Interior and Bureau of Reclamation officials said levels in Colorado’s two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, remained dangerously low after more than two decades of drought in the Southwest exacerbated by climate change. Lake Mead, behind Hoover Dam on the Arizona-Nevada border, is now about 175 feet lower than it was in 2000, when the Southwest megadrought began. That level triggers agreed cuts in the amounts two of the Lower Basin states, Arizona and Nevada, and Mexico can receive from Lake Mead. The other Lower Basin state, California, is not currently affected, nor are the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico. About 40 million people depend on the Colorado for at least some of their water, and it irrigates more than 5.5 million acres of land. In June, Bureau of Rehabilitation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton had called on the seven states to negotiate and propose much steeper cuts to keep businesses safe. Restoration engineers were particularly concerned that Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam near the Utah-Arizona border, could drop so low that it could no longer generate hydroelectric power, and the dam’s ability to pass any water downstream might to be in danger.
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Since then, talks between the states have progressed slowly, with some of the finger-pointing that has marked western water negotiations for much of the past century. On Tuesday, Ms Tutton said that while “significant progress” had been made in the negotiations, they were “not finished”. “States collectively have not identified and adopted actions of significant magnitude that would stabilize the system,” he said. Ms Tutton had warned in June that if states could not agree, the government would impose cuts on its own. But no unilateral direct cuts were announced on Tuesday. But there is little doubt that additional cuts will come, up to 4 million feet of water, an amount equal to about a third of the river’s current annual flow. The cuts announced Tuesday are relatively small and are in addition to reductions made last year when the government first declared a water shortage in Lake Mead. With the new cuts, Arizona would have to reduce its Colorado consumption by nearly 600,000 acre feet, or 21 percent of its annual allotment. Nevada’s total reductions are now 25,000 acre feet, or about 8 percent of its allotment. Mexico’s cuts total 104,000 acre feet, 7 percent of its allotted supply. In Arizona, the cuts have hit farmers hard in the central part of the state. And when it comes to the steepest cuts Ms Tutton is calling for, agriculture is also expected to be hit hardest. Agriculture uses about three-quarters of Colorado’s supply. Jennifer Pitt, director of the Colorado River program at the National Audubon Society, said there was intense pressure on all stakeholders to come up with a plan for the steep cuts. “The water is not there,” he said. “This is the harsh reality and no amount of politicking can change that.” Climate change has exacerbated the drought and made it less likely that a string of wet years will occur to end it. However, increased water withdrawals as the region’s population has increased and agriculture has increased have also played a role.
