State of the Birds Report United States of America 2022 — North American Bird Conservation Initiative

State of the Birds Report United States of America 2022 cover — North American Bird Conservation Initiative

From the report:

The 2022 State of the Birds report presents data on changes in bird populations across habitats of the United States in the past five decades. These changes are shown for the groups of breeding species that are most dependent on each habitat and for which long-term monitoring data are available.

Population rebounds of waterfowl show that when investments in habitat conservation are made, we can bring birds back. At the same time, continuing declines in other habitats show the critical need to restore ecosystems under stress.

The Birds of Conservation Concern (BCC) list, mandated by law and updated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, identifies 269 migratory nongame bird species that, without additional conser- vation actions, are likely to become candidates for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

In this report, scientists with the Road to Recovery initiative have identified 70 Tipping Point species from the BCC and/or state lists of Species of Greatest Conservation Need. These birds have lost half or more of their populations in 50 years and are on a trajectory to lose another half in the next 50 years—or they already have small remaining populations and face high threats, but lack sufficient monitoring data (see page 16).

The following pages highlight the plight of birds in each habitat, with the pronounced declines of Tipping Point species shown in red, for species with sufficient data.

In addition to summaries of trends, this report also highlights conservation opportunities and successes in each biome, as examples of how actions that benefit birds create healthier environments for people and all life that depends on these shared habitats.

Western public lands are habitat for aridland birds: This map shows the cumulative range for 30 aridland bird species in North America, with the vast majority of that range falling within the boundaries of federal and state public lands. Source: Aridland bird data from Bird Conservation Regions, Bird Studies Canada and NABCI. Public lands map from GISGeography.com.

Click the link to read “More Than Half of U.S. Birds Are in Decline, Warns New Report” on the Audubon website (Margo Rosenbaum):

The Rufous Hummingbird, Greater Sage-Grouse, Pinyon Jay, and 67 other birds in the United States are teetering on the edge of disaster, having lost at least half of their populations in the past 50 years. A report released today [October 12, 2022] by North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) calls these birds “Tipping Point” species, on track to lose another 50 percent of their populations in the same time frame if conservation efforts do not improve.

Since 2009, NABCI has published a report every few years to track the health of breeding birds in habitats across the nation over the past five decades. The State of the Birds 2022 report for the United States focuses on the wane of bird populations across every habitat except wetlands. Among the groups in the fastest decline are grassland birds, such as Bobolinks and Mountain Plovers, which have shown a total 34 percent loss. Lesser Yellowlegs, Whimbrels, and other shorebirds aren’t far behind with populations down by 33 percent. Despite the dire situation, the report also emphasizes the success of 40 years of concerted wetland conservation: Waterfowl and waterbirds have surged 34 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

While some duck, goose, and swan populations are exploding, more than half of all U.S. bird species are dwindling. Without further efforts to restore ecosystems under stress, the report paints a grim future for birds in a nation where climate-intensified natural disasters and human-caused habitat loss and degradation continue to worsen. The report’s authors call on decision-makers to learn from the accomplishments of wetland restoration to save birds and boost climate resilience in other ecosystems.

“Protecting wildlife and biodiversity is something that everybody should be concerned with,” says Peter Marra, a 2022 State of the Birds science committee member and director of the Earth Commons at Georgetown University Institute for Environment and Sustainability. “Once we save birds, we’re going to save a lot of other species that we share the earth with.”

This year, 33 organizations and agencies, including the National Audubon Society, contributed to the report using data from five sources: the North American Breeding Bird Survey, the Christmas Bird Count, the Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey, International Shorebird Surveys, and the American Woodcock Singing-ground Survey.

Compiling data from these reports, the authors illustrate how birds act as indicators of the overall health of the environment, informing policymakers and the public of vital conservation needs. “We really can’t respond or meet the challenges we’re facing to protect a healthy environment for us and for other species unless we really know the state that it’s in,” says co-chair of the report’s science committee, Amanda Rodewald, also the director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The 2022 State of the Birds report is the first overall assessment of the nation’s birds since a 2019 Science study indicating the United States and Canada have lost more than 3 billion birds in the past 50 years. “We’re basically watching the process of the sixth mass extinction,” says Marra, who is a co-author of the 2019 paper.

Swift conservation action can bring at-risk birds back from the brink of extinction. The report emphasizes the necessity of these efforts for 90 “On Alert” bird species, which lack Endangered Species Act listings but have lost half or more of their breeding populations in the past 50 years. Within this group, the 70 Tipping Point species are further identified as potentially losing half or more of their populations in another five decades. While there’s a range of urgency within this group, many of these birds are the next likely candidates for listing under the Endangered Species Act, which Rodewald calls “the last-ditch effort” to save a species. “We don’t want to get to the point of having to list species.”

Identifying Tipping Point birds allow conservation efforts to begin before a listing is necessary. “Why should we wait for them to get closer to extinction?” Marra says. “We need to figure out the problem much sooner than that.”

Nicole Michel, National Audubon’s director of quantitative science, points to the report’s emphasis on the success of waterfowl and waterbirds in recent decades as proof that conservation efforts work. It “gives us hope that we can similarly take action to reverse declines of other species, including these Tipping Point species,” she says.

Underscoring such achievements can create tangible motivators but should not drive complacency, says Mike Brasher, co-chair of the report’s science committee and senior waterfowl scientist for Ducks Unlimited Inc. The American Black Duck, for example, is rebounding after a long decline, but not all waterbirds and ducks have healthy populations—Mottled Duck, Black Scoter, and King Eider are listed as Tipping Point species.

King eiders (male and female) in natural habitat in Alaska wildlife refuge. By Bergman, B (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) – http://www.fws.gov/digitalmedia/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/natdiglib&CISOPTR=3177&CISOBOX=1&REC=3, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10275659

“Although waterfowl populations have fared better than other birds or other bird groups, they’re not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination,” Brasher says. “The threats, and potential threats, facing them are intensifying.”

In habitats across the world, birds face challenges caused by climate change and human actions, such as expanding agriculture, unsustainable forest management, and introduced species. “Climate change is already impacting birds, and especially moving forward, it’s going to increasingly be a major, major threat to bird populations,” Michel says.

NABCI’s U.S. report comes on the heels of the equally distressing State of the World’s Birds published separately by Birdlife on September 29. This year’s report shows how close to half of the world’s bird species are decreasing and “the risk of species going extinct is escalating,” says Lucy Haskell, science officer for the world report. The United States is eighth globally for the greatest number of threatened species.

Despite the alarming findings of both reports, the authors remain hopeful. Advances in research and engagement of community scientists provide researchers with more information than ever before. Estimated at 45 million strong in the United States alone, a global “army of bird watchers” provides a steady stream of new data and insights, Haskell says.

Well-studied and found in nearly every habitat, birds are excellent biodiversity indicators—barometers for the planet’s well-being. Responsive to environmental changes and with population trends mirroring other wildlife, “birds also tell us about the solutions needed to prevent this biodiversity crisis,” Haskell says.

Given the widespread declines, both reports emphasize that proactive conservation across habitats and species will build a healthier environment for animals and people. “It’s not just about birds, right?” Rodewald says. “There are so many reasons to engage in conservation actions because they benefit all people.”

Lower #ColoradoRiver reservoir evaporation the focus of new analysis from the Southern #Nevada Water Authority — KUNC #COriver #aridification #CRWUA2022

The drought’s bathtub ring of Lake Mead at Hoover Dam May 2022. Photo: Don Barrett CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0

Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Luke Runyon). Here’s an excerpt:

An analysis compiled by the Southern Nevada Water Authority estimates the total amount of water lost in the river’s lower reaches. If implemented in its current form, the proposal would translate to significant cutbacks for users in Nevada, Arizona and California. The agency’s staff presented the analysis to representatives from the seven U.S. states that rely on the beleaguered Colorado River for drinking and irrigation water supply. Federal officials were also present at the Manhattan Beach, California meeting held in the third week of October. Farmers and cities in the river’s Lower Basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada have never had to fully account for the amount of water lost to evaporation, or to leaky infrastructure, also called transit losses. About 1.5 million acre-feet of water is lost to evaporation and other losses each year, according to the Southern Nevada Water Authority analysis. That’s more water than the state of Utah uses from the river annually…

September 21, 1923, 9:00 a.m. — Colorado River at Lees Ferry. From right bank on line with Klohr’s house and gage house. Old “Dugway” or inclined gage shows to left of gage house. Gage height 11.05′, discharge 27,000 cfs. Lens 16, time =1/25, camera supported. Photo by G.C. Stevens of the USGS. Source: 1921-1937 Surface Water Records File, Colorado R. @ Lees Ferry, Laguna Niguel Federal Records Center, Accession No. 57-78-0006, Box 2 of 2 , Location No. MB053635.

The analysis examines where water loss occurs downstream of Lee’s Ferry in northern Arizona to the northern boundary of the U.S.-Mexico border. Both the U.S. and Mexico rely on the river. The analysis divides the river into five reaches, and includes the large reservoirs in the Lower Basin — Lake Mead, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu. The analysis then calculates which states and which users within each state could be cut back to account for the overall basin-wide loss. Users upstream, like the Southern Nevada Water Authority, carry a lesser burden than those downstream, as users upstream are not reliant on downstream infrastructure and reservoirs to deliver their water supplies. Those users further downstream on the river, like California’s Imperial Irrigation District, would face the highest volume of potential cutbacks, factoring in their placement on the river and their volume of overall use, according to this analysis. There is no set standard to account for these losses, [Colby] Pellegrino said, and this initial analysis is meant to get the conversation started as a potential model for how to divvy up the cuts among users…

Using the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s methods, the river’s big users could be staring down significant cuts to their supplies to account for evaporative and transit loss. To achieve the total savings of 1.5 million acre-feet per year, the analysis assigns cutbacks of 509,508 acre-feet on the Imperial Irrigation District, 190,474 acre-feet on the Central Arizona Project system, and 110,464 acre-feet to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, with the rest being contributed by dozens of other smaller users. Mexico, which is able to store some of its river water in American reservoirs because of binational agreements, is by treaty not required to share in transit losses. But if the country were to share in additional reductions related to evaporation and transit loss, the country’s total could be 333,040 acre-feet per year when considering its total uses and its placement as the river’s final user, according to the analysis.

Upper Colorado River basins. (The border of Wyoming and Colorado is mislabeled.) (U.S. BOR)

Accounting for evaporation has become a rallying cry from users in the river’s Upper Basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico and a tension point in ongoing negotiations. Those states already use a system to track losses and are charged for them in their basin-wide accounting. Upper Basin water managers say the current system is unfair.

Interior Department Initiates Significant Action to Protect #ColoradoRiver System: Proposal to revise operating guidelines one of several decisive steps underway to protect the System #COriver #aridification #CRWUA2022

Brad Udall: Here’s the latest version of my 4-Panel plot thru Water Year (Oct-Sep) of 2021 of the Colorado River big reservoirs, natural flows, precipitation, and temperature. Data (PRISM) goes back or 1906 (or 1935 for reservoirs.) This updates previous work with @GreatLakesPeck. Credit: Brad Udall via Twitter

Click the link to read the release on the Reclamation website:

As collaborative work continues across the Colorado River Basin to address the ongoing drought crisis, the Department of the Interior today announced expedited steps to prepare new measures that, based on current and projected hydrologic conditions, are needed to improve and protect the long-term sustainability of the Colorado River System. To address the serious operational realities facing the System, the Bureau of Reclamation is initiating an expedited, supplemental process to revise the current interim operating guidelines for the operation of Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams in 2023 and 2024 in order to provide additional alternatives and measures needed to address the likelihood of continued low-runoff conditions across the Basin.

“The Interior Department continues to pursue a collaborative and consensus-based approach to addressing the drought crisis afflicting the West. At the same time, we are committed to taking prompt and decisive action necessary to protect the Colorado River System and all those who depend on it,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “Revising the current interim operating guidelines for Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams represents one of many critical Departmental efforts underway to better protect the System in light of rapidly changing conditions in the Basin.”

Reclamation will publish a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), which will include proposed alternatives to revise the December 2007 Record of Decision associated with the Colorado River Interim Guidelines. The 2007 Interim Guidelines provide operating criteria for Lake Powell and Lake Mead, including provisions designed to provide a greater degree of certainty to water users about timing and volumes of potential water delivery reductions for the Lower Basin States, and additional operating flexibility to conserve and store water in the system.

A high desert thunderstorm lights up the sky behind Glen Canyon Dam — Photo USBR

The NOI outlines that, in order to ensure that Glen Canyon Dam continues to operate under its intended design, Reclamation may need to modify current operations and reduce Glen Canyon Dam downstream releases, thereby impacting downstream riparian areas and reservoir elevations at Lake Mead. Additionally, in order to protect Hoover Dam operations, system integrity, and public health and safety, Reclamation may need to also modify current operations and reduce Hoover Dam downstream releases.

“We are taking immediate steps now to revise the operating guidelines to protect the Colorado River System and stabilize rapidly declining reservoir storage elevations,” said Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton. “Today’s action brings new ideas and necessary measures to the table as we consider alternatives to revise operations to better protect Colorado River System in the near term while we also continue to develop long-term, sustainable plans that reflect the climate-driven realities facing the Colorado River Basin.”

As described in the NOI, this SEIS will analyze alternatives including:

Framework Agreement Alternative: This alternative would be developed as an additional consensus-based set of actions that would build on the existing framework for Colorado River Operations. This alternative would build on commitments and obligations developed by the Basin States, Tribes and non-governmental organizations as part of the 2019 Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) Authorization Act.

Reservoir Operations Modification Alternative: This alternative would be developed by Reclamation as a set of actions and measures adopted pursuant to Secretarial authority under applicable federal law. This alternative would also consider how the Secretary’s authority could complement a consensus-based alternative that may not sufficiently mitigate current and projected risks to the Colorado River System reservoirs. [ed. emphasis mine]

No Action: The No Action Alternative will describe the continued implementation of existing agreements that control operations of Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams. These include the 2007 Interim Guidelines and agreements adopted pursuant to the 2019 DCP. Intensive ongoing efforts to achieve water conservation actions in the Basin are underway through a number of programs, including the recent Inflation Reduction Act. Implementation and effectiveness of these efforts will inform the assessment of existing operations and agreements.

Lake Mead end of month elevations 24-month Study August 2022.

The action announced today builds on steps announced in August 2022 as part of Reclamation’s release of the Colorado River Basin August 2022 24-Month Study, as well as additional actions announced in September 2022 to reduce water consumption across the Basin in light of critically low water supplies and dire hydrological projections.

The Department also recently announced new drought mitigation funding opportunities to provide reliable, sustainable and equitable water and power supplies across the Basin. A newly created Lower Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency Program, funded with an initial allocation through the Inflation Reduction Act, will help increase water conservation, improve water efficiency, and prevent the System’s reservoirs from falling to critically low elevations that would threaten water deliveries and power production. The Inflation Reduction Act includes $4 billion in funding specifically for water management and conservation efforts in the Colorado River Basin and other areas experiencing similar levels of drought.

The NOI announced today to address immediate challenges does not interfere with Reclamation’s separate process for determining post-2026 Colorado River Operations.

Members of the public interested in providing input on the SEIS can do so through December 20, 2022, per instructions in the Federal Register that will be published in the coming days.

Click the link to read “Feds want the ability to cut back on Colorado River reservoir releases over the next two years” on the KUNC website (Alex Hager). Here’s an excerpt:

On Friday, the Interior Department began the process of revising existing guidelines for water management in the Colorado River basin. The river, which supplies 40 million people across the Southwest, is strained by a supply-demand imbalance and will likely shrink further due to climate change. The Bureau of Reclamation, which manages dams at those reservoirs, filed a Notice of Intent Friday to propose changes to water releases. An upcoming Environmental Impact Statement will contain the details of those changes. The Bureau’s plans will tweak river management rules drawn up in 2007 in response to declining reservoir levels at that time. Those rules, known as the “Interim Guidelines” were meant to last until 2025. These potential changes to water released from the dams will join a patchwork of temporary reductions and conservation agreements that have been deployed to pull the basin back from the brink of catastrophe. Ongoing dry conditions brought on by warming temperatures have worsened beyond the expectations of many water managers, and steady demand is sapping the shrinking supply. States that use water from the Colorado River are due to rewrite management guidelines by 2026, when the current set expires…

These tweaks are pitched as a means of making sure water can pass through Glen Canyon Dam normally. Dropping water levels in Lake Powell have threatened hydropower production at the dam, which supplies electricity to roughly 5 million people across seven nearby states. Lower levels mean lower power output, and if levels drop so low that air enters the hydroelectric turbines, they could be damaged.

Beyond hydropower worries, some have raised concern that water from Lake Powell may soon be unable to pass through rarely-used pipes in its dam at a sufficient rate, jeopardizing the flow of water to millions of people who depend on it downstream. The lowest set of pipes — which would serve as the only exit route for water once levels fall past 3,430 feet in elevation — are not big enough to carry sufficient water for the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico to satisfy their legal obligation. Lake Powell was at 3,529 feet at the end of September.

Lake Mead, which stores water for the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada, is filled with water released from Lake Powell. Because of that, any changes at Lake Powell would be felt at Lake Mead and the section of Colorado River between the two, which primarily flows through Grand Canyon National Park. Reclamation says it may modify releases at the Hoover Dam, which holds back Lake Mead, “in order to protect Hoover Dam operations, system integrity, and public health and safety.”

The back of Glen Canyon Dam circa 1964, not long after the reservoir had begun filling up. Here the water level is above dead pool, meaning water can be released via the river outlets, but it is below minimum power pool, so water cannot yet enter the penstocks to generate electricity. Bureau of Reclamation photo.

Click the link to read “New push to shore up shrinking Colorado River could reduce water flow to California” on The Los Angeles Times website (Ian James). Here’s an excerpt:

With water levels dropping at Lake Powell, the Interior Department said operators of Glen Canyon Dam may need to release less water, which would affect flows in the Grand Canyon and accelerate the decline of Lake Mead. In order to protect public health and safety and the integrity of the system, the department said releases from Hoover Dam may also need to be reduced — which would shrink the amounts of water flowing to California, Arizona and Mexico…

The Interior Department has the authority to step in and unilaterally impose larger cuts. But federal officials appear to be pushing for a consensus on shrinking the water take from the river rather than dictating reductions in ways that could further inflame tensions or lead to legal fights. This approach increases the pressure on the states to come up with a deal in the coming months or face federal intervention.

“The Interior Department continues to pursue a collaborative and consensus-based approach to addressing the drought crisis afflicting the West,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a news release. “At the same time, we are committed to taking prompt and decisive action necessary to protect the Colorado River System and all those who depend on it.”

Click the link to read “Feds start the clock on a plan that could deepen cuts on drought-stricken Colorado River” on the AZCentral.com website (Brandon Loomis). Here’s an excerpt:

The Interior Department and its dam managers at the Bureau of Reclamation said Friday they will complete an environmental review of options for keeping water in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both of which in recent years have sped toward the point of losing hydropower production or even failing to flow through their respective dams. Reclamation already has reduced supplies to Arizona and Nevada based on operating guidelines approved in 2007. Those rules for shortage management have proved insufficient to halt plunging storage levels. They expire in 2026 and must be replaced by then, but the government’s announcement makes clear that emergency action is needed even sooner…

What happens to the reservoirs now also depends on how much snowpack the Rocky Mountains can pile up this winter to melt next spring. If the weather is especially poor, with flows less than half their long-term average over the next couple of years, the government’s projections now find worst-case scenarios that could dry up the river below Lake Mead before 2026, cutting off those who use the river in Arizona, California and Mexico. The Grand Canyon’s stretch of river is also at risk if Lake Powell continues to sink toward Glen Canyon Dam’s outlets.

“Reclamation is not going to let the states call its bluff any longer and realizes that the existing 2026 deadline is too far in the distance,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, a conservation group.

Doling out cuts from the river is complicated by 100 years of law and regulation meant to set how much water each of seven states can take. Arizona typically gets about a third of its total supply from the river, but has had to reduce its 2.8 million-acre share by 512,000 acre-feet, and will lose 80,000 more next year under terms of the 2007 guidelines.

Members of the Colorado River Commission, in Santa Fe in 1922, after signing the Colorado River Compact. From left, W. S. Norviel (Arizona), Delph E. Carpenter (Colorado), Herbert Hoover (Secretary of Commerce and Chairman of Commission), R. E. Caldwell (Utah), Clarence C. Stetson (Executive Secretary of Commission), Stephen B. Davis, Jr. (New Mexico), Frank C. Emerson (Wyoming), W. F. McClure (California), and James G. Scrugham (Nevada) CREDIT: COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY WATER RESOURCES ARCHIVE via Aspen Journalism

Click the link to read “New US plan could lead to federal action on Colorado River” on the Associated Press website (Felicia Fonseca and Kathleen Ronayne). Here’s an excerpt:

The public has until Dec. 20 to weigh in on three options that seek to keep Lake Mead and Lake Powell from dropping so low they couldn’t produce power or provide the water that seven Western states, Mexico and tribes have relied on for decades. One of the options would allow the Interior Department’s U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to take unilateral action, as it threatened this summer when it asked states to come up with ways to significantly reduce their use beyond what they have already volunteered and were mandated to cut…

The announcement comes more than four months after Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton told Congress that water use must be cut dramatically as drought and overuse tax the river — an essential supply of water for farmers, cities and tribes in the U.S. West, as well as Mexico. The seven states that tap the river failed to reach Touton’s August deadline and have been working ever since to reach a compromise. It now appears unlikely a grand deal will be reached. In the meantime, the bureau has offered up billions in federal money to pay farmers and cities to cut back. But Interior’s new action marks the first time it’s taking a clear step toward imposing its own, mandatory cuts. The agency anticipates changes to the conditions at which water shortages are declared in the river’s lower basin. Lake Mead and Lake Powell were about half full when the 2007 guidelines were approved and are now about one-quarter full.

#CastleRock passes new rules on limiting lawns — The #ColoradoSprings Gazette #conservation

Click the link to read the article on The Colorado Springs Gazette website (Mary Shinn). Here’s an excerpt:

The new rules approved by the town council last week prohibit lawns in front yards and limit lawns in backyards to 500 square feet. Castle Rock estimates that the limits on lawns could reduce outdoor water use 50% once the community is fully built out, according to the town’s website.

Mrs. Gulch’s Blue gramma “Eyelash” patch August 28, 2021.

The community is eliminating future front yard lawns in part to help encourage the acceptance of alternative landscaping that can thrive in a drier climate, he said.

Water stored in Colorado’s Denver Basin aquifers, which extend from Greeley to Colorado Springs, and from Golden to the Eastern Plains near Limon, does not naturally recharge from rain and snow and is therefore carefully regulated. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey.

Castle Rock relies heavily on nonrenewable groundwater aquifers and it is working to transition to other sources, according to the town website.

Romancing the River: #ColoradoRiver Compact – Part 1 — Sibley’s Rivers #CRWUA2022 #COriver #aridification

Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir at Glacier Point. They would eventually disagree on the concept of conservation. By Underwood & Underwood – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3g04698. See Commons:Licensing for more information., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3517191

Here’s Part 1 of George Sibley’s “Romancing the River” series. In this post George describes the conditions in the Colorado River Basin that led the states to negotiate the Colorado River Compact. Click the link to read the article on the Sibley’s Rivers website (George Sibley):

You have probably heard that this is the centennial year for something called the Colorado River Compact – possibly spoken of or written about in the reverential tones usually reserved for Biblical material. The foundation, the cornerstone, et cetera, for something called, with equivalent solemnity, ‘The Law of the River.’

We will spend some time here on the Colorado River Compact because it is an important document – but not necessarily a document that deserved to exist unaltered and unamended in a kind of hallowed state for a century. Something like our U.S. Constitution in that regard – which has been amended, although not in all the places where it most needed it. But the authors of both documents would be horrified to see their work regarded as sacred texts.

This first post focusing on the Compact will explore why a river compact was even necessary in the development of the Colorado River.

It may come as a surprise to some of you, but the development of the Colorado River was considered to be a conservation project. We remember Theodore Roosevelt as ‘the Father of American Conservation’ – a title he certainly earned for the vast amount of the public domain that he removed from the great American giveaway of land and resources that dominated in the 19^th century; he set aside 230 million acres to be developed as national forests, parks and monuments, all kept in the public domain – five times more than any president before or since.

Beyond that, however, other aspects of his conservation vision were quite different from today’s concept of conservation, which emphasizes reduced use of resources, long-term sustainability and the preservation or restoration of natural conditions. For Roosevelt and his conservationist sidekick Gifford Pinchot, conservation meant using the resources we have but using them wisely, without waste.

‘The first great fact about conservation’ said Pinchot, ‘is that it stands for development… In the second place conservation stands for the prevention of waste.’ A third principle was that conservation had to be for ‘the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time’ – an ominous concept for the remnants of the Agrarian Counterrevolution, watching the flow of people from the countryside into the growing industrial cities.

Roosevelt showed no fear in trust-busting too-big corporations, but when it came to conservation there were easier battles to wage than those against those exploiting minerals, timber, grass and any other lucrative resource that could be more or less legally taken with no requisite sense of public responsibility or sustainability.

There was, for instance, the wastefulness of nature itself (and nature had no army of lawyers defending its wastefulness at the turn of the century). Conservationists today lament that the Colorado River no longer flows into the ocean; but by the tenets of Rooseveltian conservation, freshwater running in an unusable flood through a potentially productive desert and ‘wasted to the ocean’ was a terrible waste.

Thus reclamation was conservation; the Reclamation Service was created in 1902 to address that waste, helping farmers put the river to beneficial use on the land. But, as was observed in a previous post (July 5, 2022), the real problem was not digging the ditches to carry water to the land; the problem was the source of water for the ditches – a wild river that ran huge silty ditch-clogging flows early in the growing season but then had very little water for finishing crops late in the growing season.

This was waste, by Rooseveltian standards, and the Reclamation Service, looking hungrily at all the rapidly emerging new technology for potentially changing the geological face of the planet, wanted to get to work controlling the Colorado River and storing its floods for rationalized use throughout the year. Before work developing the river could begin, however, other problems had to be worked out that had nothing to do with the physical challenges.

This map shows the Colorado River Basin and surrounding areas that use Colorado River Water, with four regions delineated, based on the degree to which flow is regulated and the channel physically manipulated. The dividing line for the upper and lower basin is Lee Ferry near Glen Canyon Dam. CREDIT: CENTER FOR COLORADO RIVER STUDIES

The Colorado River wandered through or between seven states – Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico – and all of them depended to some extent on the Colorado River and its tributaries as a major source of surface water for all needs. Given the interstate nature of the river, the federal government would have to have at least overseen the development of the river, assuring some degree of equity among the states. And there was the further fact that only the federal government could muster the upfront financial resources for such a set of projects, with a long payback period.

But the seven states all wanted a strong voice in how the river would be developed, and they were quite uncomfortable with the idea of the federal government as the principal operator of their river and water supply. There continued to be a level of mistrust, especially among the agrarians, against the centralized government.

Another problem lay in the fact that all seven of those states distributed the right intrastate to use surface water from the public domain through the appropriations system discussed in the last post (July 18, 2022): in every watershed in each state, use of the water resource was distributed on a ‘first come, first served’ basis; water users could take as much water as they could actually put to use, but their right to use that water was based on their seniority; in a water shortage, those with the oldest water rights got their water first; if they were being shorted by upstream users with junior rights, they could place a ‘call’ on the river, and the junior users would have to let some or all of their water flow past their headgate to fill the seniors’ decrees.

This became complicated within each state when water users in the larger watersheds, composed of all smaller upstream watersheds, wanted priority for the larger watershed administered in all the upstream watersheds too. For example, the Redlands Water and Power Company far down in the Gunnison River Basin had a 1905 decree for 670 cubic feet per second, and wanted to be able to place a call in a water-short year on all junior users in the entire Gunnison Basin, all the way up to the headwaters tributary watersheds. You could be a senior user in your own local watershed, but a junior in the larger more regional watershed. Compilation and administration of all of these rights required a great deal of organization from the state engineer through major hydrologic divisions down to the local districts – the kind of work for which the computer was invented. But for most of a century it was all recorded and maintained in rooms full of ledgers and paper.

But given the willy-nilly nature of state boundaries in the West – almost totally devoid of any geographic or hydrologic sense – a question rose that no one wanted to ask or answer: would the states ‘sharing’ a river have to respect and abide by each other’s prior appropriations? Would ranchers in the headwaters of the Green River in Wyoming be subject to a call on the river from the Imperial Valley in California a thousand miles away?

Colorado River “Beginnings”. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

The headwaters states found it perfectly logical from their perspective to argue that each state should be able to develop intrastate any and all water within its boundaries. Downstream states with no rivers rising within their boundaries, on the other hand, felt that priority of rights should be enforced in a basin-wide way, top to bottom.

Laramie and Poudre Tunnel inlet October 3, 2010.

Addressing the question was finally unavoidable when, in 1915, Colorado tried to put to use all of the water in a small tributary of the Laramie River in the North Platte River Basin – water which was already being used in Wyoming with water rights granted there. The question of who owned the right to use the water went directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was argued and re-argued several times, but finally in 1922 the Supremes issued their judgment: states with appropriation doctrines sharing an interstate river would have to honor each other’s prior appropriations on that river.

This resolution to another problem among the seven Colorado River states. Every state was growing early in the 20^th century, and wanted to continue to grow. (Nevada can be exempted at that time: its development was almost entirely over on the Sierra Nevada side of the state. Las Vegas then was just a small ranching village with some depressed mineral prospectors.)

But the growth was not happening evenly among the states, or within them. The headwaters areas above 7000 feet elevation in the upstream states were growing slowly at best; they were still dealing with the bust of the gold and silver boom, and tended to be losing population. Areas below that elevation, where soil and access to water were conducive to agriculture, were booming. The Montrose-Delta-Mesa County corridor in the Gunnison River basin, for example, doubled its population in those two decades – undoubtedly assisted by the Reclamation Service’s Gunnison Tunnel project (see last post), and a big federal irrigation project in the Grand Valley. Denver and a number of other cities outside the river’s natural basin also doubled their population, and were looking seriously at tapping into the Colorado River’s mountain tributaries.

But while these states were doubling their population in those two decades, the population of Southern California quintupled. And to water that growth, the City of Los Angeles in 1905 reached more than 200 miles out into the southern Sierras to the Owens River valley. Farmers and ranchers in the valley signed over their water rights for what they believed was to be a local Reclamation Service project, but the rights ended up in the hands of the city, which constructed a 230-mile gravity-flow aqueduct that brought most of the Owens River to the Los Angeles Basin. The deceptive way in which many of the water rights were obtained caused an outcry that resonated throughout the remaining agrarian culture nationally. President Roosevelt finally weighed in on the situation: he stated his disapproval of the deception – but then came down on the city’s side: it was the greatest good for the greatest number.

The other six River Basin states watched that situation unfold, and realized that if the federal government answered California’s pleas to take on the task of controlling the river, California might appropriate so much of it that the other states, growing more slowly, might have nothing to use for their eventual development. And the Owens Valley project could become a model for the growing cities to dewater some of their mountain valleys. The alternative to losing access to their river would be a ‘seven-state horserace,’ with each state striving to put as much water under decree as possible, as quickly as possible – not exemplary of orderly growth and development.

The only way to resolve these multiple dilemmas – other than the unacceptable resolution of just turning it all over to the federal government – was through a seven-state compact that would establish some process for the equitable distribution of the consumptive use of the river’s waters.

So Congressional permission for an interstate compact was secured, and in January of 1922, governor-appointed representatives from the seven basin states gathered in Washington with a federal representative as chair: Herbert Hoover, then the Secretary of Commerce. This was six months before the Supreme Court rendered its judgment on interstate prior appropriations in Wyoming v. Colorado, but the handwriting was on the wall there.

Next post: grinding the sausage for the seven-state Colorado River Compact….

Many miles from #LakeMead, rural electric utilities struggle with #ColoradoRiver shortage — The #Nevada Independent #COriver #aridification

From Moapa Valley, looking east towards the Mormon Mesa. By Bvburnes, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1028056

Click the link to read the article on Nevada’s only statewide nonprofit newsroom the Nevada Independent website (Daniel Rothberg):

In between the towns of Pioche and Caliente, pumps draw water from underground aquifers to irrigate crops. The water is heavy, and running those pumps depends on electricity — a lot of it.
For years, these Lincoln County farms received all of their energy from power generated miles away at Hoover Dam, which holds Lake Mead. But less water in the reservoir has meant less low-cost hydropower for rural towns, forcing them to purchase more expensive power in energy markets.
Lincoln County is not alone. Power from Hoover Dam — and other Colorado River dams — is delivered to about five million people across the Southwest. Many of the customers buying this power are small rural electric nonprofit utilities, tribal nations and local government agencies.
“Water is obviously a super important issue and deserves to be talked about,” said Dave Luttrell, general manager of Lincoln County Power District No. 1. “But sometimes I feel, as probably the most hydropower-dependent utility in the Southwest, and a small one at that, kind of the lone wolf out here saying ‘We need to pay attention to hydropower production.’”
Residents in Lincoln County and other rural communities across the state might not get their water from the Colorado River. Yet many rural communities rely on power created by the massive dams — from Wyoming to California — that hold back Colorado River water.
Many rural towns get their power from customer-owned cooperatives. Unlike investor-owned private utilities, rural co-ops operate as nonprofits and help bring energy to remote areas.
Over the past two decades, Lake Mead has dropped to historic lows amid a prolonged Colorado River drought, worsened by a warming climate. The crisis is now so severe that states across the Southwest are facing difficult negotiations over painful water cuts needed to stabilize Lake Mead, Lake Powell and an interconnected system of reservoirs along the Colorado River.
Even with Lake Mead at 28 percent capacity, Hoover Dam can physically continue to produce some hydropower. If Lincoln County is “lucky” next year, Luttrell said, it will get 60 percent of its Hoover Dam power allocation. But if the reservoir continues falling toward “dead pool” — the point at which no water can pass the dam — that slice of the pie will grow even smaller.
“Hydropower is not coming back,” Luttrell said. “The days of Lincoln County Power getting 100 percent of its need from hydropower are in the rearview mirror, and they’re never coming back.”
The immediate future, he and others said, is going to be one of less low-cost hydropower. And small rural utilities, with fewer resources than large investor-owned utilities, are looking for ways to adapt. There are solutions, but they can be expensive. And in some cases, these rural communities and tribal nations are feeling the shortage doubly hard.
With less hydropower, utilities have had to purchase more expensive power on the open market, where prices can peak to extremely high levels on hot days. Simultaneously, their contracts with the federal government, which sells the hydropower, keep them on the hook for fixed fees used to operate and maintain dams — as well as fund fish recovery programs on the Colorado River.
“You pay for what you don’t get, and you go buy more expensive stuff to replace it,” Luttrell said.
These contracts are signed with an important, if little known, federal agency: the Western Area Power Administration. The Department of Energy agency, known as WAPA, helps funnel power from the Colorado River’s dams to rural utilities and tribal communities across the West.
“The drought in the West is one of our largest concerns,” WAPA spokesperson Lisa Meiman said. “Each one of our projects is working with their customers to identify the best path forward.”
In Nevada, WAPA sells power to the Colorado River Commission, which in turn distributes the water to rural co-ops and other buyers. WAPA also contracts with the Nellis Air Force Base, the Nevada National Security Site, and four tribal communities: the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, the Ely Shoshone Tribe, the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe and the Yomba Shoshone Tribe. But exactly where this hydropower comes from can vary, making the contracting very complicated.
Some have contracts to get their power from the Colorado River Storage Project, upstream of the Hoover Dam. The project includes Glen Canyon Dam, which holds back Lake Powell, a reservoir that fell below a critical threshold this summer. Others get their power from Hoover Dam. And some buy electricity from power plants at Parker and Davis dams downstream.
The terms of the contracts vary depending on where power is purchased, but in general, WAPA operates as an at-cost organization, Meiman said. About 95 percent of its funds come from the revenues generated off of power and transmission sales. That means it charges customers for expenses including operations and maintenance, investments and environmental compliance.
The structure seems to work when the water is there, even in cases where there are small shortages. Yet unprecedented water shortages on the river have strained the system, especially for customers who have generally seen an increase in hydropower rates. And it raises major questions about the future, with grim water forecasts for Lake Mead and Lake Powell.

Lake Powell, just upstream from Glen Canyon Dam. At the time of this photo, in May 2021, Lake Powell was 34% full. (Ted Wood/The Water Desk)

Upstream of Hoover Dam, for instance, costs for the Glen Canyon Dam and other projects are split among water and power customers. Right now, about 75 percent of the costs are borne by power users. Irrigators, for the most part, are expected to pick up the rest of the tab. But a provision in federal law says that power revenues could cover costs “beyond the irrigators’ ability to pay.” As a result, Meiman said, power revenues pay for about 90 percent of the upstream infrastructure.
Fixed costs are only one part of the equation. Less hydropower generation has a cascade of consequences. Energy experts stress that hydropower brings reliability to the grid in the West, especially when demand peaks in the summer. Power revenues have additionally helped to pay for environmental programs, including two recovery programs aimed at restoring fish species, including the humpback chub, bonytail chub, pikeminnow and razorback sucker.
For utility managers like Mendis Cooper, these impacts are hardly theoretical. Cooper, who leads Overton Power District No. 5, said most rural electric co-ops are operating without the flexibility that a big power provider might have. That means higher hydropower costs — and the need for replacement power — often have a large impact on rates, which are then passed along to rural businesses and farmers who are already operating on tight margins.
“All of us that are rural utilities are all not-for-profit,” he said. “We don’t have margins. We don’t have margins from previous years that we can carry over to make up for these types of things.”
Hydropower, Cooper said, accounts for about one-quarter of the power used by the Overton Power District, which serves the Moapa Valley, the Moapa Band of Paiutes and Mesquite. To mitigate an increase in rates, the power district can defer capital projects, but only for so long.
“Our rates keep going up and up,” he said.
The future — and what happens next — comes down to water. Cooper, who also serves as president of the Colorado River Energy Distributors Association, said he is watching the negotiations and efforts to stabilize Lake Mead, which sits just outside of Overton.
“We’ve seen this coming,” Cooper said of the water shortages. “We’ve seen the lake levels drop over the last 20 years. But it’s still amazing that something that big can go down that fast.”
In addition to buying replacement power on the open market, some rural electric utilities are looking for long-term alternatives to fill the gaps created by the drought. Lincoln County, for instance, has been working closely with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) to help fund a multi-phase solar project, according to Luttrell, who runs the local utility.
“We feel like we’ve got to solve this problem ourselves,” Luttrell said.
Once built, the solar project could cover about half of the power district’s customer demand. Luttrell said Lincoln County is working with rural co-ops in Arizona to source some of its power from natural gas when neither hydropower nor solar is available. Similarly, the Overton Power District recently signed a contract to install a solar plant, hoping to offset the loss in hydropower.
Still, Cooper warns: “We cannot replace that role hydropower plays on the entire grid.”
The hydropower challenge “means that these utilities have to be creative,” said Carolyn Turner, executive director of the Nevada Rural Electric Association. Efforts to bring more power online, she noted, could be aided by the Inflation Reduction Act, which allows non-taxable entities, such as local governments, schools and nonprofit utilities, to take advantage of solar energy credits.
As more rural utilities grapple with this issue, a looming question remains — what role should the federal government play in replacing lost hydropower and preparing for a drier future? By law, the only power source WAPA markets is hydropower, Meiman said.
But, she added, the agency is working closely with the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water along the Colorado River, to find long-term solutions and to make the current operations more efficient. Already, WAPA has pushed for changes to when water is released at dams, as it is more beneficial for power customers if water is released at times of peak electricity demand.
Today, Lincoln County has a population of about 4,500 residents, and farming is a key part of its economy. Bevan Lister, an irrigator, a county commissioner, and the president of the Nevada Farm Bureau, has watched Colorado River water use over the past three decades.
For farms that rely on groundwater, the electricity that drives their pumping can make up about 15 to 20 percent of the budget. The power district, Lister added, has done a good job of managing costs in the past. But he said that irrigators are looking at more expensive electricity rates next year.
Farming in Nevada, he said, “has a lot of challenges, both climate wise and cost wise. So any time those costs are increased, it challenges the viability of [farming] businesses.”
Water on the Colorado River, Lister argued, “has to be managed in a different way” to keep the reservoirs stable, and he said hydropower remains an important part of the equation.
“Hydroelectric power is extremely valuable to the agricultural industry, both in Lincoln County and across the West,” Lister said. “Dependable and cost-efficient electrical systems provide for a tremendous amount of our agricultural production in the West.”

A photograph of Nevada Solar One (at right), and Copper Mountain Solar 1 (at left): taken from a commercial jetliner in Fall 2011. By Michael Adams, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23131135

Here’s what else I’m watching this week:
The “power of place:” For years, renewable developers have looked to the Great Basin and Mojave Desert as prime land to site energy projects. The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada docket list is increasingly filled with notices of new developments. Many of these would go on public land, managed by the federal government. Where these projects go matters a great deal. The sprawling projects can conflict with sensitive habitats, migration corridors, recreation areas, culturally significant land and competing uses, including grazing rights and mineral claims.
Last week, The Nature Conservancy released a regional report looking at renewable project siting, and what it would take to avoid the most sensitive landscapes and ecosystems. The takeaway: It can be done, but it will require planning. The Los Angeles Times’ Sammy Roth took a look at the report in his newsletter earlier this month and what it might mean for the energy transition.
The federal government is launching a program to pay irrigators for conserving a portion of their Colorado River water. But will prices be enough of an incentive to move the needle? More from KUNC’s Alex Hager, who writes that “the funding represents a rare infusion of federal money for a climate change-fueled crisis that is plaguing the Southwest’s water supply.”
“We end up referring them out and sending them hundreds of miles out of their way just to get care that we should be able to provide here.” That’s a quote from Serrell Smokey, the chairman of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California in a recent story published by Kaiser Health News. Reporters Julie Appleby and Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez look at the ways in which wildfires, made worse by climate change, are affecting health care where access is limited.
Just how many mines are needed for the energy transition? That’s a question that Jael Holzman of E&E News looks at in a piece this week. This is a must-read for understanding the potential impact of the energy transition in mining-friendly jurisdictions, including Nevada.
Where the Las Vegas pipeline stands: Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Colton Lochhead and photojournalist Ellen Schmidt produced an important story about the proposed Las Vegas pipeline now that the project has been shelved — and the relief it’s brought to eastern Nevada.
The Associated Press‘ Scott Sonner looks at the similarities between a case involving a rare toad in Dixie Valley and a landmark Endangered Species Act case.
“Forever chemicals” are here and everywhere. POLITICO reports on a new study/map.
And Nevada has a new trail map, via the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Funding to support ag initiatives using less water — The #GrandJunction Daily Sentinel #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the article on the Grand Junction Colorado website (Dennis Webb). Here’s an excerpt:

A newly created funding program is geared toward supporting initiatives that may help allow agricultural operations to adapt to reduced water supplies. The Colorado Ag Water Alliance effort will support the design and implementation of drought resilience and innovative water conservation projects with agricultural water users and water managers, the alliance says…
The alliance received more than $190,000 from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, a state agency, for the new funding program. Greg Peterson, the board’s executive director, said in an interview that additional funds came from groups such as the Nature Conservancy, the Colorado Master Irrigator program, the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and the Colorado Association of Conservation Districts. The funding is intended to support development and implementation of innovative solutions to address ongoing drought and water-security issues in the state, according to a recent news release from alliance.

#GreatSaltLake to get water infusion; entity planned to promote #conservation — The Orem Standard-Examiner

Satellite photo of the Great Salt Lake from August 2018 after years of drought, reaching near-record lows. The difference in colors between the northern and southern portions of the lake is the result of a railroad causeway. The image was acquired by the MSI sensor on the Sentinel-2B satellite. By Copernicus Sentinel-2, ESA – https://scihub.copernicus.eu/dhus/#/home, CC BY-SA 3.0 igo, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77990895

Click the link to read the article on the Orem Standard-Examiner website (Tim Vandenack ). Here’s an excerpt:

Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson on Thursday announced that the Weber Basin and Jordan Valley water conservancy districts will send an additional 30,000 acre feet of water to the lake, above and beyond what they’re otherwise expected to let loose. The Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, one of several water providers around the state, serves Weber County and taps into the Pineview Reservoir, among others…Moreover, Wilson unveiled plans to seek creation of a new public-private venture called Utah Water Ways, which would be overseen by a coalition of Utah business leaders who would spearhead grant programming and a publicity campaign to save water. It’s modeled after the Utah Clean Air Partnership, or UCAIR, focused on fighting air pollution by involving the broader public…
The 30,000 acre feet in extra water coming from the two water conservancy districts, to be released over the coming winter, is just a fraction of what the lake needs to get back to normal. But Wilson, a Kaysville Republican, hopes for more such allocations and said fixing the problem will require numerous incremental measures…Meantime, the Utah Water Ways initiative, which sprang from Wilson’s office, will require passage of enabling legislation when lawmakers meet in the 2023 session early next year. But he’s already organized a coalition of partners to aid in the process and provide funding. They are Rio Tinto, the mining group; Intermountain Healthcare, the nonprofit health care provider; Zion’s Bank; Ivory Homes; and the Larry H. Miller Co., a consortium of companies.

Metropolitan #Water District of Southern #California Board Calls for Banning Non-Functional Turf on Commercial, Industrial, Public Properties

Non-functional turf. Photo credit: Metropolitan Water District of Southern California

Click the link to read the release on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California website:

Board supports permanent ban of grass that is not regularly used for recreation,
other purposes
With drought and climate change stressing water availability, the Metropolitan Water District is taking steps to eliminate an all-too-common sight in Southern California that uses up valuable water resources – ornamental grass that serves no recreational or community purpose – grass known as non-functional turf.
Metropolitan’s Board of Directors last Tuesday (Oct. 11) adopted a resolution that strongly recommends cities and water agencies across Southern California pass ordinances permanently prohibiting the installation and irrigation of non-functional turf. The board’s call is largely directed at both existing and new commercial, industrial and public properties, as well as HOAs, rather than residential properties. It does, however, call for local regulations that don’t allow installation of non-functional turf in new home construction.
“More than half of all water used in Southern California is used outdoors for irrigation, much of it for grass that is not walked or played on or used in any meaningful way. Sustaining ornamental grass is not a good use of our precious water resources,” Metropolitan General Manager Adel Hagekhalil said.
Metropolitan has for more than a decade incentivized residents and businesses to replace their grass lawns with more water-efficient landscaping. That turf replacement program, which today offers a base rebate of $2 per square foot of grass replaced, has directly resulted in the removal of more than 200 million square feet of grass, saving enough water to serve 62,000 homes annually. In addition, a recent study found that for every 100 homes that converted their yards using a Metropolitan rebate, an additional 132 nearby homes were inspired to convert their own grass without receiving a rebate to help fund the projects. This “multiplier effect” more than doubled the value of Metropolitan’s $351 million investment in making Southern California more sustainable.
“Through our turf rebate and California Friendly® and native plant gardening education programs, we’ve jumpstarted the movement to change the landscape of Southern California. But we must do more,” Chairwoman Gloria D. Gray said.
“We are experiencing unprecedented drought conditions in California and on the Colorado River – straining both of our imported water supplies. And the reality of climate change means that these alarming conditions are likely to become more common and more severe. We need to find ways to permanently live with less water,” she added.
California is in the midst of the driest three years on record, resulting in the lowest-ever deliveries from the State Water Project, which on average supplies 30 percent of the water used in Southern California. The constraints on that supply have left 6 million people in the region without enough water to meet normal demands, requiring unprecedented mandatory conservation.
On the Colorado River – Southern California’s other principal imported water supply – a decades-long drought has left the system’s reservoirs at their lowest-ever levels. The federal government has responded with a call for immediate and dramatic cutbacks in water use.
Elimination of non-functional turf is becoming an increasingly valuable tool to quickly and permanently decrease water use. In response to California’s drought, the State Water Resources Control Board issued an emergency regulation temporarily banning the irrigation of non-functional turf with potable water from June 2022 to June 2023. And in August, Metropolitan joined urban water agencies across the Colorado River Basin to sign a Memorandum of Understanding committing to reducing non-functional turf.

“We need to permanently reduce the amount of water used on non-functional turf. That is why we are calling on cities and agencies to adopt relevant ordinances that will work with the particular circumstances of their communities,” Hagekhalil said. “At the same time, Metropolitan will continue providing cash incentives so that grass is not simply paved over, rather it is replaced with water-efficient landscaping to ensure our trees continue thriving and our communities remain beautiful and ecologically diverse.”
The resolution approved Tuesday specifically calls for cities and agencies to pass ordinances that permanently: prohibit the use of potable water to irrigate non-functional turf in existing and new non-residential properties; prohibit the installation of non-functional turf in non-residential and new residential properties; and require the removal of all non-functional turf in non-residential properties by a certain date. Non-functional turf is defined as specific kinds of grasses irrigated by potable water that are not regularly used for human recreational purposes or for civic or community events.

Whatever happened to the September swoon? — @DenverWater

Click the link to read the article on the Denver Water website (Todd Hartman):

Weather forecasters consider September the start of “meteorological fall.” And even without the fancy term, most of us think of the month as the unofficial kickoff to autumn.
School starts, football season is underway, and temperatures begin a welcome cool down.
Well, about that last part: September is not as cool as it used to be.

A car thermometer registers another hot September day. Photo credit: Denver Water.

And that means customers are watering their yards later into the year, creating more demand for water and making things trickier for Denver Water’s water supply managers.
Just recall the way September started this year, with a string of days in the mid-to-upper 90s, including back-to-back 99-degree days in the Denver area. (Denver Water’s downtown weather station hit 100.)
In fact, as 9News meteorologist Chris Bianchi reported on Twitter, Denver broke a record for number of 90-degree days (10) in a single September this year.

A wave of heat-related records were broken across the West this year, including here in the Denver metro area. Image credit: Chris Bianchi via Twitter.

The phenomenon was also well-documented by 9News meteorologist Cory Reppenhagen in his Sept. 5 report on how unusual heat records in Denver notched during September’s first week are part of the metro area’s rising September heat trend.
All told, toasty Septembers appear to be one more element of a changing and warming climate.

A screenshot from a Sept. 5, 2022, report by 9News meteorologist Cory Reppenhagen about September’s changing weather patterns in the Denver metro area. Image credit: 9News meteorologist Cory Reppenhagen.

“We have a pretty good idea of what water demand in the summer months will look like, but September is becoming a wild card,” said Nathan Elder, the utility’s water supply manager.
“We have seen higher demand and increased reservoir releases in recent Septembers,” he added. “But we also know we can see snow during the month, which makes planning for the month and setting up winter operations difficult.”
Stay up to date on water issues (plus tips to save water) by signing up for TAP’s free, weekly email.
Additionally, Elder said, warmer fall temperatures can dry soil in the collection system, which means more snow is needed the following winter to fill reservoirs.
“This is a trend we are really keeping our eye on because it can have significant impacts on water supply late in the season and going into the next spring,” Elder said.
One other challenge tied to warmer Septembers: a longer fire season, such as in 2020, when the state’s two largest-ever fires exploded late in the year, including the East Troublesome Fire that roared through Grand Lake in mid-October.

Dillon Reservoir is Denver Water’s largest reservoir. It sends water to the Front Range via the 23-mile-long Roberts Tunnel under the Continental Divide. Photo credit: Denver Water.

Some numbers that tell the story:
– Denver Water is seeing more demand for water in September. Last year, demand was about 30 million gallons per day above the 30-year average. In 2022, the volume was 15 million gallons over the same average. The difference between the two years can be attributed to the fact that precipitation in 2022 was closer to normal and 2021 was drier.
– September 2022 was Denver’s third-warmest on record, at an average of 69 degrees, surpassed only by 2015 and 2019, according to National Weather Service data highlighted by Bianchi, the 9News meteorologist.
– Flows in the Roberts Tunnel, which delivers water from Dillon Reservoir to the Front Range, are rising in September, with 260 cubic feet per second seen in recent years versus the long-term average of 160 cfs. That’s a sign Denver Water needs to send more water to the metro area to meet the higher September demand.
That doesn’t mean, however, that Denver Water is pulling more water from its West Slope reservoirs. In fact, overall water movement through the Roberts Tunnel over the course of a year is flat, as lower winter demand and tunnel shutoffs have helped balance out that September bump.

Warmer-than-normal temperatures during the day and at night raise the overall average temperature of the month. Image credit: Chris Bianchi via Twitter.

Overall, September reservoir releases across the system have been higher than average in recent years, a sign that Denver Water must rely more on storage to meet higher late-summer demand.
Cheesman Reservoir on the South Platte River system serves as one example, with average September releases during the last five years of 286 cfs versus the longer-term average of 211 cfs.
Denver Water’s records show September is warming at a higher rate than any other month during the watering season. And Reppenhagen’s reporting found that “September (weather) is changing the most out of all the months, warming by 1.5 degrees compared to the previous 30-year period of record.”
As Reppenhagen points out, warmer Septembers are extending the summer growing season, a development that he notes was predicted by some of the earliest computer modeling examining the effect of rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Denver Water customers are using more water later in the year as Septembers warm. Photo credit: Denver Water.

That is borne out by water use.
Outdoor demand in September has grown about 23% when comparing the recent-five year stretch of 2017-2021 to the period between 2000 and 2016. In the same five-year span, September use has only been 3% below June levels.
From a practical standpoint, warmer Septembers make work tougher for Denver Water’s planners.
When that extra pull on reservoirs in September is combined with lower soil moisture, it means the utility has to lean even harder on the winter months to provide enough snowpack to fill reservoirs the following spring.

The shift also means planners are relying less on historical water demand models and focusing far more on data from more recent years to get a better idea of how much water Denver Water customers will need in September.
Overall, Denver Water customers have been good at conserving. Demand is generally flat or even declining during most months of the year. September is an outlier: as noted above, the five-year average for the month is actually on the rise.

Adjusting your sprinkler control system to account for weather and the time of year can save water. Cooler nights send a signal to your landscape that it’s time to wrap things up for the winter and it doesn’t need as much water. Photo credit: Denver Water.

But a reminder to customers: Even with a warmer September, the need for outdoor watering declines because nighttime is cooler, and grass can get by with less water.
As Denver Water takes many steps to adapt to a warming climate, it will incorporate these late-summer temperature increases into its many-faceted approach to ensure it can supply the Denver region with water.
In the shorter term, Elder has a more visceral suggestion: “September should be kicked out of fall,” he said. “Move it permanently to summer.”

U.S. 2022-2027 Global #Water Strategy — U.S. Department of State

Click the link to read the strategy on the Department of State website:

The global water crisis threatens U.S. national security and prosperity. Water insecurity endangers public health, undermines economic growth, deepens inequalities, and increases the likelihood of conflict and state failure. Strong water, sanitation, and hygiene services, finance, governance, and institutions are critical to increasing resilience in the face of global shocks and stressors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.
The 2014 Water for the World Act requires that USAID and the Department of State deliver a whole-of-government Global Water Strategy to Congress, beginning in 2017 and refreshing it every five years until 2032 (see the 2017 Global Water Strategy). The 2022 strategy will operationalize the first-ever White House Action Plan on Global Water Security that Vice President Kamala Harris launched in June 2022.
Strategic Objectives
Under this strategy, the U.S. government will work through four interconnected and mutually reinforcing strategic objectives:
– Strengthen sector governance, financing, institutions, and markets;
– Increase equitable access to safe, sustainable, and climate-resilient water and sanitation services, and the adoption of key hygiene behaviors;
– Improve climate-resilient conservation and management of freshwater resources and associated ecosystems; and
– Anticipate and reduce conflict and fragility related to water.
New Priorities
This strategy advances new priorities, such as:
– Going beyond community-managed services for a comprehensive, professionalized, and scalable approach;
– Prioritizing local leadership of water and sanitation systems and services;
– Integrating climate resilience to respond to the growing threat that climate change poses to water security; and
– Increasing coherent implementation across humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding contexts.

Opinion: Federal Funding to Ease Western #Water Shortage Offers Historic #Conservation Opportunity — The Walton Family Foundation #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

The Colorado River is a source of irrigation, hydropower and drinking water for 40 million people in seven Western states. Source: The Water Desk via the Water Education Foundation

Click the link to read the article on the Walton Family Foundation website (Caryl M. Stern, Kate Gallego):

Spending should focus on long-term solutions for water security, write foundation executive director Caryl M. Stern and Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego
The Western United States is experiencing the worst megadrought in more than 1,200 years, impacting everything from water supplies in major cities to the survival of farms vital to the nation’s food supply.
Navigating this crisis requires that we treat it as a long-term challenge we adapt to and manage, not a short-term issue we attempt to fix.
The recently signed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) directing billions of dollars to ongoing drought and water shortages in the Colorado River basin creates an historic opportunity to improve water security in the region for generations.
Success requires that we set an objective and transparent funding process that prioritizes permanent, shared conservation solutions over temporary political expediency.
The same day that the IRA was signed into law, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced major, mandatory cuts to the amount of water Arizona, Nevada and Mexico can draw from the Colorado River.
These cuts follow another recent directive for basin states to develop a plan to reduce water use from the river by an additional 2 to 4 million acre-feet per year. For context, Arizona’s entire annual share from the Colorado River is 2.8 million acre-feet.
Change of this magnitude requires fundamentally rethinking how we manage water and resources in the basin. Put more plainly: the systems that have brought us to this point – often the result of water agreements brokered behind closed doors – will not be enough.
Every water user, regardless of their state or historic legal entitlement, will need to be part of the solution.
The good news is that we have resources.
The IRA allocates $4 billion for Western drought and $20 billion for climate-smart agriculture throughout the nation. Coupled with the $8.3 billion for Western water issues in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, this funding can make the difference between the river’s long-term sustainability or eventual collapse – if we invest it wisely and transparently.
The IRA itself does not offer specific or detailed guidance for how federal dollars should be spent. To have the impact needed, the Bureau of Reclamation must set clear and publicly vetted criteria for evaluating projects.
At a time when states are in tense negotiations to determine how to make difficult cuts to their water use, transparency is essential. It will also ensure that funding isn’t allocated for political gain and instead supports projects with the greatest long-term, shared benefit.
Objective criteria for evaluating projects should prioritize multiyear water conservation efforts. Investing in nature-based solutions can protect, restore and sustainably manage existing water systems.
These strategies include:
– water recycling;
– reconnecting floodplains and rivers to naturally regulate floodwaters;
– managing forests to reduce wildfires; and
– helping farms switch to more drought-tolerant, higher value crops.
Funded at scale, projects like these can create more a sustainable water supply in basin states for decades to come.
The criteria established by the Bureau of Reclamation should also include a deliberate focus on communities that have been disproportionately impacted by drought, climate change, and water shortages.
Households in tribal nations are 19 times more likely than white households to lack indoor plumbing. Despite having the oldest water rights in the basin, they have historically been left out of key water decision-making bodies and need to have a seat at the table.
As the economic and population centers of the West, cities like Phoenix should have a prominent and direct role in decisions affecting the drinking water for millions of residents and the industries that support our national economy and national security, such as semiconductor and medical device manufacturing.
Cities, along with irrigation districts and other water suppliers, must be able to apply for funding directly and be evaluated by the same transparent criteria so resources quickly get where they are needed most.
The Colorado River basin is facing unprecedented risk, but we also have unprecedented resources. Managed effectively, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to provide a safe and secure water supply for decades to come.
This article originally appeared in the Arizona Republic on October 3, 2022.

#Aurora commits to water-conservation measures, reducing “nonfunctional turf” by 30%: City Council also gave the final OK on the proposal limiting cool-weather grasses — The #Denver Post

Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Saja Hindi). Here’s an excerpt:

The Aurora City Council tackled several water issues Monday night, giving the final stamp of approval to the mayor’s proposal that would prohibit cool-weather grass for new golf courses and reduce the amount of grass in new developments. The City Council had to vote on the proposal again, despite passing it last month, because of a typo in the first reading that required the additional vote. The ordinance aimed at conserving water dictates where and how much “cool-season turf” or grasses, including Kentucky bluegrass and Fescue, can be placed in new developments. Ornamental water features would also be banned…In addition to eliminating the use of cool-season turf on new golf courses, the ordinance removes turf in residential front yards, curbside or median landscape areas, multifamily and commercial landscape areas that are not active recreation areas and spray irrigation in medians. It restricts using the grasses to 45% or 500 square feet of backyards, whichever is less…Site plans approved before Jan. 1, 2023, would be exempt from the new rules. Additionally, alley-load areas where small backyard sizes don’t allow for the installation of turf can have either 45% or 500 square feet, whichever is less, of front-yard turf.
The City Council also approved on Monday night a resolution supporting a “water conservation memorandum of understanding” among Colorado River Basin Water providers…In the memorandum, Aurora pledged to continue water conservation programs, introduce a new program to reduce nonfunctional turf by 30% (with a full plan brought forward next year), increase water and recycling programs and collaborate with other water users in the Colorado River Basin. But agriculture will have to be part of the solution because “we could turn off water in every state in the basin, every municipality, and it wouldn’t address the issue. It’s agriculture,” Council member Dustin Zvonek said.

Inaugural #ColoradoRiver Water Leaders class releases recommendations for post 2026 river operating guidelines — Water Education Foundation #COriver #aridification

Water Education Foundation Inaugural ColoradoRiver Water Leaders class with their suggested 2026 operating guidelines for the river basin. Photo credit: The Water Education Foundation

Click the link to read the announcement from the Water Education Foundation website:

Our inaugural 2022 Colorado River Water Leaders class completed its six-month program with a report outlining key policy recommendations for managing the Colorado River after existing operating guidelines expire in 2026.
The class of 13 up-and-coming leaders included engineers, lawyers, resource specialists, scientists and others working for public, private and nongovernmental organizations from across the river’s basin. The class had full editorial control to choose its recommendations.
Class members presented their recommendations at the Foundation’s biennial Colorado River Symposium, an invitation-only event in Santa Fe, N.M., whose audience included key water managers, state and federal officials, tribal leaders and other interested groups from throughout the Colorado River Basin.
The biennial Colorado River Water Leaders program is modeled after our California Water Leaders program, which allows participants to deepen their knowledge on water, enhance individual leadership skills and prepare participants to take an active, cooperative approach to decision-making about water resource issues. Leading experts and top policymakers served as mentors to class members. Our next Colorado River Water Leaders class will be in 2024.
Among the Colorado River Water Leaders’ key recommendations:

– Improve the planning process through increased frequency, communication and engagement with water interests

– Establish a more holistic approach to systems management that balances water use with available supply and inflows that provides flexibility and allows the system to recover and build resilience.

Colorado River Allocations: Credit: The Congressional Research Service

– Leverage the political power of the Colorado River Basin to push Congress for large-scale, predictable federal investment.

– Incorporate the environment in the next round of Colorado River operating guidelines.

Interior Secretary Haaland, Partners Celebrate #GreatSandDunes National Park Land  Acquisition During #Colorado Visit

Zapata Ranch. Photo credit: The Nature Conservancy

Click the link to read the release on the U.S. Department of Interior website:

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and National Park Service (NPS) Director Chuck Sams today celebrated the transfer of approximately 9,362 acres of the Medano Ranch from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to Great Sand Dunes National Park. The acquisition was made possible through funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). This enhancement of the national park will allow for more holistic management as a connected landscape and provides long-term protection areas that contribute to the formation of the dune field. 
“Great Sand Dunes and The Nature Conservancy have built a model for collaboration that will help guarantee that future generations have access to this special place,” said Secretary Haaland. “This acquisition underscores the central role that locally led conservation efforts play in the Biden-Harris administration’s America the Beautiful initiative and our ongoing efforts to conserve, connect and restore public lands and waters.”
Great Sand Dunes National Park was established as a national monument in 1932 and redesignated as a national park and preserve in 2000 to protect the tallest dunes in North America for current and future generations. The dunes are the centerpiece in a diverse landscape of grasslands, wetlands, forests, alpine lakes and tundra. Last year, more than 603,000 visitors came to experience the singular dunes and starry skies,and learn about the cultural history. In 2021, park visitors spent an estimated $41.3 million in local gateway regions while visiting Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve, supporting more than 530 jobs.
“The lands being transferred to the Park contain important springs and wetlands that support a rich diversity of life,” said Great Sand Dunes National Park Superintendent Pamela Rice. “This acquisition marks an important step toward completing the plan for Great Sand Dunes National Park that was established in 2004.”
“We are excited to complete this project and add to the spectacular Great Sand Dunes National Park,” said Nancy Fishbein, director of resilient lands for The Nature Conservancy in Colorado. “Protecting the Medano-Zapata Ranch and contributing to the creation of the national park are among the most significant successes in the history of TNC in Colorado.”
Currently, TNC operates a bison herd on the ranch property through a permit from NPS. This operation will continue for up to seven years following the current acquisition while TNC determines future plans for their conservation herd. TNC will continue to own and manage the 20,000-acre Zapata property that is adjacent to the national park.
This acquisition continues a long-standing partnership between NPS and TNC to expand Great Sand Dunes. TNC purchased the Medano-Zapata Ranch in 1999 and soon after developed the plan to transfer some of the acquired land for the creation of Great Sand Dunes National Park. In November 2000, the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve Act passed, which more than quadrupled the size of Great Sand Dunes. Since that time, TNC has worked collaboratively with NPS to manage the inholdings with the hope that the additional parcels would eventually be transferred to the Park. Approximately 12,498 acres of the Medano Ranch lie within the boundaries of Great Sand Dunes National Park; TNC plans to transfer the remaining 3,192 acres in the future. 
The LWCF was established by Congress in 1964 to fulfill a bipartisan commitment to safeguard natural areas, water resources and cultural heritage, and to provide recreation opportunities to all Americans. The Great American Outdoors Act authorized permanent funding of LWCF at $900 million annually to improve recreational opportunities on public lands, protect watersheds and wildlife, and preserve ecosystem benefits for local communities. The LWCF has funded $4 billion worth of projects in every county in the country for over 50 years.
Secretary Haaland also visited Browns Canyon National Monument in Chaffee County, Colorado. The Secretary met with local leaders as well as Bureau of Land Management and Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff to discuss how the 2015 national monument designation has helped strengthen the local economy and elevated the area as a magnet for outdoor recreation. They also highlighted recent fire management strategies that have led to reduced wildland fuels in Chaffee County and surrounding areas in the Arkansas River Valley region.

Sandhill Cranes West of Dunes by NPS/Patrick Myers

Why is the Colorado River in crisis, and what is being done about it?: Pressing questions to an urgent problem asked and explained — Audubon

American White Pelican and Double-crested Cormorants at Bill Williams Wildlife Refuge in Arizona. Photo: Gary Moore/Audubon Photography Awards

Click the link to read the article on the Audubon website (Haley Paul):

**Este artículo se puede encontrar en español**

Q: Why are we in this situation, with the Colorado River and its reservoirs shrinking so quickly?
A: Truth is, we saw this coming. We use more water than the river provides. The only reason we got away with it for so long was because the reservoirs were full when the climate’s shift to hotter temperatures and reduced river flows began 22 years ago. We did not reduce the amount of water we used until recently, and it has not been enough in the face of drought exacerbated by climate change.

Q: What happens if we stick with the status quo?
A: If we keep doing what we’re doing, and take water out of the reservoirs—not because it’s wise but because the law allows it—our system as we know it would crash. Water could not be released from Lakes Powell or Mead. A “Day Zero.” This is bad for ALL water users in the Colorado River basin.
There is also the dreadful possibility of no water flowing through the Grand Canyon, or through the Lower Colorado River along the Arizona-California border. That would mean no Colorado River water for tens of millions of people, including numerous sovereign Tribes. No Colorado River water for drinking, bathing, or growing crops, and no water for essential habitats, birds, and other wildlife.
Q: Why does this matter for birds?
A: A future without a running Colorado River would impact 400 bird species including California Condors, Bald Eagles, Southwestern Willow Flycatchers, and countless fish species and other wildlife that reside in and migrate through the Colorado River basin. The Colorado River Delta alone provides habitat for 17 million birds during spring migration and 14 million in the fall, from American White Pelicans and Double-breasted Cormorants to Tree Swallows and Orange-crowned Warblers.
And because the Delta acts as a “bottleneck” for migrating birds—meaning concentrations of bird populations are significantly higher inside its geographical boundaries than outside of them—changes to water availability or habitat in the Delta could have outsized impacts on tens of millions birds. These impacts could be seen on a global scale.

Environmental water delivery in the Colorado River Delta is timed during the late spring and summer to help native trees germinate. The cottonwood seeds were evident. Photo: Jennifer Pitt/Audubon

Q: Water users need to reduce use by 2-4 million acre feet for 2023, and possibly for 2024 and 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR). How will the seven Colorado River Basin states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming), Tribes, other water users, and the federal government agree to the water reductions necessary to stabilize the river and reservoir system?
A: The short answer: we don’t know.
A deadline set by USBR came and went this past August. It’s unclear whether the seven states and water users will reach their own agreement on how to use less water, if federal officials will decide, or, likely the worst-case scenario, if the courts will be the ultimate decision-makers. In the past, the states, Tribes, and other water useres have managed to come up with agreements on how they will use less. Presently, the Upper Basin states (CO, NM, UT, and WY) have agreed to reopen a program that pays water users to use less water. They have also agreed to examine how releases of water stored behind dams in the Upper Basin can help stem the decline of downstream reservoirs such as Lake Powell. The trouble now is water levels are dropping so quickly in our two largest reservoirs—Lake Powell and Lake Mead—and water managers as a whole have not been able to come to agreements fast enough.
All water users could agree to use less. That means cities, farms, and businesses could all agree to reduce the amount of water they use so that the difficult task of stabilizing the system is distributed more evenly.
Q: Why aren’t we all doing that right now—using less?
A: Presently, the Upper Basin states use far less water than the Lower Basin States. Upper Basin states have agreed to reopen a program that pays water users to use less water, and have agreed to release water stored behind dams in the Upper Basin, all to help stem the decline of Lake Powell. However, the Upper Basin States should not—and cannot—shoulder the crisis alone.
Part of the reason more water users are not cutting back is because of the current way water is managed. Water management in the Colorado River Basin is based on a seniority system of water rights. First come, first served. This means those with junior rights would have their water reduced completely before a senior water rights holder would see their water reduced at all. While this has been the way the system has operated for more than 100 years, it is wearing thin in the face of 20+ years of drought and a shrinking river.
In the 1960s, Arizona accepted junior priority rights on a portion of its Colorado River water in exchange for federal funding for the Central Arizona Project (or CAP, the 336-mile long canal that delivers Colorado River water to the central, populous parts of the state). As such, Arizona has stepped up and taken water cuts, sooner than originally anticipated. That’s a good thing. But if Arizona is forced to bear the entire shortage burden in the Lower Colorado River Basin, the impacts to millions of people, including vulnerable communities, will be considerable.

The Central Arizona Project canal moves water from the Colorado River to interior Arizona. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue

In the face of a shifting climate—reduced snowpack in the mountains due to hotter temperatures and thirstier, drier soils, resulting in less water in rivers—previous efforts to reduce use and save water in Lake Mead, such as the Drought Contingency Plan and the 500+ plan, have not been enough to prevent the Colorado River system from crashing.
Q: What are specific ideas for using less water and improving the outlook of this dire situation?
A: We could pay people to use less water as well improve the health of the ecosystems and watersheds on which we all rely. Recent federal legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act allocates $4 billion across the West to do just that. We want to see wise use of this funding—through multi-year agreements and durable projects that reduce water use and improve the health of our rivers and watersheds.
How will we get there?
– Upgrade on-farm irrigation methods and equipment to grow crops on less water.
– Provide incentives for farmers to shift from water-thirsty crops like cotton and alfalfa to drought-tolerant crops like guayule and sorghum.
– Restore degraded meadows and streams to allow for more water retention in the mountains.
– Forest management to prevent catastrophic wildfires. Burned watersheds degrade water quality and erode soils, impairing the ability for the watershed to function properly.
– Increase the reuse of water. Wastewater can be captured, purified, and reused for outdoor irrigation, groundwater recharge, river restoration, or even drinking water.
– Boost water conservation efforts from cities and businesses, through eliminating unnecessary grass; upgrading plumbing; saving water on outdoor landscaping; and industrial cooling water efficiency upgrades.
– Deploy funding to mitigate the impacts of less water flowing into affected communities and to improve habitat. Funding should prioritize multiple benefit projects and move beyond one-year water deals.
There is also plenty of work to do just within the state of Arizona to improve our water outlook. We must do everything we can to use the water we do have as wisely as possible. Audubon and our partners in the Water for Arizona Coalition developed the Arizona Water Security Plan, which outlines six critical steps the state of Arizona could take to get our own water house in order.
Q: What should we be watching out for in Arizona?
A: Given the circumstances, with less Colorado River water coming into Arizona, some may want to rely more heavily on groundwater and weaken existing laws that protect it in the populous parts of the state. Weakening existing groundwater protections just so Arizona can continue to grow without changing how we use and manage water would be irresponsible and short-sighted. We should be closely watching the next legislative session to ensure that doesn’t happen.
Furthermore, Arizona has failed to pass meaningful groundwater protections in the rural parts of the state where none currently exist. We cannot allow Arizona’s rural groundwater to meet the same fate as the Colorado River–especially as rural leaders plead for change. For the benefit of all people in the state, lawmakers must allow rural communities to protect their groundwater supplies. And the better we manage all of our water resources, the more credible a partner Arizona is with other states in ongoing Colorado River negotiations.

State of #Wyoming: #Water cuts might be forced on #WY by 2025 — WyoFile #GreenRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

A fisherman tries his luck near the dam at Fontenelle Reservoir Sept. 27, 2022. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile)

Click the link to read the article on the WyoFile website (Dustin Bleizeffer):

The state has neither the legal right, nor inclination, to preemptively curtail water use in the ongoing Colorado River crisis, according to Chris Brown, senior assistant attorney general for the state engineer’s water division. Only a determination by the Upper Colorado River Commission can result in a water curtailment order for Wyoming users subject to the Colorado River Compact, he said.
The earliest a curtailment order might happen, in Brown’s estimation, is 2025, if drought conditions persist and Colorado River flows at Lees Ferry downstream of Lake Powell in Arizona fall below a certain threshold. If that happens, the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office will implement water restrictions.
“The way things are going, it’s coming,” Brown told a crowd of more than 100 at the Sublette County Public Library in Pinedale Tuesday afternoon.
Exactly when and how much water Wyoming might be asked to conserve due to the Colorado River crisis depends on myriad factors — none more important, from a legal standpoint, than Wyoming’s obligation to the Colorado River Compact, according to Brown. And that “ends at Lees Ferry,” he said.

Chris Brown of the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office discusses the implications of the Colorado River Compact with water users in Pinedale Sept. 27, 2022. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile)

Wyoming and the other upper Colorado River Basin states — Utah, Colorado and New Mexico — are obligated to send 7.5 million acre-feet of water to Lees Ferry annually, on a running 10-year average. Modeling by the federal Bureau of Reclamation suggests flows could fall below the threshold by 2025 or 2028. Much also depends on how the BOR regulates flows out of Lake Powell, Brown said.
Ultimately, all seven Colorado River Basin states — along with the federal government, tribes and Mexico — have much to negotiate. Meantime, the state engineer’s office is initiating conversations with irrigators, municipalities and industrial water users about how they can use less water and still meet their needs. Voluntary and compensated conservation measures — backed by $4 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act — will be key to minimizing disruptions when there is a curtailment order, Brown said.
“How can you do more with less water?” Brown asked the Pinedale audience. “And what can we do to help you do your work with less water?”
Who’s vulnerable
In the event of a curtailment, Wyoming is only held responsible for its actual use, which averages about 600,000 acre-feet of water annually. Irrigated agriculture accounts for nearly 84% of the state’s consumptive use, according to the engineer’s office.
Other water users are also considered vulnerable, however, including trona processing plants, coal-burning power plants and municipalities. The City of Cheyenne, for example, relies on a water collection system that diverts otherwise Colorado River Basin-bound water for 70% of its municipal water supply. These water users are among some of the most “junior” in the pecking order of water rights, and therefore could be among the first ordered to reduce consumption.

A pump pulls water from the Green River at a Sweetwater County-managed recreation area Sept. 27, 2022. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile)

Water rights in Wyoming are appropriated within the first-in-time, first-in-right doctrine. The earlier a water right was obtained, the more senior, the later are most junior. A curtailment order would be applied to those with the most junior water rights and work back in time until the curtailment volume is met. However, the Colorado River Compact, struck in 1922, does not apply to those with water rights appropriated before 1922. No matter how much water Wyoming might be asked to curtail under the compact, it would only apply to those with water rights adjudicated after 1922, according to Brown.
One audience member asked Brown, “What if you’re one of the [junior] water rights holders and everything you have is going to get cut — are we just SOL?”
“You could be SOL,” Brown answered.
However, the Interior Department is expanding existing programs, and initiating new ones, to support trading, buying and leasing water allocations to encourage balance among users. Another irrigator at the meeting, George Kahrl, said he’s interested in forgoing some of his normal water use to help those with more junior rights — for compensation.
Ideally, those who benefit monetarily from voluntarily reducing their water use will invest that money into more efficient operations so they can maintain their agriculture operations with less water, Brown said.
Wyoming ag operators need assurance that that’s how such programs will actually work out, Rep. Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale) said. “I don’t know what those programs are or what they’re going to pay for, but we have to [maintain agricultural production] or we’re going to get hurt.”

Cheerful delusions about the #ColoradoRiver — @BigPivots #COriver #aridification #overdrawn22

Sunset on the Colorado River at Silt September 2022. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots

Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):

We really would rather be getting news about another Super Bowl triumph or the end of the 55-year drought in Denver Nuggets championships. But the Colorado River is rapidly nearing total disfunction. It is the story du jour.
Rivers and streams on Colorado’s Western Slope chattered excitedly with runoff during mid-September after several days of rain, softening landscapes that had turned sullen after another hot summer.
The water was a blink of good news for a Colorado River that needs something more. It needs a long, sloppy kiss of wetness.
Hard, difficult decisions have almost entirely lagged what has been needed during the last 20 years of declining reservoir levels and rapidly rising temperatures. Hope has lingered stubbornly. After all, every batter has slumps. And maybe next winter and spring it will snow hard and long in Colorado, source of 60% of the river’s water, instead of getting unseemly warm come April and May, as has mostly been the case.

This glass half-full hopefulness has left the two big reservoirs, Mead and Powell, at roughly 25% of capacity. To prevent worse, the smaller savings accounts near the headwaters – Navajo Reservoir in New Mexico, Blue Mesa in Colorado, and Flaming Gorge on the Utah-Wyoming border – have been pilfered. Little remains to be tapped.
Even threats from the Bureau of Reclamation this year failed to spur definitive action. “We can’t keep doing this,” said Andy Mueller, general manager of the Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River Water Conservation District, a major water policy agency for the Western Slope.

Difference from average temperature in the top 300 meters (~984 feet) of the tropical Pacific between June 7 and August 1, 2022. A deep pool of cooler-than-average water (blue) spread eastward and will continue rising to the surface in coming months, feeding the current La Niña. Animation by NOAA Climate.gov, based on data from NOAA Climate Prediction Center.

Recently at the River District’s annual seminar in Grand Junction, Brendon Langenhuizen offered no hope for recovery this coming year. It will be the third La Nina in a row, he pointed out, likely producing above-average temperatures and hence below-average precipitation.
Even so-so precipitation comes up as something less. Yampa River Valley snowpack last winter was 84% of average; runoff lagged at 76%. The Gunnison River watershed figures were even worse; snowpack of 87% yielding runoff of 64%.
Dry soils have sopped up moisture, and then there is the heat. The last 12 months have been among the six warmest years in the last century in Colorado, said Langenhuisen, a water rights engineer. Summer rains the last two years have helped. Still, the reservoir levels drop, the seven basin states so far unable to agree on cuts that would match demand with supply.
It’s tempting to accuse the states of being caught up in century-old thinking. After all, they nominally operate under provisions of the 1922 Colorado River Compact. They have taken steps but they insufficiently acknowledge the shifting hydrologic reality. Instead of delivering an average 20.5 million acre-feet, as the compact assumed, the river has delivered 13 million acre-feet in the 21^st century. In the last few years, it’s been worse yet, about 12 million acre-feet.
How low can it go? Mueller talked about learning to live within 9 million acre-feet, as some climate scientists have warned may be necessary. Climate scientists have built up some credibility as their forecasts have been, if anything, a tad conservative.
A scientist I talked with in Grand Junction suggested potential for an even starker future. What if the river delivers just 7 million acre-feet a year for the next two or three years?
One of my acquaintances, a county official on the Western Slope, recently confided weariness with the now familiar narrative of “drought, dust, and dystopia” on the Colorado River. Understood. We all want to see the Broncos and Avs win. More instructive may be the Denver Nuggets, who are now in a 55-year championship drought.

We will need to sort through what grasses we want and can afford, both in residential settings and in pubic areas, such as Colorado Mesa University, above. That will extend to grasses grown to feed livestock. Top, the Colorado River at Silt, Colo. on Sept. 17. Photo/Allen Best

Jim Lochhead, chief executive of Denver Water, likens the situation on the Colorado River to a bank account that has been drawn down. “And we’re looking at a zero balance with no line of credit,” he said this week at the Colorado Water Center conference in Fort Collins.
What is needed? From a perspective in Colorado, Lochhead argues for a stronger, more assertive federal role. Lochhead was for many years a lawyer based in Glenwood Springs who represented Colorado in river issues.

Everybody that depends upon Colorado River water from northeastern Colorado to Los Angeles and San Diego will have a role, he says. Denver for example, wants to crowd out grass from medians and incentivize turf removal.
Lower-basin states use about twice as much as the upper basin states, and there the cuts must be more radical. Lochhead wants to see the federal government, through the Bureau of Reclamation, more assertively force the lower-basin states to make those hard decisions. Federal authority over water entering Lake Mead has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, he points out, and he suggests the agency may use that power after the November election.
The broad theme will be reducing water used for low-value grasses. That takes in suburban lawns but also the water-greedy grasses grown for livestock, including corn and alfalfa. Hard choices, but they must be made. What more warning do we need?

Federal Water Tap — Circle of Blue

Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico, by John Distrunell, the 1847 map used during the negotiations of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Public domain.

Click the link to read the article on the Circle of Blue website:

At a conference in Santa Fe, federal officials outlined steps they are taking to respond to critically low reservoirs in the Colorado River basin.
The Interior Department is preparing now in case next year is another hydrological dud.
Officials are setting up the paperwork for releasing even less water from Lake Powell than anticipated. According to operating guidelines, 7 million acre-feet will flow out of the reservoir in 2023. If water levels recede to the point that hydropower generation is endangered, Interior could throttle back those releases, as it did this year.
Interior is also studying structural modifications that would allow for the release water from Powell when the reservoir is low, a move that environmental groups in the basin have called for.

Reclamation will spend billions to boost #drought-stricken #ColoradoRiver system — KUNC #COriver #aridification

The Colorado River flows through fields of crops in Southern California. New water conservation plans from the Bureau of Reclamation could use money from the Inflation Reduction act to pay farmers and ranchers to temporarily pause some water use, an effort to boost levels in the nation’s largest reservoirs. Photo credit: Ted Wood/The Water Desk

Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager). Here’s an excerpt:

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced new measures in response to the ongoing dry conditions, unveiling plans to use a chunk of the $4 billion it received as part of the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act. That money will be used for what the agency refers to as “short-term conservation,” to remove water-intensive grass in cities and suburbs, and to upgrade aging canals. A detailed breakdown of that spending has not yet been released. Multiple sources close to the situation told KUNC that the bulk of Reclamation’s $4 billion will go to projects in the Colorado River basin, with the majority going to “system conservation.” That could include buying water from the agriculture sector to boost water levels in the nation’s largest reservoirs. That funding will likely be doled out as part of a voluntary program in which farmers and ranchers can make a pitch to the federal government, offering to pause growing in exchange for payments of $300 to $400 per acre-foot of water, sources told KUNC. Those payments are expected to be temporary, mainly focused in the river’s Lower Basin states, and may someday give way to more permanent, higher-value federal payments in exchange for water…
Reclamation previously tested system conservation efforts in a pilot program that ran from 2014 to 2019, but has not implemented similar water buybacks at large scale since. Earlier this year, states in the river’s Upper Basin urged the federal government to revive system conservation work.
“I personally have a hard time believing that we’re going to see a massive change in reservoir levels as a result of system conservation by itself,” Koebele said. “This might be sort of a program that helps states establish their own programs for longer term system conservation. That said, we’re in such a dire situation that almost anything in the short term can help.”

A field of produce destined for grocery stores is irrigated near Yuma, Ariz., a few days before Christmas 2015. Photo/Allen Best – See more at: http://mountaintownnews.net/2016/02/09/drying-out-of-the-american-southwest/#sthash.7xXVYcLv.dpuf

Kimery Wiltshire, president of Confluence West, a group of water leaders around the region, said she was struck by the words “seek” and “encourage” that Reclamation used in regards to water conservation, adding that voluntary measures would not do much, especially if payouts to growers are relatively low. By comparison, a group of farmers near Yuma, Arizona recently proposed a water conservation plan in which they would be paid about $1500 per acre-foot of water saved, according to Axios.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think that what they’re proposing is going to get us to where we so desperately need to go, very quickly,” Wiltshire said. “Frankly, what Interior really can’t do a whole heck of a lot about is getting to the underlying causes. We don’t have the demand management that we need. We’re consuming too much water. We need to go to significantly less thirsty crops than what we’re growing right now.”

Arizona’s long-term conservation strategy is softening the blow of the Colorado River drought — WUNC #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the article on the WUNC website (Kirk Siegler). Here’s an excerpt:

SIEGLER: It’s not? Kmiec says there are two big reasons why. The first is aggressive conservation, like water recycling. Tucson uses the same amount of water as it did in the 1980s, yet it’s added 200,000 more people.
KMIEC: It’s all about adaptation and making sure you – the water that you use, particularly in the desert, is for what you need.
SIEGLER: But the other even bigger reason why Kmiec isn’t up all night worrying…
KMIEC: Because we’ve banked more than 5 1/2 years of excess Colorado River water in these aquifers already.
SIEGLER: You can think of it like a secret reservoir hidden underneath this vast Sonoran desert with its blazing sun and saguaro cactus.
KMIEC: It looks like about a 40-acre basin, the one we’re standing next to.
SIEGLER: This basin is mostly dried dirt, with occasional stocks of green grass from recent monsoons – not exactly what you picture when you think of a city’s water plant, though another basin in front of us does have some water.
KMIEC: We fill these large reservoirs up. They look like small lakes. But what’s actually happening is the water is slowly going down and percolating into the aquifer and turning into groundwater.

#Colorado Water Trust and Cold Mountain Ranch Partner to Bolster Flows in #CrystalRiver #RoaringForkRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Helms Ditch Headgate. Photo credit: Colorado Water Trust

Here’s the release from the Colorado Water Trust (Alyson Meyer Gould, Bill Fales and Marj Perry):

On the 13th of September, 2022, Cold Mountain Ranch, with compensation from Colorado Water Trust, is boosting streamflows in the Crystal River, which is suffering from low flows during this hot and dry summer. This is the first year of implementation in a second pilot program with Colorado Water Trust and Cold Mountain Ranch to add flow to the River during dry years. The agreement compensates the Cold Mountain Ranch owners, Bill Fales and Marj Perry, for leaving their irrigation water in the Crystal River when it needs it most.

Map of the Roaring Fork River drainage basin in western Colorado, USA. Made using USGS data. By Shannon1 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69290878

The Crystal River drops out of the Elk Mountains near Marble and flows north to its confluence with the Roaring Fork River in Carbondale. The river supports a number of traditional ranching operations as well as towns, recreationalists, and fish populations. Cold Mountain Ranch relies on the Crystal River to irrigate grass meadows that support its cow-calf operation. Under the agreement, the Water Trust monitors flows in the river. When flows fall to 40 cubic feet per second (cfs) in August and September, the ranch may voluntarily decide to cease diversion from the Crystal River in August through October. Colorado Water Trust determines the amount of water left in the natural stream and then pays the ranch $250 per cfs per day for up to 20 days each year. Once streamflows reach 55 cfs in the River (based on a 3-day rolling average), payments cease, but should flow again drop below 55 cfs, diversions can stop again and compensation resume. The pilot agreement can restore up to 6 cfs in the Crystal River.
In 2018, Colorado Water Trust and Cold Mountain Ranch signed a similar three-year pilot agreement that ended in 2020. Unfortunately, within this initial three-year period, Colorado Water Trust and Cold Mountain Ranch were unable to run the project. In 2018, the Crystal River’s flows were too low to implement the agreement – there was not enough water available to result in significant benefits instream. In 2019, the river was high enough to avoid triggering the agreement during the timeframe of the agreement. Although it flirted with the low flow trigger in the late fall, the timing was out of range for the agreement. And in 2020, because of dry and hot conditions and impacts to their hay crop, Colorado Water Trust’s partners at Cold Mountain Ranch needed to use as much water as possible to maximize their late season production and keep their ranching operation sustainable.
Colorado Water Trust and Cold Mountain Ranch’s initial three-year pilot agreement was the first crack at a highly customized, market-based solution that works for agriculture and rivers on the Crystal River, and offered lessons for the renewal and re-tooling of that initial agreement. In this new contract, the partners tried to account for drier years and changing climatic conditions, as well as the economic needs of the Ranch. The changes include a $5,000 signing bonus to support agricultural operations, additional payment and flexibility for coordination, and extending potential coordination into October.
“Although we certainly wish conditions were wetter, we are excited for a chance to run the program. On one hand it enables an active, family-owned ranching operation to use its water rights portfolio in a new and flexible way. On the other hand, it keeps water in the river when it is most in need. It checks the boxes for the definition of a win-win solution,” Alyson Meyer Gould, Staff Attorney, Colorado Water Trust.
The legal and technical framework created by Colorado Water Trust and informed by local interests and support from Lotic Hydrological, has the potential, if successful, to have far-reaching implications. In the end, it brings environmental benefits to the river without affecting enrolled ranches’ long-term sustainability. Thus, the project will support both people and the environment.
The Water Trust would like to thank Cold Mountain Ranch, Public Counsel of the Rockies, the Roaring Fork Conservancy, Lotic Hydrological, WestWater Research, the Colorado River Water Conservation District, Pitkin County, Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, the Aspen Skiing Company Environment Foundation, Catena Foundation, and the stakeholders of the Crystal River Management Plan for making this project possible.

The #ColoradoRiver Is Dying. Can Its Aquatic Dinosaurs Be Saved? — Mother Jones Magazine #COriver #aridification

Humpback chub are one of four federally endangered fish species that rely on habitat in the 15-Mile Reach of the Colorado River. Humpback chub photo credit US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Click the link to read the article on the Mother Jones website (Stephanie Mencimer). Click through and read the whole article, here’s an excerpt:

Found nowhere else in the world, the native razorback has occupied the waterways of the Colorado River basin for at least 3 million years, one reason why Olsen says they’re known as the “dinosaurs” of the Colorado. Known as “detritivores,” the bottom-feeding fish were once an important part of the river’s food chain because they nosh on dead plant and animal matter that might otherwise build up and cause disease while returning essential nutrients to the ecosystem. The fish have adapted to the harsh monsoon-to-drought cycles of the desert rivers that flood with melted mountain snowpack in the spring and are parched in the late summer. Razorback suckers can grow up to three feet long, 80 pounds, and live for 50 or 60 years. But such geriatric monster fish are rare in the wild today.
The native fish have not fared so well over the past century since humans began trying to make the western desert bloom by damming the Colorado and its tributaries, a watershed that was once one of the most biologically diverse in North America. “They’re a bellwether for the health of the entire river ecosystem, from Wyoming to the Gulf of California,” says Taylor McKinnon, senior public lands advocate at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity…
The US Fish and Wildlife Service first listed the razorback as endangered in 1991, and the species would be extinct in the Upper Basin but for the hatchery program, which was established in 1996 as part of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program and is funded by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The program has been successful enough that last year, FWS proposed downlisting the razorback from “endangered” to merely “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. But the extreme mega-drought of the past two years makes that proposal seem wildly optimistic…
Meanwhile, the biggest ongoing threat to the Colorado’s endangered fish is other, nonnative fish. Only 12 fish are native to the Upper Colorado River Basin, Breen says. But now more than 50 species compete in the rivers. Many that were intentionally introduced to promote sport fishing are highly predatory in a way the razorback and others have not evolved to survive…The recovery program spends more than $2 million a year trying to eliminate the non-native fish from the Green River and elsewhere in the system—a move that is not always popular with local anglers who like to fish for the bass. “For the record: I love smallmouth bass,” says Breen. “I grew up fishing for smallmouth bass in the Midwest. But that’s where they’re supposed to be. Bass are very predacious, and they’re not supposed to be in that river.”

Arizona Department of #Water Resources Director and Central #Arizona Project General Manager give grim assessment of #ColoradoRiver conditions #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the article on the Arizona Department of Water Resources website:

Buschatzke and Cooke named Environmental Leaders of the Year
Wednesday’s [September 14, 2022] online presentation of the Arizona Capitol Times’ “Morning Scoop on Water Issues in Arizona” served up an hour-long assessment of how the State’s water supply is faring during the current, epic drought conditions.
Some of the news, like that from Leslie Meyers, the newly appointed Associate General Manager & Chief Water Resources Executive for Salt River Project, included refreshing good news. The in-state SRP water supply is in good shape, she reported.
But, as anticipated, most of the Morning Scoop discussion focused on the strained Colorado River system. The Morning Scoop panelists – including ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke and Central Arizona Project General Manager Ted Cooke – could report very little that could be considered upbeat.
ADWR Director Buschatzke reported that declines in the system will continue because “we are still using more water than is going into Lake Mead.”
The Director noted, however, that “we have done many good things” in recent years, including the Drought Contingency Plan of 2019, the 500+ Plan of 2021 and other conservation measures. “And while they have not stabilized the system, we would have been in much worse shape if we had not done those things.” [ed. emphasis mine]
The situation on the Colorado River system, nevertheless, is dire.

“We’re heading into, essentially, a crisis period.”
Without the 2-4 million acre-feet of needed conservation identified by Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton in June, “we could see as early as 2024 Lake Mead and Lake Powell falling to elevations in which the ability to move water past (Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam) could be compromised.”
Buschatzke made his online comments with an image of the Colorado River flowing through the Grand Canyon behind him.
“If you think about the background of my picture, the Grand Canyon, if you can’t move water past Glen Canyon Dam, you would have no water in the Grand Canyon. Think about what that would mean.”

CAP General Manager Cooke gave an assessment of the current capacity of the two big reservoirs – both at a quarter of their capacity with just 13 million acre-feet of storage – a small fraction of the 50 million acre-feet of total capacity.
“We’re about a year away from not being able to move water past those two dams,” said Cooke.
Terry Goddard, chairman of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, welcomed the nearly 300 viewers in front of a virtual background photo of Lake Mead’s notorious “bathtub ring” – a reminder of the crisis enveloping the Colorado River system.
The ring, he noted, “is a grim reminder of how far that lake has fallen in a very short time.”

Goddard registered disappointment that the Department of the Interior in mid-August failed to announce actions to protect the river system from potentially catastrophic storage declines in its primary reservoirs. He recalled that, in June, the Bureau of Reclamation had vowed that if the Colorado River States failed to agree to voluntarily conserve between 2-4 million acre-feet, in addition to the already planned cuts, the federal government would act to protect the system.
Goddard observed that when the states failed to find agreement, “something much bigger was supposed to happen” in addition to the announcement of the planned cutbacks. “But it didn’t,” he said. “They blinked.”
Also on the panel, was Joe Gysel, President of the private water-provider, EPCOR USA.
Arizona Capitol Times’ “Morning Scoop on Water Issues in Arizona” can be found below:

This is a follow-up to our May Morning Scoop about Water issues in Arizona. In this session we will explore what has changed in the past few months, the current outlook and then dive into some solutions that are being examined. Credit: Arizona Capitol Times

Earlier in September, the Capitol Times announced the recipients of its annual “Leaders of the Year in Public Policy.”
Among those leaders were ADWR Director Buschatzke and CAP General Manager Ted Cooke, who both were cited for their work in environmental matters.
Each year, the Capitol Times recognizes leaders who have contributed to the growth of our state.
According to the Cap Times, “These are the people and groups that hunker down each day to find ways to improve the quality of life of Arizona’s citizens.”
The awardees will be recognized at an awards luncheon at noon. on Sept. 27 at the Phoenix Art Museum. They will also be profiled in a special edition of the Arizona Capitol Times.

Left Out to Dry: Wildlife Threatened by #ColoradoRiver Basin #Water Crisis — The Revelator #COriver #aridification

*The drought’s ‘bathtub ring’ of Lake Mead at the inlet for Hoover Dam, May 2022. Photo: Don Barrett (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0*

Click the link to read the article on The Revelator website (Tara Lohan):

Lost in much of the coverage of the region’s water woes is the ecological crisis caused by prolonged drought, climate warming and development.
In the Colorado River basin, our past has come back to haunt us.
We’re not just talking about the dead bodies emerging from the drying shoreline of Lake Mead. The river’s water crisis has caused the nation’s two biggest reservoirs to sink to historic lows.
It’s a problem of our own making — in more ways than one.
The Colorado River Compact, signed a century ago, overallocated the river’s water. Experts have long warned that nature can’t continue to deliver the water that the government has promised to farms, cities and towns.
A drying West, warmed by climate change, has now made that shortage impossible to ignore.

For years demand has outstripped natural flows on the river, and some states and Tribes have already taken cuts to their allocations. Additional conservation measures were expected as the seven U.S. states that share the river — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, California and Nevada — have been working on hammering out a new deal. The region’s more than two dozen federally recognized Tribes have also been fighting for a seat at that table and a hand in the river’s management. But the deadline for a revised agreement between all the parties came and went this summer with no resolution in sight.
To say there’s a lot at stake would be an understatement.
Some 40 million people rely on the 1,400-mile-long river in the United States and Mexico, including in many of the West’s biggest cities. It also greens 5 million acres of irrigated agriculture.
But that’s come at a cost. Long before cities and industrial farms emerged, the river supported diverse mountain and desert ecosystems, providing refuge and resources for countless animals and plants.
Many of those species now struggle to survive the cumulative pressures from drought, climate warming and human developments. And they remain an overlooked part of the region’s water crisis…
Hot Drought
A lot can happen in two decades.
In 2000 Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which help manage water supplies along the Colorado, were nearly full. Today they’re both hovering just above one-quarter capacity — the lowest ever since being filled.

Echo Bay Marina in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, 2014. Photo: James Marvin Phelps (CC BY-NC 2.0)

In the intervening 20 years the Colorado River basin has seen a prolonged drought that’s now believed to be the driest period in the region in the last 1,200 years. River flows have fallen 20% compared to the last century’s average.
And it’s not just from a lack of precipitation. Researchers attributed one-third of that reduced river flow to climate change. Warming temperatures increase evaporation, as well as evapotranspiration by plants. So even when the Rocky Mountains do receive snow or rain, less of that runoff makes it to the Colorado River and its tributaries.

CO2 trend: This graph shows the monthly mean abundance of carbon dioxide globally averaged over marine surface sites since 1980. (NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory)

Experts say we’ll see more of these so-called “hot droughts” as the climate continues to warm. The basin is expected to see a five degree-Fahrenheit jump by 2050. That will make things not just hotter but drier. If we don’t dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions, the Colorado’s flow could drop 35% to 55% by the end of the century.
Years ago the region’s prolonged drought was dubbed a “megadrought,” but some of the region’s top scientists say “aridity” may be a better term. That means that the combination of warming and drying will be much more permanent.
Aridity and Animals
The region’s ecosystems — and those who live in them — are feeling the heat.
“Climate warming is just hammering this basin, and part of what we see in addition to the water disappearing is this protracted wildfire season,” says Jennifer Pitt, the Colorado River program director for Audubon, the bird-conservation organization. “The fires are more intense and cover ever-larger landscapes, that in turn has the possibility to severely impact the health of the watershed.”
Millions of trees have also been lost to insects and disease exacerbated by drought, including along riverbanks, where less shade is warming streams. Many desert plants, like ocotillos, Washington fan palms and Joshua trees, are also declining from warming temperatures, less precipitation and thirstier animals.
Across the region streams and springs are drying up, too, leading to declines in populations of aquatic amphibians, fish and insects that make up the base of the food chain.
“We haven’t seen any entire species go extinct yet,” says Michael Bogan, an assistant professor in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona. “But if you project this into the future, that’s certainly something we’re worried about.”
His concern includes the fate of endangered desert pupfish and Gila topminnows.
“They used to be present in large river systems, but the changes in the habitat and the introduction of non-native fishes have basically excluded them from all of those large historic habitats,” he says. “Now the only refuge where they can survive is these smaller habitats — these headwater streams and springs — and those are the exact types of places that are disappearing now.”
Birds are at risk, too, a recent study found. The researchers visited areas of the Mojave Desert that had been studied in the previous century and found that, on average, the sites lost 43% of their species. The main driver, they believe, is decreased precipitation from climate change.
Birds who live in the desert already endure harsh conditions, but climate change could push them past tolerable limits, causing lethal hyperthermia or dehydration. A lack of water can also cause reduced fitness and or force birds to skip a breeding cycle.
We already see this happening with burrowing owls. A study by researchers from the University of New Mexico looked at how increasing air temperature and aridity affected the species.

*Burrowing owls. Photo: Wendy Miller (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)*

Between 1998 and 2013 the birds at their study area in New Mexico experienced a decline in the number of young that left the nest and a precipitous 98.1% drop — from 52 breeding pairs to just one.
The researchers associated the declines with the effects of decreased precipitation and increased temperature. “An increasingly warm and dry climate may contribute to this species’ decline and may already be a driving force of their apparent decline in the desert Southwest,” they concluded.
Mammals aren’t immune to the changes, either. Another recent study found grave threats to pronghorn across the region. Their models predicted that half of the 18 populations they studied would disappear by 2090.
A decrease in water supply affects animals’ health but can also cause behavioral changes that could put them in harm’s way. If animals need to move outside their normal range in search of declining food or water, it could lead to more interactions with predators or more human-wildlife conflicts, especially if animals look for resources in more urbanized areas.
Fewer sources of water also force a greater number of animals to congregate at the remaining watering holes. Experts say this increases the risk of disease outbreaks like the one that happened in 2020 along the Pacific flyway in California and Oregon, when 60,000 birds crowded into sparse wetlands perished from avian botulism.
An Altered River
Many of the most severe ecosystem impacts currently affecting the Colorado basin predate the 20-year drought.
Hoover Dam’s construction in 1936, followed by the building of Glen Canyon Dam 30 years later, dramatically altered river’s flow, blocked sediment that creates riparian habitat, and changed the temperature of the river…

Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. Photo: Simon Morris (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Today the 360 miles between the two dams, which include the Grand Canyon, have become “a river that’s managed to pool-to-pool,” says Pitt. “There’s not much flowing river once you get below Hoover Dam.” That’s caused a loss of riparian forest, which supported birds and other wildlife, and pushed four native fish — humpback chub, bonytail chub, Colorado pikeminnow and razorback sucker — to the brink of extinction.
“There’s concern for quite a number of species because of the historically altered river flow,” says Pitt.

Colorado River Delta via 2012 State of the Rockies Report

It also decimated 1.5 million acres of wetlands downstream at the Colorado River Delta in Mexico.
“For most of the last 50 years, the river has not flowed to the sea,” says Pitt. “An untold wealth of wildlife disappeared off the map because of the desiccation of that landscape.”
Compounding Problems
Development, dams and water diversions along the Colorado, along with today’s drought and climate warming, have pushed many species to the razor’s edge. Some are barely hanging on.

Of particular concern right now are humpback chub, which suffered after Glen Canyon Dam’s construction. Managers have spent decades trying to recover the fish — with some recent success.
But now the species faces a new threat: non-native largemouth bass — a voracious predator of humpback chub — who thrive in the warmer water that’s being released from the diminished reservoir.
In June researchers detected the fish downstream of Glen Canyon Dam, in the same habitat where humpback chub numbers were finally improving.
“The National Park Service is really worried that if those populations of non-native fish get established in the Colorado River downstream from Glen Canyon Dam, that could be catastrophic for the humpback chub,” says Pitt.

The situation is emblematic of the larger ecological consequences stemming from our river management.
“How we manage the dams and the water levels is directly affecting the ecology of the Colorado River itself,” says Bogan.
And while that imperiled ecology may not be the headline news regarding the Colorado River crisis, its significance shouldn’t be understated.
Millions of people visit the Grand Canyon each year to peer over the canyon’s lip and glimpse the Colorado’s path through the ancient towering walls. They come, too, to see California condors, bald eagles and southwestern willow flycatchers — all of whom could disappear if the river does.
The loss of plants and animals across the basin is also a loss of cultural resources for the region’s Tribes.
And as the river declines, so does everything around it…
Worse Before It Gets Better
As states work to deal with shortages of water from the Colorado River, there’s a chance that things could get worse before they get better.
One concern is an overdrafting of groundwater, particularly in Arizona, which legally bears the brunt of shortages on the Colorado and has many areas where groundwater pumping is not regulated.
That can leave groundwater-dependent springs and streams at risk of drying.
Another area of concern is California’s Salton Sea — the famously saline lake in the desert fed now only through agricultural runoff from the neighboring irrigation districts. One of those is the Imperial Irrigation District, which gets the biggest chunk of California’s Colorado River allotment. As the region attempts to work out a new plan to decrease water use, there’s pressure on the agency to fallow some of its 475,000 acres, but that would also mean less runoff making it to the Salton Sea.

“The Salton Sea is some of the only remaining habitat for migrating water birds and shorebirds in interior California,” says Pitt. “The Central Valley was that habitat once upon a time, but has been completely developed. So it’s a critical habitat for many species.”
It’s also a public health threat. As winds sweep across the drying lake, particles of dust and pollution are swept into neighboring communities where residents suffer from high rates of asthma and respiratory problems.
“The answer is not that we can’t reduce any water use from the Imperial Irrigation District,” she says. “As uses of water are reduced in irrigated agriculture that drains to the sea, there needs to be mitigation.”
A plan, that includes habitat restoration and dust mitigation suppression projects, created decades ago to do just that has been slow to get off the ground. It needs to “ramp up quickly to protect wildlife and to protect public health,” she says.
The Path Forward
There is some good news.

Minute 323 environmental section signing. Photo credit: Colorado River Water Users Association

Agreements between Mexico and the United States in the past decade have enabled “pulse flows” of water to flow downstream to repair a small amount of the lost wetland habitat in Mexico’s California River Delta. And in the desert, fortunately, a little can go a long way.
“We’re seeing improvements in both the number of bird species detected there and the populations of those species,” says Pitt. She’s optimistic that the two governments will continue to support that environmental program in the future.
It’s an idea that could help upstream habitat as well.
“I think really the most important thing that’s being done at both the state level and at the local level is trying to get dedicated flows in streams that are explicitly for the conservation of aquatic species,” says Bogan. Although right now, because of the complexities of water rights, that work is limited and usually local in scope.
“But it’s something that at least has given me a little bit of hope,” he says.
Another strategy, says Pitt, is “natural distributed storage,” which means restoring wetlands and high-elevation meadows to slow water down as it runs across the landscape. That can help recharge groundwater and provide moisture to soil and plants.
“The more moisture we’re keeping around the less vulnerable these areas are to fire,” she says. “It will have an incredible wildlife benefit because those meadows are rich habitat.”
It’s akin to the work that beavers do naturally, but people can replicate.
“It sounds small if you look at it on one little creek,” she says, “but if we can start to see it implemented across the upper basin, I think it could really scale up to make a difference.”
With the cumulative impacts of human development and climate change adding up, Pitt says we should look to the federal government and states to make sure that Endangered Species Act programs are supported to help protect and restore habitat for the dozens of already at-risk species in the basin. This means going beyond supplementing the number of endangered wild fish with hatchery-raised fish, which is the current management strategy.
And of course, the region still needs to grapple with how it allocates and manages the Colorado River’s water. Pitts says she’d like to see a greater role for Tribes in that process and the inclusion of adequate water to maintain healthy ecosystems.
“Environmental water needs to be recognized as part of our objectives for water management,” says Pitt.
“It’s both extremely challenging at this moment because there’s so much less water available to carve up between users,” she says. “But it’s a moment to really rethink how we do things.”

#Maybell project addresses problems for irrigators, boaters, fish — @AspenJournalism

The Maybell Ditch headgate in the lower left pulls water from the Yampa River for irrigation. A major reconstruction project will fix the diversion structure to create better passage for fish and boats. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

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

The Maybell Ditch is the largest diversion on the Yampa River and irrigates about 2,500 acres of grass and alfalfa in northwest Colorado. But the remote and antiquated headgate, along with a hazardous diversion structure and 18 miles of nearly flat canal, create problems for irrigators, boaters and endangered fish alike.
Now the Maybell Irrigation District and The Nature Conservancy are working together on an ambitious project to rehabilitate and modernize the historic structure with the goal of improving conditions for all the water users on this stretch of river. So far, TNC has secured about $3.5 million in funds for the project, which it hopes can begin next summer.

The Yampa River flows from the Flat Tops Wilderness, through the city of Steamboat Springs, then turns west and eventually joins with the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument. Along the way it turns the semi-arid landscape of Routt and Moffat counties into a ribbon of green, irrigated meadows.
In recent years the Yampa has started experiencing issues that have long been a part of other river basins like over-appropriation, calls and water shortages.
“That reach has seen declines in water levels over time with drought and long-term climate impacts,” said Jennifer Wellman, TNC project manager. “(The Maybell Ditch project) was one of those that rose to the surface where we could hopefully work with the water users to have a greater impact in that basin … . That whole reach is really special, and it warrants more water if it’s available, especially during the low flow periods.”

This map shows the 18 miles of the Maybell Ditch, which irrigates land with water from the Yampa River. The Nature Conservancy is planning an overhaul and modernization of the headgate and diversion structure.

Challenges for irrigators, boaters, fish
Maybell Irrigation District manager Mike Camblin said historically some ranchers couldn’t get their full amount of water unless the ditch, which was constructed in the 1890s, was running full blast.
“We had one field where if the ditch wasn’t full, they couldn’t get it wet because there wasn’t enough elevation to it,” he said. “It was too flat.”
That meant more water was being sent through the ditch as “push water” to make sure flows make it to dry fields. It also meant more water was flowing back into the Yampa River at the end of the approximately 18-mile-long ditch, known as tailwater. If there’s too much tailwater, that can mean a ditch is taking more out of the river than it is able to use, a no-no according to the state Division of Water Resources.
A first round of improvements to the ditch added a liner to reduce seepage and check structures, which slow the flow of water. Those measures only partially addressed the issues.
The project that is now being proposed is much more extensive and involves reconstructing the diversion and modernizing the headgate, which controls the flow of water from the river into the ditch. By fixing a grade control structure — essentially arranging boulders in mid-stream that push up the water in the river upstream of the headgate — it creates more elevation to allow gravity to move water into the ditch, which should reduce the need to push water. It will also smooth out a passage for both fish and boats.

The twin, circular headgates of the Maybell Ditch are rusted, antiquated and must be open and closed manually. A modernization project includes plans to make it possible to operate the headgate remotely.CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Remote location
The twin, circular, century-old headgates are rusted and hard to operate.
“There’s no way those things are easy to adjust,” said Erin Light, Division 6 engineer at the state Division of Water Resources. “Quite frankly, if the water commissioner had to adjust it, I don’t think he or she could. We would have to rely on (the irrigation district) to do that, which is not preferred.”
The remote location of the headgate — a three-mile round trip hike down the rugged Juniper Canyon off an already-remote dirt road — is a challenge for the district. When all the headgates on the ditch are opening and closing according to the differing schedules and water needs of the irrigators, it can be hard to coordinate the manual operation of the main headgate. The new headgate will be automated and controlled remotely.
“That’s a four- or five-hour deal by the time you drive up there, walk up there, adjust it and drive home,” Camblin said. “The automation on that will be huge. As far as management, it will be our biggest tool.”
But construction won’t be easy. Heavy equipment can’t make it down to the river along the ditch and will have to access the diversion using newly constructed roads on Bureau of Land Management land. The BLM considers the ditch a cultural resource and project proponents will have to be careful to avoid impacts to it.
Western Colorado Area Manager for JUB Engineers Luke Gingerich explained the complexities of the project on a site visit in July.
“They are going to have to create a couple miles of nice road to get in,” Gingerich said. “It will be a large disturbance and we’ve got to come back and make sure we return this as close as we can to the condition it was in before.”
According to Camblin, it was the federal Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program that first pushed the district to take a look at where it could manage its water better. That stretch of river is designated critical habitat for species of endangered fish. Water is released out of the upstream Elkhead Reservoir for the fish, and the new automated headgate will allow the Maybell Ditch to more easily let that water flow past it, to get to where it’s needed.

The Maybell Ditch diversion, located in Juniper Canyon in northwest Colorado, takes water from the Yampa River to irrigate hay fields. The Nature Conservancy is fundraising for a project that would overhaul and modernize the diversion structure and headgate.CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Boon for boaters
The diversion reconstruction project will also be a boon for boaters. River advocacy nonprofit Friends of the Yampa said in a letter of support for the project that the Maybell Diversion is the most significant barrier for safe, passable recreation along a 200-mile stretch of the Yampa River. Boaters often have to get out to portage the rapid formed by the diversion structure. The new diversion will create a boat passage, connecting two sections of boatable river.
At July’s site visit, recreation and education coordinator for Friends of the Yampa Kent Vertrees said he’s grateful for the collaboration between the agriculture, recreation and environmental water users.
“As a recreation person, I’ve said all along we get the dregs of all the other water users,” Vertrees said. “We rely on agriculture more than anyone to make sure there’s water in the river. It’s really great, our partnerships in northwest Colorado.”
But that partnership was a bit of a hard sell at first, Camblin said. Some Maybell Ditch irrigators were skeptical about a project spearheaded by an environmental group. Tensions can sometimes run high between irrigators, who take water out of rivers, and environmental groups, who want to leave water in rivers. Camblin said the district held several meetings between irrigators and TNC to assure water users their water rights or how they manage their ranch wouldn’t be threatened.
“One of our goals we talked about when we started this was, we wanted to show people the agriculture community can work with groups they don’t normally work with,” Camblin said. “We are hoping other ag communities say, ‘Hey, you know what? Some of this stuff is possible. I might have to reach across the table to make it work but this will be a beneficial project to so many people.’”
The headgate and diversion reconstruction could come with a hefty price tag and TNC is still fundraising for what could end up costing more than originally thought due to supply chain interruptions and inflation. The project has secured almost $3.5 million so far, nearly $2 million of which comes from a Bureau of Reclamation WaterSMART grant. The Colorado Water Conservation Board has contributed about $1 million so far; the Colorado River Water Conservation District will give $500,000; $40,000 will come from the Yampa River Fund and the irrigation district is also contributing money and in-kind resources. However, the total final price tag remains unknown and is likely to be higher than what’s already been secured. Wellman said some of the additional funding needed will also come from the National Resources Conservation Service.
Aspen Journalism covers water and rivers in collaboration with The Aspen Times. This story appeared in the Sept. 11 edition of The Aspen Times.

Renewable Natural Resources Foundation Round Table: The Challenges of Allocating #ColoradoRiver Water – Hot 20-year #drought and soaring populations #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the article on the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation website (Stephen Yaeger):

Senior water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University and one of the authors of the National Climate Assessment. Photo credit: Colorado State University Water Institute

Brad Udall, a Senior Water and Climate Research Scientist at Colorado State University, spoke at a virtual meeting of the RNRF Washington Round Table on Public Policy on March 9, 2021. He discussed the imbalance between water supply and demand in the Colorado River basin, how climate change is exacerbating the issue, and the ongoing renegotiation of the river’s management guidelines.
Introduction and Background
The Colorado River basin extends into seven states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and California) as well as Mexico, along with the land of 29 Native American tribes. The American portion of the basin represents 8% of the area of the lower 48 states. Altogether, about 40 million people, including the populations of all major cities in the Southwestern U.S., rely on the Colorado for some portion of their water supply. The river is used heavily for municipalities as well as agriculture, with about 4.5 million acres of irrigated land in the basin.
The water supply in the river is often measured by the water levels in its two major reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. These are the two biggest reservoirs in the U.S. In order to maintain sustainable levels in these two reservoirs over a long time period, withdrawals from the river must equal the supply being provided by the river’s flow. This was the case in 2000, when the combined contents of the reservoirs were over 90% full. Since then, their water level has dwindled to less than 50% due to a “structural deficit” – demand for the river’s water consistently outpacing supply. This is due in large part to the fact that over the past 20 years, the basin has been experiencing its worst drought on record. The flow of the river has decreased from ~14.75 million acre-feet (maf) to ~12.4 maf. Even before the drought began, water demand was high in the basin; since about 1990, it has not reliably reached the ocean.
While the current situation in the watershed is usually described as a drought, a lack of precipitation is really only half the story. Regional temperature increases, exacerbated by climate change, have also had a significant impact on the reduction of water availability. Udall noted that evaporative losses will only become more severe as climate change worsens. The Southwest is already one of the quickest-warming areas of the country, a trend that is expected to continue. The risk of multidecadal droughts will also continue to drastically increase in coming decades. The 2000-2018 period was the second-driest 19-year period in the basin since 800 AD. While this is partially attributed to natural variation, researchers have said that 50% of the decrease in soil moisture can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change. Climate change has turned what would likely be a moderate drought into an extreme, historic drying event. Aridification and heating, along with reduction in precipitation, are causing drastically drying conditions in a river basin that tens of millions of people rely on for their water.
Historical Management of the River
In 1922, to fully allocate use of the river’s water, the basin states agreed to the Colorado River Compact. This agreement still serves as the basis for the Law of the River, which is the set of rules for the river’s allocation and management. In response to the “hot drought” happening since 2000, new modifications to the Law of the River have been necessary to prevent the reservoirs from becoming depleted. The first of these, called the Colorado River Interim Guidelines, went into effect in 2007. These guidelines set out a series of complicated rules for how Lakes Powell and Mead are operated, allowing different quantities of water to be released from them when they are at certain elevations. They constrain use of water when the reservoirs are low. One innovative structure used to accomplish this is “intentionally created surplus,” which allows parties in the lower basin to store their water in a sort of “bank account” in Lake Mead.
Around 2013, it was becoming clear that persistently dry and hot conditions were rendering the 2007 Interim Guidelines insufficient. A new agreement was necessary. As a result, two new “Drought Contingency Plans” (DCPs) for the Upper and Lower Basins were adopted in 2019. Early in 2021, for the first time, drought conditions in the river reached the point where the DCPs’ provisions were activated. Udall noted that these agreements made some progress toward making the river’s use more sustainable but were not a permanent solution.
Future Management of the River
Udall finished his presentation by discussing future prospects for sustainably managing the river in these drying conditions. In 2026, the 2007 Interim Guidelines and DCPs expire. The seven basin states, 29 tribes, Mexico, and the federal government have already begun the multi-year process of renegotiating a new set of guidelines which will be adopted in 2027. The following are some central considerations for a successful new agreement described by Udall.
The Upper Basin’s “Delivery” Obligation
Among the problems that stakeholders are aiming to resolve is the nature of the Upper Basin’s delivery obligations. There is a clause in the original Colorado River Compact that says that the Upper Basin shall not allow the flow of the river to decline below 75 maf every ten running years. However, it is not clear if this obligation is really a “delivery” obligation or if it is a “non-depletion” obligation. If it is a delivery obligation, that means that the entire reduction of flow coming from the Upper Basin due to climate change falls on the Upper Basin to solve. Clearly, this was not the intent of this clause in the original 1922 compact, and the Upper Basin states are making this argument.

Graphic credit: Chas Chamberlin/Water Education Colorado

Tribal Issues
Native American tribes are expected to have a much more significant role in the renegotiation of the Interim Guidelines than they have had in previous decision-making processes for management of the river. There are 29 tribes in the basin. Altogether, they have a right to control about 20% of the basin’s water. This right derives from a 1908 Supreme Court decision which issued the “Winters Doctrine.” This doctrine said that when the federal government creates a reservation of land for a tribe, implicit in that reservation is a water right.
However, tribal interests were still left out of the 1922 compact, and many of their rights remain unquantified. Even in the 21^st century, the tribes in the basin were not invited to participate in the 2007 Interim Guidelines negotiations or the 2012 Basin Study. The 2019 DCPs were an important development in the inclusion of tribes in river management discussions after their needs and rights had been historically ignored. For the first time, these 29 distinct tribes were acting collectively and were included in the planning process. The DCPs were also the first time that a tribe agreed to accept a monetary payment in exchange for using less than their full water right. Inclusion of tribal interests in the renegotiation of the Interim Guidelines is expected, and will be essential to the new agreement’s success.
The Structural Deficit
Fundamental to the dilemma faced by basin stakeholders in this renegotiation process is the “structural deficit.” This is, quite simply, an imbalance between the supply of and demand for water in the basin. Since 2000, demand has outpaced supply. Demand reductions are challenging because once a water user has access to a supply of water, it is difficult to get them to relinquish it. The supply-side is more challenging to address. In the absence of cooler temperatures and more precipitation – conditions increasingly unlikely as climate changes — it is difficult to create more supply. It is easier to change consumption patterns than it is to change the hydrology of the river. Without demand reductions in the Upper and Lower Basins, there is a high probability that the amount of water in the reservoirs will continue to fall.
Udall referenced a recent study that found that the Upper Basin’s water demand is unsustainably high. Despite this finding, parts of the Upper Basin actually want to increase their demand, which in the face of declining flows is an issue that will need to be addressed in the negotiation process. Demand Management measures, by which water users can voluntarily accept money in exchange for reducing their water consumption, will likely be part of the solution in the Upper Basin but caps on demand may also be necessary to ensure that the delivery obligation is fulfilled.
In the Lower Basin, the Central Arizona Project diverts water from the Colorado River into Arizona, providing water for an area including the cities of Phoenix and Tucson. As a part of the original agreement that permitted this project, it was agreed that if there ever was a shortage of water in the basin, Arizona would bear the brunt of demand reductions. Demand reductions will likely be necessary in the Lower Basin but Udall noted that it would be difficult in practice to mandate that they all come from Arizona. Solving this dilemma will be a part of the new Interim Guidelines negotiations. One method that may be used is to begin charging evaporative losses to state water budgets in proportion to their use. Currently, evaporation is being charged to nobody, which is a part of the overuse problem.
Guidelines for Successful Renegotiation
Udall also identified other steps that can be taken by stakeholders to work toward a successful new set of interim guidelines. First, he emphasized the importance of good science. Realistic climate and hydrological modelling are necessary to inform the negotiations. Udall noted that many of the models being used by watershed states are overly optimistic with regard to future hydrology. Beginning the negotiations with inaccurate presumptions about the future of the watershed are setting the new agreement up for failure. While the renegotiation is a political process, it needs to be informed by most accurate scientific information possible.
Because the structural deficit is a basin-wide issue, Udall advocated for the use of a combined metric that adds the quantity of water in Lakes Mead and Powell. This would be a more accurate way to gauge water shortages because the water in the reservoirs individually is less important than the total quantity between them when informing the management of the entire river basin. He also said that using clear language in negotiations is critical. For instance, one should never inaccurately say that the Colorado River Compact itself is being renegotiated. It is only the Interim Guidelines that are being replaced; the Compact remains the foundation for the river’s allocation.
The renegotiation process is more than just a group of stakeholders sitting around a table, working out a plan for the river. It is a series of large and small meetings, some more formal than others. Since not everything is negotiated in official sessions, there is room for behind-the-scenes discussion while also maintaining transparency. During the round table’s Q&A session, Udall mentioned that river management issues under discussion will be reported by many talented journalists, who will bring transparency to the process for interested parties.
Ultimately, the process of renegotiating the Interim Guidelines requires a balancing of political, economic, environmental, and societal values. Climate change is the defining issue of our time, and it is at the center of these water issues in the American West. While one can easily become disillusioned by political processes, especially in the realm of climate and environmental issues, Udall ended on a note of optimism. While the solutions are not all clear, there are good relationships among stakeholders, which will form a solid foundation for successful negotiations.
– Stephen Yaeger, RNRF Program Manager
The PowerPoint Udall used during his presentation can be found here.
In his presentation, Udall referenced a series of studies about the climate and hydrological conditions of the Colorado River. They can be found at the following links:
Increasing influence of air temperature on upper Colorado River streamflow
The twenty‐first century Colorado River hot drought and implications for the future
On the Causes of Declining Colorado River Streamflows
Unprecedented 21st century drought risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains
Large contribution from anthropogenic warming to an emerging North American megadrought
Colorado River flow dwindles as warming-driven loss of reflective snow energizes evaporation
When is Drought not a Drought? Drought, Aridification, and the “New Normal”
Alternative Management Paradigms for the Future of the Colorado and Green Rivers

Data Mega-Dump: Alfalfa (Part II) — @Land_Desk #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Hayfield in Orderville, Utah, irrigated with water from the East Fork of the Virgin River, a Colorado River tributary. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

Click the link to read the article on the Land Desk website (Jonathan P. Thompson):

By now you may have heard that the Colorado River is in trouble, as are the 40 million or so people who rely on it and all the people (and livestock) that eat the crops it irrigates. It’s not the only Western river facing a crisis: The situation on the Klamath is dire and the Rio Grande pretty much dried up this summer, its demise delayed by an abundant monsoon.
The problem is simple: The collective water users are consuming more water than is actually in the river and its tributaries; that is, they are pulling about 14 million acre feet each year out of a river that only has about 12 million acre feet of water in it. And consumption continues to hold steady even as the river continues to shrink, drawing down reserves to a critically low level.
Or to put it in the possibly more relatable terms of a household budget: Spending is remaining constant even as the household income shrinks. The household is running a deficit, in other words, which is rapidly emptying the savings accounts (Lakes Mead and Powell). And, on top of that, the household has outstanding debts (to tribal nations whose senior water rights have yet to be developed, honored or even quantified). The accountants have tapped into retirement accounts (Upper Basin reservoirs such as Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa) and imposed temporary cuts (Tier 1 and 2a Shortages) to shore up the savings accounts, but it isn’t enough.
Spending must be dramatically and permanently slashed to better-than-sustainable levels, now, to avert crisis, allow the household to start building back its savings—and, finally, to settle those outstanding debts.
Which is why Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton told the collective water users in the Colorado River Basin states that they needed to figure out how to cut 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of consumption, per year. That’s a whopping amount (Arizona’s total use is less than 2.8 million acre-feet per year). And it may not even be enough. The lower end of those cuts will just about solve the deficit spending, but it won’t be adequate to build up the savings or to settle outstanding debts. If climate change continues to shrink the river even 4 million acre-feet may not be enough.
So, we—the Colorado River users—must make huge cuts. And that means the biggest users of water (the biggest spenders, to go with our earlier analogy) are going to have to play a major part. The biggest user is agriculture and the thirstiest crop is hay, alfalfa in particular. For High Country News’s Landline I wrote about alfalfa and the need to grow less . This Data Dump is intended to provide some more data to support and supplement that piece. Some of it you’ve seen in previous Data Dumps, but some of it will be new.
But first, a note: I’m not making value judgments here, nor am I “vilifying” a particular crop, as one reader suggested. I’m not saying that alfalfa is somehow less valuable or more wasteful than almonds, or golf courses, or even your daily shower. Remember that alfalfa not only feeds beef cattle, but also dairy cattle (I can’t find reliable stats on how much alfalfa goes to beef vs. dairy—if anyone knows, please tell me!). So if you eat cheese or butter or ice cream, all of which are high on my list of yummy foods, you’re probably eating alfalfa. Nor am I saying that we need to fallow alfalfa fields instead of drying up golf courses or anything else (if it were up to me golf courses and turf lawns would be banned long before alfalfa, and canals covered with solar panels before alfalfa fields).
Cuts are going to have to come from across the board and across every sector. It’s just that as the biggest water user in the Colorado River Basin, alfalfa must play a part (it’s just math). And according to federal agricultural data, farmers are growing less alfalfa in the Colorado River Basin than they were five years ago. That is certainly a beginning.
Now, on to the numbers. For reference: 1 acre-foot = 325,851 gallons. Most of the stats come from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, National Agricultural Statistics Service, Foreign Agriculture Service and Census of Agriculture.

“Natural Flow” is a calculation of how much water would flow in the Colorado River without any withdrawals or reservoir evaporation. In other words, it’s the amount of water available for use. The 1922 Colorado River Compact assumed that there would be at least 15 million acre feet running past Lee’s Ferry. Over the last two decades it’s averaged in the 12 MAF to 13 MAF range—and falling. Source: USBR

For the life of me, I cannot find a more updated version of the breakdown of consumptive uses in the entire Colorado River Basin. The USBR has Consumptive Use and Losses reports for the Upper Basin up to 2020 (see below); and “accounting reports” for the Lower Basin, which break use down by irrigation district, but not sector. So I’m relying on this. (If any readers have more up to date breakdowns, send them my way!). Total consumptive use has dropped to between 13 million and 14 million af and agriculture continues to use the lion’s share of the water. Source: USBR.

2 million to 4 million acre-feet Amount of additional cuts—on top of those already made this year and last year under the emergency shortage declarations—Colorado River water users need to make to bring consumption in line with water supplies. That’s enough to fill 1.8 million to 2.2 million Olympic-size swimming pools; or 222,222 Kim Kardashians-worth (see data point below).
244,635 acre-feet Amount of Colorado River water Nevada is forecast to use this year, nearly all of which goes to Las Vegas and neighboring cities. The state’s water users withdraw about 450,000 acre feet from Lake Mead, but then return about 230,000 acre-feet in the form of treated wastewater via the Las Vegas Wash.
39 Number of golf courses in Las Vegas
459 acre-feet Average annual water used to irrigate a golf course in the Southwest, according to the U.S. Golf Association.
300 Number of golf courses in Arizona, according to Golf Arizona.
921 Number of golf courses in California.
3.18 million gallons per acre (9.76 af) Amount of water needed per year to keep grass alive in the Mojave Desert. That’s about twice as much as what alfalfa requires.
13,455 square feet Size of an Olympic-size swimming pool, which holds 1.8 acre feet of water.
600 square feet Maximum size of a swimming pool in Las Vegas’ new building code, which SNWA says will save 32 million gallons of water over the next decade.
470 square feet Average size of a Las Vegas residential swimming pool, but some are over 3,000 square feet.
2.2 million Approximate number of residential swimming pools of all sizes in the seven Colorado River Basin states.
232,000 Gallons of water over the maximum limit Kim Kardashian used at her L.A. property in June (about .7 acre-feet). If she were to continue that rate of excessive use she’d consume about 9 acre-feet per year—or twice as much as alfalfa.
145 million gallons Daily consumptive water use of power plants in Colorado River Basin states, which amounts to about 162,000 acre-feet per year.
Okay, those numbers are there to give some perspective, and to show that, yes, golf and lawns and soccer and football fields and coal power plants and Los Angeles celebrities use a bunch of water. And now let’s look at alfalfa:

This is the breakdown of water use for the Upper Basin (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico) only. Agriculture guzzles the lion’s share of the water, as you can see. You may also notice that the Upper Basin uses less water than California, alone. That may seem unfair, but it’s how the Colorado River Compact was set up: The Upper Basin states aren’t guaranteed a set amount, they just get what’s left over after delivering 7.5 MAF per year to the Lower Basin. Lately that has not been very much. USBR.

The Imperial Irrigation District is by far the biggest single water user on the Colorado River, consuming about 850 billion gallons per year, nearly all of which is used for agriculture in the Imperial Valley. As much as one-third of that water was used to irrigate alfalfa, based on 2017 USDA agriculture census figures. *This figure for the Southern Nevada Water System does not account for Las Vegas Wash return flows, which are subtracted from this amount (to arrive at a net total of about 245,000 af). USBR.

2 to 6 acre-feet
Amount of water needed annually to irrigate an acre of alfalfa, depending on location and climate. In Colorado’s San Luis Valley alfalfa consumes about 2 acre-feet per year, while in California’s Imperial Valley it can be a bit more than 6 acre-feet annually. Most other places fall somewhere in between.
4.1 million Acres of irrigated agricultural land in Utah, Arizona and Colorado in 2017.
2.7 million Acres of irrigated agricultural land in those three states planted with alfalfa and other hay crops.
3 million Acres of irrigated agricultural land in Western states (including the Colorado River Basin) planted with alfalfa grown for forage (hay), grazing or seed in 2022.
18,000 acres Amount of land planted with alfalfa in in San Juan County, New Mexico, in 2022, all of which relies on water from Colorado River tributaries for irrigation.
76,070 acres Amount of land planted with alfalfa in the San Luis Valley in Colorado in 2022. Fields here are irrigated with water from the Rio Grande, which dried out in Albuquerque this year.
85,795 acres Amount of land planted with alfalfa in Imperial County, California, this year, consuming as much as 510,000 acre feet of Colorado River water—more than twice as much as the entire Las Vegas metro area’s yearly consumptive use. Imperial County has come to be known as the hottest county in the nation.
139 Number of Imperial County farms on which more than 500 acres of alfalfa was grown in 2017.
88,252 acres Amount of land planted with alfalfa this year in Maricopa County, Arizona, home of Phoenix.
90,000 acres Amount of photovoltaic solar panels needed to equal the generating capacity of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, according to a 2021 MIT/Stanford study.

1.73 million metric tons Amount of hay shipped overseas via San Francisco and Los Angeles ports in 2021. This amounts to 50 million gallons of water, according to rough calculations based on 240 lbs of water/ton of hay.
$880 million Value of last year’s hay exports from Colorado River Basin states.
$450 million Value of that hay that went to China.
$73 million Value shipped to Saudi Arabia.
75% Portion of Utah’s Colorado River use consumed by agriculture in 2018.
446,000 acre-feet Estimated amount of water that evaporates annually from major Upper Basin reservoirs, including about 359,000 acre-feet from Lake Powell.

Water crisis sinks to new level — Metropolitan State University of #Denver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

The Colorado River bridge on the Utah State Route 95 at Hite, Utah. Panorama stitched from 7 portrait format images. Photo credit: Christian Mehlführer via Wikimedia Commons

Click the link to read the article on the Metropolitan State University of Denver website (Mark Cox):

The Biden administration has given Western states a deadline to tackle the escalating emergency.
The Colorado River’s literal race to the bottom hit another low last month.
As the waterline dropped farther and shortages hit dire new levels, the Biden administration announced unprecedented cuts, giving Colorado and six other Western states 60 days to reach an agreement on how to radically reduce their water use.
There is good reason for such urgency. Last month, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation imposed the first-ever Tier 2 water restrictions — a “break glass” emergency measure that was unthinkable even a few years ago.
The latest stark cuts mean that Arizona, Nevada and Mexico next year will see their shares of Colorado River water drop by 21%, 8% and 7%, respectively. And there are likely even more grueling restrictions ahead.
“People need to understand how important the Colorado River is for all of us,” said Elizabeth McVicker, Ph.D., J.D., a Management professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver who was instrumental in creating the One World One Water Center (OWOW). “It provides drinking water for 40 million people across seven states, fuels many major cities and generates electricity for 5 million households. If it fails, we all fail.”

The Colorado River meanders through ranch land near Kremmling on Aug. 17, 2021. Choked by chronic overuse, a 22-year drought and the effects of climate change, the Colorado River’s flow has declined by nearly 20% this century. Photo credit: Denver Water.

Standoff among states

The crux of the current problem? Neither Upper Basin states (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) nor Lower Basin states (California, Nevada and Arizona) want to make further water cuts — they each think the other side should make more sacrifices.
In essence, they are like seven people arguing over who gets the biggest bite of an ice-cream sandwich as it melts away before them.

RELATED: Water wars come to Colorado

However, McVicker sees glimmers of light. “Personally, I’m optimistic that the states will ultimately make progress because there’s a growing awareness that without serious action, we’ll all lose,” she said.

(Left to right) John McClow, Rebecca Mitchell, Gene Shawcroft, Tom Bucshatzke at the Colorado Water Congress 2022 Annual Summer Conference. Photo credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Unsurprisingly, she points out, state politicians are rattling their sabres and fighting their respective corners. “But we are seeing more meaningful collaboration between on-the-ground water agencies,” she added, “and that’s what counts.”
Climate consequences
It’s no mystery how we got here. The U.S. is caught up in a historic 23-year megadrought. Our mountain snowpack is rapidly diminishing. Extreme heat is evaporating more water off the top of the great reservoirs. And unprecedented signs of depletion are seemingly everywhere.
Around the Lake Powell reservoir, a white “bathtub ring” outlines the recent steep water loss.

RELATED: Where did all the water go?

At Lake Mead, once-sunken boats have risen from the depths like ghoulish tombstones. Last month, receding waters in Texas revealed 113 million-year-old dinosaur tracks.
“We reached this point much more quickly than anyone thought,” McVicker conceded. “Most people thought it would be several more years before we reached Tier 2 status, but then it came along all at once.”
Students with answers
The urgency of the U.S. water shortage has long been recognized at MSU Denver, which runs a range of pioneering water-studies courses, including via the OWOW Center and a noncredit option via Innovative and Lifelong Learning. And many MSU Denver students are rolling up their sleeves to tackle an issue that will likely be around for their entire adult lives.

MSU Denver Computer Science major Victor Lemus Gomez presented a policy to lawmakers that proposed water loss audits as a way to plan for the future. Photo by Alyson McClaran

This summer, Victor Lemus Gomez took part in a Colorado fellowship program designed to give policymaking experience to STEM students. He created a proposal urging water providers to conduct water-loss audits, which would help state leaders plan better for the future. And the best part? He got to deliver it personally.
“It was such a privilege to present my policy proposal directly to lawmakers,” he said. “It gave me a firsthand look at the hard work and urgency that our state elected officials bring to this fight.”
Also in the fellowship program was fellow student Claire Sanford, who focused her efforts on water-wise landscaping. “It’s so important for water conservation,” she said. “Using native plants empowers people to tackle climate change while simultaneously lowering their water bills and encouraging biodiversity.”
Equally important, she said, it gives Coloradans a chance to connect with beautiful native landscapes that flourished in these same spaces centuries ago. “It’s always exciting to see people interacting with regionally appropriate plant life,” she said, “and it makes me feel hopeful for the future.”
Water waste
Tackling this imminent crisis will necessarily mean improving the efficiency of U.S. agriculture, which accounts for 80% of the Colorado River’s water use. But that’s a tall order, given that there is so much waste, leakage and, sometimes, plain poor judgment.
“Right now, our desert-based farmers are using billions of gallons of American water to grow crops such as cotton and hay for export to competitor countries like Saudi Arabia and China,” McVicker said. “Where is the sense in that?” The whole agricultural industry, she argues, needs to take a strong look at itself.

MSU Denver Environmental Science major, Claire Stanford, observes native plants and water wise landscaping at Botanical Gardens in Denver. Photo by Alyson McClaran

For a better example of how to do things, McVicker points to Aurora, where a new city proposal seeks to eliminate “nonfunctional turf” in almost all new developments, including residential lawns, medians and commercial properties. “They are taking real, concrete action and standing up for the simple idea that we have to preserve to thrive,” she said.
Persuading Coloradans to adopt a more responsible approach is also at the core of Sanford’s fellowship work. “People are awestruck when I show them how our native plants have complex root systems up to 5 feet deep, as opposed to the shallow Kentucky bluegrass,” she said. “These plants are literally rooted in our tradition, so we should be using them much more.”

RELATED: Lawn of the dead

One positive side effect of the ongoing crisis has been that the water industry is growing fast and increasingly becoming a realistic career choice for students. Smitten by the water bug himself, Gomez is encouraging others to explore potential opportunities in this fascinating field.
“Water is one of those critical elements that encompasses every aspect of our lives,” he said. “And the great courses at MSU Denver offer a pathway into a field of study that isn’t just fascinating and rewarding — it can also bring about real social change.”

#Colorado #Water #Conservation Board studying possible expansion of Bear Creek Lake — CBS Colorado

Following heavy rains which fell mid-September 2013 in Colorado, the pool elevation at the Bear Creek reservoir rose several feet. At 4 a.m., Sept. 15, the reservoir pool elevation surpassed its previous record elevation of 5587.1 feet, and peaked at a pool elevation of 5607.9 ft on Sept. 22, shown here. Bear Creek Dam did what it was designed to do by catching the runoff and reducing flooding risks to the hundreds of homes located downstream.

Click the link to read the article on the CBS Colorado website (Ben Warwick). Here’s an excerpt:

The Colorado Water Conservation Board, Army Corps of Engineers and City of Lakewood partnered on a study to examine gaps in water supply and demand, as part of the Colorado Water Plan. The study looked at several different scenarios to forecast and address water supply gaps through the year 2050. The South Platte Basin, which serves the Denver metro area, Northern Colorado, and the northeastern plains, is projected to have a gap anywhere between 509,000 acre-feet and 835,000 acre-feet per year.
The CWCB and Army Corps of Engineers chose Bear Lake because it has an existing dam and provides an opportunity to store more water at what the group calls a more reasonable cost. The study is examining whether an expansion can decrease the supply/demand gap, possible impacts to flood control, and environmental and recreational impacts.
If deemed feasible, funding for expansion and enhancement of recreational areas and open space would be a large part of the project.
There is no set timeline for the project. The feasibility study is ongoing.

#Water #conservation efforts to thwart #drought delusional — The Boulder City Review #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Alfalfa harvest via the Western Farm Press.

Click the link to read the guest column on the Boulder City Review website (Rod Woodbury). Here’s an excerpt:

Over the last two decades, however, the river has generated average flows of only 12.3 million acre-feet annually, a huge shortfall despite serious municipal conservation and reuse efforts. Southern Nevada has led the way in those laudable efforts. Despite adding 750,000 to our population since 2000, we’ve somehow managed to cut consumptive use by 26 percent due to aggressive conservation and recycling programs. Still, it’s not nearly enough. Global warming and the megadrought are projected to continue, which means river flows and lake levels will keep plummeting without drastic policy changes. We’re now only 90 feet above the “dead pool” level at which Hoover Dam will cease generating electricity.
And it’s no longer alarmist to prophesy that it could happen within our lifetime or even the next decade. That’s why the federal government recently issued its first-ever shortage declarations, reducing Nevada, Arizona and Mexico’s collective allocations by over 700,000 acre-feet annually, then tasking the seven river states to create a collaborative plan cutting an additional 2-4 million acre-feet annually next year.
So, here’s where I get brutally honest, which always seems to get me in big trouble. But I’ll say it anyway. Nevada isn’t the problem. If we were feeling generous, Nevadans could permanently donate back our entire annual allocation and it wouldn’t even make a dent. River flows would still be woefully insufficient to supply current uses and Lake Mead would still be rapidly draining. Of course, just because Nevada isn’t the problem doesn’t mean we can’t be part of the solution. Southern Nevadans should continue our conservation and recycling efforts, even if only to set an example and because it’s the right thing to do. But we need to stop pretending that eliminating more Clark County lawns, reducing the size of more (Las) Vegas golf courses and swimming pools, or even recycling all 1 million gallons of Boulder City’s daily wastewater will somehow solve the systemic river and lake problems. It won’t. Nevada amounts to nothing more than a statistical rounding error in the riverwide problem, and absolutely nothing Nevadans do to better conserve or recycle is going to change that…
Domestic water use also isn’t the problem. Nor are golf courses and resorts. If we completely wiped out the residential populations of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico, for instance, drying up millions or acres of turf and water features in the process, the lake would still be dropping.
Let’s be honest. Desert agriculture is the real problem source. It uses approximately 80 percent of the Colorado River’s water to irrigate 15 percent of the nation’s farmland, producing a high percentage of winter fruits and vegetables. In fact, 20 percent of the entire Colorado River system’s output is channeled across the desert to a few wealthy landowners in California’s once-arid but now-productive Imperial Valley. And growers of cattle feed like alfalfa are by far the biggest river water consumers. So, if we really want to solve our Colorado River problem, then desert agriculture either needs to evaporate out of existence like the water it uses or become vastly more efficient. The best way to ensure that happens is to let the market dictate price. Make agriculture, commercial and industrial users pay for every drop they use, sending it to the highest bidders. With the market in control, we’ll be shocked how quickly irrigation ditches get lined with concrete, recycling projects ramp up and the lake start rising again.

Concerns about water rise as #ColoradoRiver negotiations continue — The Rocky Mountain Collegian #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the article on the Rocky Mountain Collegian website (Ivy Secrest):

Dry, hot air settles over a small suburb in Fort Collins. The heat pushes residents indoors to crank the air conditioning, and the constant spurt of sprinklers is the only sound breaking the midday silence. This is a common occurrence of exceptional waste that may need to become a scene that only exists in memory, especially for states like Colorado.
Colorado has been experiencing drought conditions on and off for decades. And combating the issue of water scarcity in the region has been a priority for the states that rely on Colorado’s water resources.
“As a headwater state, we’re a really critical location in terms of the different rivers that originate in Colorado,” said Melinda Laituri, professor emeritus in ecosystem science and sustainability at Colorado State University.
One of these rivers is the Colorado River, the sixth-longest river in the country, which serves nearly 40 million people. It’s a critical resource for the Southwest United States and Mexico.
“The lower basin and the southern half of the upper basin had been in drought for 22 years,” said Steven Fassnacht, a snow hydrologist and professor at CSU.

Governor Clarence J. Morley signing Colorado River compact and South Platte River compact bills, Delph Carpenter standing center. Unidentified photographer. Date 1925. Print from Denver Post. From the CSU Water Archives

The Colorado River Compact of 1922 has been a focus, as the rights established in the compact are being renegotiated to protect the river. [ed. this statement is not correct, no renegotiation of the Compact is in the works.]
A lot of this water access is dependent on snowpack. From the flow of the Colorado River to ground water resources, snow is integral to water access, and Colorado is simply not getting the amount it used to.
“From the mid ’30s to the mid ’70s, the snowpack was actually increasing,” Fassnacht said. “And since then, the trend has been a decrease in the snowpack.”
This is particularly concerning when resources are used to manufacture snow for skiing or water lawns that aren’t beneficial to local ecosystems. The larger ecological impacts Colorado has been facing, like fires and excess use of resources, have to be considered.

The aftermath of July 2021 floods in Poudre Canyon, west of Fort Collins. (Credit: Colorado Parks and Wildlife)

“If you burn the hillside, then you really increase the likelihood that you’re going to have rainfall causing erosion,” Fassnacht said. “You’ve got a lot of sediment that ends up in the river. Ash is terrible for the water treatment plants.”
Think of what it would mean to have ash in your drinking water or even just damaging water treatment facilities. This reality means the way we interact with water may have to drastically change in order to protect it.
“We have the expectation that we can go to the tap and turn it on and water will be there,” Laituri said.
Even using your sprinklers in the middle of the day or overusing natural resources by running your AC all of the time can have serious impacts on water resources and the ecosystems they serve.
“It comes down to education too because not everyone is a watershed scientist,” said Eric Williams, president of the Watershed Science Club at Colorado State University.
Williams said lawns and developers should concern the public in regard to water use.
“I think if we want to point the finger at something, it should be all of these lawns that we have,” Fassnacht said. “I’m not saying let’s get rid of every last piece of lawn, but let’s be a lot more strategic.”
This is not a new idea. Nevada has begun to remove lawns, and the City of Fort Collins has an initiative to encourage xeriscaping, the replacement of lawn with local plants that fare better in drought conditions. Participating in these programs and educating yourself, Williams said, are some of the best ways to get involved. However, the average citizen can’t simply stop watering their lawn and expect the drought to no longer exist.
“I don’t know if this can be really driven at the individual level,” Laituri said. “Yes, it makes us feel good to do things that we feel are contributing. … Will that be enough? It’s the larger water users that are going to have to really come to the table.”
We cannot continue to live in a world wherein wealthy citizens and major celebrities can abuse their water allocations while others go without access to clean water at all. The issue of water scarcity is an elaborate entanglement of social justice and environmental concern, meaning the resource must first be treated like a necessity before it can be allocated for luxury.

Native American lands where tribes have water rights or potential water rights to Colorado River water. Graphic via Ten Tribes Partnership via Colorado River Water Users Association website.

“There’s 30 federally recognized (Indigenous) tribes across the lower basin that should have access to water, and many other reservations actually don’t have running water,” Laituri said. “Assuring that they have access to that resource is part of this conversation.”
Indigenous groups were not included in the Colorado River Compact, and as some of the most prominent advocates of water rights, they have a lot to contribute to the conversation.
Indigenous groups are not the only population to be considered as water rights are negotiated. Laituri emphasized new populations coming to Fort Collins should be considered.
Laituri said if we want to conserve water, we need to consider the state’s capacity when developing. We need to consider if we can house more people and if it’s responsible to continue this growth in population.
While the concerns around the river are complex and still not fully understood, that doesn’t mean action isn’t being taken. And it doesn’t mean there aren’t any solutions.
“Please be curious,” Williams said. “No question is (a) dumb question.”
Reach Ivy Secrest at life@collegian.com or on Twitter @IvySecrest

#ClimateChange Is Ravaging the #ColoradoRiver. There’s a Model to Avert the Worst — The New York Times #COriver #aridification #ActOnClimate #KeepItInTheGround

This irrigation canal helps support the Yakima Basin’s $4.5 billion agricultural industry. Photo credit: Washington Department of Ecology

Click the link to read the article on The New York Times website (Henry Fountain). Here’s an excerpt:

…a decade ago, the water managers of the Yakima Basin tried something different. Tired of spending more time in courtrooms than at conference tables, and faced with studies showing the situation would only get worse, they hashed out a plan to manage the Yakima River and its tributaries for the next 30 years to ensure a stable supply of water. The circumstances aren’t completely parallel, but some experts on Western water point to the Yakima plan as a model for the kind of cooperative effort that needs to happen on the Colorado right now…

Representative Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat who worked on the Yakima Basin and other water issues for years before being elected to Congress in 2021, said the plan “represents the best of a collaborative, science-based process.”
[…]
Climate change and recurring drought had wreaked havoc with the water supply for irrigation managers and farmers in the Yakima Basin, one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country. Conservationists were concerned that habitats were drying up, threatening species. Old dams built to store water had blocked the passage of fish, all but eliminating the trout and salmon that the Indigenous Yakama Nation had harvested for centuries. In droughts, water allocations to many farms were cut. Years of court fights had left everyone dissatisfied, and a proposal in 2008 for a costly new dam and reservoir that favored some groups over others had not helped. Ron Van Gundy, manager of the Roza Irrigation District at the southern end of the basin, went to see Phil Rigdon, director of the Yakama Nation’s natural resources division. The two had been battling for years, largely through lawyers. They both opposed the dam, but for different reasons…
The two met, and eventually other stakeholders, joined them in developing a plan for better management of the river. After several years of give-and-take, the result was the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan, a blueprint for ensuring a reliable and resilient water supply for farmers, municipalities, natural habitats and fish, even in the face of continued warming and potentially more droughts. A decade into the plan, there are tens of millions of dollars’ worth of projects up and down the river designed to achieve those goals, including canal lining and other improvements in irrigation efficiency, increasing reservoir storage, and removing barriers to fish.

Created by Imgur user Fejetlenfej , a geographer and GIS analyst with a ‘lifelong passion for beautiful maps,’ it highlights the massive expanse of river basins across the country – in particular, those which feed the Mississippi River, in pink.

Hedging our #water bets — @BigPivots

Las Vegas Lake Mead intake schematic, courtesy SNWA.

Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):

Las Vegas in 2007 bet on declining reservoir levels in the Colorado River. The bet is now paying off. Municipal water providers in Colorado have started tightening the spigot for landscaping. That move is also wise — but overdue?
Lake Mead’s receding waters have exposed sunken boats, dead bodies and more. But the wisdom of a bet placed in 2005 by Las Vegas has also been revealed.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority draws 90% of its water for a population of 2.3 million from Lake Mead. It had two intake pipes, one higher and one lower in the reservoir. Reservoir levels have dropped precipitously since 2002 when the Colorado River delivered just 3.8 million acre-feet of flows. The 1922 compact among Colorado and the seven other basin states assumes more than 20 million in annual flows.
Las Vegas bored a third tunnel, this one coming up from the bottom of the reservoir. The far-sightedness of that and other investments totaling $1.3 billion was revealed in April when reservoir levels dipped below what was needed for the highest intake pipe. Depending upon the Colorado River, Las Vegas had wisely hedged its bet.

The front of the Steamboat Springs municipal building has been xeriscaped to consume less water. Top photo, Lake Mead floats boats below the now-infamous bathtub ring in December 2021. *Photos/+Allen Best*

Drought combined with the aridification produced by warming temperatures have upset the cart in the Colorado River Basin. Apples are rolling everywhere. The easy, visual way of telling that story is of the widening bathtub rings in the giant reservoirs of the Colorado River. Mead and Powell are respectively 73% and 74% empty.
But the most important story will be in how demand gets cut in Colorado and the six other basin states. The onus is on California, Arizona, and Nevada —particularly California, which for years into the drought to slurp too generously given the emerging climate realities.
Colorado and other upper basin states have lived within their compact-apportioned means. But here, too, changes are underway, because the water just is not there. Farms and ranches, which still consume upward 85% of water in Colorado, will have to be part of the story. So will the still- growing towns and cities.
Changes can be seen most prominently in those places on the edge, including Denver’s fast-growing suburbs of Aurora and Castle Rock. They’re redefining acceptable landscapes in the semi-arid West. Sprawling lawns resembling those of the rain-soaked eastern states are on their way out.
In Aurora, Colorado’s third largest city at nearly 400,000 residents, the city council last week approved regulations sharply limiting turf grasses on golf courses and new homes. Residential lots will be limited to 45% or 500 square feet of the yard, whichever is less, for grass. Within that limit are other limits. No more Kentucky blue-grass. Other varieties use less water
Elected officials in Castle Rock, a city of 80,000 people that expects to fully fill out its britches at 142,000 people, in early September review similar regulations. “Coloradoscape” is what Castle Rock calls its recommended landscapes. For homes, 500 square feet is tiny, smaller than some bedrooms. For new yards, it will be the max. Mark Marlow, director of Castle Rock Water, says city leaders began meeting with stakeholders, including homebuilders, in November.

Marina at Lake Mead. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots

Facing ‘dead pool’ risk, #California braces for painful #water cuts from #ColoradoRiver — The Los Angeles Times #COriver #aridification #LakeMead #LakePowell

Click the link to read the article on The Los Angeles Times website (Ian James). Click through for the photo gallery, here’s an excerpt:

Managers of districts that rely on the Colorado River have been talking about how much water they may forgo. So far, they haven’t publicly revealed how much they may commit to shore up the declining levels of Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.But state and local water officials say there is widespread agreement on the need to reduce water use next year to address the shortfall. Without major reductions, the latest federal projections show growing risks of Lake Mead and Lake Powell approaching “dead pool” levels, where water would no longer pass downstream through the dams. Though the states haven’t agreed on how to meet federal officials’ goal of drastically reducing the annual water take by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet, the looming risks of near-empty reservoirs are prompting more talks among those who lead water agencies…
Though [Tanya] Trujillo and [Camille] Touton have stressed their interest in collaborating on solutions, they have also laid out plans that could bring additional federal leverage to bear. Their plan to reexamine and possibly redefine what constitutes “beneficial use” of water in the three Lower Basin states — California, Arizona and Nevada — could open an avenue to a critical look at how water is used in farming areas and cities. How the government might wield that authority, or tighten requirements on water use, hasn’t been spelled out. The prospect of some type of federal intervention, though, has become one more factor pushing the states to deliver plans to take less from the river…
Because most water rights fall under state law, developing a new definition of “beneficial” would be complicated and could lead to lawsuits, Larson said. What might qualify as “waste” would also be hard to pin down, he said, because “one person’s waste is another person’s job.”
[…]
Arizona and Nevada are calling for a look at “wasteful” water use as a way of prodding large California agencies like the Imperial Irrigation District to agree to substantial cutbacks, [Rhett] Larson said. It’s an indirect way, he said, for the two states to send a message that “California, your agriculture needs to be more efficient.”

The #ColoradoRiver’s alfalfa problem: Growing less hay is the only way to keep the river’s #water system from collapsing — @HighCountryNews #COriver #aridification

A hayfield near Grand Junction, irrigated with water from the Colorado River. Under demand management pilot programs, the state could pay irrigators to fallow fields in an effort to leave more water in the river. Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

Click the link to read the article on the High Country News website (Jonathan Thompson):

The West has an alfalfa problem.
It’s time for hay farmers to come to the Colorado River water-conservation table
In June, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton told the Colorado River Basin states that they needed to reduce water consumption by 2-to-4 million acre-feet — or as much as 30% of the seven states’ total use — to save the system from collapsing. It was an enormous ask, unprecedented in scope, and probably the first time a Reclamation official’s words ever went viral.
A few weeks later, I stood on a dusty trail in Page, Arizona, looking out at Glen Canyon Dam and wondering whether such huge cuts were even possible, without, say, shutting off every irrigation canal into California. And how could the states possibly manage such a huge reduction while also fulfilling their legal obligation to deliver an equally large amount of additional water to the 30 tribes in the Colorado River Basin?
Part of the answer lay right in front of me: The trail I was hiking followed the edge of the local golf course, an emerald green carpet on the parched red earth. I wondered how much water you could save by cutting off every golf course in the West. Then I started ticking off other water-saving measures
– Tear up the turf lawns;
– Shut down water-guzzling coal power plants;
– Drain private swimming pools, and ban new ones;
– Shut off those Las Vegas fountains*;
– Halt new housing growth;
– Make water recycling the norm;
– Plug the leaks in water-distribution systems;
– Ban water-guzzling data centers in arid areas;
– Structure water rates in a way that discourages waste;
And put water-flow restrictors on LA-area celebrities’ homes to keep them from wasting water.
Surely that would do it. Especially the last item, given that Kim Kardashian was just busted for using 232,000 gallons more than she was supposed to — and doing so in just one month. (Sylvester Stallone was equally guilty.) But when I sat down to tally up the savings all this added up to, I still came up short. Way short.
459 acre-feet
Average annual water used to irrigate a golf course in the Southwest, according to the U.S. Golf Association. (1 acre-foot = 325,851 gallons)
300
Number of golf courses in Arizona, according to Golf Arizona.
145 million gallons
Daily consumptive water use of power plants in Colorado River Basin states, which amounts to about 162,000 acre-feet per year.
Now, 2 million acre-feet is a huge amount of water: enough to fill more than 1 million Olympic-size swimming pools. To get to Touton’s upper goal, you’d need to drain 2.2 million monster-sized pools. Hell, you could shut off every water tap in Las Vegas, and you’d still come up 2-million-swimming-pools’-worth short — or about 1 trillion gallons. In fact, you could halt all municipal water consumption in the Colorado River Basin — dry out Phoenix and Tucson lawns, deprive Los Angeles and Denver of showers and toilet flushing — and it still wouldn’t be quite enough.
“There’s not 2 million acre-feet of municipal use within the Lower Basin (Nevada, California and Arizona) and probably just above that if you look basin-wide,” said Colby Pellegrino, a deputy general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority in an executive roundtable in August. “To think this problem can just be solved by cities just is wrong,” she continued. “Agriculture has to step up to the table.”
But I come from a long line of western Colorado farmers, and my instinctive reaction to this kind of talk is: Them’s fighting words! We Upper Basin folks learn early on about “first in time, first in right,” and that if you don’t put all of your allotted water on your fields, it’ll run downstream to overflow Las Vegas’ lavish fountains, the swimming pools of Phoenix and Hollywood celebrities’ private forests. The notion of “buying and drying” farms so the cities can keep growing is anathema.
2.6 million acre-feet
Amount of Colorado River water California’s Imperial Irrigation District is expected to consume this year, most of which goes to agriculture.
244,635 acre-feet
Amount of Colorado River water Nevada is expected to consume this year. That’s less than half the amount of water that evaporates off of Lake Mead each year.
75%
Portion of Utah’s Colorado River use consumed by agriculture in 2018.
But once I calmed down, I realized that Pelligrino has a point. See, if you want to cut water consumption, you have to tackle the biggest water users. And the biggest user of Colorado River water, by far, is not lawns, not Vegas golf courses (mostly irrigated by recycled wastewater), not the Bellagio fountain, not even Kardashian or Stallone. It’s agriculture, which historically has accounted for up to 80% of all consumptive water use in the Colorado River Basin. Not only do crops need more water than houses, but in most cases, farmers have senior rights to the bulk of the water. And of all the crops grown in the region, alfalfa and hay fields collectively are the thirstiest.
That’s not just because alfalfa uses a lot of water, though it does — about 1.5 million gallons per acre per year, rivaled only for thirstiness by almonds and pistachios. It’s also because so much of the West’s agricultural land is devoted to growing alfalfa. Colorado, Utah and Arizona farmers irrigated about 4.1 million acres of crops in 2017, and nearly half of those acres were in alfalfa. The Colorado River Basin’s largest single water consumer is the Imperial Irrigation District in Southern California, which draws some 2.6 million acre-feet from the river each year, nearly all of which goes to crops. About one-third of the district’s irrigated acreage is devoted to alfalfa, which annually consumes at least 400,000-acre feet of Colorado River water — more than Nevada’s entire allotment.
3 to 6 acre-feet
Amount of water needed annually to irrigate an acre of alfalfa. The amount is greater in hotter, drier climates.
3 million
Acres of irrigated agricultural land in Western states (including the Colorado River Basin) planted with alfalfa grown for forage (hay), grazing or seed in 2022.
$880 million
Value of hay shipped overseas last year from Colorado River Basin states, most of which went to China, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
If the Rocky Mountains’ winter snowpack is like a huge reservoir that feeds the Colorado River system, then the alfalfa fields stretching from western Colorado to Southern California comprise a sort of anti-reservoir, sucking up a good portion of the water in order to feed beef and dairy cattle in the U.S., China, even Saudi Arabia. If you were to stop filling up the alfalfa anti-reservoir, or fallow all of the alfalfa fields in the Colorado River Basin, you’d come up with Touton’s desired cuts and then some fairly quickly. It’s simple math.
Which is not to say doing so would be pretty, painless, politically palatable or even possible. Buying and drying up small farms en masse would threaten rural economies and cultures. Many farmers grow alfalfa or other hay as a side crop — it’s reliable, relatively easy to care for, provides multiple harvests during the long growing season and gains value during drought. If farmers were forced to get rid of their hay, their operations might no longer be viable, and the cost of beef and dairy products would certainly go up. Gone would be the experience of rolling down the windows on a summer’s eve and inhaling the poignant aroma of a freshly cut field. Gone the bucolic sight of the long sunset shadows cast by the bales — all replaced by patches of dusty, noxious-weed-breeding ground or yet more residential sprawl.
Most of us can probably agree that farms should not be dried to allow cities to grow heedlessly, or to allow urban folks to water big lawns or enable Kim Kardashian to do whatever the heck she does with all that water. In the past, Phoenix’s sprawl has gobbled up citrus groves and cotton fields, and Colorado’s Front Range cities have bought and fallowed distant farms to accommodate houses and lawns. That, too, must stop. The goal here is not to transfer the water from farms to cities, but from farms and cities back to the river itself — or, rather, to the rivers, plural. The Klamath River in southern Oregon and Northern California is in crisis as well, and the Great Salt Lake is rapidly shrinking. Alfalfa fields are a primary culprit in both cases.
So, banning alfalfa is not the answer. But piping Mississippi River water over the Rockies or building billion-dollar, energy-intensive desalination plants to enable farmers to continue dumping water on hundreds of thousands of acres of cattle fodder is simply insane. It’s time for agriculture, and especially Big Alfalfa, to step up and give up a portion of its water either by becoming more efficient, switching to less water-intensive crops or fallowing more fields. The growers will be compensated: Congress just authorized $4 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act for that very purpose.
Industrial-scale farmers are currently growing and irrigating some 85,000 acres of alfalfa in California’s Imperial Valley. Cover all of that land with solar panels instead, and you’d save desert land from industrialization, generate enough power to replace Glen Canyon Dam’s hydroelectricity output several times over — and maybe even stave off the Colorado River’s collapse.

Additional #water cuts could be coming to Yuma, #AZ farmers, threatening supply of leafy greens — Fresh Plaza #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the article on the Arizona’s Family website (Briana Whitney). Here’s an excerpt:

The water cuts made by the Bureau of Reclamation to the Colorado River that will affect Pinal County farmers will not affect Yuma farmers. Still, the bureau said there needs to be millions more cuts to the water, and Yuma farmers may take the brunt of it. The big picture problem: Yuma provides 90% of the nation’s leafy greens like lettuce and spinach during the winter months, and now that could be at risk. Anybody who’s driven from the desert of the Valley to the San Diego beaches passes through the stretch of agricultural land along Interstate 8: Yuma, Arizona. “It is a climate that isn’t really replicated anywhere else in the world in terms of how we can grow and how long we can grow and what we can grow,” said Chelsea McGuire, Director of Government Relations with the Arizona Farm Bureau…
This month the Bureau of Reclamation announced Colorado River water cuts to farms in Arizona amid the drought. That didn’t affect Yuma farms, but something else could. “That’s not kind of where the bureau stopped. They said earlier before they announced the Tier 2A that we’re going to need an additional 2-4 million acre feet to stay in the river to avoid a crash, a catastrophic situation,” McGuire said. McGuire said the Yuma farmers came up with a plan for the Bureau of Reclamation — their farmers are willing to take a one-acre foot of water less per acre. That would total about 925,000-acre-feet in water cuts, a significant chunk but well below that 2-4 million number set by the bureau.
“They’ve basically come to the determination that that’s as much as they can take and still stay in business and keep producing,” McGuire said.
So, all these numbers, what does that mean for you at the grocery store? “The most basic consequence is that we’re going to see significant decreases in availability and significant increases in price,” McGuire said. “We can buy romaine lettuce any time of year in the stores, it’s grown in different places, but we can access it. That may not be the case anymore.”

How to build a pollinator garden — USFWS

A hummingbird clearwing moth visits a wild bergamot flower.

Click the link to read the article on the USFWS website (Mara Koenig):

Careful planning is essential to creating a successful pollinator garden. Follow these easy steps to make sure you have everything covered before you make your investment.
Choosing your location
While flowering plants can grow in both shady and sunny locations, consider your audience. Butterflies and other pollinators like to bask in the sun and some of their favorite wildflowers grow best in full or partial sun with some protection from the wind.
Identifying soil type and sunlight
Take a look at your soil – is it sandy and well-drained or more clay-like and wet? You can turn over a test patch or check out the soil mapper for your county to learn more. Your soil type and the amount of sunlight it gets will help determine the kinds of plants you can grow.
Choosing your plants
Research which varieties of milkweed and wildflowers are native to your area and do well in your soil and sunlight conditions. Native plants are the ideal choice, because they require less maintenance and tend to be heartier. Find a nursery that specializes in native plants near you – they’ll be familiar with plants that are meant to thrive in your part of the country. It’s essential to choose plants that have not been treated with pesticides, insecticides or neonicotinoids. You’ll also want to focus on selecting perennials to ensure your plants come back each year and don’t require a lot of maintenance.
Remember to think about more than just the summer growing season. Pollinators need nectar early in the spring, throughout the summer and even into the fall. Choosing plants that bloom at different times will help you create a bright and colorful garden that both you and pollinators will love for months!
Seeds vs. plants
Once you’ve identified your plant species, you’ll need to decide whether to use seeds or start with small plants. While both are good options, your choice will depend on your timeline and budget. Seeds are more economical, especially for larger gardens, but will require more time. If you’re using seeds, plan on dispersing them the fall or late winter ahead of your summer growing season. This gives the seeds time to germinate. Nursery-started plants cost more, but will generally give you a quick return on your investment and bring pollinators into your yard during the same growing season.
Planting your garden

Purple prairie clover, purple coneflower and yellow coneflower in a native pollinator garden at Horicon National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin.

When you’re ready to start planting, you’ll need your seeds or plants along with essentials like gardening tools to break the soil as well as extra soil or compost and mulch.
Prepping your garden
If you’re converting an existing lawn, you’ll need to remove grass and current plant cover and turn your soil to loosen it up. If you’re planning on using raised beds or containers, there are a lot of pre-made options available, as well as simple designs to build your own. No matter where you decide to plant your garden, you’ll want to add nutrient-rich compost or soil to improve the success of your garden.
Planting your seeds or flowers
When you’re using seeds, keep in mind that they will need time to germinate, so fall and late winter are ideal times to get started. In the fall, disperse seeds and cover with soil. In the late winter, scatter seeds over the snow. The sun will heat up the seeds and help anchor them into the snow. The melted snow provides moisture that will help the seeds germinate.
If you’re starting with small plants, make sure you follow frost guidance to avoid putting your plants in too early. Dig holes just big enough for the root system, then cover and reinforce the roots with soil or compost. Add mulch to reduce weed growth.
Wait, watch, water and weed
It may take some time, but you will eventually see butterflies and other pollinators enjoying your garden. Make sure to weed and water your garden to keep it healthy. Keep in mind that it may take a couple seasons for milkweed to start producing flowers.
We wish you the best of luck with your pollinator garden. Thank you for making a difference for butterflies, bees and other pollinators!

There’s a water crisis. Why do we still have lawns? — The Washington Post #aridification

Click the link to read the article on The Washington Post website (Dan Zak). Here’s an excerpt:

An American dream meets a changing landscape
The planet has accelerated its revolt against us and still we tend our lawns, one part of Earth we can control. Society falters, resources dwindle and, still, lawns…
“It contributes nothing,” says M.J. Veverka about her lawn, which she’s watered and weeded and mowed for 31 years — and for what? The lawn is static, nonfunctional, tedious. Last year Veverka filled in her backyard pool, removed the surrounding lawn and enlisted Mattei’s company to turn the space into an oasis of native plants, a “homegrown national park,” in the words of a grass-roots movement for regenerating biodiversity. Veverka so loves the backyard — which is now an evolving work of horticultural art and a functioning component of the surrounding ecosystem — that she wants to do the same thing with her front yard.
Forty million acres: The entire state of Georgia couldn’t contain America’s total lawnage. And we pour 9 billion gallons of water on landscapingevery day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile the Southwest United States is enduring a megadrought; the past two decades constitute its driest period since the year 800. California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought state of emergency in October. In a world thirsty for water, lawns are a sneaky siphon…
But lawn has become a liability — or in some cases an asset, on the condition of its removal. California’s main water utility is paying customers between $2 and $5 for each square foot of living turf that they remove. Last year Nevada outlawed certain types of lawn; rather, the state legislature prohibited the use of water from the dribbling Colorado River to feed certain types of “nonfunctional turf,” which in southern Nevada slurps up to 12 billion gallons of water every year (more than 10 percent of the state’s usage of the river). The law created a committee to sort “functional” turf from “nonfunctional”; discussions were had about how to categorize “pet relief” areas and “wedding lawns at golf courses.”

Business as usual for the #ColoradoRiver — Writers on the Range #COriver #aridification

Lake Powell, upstream from Glen Canyon Dam. At the time of this photo in May, 2021, Lake Powell was 34% full. (Ted Wood/Water Desk)

Click the link to read the article on the Writers on the Range website (David Marston):

It seemed inevitable that the dwindling Colorado River would be divvied up by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. On June 14, BuRec gave the seven states in the Colorado River compact just 60 days to find a way to cut their total water usage by up to 4 million acre-feet. No plans emerged.
But surprisingly, BuRec’s August 16 press release imposed no new cuts on states, instead affirming cuts mandated under 2007 and 2019 agreements. Nevada and Mexico took minor losses and Arizona emerged as the first big loser.
BuRec said Arizona must cut 592,000 acre-feet “because of the concession it made back in 1968 to California to get the Central Arizona Project online,” says University of Wyoming law professor Jason Robison. That concession meant the 1.4 million acre-feet capacity of the Central Arizona Project has junior water rights. In a shortage — like now — the Central Arizona Project, except for tribal water rights, could be cut to zero, a blow to cities and agriculture.
Here’s a question the Upper Basin states seem inclined to ask: If the 1922 Colorado River Compact parceling out the river’s water is the law, shouldn’t California face major cuts? After all, California’s huge allotment of 4.4 million acre-feet lately equals the entire consumption of the four Upper Basin states, and its allotment is also junior to almost 1 million acre-feet of tribal water.

Thanks to a 1931 seven-party agreement, California established a pecking order of priority for each of its water users. Massive districts such as Palo Verde and the Imperial Valley have priority over the Metropolitan Water District, which brings drinking water to 19 million people in Los Angeles and Southern California. The state has a structure, but no plan for serious savings.
For the Upper Basin states, says University of Wyoming Law professor Jason Robison, “It’s more nuanced. But there’s significant federal authority to run those (BuRec) Upper Basin reservoirs,” though none are very large.
Where might other water cuts be found? Colorado’s 1876 constitution ranked municipal water over agriculture, making it tough to dry up cities like Colorado Springs or Aurora, even though their water rights are junior. But residents might see incentives for tearing out lawns, along with programs for water reuse and much higher water rates.
In rural Colorado, there isn’t much water available to conserve. The largest irrigation district in the Upper Basin, the 500,000 acre-feet Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association, already took a150,000 acre-feet cut this year because of a light snowpack.
“The runoff just isn’t there,” says General Manager Steve Pope.
Pope, as well as many others in agriculture, views a desert city like Phoenix — which grew on the false promises of reliable water — as an existential threat to farming communities.
“Are we going to water a field that produces some sort of a crop, or do we water a golf course or a median?” asks Pope. “What’s the benefit of a lawn?”
What the federal government can’t touch for now is any Upper Basin irrigation project created before the signing of the Colorado River Compact in 1922. In Colorado, a spreadsheet compiled by the state’s Division of Water Resources tells what projects, by date, risk losing water. Some Western slope irrigators are vulnerable because the water rights they’re using were bought by municipalities only recently, intending them for future growth.
Many Colorado irrigators on private ditches are lucky to have so-called “perfected” rights dating from the late 1800s. To snag water from these irrigators, it’s likely to be all carrot and no stick. But rather than taking payments for not irrigating, says Pope, “we would be more concerned with system efficiency and improvements.”
The Inflation Reduction Act provides $4 billion to Colorado River water users for just this kind of conservation. Meanwhile, Colorado is the only Upper Basin state that seriously tested paying irrigators to fallow their land or reduce irrigation by half. But ceasing to irrigate farms involves risks. After a couple of dry years hay fields can bounce back, landowners report, but anything more than that leaves bare dirt and dust in the air.
For now, BuRec seems to be following its plans and hoping for the best, which means emergency cuts might be drastic. As John Weisheit of Utah-based Living Rivers sees it, BuRec made a mistake when it told the seven Basin states of the Colorado River to find 2 to 4 million acre-feet to do without.
“The cuts,” he says, “should go even deeper, up to 6 million acre-feet. The need is to that point.”
Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.

Replacing Your Lawn — CSU Extension #Pueblo County

Photo credit: CSU Extension Pueblo County

Click the link to read the article on the CSU Extension Pueblo County website (Sherie Shaffer):

We have been getting a lot of questions lately from homeowners wanting to replace their lawns with more water wise, and beneficial plants. This is a fantastic trend, seeing as how water is a very limited resource, and that lawns do not have much to offer to our native pollinators.
If lawn replacement has been on your mind, here are some things to think about. The first thing to consider is, how much of your lawn are you actually using? Looking into lawn replacement does not have to mean getting rid of all lawn but reducing your lawn to the areas that are being used. Children use lawns to run and play, as do pets. Keeping lawn areas that are being used is great, but if you have lawn areas that are not being used, you may want to consider replacing them with something else.
Once you identify areas of lawn that you would like to replace, the next step is getting rid of the lawn. There are a few options. One option is to cover the areas of undesired lawn with a thick layer of newspaper or cardboard for about 2 months. This will suffocate the lawn and kill it leaving you with a blank slate. You can also till the area several times over a period. A quicker, albeit less environmentally friendly way of getting rid of the lawn would be to use a nonselective herbicide. If you go this route, be sure to read the label and follow all instructions. Never apply herbicides to flowering plants being visited by pollinators (such as dandelions) and avoid spraying when it is windy or over 80° F to avoid drift, which could harm desirable plants.
Once the lawn is gone, I would suggest looking into getting a soil test. If you are going to put in the effort to plant something new and beautiful, you may as well see what is going on in your soil and what you can do to make it optimal for your new plants. If you don’t want to get your soil tested, you can simply add some plant-based compost and mix it in with the native soil. This will help with soil texture, which will improve drainage and moisture retention.
Now for the exciting part, what should you plant?? If you want to keep the same type of look as your lawn, you can go for a groundcover plant. Creeping thyme, Veronica, creeping jenny, sedum, or oregano are some low growing options that you can investigate. A whole list of water wise groundcovers can be found here: https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/yard-garden/xeriscaping-ground-cover-plants-7-230/.
You can also plot out some garden beds that have annual and perennial flowers. CSU Extension has many plant lists if you need some inspiration on what to plant. You can start browsing here: https://cmg.extension.colostate.edu/gardening-resources/online-garden-publications/flowering-herbaceous-plants-flowers-ground-covers-and-ornamental-grasses/.
The Master Gardener help line is open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9 am to 11 am and 2 pm to 4 pm if you would like to seek further advice on replacing your lawn from a trained volunteer.

Major municipal #water providers across #ColoradoRiver Basin announce commitment to significant reductions in water use — @DenverWater #COriver #aridification

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Click the link to read the article on the Denver Water Website:

Large water providers from across the Colorado River Basin announced today a commitment to substantially expand existing efforts to conserve water, reduce demands and expand reuse and recycling of water supplies.

The agreement includes water providers in both the upper and lower basins of the Colorado River, stretching from Colorado’s Front Range to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The providers invite other utilities in the basin to join in the commitment to increasing water-use efficiency and reducing the demand for water.

The agreement comes amid a two-decade drought on the river that affects 40 million people who rely on it for drinking water, agriculture, power production, landscape irrigation, recreation and more. Demands for water in the basin have exceeded available supply, reducing storage levels in lakes Mead and Powell to critically low levels.

The water providers are outlining their commitments in a Memorandum of Understanding that was delivered to Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton today. Some providers have committed to pursuing the MOU’s intent while awaiting final approval through their various governing boards.

“We are developing prudent municipal water conservation actions that every community that relies on the Colorado River should be using,” water providers said in the letter to Touton. Moving forward, “We will describe the steps our organizations will take now and codify our commitment to continued effort as we work to ensure our river and the communities it serves continue to thrive. We sincerely hope our commitment to action inspires other stakeholders that share the river to do the same.”

Specifically, the agreement will focus on several key areas as pathways to cutting water use, including:

Develop programs to replace non-functional or passive cool weather turf grass (grass that serves primarily a decorative role and is otherwise unused) with drought- and climate-resistant landscaping, while maintaining vital urban landscapes and tree canopies where appropriate.

Increase water reuse and recycling programs where feasible.

Continue and expand conservation and efficiency programs to accelerate water savings.

“Achieving the protection storage volumes needed to preserve water and hydropower operations within the Colorado River basin cannot be met by a singular country, basin, state, or water use sector,” continued the letter to BOR. “While municipal water use represents only a small fraction of total Colorado River water use, progress begins with one and then many until we are all moving in the same direction.”

While not all the conservation strategies under consideration may make sense for each community, utilities say the agreement demonstrates the commitment that municipal water providers have not only to coordinating and collaborating on strategies to conserve and manage water demands, but to also help protect the Colorado River system.

Links to the letter to the BOR, the MOU and a support letter from the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District.

Quotes from signatories to the BOR letter:

“The water supply challenges we are facing on the Colorado River are accelerating at an alarming pace. Everyone who relies on the Colorado River must take bold and immediate action to reduce their use on this vital water source,” said Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. “This agreement represents our commitment to working with our municipal partners on the river to come up with innovative, collaborative approaches to better manage our Colorado River supplies and promote a more sustainable future for our communities.”

“With climate change and aridification affecting the entire Basin, improving the health of the Colorado River system requires a swift and collective effort of all water users — in all sectors — to reduce water use and implement actionable strategies, policies and programs to protect this vital resource and balance water supplies with demands,” said John Entsminger, Southern Nevada Water Authority general manager.

“Climate change and overuse of the Colorado River have put us squarely within the crisis we long saw coming. The bottom line now: We all need to work on solutions, no matter our individual impacts on river flows,” said Jim Lochhead, CEO of Denver Water. “While we have long been a conservation leader, Denver Water has consistently said it is prepared to do even more, and the commitments contained in this agreement reflect our readiness to take further important steps to keep more water in the Colorado River Basin.”

“Water issues in the arid west are accelerating,” stated Aurora Water General Manager Marshall Brown. “Aurora is embracing these conservation pathways through Colorado’s largest potable reuse system, an aggressive turf replacement rebate program and a new ordinance that prohibits nonfunctional turf in new developments. We’re doing what needs to be done to ensure a reliable water supply for our community in unpredictable times and we challenge other municipalities to do the same.”

“Colorado Springs Utilities is committed to conservation programming that ensures a clean, reliable water supply for years to come. Building on our customers’ successful 41% reduction in per capita use since 2001, we continue to pursue and implement water efficiency and reuse initiatives that support our vibrant community and make wise use of this valuable resource,” said Colorado Springs Utilities CEO Aram Benyamin.

“The Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District supports the efforts of the Upper Colorado River Commission (UCRC), the State of Colorado, and municipal and agricultural water providers in the basin, to collaborate in bringing the system into balance,” said Jim Broderick, executive director of the district.

No firm new deadline for #ColoradoRiver basin states’ #conservation plans — KUNC #COriver #aridification

This page features images and footage shot with a GoPro camera during a pilot-only Lighthawk flight above Lake Mead and Hoover Dam, along the Colorado River near Las Vegas, Nevada July 29, 2020. Photo credit: The Water Desk

Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Luke Runyon). Here’s an excerpt:

The seven states that rely on the river blew past an August 16 deadline without a plan to conserve 2 to 4 million acre-feet of water. They were given that task by officials with the Bureau of Reclamation and from within the Interior Department. The agency’s models show that amount is what is necessary to keep the river’s biggest reservoirs — lakes Mead and Powell — from reaching critical levels.

“Our common deadline is as soon as possible,” said Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for water and science, on Thursday. “While we’re working on those shorter term efforts, we’re also at the same time trying to continue working on those longer term strategies.”

Federal officials announced they would be implementing a series of water cutbacks for Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico in 2023. Those cuts were previously agreed to under the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan and the 2007 Interim Guidelines.

In a statement, the Bureau of Reclamation said it would be considering “other operational actions to establish flexibility” in the river’s Upper Basin and Lower Basin operations at facilities the agency owns and operates, but didn’t elaborate further on what those actions might be.

Protected pastures: New tax incentives boost interest to #conserve private lands — The #Durango Telegraph

Ancient juniper at Weaselskin, La Plata County. Photo credit: KeepItColorado.org

Click the link to read the article on the Durango Telegraph website (Jonathan Romeo):

A year after being passed, a new state law that increases the financial benefits of conservation easements has reinvigorated efforts, at unprecedented rates, of people who want to protect their land from development.

In Colorado, a conservation easement is a voluntary agreement with a property owner in which the owner agrees to limit development on the land for the preservation of scenic views, wildlife habitat and watersheds, among other values that benefit the public. While an agreement to limit development can devalue the full potential of a property, in return, the property receives a tax advantage. One such recent success story is a property known as “Weaselskin,” south of Durango on Florida Mesa, just off Highway 550. For years, the property owner, Jennifer Thurston, tried to get the land placed under a conservation easement, but the 50% tax credit just didn’t make the deal financially feasible. But the passage of HB 1233 pushed the project over the finish line. Now, 180 acres of farmland and piñon-juniper forest, an area critical for wildlife and home to untold numbers of Native American ruins, is protected under a conservation easement. And, the move is just the first of a multi-phase project to protect the larger Weaselskin property.

“We could have quit or stopped,” Thurston said. “But I said, ‘I will do this.’ Hopefully, we’ll serve as a model to show other property owners conservation easements can happen and not feel like you’re giving away the value of the land in the process.”

A vital role

In the late 1990s, Colorado started offering conservation easements, recognizing private lands play a vital role in the protection of open space and ecologically important areas, and to promote the heritage of Colorado’s rural landscape. But it wasn’t until the early 2000s that it became more popular as an option for preservation…Conservation easements, too, can take many forms. In 2016, the James Ranch family placed the bulk of its 420-acre property in the Animas Valley into a conservation easement to ensure the property continues to provide local meat and produce. In 2021, more than 700 acres northeast of Durango were conserved, mainly to protect the city of Durango’s water supply. And most recently, a Native American ruin site called Haynie, northeast of Cortez, received the designation. But the one common (and required) theme to properties that qualify for a conservation easement: they must have some public benefit quality…

But it’s not just the tax credit that’s persuading them. More than ever, landowners are feeling a sense of urgency to protect open space amid the influx of people moving to Colorado and extreme development pressures in the wake of the pandemic. James Reimann, conservation director for Montezuma Land Conservancy, which covers Dolores, Montezuma and western San Miguel counties, said he’s received six calls in just the past two weeks…Much like in La Plata County, [James] Reimann said landowners in his region want to protect their farms or ranches from development. Some hope to pass the land onto their children or the next generation. Others simply want to conserve the landscape for views or wildlife habitat.

Colorado River crisis continues — @Land_Desk #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification #conservation

Lake Mead at Hoover Dam, January 2022. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

Click the link to read to read the article on The Land Desk website (Jonathan Thompson):

THE NEWS: “Today [August 16, 2022] is a very important day for the Colorado River Basin. We are facing unprecedented challenges.” So said Tanya Trujillo, Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the Interior Department, at an Aug. 16 press conference, setting the stage for the federal government to dive in and mandate drastic water use cuts to stem a crisis on the Colorado River. Instead, Interior Department officials merely dipped their toes into the diminishing waters, which is my weak, metaphorical way of saying that they stopped well short of making the draconian cuts, even though the states blew by a deadline to do it themselves.

Graphic credit: The Land Desk

THE CONTEXT: On Nov. 9, 1922, the seven Colorado River Basin states (without any input from the dozens of tribal nations in the Basin) signed onto the Colorado River Compact, which divvied up the river’s waters between the Lower Basin (Arizona, California, Nevada) and the Upper Basin (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico). At the time the signers believed an average of 16.4 million acre feet (maf) of water flowed through the river naturally each year, giving 15 maf for the states to divide up (the extra would go to Mexico).

The Upper Basin states would allow an average of 7.5 maf per year (75 maf every ten years) to flow to the Lower Basin, theoretically allowing the Upper Basin states collectively to withdraw the same amount. The Upper Basin divided their share up by percentages, with Colorado getting the most (51.75% or 3.9 maf), New Mexico getting the least (11%, or 840,000 acre feet), and the others falling in between. Down south California got 4.4 maf; Arizona 2.8 maf; and Nevada 300,000 acre feet.

From the 2018 Tribal Water Study, this graphic shows the location of the 29 federally-recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin. Map credit: USBR

Although the 30 tribal nations in the Basin were not included in negotiations, the Compact does specify that the agreement does not affect the substantial tribal water rights recognized by the 1908 Winters v. United States Supreme Court decision. That means the tribes’ share of the water would come from the states’ portions.

Over time it became more and more clear that there wasn’t nearly as much water in the river as folks previously believed. Sure, during good years (the 1980s), there could be as much as 25 million acre feet flowing into Lake Powell. But the next year flows might plummet to 10 maf. At first this wasn’t a problem. The reservoirs, acting like big, murky savings accounts, were doing their job. During good years the river deposited water into the accounts and built up enough savings to get the states through several bad years, when the states could draw down their savings, allowing the Upper Basin States to pull out their allotted amount while still sending 7.5 maf downstream.

But there was a problem—two of them, really. First, the river started shrinking. In 1999 the Colorado River Basin entered the driest 23 year period on record, with the dry years getting dryer and outnumbering the wet years, which weren’t as wet as they once were. Yet the collective users of the water didn’t curb consumption during lean years. Instead, they actually used more water—far more than the skies and the river delivered, thereby depleting the savings accounts known as Lakes Powell and Mead.

Lake Powell now is only 27% full (and dropping), the Basin’s storage system is at 34% of capacity, and both Lake Powell and Lake Mead are in danger of losing hydropower production capacity—which leads to all sorts of other problems—in the next couple of years if conditions don’t improve or the users don’t make substantial cutbacks. Last year a Tier 1 shortage was declared, requiring Arizona to cut its Colorado River withdrawals by just over 500,000 acre feet, and water managers took additional measures to prop up Lake Powell. That wasn’t enough.

That’s why, on June 14, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton called on the Colorado River Basin states to come up with 2 to 4 million acre feet in additional cuts within 60 days—or else. The deadline came and went days ago, and the states reportedly are nowhere near the necessary targets. Utah hasn’t even withdrawn its proposal to suck additional water out of the system via the proposed Lake Powell pipeline.

“… the last sixty-two days produced exactly nothing in terms of meaningful collective action to forestall the looming crisis,” wrote the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s John Entsminger in a strongly worded letter to the Interior Department. “The magnitude of the problem is so large that every single water user in every single sector must contribute solutions to this problem regardless of the priority system.” Entsminger essentially begged the feds to step in and turn off some taps. (Read the whole letter by clicking the tweet below).

SNWA General Manager John Entsminger delivered this letter today to the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation. pic.twitter.com/1ZwW5rXcc3

— Southern Nevada Water Authority (@SNWA_H2O) August 15, 2022

But if that was the sort of decisive action that some observers expected and hoped for in [August 16, 2022’s] press conference, they went away disappointed. The Interior Department promised “urgent action” yesterday. But when reporters asked the officials whether or not they were actually mandating cuts, Touton said they were “starting the process” and emphasized the need for a “consensus solution,” but remained vague as to what any of that means.

That’s not to say the feds are doing nothing. They will implement Tier 2a restrictions on the Lower Basin states, meaning Arizona will have to cut withdrawals by an additional 80,000 acre feet (they are already down 512,000 af under Tier 1 cutbacks1) and Nevada by 25,000 acre feet. Of course, that’s not anywhere near the 2 million to 4 million that’s needed. Also, the Bureau of Reclamation will continue to limit releases from Glen Canyon Dam to 7 maf (rather than the previous 7.5 maf) and will probably release more water from upstream reservoirs to shore up Lake Powell’s water levels.

Meanwhile, they will continue to work with the states and tribes to come up with a solution. Time’s running out. “Without prompt, responsive actions,” Trujillo said, “the Colorado River will face a future of uncertainty and conflict.”

Note that this graph is only for the Upper Basin consumptive use and losses.

For more data on consumption see this post from The Land Desk

Among those who will be disappointed in the lack of drastic cuts on the Colorado will be … Powellheadz? Yeah, the Lake Powell fan club (the best description of Powellheadz I could come up with) teamed up with the Blue Ribbon Coalition, a motorized off-road advocacy group, to call on all seven Colorado Basin states to significantly reduce withdrawals beginning next year. The goal? Refill Lake Powell (and Mead) to improve recreation. Seriously.

I guess you could say this is the antithesis to the Drain Lake Powell/Fill Mead First movement. Last week the groups released their policy proposal entitled, “Fill Lake Powell: The path to 3,588.” That number refers to the minimum surface level of the reservoir at which most boat ramps are usable and recreation is prime. That would mean raising the surface of the reservoir about 55 feet from the current level. To get there, the report finds, would require cutting water consumption by about 4 million acre feet per year, beginning ASAP.

Hmmm… Well. Okay. So, the states can’t even seem to come up with 1 million acre feet to cut in order to keep the entire Colorado River system from collapse, but they’re going to come up with 4 million acre feet so that folks can put their motorboats in the lake? Good luck with that!

NOTE: Arizona’s the biggest loser during shortages thanks to the Colorado River Basin Project Act of 1968. Congress agreed to pay for the Central Arizona Project, which carries water from the Colorado River across the desert to Phoenix and Tucson. In exchange, Arizona agreed to subordinate its water rights to California’s in times of shortage.

One of the big problems with bringing water from somewhere else is a false sense of security. When we live long distances from our water, we may not understand the limits of that supply or ecosystem- so conservation is less likely. Big day for the #ColoradoRiver https://t.co/nXPEFSsUNt

— Abby Burk (@Abby_RiverH2O) August 16, 2022

New water cuts announced by feds after #ColoradoRiver Basin states miss deadline for agreement — #Colorado Newsline #COriver #aridification

Credit: The Congressional Research Service

by Chase Woodruff, Colorado Newsline
August 17, 2022

Federal officials on Tuesday moved to implement a series of emergency cuts to water use in the Colorado River Basin, after seven Western states missed a deadline to come up with a plan to do it on their own.

The cuts announced by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation include reductions in annual releases from Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, where water levels have been dropping precipitously amid a severe, 23-year-long “megadrought” driven by climate change. To prevent levels from dropping further, water allotments from Lake Mead to Arizona, Nevada and the country of Mexico will be reduced between 7% and 21% for 2023.

The Bureau of Reclamation, which is overseen by the Department of the Interior, said it “will continue to seek consensus support” among water users in the seven Colorado River Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona and California — for substantial further cuts to offset projected shortages.

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“Every sector in every state has a responsibility to ensure that water is used with maximum efficiency,” Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for water and science, said in a statement. “In order to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the Colorado River system and a future of uncertainty and conflict, water use in the Basin must be reduced.”

Lake Mead is on the border of Nevada and Arizona. The Colorado River headwaters are located in Colorado.

In June, Bureau of Reclamation officials gave states a 60-day deadline to commit to cuts for 2023 before the federal government stepped in. The four “Upper Basin” states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — responded last month with a five-point plan that did not include any mandatory cuts, maintaining instead that the bulk of reductions should come from the Lower Basin, which uses nearly twice the amount of water as the Upper Basin.

Certain Upper Basin interests are holding the Bureau of Reclamation hostage at this point.

– Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network

Last-minute negotiations reportedly held in Denver last week failed to produce a broader agreement between Upper and Lower Basin states.

While facing the urgent need for short-term cuts, the seven states are also engaged in high-stakes negotiations over the future of the 100-year-old Colorado River Compact ahead of the 2026 expiration of its current Drought Contingency Plan. Forty million people in the Western U.S. rely on water supplies from the Colorado River, where flows have been diminished significantly by a climate-driven megadrought that scientists say is more severe than any dry spell the region has experienced in at least 1,200 years.

Rebecca Mitchell, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, said in a statement Tuesday that the Upper Basin states had “met the moment” with their plan, which centers on voluntary pilot projects aimed at improving water conservation.

“Our focus now turns to implementation, including additional conservation efforts to maximize efficiency in all sectors,” Mitchell said. “However, this plan is ineffective without action in the Lower Basin. This will require leadership from the Department of the Interior through the Bureau of Reclamation, and bold action across the Basin.”

In a press release, however, the conservation group Utah Rivers Council faulted the Upper Basin states for failing to commit to reductions, calling their plan “a nothingburger letter designed to evoke the appearance of cutting water, while actually cutting no water whatsoever.”

“Certain Upper Basin interests are holding the Bureau of Reclamation hostage at this point,” Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, said in a statement. “They have called the Bureau’s bluff time and again. Nothing has changed with today’s news — except for the fact that the Colorado River system keeps crashing.”

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Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

#ColoradoRiver #water Twitter posts August 16, 2022

Note that these #CORiver Tier 2a cuts for AZ, NV, MX are only slightly more than the current cuts under Tier 1:
AZ: 592 kaf (+80 kaf vs Tier 1)
NV: 25 kaf (+4 kaf)
MX: 104 kaf (+24 kaf)

So that's 108 kaf of additional cuts to the Lower Basin under 2a.

1/2 https://t.co/EbZ6gcUx2u

— Jeff Lukas (@LukasClimate) August 16, 2022

These are just the previously agreed cuts under the Interim Guidelines and DCP. No additional cuts have been imposed yet. I would say feds have a month or two to unilaterally come up with numbers or do nothing at all. I don't see unilateral cuts coming in Dec without time to plan

— Hayley Namorada (@Mis2Ks) August 16, 2022

NEWS: Colorado River Basin states fail to meet federal deadline to submit plans to get to 2-4 maf in conservation.
Absent state agreement, the federal government is also not detailing how it plans to achieve that unprecedented level of conservation needed to protect reservoirs.

— Luke Runyon (@LukeRunyon) August 16, 2022

The feds talked tough about stepping in to save Lake Mead and Lake Powell if states could not agree to cuts. But was that just an empty threat? https://t.co/ltwHzg3eY8 via @azcentral

— Joanna Allhands (@joannaallhands) August 16, 2022

.@usbr wanted today's Tier 2 shortage declaration to look like they were coming down hard on the states. But they did not. This shortage was spelled out in agreements signed in 2007 and 2019. It was expected. For months.

No federal hammer was dropped. https://t.co/icruE62QCe

— Luke Runyon (@LukeRunyon) August 16, 2022

Correct. No new cuts. Rather it’s Implementation of previously agreed upon “cuts” under DCP and 2007 Guidelines. https://t.co/cEsVTaMwXr

— Jeffrey Kightlinger (@8thGenCA) August 16, 2022

Tier 2 shortage in Colorado River is important & a tough loss. But it's expected & agreed-upon under DCP. It doesn't tell us anything new, & it doesn't get us to BoR's 2-4 maf reduction. That will require new deals between water users & basin states or unilateral federal action.

— Rhett Larson (@rhett_larson) August 16, 2022

Statement from ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke and CAP GM Ted Cooke in response to the U.S. Department of the Interior announcement of actions to protect the Colorado River system and 2023 Operating Conditions for Lake Powell and Lake Mead https://t.co/nqFK5hWH3R @CAPArizona pic.twitter.com/wegNoEF8vL

— ADWR (@azwater) August 16, 2022

NEW: It's official, the federal government is issuing new mandatory water cutbacks.

The lower Colorado River basin will see its first-ever "tier 2a" shortage. The latest forecasts show Lake Mead will drop just below 1,048 ft. at the beginning of next year.

Here are the cuts. pic.twitter.com/fGFNztDMBl

— Alex Hager (@awhager) August 16, 2022

“Lake Mead will operate in its first-ever Level 2a shortage condition in CY 2023” California will not be required to water savings contributions under this operating condition….

— Meena Westford (@h2oexecutive) August 16, 2022

If you're just tuning in to today's water news, you can get some background in this thread.

In June, the federal government told states to conserve a huge amount of water, and they only had 60 days to sort out a plan. That deadline is today.https://t.co/vGt47ZCm0y

— Alex Hager (@awhager) August 16, 2022

"The Bureau’s latest forecast, while bleak, is no surprise. It confirms what we already know — without swift, responsible action, the Colorado River Basin is nearing a system-wide crash." Read Water for Colorado's statement on today's @usbr announcements: https://t.co/nGGHbpgExT

— WaterForColorado (@water4colorado) August 16, 2022

"The cuts are significant, but I think even more significant is the rapidity with which the reservoirs on the Colorado River are declining. And we have clear indications that these cuts won't be enough." @JnPitt @audubonsociety https://t.co/hFGiO3ZuK1

— Stephanie Sy (@TheStephSy) August 17, 2022

Feds require additional water cuts as the Colorado River sinks deeper into drought and overuse, https://t.co/nbiJuZAfeh

— Denver Post Breaking (@DenverPostBrk) August 16, 2022

“As these discussions continue, we urgently call on everyone who relies on #CoRiver water, including communities across #SoCal, to prepare for reduced supplies from this source, permanently. This is not simply a drought that will end," said GM @adelh2o. https://t.co/YNxiyuPkdj pic.twitter.com/SDJcikWQb1

— MWD of SoCal (@mwdh2o) August 16, 2022

Arizona loses one-fifth of its Colorado River allocation under new federal drought plan https://t.co/hHO9NxhmP4 via @azcentral

— Deb Krol (@Debkrol) August 16, 2022

.@azwater & and @CAPArizona say that negotiations among AZ, NV and CA to reduce Colorado River use failed, so the feds will create the plan

The translation here is: California wouldn't cut enough, and it's their fault pic.twitter.com/klotBhD0sQ

— Jim Small (@JimSmall) August 16, 2022

With all these imaginary reservoir elevations, my data dashboards just got a lot more complex.

— Lauren Steely (@MadreDeZanjas) August 16, 2022

"This much uncertainty hurts us all…" https://t.co/qvmkSmLzZT

— Heather Hansman (@hhansman) August 16, 2022

Unfortunately, there was not a lot of “new or threatening actions” spelled out today… a lot of “let’s work it out together and a need to cooperate with Federal help. #cor https://t.co/8am1hP2kmh

— Meena Westford (@h2oexecutive) August 16, 2022

Nevada's water allotment will be cut by 8% next year as Lake Mead is set to operate in a Tier 2 shortage condition.

Still, water managers say the state is in "a relatively enviable position," as usage is already below that allotment. Via @s_golonka: https://t.co/8a9LWhtv1w

— Nevada Independent (@TheNVIndy) August 16, 2022

The @USBR says there's still time for "consensus" on Colorado River cuts. Looks like the basin states will have at least until the spring to negotiate an emergency deal. The move shows just how seriously federal officials take the threat of litigation by ag communities.

— Joshua Emerson Smith (@jemersmith) August 16, 2022

And here's an analysis of the errors. "Approximately 60% to 75% of all forecasts made between October and May of the year preceding the water year being forecast overestimated actual future inflows, and the range of inaccuracy in forecasts was approximately 7 maf." pic.twitter.com/3gNgfpY4D8

— Deirdre Des Jardins (@flowinguphill) August 16, 2022

Upper Colorado River Basin states can expect 'substantial releases' in reservoirs to help lower basin states, say Feds
https://t.co/d29wVKTCru

— Sky-Hi News (@SkyHiNews) August 17, 2022

SNWA boss John Entsminger hoped there would be more specifics about what the federal government would do if states can't agree on Colorado River cuts.

Instead, he said federal officials "danced around it the whole time" during today's announcement.https://t.co/uWP3t7nJG1

— Colton Lochhead (@ColtonLochhead) August 17, 2022

Federal officials announced today that they will study potential modifications to the Glen Canyon Dam, but they were light on details.

Plus: Gov. Cox says push to build the controversial Lake Powell Pipeline may be slowed down if drought continues https://t.co/qwObB30Xwl

— Zak 🦦 Podmore (@zak_podmore) August 17, 2022

Thank you @POTUS ! The Inflation Reduction Act provides unprecedented resources to help @Interior @usbr meet unprecedented challenges associated with climate change and drought. https://t.co/0Pq11RT1Ky

— Tanya Trujillo (@AsstSecTrujillo) August 16, 2022

#Colorado State University and Colorado University researchers set course for innovations in #conservation to protect Colorado’s #water supply — @ColoradoStateU

Via Colorado State University: https://www.colorado.edu/today/2022/08/01/report-outlines-emerging-technologies-improve-colorado-water-management

Click the link to read the article on the Colorado State University website (Griffin Moores):

The report, Emerging Technologies to Improve Water Resource Management in Colorado, was triggered by the passage of HB21-1268. This empowered experts at the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering at CU Boulder and CSU’s Colorado Water Center, in partnership with the Irrigation Innovation Consortium, also hosted at CSU, to address a critical question: How can we use tools to better understand and conserve our water resources to address the most pressing needs across the state?

An ongoing megadrought in the western United States is stressing Colorado’s water resources. In July 2021, Lake Powell, which is fed by the Colorado River, reached its lowest level since it was filled in 1969.

To help focus the conversation around water conservation, support the efforts of legislators and spur innovation, the research team interviewed dozens of water experts statewide and surveyed nearly one hundred stakeholders across industries. The researchers assessed technologies like remote sensing, telemetry, digital water transaction platforms including blockchain, and advanced aerial observation platforms, such as high-altitude balloons and drones.

Their findings not only provide valuable insights to water conservation professionals, legislators and industry professionals looking to overcome barriers to tech adoption, but the report also paints a picture of how people in communities across the state could benefit from understanding the challenges around water management.

“Public perceptions … are integral to water management projects and can influence which projects receive funding,” write the researchers. “Studies consistently find that policymakers’ actions reflect public preferences and opinion.”

Drawing from real world successes

Beyond learning from statewide experts, the researchers also looked across the West for success stories. Their collection of case studies ranged from CSU’s educational efforts promoting irrigation conservation to a watershed management dashboard that optimizes economic and agricultural decisions in Southern Colorado, as well as advanced aerial observations using micro-balloons, comprehensive snowpack monitoring and more.

“The expansion of the immersive educational programs covered in this report, such as the Master Irrigator and Testing Ag Performance Solutions programs, provide producers with the knowledge to better understand the science behind these advanced technologies, access to incentives to help them adopt these technologies, and the development of a peer network to help them operate these advanced water management systems in a cost effective manner,” said John Tracy, director of the Colorado Water Center.

“A consistent theme when discussing these challenges was a desire to promote community and statewide collaboration in water management throughout Colorado.”

Learn more about the findings.

Southern Nevada #Water Authority chief criticizes inaction on #LakeMead water — The Las Vegas Review-Journal #COriver #ColoradoRiver #aridification

John Entsminger at the Colorado River Water Users Association Annual Conference December 15, 2021.

Click the link to read the article on the Las Vegas Review Journal website (Colton Lochhead):

John Entsminger, general manager of the water authority and Nevada’s top Colorado River negotiator, sent a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and other officials within the Department of Interior criticizing the lack of progress made during negotiations over recent weeks.

“Despite the obvious urgency of the situation, the last sixty-two days produced exactly nothing in terms of meaningful collective action to help forestall the looming crisis,” Entsminger wrote. “The unreasonable expectations of water users, including the prices and drought profiteering proposals, only further divide common goals and interests. Through our collective inaction, the federal government, the basin states and every water user on the Colorado River is complicit in allowing the situation to reach this point.

“We are at the stage where basin-wide every drop counts, and every single drop we are short of achieving two to four million acre-feet in permanent reductions draws us a step closer to the catastrophic collapse of the system, as well as draconian water management practices to protect health and human safety that we have successfully staved off in the past through cooperation,” the letter says.

The letter comes two months after Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton told the seven Colorado River basin states — Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming — to come up with a plan to use between 15 percent and 30 percent less water from the river next year, or risk the federal government deciding those cuts on its own. Those talks have fueled growing tensions between the states, further exposing the political divides between the lower basin states of Nevada, Arizona and California, where most of the Colorado’s waters are consumed, and the upper basin states that have historically stayed below their legal entitlements…

Entsminger said the proposal with the largest impact that he saw on the table came out to less than 1 million acre-feet in cuts — a proposal he said wasn’t actually firm and yet was still far short of the 2 million to 4 million acre-feet that Reclamation is calling for.

“I feel like we never really got started in a meaningful way,” Entsminger said of the negotiations. “The entire two months between the commissioner’s Senate testimony and today, I didn’t see what I would consider any realistic proposals put on the table to help stabilize the system.”

The upper basin states — Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico — submitted a plan to the federal government in mid-July, but that proposal contained no mandatory reductions in water use for those states.

Opinion: The Coming Crisis Along the #ColoradoRiver — The New York Times #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the guest article on the New York Times website (Daniel Rothberg). Here’s an excerpt:

…overuse and climate change have contributed to its reservoirs drying up at such a rapid rate that the probability of disastrous disruptions to the deliveries of water and hydroelectric power across the Southwest have become increasingly likely. Now the seven states that depend on the river must negotiate major cuts in water use by mid-August or have them imposed by the federal government.

Those cuts are merely the beginning as the region struggles to adapt to an increasingly arid West. The rules for operating the river’s shrinking reservoirs expire in 2026, and those seven states must forge a new agreement on water use for farmers, businesses and cities.

What’s worse, all of this is happening in a region that is one of the fastest growing in the United States, even as the signs of an impending crisis become more pronounced. Outside of Las Vegas, Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir by volume, fed by the Colorado and three smaller tributaries, is nearly three-quarters empty and at its lowest level since April 1937, when it was first being filled. The 22-year downward trend is “a stark illustration of climate change and a long-term drought that may be the worst in the U.S. West in 12 centuries,” according to NASA’s Earth Observatory program.

A century of agreements, contracts and contingencies known as the Law of the River are meant to settle who gets water in times of scarcity. But this framework overestimates the availability of water; the legal rights to water held by the river’s users exceed the amount that typically flows into it. The law is also untested in key areas — for instance, the exact terms by which states along the upper reaches of the river must send water downriver for the states there to get their full allocation. All of this has created a great deal of uncertainty, and it’s hard to say how the federal government will go about reducing water allotments, if it comes to that.

As a result, the Colorado River is hurtling toward a social, political and environmental crisis at a pace that surpasses the Law of the River’s ability to prevent it. In a world of less water, everyone who uses the river must adjust.

Inevitably, every water user, from large irrigation districts to sprawling cities, has an argument for why it should not be cut. Arizona and California, which draw most of the water from Lake Mead, along with Nevada, make up the Lower Colorado River Basin. Their interpretation of the rules differs from how the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming see it. Together, those Upper Basin states use less water than their allotments allow but are eyeing more. The onus of any cuts, they argue, should fall on the downstream states. But federal officials have made clear they expect all states and users to compensate for the shortage.

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