Low levels of water threaten the conversations of the Colorado River

After one of the most dry years of the Colorado River for decades, Lake Mid and Lake Powell -the largest reservoirs in the country – could see an alarming fall In the coming years, the US Reclamation Bureau has announced today.

Federal officials again called on Arizona and Nevada to reduce their supplies from the predominant river – although California, with its senior claims to the river water, will be spared.

Although expected, today’s two -year projection is catching up with seven states in the Colorado River pool, which is struggling to agree on the river control after 2026, when the current guidelines expire.

“The emergency of the Seven Colorado River pools to reach an agreement on consensus has never been more clear. We cannot afford to slow down,” said Scott Cameron, a department of the acting water secretary and the science of interior.

Lower Basins-California, Arizona and Nevada-to contradict the Upper Basin States-Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico and they are negotiating about the declining water supply.

“We really look at what the deal is right now. But the more difficult it is, the more difficult it is,” said J. J. Hambby, California’s chief negotiator as chairman of the Colorado River Board in California, in front of Calmatters.

Hambby also directed sharpened words to the upper basic states.

“The future of the Colorado River cannot only rest on our shoulders. We have to ensure that each part of the pool takes responsibility for protecting the future of the river,” he added in a statement.

MitchellColorado Commissioner in the Gorna Colorado River Committee, he has an email: “If the lower pool is able to join us in the adaptation of the dry river, it is probably a consensus of the pool.”

Federal officials have warned that the pool countries should discard the broad arches of an agreement by November 11 or risk the US government to impose its own.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum “doesn’t enjoy it,” Cameron warned At a conference in JuneS “But in the absence of an agreement with seven countries he will do so.”

California bets are high. California takes the largest share of the water on the Colorado River – to a large extent to irrigate half a million acres of alfalfa, winter vegetables and other crops in the imperial valley, as well as to deliver the urban southern California through the capital’s water area. More than half of the force Generated in the Hoover Dam on Lake Meid He goes to California.

Since negotiators are missing from a deal with seven countries, water suppliers in California are also in parallel conversations about how to share a future shortage with each other with Arizona, said Bill Hassenkamp, the manager of the capital’s water area of the Colorado River River.

Putting the water levels in Lake Mid and Lake Powell is making it more difficult, he added.

“Even with all our efforts to make record quantities of conservation, it is not enough yet,” Hassan said. “We have to do even more than we did in dry years.”

River

For more than a century, a collection of transactions, contracts and legal agreements have divided the water into the Colorado River, a vital supply for 40 million people, seven states in the United States and two in Mexico, 30 federally recognized tribal nations and 5.5 million acres of agriculture.

Demand has long exceeded supply and the megadrech that is monitored by the climate up the equivalent of Lake Mid By 2021

Until the summer of 2022, The driest 23-year-old section After more than a century had sent the huge river tanks Stinging to historically low levelsS It was a pool crisis that prompted the Biden administration to summon emergency cuts or face federal intervention.

But even with billions of dollars in federal funding and temporary drought effort Expected to give 3.7 million acres of ft protection of water by the end of 2026, Lake Powell and Lake Mid are Once again immersion about lowS

Negotiating a deal is difficult enough, said Tina Shields, the head of the Imperial Irrigation Department, who receives the largest share of the water on the Colorado River in California. The deteriorating conditions mean “you have to do much earlier than later. It doesn’t make it impossible, but it makes it more challenging.”

The tanks, Each only 31% full, are predicted to remaining At next year levels, which cause an 18% reduction in the total number of Arizona, 7% for Nevada and a 5% reduction for Mexico.

Federal officials today have released many different scenarios for the next two years. The one who Experts say is the most likely shows that another dry year may send Powell Lake to immerse yourself under the levels needed to generate energy by December 2026.

The problem is that since climate change stimulates temperatures higher, thirsty soils drink outflow before reaching the river. Although rainfall reached 80% of the average in the upper pool this year – and the snow package struck 92% of the average at the end of March – spring runoff at Lake Powell was only 41% of normalS

Brad HitA senior scientist for water and climate research at the Colorado Water Institute of State University in Colorado, told Calmatters that the situation is “beyond terrible”.

“I am still optimistic that at the last moment we will take a rabbit out of the hat … Although there are blurry that things are not going that well,” he said.

Now, according to the Trump Administration, a new proposal to allocate a certain percentage of the average river flow to each pool is collected, according to the Hambi, the negotiator in California. According to the proposal, the lower pool and Mexico will receive some still unknown percentage between 55% and 75% of the average stream.

The question to be answered by November is what this percentage should be.

“In our case, it would be an agreement to live at less than we have a right to right,” Hambby said. And the upper pool says, he added, “He may have to do something wild and crazy, such as keeping water sometimes.”

Becky Mitchell in Colorado said water consumers in the upper pool are already reducing their use in the drier years, with a shortage of an average of 1.3 million acre feet a year.

Moving forward with a plan, she said, “It will depend on the specifics.”

If current policies are not updated, they are very likely to reach the tanks Deadpool – the level at which water can no longer be released – at least once In the coming decadesAccording to a recently published study.

“There is a risk of these reservoirs to immerse themselves in lower levels of water that can make them inoperative,” the lead author of the study of the study Benjamin Bass, A researcher at the UCLA Climate Science Center, told Calmatters. “That is why we really have to move from the existing policy to something more strict.”