Colorado River States Have 60 Days To Cut 2-4 Million Acre-Feet Of Water Use; If They Fail Feds Will

[hatrack]

Within the next two months, Colorado River negotiators face a daunting task: Develop ways to reduce use by an enormous amount, or the federal government will make the cuts on its own. Earlier this month, the federal government told the seven states in the Colorado River Basin that reservoir levels are so low they face a pressing crisis that warrants large-scale conservation, even as water users negotiate long-term operating guidelines for a shrinking river in an arid future. The ongoing drought and climatic conditions facing much of the West are “unprecedented,” said Camille Calimlim Touton, who leads the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency responsible for managing water infrastructure across the region. Touton told federal lawmakers on June 14 that Colorado River users must reduce diversions by a substantial amount: 2 to 4 million acre-feet.

EDIT

The cutbacks are necessary, Touton explained, to stabilize Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the two largest reservoirs on the Colorado River. Over the past year, both reservoirs have hit record-low levels and have continued to drop. If they drop further, the West faces extreme risks in the production of hydroelectric power — which is shepherded across the region — and the deliveries of water downstream for millions of residents and farmers in the Southwest. The size of the cutbacks is not necessarily a surprise. Nearly all of the state water officials and experts I’ve spoken to have crunched the numbers and come to a similar conclusion. But the speed at which the cuts must be made presents a challenging task for negotiators.

The past decade on the river has been marked by efforts to conserve and cut, to address both a drought, worsened by climate change, and structural overuse that can no longer be ignored with increasingly arid conditions across the Colorado River Basin. The seven states that rely on the Colorado River, often working with the federal government, Mexico and Native American tribes, have entered into several agreements that gradually trigger cutbacks as Lake Mead falls. Those agreements took years to negotiate, and do not reduce use by what is currently necessary.

Now, Colorado River water users have two months to make harder and deeper reductions.+

EDIT

https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/a-subtraction-problem-a-shrinking-colorado-river-faces-sharp-sudden-cutsefbfbc

[captain queeg]

1. Seems to be the only way for humans to make serious changes

I think we’ll be seeing lots of crisis in the coming years. climate change and demographics in the US will force some things that have been foreseen but ignored.