could be sold upriver to the three other needy inland states. San Diego now imports only 5% of its water from the Colorado River, managing to provide the other 95% of the city’s needs through desalination and sell their prior allotment to Nevada, Arizona and Utah. Many states upriver can both finance the system build-outs and fund their operation. This seems like the best business solution to the Colorado River problem, so long as reverse osmosis desalination can be powered at reasonable rates and brine salt removed before water is re-injected into the sea. I would propose that small-scale dedicated nuclear energy sources of the type referenced a few weeks ago here could be used. Can Californians be trained to say the words “water” and “nuclear” in the same sentence without choking on their kale salads?