Lower basin calls for upper basin cuts; upper basin says ‘no way’: #ColoradoRiver basin states submit competing proposals for reservoir operations post-2026 — @AspenJournalism

Glen Canyon Dam impounds the Colorado River to create Lake Powell. In a proposal to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation about reservoir operations, upper basin water managers say releases from Lake Powell should be based on how full the reservoir is on Oct. 1 each year. CREDIT: ALEXANDER HEILNER/THE WATER DESK, WITH AERIAL SUPPORT BY LIGHTHAWK

Click the link to read the article on the Aspen Journalism website (Heather Sackett):

March 6, 2024

In two separate proposals for how the nation’s two largest reservoirs should be managed, the upper and lower Colorado River basin states agree on a couple things, but can’t find common ground on whether the upper basin should take cuts when reservoir levels fall.

Proposals submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation by the upper basin states (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico) and the lower basin states (California, Arizona and Nevada) each say that the current guidelines’ method of basing operations on 24-month forecasts and setting shortages based on critical elevations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead should be tossed out in favor of using real-time water storage levels to determine releases and who takes how much in cuts. Both proposals say that the lower basin must cut its use by 1.5 million acre-feet in most years.

But the similarities stop there. Lower basin water managers say all seven states that use the Colorado River must share cuts broadly under the most critical system conditions, while upper basin officials maintain they do not have to cut their water use because they have never used the entire 7.5 million acre-foot apportionment given to them under the Colorado River Compact.

The separate proposals came after the seven basin state representatives could not reach a consensus after months of negotiations on how to operate the reservoirs after 2026. In recent months, water managers have focused on figuring out a new plan for reservoir management because the current guidelines from 2007 were only intended to last 20 years. In the context of a historic drought and climate change, the 2007 guidelines, along with the emergency Band-Aid that was 2019’s Drought Contingency Plan, have not been enough to keep reservoir levels from plummeting and bringing the system to the brink of collapse.

Total losses (evaporation and riparian ET) from Reach 1 through Reach 5. Credit: USBR

In its proposal, the lower basin has committed to doing something that the upper basin has long called for: owning the amount of water lost to evaporation and transit. A recent Reclamation study put evaporation and transit losses in the lower basin — which are currently unaccounted for on any balance sheets of supply and demand — at about 1.3 million acre-feet per year.

The lower basin’s proposal says it will cut its use by 1.5 million acre-feet when total system storage is between 38% and 69%. But if reservoir levels dip lower than 38% full, the lower basin wants additional cuts to be split evenly between the upper and lower basins, up to 3.9 million acre-feet. As of Tuesday, Lake Powell was nearly 34% full and Lake Mead was about 37% full.

“The Lower Basin Alternative creates resiliency and proposes climate change is a shared responsibility of all those that depend on the Colorado River,” JB Hamby, the Colorado River commissioner representing California, said in a prepared statement. “Each basin, state and sector must contribute to solving the challenges ahead. No one who benefits from the river can opt out of saving it.”

Upper basin water managers disagree, saying their water users are already being squeezed by climate change and are forced to take shortages in dry years because the water simply isn’t there. Upper basin officials have long maintained that most of the blame for the system crashing should be placed on lower basin overuse.

“I want to be very clear that the upper division states have always been in full compliance with the 1922 Colorado River Compact and, again, are currently using 3 [million] to 4 million acre-feet less than our compact apportionment,” Amy Ostdiek, Colorado Water Conservation Board section chief for interstate, federal and water information, said at a press conference explaining the upper division alternative. “There’s no mechanism to make mandatory water cuts in the upper basin beyond those that already occur each year.” [ed. emphasis mine]

From left, Colorado River negotiator for California JB Hamby, Arizona’s Tom Buschatzke and Colorado’s Becky Mitchell. A proposal from the lower basin states about reservoir operations says the upper basin should also take cuts to its water use if reservoir levels fall below 38% full. CREDIT: TOM YULSMAN/THE WATER DESK

Conservation promises

The upper basin’s proposal, however, says the four states will pursue “parallel activities”that include voluntary, temporary and compensated reductions in use, although the upper basin states do not offer a specific amount of water that they will conserve. This would be separate from the post-2026 guidelines process.

The upper basin has dabbled in recent years with two such conservation programs: demand management and system conservation. In 2019, the state of Colorado embarked on a multiyear feasibility study of a voluntary and temporary program — known as demand management — that would pay water users to cut back and bank the conserved water in Lake Powell. That program is currently shelved without having been implemented.

In 2023, the Upper Colorado River Commission restarted the System Conservation Program, which pays water users — nearly all of them in agriculture — to cut back. With this program, there is no guarantee the conserved water makes it to Lake Powell. The program saved about 38,000 acre-feet in 2023, at a cost of nearly $16 million. System Conservation will take place again this year.

The upper basin proposal, which officials say mitigates the risk of either reservoir reaching dead pool, bases both cuts to lower basin use and releases from Lake Powell on how full the reservoirs are on Oct. 1 of each year.

“We’re also looking to operate Lake Powell and Lake Mead based on observed conditions instead of unreliable forecasts,” Ostdiek said.

Under the upper basin’s proposal, if the two reservoirs combined are more than 90% full, no lower basin reductions will occur; if they are 70% to 90% full, lower basin cuts increase up to 1.5 million acre-feet; at 20% to 70% full, lower basin cuts remain static; and if the reservoirs are less than 20% full, lower basin cuts increase up to 2.4 million acre-feet a year, on top of the initial 1.5 million-acre-foot cuts. Under the upper basin proposal, those four states do not take any cuts, even as reservoir levels fall.

That is in contrast with the lower basin’s proposal which would require cuts beyond 1.5 million acre-feet to be split evenly between the upper and lower basins.

If Lake Powell is 81% to 100% full on Oct. 1, then releases would be between 8.1 million and 9 million acre-feet; at 20% to 80% full, releases would be between 6 million and 8.1 million acre-feet; and if the reservoir is less than 20% full, just 6 million acre-feet would be released.

The lower basin proposal for releases from Lake Powell is based on the total amount of water in the upper basin Colorado River Storage Project Act reservoirs: Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa, Navajo and Lake Powell. If these upper basin reservoirs are more than 80% full, releases from Lake Powell would be between 8.5 and 11 million acre-feet; if reservoirs are between 30% and 80% full, releases would be between 7 and 8.5 million acre-feet; if reservoirs are between 20% and 30% full, releases would be between 6 and 7 million acre-feet and if storage is less than 20% full, 6 million acre-feet would be released.

Current reservoir operations are based on Reclamation’s “24-month Study,” a monthly forecast that predicts a range of probabilities for reservoir storage levels and “balancing tiers,” which lay out who takes what shortages if reservoirs fall below certain elevations.

The two proposals will be reviewed by Reclamation, the federal agency that manages many of the West’s dams and reservoirs, as part of the National Environmental Policy Act process for creating the new post-2026 guidelines for reservoir operations.

Although the upper and lower basins did not reach consensus before the March 11 deadline and instead submitted two different proposals, both sides say they are still open to continuing negotiations.

“Although our proposal can stand on its own, it was also designed to promote the development of a seven-state consensus alternative, which is a goal we all still seek to achieve,” Wyoming Commissioner Brandon Gebhart said in a prepared statement.

This story ran in the March 8 edition of The Aspen Times, the Vail Daily.

#Drought news March 7, 2024: In northern #Colorado and south-central #Wyoming improving #snowpack levels led to reductions in coverage of moderate and severe drought and abnormal dryness

Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Monitor website.

Click the link to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

This Week’s Drought Summary

Heavy precipitation fell across parts of the southern and eastern U.S., and in parts of the West, especially in the Sierra Nevada, where a major blizzard significantly increased snowpack in that range. The Great Plains were mostly dry this week, as were parts of the Midwest, except for rain in parts of Illinois, southeast Wisconsin and Michigan. Recent rainfall improved conditions across much of Puerto Rico. Hawaii has been in a trade wind pattern recently, leading to wet weather on the windward sides of the islands but drier conditions on the leeward sides. Thus, a mix of improvements and degradations occurred there. Temperatures were near or below normal in much of the western U.S. west of the Continental Divide. In most of the central and eastern U.S., temperatures were near or above normal, especially in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, where temperatures from 10 to 15 degrees warmer than normal were common. A few spots in the Great Lakes area checked in even warmer than that, with readings 15-20 degrees above normal…

High Plains

Mostly dry weather occurred in the Great Plains portion of the High Plains region this week. Temperatures in the region ranged from mostly 5-10 degrees warmer than normal for far eastern Wyoming and Colorado and most of Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, to near or below normal temperatures in North Dakota, western Colorado and western Wyoming. Some of the mountainous parts of the region received significant snowfall, especially in west-central and northwest Wyoming and in the Medicine Bow Mountains in northern Colorado and south-central Wyoming. Improving snowpack levels led to reductions in coverage of moderate and severe drought and abnormal dryness in these areas, though improvements were more limited in southern Wyoming, where grass fires were reported west of Cheyenne recently and only light snow amounts were reported in the high plains west of Laramie. Given short-term dryness and high recent evaporative demand, abnormal dryness and moderate drought were expanded in northwest South Dakota, southwest North Dakota, and adjacent southeast Montana…

Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending March 5, 2024.

West

Heavy precipitation fell this week across much of the central and northern Pacific Coast, and heavy snow also fell in a major storm in the Sierra Nevada. Significant snow amounts also fell across parts of Idaho and northwest and southwest Montana. Improving snowpack in these areas and lessening precipitation deficits led to improvements in drought or abnormal dryness in numerous locations. Recent precipitation in western and central Oregon continued to chip away at long-term precipitation deficits, leading to the removal of one long-term moderate drought area and coverage reductions of another. Meacher and Park counties in Montana have missed out on recent snowfall, leaving current snowpack numbers very low, and moderate drought worsened to severe drought. Heavy precipitation in northwest Washington (with some locations likely seeing over 9 inches of liquid precipitation) led to a reduction in moderate drought and abnormal dryness coverage. Along the Arizona-New Mexico border, severe drought coverage was locally reduced in a reassessment of short- and long-term drought conditions…

South

Moderate to heavy rain amounts fell across portions of Louisiana and Mississippi this week. Elsewhere, mostly dry weather occurred in the region, aside from isolated heavy rain from a thunderstorm in north-central Arkansas. Temperatures across the region were mostly either near normal or 5-10 degrees above normal, with a few spots in Texas coming in 5-10 degrees below normal. Recent rainfall continued to alleviate precipitation deficits in eastern Louisiana and in Mississippi, leading to some improvements in areas of moderate drought and abnormal dryness. In southwest Louisiana, short-term dryness and warmth and lowering streamflow levels led to a small expansion of moderate drought conditions. Abnormal dryness spread across parts of northern and western Arkansas, and a few isolated spots in Texas and Oklahoma, given short-term precipitation deficits, warm and windy weather, and low soil moisture…

Looking Ahead

Through the evening of Monday, March 11, the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center is forecasting widespread precipitation amounts of at least a half inch across much of the central and eastern U.S. (roughly from the Interstate 35 corridor eastward), excluding northern Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Michigan Upper Peninsula, the Florida Peninsula, and central and south Texas. Within this area of precipitation, swaths of at least 1.5 inches of liquid precipitation are forecast from southwest Missouri to southeast Michigan, from southwest Mississippi to central North Carolina, and across most of New England. In the West, mostly drier weather is expected, though some higher precipitation amounts can be expected in the western mountains of northern California, western Oregon and western Washington.

Looking ahead to March 12-16, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center forecast favors warmer-than-normal temperatures across the central and eastern U.S., with the highest confidence for warmer-than-normal weather centered around the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes. The forecast favors near- or below-normal temperatures in the Intermountain West, and above-normal temperatures along the West Coast. Above-normal precipitation is favored across large portions of the central and southern U.S., especially in Colorado and New Mexico and the adjacent western Great Plains and in the Deep South and along the Central Gulf Coast. The forecast favors below-normal precipitation along the West Coast. In Alaska, above-normal precipitation is favored in the central and eastern parts of the state, while drier-than-normal weather is favored in the northwest. Colder-than-normal weather is forecast in the central and western portion of Alaska, while southeast Alaska is likely to be warmer than normal. Cooler-than-normal weather is favored in Hawaii along with near-normal precipitation.