What is the Colorado River? Under existing Colorado River agreements, that condition means starting next year, Nevada will have its water allotment cut by 25,000 acre-feet (8 percent). Touton and two top Interior Department officials are scheduled to address the conference on Friday. [1/3]An aerial view of Lake Powell is seen, where water levels have declined dramatically as growing demand for water and climate change shrink the Colorado River in Page, Arizona, U.S., November 19, 2022. ", The All-American Canal carries water from the Imperial Dam, on the Colorado River near Yuma, Ariz., to a series of smaller distribution canals in the Imperial Valley. An acre-foot (1,233 cubic meters) of water is generally considered enough to supply two urban households per year. In the last 20 years, tensions over increasingly scarce Colorado River water supplies have been rising in step with climate change and global temperatures. But Mr. Eklund denies that the firm is flipping water rights. Their legal rights won't do much good if there's no more water arriving from Lake Mead. "If you get to a point where you're at dead pool, you have nothing at all. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. List of United States electric companies - Wikipedia A combination of chronic water overuse and historic drought conditions are creating chaos. Today it is 28% full. Greenstone then moved to sell the water to one of the right places: Queen Creek, a fast-growing suburb of Phoenix 175 miles away, full of tract houses and backyard pools. (AP Photo/John Locher, File), determine how to use at least 15% less water, restricting the planting of decorative lawns, Trump PAC Complaint Against DeSantis Rejected in Florida, North Carolina AG Urges Public Safety, Law Enforcement Bills, 7 Bodies Found During Search for Missing Oklahoma Teens. Running southwest from the Rocky Mountains to Mexicos Gulf of California, the river runs through seven states in the American West. As WAMs Mr. Diserio likes to say, When you need water, water is the only thing that will do.. But on top of that, theres a problem with the rules, Cohen said. Theyd have to have a storage account of their own in a federal reservoir, and from my perspective thats a nonstarter, Mr. Mueller said. But Lpez said the additional release could have jeopardized regional water supplies. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. In October 2022, Lake Powell was a quarter full due to a historic drought, which threatened power supplied to millions by the Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Ariz. (Video: John Farrell/The Washington Post), Views from The Posts Editorial Board on current events, As the Colorado River dries up, states cant agree on saving water. Last year, Australias devastating wildfires and drought spiked water prices. Arizona, by contrast, is entitled to 2.8 million acre-feet of Colorado River water every year. Many see the compact as a safeguard isolating the river from the market. "The reality is, we'll probably be taking more of our summers off. The system worked as long as there was enough to go around, said Mr. Libecap, who recently advised the State of Colorado on its growing water problems. Cardenas said the prospect of a 10 percent cut to the regions $5 billion agricultural economy would mean serious economic pain for a community that already suffers from high unemployment. Mr. Mueller believes that the demand management pilot program triggered a land rush in rural western Colorado, with investors snapping up farms and flipping their water rights. Updated: Apr 26, 2023 / 01:55 PM PDT. States that receive more rainfall and precipitation logically have lower water usage. In September, Nasdaq and CME Group, the worlds largest derivatives marketplace, announced plans to open a futures market for California water, joining it with commodities like Brent crude oil and soybeans. On a map, this is the very top of the Gulf of California. 30 water suppliers pledge to address Colorado River shortage - Los Why is the river drying up? Bunk said the two largest reservoirs on the river Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona state line and Lake Powell formed by the Glen Canyon Dam on the Arizona-Utah line are at unprecedented low levels. The proponents of water markets say they are not in it just for the money. But that flow of water is now in question, because the Colorado River doesn't have enough water for everyone. Right now, we have legal and political mechanisms in place to prevent that from happening., He added, though, that the pressure of the drought could shift the terrain. "Something will have to give," said Sharon Megdal, director of the University of Arizona's Water Resources Research Center. The event theme, A New Century for the Colorado River Compact, marks 100 years since a 1922 interstate agreement divvied water shares among interests in the seven states now home to 40 million people and millions of farmed acres. Best States is an interactive platform developed by U.S. News for ranking the 50 U.S. states, alongside news analysis and daily reporting. But the basins water is essential for the states largest city: Albuquerque. Native American tribes werent included and were referenced in one sentence: Nothing in this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States of America to Indian tribes.. Living with less water in the U.S. Southwest is the focus for a conference starting Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, in Las Vegas, about the drought-stricken and overpromised Colorado River. The snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, the main source of runoff that feeds the Colorado River system, is also higher than normal but not by as much as in California. Last month, 30 agencies that supply water to homes and businesses throughout the region joined the Las Vegas area in restricting the planting of decorative lawns that no one walks on. Colorado River Water Users Convening Amid Crisis Concerns - US News "I think we would rather come up with voluntary agreements to live with a little bit less, to ensure that we have water," he says. Built in the 1980s, Pueblo West was growing too fast to keep up with its water needs, so it bought the ranch and its rights. Water markets have been called a paradise for arbitrage, an approach in which professionals use trading speed and access to information for profit. Lake Powell in Big Water, Utah. David Morris, the water utility spokesman for the city and county, said the Colorado River water has allowed the region to wean itself off of unsustainable groundwater pumping. Colorado River water crisis: 8 possible solutions to prevent drying up Arizona city cuts off a neighborhoods water supply amid drought. The Kremlin is trying to kill Alexei Navalny. hide caption. But from the perspective of other states even those cuts wouldnt be nearly enough. Everybody gave a little. Southern California water districts recently submitted a proposal to the federal government. What top five states have rivers? Much of the West, including Los Angeles and Las Vegas, was made by moving water. Beef cattle are the top agricultural product of Imperial County. From April through September, tours commence at 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., with . Negotiators have had a bit of help from nature to start the year. Lake Powell's drop last March to historically low water levels raised worries about losing the ability perhaps within the next few months to produce hydropower that today serves about 5 million customers in seven states. The rain and snowstorms that battered California in January raised reservoir levels in the state and coated the Sierra Nevada mountains in snowpack that is 210 percent above normal for this time of year. The Imperial Valley is a place of jarring contrasts. So it's been a high market. Adel Hagekhalil, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California general manager, warned this month in a statement that another dry winter could force officials to make voluntary measures mandatory. New Mexico still uses only about half of its allotment under the compact each year. Farmland meets the desert, separated by an irrigation canal, near Fruita, Colo. Greg Felt, a county commissioner, at a dried-up alfalfa farm near Nathrop, Colo. acquisition of the Owens River rights by the City of Los Angeles. What is new is for private investors in this case an investment fund in Phoenix, with owners on the East Coast to exert that power. Remarkable Drop in Colorado River Water Use a Sign of Climate That is about 1 million acre-feet less than the three states are entitled to use under a legal compact that divides the Colorado River's waters. Valued at $2 billion after 14 years in existence, Australias markets primarily facilitate trades in agricultural areas. They're trying to jump on the market early and have the first lettuce to be harvested.". Everybody got a little, he added. Irrigation canals that are currently simple ditches in the dirt could be lined with concrete, to prevent water from seeping into the ground. Other fields are covered with alfalfa or grass that will become feed for cattle. Living with less water in the U.S. Southwest is the focus this week for a conference in Las Vegas about the drought-stricken and overpromised Colorado River, Colorado River Water Users Convening Amid Crisis Concerns, FILE - A buoy sits high and dry on cracked earth previously under the waters of Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Boulder City, Nev., on June 28, 2022. In 2015, California got just 5 percent of its average annual snowpack, the lowest in 500 years. John Hernandez, a Mexican-American activist, says that there's also a question of fairness if most of the money that the irrigation district gets for using less water potentially hundreds of millions of dollars each year gets passed out to just a few hundred farms. Transferring water from agricultural communities to cities, though often contentious, is not a new practice. But over the last two decades, the actual flow has dwindled to 12.5 million acre-feet on average, leaving state water managers with more rights on paper than existing supply. The California proposal makes a constructive effort to uphold the Law of the River while making substantial efforts to protect the Colorado River system with voluntary reductions far beyond Californias legal obligations, JB Hamby, chairman of the Colorado River Board of California, wrote in the introduction to the plan. Demand for Colorado River water picked up in the late 1990s and early 2000s. If this water is to be sold to anyone outside the Grand Valley, then its gone, said Mr. George of the Interbasin Compact Committee. In a general, larger picture, its a national park, and the way the river was before the dam came in has changed a lot, Tusso said. Many call conservation crucial. "We have a situation where some of the water rights holders in California are saying, 'We're not willing to give up more water, and we think we have legal rights and we're willing to go to court if we have to'," said David Hayes, a lecturer at Stanford University Law School. (c) 2023 KGNU News Boulder Community Broadcast Association, If The Colorado River Were A Bank Account, We Ran Out Of Cash More Than 20 Years Ago, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), https://kgnu-news.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/4-27-23AK_ColoradoRiver.mp3, Seicento Baroque Ensemble Brings Landmark Performance to Colorado with Bach's, "St. John Passion", Colorado Tax Payers Gave Away A Lot Of This Year's TABOR Rebates To A Handful Of Wealthy Coloradans, After Deadly Prom Night Crash, This Year Boulder Parents Are Organizing After Prom Parties And Safe Rides Homes, Somatic Psychotherapist Speaks On The Art Of Healing Ceremonies, Fernanda Nieto Plays A Mean Piano & Speaks On Lack Of Diversity, Poet Exposes Injustices & Promotes Self-Love. Ever since the late-2000s, the last time that water supplies in Colorado River reservoirs reached critically low levels, the biggest water users in Arizona, California, and Nevada have been stashing water in Lake Mead, in preparation for another emergency to come and in an attempt to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the region's water . Charting a Future for the Colorado River - The Nature Conservancy Its a more acceptable solution, generally.. Near its headwaters, in the farming community of Nathrop, Colo., I met up with Greg Felt, a county commissioner. U.S. states struggle to share dwindling waters of Colorado River Theyre making water a commodity, said Regina Cobb, the Arizona assemblywoman who represents Cibola. Colorado River tributaries serve relatively small portions of northwest and southwest New Mexico. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is pushing the . The negotiating states will be focused on restoring the flow of the Colorado River, which has been so diminished by use that from 1998 to 2014 it did not even reach its natural terminus in the Gulf of California. We recognize that over the past twenty-plus years there is simply far less water flowing into the Colorado River system than the amount that leaves it, and that we have effectively run out of storage to deplete, the states wrote. Investor interest in the river could redefine century-old rules for who controls one of the most valuable economic resources in the United States. A report in the journal Nature last year found 2000-2021 to be the driest 22-year period for southwestern North America in at least 1,200 years. Dan Charles for NPR In fact, it's 5 feet. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. The ongoing drought is a stark reminder that water conservation is not just smart planning but an absolute necessity to save the life of the Colorado River, Amelia Flores, chairwoman of Colorado River Indian Tribes, said ahead of the event. One, moving very rapidly, is climate change. Sprinklers deliver vital Colorado River water to a field of celery in California's Imperial Valley. Lake Mead to rise one foot by Sunday after federal 'high flow' water The effect has been dramatic on a vast river basin where the math never added up: The amount of water it receives doesn't meet the amount that is promised. Sprinklers deliver vital Colorado River water to a field of celery in California's Imperial Valley. To proponents of open markets, water is underpriced and consequently overused. She is the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Article 16, Section 5. The High Flow Experiment and its gushing water will ultimately decrease Lake Powell levels by 4.5 feet from April 24 to April 27. Water curtailment has long loomed over the Southwest. However, the same water could also flow where water often flows: toward the highest bidder. The proposal lays out potential new cuts for the states of the Southwest that lie downstream from the major reservoirs Arizona, Nevada and California as well as Mexico, which has treaty rights to a portion of the rivers water. Thanks to the Colorado River, which meanders through town, Cibola is a verdant oasis that chatters at dusk with swooping birds. Federal Water Shortage Limits Loom Over Colorado River And All - NPR Among conference topic titles are Messaging in a More Water-Challenged world and The Next 100 Years Begins Now.. Dan Charles for NPR The Upper Basin plan hinges on existing conservation programs. In the winter, 90% of vegetables consumed in both the US and Canada are grown with Colorado River water. Reclamation water managers responded with plans to hold back more water in Lake Powell but warned that Lake Mead water levels would drop. What are the top crops grown in Colorado? This modeling proposal is a key step in the ongoing dialogue among the Seven Basin States as we continue to seek a collaborative solution to stabilize the Colorado River system, Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said in a statement. Colorado's river economy worth $9 billion - High Country News One draft plan that's circulating among irrigation districts proposes annual payments of $1,500 per acre almost $1.4 billion in total in exchange for cutting water use by roughly 20 percent on almost a million acres of farmland. Construction of the original canal was marked by epic engineering failure. In the last few years, Colorado has been debating a water policy approach that has further piqued the interest of private investors: paying farmers not to use the river at all. Its important for us to invest in things like outdoor water conservation and reuse, Morris said. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. Thats not what water is meant to be.. Most of the water in the 1,450-mile-long river comes from Colorado, and as that state's top water official from 2013 to 2017, James Eklund directed the creation of a comprehensive. According to the site below, 1.. The gruesome discoveries renewed interest in the lore of organized crime and the early days of the Las Vegas Strip, just a 30-minute drive from the lake. That would be: Were basically going to put all the cuts on the major share of the economy. Ron DeSantis, finding no legal basis for allegations that the governor violated campaign finance laws with a shadow run for the White House, North Carolina's attorney general is urging lawmakers to adopt several crime prevention proposals to tackle gun violence, the opioid crisis and the state's backlog of sexual assault cases, The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation says the bodies of seven people have been discovered during the search for two missing teenagers. But the bountiful precipitation has also been a double-edged sword, creating a political challenge for negotiators trying to agree on painful cuts, according to analysts following the talks. Although it originates just miles from the headwaters of the Colorado River, the Arkansas River flows east instead of west, meandering nearly 1,500 miles across the Great Plains before joining the Mississippi River. Steve Benson, managing partner of Benson Farms, points out a neighbor's field where a crew is planting lettuce. LAS VEGAS (AP) Living with less water in the U.S. Southwest is the focus this week for state and federal water administrators, tribal officials, farmers, academics and business representatives meeting about the drought-stricken and overpromised Colorado River. Six of the Colorado River states agreed on water cuts. California did The emergence of open markets could outpace the negotiations. They inherited the legal right to use that water, but they're now under pressure to give up some of it. Alex Cardenas, the president of the board of directors of the Imperial Irrigation District, noted that the water rights among the farmers in his area of California near the border with Mexico predate the formation of the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the river system. Andrew Leimgruber grows alfalfa and vegetables on his family's farm in the Imperial Valley. Though it stopped short of calling for a shutdown, an interim report last summer recommended comprehensive changes in water markets, citing inadequate regulation and market exploitation by professional traders. The Colorado River provides water to more than 40 million people across seven southwestern states, 29 tribal nations and Mexico - and a lot of major cities in those states are heavily dependent on . LCRA provides public power, manages the lower Colorado River, builds and operates transmission lines, owns public parks, and offers community services. The deadline for public submissions is Dec. 20 for a process expected to yield a final report by summer. He believes that the last best hope against the drought is a market-based solution, one that allows private investors seeking a profit a significant hand in redrawing the map of water distribution in the West. Bureau officials use the image of pouring tea from one cup to another to describe how water from Rocky Mountain snowmelt is captured in Lake Powell, then released downriver through the Grand Canyon to Lake Mead. As a result, the talks starting in January will be a vehicle for urgent attempts to manage the water, including replenishing downstream reservoirs. California split from the six states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming on Tuesday in the face of a U.S. government deadline to negotiate their own supply cuts or face possible mandatory cutbacks by the federal government. The water will flow down the Colorado River system and eventually hit Pearce Ferry by April 26, and more water will flow into Lake Mead from April 26 to April 30. "We have the laws in place, you know, when water comes anywhere west of the Mississippi, it's first-come, first-served, and that's how it's always been," he says. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs. The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) is a nonprofit public utility created in November 1934 by the Texas Legislature. Due to critically low current reservoir conditions, and the potential for worsening drought which threatens critical infrastructure and public health and safety operational strategies must be revisited, Bunk said. Throughout the river basin, warnings have increased and measures have tightened markedly in 2022. Instead, farmers are hoping for a deal in which the government will pay them to use less water. Matthew Diserio, the president and co-founder of the hedge fund Water Asset Management, has called the U.S. water business the biggest emerging market on earth and a trillion-dollar market opportunity.. WAM, based in New York and San Francisco, invests broadly in water-related ventures, and one of its core businesses is collecting water rights in arid states like Arizona and Colorado. Imperial County is already one of the poorest in California. Albuquerques municipal supply is entitled to as much as 15 billion gallons of San Juan-Chama water every year. And youre still seeing continued growth. BruMate, which was founded in 2015 by now 25-year-old Dylan Jacob and featured in Forbes magazine recently, sells insulated can coolers, tumblers and drinkware. Top 5 US Consumers California is the largest consumer of water in the US. The previous owner had owned rights to the Chalk River, a tributary of the Arkansas, which irrigated the hayfields using ditches that dated from the Civil War. IID laid claim to water from the Colorado River before cities like Phoenix and Tucson showed up. The water level in Lake Powell has fallen about a foot this year and stands 33 feet above the threshold where Glen Canyon Dam could no longer produce power. A Denver-based insulated drinkware company ranked the highest of the 151 Colorado companies on Inc. magazine's 2020 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. Steve Benson says a further cut of 20 percent is feasible, but it does involve costs. Having a seat at the table means working with every tribe to learn their specific water rights and needs.. Sarah Porter, who's director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, says the Imperial Irrigation District is now at the center of these negotiations. It's the thirstiest crop in the US south-west. Will the drought put Restoring the Colorado: Bringing New Life to a Stressed River As investor interest mounts, leaders of Southwestern states are gathering this month to decide the future of the Colorado River. Those forage crops, which cover the majority of the land, aren't usually as valuable as vegetables. Why do we need to take additional actions now when there was so much water through all these recent storms?. It will be baled into hay and fed to cattle such as those in the feedlot at the far end of the field. Increasingly, the river is threatened by drought, with flows down 20 percent over the last 20 years. The whole history of the American West is about moving water, Mr. Gammage of Greenstone said. The system of tunnels and dams at the New Mexico state line diverts water into the Rio Grande Basin. A more arid climate means all water users need to work harder to live within our means, said Estevan Lpez, New Mexicos representative on the Upper Colorado River Commission. Light shines off the water flowing in a section of the Central Arizona Project on Oct . as temperatures rise, mountain snows melt faster in spring, and the state lacks capacity to store the runoff. The idea is, if you pay the farmers enough, theyll go away, said Brad Udall, a water and climate researcher at Colorado State University whose family have been lawmakers in the region for 60 years. he says. It sold those to owners unaware of their obligation to revegetate the land, now without access to water. It should free him. Florida Power & Light, a part of NextEra Energy. The current canal, built during the New Deal and called the All-American Canal, delivers enough water to the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) each year to cover all of its irrigated land almost 800 square miles with 5 feet of water. The dry period has lasted more than two decades, draining the major reservoirs along the river. Arizona, California, and Nevada combined to consume just over 6.5 million acre-feet last year, according to an annual audit from the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that oversees the lower basin. Dec. 13, 2022, at 6:19 a.m. Colorado River Water Users Convening Amid Crisis Concerns. That would be a disaster. This years meeting of water recipients begins Wednesday at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip. As of Wednesday morning, the surge of water released from the Glen Canyon Dam has reached Lake Mead, KTLA's sister station KLAS reports. The markets have become a paradise for arbitrage. He compared the dynamic to California in the 1990s, where fires and outages were beneficial for traders because of price spikes and you saw Enron traders cheering on fires.. Six of the seven Colorado River basin states sketched out a joint proposal for how they could meet the federal governments demand to make unprecedented cuts to water usage as more than two decades of drought in the West have pushed crucial reservoirs to dangerously low levels. It certainly seems that we have to reset our expectations for what we might be trying to get out of the river, said Lpez, a former Reclamation commissioner. a line, or reservoirs have been emptied, have the water consumers show the amount of water they drew by raising their cups or calling out the amount. Roughly 180,000 people, most of them Mexican-American, live here in towns that include El Centro, Calexico, and Brawley. During the past two decades of drought, and particularly in recent years, the rivers flow has declined, but states continue to consume more than the river provides, based on a framework established a century ago. Cibola, Ariz., is one of the wrong places. But the entire region must work together, Lpez said, to avoid more mandatory cuts. But those plans, say members of Colorado's outdoor recreation, real estate, and tourism industries, jeopardize a $9 billion dollar economy that hinges on healthy rivers - and supports more .