Sunset over the Yampa River Valley August 25, 2016.
Here’s the release from Colorado Parks & Wildlife (Travis Duncan):
Due to low flows and warm water temperatures, Colorado Parks and Wildlife is asking anglers to voluntarily avoid fishing after noon on sections of the Yampa River that run through the boundaries of CPW’s Yampa River State Park and Yampa River State Wildlife Area, both located just west of Hayden, Colo. CPW is also asking anglers to avoid fishing after noon on the 1.5-mile section of the Elk River that runs through CPW’s Christina State Wildlife Area to the northwest of Steamboat Springs. These voluntary fishing closures go into effect on Tuesday, July 13.
Update to voluntary fishing closure on section of Colorado River
On July 7, CPW placed a full-day voluntary fishing closure on the Colorado River beginning at the Highway 9 bridge in Kremmling downstream to the Highway 13 bridge in Rifle. Environmental conditions have recently improved between Kremmling and State Bridge due primarily to upstream reservoir releases. As a result, CPW is lifting the voluntary, full-day fishing closure in place upstream of State Bridge while the voluntary, full-day fishing closure remains in effect from State Bridge downstream to the Highway 13 bridge in Rifle.
“We are continuing to closely monitor changing environmental conditions, and appreciate anglers’ patience and cooperation relative to implementation and removal of fishing closures,” said CPW Northwest Region Senior Aquatic Biologist Lori Martin. “Other waters that may see closures in the immediate future include sections of the Colorado River upstream of the Williams Fork River confluence, the Fraser River, and the upper Yampa River.”
Anglers should be aware that most of the major rivers on Colorado’s Western Slope are experiencing adverse conditions heading into the hottest days of summer. Follow the Leave No Trace Principle to “Know Before You Go” to the West Slope this summer and check out conditions related to mandatory and voluntary fishing closures: https://cpw.state.co.us/thingstodo/Pages/StatewideFishingConditions.aspx
The opportunities to get involved in the climate fight are endless, and that can be overwhelming. But the beauty of people power is that you don’t have to do everything. “You don’t need to quit your job and become a climate activist,” said Genevieve Gunther, founder of the media-focused group End Climate Silence. “With enough people, one little thing every week, even a tweet, can make a huge difference.”
Some people may read this and believe it is pointless. That we are too late. That none of it matters. The fossil fuel industry knows this is not true. Their fear of a determined, pissed off public is why they promoted campaigns of climate denial and “individual responsibility” in the first place. They knew if people were unsure about the problem, they’d waste time fighting about it instead of mobilizing to fix it. They knew if people were confused about the solution, they’d waste time trying to change themselves and each other instead of the system.
However worse the climate crisis gets now depends on how quickly society transforms. How quickly society transforms depends on how many people demand it. The most harmful lie being spread about climate change today is not that it is fake. It’s that nothing you can do can help save the world.
In Chatfield State Park, restoration work on Plum Creek, which flows into Chatfield Reservoir, has included streambed stabilization, planting and seeding of riparian and wetland vegetation to control erosion and provide habitat, plus a new trail system beside the reclaimed creek. Courtesy Chatfield Reallocation Project via Water Education Colorado
The Chatfield Reservoir south of Littleton was built as a flood control measure after the devastating floods in 1965 and is the centerpiece of a beloved state park. But it now serves a new purpose: providing more water storage for the Front Range without adding a major footprint. After a three-decade planning process, the reservoir level was raised 12 feet and storage space has been reallocated to add 20,600 acre-feet of storage, including an environmental pool of up to 2,100 acre-feet.
“At first blush, this doesn’t sound so complicated. You’re taking water storage that already exists and making it multi-purpose storage without any impacts to the dam itself,” says Charly Hoehn, general manager of the reallocation project. But it was the first project of its kind in the state, so Hoehn’s team had to act as “guinea pigs” on permitting and mitigation issues.
While the project didn’t require new dam construction, it was not without challenges. State park facilities had to be moved, and there were environmental concerns, like the removal of trees and wetlands to accommodate the higher water level. The Audubon Society of Greater Denver unsuccessfully sued to stop construction, citing impacts to birds and the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse. Polly Reetz, the Audubon conservation committee chairperson, says she continues to question “whether this would even work at all” with the project’s relatively junior water rights and doesn’t think it was worth impacting “a very important birding area.”
Other green groups worked with project organizers on a mitigation strategy that placed a value on each piece of land that would be affected (accounting for impacts to wetlands and animals), then found other areas to offset any damage. The result was significant restoration to flows on nearby Plum Creek and bank stabilization primarily upstream on the South Platte River to prevent erosion. The environmental pool will accommodate timed releases to help address some low-flow conditions downstream on the South Platte River. Final approval and the completion of mitigation work in 2020 allowed the new storage to begin, but Hoehn says that the low spring runoff allowed only a “marginal amount” to be stored in its first year.
Here’s the release from Colorado State University (Karina Puikkonen):
Ranches are critical to the Rocky Mountain region, serving as the West’s water towers, food providers, land stewards and hubs of local economies and communities. With ranch managers now in high demand but in short supply, Colorado State University’s new Western Ranch Management and Ecosystem Stewardship program is designed to help fill the gap and preserve this critical role.
The new graduate-level program in the Warner College of Natural Resources builds on the expertise of college researchers, faculty and staff. Warner College professors have worked on sustainability and improving rangelands and the environment with ranchers, farmers and herders around the world, from Colorado to Mongolia.
“CSU and our college provide the perfect starting points for this new program,” said Dean John Hayes. “We have an incredibly strong group of researchers in several departments, including ecosystem science and sustainability, forest and rangeland stewardship and in the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory in the Warner College. It’s an honor to have been approached by members of the ranching community to launch this program and to partner with them.”
A business, natural resource and place of retreat and respite
Ranch owners view the forests and rangelands on their properties through multiple lenses: as a business growing traditional and non-traditional livestock, as a place offering hunting and fishing opportunities, as a natural resource with forest management and preservation needs, and as a place of retreat for themselves and guests. Managing all these values requires a unique combination of knowledge, skills and experiences.
Photo credit: Paul Evangelista via Colorado State University
Photo credit: Tony Vorster via Colorado State University
The new program features academic and research components across the university, according to CSU Research Scientist Paul Evangelista.
A new Western Ranch Management and Ecosystem Stewardship specialization for the master’s degree in natural resource stewardship is housed in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship. A second facet fosters research on these working landscapes with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) at CSU. The third leg is a partnership with CSU Extension and ranching-affiliated organizations to develop an apprenticeship program that builds knowledge and skills for a working ranch manager.
CSU Research Ecologist Paul Evangelista assisted with creating the new program. He said ranchers recognize that today’s values, needs and technologies are different in many ways from those of their grandparents.
“Every rancher knows they have to diversify their operations to live with the land,” said Evangelista, also an assistant professor in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability. “This program is founded on establishing a basic ecological understanding of the land itself before deciding how to manage for it.”
The additional knowledge and pool of managers this program will produce can ensure that ranching practices continue working in tandem with ongoing changes in the land and in society.
A collaborative approach
The Western Ranch Management and Ecosystem Stewardship program is unique in that it is largely informed by the Rocky Mountain ranching community. Tim Haarmann, a manager at the Banded Peak Ranch near Chromo, Colorado, saw the need for a specially trained Western ranch manager because of the region’s diverse climate, ecology and natural resources.
“Colorado and the surrounding states are unique because of the Rockies,” Haarmann said. “We have a lot of ranches with varied elevations and topographies. These high elevation areas provide a unique set of challenges and opportunities for ranching.”
Haarmann earned a doctoral degree in ecosystems ecology from the University of New Mexico, worked for the federal government as a land manager, operated a personal cattle business and has been a ranch manager for the last 15 years. It’s unlikely that anyone more qualified could have approached Evangelista and CSU Professor Emeritus Bill Romme about organizing a formal program to develop ranch managers with a breadth of knowledge and experience.
This connection between ranchers and scientists became the first step in figuring out how to develop a community-led program that benefitted the landscapes and livelihoods of the ranching community while also fulfilling the university’s land-grant mission.
“CSU is doing an excellent job in providing a hands-on approach to experiential education,” Haarmann said. “Ranchers don’t usually have the resources or ability to conduct the needed training or research and the university can offer this.”
A pilot CSU field course was held in 2019 at eight ranches in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Photo courtesy of Paul Evangelista via Colorado State University
The ranching community and CSU have already formed a unique partnership: All members of the program’s steering committee work in or with the ranching community and will provide expertise, offer their land as classrooms, and even help fund the program through private donations, while the university provides the education and training for students.
“That says a lot about how invested the ranching community is with this program in belief and need,” Evangelista said.
A natural resource-ranching experience
Offering the program at the master’s degree level allows students to apply the backgrounds they’ve gained from past ecology, agriculture and natural resource courses and experiences directly on these ranches.
“Ranch management is multifaceted and complex,” said Tony Vorster, a postdoctoral fellow in NREL who helped to develop the program. “It forces you to bring all these different disciplines together. Ranch management and ecosystem stewardship can be intimidating topics, but all backgrounds add knowledge to these conversations and skills to related solutions.”
From Left: Tony Vorster, Rancher George Whitten, Paul Evangelista. Photo courtesy of Paul Evangelista via Colorado State University
Vorster and Evangelista have firsthand experience applying their own scientific expertise while developing ranching skills during the program’s development. This varied from conducting a thorough landscape assessment to learning how to repair broken fences and equipment.
This exchange of knowledge is at the core of how the Western Ranch Management and Ecosystem Stewardship program will develop the modern Western ranch manager. Ranchers, natural resource professionals and academics will all learn something new. Evangelista said these private lands offer new and exciting conservation and management opportunities for land stewardship.
“The ranch owners we are working with are always finding new ways of doing things,” Evangelista said. “It’s a great way for science and management to come together.”
The Tomichi Water Conservation Program involves regional coordination between six water users on lower Tomichi Creek to reduce consumptive use on irrigated meadows as a watershed drought management tool. The project will use water supply as a trigger for water conservation measures during one year in the three-year period. During implementation, participating water users would cease irrigation during dry months. Water not diverted will improve environmental and recreational flows through the Tomichi State Wildlife Area and be available to water users below the project area. Photo credit: Business for Water.
Here’s the release from Colorado Parks & Wildlife (Travis Duncan):
Due to low flows and warm water temperatures, Colorado Parks and Wildlife is asking anglers to voluntarily avoid fishing after noon on the 4-mile section of Tomichi Creek that runs through CPW’s Tomichi Creek State Wildlife Area, located just east of Gunnison, Colo. The voluntary fishing closure is in effect immediately.
“Currently, water temperatures are exceeding 71 degrees fahrenheit consistently,” CPW Aquatic Biologist Dan Brauch said. “The temperatures are tending to spike in the afternoon. Fish that are caught when temperatures are that high may experience increased stress and anglers may find it difficult to release fish safely.”
Brauch said anglers should fish early to avoid the higher water temperatures commonly seen in the afternoon and seek out high-elevation trout lakes and streams, where water temperatures are more suitable.
CPW aquatic biologists will be monitoring temperatures on the creek in the coming weeks to let anglers know when conditions have improved.
Anglers should be aware that many of the major rivers on Colorado’s Western Slope are experiencing adverse conditions heading into the hottest days of summer. Follow the Leave No Trace Principle to “Know Before You Go” to the West Slope this summer and check out conditions related to mandatory and voluntary fishing closures: https://cpw.state.co.us/thingstodo/Pages/StatewideFishingConditions.aspx.
Aerial image of entrenched meanders of the San Juan River within Goosenecks State Park. Located in San Juan County, southeastern Utah (U.S.). Credits Constructed from county topographic map DRG mosaic for San Juan County from USDA/NRCS – National Cartography & Geospatial Center using Global Mapper 12.0 and Adobe Illustrator. Latitude 33° 31′ 49.52″ N., Longitude 111° 37′ 48.02″ W. USDA/FSA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
From email from Reclamation (Susan Novak Behery):
In response to decreasing flows in the critical habitat reach, the Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled an increase in the release from Navajo Dam from 600 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 700 cfs on Tuesday, July 13th, starting at 4:00 AM. Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell).
The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.
The Colorado Highway 119 Boulder Canyon permanent flood repair project is complete after two and a half years of construction.
The project spanned from Boulder to Nederland to repair damage from the 2013 floods.
Flood waters saturated the area in September 2013, causing numerous material slides, ditch damage and erosion to the roadway embankment. The floods also washed out the road in several places. Large amounts of debris that fell into the creek led to redirected water flows, which further contributed to erosion of the channel banks, undermining the highway.
Altogether, the project included:
13 miles of repaved highway
2 miles of entirely redesigned and reconstructed highway
Rock blasting to widen roadway in areas where highway was washed out
Rock stabilization to prevent rock slides
Cleaned, replaced or added culverts to convey stormwater drainage under the highway
New highway directional and safety signage
Removal of materials placed during emergency repairs
Repaired slopes where material failed in the storm
Re-established native grass seed and erosion control to slopes that were disturbed during emergency recovery work
New, more effective rumble strips
Concrete islands to improve the roundabout in Nederland
3,500 feet of trail extension in partnership with Boulder County
Recruitment for a large-scale study on the health effects of “forever chemicals” will start in the Fountain Valley this month and its results could help set federal limits on the chemicals in drinking water.
The work is part of the second large-scale study in the country to examine exposure to perfluorinated compounds — a family of manmade chemicals that linger in the body and have earned the nickname “forever chemicals” — and the health risks they pose.
The first large-scale study was done 15 years ago in Ohio and West Virginia and found probable links between the chemicals and conditions including high cholesterol, thyroid disease, kidney and testicular cancers, said epidemiology professor Anne Starling, with the University of Colorado.
This study through the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is set to investigate health effects of the chemicals including impacts to the immune system, kidneys, liver and thyroid. It will also help determine if the chemicals change neurobehavioral outcomes in children trough tests of their attention, memory and learning abilities. The study was expected to begin last fall but it was delayed by the pandemic, Starling said.
Researchers plan to study 7,000 adults and 2,100 children exposed to perfluorinated compounds across seven states, including 1,000 adults and 300 children 4 and older in the Fountain Valley…
The study will also be the first to include people with high levels of a chemical found in firefighting foam in their blood, Starling said.
Firefighting foam from used by the military at Peterson Air Force Base contaminated the aquifer that residents in Widefield, Security and Fountain used for drinking water, studies have determined. After the contamination was found in 2016, drinking water providers for all three communities worked to ensure the water was safe. Since then, the Air Force has paid $41 million for three new water treatment plants to bring the level of chemicals down to nondetectable levels.
Researchers will take one-time blood and urine samples to help determine how the chemicals may have affected residents’ kidneys, liver and sex hormones, among other bodily functions. It will not examine whether the chemicals cause cancer.
The urine samples will likely be more indicative of forever-chemicals residents have recently been exposed to, Starling said…
The tests and residential histories should allow researchers to estimate the cumulative lifetime exposure residents have had to the chemicals, according to a news release.
The work will also examine the neurobehavioral effect of the chemicals in children because some smaller studies have suggested that exposure to the forever chemicals early in life may affect children’s development and response to vaccines, but the connection is not yet well established, she said.
The researchers plan to have children complete puzzles and problem-solving tasks, similar to activities they might do in school, as part of the study, she said…
The neurobehavioral tests will not diagnose problems in individual children, she said.
The upcoming study expects to build on a recent study of 220 residents in the Fountain Valley that found the median level of a chemical specific to firefighting foam in residents was 10 times higher than the national median. Some residents had levels of the chemical that were much higher, said Colorado School of Mines Professor Christopher Higgins, a lead researcher on the study…
Scientists don’t know whether the chemical specific to the foam is more or less dangerous than other forever chemicals, Starling said.
The levels of chemicals in residents seem to be dropping and that may be good if some of the health effects are reversible. But some people may still be experiencing long-term health effects…
Study participants will receive individual test results that could be shared with their doctor. The test results may not indicate a problem, but more and more doctors are becoming aware of the potential health effects of forever-chemical exposure, Starling said.
In the long-term, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Academies of Science could use results from this study to help set enforceable limits on water contamination. No federal maximum limits on forever chemical contamination of drinking water exist, she said.
Recruitment for the study is expected to start later this month and researchers have set up an office in Fountain to meet with residents. Data collection could take 12 to 18 months. The entire study could be completed in 2024, although researchers should have results to share before that, Starling said.
Those interested in participating in the study can find more information at http://co-scope.org. Those interested in participating can email coscope@cuanschutz.edu or call (719) 425-8828.
Once again this summer, rain has been hard to come by in this historic farming valley of southern Colorado. The average annual precipitation in the middle of the San Luis Valley hovers around seven inches — about as low as it gets in all of Colorado, according to the state’s climate center.
And yet farming prevails. It is the lifeblood of Alamosa, the town that rose from a once-bustling railroad and today is often passed by travelers en route to more flashy destinations on the Western Slope. Unlike other rural communities that have swapped mining or energy for tourism, the ruling industry here is and always has been agriculture.
“The hospital, the county and city offices and school district, all of those are important,” said Alamosa Mayor Ty Coleman. “But farming and ranching, that’s it. That’s huge.”
Once again this summer, rain has been hard to come by in this historic farming valley of southern Colorado. The average annual precipitation in the middle of the San Luis Valley hovers around seven inches — about as low as it gets in all of Colorado, according to the state’s climate center.
And yet farming prevails. It is the lifeblood of Alamosa, the town that rose from a once-bustling railroad and today is often passed by travelers en route to more flashy destinations on the Western Slope. Unlike other rural communities that have swapped mining or energy for tourism, the ruling industry here is and always has been agriculture.
“The hospital, the county and city offices and school district, all of those are important,” said Alamosa Mayor Ty Coleman. “But farming and ranching, that’s it. That’s huge.”
[…]
But by the turn of the 20th century, the Rio Grande was considered over-appropriated. Demand outpaced supply.
“So we’ve always lived in this area where there was this level of stress,” said Heather Dutton, manager of San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District and fifth-generation native.
The difference, she said, is this century’s more dire circumstances.
Fundamental changes
A multi-agency report last year found average annual streamflows to be steadily declining since the 1930s, with drops worsening in the 2000s. Citing climate change, the report warned of that long trusted snowpack in the mountains becoming less dependable.
A farmer uses a center pivot to battle drought on a field in Center, Colo., in the San Luis Valley on Aug. 24, 2020. Credit: Allen Best
Where Simpson’s and Dutton’s grandfathers and fathers didn’t have the Rio Grande to count on, they had groundwater. They joined drilling and pumping that ramped up in the ’30s. The shallow and “unconfined” aquifer and deeper “confined” aquifer, both remnants of an ancient lake, represented turning points for farming.
“But it was also a turning point for what my generation is now grappling with,” Dutton said, “where now we have too many wells, we have too much pumping, and we’re taking more out of the aquifer than we’re putting back in.”
The decades saw agreements for taking and giving back — for digging a hole, filling it with water and thus recharging the unconfined aquifer in hopes of making up for Mother Nature.
“By far, that’s where most of the groundwater withdrawals occur in the valley,” Simpson said. “The potatoes are grown and raised above that unconfined aquifer. Most of the intense irrigation is above that unconfined aquifer.”
Simpson manages the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, which has tracked the aquifer’s storage since 1976. From the mid-’80s to today, charts show a staggering drop: A change amounting to about 1.3 million acre-feet of water.
The severe drought of 2002 started the steep trend of decline. Since then, there have been year-to-year gains of storage — eight years totaling 746,791 acre-feet. But there have been more years of drops, 10 totaling more than 1.7 million acre-feet. Lows this year are on par with record lows following the 2012 drought, data show.
The hope of Simpson and Dutton is to locally regulate before higher powers enforce harsher demands. The state has called on the valley to bring water back up to pre-2000 levels, or else face possible consequences of widespread shutdowns in 2030…
Farmers are taxing themselves to pump, with that money going to other farmers to pump less. Simpson and Dutton have been encouraging creativity, such as less water-needy crops like hemp and quinoa.
But they fear more drastic measures.
“There is a need to physically take land out of production,” Dutton said. “And it’s not like it’s just one person owns everything and we can just say, ‘Hey, can you cut back your farm by 30%?’ There are hundreds of families that farm and ranch here.
“And this is how they make their living, it’s in their blood, they want to do it, they’re proud of it. So trying to get people to cut back or stop farming altogether, it’s a study in psychology and human behavior. It’s really hard.”
And there are broader ramifications to consider when farms close, Simpson said. The well-being of his hometown is at stake when that happens, he said — Alamosa’s school, hospital and small businesses.
The dry bed of the Arkansas River beneath the Second Street Bridge at Dodge City, Kansas. The barricades and barbed wire are to prevent access from city property, but the river bed is public land. File Photo / Max McCoy via The Kansas Reflector
Out past the 100th meridian things get dry damned quick.
The meridian traditionally marks the line where the west begins and agriculture is difficult without irrigation. You can find it easily on a map of Kansas. Just look for Dodge City, in the lower western third of the state. The meridian runs right through town. There’s a marker at the old railway depot, but the line is really a few blocks to the east. An Eagle Scout named Michael Snapp determined the location, with the help of GPS, and in 2007 planted a 600-pound limestone post to mark the spot. It’s on the south side of Highway 50, between avenues L and M.
The Arkansas River also runs through Dodge City. Or at least it used to. It’s been a dry bed now for decades. If you (carefully!) make your way past the wire and barricades at Wright Park you can see what has become of it. The river is nothing but hard-pack sand and tire tracks, from the four-wheelers that tear up and down the old channel. The Arkansas is one of three legally navigable rivers in the state (the other are the Kaw and the Missouri), but you’d have a hard time getting a boat down it now. It’s a legal absurdity that sums up our state’s complicated relationship to water.
I wrote about this in my book, “Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River,” published by the University Press of Kansas. By following the Arkansas River from its headwaters at the Continental Divide above Leadville, Colorado, all the way to the Oklahoma line below Arkansas City, I learned a few things.
The most important lessons came from experts like Rex Buchanan, the former director of the Kansas Geological Survey, who for years has braved January weather to drop steel tapes down sometimes remote wells to physically measure water levels. Because of volunteers like Rex, Kansas has some of the best statistics available, and they go back decades.
I won’t pretend to speak for Rex — he’s articulate and passionate about water, and is among the state’s foremost advocates for water conservation — but I can say that water levels in the High Plains Aquifer have been going steadily down since the 1950s. The explosion of pumping technology after World War II allowed more, and deeper, water to be pumped than ever before, which was a boon to agriculture. The feeling at mid-century was that the Ogallala Aquifer — a shallow aquifer that runs for hundreds of miles below the 100th meridian, from South Dakota down to the Texas panhandle — would provide an inexhaustible supply of water. Not only does the Ogallala irrigate crops, it also provides water for industry and tap water for municipalities like Colby, along Interstate 70 in northwestern Kansas.
The Visitor Center at Colby, Kansas. Water is supplied to this western Kansas town from deep wells drawing from the Ogallala Aquifer. Kansas Reflector / Max McCoy via The Kansas Reflector
The problem is, the aquifer isn’t a uniform depth. Imagine an egg carton, with some deep pockets and other shallow ones, and you have some idea of the Ogallala. Because the aquifer has to be recharged by rainwater — and because things west of Dodge City are, well, arid — some places are in danger of exhausting the water supply quicker than others. Dodge City and Colby are in two of the most critically depleted parts of the aquifer of all, marked by swaths of angry red on most groundwater maps. Colby is in Thomas County, where the Kansas Geological Survey predicts the water will be depleted in less than 25 years.
I had a friend who flew into Denver recently from back east who asked me if all the circles he saw from the window seat of his airliner were some kind of crop circles or navigation aids. No, I said, that’s pivot irrigation — and it’s killing western Kansas.
Drought has hit areas like Dodge City particularly hard in recent years, because the less rain fills, the more water has to be pumped out of the ground to keep the crops growing. Some local water management districts in the state are taking conservation seriously. There are five such districts across the state, governed by local boards. And some of them — particularly toward the Nebraska line — have a chance of achieving sustainability by reducing usage by 20 or 30%. But for places like Dodge City, where demand is high and rain is slow in coming, it would take hundreds of years for the aquifer to recharge, even if all irrigation stopped today. If we drain it, some scientists say, it might take 6,000 years for it to refill naturally.
Right now, the west is experiencing a severe water crisis, with the Colorado River basin experiencing a historic, extended drought. There’s talk of the New Water Wars, with municipalities vying with farms and industries for tap water. At the same time, the heat wave of late June and early July — driven by climate change — broke records in the Pacific Northwest, with Portland hitting a jaw-dropping 116 degrees Fahrenheit.
In Kansas, we’ve so far escaped the worst of the heat wave, and an unusually wet summer has prevented drought. But we are headed into what is traditionally our hottest period, from late July to early August. The record high temperature for the state was recorded July 24, 1936, at Alton, in north central Kansas, at 121 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
The dry bed of the Arkansas River near the Santa Fe Trail crossing at Cimarron, Kansas. The Ogallala aquifer groundwater levels in much of western Kansas started dropping in the 1950s as pumping increased, according to the Kansas Geological Survey. File Photo / Max McCoy
While researching my book about the Arkansas River, I was interested in not only the natural landscape, but also the history of how human beings have interacted with the river. What I found was disturbing. Because of irrigation and climate change, much of the river has simply dried up between Garden City and Great Bend. This has resulted in the disappearance of cottonwood trees along the riverbed, the desertification of some areas, the loss of ecosystem, and the destruction of one of the state’s most important natural features. The Arkansas is really two unconnected rivers now, the upper and the lower.
I grew up in southeast Kansas, on the edge of the Ozark Plateau. Like much of the eastern third of the state, it is a wet region, with plenty of rainfall and plenty of creeks and rivers. But out past the 100th meridian — the rainfall curtain — it’s a different and in many ways more fragile world.
Rivers of Kansas map via Geology.com
One of the things I remember most about my meeting with Buchanan, that committed soul who actually goes out and measures water levels, was a map he showed me of the historic rivers and creeks in western Kansas. The waterways looked like veins in a leaf, spreading across the high plains. Then he showed me a recent map, and many of those waterways were simply gone, erased from the landscape.
That was a few years ago. The situation has just gotten worse since.
Sign marking the 100th Meridian West at the train depot at Dodge City, Kansas. The actual meridian is a few blocks to the east. File Photo / Max McCoy
To save what is left of the water in western Kansas, we must change our relationship with water. The history of water rights in Kansas has been a troubled one. Since 1945, Kansas has been a “prior appropriation” state, like most western states, which means the right to use is based on “first in time, first in right.” It’s a property right, clear down to the aquifer. This doctrine places an emphasis on legacy water rights and prioritizes recognized “beneficial” uses, which are economic in nature.
Recognizing the hazard posed by water scarcity, Kansas since 1978 has enacted three novel legal strategies to cope with drought and dwindling resources. The first was the ability of the chief engineer — the state’s chief water administrator, at the Kansas Department of Agriculture — to designate some areas as Intensive Groundwater Use Control Areas. The second, in 1991, was to require conservation plans from some water rights applicants. The third, in 2012, gave communities within IGUCAs the authority to voluntarily create, through a public hearing process, a Local Enhanced Management Area with more restrictions. There are currently five LEMAs in the state, with Wichita County (in far western Kansas) being the newest.
But as Caleb Hall pointed out in a 2017 journal article, such efforts are insufficient to combat increased water depletion caused by climate change. Hall is an environmental attorney, a Kansas City native and a University of Kansas School of Law alum.
“IGUCAs allow established, yet still unsustainable, agricultural practices to continue,” Hall writes, “never questioning if water usage is truly beneficial if it is being applied to thirsty corn.”
If the western water rights model does not voluntarily change now, Hall argues, climate change will force it to do so in the future.
The question at the heart of the problem is what is truly beneficial.
Instead of viewing water as a property right to be exploited for personal profit, we must become guardians of that which remains. Twentieth century technology allowed us to use water at a rate far beyond what was sustainable. Climate change has brought the crisis to a head. Nothing is going to bring back the Arkansas River in western Kansas in our lifetimes, but if we start changing our laws now, we just might be able to save what’s left of the Ogallala Aquifer.
The Ogallala aquifer, also referred to as the High Plains aquifer. Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration
Navajo Tribal Utility Authority is asking its customers to get into the habit of conserving the water they pay for and use.
NTUA, the tribal utility enterprise that restricted the amount of water its water-loading stations could take, stated on Wednesday asking its consumers to get into the habit of conserving water.
The reasons: drought and extreme weather events…
While a few areas in the Navajo Nation received nearly an inch of rain, much of the reservation received less than half an inch of precipitation, despite some places getting a heavy downpour, according to data from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.
On June 27, water levels in some NTUA tanks dropped 2 feet, Kontz said, because some water-loading station customers are filling their 100- to 200-gallon water tanks repeatedly throughout the day. He said NTUA found one customer took 6,000 gallons of water in two days. The significant drop in water levels prompted the water restriction to be issued.
Kontz said the water-loading stations are connected to the main water supply that provides water to its other water customers with water piping. The over-usage by water-loading station customers caused the water pressure to homes and businesses to drop.
The restriction, Kontz said, has been helping tank levels to recover.
NTUA has approximately 39,000 customers and has 18 water-loading stations that serve an unknown number of additional customers who do not have access to a piped water system.
The tribal utility company provides water for communities along the San Juan River, from Fruitland, N.M. to Teec Nos Pos, Arizona. Those communities get water from the City of Farmington. The city issued a water shortage advisory and sent a letter to NTUA on May 27, informing them it would encourage its customers to reduce their water usage by 10%.
Chris Sypher, the community works director for the City of Farmington, said on June 7, the city uses up to 16 million gallons of water a day, and NTUA has access to up to 6 million gallons of water for its reservation customers during the summer…
NTUA manages and operates the domestic, public water systems providing water for human consumption throughout the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation Water Resources Department oversees livestock wells and windmills.
NTUA recommends minimizing water usage by not washing parking lots or driveways, using potable water for construction purposes, watering lawns or gardens less than three times per week, and hauling less than 500 gallons – of potable water for remote home cistern systems – per day.
NTUA also recommends homeowners check for leaky faucets, leaky toilets, turn off the water while brushing their teeth, and taking fewer or shorter showers.
The West has more hydrologic variability — more flood years and drought years per average year — than any other part of the country, Jay Lund, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis, and the head of the school’s Center for Watershed Sciences told ABC News.
But a study published in Science Magazine in 2020 warned that the West is exiting an unusually wet time in its history and heading toward an unusually dry time that could last years — even centuries.
Some 42% of California’s population is now under a drought emergency — every part of the state except Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday. And if some of the most prominent reservoirs in the West are any indication, residents may be in trouble. Last month, water levels in Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country, hit historic lows — an alarming notion considering the West is largely dependent on surface water.
Neighboring Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir in the U.S., is seeing similar patterns. Lake Mead and Lake Powell will likely never refill to previously normal levels, John Berggren, a water policy analyst with conservation organization Western Resource Advocates, told ABC News.
“Climate change is definitely challenging the system,” Berggren said. Population growth is straining the system as well, as increasing amounts of water get diverted to more households.
If the predictions come to fruition, and the recent warm, dry trends persist in coming years, how will the West solve its water crisis?
For years, states and municipalities are already urging residents, and in some cases enacting laws, to protect the water supply. Some regions on the coast, such as Santa Barbara, California, are installing desalination plants, and other inland areas, such as the state of Arizona, are monitoring ground water supplies as major reservoirs and the Colorado River continue to see the water levels dip.
The turquoise waters of the Little Colorado River. Photo credit: Lyle Balequah/From the Earth Studio
Agriculture will be hit the hardest
Farming uses the largest chunk of water supply, accounting for 80% of consumptive water use in the U.S. and more than 90% in many Western states, according to the U.S. Department of AgricultureYour text to link…, and would likely be the first casualty if supply in the West were strained.
In Utah, up to 90% of the water used in the state goes to agriculture, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. In Arizona, a large amount of the water extracted from the Colorado River goes toward agriculture, Erinanne Saffell, acting Arizona state climatologist, told ABC News.
Overall, between 80% and 90% of the water from the Colorado River system is used for agriculture, Berggren said.
In California, about 80% of the water use goes toward irrigated farming, Lund said, but agriculture only accounts for about 5% of the economy…
Alternative solutions like desalination and groundwater aren’t always feasible
As water levels in reservoirs continue to drop, officials are also exploring other options to retrieve water.
In Arizona, groundwater is the state’s largest water supply, Saffell said. Lawmakers passed legislation in 1980 in which municipalities agreed to not overdraw the groundwater.
In the past, when there was not enough surface water and water in reservoirs, states would pump as much groundwater as needed, Cora Kammeyer, a senior researcher at the environmental research nonprofit Pacific Institute, told ABC News. But now, after turning to that solution “over and over again,” they are now seeing both surface water and groundwater shortages, she added.
Depletion of groundwater in the Southwest has been of concern for many years, especially in Arizona. Increased pumping to support population growth near Tucson and Phoenix resulted in water level declines of 300 to 500 feet in the region by the 1980s, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The installation of desalination plants, which remove mineral components from saltwater to create sources for drinking and agriculture, along the coast are for “some extreme cases,” Lund said, and with it comes “a whole host of challenges,” Berggren said.
The cost of treating seawater is about $2,000 to $3,000 an acre foot, which is about two or three times the cost of the next cheapest source, which is water conservation, such as buying water from farmers and reusing wastewater, Lund said. Relying on desalination plants would likely double a household water bill, he added.
And while the technology has been around for a while, desalination also presents environmental challenges, such as where to put the salt and sediments left over from the process, which are bad to return to the sea, because all the extra sediment and minerals essentially pollutes the natural seawater. It would also be inefficient to pump the water from the coast to more inland states such as Colorado, Berggren said…
Water management and conservation may be the strongest solutions
Water management and conservation have already proven to be the most effective tactics in maintaining water supplies in the West, experts said.
Arizona water management is well-equipped to ensure supplies to the desert community, Saffell said. The state has been at a Tier Zero level of shortage, the highest classification for a lake shortage, for the past couple of years. It decreases water allotment slightly, but Saffell expects the state to move to an unprecedented Tier One conservation level in 2022, when they will then decrease their draw rom the Colorado River by 8%.
It will be the first Tier One shortage ordered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Reclamation in lower Colorado River basin states such as Arizona, California, Nevada and some states in northern Mexico. Once Lake Mead, which supplies water to about 25 million people in the region, reaches a certain level, each state will have to extract less water, Berggren said…
With every drought in the West, officials have made improvements in water management, Lund said.
And the efforts to conserve have already made great strides in recent decades. in California, cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco are using the same amount of water, or less, as they did 30 years ago, despite substantial increases in population, Heather Cooley, director of research at the Pacific Institute, wrote in 2019.
Currently, per capita water use is 16% lower than 2013 levels, suggesting there has been some permanent behavior change by Californians since the mid-2010’s drought, California Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters on Thursday…
Conservation mandates are imminent
Officials have already begun to lay down the law on curbing water usage, and additional restrictions are imminent, experts say.
Newsom requested that residents voluntarily use 15% less water after signing an executive order adding nine counties to the state’s drought emergency on Thursday…
On Wednesday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued an executive order mandating that state agencies stop watering lawns and washing windows at state offices and facilities and to stop running fountains that don’t recirculate water. The order also bans the planting of new landscape that requires irrigation.
Synopsis: ENSO-neutral is favored through the Northern Hemisphere summer and into the fall (51% chance for the August-October season), with La Niña potentially emerging during the September-November season and lasting through the 2021-22 winter (66% chance during November-January).
Near-average sea surface temperatures, consistent with ENSO-neutral conditions, were observed across most of the equatorial Pacific Ocean during June. In the last week, most Niño indices were near zero except for the Niño-1+2 index, which was +0.3oC. Subsurface temperature anomalies were slightly positive (averaged from 180-100oW) and remained steady during the month. However, in parts of the eastern Pacific, below-average subsurface temperature anomalies returned near the thermocline. For the month, the low-level and upper-level winds were near average across most of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Tropical convection was suppressed near the Date Line, while remaining mostly near average elsewhere. Overall, the ocean and atmosphere system reflected ENSO-neutral conditions.
A majority of the models in the IRI/CPC plume predict ENSO-neutral to continue through the fall and winter 2021-22. However, the latest forecast model runs from the NCEPCFSv2, many of the models from the North American Multi-Model Ensemble, and some models from our international partners indicate the onset of La Niña during the Northern Hemisphere fall, continuing into winter 2021- 22. The forecaster consensus favors the semodel ensembles, while also noting the historical tendency for a second winter of La Niña to follow the first. In summary, ENSO-neutral is favored through the Northern Hemisphere summer and into the fall (51% chance for the August-October season), with La Niña potentially emerging during the September-November season and lasting through the 2021-22 winter (66% chance during November-January; click CPC/IRI consensus forecast for the chances in each 3-month period).
Just weeks into the summer season, a heatwave is once again suffocating parts of the Mountain West including areas already grappling with historic drought conditions.
Blistering temperatures in Nevada, Utah and Idaho come on the heels of an analysis by the World Weather Attribution linking extreme heat in the Pacific Northwest to human-caused climate change.
“An event such as the Pacific Northwest 2021 heatwave is still rare or extremely rare in today’s climate, yet would be virtually impossible without human-caused climate change,” the study reads. “As warming continues, it will become a lot less rare.”
Bryan Shuman, a climate scientist at University of Wyoming, was not surprised by the analysis.
“There’s no doubt that as the atmosphere and the ocean absorb more heat, we’re going to have more warm days,” he said. “The Earth is currently absorbing far more heat from the sun than it releases back to space. And so we feel that — it’s like putting on a warm coat around the whole planet.”
Across the Mountain West, Shuman says this summer’s heat is “really unusual, in terms of how incredibly hot it’s been, but it’s also really surprising, I think to many people, how early the heat has come.”
The reality right now, Shuman says, is that extreme warm events, like heatwaves, are becoming the norm. “In fact, we basically have lost our extreme cold events. What would seem like cold events now are actually just normal events — middle of the road, cool weather.”
That is a concern in the Mountain West for multiple reasons. For one, many homes lack air conditioning…
Easing the impacts of the climate crisis hinges on small behavioral shifts, such as flying less, Shuman said. “That’s probably the biggest single way I personally add carbon in the atmosphere and help make things warm.”
But he was careful to point out that large systematic shifts are significantly more impactful. To spur that kind of change, he suggests tapping into economic forces, such as enacting a tax on carbon emissions.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife has asked anglers to voluntarily avoid fishing on the Colorado River between Kremmling and Rifle — and more voluntary closures could be coming.
The closure is in effect until further notice with a possibility of a mandatory emergency closure to all fishing if conditions worsen…
Heat, drought and low water levels are contributing to elevated water temperatures in much of Colorado, depleting oxygen levels and leaving trout vulnerable. Trout are cold-water fish that function best in 50-60 degree waters. When temperatures exceed 70 degrees, they often stop feeding and become more susceptible to disease.
As the aquatic biologist for CPW’s Hot Sulphur Springs office, Jon Ewert has seen already seen the local impact to the fishery firsthand. After a number of public reports of fish mortality along the Colorado River, he recently floated from Radium to Rancho del Rio to verify the issue. On that float, he counted 15 fish carcasses…
River flows have been exceptionally low this year.
The USGS gauge on the Colorado River at Catamount Bridge has been measuring 600-700 cfs, less than half what is historically expected there. The USGS gauge on the Colorado River near Dotsero is running at 1,250 cfs, down from an expected 3,000-4,000 cfs.
Mixed with high temperatures, these conditions spell disaster for the fishery. And it’s not just the Colorado River downstream from Kremmling.
According to Ewert, temperatures for other river sections in Grand are also edging toward dangerous levels for fish…
Ewert explained that these types of voluntary closures on rivers are not unheard of, but the extent of the closures might be…
Around 60% of Grand County’s water is diverted, mostly to the Front Range, with the Denver metro area receiving about 20% of its water from Grand.
In early June, temperatures were already spiking to 70 degrees on the Colorado River near Kremmling. Grand County coordinated with the Colorado River District, Denver Water, Northern Water and other partners to boost water levels where possible…
Denver Water estimated that by early July it will have voluntarily foregone collecting around 11,000 acre-feet of water from Grand County…
Northern Water said it has bypassed more than 6,000 acre-feet or about 2 billion gallons of water this year that has been sent downstream in the Colorado River…
Representatives of the Grand County Learning By Doing Cooperative Effort, the partnership of Front Range and West Slope water stakeholders, said that coordination is underway to release additional flows to mitigate temperatures.
While these voluntary efforts by those with water rights in Grand are helping, the sharp contrast in water use is hard to ignore for those invested in the health of the county’s rivers.
“Here’s what really breaks my heart: The Front Range water diverters filled their reservoirs … they continued to divert as much water as they did in a wet year,” [Kirk] Klanke said. “They don’t seem to feel they have any more wiggle room to leave a little more water in the river …
“Now we’re at the mercy of senior water right calls downstream. As I watch my guide friends become unemployed, I watch Kentucky bluegrass be watered on the Front Range. It’s hard to swallow.”
Wildlife biologist Bill Vetter watches and listens for birds in irrigated fields outside of Kremmling. Vetter is part of an avian monitoring program run by Audubon Rockies that aims to learn more about how birds use irrigated agriculture. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
In the gray light of dawn, hundreds of swallows darted over a pool of standing water in an irrigated field along the Colorado River. The birds were attracted to the early-morning mosquitos swarming the saturated landscape. Bill Vetter, a wildlife biologist with Wyoming-based Precision Wildlife Resources, methodically counted the birds. For six minutes, he marked down every bird he saw or heard at eight different locations across the ranch, 250 meters apart.
Vetter is part of an avian-monitoring program, headed up by Audubon Rockies, which aims to learn more about how birds use irrigated agricultural lands. In 2020, the fields near Kremmling where Vetter counted purposely did not irrigate as part of a state-grant-funded study on water use in high-elevation pastures. This year, irrigators are back to watering their usual amount and Vetter is tracking the trends in bird species and numbers.
This year, Vetter counted four or five additional species, including the yellow-headed blackbird, white-faced ibis and sora.
“I can say that for sure we got additional species this year that we didn’t have last year, and those species are largely associated with water habitat,” he said.
Across the Western Slope, birds and other wildlife have come to depend on these artificially created wetlands, a result of flood irrigation. But as the state of Colorado grapples with whether to implement a demand-management program, which would pay irrigators to temporarily dry up fields in an effort to send more water downstream, there could be unintended consequences for the animals that use irrigated agriculture for their habitat.
Learning more about how birds use these landscapes is a key first step, according to Abby Burk, Western rivers regional program manager with Audubon Rockies.
“Wetlands are the unsung hero for all the ecological services and functions they provide for wildlife,” she said. “Those low-field wetlands are good habitat for birds, for breeding, for migratory stopovers.”
In 2020, the bird count turned up 1,285 birds, comprising 39 different species, including great blue herons, meadowlarks, red-winged blackbirds, an osprey, a peregrine falcon, and several types of swallows, warblers and sparrows. The numbers are not yet tallied for this year, but the general expectation is that more water means more birds.
“Birds have adapted to how we have created these different habitat types,” Burk said. “We’ve really got to look at the larger effects of how we use water can impact birds and other wildlife. Where there’s water, birds also do thrive.”
This pool of standing water in a field near the Colorado River is a result of flood irrigation. It’s also great habitat for mosquito-loving swallows. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Water-use study
The seven ranches where the avian monitoring is taking place are part of a larger water study that is evaluating conserved consumptive use in the upper Colorado River basin. Consumptive use is a measure of how much water is consumed by thirsty plants. Conserved consumptive use is the amount by which consumptive use is reduced as a result of changing irrigation practices.
Researchers from Colorado State University are studying the impacts of using less water on the high-elevation fields in Grand County and how long it takes them to recover once water returns. Researchers hope to fill in a data gap about the impacts of reducing irrigation water on high-elevation pastures.
In 2020, some participating landowners did not irrigate at all and some only irrigated until June 15. This year, landowners reverted to their historical irrigation practices. Remote sensors and ground-based instruments are monitoring the difference in plant and soil conditions, and will continue to do so through 2023. Early results found that the plants used about 45% less water in 2020 compared with the previous four years.
The first phase of the project received a $500,000 grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) under its Alternative Agriculture Water Transfer Method program, which aims to find alternatives to “buy and dry” water transfers. The CWCB in September will consider another $60,000 grant request for Trout Unlimited to continue to do monitoring with a field technician.
This monitoring station is part of a research project by Colorado State University to track soil and plant conditions in irrigated pastures. The study aims to learn more about how using less water affects high-elevation fields. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Demand management
Although the project is not directly related to the state’s demand-management feasibility investigation, the results could have implications for any potential program that the state eventually comes up with.
“We are hoping all this information and research is going to be used down the road if a program does develop,” said Mely Whiting, Colorado water project legal counsel with Trout Unlimited. Trout Unlimited is helping to fund and implement the research project.
At the heart of a demand-management program is paying irrigators on a voluntary and temporary basis to not irrigate and to leave more water in the river in an effort to bolster levels in Lake Powell and help Colorado meet its downstream obligations.
Under the Colorado River Compact, the Upper Basin (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) must send 7.5 million acre-feet each year to the Lower Basin (California, Arizona and Nevada). Failure to meet this obligation could trigger a “compact call” where junior water users in the Upper Basin would have their water cut off. (An acre-foot is enough water to cover one acre of land one foot deep.)
As rising temperatures due to climate change continue to rob the Colorado River and its tributaries of flows and increase the risk of a compact call, finding solutions to water shortages is becoming more urgent. Lake Powell, the river’s biggest reservoir, is just under 34% full and projected to decline further. Demand management would let the Upper Basin set aside up to 500,000 acre-feet in a special pool in Powell to help avoid a compact call.
Some still-unanswered questions remain: How much of the conserved consumptive water from high-elevation pastures would actually make it downstream to Lake Powell? And how much would local streams benefit from the added flows?
“One critical part of what we’re doing is looking at the stream and saying: Do we see any changes from one year to the next? How much water would actually make it to the stream?” Whiting said. “We are measuring to see if there’s any distinction between the year the conservation practices were applied and the following year.”
Wildlife biologist Bill Vetter and Western Rivers Regional Program Manager with Audubon Rockies Abby Burk walk along an irrigation ditch in Grand County. An avian monitoring program aims to learn more about how birds use irrigated agriculture. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Trade-offs
The unintended consequences of different irrigation patterns under a demand-management program could be many and far-reaching. In 2018, the CWCB formed nine workgroups to examine some of these issues, including one that looked at environmental considerations.
In notes submitted to the CWCB last July, the environmental workgroup acknowledged there could be trade-offs, sometimes among species. For example, reducing irrigation and leaving more water in rivers would benefit fish and riparian habitats, but might negatively impact birds or other species that use wetlands created by flood irrigation. And with full irrigation, birds may thrive, but to the detriment of river ecosystems.
David Graf, water-resource specialist with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, participated in the environmental-considerations workgroup. He said irrigated agriculture provides a lot of diversity in forbes, grasses and insects — good sources of protein for birds. But fish need water too. And in the summer and fall, the more, the better. There is an environmental value in irrigated agriculture, but only if the streams aren’t suffering at its expense, Graf said.
“There is a whole bunch of wildlife that is dependent on irrigated agriculture,” he said. “I think we all recognize the value that irrigated agriculture brings to wildlife, but it’s at the expense of fisheries in a lot of cases. There’s a little bit of a trade-off on a local level. I think we get the balance wrong sometimes.”
This pool of standing water in a field near the Colorado River is a result of flood irrigation. It’s also great habitat for mosquito-loving swallows. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Birds as indicator
Burk acknowledged that the usefulness of the bird count is limited by the absence of baseline data, because there was no bird monitoring on the fields before 2020. But trends are still important and, like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, birds can be an indicator of what’s happening on a landscape. Burk said she would like to do a bird-monitoring program on a larger scale at different locations around the Western Slope.
“As we learn more about how birds respond to water on the landscape, whether that’s in the river, in the fields, in the wetlands and adjacent habitats, it’s going to help give us a better picture of how the entire landscape and our natural systems are responding,” Burk said.
Colorado River water issues sometimes make for seemingly strange bedfellows. Nonprofit environmental groups such as Audubon are usually focused on keeping more water in the rivers, while irrigators traditionally take it out. In this case, interests align with keeping water on the landscape, with birds as the beneficiaries. Burk said those “us-versus-them” distinctions among water users are evaporating as people realize they are not facing the water crisis alone.
“When we drop the silos, drop the fences and walls between water users, we can see that this is one water — people, wildlife, the environment, the recreation industry — we all depend upon it,” Burk said. “So, how do we keep these natural systems so they can keep doing their job for everyone with reduced water? Water has to go further because there’s less of it.”
This story ran in The Aspen Times and the Craig Press on July 10.
On Wednesday, June 30, Gov. Jared Polis formally declared a drought emergency for 21 counties in the western portion of the state by proclamation.
The proclamation states that Colorado is now in phase 3 activa- tion of the State Drought Plan for 21 counties, including Archuleta, Hinsdale and La Plata counties.
Mineral County was not in- cluded in the governor’s proclamation.
However, a press release from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) explains that counties along the Continental Divide in abnormally dry conditions or a moderate drought “will continue to be closely monitored and added to the drought emergency proclama- tion as appropriate.”
The CWCB press release explains that phase 3 is the highest level of activation under the State Drought Plan.
The CWCB press release notes that on June 22, 2020, phase 2 of the State Drought Plan was activated for 40 counties and expanded to all 64 counties by September 2020…
Colorado Drought Monitor map July 6, 2021.
Drought report
According to the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), as of 10 a.m. on June 29, 100 percent of Archuleta County remains in a moderate drought stage, with more than half of the county in extreme drought.
The NIDIS website notes that under a moderate drought stage, dry-land crops may suffer, rangeland growth is stunted, very little hay is available and risk of wildfires may increase.
The NIDIS website also notes that 71.17 percent of the county is in a severe drought stage.
According to the NIDIS, under a severe drought stage, fire season is extended.
Additionally, the NIDIS website notes that 51.04 percent of the county is in an extreme drought, mostly in the western portion of the county.
The NIDIS website notes that under an extreme drought stage, large fires may develop and pasture conditions worsen.
According to the NIDIS, 6.24 percent of the county, in the southwestern portion, is in an exceptional drought stage…
River report
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the San Juan River was flowing at a rate of 149 cfs in Pagosa Springs as of 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 7.
Based on 85 years of water re- cords at this site, the average flow rate for this date is 482 cfs.
The highest recorded rate for this date was in 1995 at 2,080 cfs. The lowest recorded rate was 17.5 cfs, recorded in 2002.
As of 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 7, the Piedra River near Arboles was flowing at a rate of 119 cfs.
Based on 58 years of water records at this site, the average flow rate for this date is 372 cfs.
The highest recorded rate for this date was 1,920 cfs in 1975. The lowest recorded rate was 8.05 cfs in 2002.
During a meeting on June 21, members of the San Juan Water Conservation District (SJWCD) board discussed local implications of historically low water levels in Lake Powell.
“The article that came out today just said that there’s a threshold that Lake Powell has to reach for the CWCB (Colorado Water Conservation Board) to enact some legal movements,” said board member Joe Tedder. “Apparently we’re going to hit that, probably by the end of June.”
The threshold Tedder referred to is outlined in the Colorado River Drought Contingency Management and Operations Plan (DCP).
The plan states that if Lake Powell reaches a surface elevation of 3,525 the upper-basin states and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) shall take action to send more water to Lake Powell from reservoirs upstream.
According to the USBR, the surface elevation of Lake Powell was 3,559 feet on July 4. Aside from the drought in 2005, such low water levels have not been seen since the 1960s, when Lake Powell was still filling after the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1963.
Low water levels in Lake Powell have implications for the Colorado River Basin, which includes the San Juan River and Pagosa Springs.
According to a report by the Pacific Institute in 2013, roughly 70 percent of the Colorado River Basin’s water is used to irrigate nearly 5.7 million acres of land for agriculture. The USBR estimates that more than 40 million people depend on the river to support their lives.
Another report prepared by Southwick Associates in 2012 esti- mated that 5.6 million people over the age of 18 use the Colorado River for recreational purposes each year.
The same report totals the value of all spending resulting from such recreational expenditures to be $25.6 billion, generating $1.6 billion in federal tax dollars…
SJWCD board member Doug Secrist outlined provisions in the DCP, stating that in an effort to stabilize Lake Powell, water would be reallocated from reservoirs up- stream, otherwise referred to as initial units…
“I can tell you that PAWSD is senior to all those reservoirs, so PAWSD water is pretty well protected,” SJWCD Board of Directors President Al Pfister said of the Pagosa Area Wa- ter and Sanitation District. “But it is a very intricate and interwoven issue.”
[…]
The National Integrated Drought Information System reports that Archuleta County is experiencing its driest year in over a century, and that the initial units from which water is planned to be supplied to Lake Powell are already low in volume and inflow…
The USBR predicts that the preliminary unregulated flow which supplies the Navajo Reservoir, which presently has a pool elevation 27 feet below the 1981-2010 average, will be 36 percent of the average for the month of July.
For Blue Mesa, which presently rests 43 feet below the 1981-2010 av- erage, is projected to have an inflow volume 40 percent of average.
Flaming Gorge, which rests only 3 feet below its average pool eleva- tion, is projected to have an unregu- lated inflow volume of 42 percent of average.
Gila River. Photo credit: Dennis O’Keefe via American Rivers
FromYale 360 (Jim Robbins). Click through for Ted Wood’s photo gallery:
The Gila was once a vibrant desert river, providing a lifeline for the riparian habitat and wildlife that depended on it in the U.S. Southwest. But population growth, agricultural withdrawals, and, increasingly, climate change have badly diminished the river and threaten its future.
The confluence of the tiny San Pedro River and the much larger Gila was once one of the richest locales in one of the most productive river ecosystems in the American Southwest, an incomparable oasis of biodiversity.
The rivers frequently flooded their banks, a life-giving pulse that created sprawling riverside cienegas, or fertile wetlands; braided and beaver-dammed channels; meandering oxbows; and bosques — riparian habitats with towering cottonwoods, mesquite and willows. This lush, wet Arizona landscape, combined with the searing heat of the Sonoran Desert, gave rise to a vast array of insects, fish and wildlife, including apex predators such as Mexican wolves, grizzly bears, jaguars and cougars, which prowled the river corridors.
The confluence now is a very different place, its richness long diminished. A massive mountain of orange- and dun-colored smelter tailings, left from the days of copper and lead processing and riddled with arsenic, towers where the two rivers meet. Water rarely flows there, with an occasional summer downpour delivering an ephemeral trickle.
On a recent visit, only a few brown, stagnant pools remained. In one, hundreds of small fish gasped for oxygen. An egret that had been feeding on the fish flew off. The plop of a bull frog, an invasive species, echoed in the hot, still air.
Gila River watershed. Graphic credit: Wikimedia
The Gila River, which was listed by the advocacy group American Rivers in 2019 as the nation’s most endangered river, drains an enormous watershed of 60,000 square miles. Stretches have long been depleted, largely because of crop irrigation and the water demands of large cities. Now, a warmer and drier climate is bearing down on ecosystems that have been deprived of water, fragmented, and otherwise altered, their natural resilience undone by human activities.
Other desert rivers around the globe — from the Nile to the Tigris and Euphrates to the Amu Darya in Central Asia — face similar threats. Efforts are underway to restore some integrity to these natural systems, but it is an uphill battle, in part because desert rivers are more fragile than rivers in cooler, wetter places.
Last year was the second-hottest and second-driest on record in Arizona, where heat records are frequently broken. The last two years have seen fewer desert downpours, known locally as monsoons, an important source of summer river flow.
“We’re dealing with a rapidly changing climate that is becoming, overall, more dry and varied and warmer,” said Scott Wilbor, an ecologist in Tucson who studies desert river ecosystems, including the San Pedro. “We are in uncharted territory.”
Born of snowmelt and springs in the mountains of southern New Mexico, the Gila is the southernmost snow-fed river in the United States. It was once perennial, running 649 miles until it emptied into the Colorado River. As the climate warms, scientists predict that by 2050 snow will no longer fall in the Black and Mogollon ranges that form the Gila’s headwaters, depriving the river of its major source of water.
“We’re seeing a combination of long-term climate change and really bad drought,” said David Gutzler, a professor emeritus of climatology at the University of New Mexico. If the drought is prolonged, he said, “that’s when we’ll see the river dry up.”
The Gila River as it nears the Florence Diversion Dam in Arizona was almost dry by May this year. Photo credit: TED WOOD via Yale 360.
The same scenario is playing out on the once-mighty Colorado, the Rio Grande, and many smaller Southwest rivers, all facing what is often called a megadrought. Some research indicates that a southwestern U.S. megadrought may last decades, while other scientists fear the region is threatened by a permanent aridification because of rising temperatures.
Worldwide, said Ian Harrison, a freshwater expert with Conservation International, “pretty much where there are rivers in arid areas, they are suffering through a combination of climate change and development.”
Like the Gila, many of these rivers have high degrees of endemism. “Life is often highly specialized to those particular conditions and only lives on that one river, so the impacts of loss are catastrophic,” he said.
Rivers everywhere are important for biodiversity, but especially so in the desert, where 90 percent of life is found within a mile of the river. Nearly half of North America’s 900 or so bird species use the Gila and its tributaries, including some that live nowhere else in the U.S., such as the common blackhawk and northern beardless tyrannulet. Two endangered birds, the southwestern willow flycatcher and yellow-billed cuckoo, live along the Gila and its tributaries, including the San Pedro and the Salt.
Desert rivers, of course, make life in the desert possible for people, too. Growing crops in the perpetual heat of the desert can be highly lucrative, especially if the water is free or nearly so thanks to subsidies from the federal government. Agriculture is where most of the water in the Gila goes.
A vermillion flycatcher perched near the Gila River in Safford, Arizona. Photo credit: TED WOOD via Yale 360
This spring, photographer Ted Wood and I made a journey along the length of the Gila, from the headwaters in New Mexico to west of Phoenix. In most of Arizona, the Gila is dry. Where it still flows, I was impressed by how such a relatively small river, under the right conditions, can be so life-giving. The trip brought home what desert rivers are up against as the climate changes, and also how much restoration, and what types, can be expected to protect the biodiversity that remains.
Our journey began at the river’s source, where Cliff Dweller Creek spills out of a shady canyon lined with Gambel oak in Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. The creek is barely a trickle here. Above the creek, ancestral Puebloans, known as Mogollon, once lived in dwellings wedged into caves, making pottery and tending vegetable gardens. The Mogollon abandoned these canyons in the 15th century, perhaps done in by an extended drought.
From inside a Mogollon cave, I looked out at rolling hills, covered with ponderosa pine, pinyon and juniper trees. The green-hued water gains volume where three forks come together near here. Historically, the mountain snow melts slowly each spring, providing high steady flows through April and May. Flows slow to a trickle in June. In July and August, monsoons pass through and, along with frontal systems, cause flash flooding and a rise in water levels.
Flooding is a “disturbance regime,” not unlike a forest fire, that rejuvenates aging, static ecosystems. A healthy river in the mountains of the West is one that behaves like a fire hose, whipping back and forth in a broad channel over time, flash flooding and then receding, moving gravel, rocks, logs and other debris throughout the system. A flooding river constantly demolishes some sections of a river and builds others, creating new habitat — cleaning silt from gravel so fish can spawn, for instance, or flushing sediment from wetlands. A river that flows over its banks, recharges aquifers and moistens the soil so that the seedlings of cottonwoods, mesquite trees and other vegetation can reproduce. Along healthy stretches of the Gila, birds are everywhere; I spotted numerous bluebirds in the branches of emerald green cottonwoods.
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument New Mexico, an ancestral Puebloan ruin at the headwaters of the Gila River. Photo credit: TED WOOD via Yale 360
The riparian ecosystem that lines the 80 or so miles of the New Mexico portion is largely intact because of the protections afforded by federal wilderness areas, the lack of a dam, and the river’s flow not being completely siphoned off for farming. This is an anomaly in a state that has lost many of its riparian ecosystems. “This is the last free-flowing river in New Mexico,” said Allyson Siwik, executive director of the Gila Conservation Coalition.
The future of the New Mexico stretch of the river is uncertain because of the possibility of more water withdrawals and the loss of snowpack. “We’ve seen flows in the last 10 years lower than we’ve ever seen,” Siwik said. This year, she said, set an all-time low on the river, with flow less than 20 percent of normal.
Undammed, the Gila River through New Mexico still floods, refreshing the Cliff-Gila valley, which contains the largest intact bosque habitat in the Lower Colorado River Basin. The valley is home to the largest concentration of non-colonial breeding birds in North America. The river is also a stronghold for threatened and endangered species, such as nesting yellow-billed cuckoos, the Gila chub, Chiricahua leopard frogs and Mexican garter snakes all live there.
At odds with efforts to keep the Gila wild are plans by a group of roughly 200 long-time irrigators in southwestern New Mexico. Each summer they divert water from the Gila to flood-irrigate pastures, which de-waters stretches of the river. The irrigators have been trying to raise money to build impoundments to take even more of their share of water, but so far have been unsuccessful, in part because of opposition from conservation groups.
Severe drought this spring combined with water overuse resulted in the drying of the Gila River in eastern Arizona and the death of the fish population. Photo credit: TED WOOD via Yale 360
Cattle are another threat to the river’s biological integrity here — both unfenced domestic cattle and feral cows. Cattle break down riverbanks, widen the stream and raise water temperatures. They eat and trample riparian vegetation, causing mud and silt to choke the flow, and destroy habitat for endangered species. The Center for Biological Diversity recently sued the U.S. Forest Service to force the agency to take action.
“We’re in a cow apocalypse,” said Todd Schulke, a founder of the Center for Biological Diversity. “They are even in the recovered Gila River habitat. It’s just heartbreaking.”
As the river enters Arizona, the riparian ecology remains largely intact, especially in the 23 miles of the Gila Box National Riparian Area. Here, 23,000 acres of bosque habitat is in full expression, with thick stands of cottonwoods, velvet mesquite trees and sandy beaches. It is one of only two national riparian areas in the country set aside for its outstanding biodiversity; the other is on the San Pedro River.
As the river leaves the riparian area, it undergoes a striking change: massive cotton farms near the towns of Safford, Pima, and Thatcher, first planted in the 1930s, cover the landscape. The dried, brown stalks of harvested cotton plants stand in a field, bits of fluff on top. Growing cotton in the desert — which uses six times as much water as lettuce — has long been seen as folly by critics, made possible only by hefty federal subsidies.
Farmers in Safford, Arizona, pump groundwater near the Gila River to irrigate their fields. Photo credit: TED WOOD via Yale 360
Much of the flood pulse ecology is lost here, as the river is diverted or subject to groundwater pumping. Instead of flooding, the river cuts deeper into its channel, lowering the water table, which many plants can no longer reach. The cottonwood stands and other riparian habitats have disappeared. “You want the groundwater within five feet of the ground, but it’s mostly 8 to 12 feet,” said Melanie Tluczek, executive director of the Gila Watershed Partnership, which has been doing restoration here since 2014.
It is a harsh place for new planting. The river is dry in long stretches. Tamarisk, a pernicious invasive tree also known as salt cedar, needs to be cut down and its stumps poisoned to prevent regrowth. Small willows and Fremont cottonwoods have been planted on barren desert ground. Wire cages over infant trees keep elk, beaver and rabbits from gobbling them up.
Meanwhile, tamarisk grows prolifically, slurping up water, changing soil chemistry and the nature of flooding, robustly outcompeting natives, and increasing the risk of wildfire.
“If you can do restoration here, you can do it anywhere,” Tluczek said. She said the Gila Watershed Partnership has removed 216 acres of tamarisk along the river and planted 90 acres with new native trees. But the Gila here will never look like it did. “We can’t restore the past,” Tluczek said. “We’re going to see a floodplain that has more dryland species and fewer floodplain species.”
The Coolidge Dam in Arizona forms the San Carlos Reservoir, which is now at historic lows. Photo credit: TED WOOD via Yale 360
Downstream, the Coolidge Dam forms a giant concrete plug on the Gila. Built in the 1920s by the federal government, it was the result of irrational exuberance about the amount of water on the Gila and meant to supply farmers with water. Today, however, the reservoir is usually dry. Built to hold 19,500 acres of water, this year the water in the lake covered just 50 acres.
From here to Phoenix and on to the Colorado, water only occasionally flows in the Gila. Yet even the small amount of water that remains is vital to wildlife. “Where there has been water near the surface, animals smell it and will dig down in the sand in the riverbed to free it up,” Wilbor said. “You set up a camera and it’s like an African watering hole, with species after species taking turns to come use the water.”
Will the Gila River through most of Arizona to the Colorado ever be restored to a semblance of the biological jewel it once was? The chances are slim. But two pioneering efforts have brought back elements of the desiccated river.
In 2010, Phoenix completed a $100 million, eight-mile restoration of the long-dewatered Salt River where it joins the Gila and Agua Fria rivers at Tres Rios. Fed by water from the city’s sewage treatment plant across the road, this constructed complex includes 128 acres of wetlands, 38 acres of riparian corridor, and 134 acres of open water. It is thick with cattails and other vegetation, an island of green around a lake amid the sere surrounding desert.
Ramona and Terry Button run Ramona Farms on the Gila River Indian Community, where some water allocated to the tribe is being released into the Gila. Photo credit: TED WOOD via Yale 360
On the nearby Gila River Indian Community, meanwhile, home to the Pima — or the name they prefer, Akimel O’othham, the river people — is something called a managed area recharge. The Akimel O’othham, who share their community with the Maricopa, are believed to be the descendants of the Hohokam, an ancient agricultural civilization with a vast network of irrigation canals that was largely abandoned centuries ago. The Akimel O’othham continued to farm along the Gila in historic times until their water was stolen from them in the late 19th century by settlers who dug a canal in front of the reservation and drained it away.
After a century of the Akimel O’othham fighting for their water rights, in 2004 the Arizona Water Settlement Act provided the tribe with the largest share of Colorado River water from the Central Arizona Project, a share larger than the city of Phoenix’s allotment. The tribe is now water-rich, using much of that water to restore its tribal agricultural past, though with modern crops and methods.
Last year, some of the Colorado River water was released into the Gila to be stored in an underground aquifer and used to create a wetland.
Both of these projects, at Tres Rios and at the reservation, have created oases in a harsh desert landscape, bringing back an array of birds and wildlife, and — in the case of the Akimel O’othham — helping revitalize the cultural traditions of these river people.
“We’re not going to have rivers with native species in the Southwest unless we can protect and restore these systems,” especially with a changing climate, Siwik said. “Protecting the best, restoring the rest — or else we lose these systems that we need for our survival.”
The investigative drilling proposed along Homestake Creek in Eagle County, Colorado could dewater and destroy valuable wetlands. Photo by Marjorie Westermann.
Here’s the release from Wild Earth Guardians (Jen Pelz):
To safeguard irreplaceable wetlands and imperiled species in the headwaters of the Colorado River, a coalition of conservation groups today warned the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that they will file a lawsuit in federal court if the agencies do not complete a comprehensive analysis of the effects of the planned and permitted geotechnical investigation on the greenback cutthroat trout and Canada lynx.
The Forest Service issued a special use permit for the Whitney Creek Geotechnical project on March 22, 2021. The feasibility assessment is the first step by the Cities of Colorado Springs and Aurora to build another large dam and reservoir in the Homestake Valley in the White River National Forest for diversion out of the Colorado River Basin to the Front Range.
“Nature’s bank account is severely overdrawn due to climate change and unsustainable use,” said Jen Pelz, the Wild Rivers Program Director at WildEarth Guardians. “The solution is not to build a bigger bank, but to conserve water, protect land and wildlife, and start living within the river’s means.”
The letter sent by WildEarth Guardians, Colorado Headwaters, Holy Cross Wilderness Defense Fund, Save the Colorado, the Colorado Chapter of the Sierra Club, and Wilderness Workshop details how the agencies failed to consider the effects of the investigative drilling, as well as the forthcoming dam and reservoir project, on listed species in violation of the Endangered Species Act. Listed species identified that exist in or downstream of the project include the threatened Canada lynx, Greenback cutthroat trout, and Ute Ladies’-tresses orchid, and the endangered bonytail chub, Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub, and razorback sucker.
“After reviewing the record it’s clear that the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service failed to comply with the Endangered Species Act. The real impacts to listed species, including lynx and cutthroat trout, haven’t been adequately considered or disclosed,” said Peter Hart, Staff Attorney at Wilderness Workshop. “Today’s letter puts the agencies on notice of the violations we’ve identified; they now have 60 days to respond. If the issues we’ve raised remain unresolved, we could pursue a legal challenge in federal court.”
In addition to the harm to imperiled species detailed in the notice letter, the investigative drilling proposed along Homestake Creek in Eagle County, Colorado could drain and destroy valuable wetlands. Further, the exploration will lay the foundation for a destructive reservoir that would inundate hundreds of acres in the Holy Cross Wilderness Area while stealing more water from the Colorado River to the thirsty front range for use by the Cities of Colorado Springs and Aurora.
The groups urge the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the effects of the geotechnical investigation and related activities on threatened and endangered species as required by the Endangered Species Act before any investigatory drilling or other activities are undertaken in the Homestake Valley. If the agencies fail to do so, the groups will file a lawsuit in federal court after the 60-day notice period is complete.
“Colorado has not seen a transmountain diversion in 45 years. With climate change and the Colorado River losing 1% of flows each year, the Aurora and Colorado Springs’ Homestake project will never be built,” said Jerry Mallett, President of Colorado Headwaters…
“It is unfortunate that the U.S. Forest Service has chosen to facilitate the construction of a dam near a wilderness area in order to transfer yet more water from the West Slope to cities in the Front Range. The proposed dam and reservoir would drown wetlands and riparian habitat, which are naturally rare in the arid west comprising just 2 percent of the landscape,” explained Ramesh Bhatt, Chair, Conservation Committee of the Colorado Sierra Club. “Despite their rarity, wetland ecosystems are needed by greater than 80 percent of our native wildlife during some phase of their life cycle. Building this dam would be another devastating blow to Colorado’s biodiversity, which is already in crisis. This action by the Forest Service is not only contrary to its mandate to protect natural areas but is also illegal because the Service chose to cut corners to make its decision.”
“The proposed Whitney Creek project starting with destructive drilling of the irreplaceable Homestake Creek wetlands is an environmental atrocity and must be abandoned. The permit for drilling must be revoked. It is premised on several fallacies: that it will not damage the wetlands, that it will determine that there is no geologic reason not to build the proposed Whitney Creek Reservoir, and that the reservoir will be built. None of these things are true,” said Warren M. Hern, Chairman, of Holy Cross Wilderness Defense Fund. “The permit assumes that Congress will approve a loss of 500 acres from the Holy Cross Wilderness, which we will oppose, which the public will oppose, and which will not be approved by the Congress. Aside from irrevocable destruction of the Homestake Creek wetlands at and downstream from the proposed reservoir, the proposed reservoir is placed over a major geological fault, the Rio Grande Rift, which is a tectonic divergent plate boundary. Placing a reservoir at this site is pure madness and terminal stupidity. It would endanger the lives of those living downstream. We will oppose it by every legal means available.”
Homestake Creek flows from Homestake Reservoir near Red Cliff. A pilot reservoir release to test how to get water to the state line in the event of a Colorado River Compact Call proved hard to track for state engineers. CREDIT: BETHANY BLITZ/ASPEN JOURNALISM
This map shows the location of test holes Homestake Partners plans to drill as part of its geotechnical investigation into the feasibility of a dam site in the Homestake Creek valley. The Forest Service has received more than 500 comments, most of them in opposition to, the drilling and the overall reservoir project. Credit: USFS via Aspen Journalism
These wetlands in the Homestake Creek valley are near the site of the proposed Whitney Reservoir. The Forest Service is considering whether to issue a permit for drilling and a geotechnical study to test whether the site would support a dam. Photo credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
These wetlands, located on a 150-acre parcel in the Homestake Creek valley that Homestake Partners bought in 2018, would be inundated if Whitney Reservoir is constructed. The Forest Service received more than 500 comments, the majority in opposition to, test drilling associated with the project and the reservoir project itself. Photo credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
A map from Colorado Springs Utilities that shows how tunnels could bring water to Whitney Reservoir from Fall and Peterson creeks, and from the Eagle River. The map also shows the route of a pipeline to pump water from Whitney Reservoir to Homestake Reservoir.
A wetland area along Homestake Creek in an area that would be flooded by a potential Whitney Reservoir. The cities of Aurora and Colorado Springs are looking to develop additional water in Eagle County and divert it to the Front Range. Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
A map prepared by Aurora Water that shows a potential 500-acre adjustment to the Holy Cross Wilderness boundary near the potential Whitney Reservoir on lower Homestake Creek. The map as current as of July 16, 2019.
A view, from the Alternative A dam site, of the Homestake Creek valley. The triangle shape in the distance is the dam that forms Homestake Reservoir. Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
One of four potential dam sites on lower Homestake Creek, about four miles above U.S. 24, between Minturn and Leadville. From this location, the dam that forms Homestake Reservoir higher up the creek can be seen. Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
Homestake Creek, flowing toward the Eagle River, near the Alternative A dam site being studied by Aurora Water and Colorado Springs Utilities, about three miles up Homestake Road from U.S. 24. The photo was taken on July 13, 2019. Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam. Lake Mead last month fell to its lowest level since the Hoover Dam was built in 1936. The shoreline has dropped 45 meters since the reservoir was last full in 2000. Photo by Ken Neubecker via American Rivers
Another dry year has left the waterway that supplies 40 million people in the Southwest parched. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is pushing the nation’s two largest reservoirs to record lows. For the first time this summer, the federal government will declare a shortage.
Climate change is exacerbating the current drought. Warming temperatures are upending how the water cycle functions in the Southwest. The 1,450-mile long river acts as a drinking water supply, a hydroelectric power generator, and an irrigator of crop fields across seven Western states and two in Mexico. Scientists say the only way forward is to rein in demands on the river’s water to match its decline.
#LakePowell is seen in a November 2019 aerial photo from the nonprofit EcoFlight. Keeping enough water in the reservoir to support downstream users in Arizona, Nevada and California is complicated by climate change, as well as projections that the upper basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico will use as much as 40% more water than current demand. A recent white paper from a lineup of river experts calls those use projections into question. CREDIT: ECOFLIGHT via Aspen Journalism
With the river’s infrastructure able to cushion against some of the immediate effects, what manifests is a slow-moving crisis. Water managers, farmers and city leaders clearly see the coming challenges, but haven’t yet been forced to drastically change their uses, always hoping for another wet year to stave off the inevitable.
But with its two biggest buckets — Lakes Powell and Mead — at or below 35% of capacity, and projected to decline even further, a reckoning over the West’s water use appears closer on the horizon.
Extremely dry conditions like the region is experiencing in 2021 make clear that the Colorado River is currently unable to meet all the demands communities in the Western U.S. have placed on it, and it’s up to its biggest users to decide who has to rely on it less.
Denver used to average about five days of 95-degree heat prior to the 1970s; now it’s more than 20 days
At its core, climate change is simply a change in the usual weather that a location experiences over time — the 80218 zip code in Denver, the state of Colorado, the contiguous United States or the entire planet. Thanks to modern technologies and weather tracking systems, scientists are able to visualize the changes in our weather and climate on every scale.
There are numerous reasons for that climate change (NASA’s Climate Change page is a great resource), spanning from the Earth’s distance from the sun to humans burning coal, oil and gas, the gases from which “cause the air to heat up.”
A large chunk of the United States has seen a warming trend in annual temperature (comparing the climate normals from this decade to decades past), most notably in the Western U.S., areas around the Great Lakes, the Northeast and Florida — so, almost everywhere…
Summer warming
The U.S. meteorological summer season, which runs from June 1-Aug. 31, has warmed by at least 2.0 degrees since 1970, according to Climate Central, an independent organization that surveys and conducts scientific research on climate change.
In Denver and Colorado Springs, the summer season has warmed by 2.6 degrees since 1970 — higher than the national average. Grand Junction’s average summer temperature is up by 1 degree, smaller but still notable.
Higher average temperatures increase the number of extreme heat days. Denver used to average about five days of 95-degree heat prior to the 1970s; now it’s more than 20 days. Colorado Springs used to experience 11 days of 90-degree heat in 1970, now the city feels 30 days of intense heat per season. Grand Junction saw an average of four days of 100-degree heat in 1970 and now that number has increased to nine days.
On average, Grand Junction experiences higher temperatures throughout the year because it’s a dry, arid desert climate, so temperature and precipitation extremes are more difficult to reach.
But as we’ve seen as of late, temperatures have had no trouble reaching dangerous levels several times this year already (don’t forget the record-shattering heat wave we experienced before the peak summer heat even set in)…
Summer nights are typically where Colorado cities balance out the daily temperature average due to the fact that they cool off efficiently in normally dry air. But data is showing that even our nighttime temperatures are rising.
In Denver, the average nighttime temperature has risen by 1.8 degrees since 1970; it’s 1.7 degrees warmer in Colorado Springs and 0.3 degrees warmer at night in Grand Junction on average.
RECLAMATION RELEASES ADDITIONAL 5-YEAR PROJECTIONS TO SUPPORT DROUGHT RESPONSE PLANNING EFFORTS IN THE COLORADO RIVER BASIN
As one element of the ongoing implementation of the 2019 Drought Contingency Plans for the Colorado River Basin, the Bureau of Reclamation today released additional 5-year projections on the Colorado River System based on June 2021 conditions.
Five-year projections are typically modeled in January, April and August of each year. The additional June projections will inform the ongoing drought operations planning efforts at key Reclamation reservoirs in the Upper Colorado River Basin. These efforts are ongoing among Reclamation and the Colorado River Basin states under the Upper Basin Drought Response Operations Agreement.
“The June 5-year projections for the Colorado River System reaffirm this is a serious situation,” said Wayne Pullan, Upper Colorado Basin Regional Director. “We are actively engaged with the Colorado River Basin states and other partners to respond to changing conditions to avoid critical elevations at Lake Powell.”
Projections for anticipated runoff in the Upper Colorado Basin have declined over the course of the spring. Using information based on recent hydrology (since 1988 and known as the Stress Test Hydrology), Reclamation notes several key findings for Lake Powell in the June 5-year projections:
A 79% chance that Lake Powell will fall below its target water-surface elevation of 3,525 feet sometime next year.
Lake Powell’s target water-surface elevation of 3,525 feet provides a 35 vertical-foot buffer designed to minimize the risk of dropping below the minimum power pool elevation of 3,490 feet, and balances the need to protect the infrastructure at Glen Canyon Dam and to meet current operational obligations to the Lower Colorado River Division states of Arizona, California, and Nevada.
Beyond 2022, Lake Powell’s chances of falling to critical levels also increased.
There is a 5% chance that Lake Powell will fall below minimum power pool elevation of 3,490 feet in 2023 and 17% in 2024.
In the Lower Basin, the updated projections for Lake Mead continue to affirm the high likelihood of a first-ever shortage condition in the Lower Basin in calendar year 2022. Consistent with the 2007 Interim Guidelines, if Lake Mead’s end-of-calendar-year elevation is projected to be at or below 1,075 feet, Lake Mead would operate in a shortage condition in the upcoming year. The prescribed shortage reductions for Arizona and Nevada would also be coupled with water savings contributions under the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan. Mexico would reduce their allotment and make water savings contributions under Minute 323 to the 1944 U.S. Mexico Water Treaty. Consistent with the 2007 Interim Guidelines, the 2019 DCP and Minute 323, operational decisions for 2022 will be made by Reclamation in August 2021.
Reclamation is also concerned with the longer-term projections, which show a higher likelihood of Lake Mead declining to the critical elevations of 1,025 and 1,000 feet by 2025. Based on the June update, the chance of this occurring by 2025 is 58% and 21%, respectively.
Reclamation provides projections using two future hydrology scenarios: The Stress Test Hydrology based on the last 32 years, and the Full Hydrology based on the last 114 years. The Stress Test Hydrology provides more plausible near-term outlooks because it embeds the recent warming trend and current drought period. It is about 11% lower on average compared to the Full Hydrology…
A new report details global warming’s impact on Yellowstone Park, changes that have begun to fundamentally alter its famed ecosystem and threaten everything from its forests to Old Faithful geyser. Such troubling shifts are occurring in national parks across the U.S. West.
In 1872, when Yellowstone was designated as the first national park in the United States, Congress decreed that it be “reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, and sale and … set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” Yet today, Yellowstone — which stretches 3,472 square miles across Montana, Wyoming and Idaho — is facing a threat that no national park designation can protect against: rising temperatures.
Since 1950, the iconic park has experienced a host of changes caused by human-driven global warming, including decreased snowpack, shorter winters and longer summers, and a growing risk of wildfires. These changes, as well as projected changes as the planet continues to warm this century, are laid out in a just-released climate assessment that was years in the making. The report examines the impacts of climate change not only in the park, but also in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem — an area 10 times the size of the park itself.
The climate assessment says that temperatures in the park are now as high or higher as during any period in the last 20,000 years and are very likely the warmest in the past 800,000 years. Since 1950, Yellowstone has experienced an average temperature increase of 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit, with the most pronounced warming taking place at elevations above 5,000 feet.
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY MAP BY JOSHUA STEVENS, USING DATA FROM THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE AND THE U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE via Yale 360
Today, the report says, Yellowstone’s spring thaw starts several weeks sooner, and peak annual stream runoff is eight days earlier than in 1950. The region’s agricultural growing season is nearly two weeks longer than it was 70 years ago. Since 1950, snowfall has declined in the Greater Yellowstone Area in January and March by 53 percent and 43 percent respectively, and snowfall in September has virtually disappeared, dropping by 96 percent. Annual snowfall has declined by nearly two feet since 1950.
Because of steady warming, precipitation that once fell as snow now increasingly comes as rain. Annual precipitation could increase by 9 to 15 percent by the end of the century, the assessment says. But with snowpack decreasing and temperatures and evaporation increasing, future conditions are expected to be drier, stressing vegetation and increasing the risk of wildfires. Extreme weather is already more common, and blazes like Yellowstone’s massive 1988 fires — which burned 800,000 acres — are a growing seasonal worry.
The assessment’s future projections are even bleaker. If heat-trapping emissions are not reduced, towns and cities in the Greater Yellowstone Area — including Bozeman, Montana and Jackson, Pinedale, and Cody, Wyoming — could experience 40 to 60 more days per year when temperatures exceed 90 degrees F. And under current greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, temperatures in the Greater Yellowstone Area could increase by 5 to 10 degrees F by 2100, causing upheaval in the ecosystem, including shifts in forest composition.
At the heart of the issues facing the Greater Yellowstone Area is water, and the report warns that communities around the park — including ranchers, farmers, businesses and homeowners — must devise plans to deal with the growing prospect of drought, declining snowpack and seasonal shifts in water availability.
“Climate is going to challenge our economies and the health of all people who live here,” said Cathy Whitlock, a Montana State University paleoclimatologist and co-author of the report. She hopes “to engage residents and political leaders about local consequences and develop lists of habitats most at-risk and the specific indicators of human health that need to be studied,” like the connection between the increase in wildfires and respiratory illness. Sounding the alarm isn’t new, but the authors of the Yellowstone report hope their approach, and the body of evidence presented, will convince those skeptical about climate change to accept that it’s real and intensifying.
The report describes a scenario that is now all too common across the American West and in the region’s renowned national parks, from Grand Canyon in Arizona, to Zion in Utah, to Olympic in Washington state. Record warming and extreme drought mean there is not enough fall and winter moisture, leading to steadily declining mountain snowpack. Many iconic venues may soon lose the very features they were named for. Most striking is Glacier National Park in Montana, where, since the late 19th century, the number of the park’s glaciers has declined from 150 to 26. The remaining glaciers are expected to disappear this century.
In Joshua Tree National Park in California’s Mojave Desert, extreme heat — coupled with a prolonged drought — has wreaked havoc on the eponymous species. Because of drought and wildfire, the park is poised to lose 80 percent of its renowned Joshua trees by 2070.
Swaths of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado have suffered massive die-offs of white pine and spruce as warming-related bark-beetle infestations have killed an estimated 834 million trees across the state. And in Yosemite National Park in California, the rate of warming has doubled since 1950 to 3.4 degrees F per century. Yosemite is experiencing 88 more frost-free days than it did in 1907. The park’s snowpack is dwindling. Its remnant glaciers are fast disappearing. And wildfires are becoming more common. In 2018, the park was closed for several weeks because of dense smoke from a fire on its border. The National Park Service says that temperatures could soar by 6.7 to 10.3 degrees F from 2000 to 2100, with profound impacts on the Yosemite ecosystem.
Yellowstone River. Snowpack in the Yellowstone area is melting earlier, leading to a decline in summer streamflows. JACOB W. FRANK / NATIONAL PARK SERVICE via Yale 360
The Yellowstone assessment paints a detailed portrait of the past, present and future impacts of climate-related changes.
“This is one of the first ecosystem-scale climate assessments of its kind,” said co-author Charles Drimal, water program coordinator for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. “It sets a benchmark for how the climate has changed since the 1950s and what we are likely to experience 40 to 60 years from now in terms of temperature, precipitation, stream flow, growing season and snowpack.” Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey, Montana State University and the University of Wyoming were the lead scientists on the report.
The report’s study of snowpack and its link to water offer the biggest takeaways for Westerners who might question how or why they’re impacted. Rocky Mountain snowmelt provides between 60 to 80 percent of streamflow in the West, and hotter temperatures mean reduced snowfall and less water for cities as far afield as Los Angeles. For the millions of people living in cities across the West, many of whom are reliant on runoff from the snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, these trends jeopardize already insufficient supplies. The dangers are starkly evident this summer, as years of drought and soaring temperatures have left the West facing a perilous wildfire season and water shortages, from Colorado to California.
“All that snow becomes water that goes into the three major watersheds of the West — some of it goes as far as L.A. — and that comes together in the southern edge of Yellowstone National Park,” said Bryan Shuman, a report co-author and geologist at the University of Wyoming. “Looking at projections going forward, that snowpack disappears.”
Wyoming rivers map via Geology.com
The Yellowstone, Snake and Green rivers all have headwaters in the Greater Yellowstone Area, feeding major tributaries for the Missouri, Columbia and Colorado rivers that are vital for agriculture, recreation, energy production and homes. Regional agriculture — potatoes, hay, alfalfa — and cattle ranching depend on late-season irrigation, and less snow and more rain equals less water in hot summer months.
Then there are the rapidly growing tourism and hospitality industries that rely on Yellowstone’s world-class rivers and ski areas for angling and black diamond runs. Fishing is now regularly restricted because of high water temperatures that stress fish.
“Even mineral and energy resource extraction need to be part of this discussion,” said Whitlock, referring to Wyoming’s oil and gas industry, heavily reliant on large amounts of water. Industry may be the slowest to evolve, but it’s among the most at-risk, she said.
Many locals do quietly acknowledge the reality of what’s happening, she said, but community buy-in remains tough in this culture war hotspot, where many farmers and ranchers have long opposed government land intervention.
The land in the Greater Yellowstone Area, comprising 34,000 square miles, is among the last, largely intact temperate ecosystems in the United States and includes two national parks (Grand Teton in Wyoming is the other), five national forests, and half a dozen tribal nations. It’s also home to 10,000 hydrothermal features, including 500 geysers. Recent research has shown that in periods of extreme heat and drought, geysers such as Yellowstone’s renowned Old Faithful have shut down entirely.
The current conditions do have some historical precedent. In the last 10,000 years, Yellowstone has experienced periods of dryness equal to or greater than present, said Whitlock.
Electric Peak in Yellowstone National Park. Snowfall in the Yellowstone region has declined as a result of climate change. NEAL HERBERT / NATIONAL PARK SERVICE via Yale 360
“That’s a lens to look at the past,” said Shuman, who once trekked the 3,000-mile Continental Divide Trail to get a sense of the land. “If you add just a few degrees, you fundamentally alter things. When you walk across these high mountains, you can see they used to be covered in glaciers. It’s like walking in the ruins of Ancient Rome. That Ice Age world was only 5- to 7-degrees F colder than the pre-industrial era.”
“The water in those mountains is the water supply of the West and it’s drying up,” said Shuman.
In Yellowstone, the threat to human health and livelihoods may be the strongest incentive to take steps to soften the blows from climate change.
“Water is the thing everyone is most concerned about, and in general, people are receptive,” said Shuman. “Our economic future depends on adjusting.”
Just how the residents of the Greater Yellowstone Area will adapt is an open question, but researchers say that acknowledging the myriad problems that are now daily realities for many, from ranchers to anglers, is the first step toward a productive dialogue.
As the West experiences a growth surge, Cam Sholly, Yellowstone National Park’s superintendent, writes in the report that “the strength of local and regional economies” hangs in the balance if no steps are taken to rein in global warming.
Said Whitlock of Montana State, “When you think about the temperature curve that looks like a hockey stick, my parents pretty much lived on the flat part of the curve, I’m on the base, and my grandkids are going to be on the steep part. Our trajectory depends on what we do about greenhouse gases now. By 2040, 2050, we can flatten the curve. But the business-as-usual trajectory, 10 to 11 degrees of warming in Yellowstone and much of the West — what we do in the next decade is critical.”
The Greater Yellowstone Area includes both Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, as well as surrounding national forests and federal land. National Park Service
Grand Prismatic Spring Yellowstone National Park. Photo credit: Pixabay via NOAA
In Yellowstone National Park. Photo credit: Pixabay via NOAA
Yellowstone Falls photo credit Abby Howe via the Department of Interior.
As things stand with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), neutral conditions are currently present in the tropical Pacific and favored to last through the North American summer and into the fall. But forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center have issued a La Niña Watch, which means they see La Niña likely emerging (~55%) during the September-November period and lasting through winter.
June 2021 sea surface temperature departure from the 1991-2020 average. Image from Data Snapshots on Climate.gov.
Where we are:
I know you’re all excited for me to talk about La Niña, but I’m a killjoy, so bear with me for a second while I talk about the current state of the Pacific. In June, ocean surface temperatures were near the 1991-2020 average across the equatorial Pacific, including the all-important Nino3.4 region (check out this post for more on ENSO indices), which we use to monitor the state of ENSO. Specifically, the June sea surface temperature in the Nino3.4 region was 0.25 degrees Celsius below average, well within the ENSO-neutral range. Ocean temperatures in this region have been quickly returning to near-average conditions over the last several months, increasing by nearly half a degree Celsius since April and over a degree Celsius since last winter’s La Niña peak.
But as we have said, so many, many times: there is more to ENSO than just the surface of the ocean. Putting on our snorkels, let’s dive beneath the surface of the Pacific, where things aren’t as near average but still firmly indicative of an ENSO stuck in neutral. Waters were slightly warmer than average, except for the eastern Pacific where cooler-than-average waters developed near the thermocline—the layer of water that marks the transition between the warmer upper ocean and colder deeper ocean. But overall, nothing to write home about.
To finish off this trilogy of signs about our current ENSO-neutral Pacific, we look to the skies! After all, ENSO is a coupled atmosphere/ocean climate phenomenon. And for the past month, that atmosphere has been pretty darn neutral. Winds at both low and high levels of the atmosphere were pretty normal, and while thunderstorm activity was reduced near the dateline, things were mostly average elsewhere.
There hasn’t been a more boring trilogy since Star Wars episodes 1-3 (yeah…I said it). But then again, that’s expected during neutral ENSO conditions across the Pacific.
The official CPC/IRI ENSO probability forecast, based on a consensus of CPC and IRI forecasters. It is updated during the first half of the month, in association with the official CPC/IRI ENSO Diagnostic Discussion. It is based on observational and predictive information from early in the month and from the previous month. Image from IRI
Where we’re going:
It might seem odd, then, with things seeming so… blah… that a La Niña Watch has been issued. To clarify, a La Niña Watch means conditions are favorable for the development of La Niña within the next six months. So, what’s in the climate model “tea leaves” that has helped scientists feel comfortable enough to start throwing the La Niña label around?
The answer, in part, lies in a strong computer model consensus. While most of the models we look at predict ENSO-neutral to continue to last through fall, many models from the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) favor a transition to La Niña during the fall and into winter. The NMME is incredibly helpful to forecasters in predicting the future state of ENSO, especially when we are past the notorious spring barrier, a time when model accuracy wanes.
Monthly sea surface temperature anomalies (difference from average) in the Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific for 2020-21 (purple line) and all other years starting from first-year La Niña winters since 1950. Climate.gov graph based on ERSSTv5 temperature data.
Where’s the beef?
Is it all that unusual to have two La Niña winters back-to-back? Nope! In fact, of the twelve first-year La Niña events, eight (!) were followed by La Niña the next winter, two by neutral, and two by El Niño. Honestly, with those numbers, it would have been more surprising if we thought neutral conditions would continue all year.
Putting all of those 12 first-year La Niñas together with 2020-2021, it’s evident how much this last year doesn’t stand out. Though, twelve past cases are not a ton to rely on by itself. This La Niña Watch is buoyed by much more than that.
One specific reason why and when any change to ENSO is important is the potential influence on the Atlantic and eastern Pacific hurricane season. As noted on the ENSO Blog in the past, La Niña can help make atmospheric conditions more conducive for tropical cyclones to form the Atlantic, and less conducive in the Eastern Pacific. If 2021 so far is any indicator, it could be an active year: through the beginning of July, five named storms in the Atlantic have already formed, a new record—breaking the previous record set just last year. In August, the Climate Prediction Center will issue an updated hurricane outlook, so stay tuned for more info on that. In the meantime, you can read the outlook from May to see what scientists were thinking two months ago.
FromE&E News (Thomas Frank) via Scientific American:
The extreme dry conditions threaten crops and raise wildfire risks
The western United States is experiencing its worst drought this century, threatening to kill crops, spark wildfires and harm public health as hot and dry conditions are expected to continue this month.
More than 93% of the land in seven Western states is in drought conditions, and nearly 59% of the area is experiencing extreme or exceptional drought—the two worst conditions—according to the latest figures released by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Both figures are the highest this century for the area that covers all of Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and most of Utah.
Before this year, the record for the amount of Western land in extreme or exceptional drought was 43%, set in September 2003.
The conditions have led to fire and fishing restrictions across the West and have prompted wildfire alerts. The National Interagency Fire Center is warning that the intensifying drought across the West is creating significant wildfire risk over the next three months from California to the Northwest and across the northern Plains…
US Drought Monitor map July 6, 2021.
Agriculture Department reports show that several crops, including wheat, sunflowers and barley, are threatened by the extensive drought, which is concentrated in the West but is also affecting areas as far east as the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa…
Although drought conditions have been exacerbated by recent record temperatures in the West, Kluck said the current drought has been developing since the spring of 2020.
Colorado’s Congressional delegation moves legislation to help address climate crisis
The news about the climate crisis is bleak. The summer started with most of the nation gripped by heat waves smashing records across the continent. Once again the hurricane season is off to a historic start with the earliest fifth-named tropical storm. Last year was the worst fire season that the U.S. West has seen in decades, if not hundreds of years, and this year is likely to be at least as bad. Major rivers are drying up.
We are in a climate emergency and western Colorado is square in the cross-hairs. The alarm is sounding: We must act now, in an urgent and unprecedented manner.
he Gunnison Basin is facing a climate emergency, putting our farm and food systems at severe risk. This map shows the warming that has already occurred in this Gunnison watershed since 1895. It is from our upcoming report on climate change in the region and some steps to take to avert worsening harm. Graphic credit: The Washington Post via the Colorado Farm & Food Alliance
Climate action, generally speaking, needs to do three things to reverse a descent into even greater ecological and social calamity. Importantly, we cannot trade one for the other, which is a bait and switch tactic some industry boosters are now pushing. We need an “all of the above” climate plan (to borrow a favored fossil fuel phrase). We cannot get by pretending, as the erstwhile denialists cum begrudging believers ask us to do, that some new fix will allow business to continue as usual. Instead, we must transform our practices and businesses to meet the needs of this moment.
We need to act, across all sectors, to:
Curb climate pollution.
Keep and return carbon in (to) the ground.
Adapt human systems to be climate-smart and restorative.
These necessary goals are both daunting and full of opportunity. They point to big and rapid change. But each also has the potential to inspire all manner of innovative technology, entrepreneurship, and solutions. So we cannot wait to get started. First we must stop adding to the problem.
The carbon dioxide data on Mauna Loa constitute the longest record of direct measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. C. David Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography began measurements in 1958 at the NOAA weather station. NOAA started its own CO2 measurements in May of 1974, and they have run in parallel with those made by Scripps since then. Credit: NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
This year atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have reached toward 420 ppm. Many places are already experiencing heating above the 1.5 degree threshold we are to avoid, as set by international accord. Ice caps, permafrost and glaciers are melting, sea levels rising, biological diversity collapsing: the ecological systems that have long allowed human civilization to flourish are in severe crisis. There is no time to paper over or “both sides” the situation we are in: If we do not act boldly and quickly, our livelihoods, our businesses, and our ability to prosper in the U.S. Southwest are all at severe risk.
The action required is monumental and we should not shy from declaring it as such. And just acknowledging that and reversing course can signal a shift in momentum. But the effort needs to accelerate if we are to avoid even more damaging heating ahead.
We cannot claim to be moving forward if for every small step ahead we continue to take several back. Fortunately in Colorado we do have elected leaders who are at least taking these first steps. So we want to acknowledge these action and encourage more that must follow. And we should stay on guard for back-sliding or double-speak.
Colorado Congressional Leaders Take Action
The Grand Junction Sentinel reported, in a June 23rd article by reporter Dennis Webb that “U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., is again pushing for passage of bills that would boost funding for cleanup of abandoned, or orphaned, oil and gas wells on federal lands and boost the opportunities for public comment when federal oil and gas lease sales are proposed.”
And last week, President Biden signed a law limiting methane pollution from oil and gas on public lands, a bill sponsored by Colorado congresswoman Diana DeGette. CNN reported: “President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed a bill repealing a Trump-era rule that rolled back regulations on methane emissions — a particularly potent greenhouse gas believed to contribute significantly to the climate crisis — from the oil and gas industries. The President described the bill as an “important first step” to cut methane pollution and said it “reflects a return to common sense and commitment to the common good.”
We applaud these steps. But it must be just the start of an “all of the above” approach to climate action if we are to avert worsening catastrophe. And we must make sure that we are not making the problems worse. Our priorities for public lands should be on conservation and restoration. We should limit the further expansion of fossil fuel development.
The first bill introduced by Sen. Bennet would increase bonding and clean-up requirements for oil and gas on public lands. This may seem minor, but is a critically important fix to a badly broken system. Our public lands fossil fuel leasing and development programs have long put the interests of corporations ahead of both the health of the lands and the interests of the public — and the public ends up paying for it, time and again.
The second piece of legislation from Sen. Bennet improves public oversight and community involvement processes around the oil and gas programs. This too is a small, but vitally important, step. It would begin to re-center community concerns–including the need to address the climate crisis– in public lands management. For too long the scales have been tipped toward the oil and gas industry.
That is why the Colorado Farm & Food Alliance recently issued a statement in support of Senator Bennet’s bills which would start to re-balance the scales in favor of the public, toward greater accountability, and in favor of resource protection.
The climate emergency is real and brings grave risk and an urgent need for action. We must move quickly away from fossil fuels. An obvious place to start is with our public lands, which provide so much from water sources, to critical wildlife lands and popular recreation areas. We have an opportunity to to rethink the purpose of these cherished lands and to model the leadership needed to take the climate crisis head on.
Agriculture in the U.S. Southwest is at high risk from the impacts of climate change. EcoFlight photo of the North Fork Valley by the Western Slope Conservation Center.
The International Energy Agency has noted: “A rapid shift away from fossil fuels [is required].
While these three acts, one now law and two others pending, before Congress are just tweaks to the federal land oil and gas program — they add critical side-boards that will limit the expansion and harm of this activity on our National Forests and other public lands. Still, we must do much more, and continue to enact reforms that move us rapidly beyond fossil fuels and curtail the further expansion of this activity on public lands.
“Net zero means huge declines in the use of coal, oil and gas. …[Efforts must] include, from today, no investment in new fossil fuel supply projects….” — The International Energy Agency
Because, if we are serious about responding to the Climate Emergency then it is time we act like it.
Wildfire season is becoming longer and worse across the West as the twin effects of heat and drought but more forests and grasslands at risk. This map from our up-coming report depicts the changing patterns of fire on the Western Slope since 1933.
Brad Udall on twitter yesterday ran through a striking series of graphs of the current state of the Colorado River. With his permission, I’m posting them here along with a slightly polished version of his accompanying commentary. Some key points that grabbed my attention:
Second-lowest Powell inflow in a period of record we use dating to 1964.
Risk of Powell dropping next year to levels that could jeopardize power production.
Risk of Mead dropping low enough in the next 18 months to trigger much deeper “Tier 2” reductions to Lower Basin water users in 2023.
Reclamation’s ‘unregulated inflows’ into Lake Powell show that 2021 will be the 2nd worst year after only 2002 going back to 1964. 2021 will be the RED bar most likely. This is a really grim year for runoff.
Graphic credit: Bureau of Reclamation via Brad Udall
2021 inflow will be only ~3 maf, compared to the 1981-2010 average of 10.3 maf or the 2000-2021 average of 8.3 maf (20% less than 1981-2010 average).(maf = million acrefeet)
Considering that Powell will release or lose to evaporation ~ 8.5 maf, the lake will lose ~ 5 maf this year or ~55 feet of elevation.
April 2021 snowpack above Powell peaked at ~85% of normal but will generate about 25% of normal river flow. This comes on top of April 2020 snowpack of 100% of normal that generated about 50% of normal flow.
Declining runoff efficiency has been noted in multiple peer-reviewed studies. For a recent overview of recent climate change studies on the Colorado River see this written with Jonathan Overpeck:
Jeff Lukas points out that the twitter thread implied that the low runoff efficiency this year as measured by runoff as a percent of snowpack is all due directly to warming. I did not mean to imply that. The low runoff percent numbers are much more a function of (1) very low spring precipitation in both 2020 and 2021 and to a lesser extent (2) low soil moisture from the previous year. It may be that there is a human-caused connection to the low spring precipitation although there’s no real evidence of this yet. Low soil moisture in the springs of 2020 and 2021 is definitely connected to dry and very warm late summer and early fall from the previous years. Teasing this apart to obtain the actual driver(s) is not simple. That said, no one should doubt that climate change is reducing the flows of the Colorado. Multiple peer-reviewed papers have now supported this finding.
Here’s what’s going to happen to the nation’s 2 largest reservoirs because of this measly inflow:
Losses to Mead and Powell. Graphic credit: Brand Udall via InkStain
Note that combined contents will drop below 30% by late next year.
Here’s that decline for all years back to 1935 when Mead first filled. These two reservoirs will hold less water than Mead did alone in many years before 1964 when Powell was built.
Combined storage, Mead and Powell. Graphic credit: Brad Udall via Inkstain
By next April Powell will hit 5.4 maf, ~185 feet below full. See Red dots. This will be the lowest since its initial fill in 1964. Since 1999, Powell will have lost ~18 maf, 75% of its contents.
Graphic credit: Brad Udall via InkStain
At 5.4 maf Powell could be low enough to lose the ability to generate power. (We’re uncertain about how penstocks operate when lake gets low — water in penstocks can not be aerated or turbine damage will occur.)
Loss of power, while not calamitous, is concerning. Power revenues fund environmental compliance and other important items in the basin.
As part of the 2019 agreement, the UB can release flows from reservoirs upstream of Powell to prop it up. But there is only about 5 maf for that all together. It is a one-shot deal.
We’ll have to wait on next winter to understand what happens after April of 2022. But 5.4 maf is very little water in a 25 maf reservoir.
So what about Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir?
Reclamation’s current forecasts show January 1, 2022 elevation at 1065’ feet (8.8 maf) , well below the 1075’ needed to avoid a ‘Tier 1 Shortage’.
Decline of Lake Mead. Graphic credit: Brad Udall via InkStain
If it ends up below 1050’ on Jan 1 (as projected in August 2022), that will lead to a Tier 2 Shortage (total cutbacks of 721 kaf). Otherwise, Mead will face a 2nd year of Tier 1 shortages. Either way, this is not good.
Shared by seven states and Mexico, the Colorado Basin provides about 40 million Americans with a portion of their drinking water and irrigates up to 5.5 million acres.
It is home to endangered species and supports about $1.4 trillion in economic activity.
Because of record-high temperatures and a drying climate, the basin is also dangerously close to being parched: Lake Mead, which is just 36 percent full, is in poor health. So is Lake Powell, located upstream and only 34 percent full.
A complex and arcane water banking program in the lower Colorado River basin, adopted in 2007 and later amended, was designed to incentivize water conservation, prevent waste, and boost storage in a waning Lake Mead.
The program has already proved its worth, lifting Lake Mead dozens of feet higher than it otherwise would have been and nurturing collaboration among states that will need to work together to surmount daunting challenges of water availability. In the next two years, the program will be tested in another way, becoming a small but important source of water for Arizona and California even as the lake continues to fall to levels that haven’t been witnessed in several generations.
Water managers in the basin view the program, called intentionally created surplus or ICS, as a flexible tool for adapting to a drying climate. It is a tool that they will soon call upon. Bill Hasencamp from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a large regional wholesaler, told Circle of Blue that the district intends to draw between 100,000 and 150,000 acre-feet from its savings this year.
Arizona officials, meanwhile, plan to use 69,100 acre-feet of ICS credits to reduce mandatory cutbacks that will be required in 2022 if Mead declines as projected. The state already used this maneuver to deal with a cutback last year, albeit in a smaller amount. Instead of taking a big cut in one year, ICS allows Arizona to “smooth the reduction,” as Chuck Cullom of the Central Arizona Project put it. CAP delivers the bulk of Arizona’s Colorado River allocation and is first in line in the state when cutbacks are required.
These amounts are small but significant, especially in these times…
At the same time that water users plan to tap their savings, scholars in the basin are calling for more analysis of the ICS program, especially as Lake Mead’s decline accelerates. They would like to check how the system responds to ICS use under a range of water supply scenarios.
Ever since the late-2000s, the last time that water supplies in Colorado River reservoirs reached critically low levels, the biggest water users in Arizona, California, and Nevada have been stashing water in Lake Mead, in preparation for another emergency to come — and in an attempt to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the region’s water storage system.
With the federal government now projecting that Lake Mead will drop precipitously in the next two years — perhaps to levels not seen since the Great Depression, when the country’s largest reservoir was first filled — that emergency has arrived.
“While Colorado River water users have invested billions of dollars to reduce consumption and increase resiliency, the situation we face today is real and urgent,” John Entsminger, the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said at a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing on May 25…
Brad Udall: Here’s the latest version of my 4-Panel plot thru Water Year (Oct-Sep) of 2019 of the #coriver big reservoirs, natural flows, precipitation, and temperature. Data goes back or 1906 (or 1935 for reservoirs.) This updates previous work with @GreatLakesPeck
Arizona, California, and Nevada, which together form the lower basin, rely on water from Lake Mead, whose fluctuations have become a barometer for water stress in the American Southwest. As stress increased in the last two decades, water managers have responded. They have been willing to process new information about the changing hydrology and rewrite the rules by which they operate, constraining themselves so as to dodge the worst outcomes. ICS, to this date, has functioned the same way. But difficult situations are likely to soon arise.
“[ICS] has enabled more opportunity to be a part of this puzzle of how to make things work so that we avoid deep shortages that have harsher implications to water users,” Sharon Megdal, director of the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center, told Circle of Blue. “I think it’s been a very good tool. But like anything else it’s with uncertainty.”
Creating Surplus
ICS was conceived during negotiations between the seven states that led to a milestone agreement in 2007 that transformed how the basin operates. At the time, Lake Powell had experienced the driest five-year period in the region in a century and there were unresolved questions about delivering water under such conditions. The 2007 Interim Guidelines, which expire at the end of 2025, were a landmark document that secured three substantial changes.
First, the guidelines developed a formula for determining how much water is released from Lake Powell into Lake Mead. The releases are designed to keep the reservoirs roughly in balance.
The guidelines also set Lake Mead elevations at which lower basin states would be required to reduce their withdrawals. The first of these shortage tiers — at 1,075 feet above sea level — is expected to be breached next year. (Mead is currently at 1,073 feet, but for shortage determinations, it is the projected level in the following January that matters. Right now that projection is 1,066 feet.)
The third change was establishing intentionally created surplus, or ICS. The program allows big water users in the lower basin to open a savings account in the lake. To bank water in their account, they must take an action that reduces water consumption. That banked water is credited to the user that created it. ICS is not conservation in the household sense of simply using less. It is not taking a shorter shower or only watering the lawn once a week. ICS is instead more comparable to a personal savings account. Water banked now becomes an asset that can be withdrawn later, subject to certain conditions.
The program was championed initially by the Metropolitan Water District of South California. Known as Met, the district is the largest urban water wholesaler in the state, providing water to 19 million people in six counties including Los Angeles and San Diego. Met wanted a way to take advantage of its right to store “surplus” water in Lake Mead, a right it secured in 1931 when it agreed to be cut off from Colorado River supplies before the state’s irrigation districts were. Met needed the flexibility of extra Lake Mead storage for two reasons: a court decision limited California’s use of Colorado River starting in 2003 and its supply from reservoirs in northern California’s Sierra Nevada mountains is quite variable. In dry years in the Sierra, like this year when deliveries from the State Water Project canals are low, Met draws more water from the Colorado River. It is one of the many ways that human use connects watersheds of the American West that are physically separated by hundreds of miles.
With a bit of linguistic maneuvering, the rules were written so that agencies like Met could create “surplus” by investing in conservation. Say, for example, that Met paid to line a canal with concrete so water would not seep into the soil, or paid farmers to fallow their fields. The Bureau of Reclamation, playing the oversight role in the lower basin, checks that the lining kept water in the canal and the alfalfa fields were not irrigated. That amount of water — the difference between what would have been delivered without the intervention and what was actually delivered — would then be credited to Met in the form of ICS, minus a small percentage that is the lake’s share.
A few years later these rules were altered to bring Mexico into the program. U.S. entities can pay a counterpart in Mexico for conservation and reap the ICS asset. The rules were changed again in 2019, in an agreement called the Drought Contingency Plan, or DCP, that welcomed certain tribal nations into the fold. Banked water is now subjected to a one-time tax of 10 percent, a cut that is credited to the storage system as a whole.
Aerial photo – Central Arizona Project. The Central Arizona Project is a massive infrastructural project that conveys water from the Colorado River to central and southern Arizona, and is central to many of the innovative partnerships and exchanges that the Gila River Indian Community has set up. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=326265
Only six entities have created ICS, according to Jeremy Dodds, who is responsible for ICS accounting and verification at the Bureau of Reclamation. Those six are some of the largest water users in the basin: Met, Gila River Indian Community, Colorado River Indian Tribes, Southern Nevada Water Authority, Imperial Irrigation District, and the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, which manages CAP. Within the four categories of ICS, there are limits on the ICS each water user can create, the amount they can take out in a year, and the total amount stored.
There have been far more ICS deposits than withdrawals. Dodds said that about 3.7 million acre-feet of ICS have been created since 2007, but water users have withdrawn only about 550,000 acre-feet. Taking into account the system cuts, the Bureau of Reclamation counts just over 2.8 million acre-feet of ICS in Mead today. About half belongs to Met.
Met has been responsible for nearly all withdrawals, taking out a combined 485,000 acre-feet in 2013, 2014, and 2015 when California was clutched by a severe drought and water deliveries from the State Water Project bottomed out in 2014 at 5 percent of contracted amounts.
When it is withdrawn, ICS is additional to a state’s typical allocation of Colorado River water. That means California can exceed its annual 4.4 million acre-feet allocation when Met draws on ICS.
Bill Hasencamp, who is Met’s manager of Colorado River resources, said that his district’s ICS account is like a yo-yo that goes up and down, depending on water supply conditions elsewhere in California…
ICS serves another purpose, too. Lower basin states can use ICS to cover part of their mandatory cutbacks under the Drought Contingency Plan. In effect, states have “pre-paid” some of their shortage obligations. Arizona leaned on that mechanism in 2020, when it contributed 47,434 in ICS credits to a required 192,000 acre-feet reduction.
That doesn’t mean the rights to the water are lost, though. ICS that pays down a shortage obligation, through the basin’s accounting alchemy, becomes DCP ICS. This is a special category can be withdrawn through the year 2057, but only once Lake Mead rises above 1,110 feet.
Quest for Certainty in an Uncertain System
To this point, basin managers and federal officials are extremely satisfied with ICS. It is a “landmark success,” according to Colby Pellegrino, deputy general manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Cullom of the Central Arizona Project said that the program has led to “deeper collaboration among water users interstate and intrastate and even internationally.” Elizabeth Klein, senior counselor to the secretary of the Interior and the department’s drought response coordinator, praised the ICS program during a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing on May 25. “This demonstrates the extraordinary importance of taking proactive, cooperative measures to protect limited water supplies,” Klein said.
But as Lake Mead declines, there are scenarios that will test the system of checks and balances.
One uncertainty that has been partially resolved is the risk of unintended consequences. The 2007 Interim Guidelines said that ICS was not allowed to be withdrawn during shortage situations, when Mead is below 1,075 feet. There was fear several years ago that there would be a run on the bank as the lake approached that level. Met would draw down its credits, storing the water elsewhere and leading the reservoir to crash.
That scenario did not happen, due in part to the DCP. That agreement allows ICS to be withdrawn until Mead reaches 1,025 feet. California, in exchange for the ability to take water out at lower lake levels, agreed for the first time to cutbacks in its Colorado River allocation, which constrains its ability to withdraw ICS as the lake declines. Below elevation 1,045, for every five feet that Mead declines, California’s cutbacks increase, thus diminishing its capacity to withdraw ICS.
These are some of the checks and balances written into the system, Pellegrino explained. The compromise on when ICS could be withdrawn provided more certainty, she said, but it also delayed a reckoning with the key question: whether there is a point at which ICS becomes stranded, even temporarily. The DCP contains a clause that the states will discuss “additional measures” if Lake Mead is projected to fall below 1,030 feet.
Hasencamp offered another consideration: the size of the ICS accounts relative to the amount of water in Lake Mead. Right now about 30 percent of the water in the reservoir is ICS. What happens if that figure reaches 40 percent or 50 percent? Is there a limit?
[…]
The false sense of security is what irks Brad Udall about ICS. Udall is a water and climate scientist at Colorado State University who says that ICS has laudable intentions: preventing water waste and increasing water levels in Mead. Higher reservoir levels help lakeside marinas stay in business and maintain the valuable hydropower generated by Hoover Dam. But Udall also believes that discussing Lake Mead water storage without being explicit about how much is set aside as ICS amounts to a “double counting” of supplies, combining the private ICS accounts with the public pool of water.
Udall would prefer a more rigorous examination of the implications of ICS use, especially given that the credits can be used to reduce shortage requirements. But he could not recall any academic study that modeled potential outcomes. One such study, however, is on the horizon.
Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said that she plans to start work this year on an assessment of how ICS use would impact water availability in Arizona. A full analysis will take 18 months to two years, she said. But preliminary results could be available in six months or so.
“We have to look at a range of scenarios so we can look at a range of responses,” Porter told Circle of Blue.
The water supply scenarios are indeed daunting. By April 2022, the Bureau of Reclamation projects that Mead will drop to 1,063 feet, or 33 percent of its capacity. A year after that, in April 2023, the forecast is that Mead will sit at 1,047 feet. At that elevation, the reservoir would be just over 28 percent full.
All of these issues should be on the table soon. The basin states are set to begin negotiations over what will replace the 2007 interim guidelines, which expire on December 31, 2025. A big question — maybe the biggest — is how to permanently reduce reliance on the river so that water withdrawals are more in line with the drying hydrology.
A high desert thunderstorm lights up the sky behind Glen Canyon Dam — Photo USBR
Hoover Dam photo via the US Bureau of Reclamation
Here’s the release from the Bureau of Reclamation:
As one element of the ongoing implementation of the 2019 Drought Contingency Plans for the Colorado River Basin, the Bureau of Reclamation today released additional 5-year projections on the Colorado River System based on June 2021 conditions.
Five-year projections are typically modeled in January, April and August of each year. The additional June projections will inform the ongoing drought operations planning efforts at key Reclamation reservoirs in the Upper Colorado River Basin. These efforts are ongoing among Reclamation and the Colorado River Basin states under the Upper Basin Drought Response Operations Agreement.
“The June 5-year projections for the Colorado River System reaffirm this is a serious situation,” said Wayne Pullan, Upper Colorado Basin Regional Director. “We are actively engaged with the Colorado River Basin states and other partners to respond to changing conditions to avoid critical elevations at Lake Powell.”
Projections for anticipated runoff in the Upper Colorado Basin have declined over the course of the spring. Using information based on recent hydrology (since 1988 and known as the Stress Test Hydrology), Reclamation notes several key findings for Lake Powell in the June 5-year projections:
A 79% chance that Lake Powell will fall below its target water-surface elevation of 3,525 feet sometime next year.
Lake Powell’s target water-surface elevation of 3,525 feet provides a 35 vertical-foot buffer designed to minimize the risk of dropping below the minimum power pool elevation of 3,490 feet, and balances the need to protect the infrastructure at Glen Canyon Dam and to meet current operational obligations to the Lower Colorado River Division states of Arizona, California, and Nevada.
Beyond 2022, Lake Powell’s chances of falling to critical levels also increased.
There is a 5% chance that Lake Powell will fall below minimum power pool elevation of 3,490 feet in 2023 and 17% in 2024.
In the Lower Basin, the updated projections for Lake Mead continue to affirm the high likelihood of a first-ever shortage condition in the Lower Basin in calendar year 2022. Consistent with the 2007 Interim Guidelines, if Lake Mead’s end-of-calendar-year elevation is projected to be at or below 1,075 feet, Lake Mead would operate in a shortage condition in the upcoming year. The prescribed shortage reductions for Arizona and Nevada would also be coupled with water savings contributions under the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan. Mexico would reduce their allotment and make water savings contributions under Minute 323 to the 1944 U.S. Mexico Water Treaty. Consistent with the 2007 Interim Guidelines, the 2019 DCP and Minute 323, operational decisions for 2022 will be made by Reclamation in August 2021.
Reclamation is also concerned with the longer-term projections, which show a higher likelihood of Lake Mead declining to the critical elevations of 1,025 and 1,000 feet by 2025. Based on the June update, the chance of this occurring by 2025 is 58% and 21%, respectively.
Reclamation provides projections using two future hydrology scenarios: The Stress Test Hydrology based on the last 32 years, and the Full Hydrology based on the last 114 years. The Stress Test Hydrology provides more plausible near-term outlooks because it embeds the recent warming trend and current drought period. It is about 11% lower on average compared to the Full Hydrology.
Assumptions about drought operations are included in these projections; drought response operation plans to protect Lake Powell are being developed by Reclamation and the Upper Division states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Pursuant to the provisions of the Drought Response Operations Agreement and the Companion Agreement, Reclamation will consult with the Lower Division states before finalizing drought response operation plans. If actual hydrology demonstrates an imminent need to protect the elevation at Lake Powell, the Secretary retains all applicable authority to adjust releases from the upstream initial units of the Colorado River Storage Project Act (Flaming Gorge, Navajo, and Blue Mesa reservoirs) before those operating plans can be finalized.
Reclamation and the Colorado Basin states continue to closely monitor conditions to be prepared to meet the goals of the DROA in the months and years ahead.
A key component of Reclamation’s Colorado River Basin activities is the integration of sophisticated modeling tools and scientific research to inform water management decisions. Through a decades-long partnership with the Center for Advanced Decision Support for Water and Environmental Systems at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Reclamation hydrologic engineers and hydrologists are actively collaborating with climate, hydrology and decision support scientists to provide advanced modeling tools. Their work is helping Reclamation link advances in science to water resource management decisions in the face of greater uncertainty and increased hydrologic and operational risks.
Reclamation’s modeling and operations teams further refine these tools, such as the 24-Month studies, to make annual operational determinations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead through close coordination with water and power customers throughout the basin.
Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Monitor website.
US Drought Monitor map July 6, 2021.
West Drought Monitor map July 6, 2021.
High Plains Drought Monitor map July 6, 2021.
Colorado Drought Monitor map July 6, 2021.
Click here to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:
This Week’s Drought Summary
Another week of hot, dry weather in the Pacific Northwest, Northern Rockies, Northern Plains, and Upper Midwest led to the expansion of drought conditions. Meanwhile, monsoon thunderstorms brought wet weather to eastern New Mexico and West Texas resulted in large one-category improvements. Showers and thunderstorms associated with a slowly moving cold front helped improve conditions in the Great Lakes region and eastern U.S. Drought expanded in parts of the Mid-Atlantic that missed out on the heaviest rain…
Another hot, dry week across the northern tier of the region, coupled with isolated showers, brought a mix of degradations and improvements. Drought expanded in parts of Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska that missed out on the heaviest rainfall. Soils remain dry with USDA reporting that 92% of South Dakota and 76% of North Dakota’s topsoil moisture is short to very short, leading to limited hay production and stunted crop growth. Land enrolled in the Conservation Program has been opened to haying and grazing in some areas and producers are needing to monitor toxicity levels in hay and water supplies. Drought conditions improved in parts of Wyoming and eastern Nebraska, as showers over the last two weeks helped erase rainfall deficits, improve streamflow, and replenish soil moisture. In North Dakota, rainfall is finally helping to chip away at the long-term drought that has plagued the state since fall of 2020…
Another week of hot, dry weather once again led to worsening drought conditions across the Northwest. Temperatures as high as 17 degrees above normal set more high temperature records across the region. The excess heat continued to increase evaporative demand, dry out soils and vegetation, and strain water resources. Many areas in the Northwest saw degradations and pacts across the region continue to build. In Oregon, where drought intensified and expanded across severe drought (D2) to exceptional drought (D4) levels, soil moisture, streamflow, and the SPEI (a drought monitoring indicator that includes the effects of precipitation and temperature) show conditions are among the driest going back to 1895. Dryland agriculture is suffering and fire risk has escalated. In Washington, abnormal dryness (D0) and moderate drought (D1) expanded. With nearly all of the state experiencing dryness or drought, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA NASS) reports as of July 4 that 84% of the state’s topsoil moisture is short to very short, significantly impacting forage production. The data show that the state’s rangeland and pasture conditions are far worse this year when compared to all other years this century. In Idaho, which saw expansions in D1-D3 drought categories, the state drought monitoring team noted that the Big Lost River is almost out of storage and priority water use is limited to early 1884 priorities. The team also reported significant agricultural impacts to the state, including crop loss, a lack of forage, and animal deaths. Montana, which saw D1-D4 expansion, recorded less than 25% of normal precipitation in June, which is historically the highest precipitation month. Impacts include diminished forage production and infestations of grasshoppers. Much of the Southwest remained unchanged this week. Where precipitation fell, such as in Arizona, it generally wasn’t enough to improve impacts. In places where it didn’t, conditions already are at D4 or don’t yet warrant additional degradations. The only exception was eastern New Mexico, where heavy rains (about 3 to 8 inches) over the past six to 10 days began to make a dent in the long-term drought, while also contributing to flash floods in the area. According to the Albuquerque National Weather Service, water levels at Santa Rosa Lake have risen over a foot since July 1…
Substantial rain fell across much of the South again this week, leading to large areas of one-category improvements to remaining drought areas in Texas and Oklahoma, where rainfall deficits, soil moisture, and streamflow improved. A two-category improvement was made in far West Texas near El Paso, where more rainfall has been recorded in the last nine days than in the prior 15 months…
Looking Ahead
The National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center forecast for the remainder of the week (July 8 -13) shows tropical storm conditions and rainfall from Elsa will continue across parts of Florida and into the Southeast. Other areas expecting excessive rainfall include the Texas coast, Midwest, and Northeast. In the West, the hot weather will continue with daytime highs well into the 90s and lower 100s. Moving into next week, the Climate Prediction Center six-to-10 day outlook (valid July 13-17) favors above normal temperatures across much of Alaska, the West, northern Plains and Northeast. Below normal temperatures are most likely across the Southern Plains. Below normal precipitation is expected across Alaska, the Northwest, Northern Plains, and Florida while above normal precipitation is favored along a band stretching from the Southwest, across the Midwest, and into the Northeast.
US Drought Monitor one week change map ending July 6, 2021.
Just for grins here are early July US Drought Monitor maps for the past few years.
From RiversEdge West via The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel:
Tamarisk trees, those green bushy plants seen along waterways, have been turning brown across the county thanks to a special beetle used to control the invasive species.
Ben Bloodworth, Tamarisk Beetle Program coordinator with RiversEdge West, sent out a note Monday responding to social media posts from local people wondering why they were seeing so many browning tamarisk plants.
“These are tamarisk trees, or salt cedars, and the phenomenon is currently so pervasive here in the valley that folks are starting to wonder about it on social media,” Bloodworth said. “So, before you blame anyone for over-spraying, or the hot, dry air of June, let’s chat about the millions of little beetles that live in the valley with us.”
According to Bloodworth, tamarisk, which is native to Asia and the Mediterranean, became such an environmental and economic problem in the western United States that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) decided to research and release a biological control agent to address the issue.
“Biocontrols are natural ‘predators’ that feed on plants in their native ranges but are not found in the U.S.,” Bloodworth said. “In 1987 the USDA began a program to find natural enemies of tamarisk and see if they could live and feed on tamarisk in North America without feeding on anything else.”
Out of hundreds of candidate species, the tamarisk beetle was found to be the most successful. It was found to only feed on tamarisk and not any other species of plants. So the USDA began releasing it, including in Moab, Utah, in 2001. From there the beetle spread up the Colorado River to Mesa County.
“Since tamarisk beetles survive on tamarisk as their only food source, they were never intended to eliminate the invasive plant,” Bloodworth said. “Rather, they were released to help control the spread of the plant and reduce the amount that land managers must remove by other, more costly means.”
The small green beetles, when there is a large enough population, can defoliate a large amount of tamarisk in just a few weeks. Left behind are the orangish brown remains of the formerly green tamarisk.
“The populations ebb and flow with available tamarisk and some years we have almost no tamarisk beetles anywhere,” Bloodworth said. “As you may have noticed by all the brown tamarisk, this is not one of those years!”
Counterintuitively the brown, dead tamarisk is actually less of a fire danger than the green plant, Bloodworth said. It may initially, for a few weeks, be more susceptible to catching fire, but once it has dropped its leaves it is actually less of a fire risk, according to Bloodworth.
“The brown trees may not be pretty, but they do provide for opportunities to restore native vegetation alongside our rivers,” Bloodworth said.
2014 Tamarisk leaf beetle distribution map via the Tamarisk Coalition
This summer, a historic drought and its consequences are tearing communities apart and attracting outside attention to a water crisis years in the making. Competition over Klamath River water has always been intense, but now there is simply not enough, and all the stakeholders are suffering.
“Everybody depends on the water in the Klamath River for their livelihood. That’s the blood that ties us all together,” [Ben] DuVal said of the competing interests. “Nobody’s coming out ahead this year. Nobody’s winning.”
Those living the nightmare worry the extreme drought is a harbinger of global warming.
“The system is crashing … for people up and down the Klamath Basin,” said Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, which is monitoring a massive fish kill on the river. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Twenty years ago, when water feeding the irrigation system was drastically reduced amid another drought, the crisis became a national rallying cry for the political right, and some protesters opened the main irrigation canal in violation of federal orders.
This time, many irrigators reject the presence of anti-government activists. Farmers who need federal assistance to stay afloat fear ties to the far right could hurt them.
Meanwhile, toxic algae is blooming in the basin’s main lake, and two national wildlife refuges critical to migratory birds are drying out. The conditions have exacerbated a water conflict that began more than a century ago.
Beginning in 1906, the federal government reengineered a complex system of lakes, wetlands and rivers in the 10 million-acre Klamath River Basin to create tens of thousands of acres of irrigated farmland.
The Klamath Reclamation Project draws its water from the 96-square-mile Upper Klamath Lake. But the lake is also home to suckerfish central to the Klamath Tribes’ culture and creation stories.
In 1988, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed two species of sucker fish as endangered. The federal government must keep the lake at a minimum depth to support the fish — but this year, amid exceptional drought, there was not enough water to do that and supply irrigators.
“Agriculture should be based on what’s sustainable. There’s too many people after too little water,” said Don Gentry, the Klamath Tribes chairman.
With the Klamath Tribes enforcing their senior water rights to help suckerfish, there is also no extra water for downriver salmon.
The Karuk Tribe last month declared a state of emergency, citing climate change and the worst hydrologic conditions in the Klamath River Basin in modern history. Karuk tribal citizen Aaron Troy Hockaday Sr. is a fourth-generation fisherman but says he hasn’t caught a fish in the river since the mid-1990s…
In most years, the tribes 200 miles to the southwest of the farmers, where the river reaches the ocean, ask the Bureau of Reclamation to release pulses of extra water from Upper Klamath Lake. The extra water mitigates outbreaks of a parasitic disease that proliferates when the river is low.
This year, the federal agency refused those requests.
Now, the parasite is killing thousands of juvenile salmon in the lower Klamath River, where the Karuk and Yurok tribes have coexisted with them for millennia. An average of 63 percent of fish caught last month in research traps near the river’s mouth were dead…
Near the river’s source, some of the farmers who are seeing their lives upended by the same drought say a guarantee of less water — but some water — each year would be better than the parched fields they have now. Some worry problems in the basin are being blamed on a way of life they also inherited.
Photo credit: Elisa Stone via the World Weather Attribution
Here’s the release from the World Weather Attribution:
During the last days of June 2021, Pacific northwest areas of the U.S. and Canada experienced temperatures never previously observed, with records broken in many places by several degrees Celsius.
Multiple cities in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington and the western provinces of Canada recorded temperatures far above 40ºC (104 ºF), including setting a new all-time Canadian temperature record of 49.6ºC in the village of Lytton. Shortly after setting the record, Lytton was largely destroyed in a wildfire [1,2]. The exceptionally high temperatures led to spikes in sudden deaths, and sharp increases in hospital visits for heat-related illnesses and emergency calls [3,4,5]. Heatwaves are one of the deadliest natural hazards and this heatwave affected a population unaccustomed and unprepared for such extreme temperatures, for instance with most homes lacking air-conditioning [6]. Currently available mortality estimates of at least several hundred additional deaths are almost certainly an underestimate. The full extent of the impact of this exceptional heat on population health will not be known for several months.
Scientists from the US, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Switzerland collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change made this heatwave hotter and more likely.
Using published peer-reviewed methods, we analysed how human-induced climate change affected the maximum temperatures in the region where most people have been affected by the heat (45–52 ºN, 119–123 ºW) including the cities of Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver (with well over 9 million people in their combined metropolitan areas).
Fiure 1: Station data anomalies of the 2021 event relative to the mean of the highest daily maximum temperature of the year in the time series. Note that some stations do not have data up to the peak of the heatwave yet and hence underestimate the event. Negative values certainly do not include the heatwave and have therefore been deleted. The black box shows the study region. Source: GHCN-D downloaded 4 July 2021.
Main findings
Based on observations and modeling, the occurrence of a heatwave with maximum daily temperatures (TXx) as observed in the area 45–52 ºN, 119–123 ºW, was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.
The observed temperatures were so extreme that they lie far outside the range of historically observed temperatures. This makes it hard to quantify with confidence how rare the event was. In the most realistic statistical analysis the event is estimated to be about a 1 in 1000 year event in today’s climate.
There are two possible sources of this extreme jump in peak temperatures. The first is that this is a very low probability event, even in the current climate which already includes about 1.2°C of global warming — the statistical equivalent of really bad luck, albeit aggravated by climate change. The second option is that nonlinear interactions in the climate have substantially increased the probability of such extreme heat, much beyond the gradual increase in heat extremes that has been observed up to now. We need to investigate the second possibility further, although we note the climate models do not show it. All numbers below assume that the heatwave was a very low probability event that was not caused by new nonlinearities.
With this assumption and combining the results from the analysis of climate models and weather observations, an event, defined as daily maximum temperatures (TXx) in the heatwave region, as rare as 1 in a 1000 years would have been at least 150 times rarer without human-induced climate change.
Also, this heatwave was about 2°C hotter than it would have been if it had occurred at the beginning of the industrial revolution (when global mean temperatures were 1.2°C cooler than today).
Looking into the future, in a world with 2°C of global warming (0.8°C warmer than today which at current emission levels would be reached as early as the 2040s), this event would have been another degree hotter. An event like this – currently estimated to occur only once every 1000 years, would occur roughly every 5 to 10 years in that future world with 2°C of global warming.
In summary, an event such as the Pacific Northwest 2021 heatwave is still rare or extremely rare in today’s climate, yet would be virtually impossible without human-caused climate change. As warming continues, it will become a lot less rare.
Our results provide a strong warning: our rapidly warming climate is bringing us into uncharted territory that has significant consequences for health, well-being, and livelihoods. Adaptation and mitigation are urgently needed to prepare societies for a very different future. Adaptation measures need to be much more ambitious and take account of the rising risk of heatwaves around the world, including surprises such as this unexpected extreme. Deaths from extreme heat can be dramatically reduced with adequate preparedness action. Heat action plans that incorporate heatwave early warning systems can strengthen the resilience of cities and people. In addition, longer-term plans are needed to modify our built environments to be more adequate for the hotter climate that we already experience today and the additional warming that we expect in future. In addition, greenhouse gas mitigation goals should take into account the increasing risks associated with unprecedented climate conditions if warming would be allowed to continue.
High-pressure circulation in the atmosphere acts like a dome or cap, trapping heat at the surface and favoring the formation of a heat wave. Graphic credit: NOAA
Background information
The heatwave considered in this study is linked to a slow-moving strong high pressure system, sometimes called Omega-blocking or “heat dome”, which brings descending and thus warm and dry air, as well clear skies, further heating the near-surface air. This high pressure system also reached record levels in terms of its strength, measured as the “thickness” of the lower part of the atmosphere, the so-called troposphere. The pressure values observed in the very strong blocking anticyclone are comparable to those observed in other parts of the world in recent heatwaves. The “Omega” blocking pattern is typically associated with heatwaves in this region. While the pressure system was record-breaking in its values, it was far less unusual compared to climatology than the associated extreme temperatures. Recent research suggests that climate change increases the chances for such stagnant high pressure systems in summer through weakening of the summer jet stream. As of yet, it is unclear if, and to what extent, such long-term dynamical changes play a role in this event.
An important feature of this extreme heatwave is that it occurred following a very dry spring over the Western U.S., so the absence of evaporative cooling could be an important factor in the exceptional temperatures observed. However, the northern part of the region impacted by this heatwave experienced wet anomalies in the weeks and months preceding the heat. Anticyclonic subsidence, and downslope winds were also present, and probably acted as additional heating factors. Overall, it is difficult at this stage to assess the extent to which these factors either in isolation or combined provide a good explanation of why the observed temperatures were so much higher than anything ever recorded in this part of the world. Hence, more research is needed to understand the processes as well as potential influence of human-caused climate change on them.
Here we provide a first estimate of the role of climate change on the extreme temperatures measured in the Pacific Northwest. We analyse the maximum daily temperatures as these are relevant to the impact of the event. While the minimum temperatures are also important for health impacts, we used only one index to keep the assessment straightforward. In this rapid study, we do not analyse the impact that human-caused climate change may have on specific aspects leading to the observed synoptic situation. We ask whether and to what extent human-caused climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the analysed event. Specifically we analyse (1) how the likelihood of the yearly maximum temperature to be as high or higher than observed in June 2021 has changed and (2) how much less severe a heatwave with the same return period would have been in a world without human-caused climate change. It is important to highlight that, because the temperature records of June 2021 were very far outside all historical observations, determining the likelihood of this event in today’s climate is highly uncertain. All numbers shown assume that the heatwave was a very low probability event (about 1 in 1000 years) that was not caused by new nonlinearities. As in previous analyses, we only give a lower bound of the estimate of the influence of climate change on the change in probability of the event as the best estimate and upper bound are very ill-defined for extreme heat.
Based on this first rapid analysis, we cannot say whether this was a so-called “freak” event (with a return time on the order of 1 in 1000 years or more) that largely occurred by chance, or whether our changing climate altered conditions conducive to heatwaves in the Pacific Northwest, which would imply that “bad luck” played a smaller role and this type of event would be more frequent in our current climate.
In either case, the future will be characterized by more frequent, more severe, and longer heatwaves, highlighting the importance of significantly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the amount of additional warming.
The latest heat-related death numbers are alarming, yet they are likely a severe undercount and the real toll will only become clear after mortality statistics are reviewed for the role of heat in exacerbating underlying conditions.
References
[1] World Meterological Organization: June ends with exceptional heat
[2] Global News: Scenes of destruction after wildfire destroys village of Lytton, B.C.
[3] Vancouver Sun: Heat wave linked to massive spike in sudden deaths across Lower Mainland
[4] Oregon Health Authority: Summer 2021 Oregon ESSENCE Hazard Report
[5] CNN: Historic Northwest heat wave linked to dozens of deaths and hundreds of emergency room visits
[6] New York Times: Air-Conditioning Was Once Taboo in Seattle. Not Anymore.
Here’s the release from Colorado Parks & Wildlife (Travis Duncan):
Due to extremely low flows and warm water temperatures, Colorado Parks and Wildlife is asking anglers to voluntarily avoid fishing on the Colorado River between Kremmling and Rifle.
Effective Wednesday, July 7, CPW is placing a full-day voluntary fishing closure on the Colorado River beginning at the Highway 9 bridge in Kremmling downstream to the Highway 13 bridge in Rifle. The voluntary closure will remain in effect until further notice, with a possibility of a mandatory emergency closure to all fishing if conditions worsen.
“We know that anglers care deeply about this fishery,” said CPW Aquatic Biologist Lori Martin. “We need their help to conserve this resource.”
Because of the ongoing drought, flows are down in the river. The USGS gauge on the Colorado River at Catamount Bridge typically measures between 1,500 and 2,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). The gauge has been measuring 600 – 700 cfs, about half what is historically expected there. The USGS gauge on the Colorado River near Dotsero is running at 1,250 cfs, down from an expected 3,000 – 4,000 cfs.
CPW’s aquatic biologists on the West Slope are concerned about critically high water temperatures and possible low dissolved oxygen. Some fish mortality has already been observed this summer. In addition to these issues, another factor unique to this year has been multiple mudslides and flash flood events resulting from last year’s fires. This has increased the sediment load in some river sections.
“With the high sediment load, the fish can’t find clear water,” said CPW Aquatic Biologist Kendall Bakich “They’ve got to sit through those conditions. And at nighttime, the temp isn’t coming down enough, so there’s no recovery for those fish right now. They’ve just got to hang on.”
These conditions aren’t just limited to the Colorado River.
“We’re likely looking at moving into a voluntary fishing closure on the Yampa River from the upstream boundary of the Chuck Lewis State Wildlife Area downstream to the west city limits of the town of Steamboat Springs,” said CPW Aquatic Biologist Bill Atkinson. “Water temps surpassed 75 degrees on Tuesday, so if it hits 75 degrees on Wednesday, the closure will be implemented.”
Biologists are also closely monitoring the Fraser and upper Colorado Rivers in Grand County, another area where temperatures are edging toward dangerous levels for trout.
Anglers should be aware that most of the major rivers on Colorado’s Western Slope are experiencing adverse conditions heading into the hottest days of summer. Follow the Leave No Trace Principle to “Know Before You Go” to the West Slope this summer and check out conditions related to mandatory and voluntary fishing closures: https://cpw.state.co.us/thingstodo/Pages/StatewideFishingConditions.aspx
Tips for anglers
CPW is encouraging trout anglers to consider fishing early in the day and in higher altitude lakes and streams as hot, dry conditions and reduced water levels increase stress to trout populations.
Heat, drought, and low water levels are contributing to elevated water temperatures in much of Colorado, depleting oxygen levels and leaving trout vulnerable. Trout are cold-water fish that function best in 50-60 degree waters. When temperatures exceed 70 degrees, they often stop feeding and become more susceptible to disease. Warm temperature and low water levels can also lead to algae blooms in rivers and reservoirs which cause oxygen levels to drop when algae die and decompose.
Anglers are asked to carefully consider the water and weather conditions when they go fishing for trout. If water seems too warm or fish appear lethargic, it would be best to leave the fish undisturbed. During mid-summer, try to fish early in the morning when the water is coolest.
“Get out early to avoid the higher water temperatures commonly seen in the afternoon and evening,” Martin said. “Anglers are also encouraged to seek out high-elevation trout lakes and streams, where water temperatures are more suitable and fishing doesn’t potentially add additional stress.”
Martin also urged anglers to add a hand-held thermometer to their fishing kits so they can test the waters they intend to fish.
“Anglers should monitor water temperatures and stop fishing when water temperatures start to approach 70 degrees,” she said. “If trout have difficulty recovering after being caught and are acting lethargic, it’s a good decision to call it quits for the day.”
Other suggestions include using heavier tippet and line to quickly reel in and release the fish, always wetting your hands before handling a fish, and to keep the fish submerged while unhooking and releasing it. Avoid taking the fish out of the water even for a quick photo in these conditions.
Dr. John Allen is an Assistant Professor of Meteorology in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Central Michigan University. Dr. Allen’s research focuses characterizing severe convective storms globally, and how these events that produce hailstorms and tornadoes are linked to climate change and variability from subseasonal to seasonal scales. In 2015 he and colleagues at Columbia developed an experimental seasonal tornado outlook, and he was a founding member of the experimental subseasonal Extended Range Tornado Activity Forecast group.
La Niña’s influence is linked to a higher frequency of tornadoes in the spring. However, although La Niña conditions were present through April, 2021, the year so far has recorded below-average tornado counts. Now that we are through the peak of the season, discussion among forecasters has turned toward deliberating over the low tornado frequency in what many predicted to be an active season (1).
What happened?
Photo by John Allen via NOAA.
To begin to address what happened in 2021, we need to go back to what these seasonal predictions are based on. While there are many contributing sources of tornado variability, there is a relationship between El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the frequency of tornadoes. Many people will remember that the last extremely active tornado year, 2011, was a strong La Niña year. A moderate La Niña was observed this past winter and was predicted to continue into the spring, leading to expectations and speculation in the media about a potentially active season. In this post, we consider the relevant factors and what this tells us about our capacity to predict seasonal tornado activity.
How ENSO and tornadoes are related
Connecting tornadoes to the larger climate system is a hard problem, as the frequency of tornadoes typically has large year-to-year variability. However, the idea of a connection between ENSO and severe thunderstorms and tornadoes is not new, with some of the most tornado-active years in history being associated with La Niña (Marzban and Schaefer 2001, Cook and Schaefer 2008). We also know that you don’t need ENSO to get a lot of tornadoes—a year when ENSO is neutral sees on average around 1,200 tornadoes across the United States, with the majority occurring in the March to June window.
In the past decade, we’ve made great advances in understanding what causes this year-to-year variability (2), thanks to extended computer simulations of past events, new high-quality datasets that can tell us about the favorable conditions for tornado development, and the development of longer records of tornado observations. Through this, we’ve been able to show that, generally, El Niño leads to fewer tornado events in the spring, while La Niña tends toward higher-than-normal frequency.
Photo by John Allen via NOAA.
During La Niña, the jet stream that drives much of our weather is somewhat weakened relative to neutral years, and the mid-latitude branch is diverted northward toward the Arctic over the western or central Pacific, and southward over northwestern North America. (Visit this post for details on how La Niña changes the jet stream.) This split path typically favors low-pressure systems developing east of the Rockies (Allen et al. 2015, Cook et al. 2017). It is this weather-climate “teleconnection” that most readily connects ENSO to tornado occurrence. The frequency of these low-pressure systems turns out to be key for bringing all the pieces together to produce tornado outbreaks, including wind shear (3), the fronts that initiate storms (Lagerquist et al. 2020), the moisture transport and the mid-level atmospheric instability that strengthen storms (Muñoz and Enfield 2011)
March-May values of a blend of tornado reports with a tornado environment index (TEI) for El Nino and La Nina years. Maps by climate.gov; data from C. Lepore and M. Tippett.
La Niña certainly does not always increase tornado likelihood. For example, a similar magnitude La Niña in 1989 was accompanied by a similar near- to below-average tornado season to 2021 so far. Like all climate influences on the weather scale, you can think of La Niña weighting the dice in favor tornado events, while on the flipside El Niño reduces the overall likelihood. In any one case, however, the specific atmospheric pattern on shorter timescales plays an important role (4).
Tornadoes in 2021
Tornado activity—and, more broadly, severe thunderstorm activity—for 2021 has been lower than average after a somewhat late start (5). Both January and February are fickle months for tornado frequency, so a slow start doesn’t tell us much about the season to come. Considering tornado frequency against the historical record of the last 2 decades, March 2021 was an outlier and considerably above average, April 2021 was equally a below-average outlier, and May 2021 was near average.
5th-95th percentile box-and-whisker distributions of Storm Prediction Center monthly tornado reports for the period 2000-2020 as compared to the value for 2021 (red square). Orange horizontal line corresponds to the dataset mean. Outliers are indicated by the unfilled circles. Inset: January 1 to May 31 2021 season-to-date comparison. Climate.gov figure based on original from John Allen. Correction 7/1/21: The original version of this graphic mislabeled the range of values shown by the blue boxes. The boxes show values in the 25th-75th percentile, not the 5th-95th percentile.
Despite being relatively quiet, for the season to date there was a preliminary total of 580 tornadoes reported through May 31st, less than the 2000–2020 average of 676.These events caused 13 fatalities. Also, despite the below-average tornado count in April, there were still some significant financial losses from severe weather. These resulted from hail events impacting major urban centers, and for 2021 the US is again on track to exceed $10 billion insured losses to severe storms.
The vast majority of tornadoes in 2021 accumulated over just a few days in March and one particularly active period in May. This is fairly typical, as tornado outbreaks—clusters of tornadoes—and consecutive days with tornadoes are certainly not unusual (Tippett et al. 2016, Trapp 2014). March saw tornadoes on 16 days, with concentrated periods on March 13th, 17th, and the 25th–27th. April had no real large accumulation of tornadoes on any single day, while May had tornadoes on all but 5 days, with large events between the 2nd to the 4th and on the 26th, and 18 days in June with no widespread events and low numbers of tornado reports (6).
The most recent story to grab the headlines has been the surprise that, through the middle of June 2021, we did not record an EF3 tornado for the first time since reliable records began in the 1950s (though this changed on June 20th). However, this is somewhat unsurprising, as without the volume of higher tornado frequency days, the probability of stronger tornadoes is also lower. This statistic can also be misleading – tornado damage is only rated if the tornado hits a structure well-built enough to withstand it. With shorter tornado path lengths, and fewer tornadoes, the likelihood of a storm crossing paths with structures or other damage indicators decreases. This is further compounded by tornadoes rarely occurring in their usual regions where damage is more likely.
Photo by John Allen via NOAA.
Putting it All Together: La Niña 2020–21
There has already been discussion this year about 2021 being “atmospherically” strange for a La Niña. While NOAA’s primary metric for ENSO, the three-month-average sea surface temperature anomaly in the Niño-3.4 region of the tropical Pacific (Oceanic Niño Index), suggested a moderate La Niña in terms of sea surface temperatures through the winter and early spring before waning into May, the circulation over North America didn’t seem to be playing the same tune. Nowhere is this more evident than considering the air pressure patterns as compared to historical La Niña events.
(Top) Geopotential height anomalies (m) at the 500 hectopascal (hPa) pressure level during January–May 2021. Cold colors indicate below-average atmospheric pressure and warm colors indicate above-average atmospheric pressure at a level about three miles above the Earth’s surface. (Bottom) The average 500 hPa geopotential height anomalies from January–May for the 9 strongest La Niña episodes since 1950. Note the different scaling between the top and bottom figures. The top figure has a wider range of values because the top figure includes contributions from both predictable signals, like La Niña, and random weather variability, whereas the bottom figure has filtered out most of the random weather variability. Anomalies are calculated with respect to the 1991-2020 base period. Figure by John Allen and NOAA Climate.gov with NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data obtained from the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory.
The eastern Pacific high-pressure signature typical of La Niña was present, but this year was considerably stronger and broader across the north Pacific, while the low-pressure region over the northwestern United States was much weaker. Stronger surface highs over the eastern Pacific reflected the blocking of the typical flow pattern, and lack of troughing saw fewer low-pressure systems than average form east of the Rockies, with significant implications for precipitation and severe weather frequency over the Plains and Midwest.
This is not to say we didn’t get some smaller tornado outbreaks, such as those in late March and early May, but overall the spring and early summer were less favorable for producing these important low-pressure systems, and hence tornadoes.
The un-La Niña-ish atmosphere over North America meant that suggesting that the spring tornado season would be active was fraught with danger! Nonetheless, some of the calling cards of La Niña did persist from the winter months; for example, persistent dry conditions across the southwest since last fall. The challenge here is that it is nearly impossible to attribute tornado variability solely to the contributions of ENSO. As has been discussed on the ENSO Blog before, ENSO is very much like the violin section of an orchestra—it leads the movement of variability in our atmosphere. But what would a symphony by Beethoven or Mozart sound like without punctuation from other sections of the orchestra, both on shorter intervals and helping drive the overall piece?
Photo by John Allen via NOAA.
The tornado season of 2021 might be past its peak, but we certainly aren’t out of the woods just yet. However, the difference between expectation (higher than normal) and observations (lower than normal) thus far highlights the need to further explore the details of what drives variability in tornado frequency. Open questions also remain about how long ENSO’s influence persists into the spring months and how robust its influence on the atmosphere is, factors that may have played a role in this season’s evolution. It also suggests that greater caution is needed to understand the other processes at play before suggesting any given La Niña year will be the next 2011–as 1989 showed us prior to 2021, not all La Niña events favor such extreme generational outliers.
Lead Editor: Emily Becker
Footnotes
1) Tornado season is not easily defined, as tornadoes can occur on any day of the year. Despite this challenge, the vast majority of tornadoes occur between the beginning of March and the end of June each year, with ~1000 of the 1400 per year on average (averaged over 2005–2015) occurring between this period. Tornado season also varies by location. In the southeastern United States, tornado season is typically between February and April. In the central Great Plains, the peak is closer to April to June, and in the Midwest and close to the Rockies May through the end of June are typically the peak months. By July, the majority of tornado activity has shifted north to Canada.
2) Some recent studies include Lee et al. 2013, Allen et al. 2015, Cook et al. 2017, Lepore et al. 2017, Molina et al. 2018, and Lee et al. 2021.
3) Wind shear is the presence a degree of changing wind speed and direction at different levels of the atmosphere. The easiest way to see wind shear is by looking up at the clouds – if you see clouds moving in different directions, that is wind shear. Wind shear is important to the storms that produce tornadoes, it helps the organize the storms shape, move rain away from the updraft, and allows a storm to sustain itself outside the normal lifetime of a thunderstorm to several hours. Developing tornadoes also require the presence of changing wind speed and direction with height close to the ground, as the presence of shear generates ‘spin’ that can be stretched upwards to form the tornado.
4) The trouble with understanding tornado variability is that it’s affected by both small-scale and large-scale processes. Non-ENSO contributors to tornado variability identified so far include the Arctic Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, Madden-Julian Oscillation, Global Wind Oscillation, and sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico (Molina et al. 2018). Each of these signals can project upon ENSO in either a constructive or destructive manner such that it can be very difficult to tease out which element was responsible for any sub-seasonal period of activity, and these interplays are generally poorly understood. That these influences can range from sub-seasonal scales of weeks to months can mean the difference between an overall active season and an inactive one can be dependent on the smallest of margins.
Adding to the challenge is that tornadoes are rather temperamental about the conditions they form in and difficult to predict on short timescales, making them a challenging seasonal forecast target. Too warm and tornadoes become less frequent, too dry and the same result is likely. Even in a “perfect” environment where violent tornadoes seem certain, timing is everything, and small differences as to the arrival of an individual trough impulse, or a slightly warmer-than-expected layer in the atmosphere can mean no storms form at all. This was exemplified in the predicted violent tornado outbreak that failed to realize on May 20, 2019.
5) A severe thunderstorm is defined as any convective storm that produces one or more of hail of 1 inch or large in diameter, storm induced winds of 58 mph or greater, or a tornado.
6) Long periods of relative quiet are more in line with La Niña conditions. For example, after more than 800 tornadoes in April 2011, May saw little to no activity before the 21st, before producing 241 tornadoes in the following 5 days. While these periods of relatively low frequency occur in most years, this pattern is particularly prevalent during La Niña, as is a tornado season that is skewed toward occurring earlier in the spring (Allen et al. 2018).
References
Allen, J.T., Molina, M.J. and Gensini, V.A., 2018. Modulation of annual cycle of tornadoes by El Niño–Southern Oscillation. Geophysical Research Letters, 45(11), pp.5708-5717.Cook, A.R. and Schaefer, J.T., 2008. The relation of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) to winter tornado outbreaks. Monthly Weather Review, 136(8), pp.3121-3137.
Cook, A.R., Leslie, L.M., Parsons, D.B. and Schaefer, J.T., 2017. The impact of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on winter and early spring US tornado outbreaks. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 56(9), pp.2455-2478.
Lagerquist, R., Allen, J.T. and McGovern, A., 2020. Climatology and Variability of Warm and Cold Fronts over North America from 1979 to 2018. Journal of Climate, 33(15), pp.6531-6554.
Lepore, C., Tippett, M.K. and Allen, J.T., 2017. ENSO‐based probabilistic forecasts of March–May US tornado and hail activity. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(17), pp.9093-9101.
Lee, S.K., Atlas, R., Enfield, D., Wang, C. and Liu, H., 2013. Is there an optimal ENSO pattern that enhances large-scale atmospheric processes conducive to tornado outbreaks in the United States?. Journal of Climate, 26(5), pp.1626-1642.
Lee, S.K., Lopez, H., Kim, D., Wittenberg, A.T. and Kumar, A., 2021. A Seasonal Probabilistic Outlook for Tornadoes (SPOTter) in the Contiguous United States Based on the Leading Patterns of Large-Scale Atmospheric Anomalies. Monthly Weather Review, 149(4), pp.901-919.
Marzban, C. and Schaefer, J.T., 2001. The correlation between US tornadoes and Pacific sea surface temperatures. Monthly Weather Review, 129(4), pp.884-895.
Molina, M.J., Allen, J.T. and Gensini, V.A., 2018. The Gulf of Mexico and ENSO influence on subseasonal and seasonal CONUS winter tornado variability. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 57(10), pp.2439-2463.
Munoz, E. and Enfield, D., 2011. The boreal spring variability of the Intra-Americas low-level jet and its relation with precipitation and tornadoes in the eastern United States. Climate dynamics, 36(1-2), pp.247-259.
Tippett, M.K., Lepore, C. and Cohen, J.E., 2016. More tornadoes in the most extreme US tornado outbreaks. Science, 354(6318), pp.1419-1423.
Trapp, R.J., 2014. On the significance of multiple consecutive days of tornado activity. Monthly Weather Review, 142(4), pp.1452-1459.
Western governors told top federal officials that it was time to dramatically rework programs to help states recover from wildfires, thin overgrown, drought-ravaged forests, and protect mountain water systems.
Governors representing 17 states gathered last week for the virtual Western Governors’ Association conference, which included sessions on forest health, climate change and broadband initiatives, among other policy concerns.
Because the federal government owns vast swaths of land across the West, expanding shared stewardship programs, building in more flexibility to distribute more cash in new ways, and creating a new “green” timber industry to help thin ailing forests and reduce wildfire risk are all needed quickly, according to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who addressed a roundtable meeting with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.
“With the federal government owning a big part of our state, it’s a shared responsibility to address forest health and fire mitigation,” Polis said. “Shared stewardship agreements are a valuable tool. But these need to be reimagined and re-upped given this new normal.”
The Western Governor’s Association represents 19 western states, as well as Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The federal government owns roughly 30 percent of Colorado’s land and even more in other states, such as Idaho and Montana.
Thinning forests and protecting mountain watersheds is an often daunting, cross-boundary exercise between the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and state and local agencies.
Congress has been working on a massive infrastructure bill that has some bipartisan support and which will, if approved later this year, provide millions of dollars in new spending for roads, bridges and rural broadband networks, and may also include new funding to help deal with the devastation from wildfires across the West.
Governors made clear to federal leaders that forest health needs to be included in that definition of infrastructure, in part because of its importance to the West’s water supplies. In Colorado, for instance, approximately 80 percent of the drinking water for all residents flows off of forested watersheds.
“We have to have more treatment and to do that we will need more resources,” said Idaho Gov. Brad Little. “Hopefully we can get Congress to understand that as they are working on infrastructure [funding] for bridges and roads, we need to invest in our forests as well.”
Vilsack told governors he was hopeful that the new infrastructure bill as well as other federal legislation, such as the Great American Outdoors Act, would deliver funding and new programs that would help the West cope with a warming climate, water shortages and more frequent wildfires.
“We’re aware of the fire issue and we know the importance of having additional money on the treatment side, as well as ways to create more markets for the wood we produce [when forests are thinned],” Vilsack said.
“But I see a lot of opportunity, especially if we innovate and create voluntary programs and encourage people to take advantage of the income crops that are going to be created,” Vilsack said.
Jerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.
The Snake River Water District is planning ahead for increasing water needs in the Keystone area due to population growth over the past decade.
District Executive Director Scott Price said in a statement that the district recently created a water system master plan looking into emerging challenges in the next 10 years. The plan includes a prioritized list of short- and long-term projects.
According to the plan, the district needs to invest $38.5 million over the next decade to address trouble areas, update the old water treatment plant and add a new pump station and storage tank. The district is currently seeking grants and loans to help fund the improvements. It is also evaluating user rates that have remained unchanged for the past eight years.
The district will hold public meetings with key stakeholders to discuss the financial plans. There will be two public meetings July 22, including a 1 p.m. livestream on the district’s Facebook page and an in-person meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the district’s office in Keystone, 0050 Oro Grande Drive.
Lake Powell is seen in a November 2019 aerial photo from the nonprofit EcoFlight. Keeping enough water in the reservoir to support downstream users in Arizona, Nevada and California is complicated by climate change, as well as projections that the upper basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico will use as much as 40% more water than current demand. A recent white paper from a lineup of river experts calls those use projections into question. CREDIT: ECOFLIGHT via Aspen Journalism
Polis signs latest $20 million infusion for Colorado Water Plan as hotter, drier climate grips Southwest
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has signed off on increased funding for water development projects that state officials regard as critical to meet growing demands. But the state’s plans to secure more water from rivers here are colliding with the hotter, drier climate that’s hammering the Southwest, where Colorado River reservoirs are at record-low levels.
Federal authorities warn hydropower electricity for millions of people (and their air conditioners) could be jeopardized if water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead — now both about 34% full — fall much lower. That’s partly why water officials from seven states met in Denver this week to size up perils before their next round of negotiations over how states deal with diminishing water.
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming (the Upper Basin states along the Colorado River) are facing pressure from Lower Basin states (Arizona, Nevada, California) to use less water — even though the 1922 Colorado River Compact legally entitles them to use more — to try to save the downriver reservoirs.
“There’s a reality that we do have a shrinking water supply and we’re all going to have to figure out new ways to reduce our use. We try to stay out of any state’s business, but we also realize there’s not enough water for the Upper Basin to use its full allotted water under the compact,” said Bill Hasencamp, the Colorado River resources manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million people in the Los Angeles area and San Diego…
Colorado leaders over the past six years have awarded more than $500 million in grants and loans for 323 projects in carrying out the state’s water plan — which calls for $100 million a year through 2050. Polis last week signed the latest monetary infusion into law: HB21-1260 for $20 million more to the Colorado Water Conservation Board to go toward increased water storage capacity and supply. The bill provides $15 million for loans and grants and $5 million for the regional “roundtable” panels that have planned 500 local water development projects.
Polis also signed off on SB21-189 to spend $1.2 million more in construction funds for the implementation of the overall $20 billion water plan, which was launched in 2015 to ensure enough for a productive economy — from cities to farms to the recreation industry — while preserving healthy rivers through efficient water use and carefully designed water projects. Two in progress would siphon significantly more water out of the Colorado River basin — an expanded reservoir for Denver and enlarged Moffat system that diverts west-flowing water to the northern Front Range…
“We are already actively talking about and experiencing cuts, which have been particularly painful in this very dry year,” [Rebecca Mitchell] said, referring to the state’s allocation system that forces junior water-rights holders to use less in dry times. “These are historically low conditions and we need basin-wide solutions that we work on together.”
State officials in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming contend they’re entitled under the 1922 compact to use as much as 2 million acre-feet more water. But those shares are based on century-old calculations for how much water the river can provide — 15 million acre-feet a year — rather than the 12.3 million acre-feet average total flow since 2000.
Contingency plans for enduring severe droughts are expected to force mandatory cutbacks next year in Arizona, Nevada and Mexico.
Monument Creek, taken looking south from the northern section of Monument Valley Park via Loraxis
FromThe Tri-Lakes Tribune (Benn Farrel) via The Colorado Springs Gazette:
With limited water resources, the Town of Monument looks to encourage water conservation among residents while the area is experiencing high temperatures in its semi-arid climate and increased water demand.
As the town invests $22 million in improvements to the infrastructure of its water system, an increase in water production and additional storage is in the near future. However, to maintain healthy landscapes around the community, the town is encouraging responsible water practices, implementing water restrictions and has offered tips to efficient water use…
Properties within the service of Triview Metropolitan District are also under restrictions from May 1 through Sept. 30 every year…
Properties which use the Woodmoor Water and Sanitation District are restricted from June 1 to Sept. 30…
Photo from the Colorado Independent.
On May 31, the Town of Monument released an informational video, “Conserving water using rain barrels,” on its YouTube channel, informing residents of their rights to conserve rainwater with rain barrels and how to do it. A few years ago, the State of Colorado legislature passed House Bill 16-1005 which allows single-family residences to collect rainwater in two barrels maximum, each up to 110 gallons, to be used solely for outdoor use and not consumption or indoor use. It also mandates the top of the barrels must be sealed to prevent pests from getting in.
The bill was geared toward helping homeowners offset the use of their irrigation systems for their landscaping.
Residents of the Town of Monument, who use of the town’s water system, are offered a $50 rebate if receipts for the rain barrel purchases are provided and their account with the Monument Water Department is current. The rebate is given in the form of a credit toward the account.
Tips for installing the rain barrels are available on the Town of Monument’s YouTube channel, or by visiting the town’s website, tomgov.org, clicking on the “Community” tab and visiting the Garden & Landscaping page.
Denver Basin Aquifer System graphic credit USGS.
The Triview Metropolitan District is presently making a transition from making use of the non-renewable groundwater from the Denver Basin to renewable surface water. Last year, the district acquired 568-acre feet of water rights and purchased another 1,000-acre feet of water storage in April. Triview acquired nearly 850 acres of land to be used for the development of two large reservoirs which are near completion.
View atop Mount Royal overlooking the town of Frisco, CO and Lake Dillon. Photo credit: Ndebel Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Here’s a guest column from Melissa Sherburne that’s running in The Colorado Sun:
We all have a choice to either engage in efforts to help combat the loss of biodiversity and climate change, or watch from the sidelines.
Because we love our public lands and want to protect them for future generations, the Frisco Town Council recently unanimously passed a resolution that states that we stand with President Biden, U.S. agencies, members of Congress, state and local officials, and others in support of science-based, locally-led conservation efforts that help the country achieve the goal of protecting 30% of our country’s lands and waters by 2030, commonly referred to as 30×30.
These efforts are a part of the administration’s America the Beautiful vision for how the United States can work collaboratively to conserve and restore the lands, waters, and wildlife that support and sustain our country and create jobs and strengthen the economy.
Melissa Sherburne. Photo credit: Town of Frisco
Last month, the world’s leading biodiversity and climate experts released an important peer-reviewed report that emphasizes the importance of looking at the loss of biodiversity and climate crises as one problem rather than tackling each individually. The report authors warn that if we don’t take this approach and instead try to solve these problems in isolation, we do so at our peril.
I am very encouraged that the 30×30 goal contained in the America the Beautiful vision does just what scientists are recommending by acknowledging that we have to address the loss of nature and climate change together. If we can restore whole ecosystems, then they will, in turn, cheaply and quickly absorb the carbon emissions that are the root cause of climate change and are wreaking havoc on the planet.
30×30 can ensure that we preserve a healthy network of biodiversity and protect our natural areas while not only helping to offset climate change, but also protect and restore more public lands that are foundational to our way of life, health, and economies in mountain communities like Frisco.
Local governments know how important it is to set attainable and forward-looking goals. Achievable targets can make small differences in the near term, and more significant impacts over the long term.
Making decisions about finite resources like lands and waters and climate change can be overwhelming, but they are so important because they have lasting impacts. We have to ensure that we are stewards for future generations.
I am proud that the Town of Frisco is committed to conserving our lands and waters. In 2020, we worked with Colorado Open Lands to place a permanent conservation easement on 10.88 acres in the Meadow Creek wetlands and also restored 0.41 acres of wetlands. This effort grew out of the need to restore and preserve a new wetlands area because we lost wetlands during the Frisco Bay Marina’s 2019 “Big Dig” project.
Because of this conservation easement, the land is protected from development allowing community members and visitors the opportunity to enjoy these lands for recreation and rejuvenation well into the future.
Because Frisco is surrounded by public land, we must continue to work in partnership with community partners, the U.S. Forest Service, Summit County, and Denver Water to protect natural resources and wildlife habitat, encourage human-powered recreation, and mitigate wildfire risk.
I would like our town to engage in more regional conservation efforts like Summit Safe Passages, which works to create safer roads for wildlife and people by building wildlife crossing structures across roads to reduce wildlife related collisions, ensure healthy wildlife populations and save taxpayers money.
We all have a choice to either engage in efforts to help combat the loss of biodiversity and climate change, or watch from the sidelines. I am grateful that President Biden has chosen the former by setting forth an inclusive and locally-led America the Beautiful conservation vision that includes the 30×30 goal — a way for us to collaborate and achieve results for natural resource protection at a national scale.
We and future generations will benefit if local, state, tribal governments, and local communities like Frisco can collaborate more frequently to achieve science-based voluntary landscape scale conservation.
Melissa Sherburne is a council member for the Town of Frisco, a board member for High Country Conservation Center, and a planning and public lands consultant with a master’s degree in Environmental Management degree from Duke University and a bachelor’s in Environmental Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Cross Mountain Ranch, a sprawling cattle, guest and hunting operation near Maybell and the Yampa’s confluence with the Little Snake River, needed water to flood meadows for sheep and other livestock.
But there was nothing left to divert into the ranch’s ditch at Lily Park. A state official’s snapshot from the time shows no Yampa there at all — just a gravel bar with a stagnant puddle at the base.
The ranch may be far down river, but it’s high in priority. Under Colorado water law, that means the ranch long ago secured water rights that are vastly senior to many other users on the river. So if the ranch needs it, the state water engineer has to put a “call” on the Yampa and tell junior holders upriver to stop using, letting their water flow on toward Cross Mountain and the Utah border.
Yampa division engineer Erin Light did just that for the first time ever in 2018. She has an 80-page list of descending water rights holders on the Yampa. The ranch is on page one.
The easiest way to find enough water to meet the ranch’s rights was to call Craig Generating Station, a massive coal-fired electricity plant holding a variety of river rights and reservoir shares in the Yampa basin. The power station, managed by Tri-State Generation and owned by a variety of Western utilities, has been cooperative on water issues, Light said, and quickly sent more water downstream.
Then it happened again in 2020. Drought. A nearly dry river by the time the Yampa neared Dinosaur National Monument. And an official state call.
Yampa River at Stagecoach Res Inlet 10 CFS 5-24-21 May 2021. Photo credit: Scott Hummer
This year, the Yampa is looking severely troubled again. It’s no longer a fluke, but a trend. And so Light has asked her boss, state engineer Kevin Rein, to approve her 15-page memorandum and request declaring the Yampa officially “over appropriated.”
Too many users have divided up the river’s dwindling water too many ways, and future ditch diggers and well drillers need to be warned. Dozens of new water rights applications hit the water court for Yampa claims every year, she added…
Yampa not alone under drought pressure
The Yampa isn’t the first Colorado river to suffer the indignity of an official declaration of over appropriation. In fact, most of the major rivers were divided too many ways decades ago and therefore need to be managed down to the drop, from the South Platte on the Front Range, to the Arkansas and the Poudre.
But the fact it’s happening to the Yampa, long running relatively wild and free through the thinly-populated open range of northwest Colorado, is a clear danger sign, according to state officials and conservation groups. Drought in the short term and climate change in the long term are overlaid by relentless economic growth throughout Colorado, turning debates over water use from a distant worry into a current event…
West Drought Monitor map June 29, 2021.
Light’s detailed memo justifying the over appropriation declaration for the Yampa noted that water volume delivered by the river has fallen in recent decades from a norm of 1.5 million acre-feet a year to 1.1 million acre-feet. At the U.S. Geological Survey’s Maybell gauge on the Yampa on Friday, the river flowed at about 340 cubic feet per second, less than 16% of the median figure for that day in 105 years of recordkeeping…
So what would state approval of the over appropriation designation mean in practical terms for northwestern Colorado counties? Developers seeking to drill a new well in the Yampa Basin will see new state scrutiny of their plans to make sure they are not drawing down river water already owned by a senior rights holder. If Light thinks there would be damage, she can require the developer to augment the loss with a different supply, such as stored reservoir water or a pond capturing water during higher runoff periods…
Anyone with an improperly permitted well will also face new reviews, and demands for augmentation. Because of the way Colorado’s rivers and water tables behave, state engineers consider wells to be drawing down river water just as if they were taking it from the river’s surface.
People could still apply for new surface rights from the Yampa, but they will be warned, Light said, that their supply is likely to run out by August or September when senior rights holders put in their call to protect what they need.
Sunset from the western shore of Antelope Island State Park, Great Salt Lake, Utah, United States.. Sunset viewed from White Rock Bay, on the western shore of Antelope Island. Carrington Island is visible in the distance. By Ccmdav – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2032320
FromThe Associated Press (Lindsay Whitehurst). Click through and read the whole article and for the photographs. Here’s an excerpt:
For years, though, the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi River has been shrinking. And a drought gripping the American West could make this year the worst yet.
The receding water is already affecting the nesting spot of pelicans that are among the millions of birds dependent on the lake. Sailboats have been hoisted out of the water to keep them from getting stuck in the mud. More dry lakebed getting exposed could send arsenic-laced dust into the air that millions breathe…
The lake’s levels are expected to hit a 170-year low this year. It comes as the drought has the U.S. West bracing for a brutal wildfire season and coping with already low reservoirs. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, has begged people to cut back on lawn watering and “pray for rain.”
For the Great Salt Lake, though, it is only the latest challenge. People for years have been diverting water from rivers that flow into the lake to water crops and supply homes. Because the lake is shallow — about 35 feet (11 meters) at its deepest point — less water quickly translates to receding shorelines…
The waves have been replaced by dry, gravelly lakebed that’s grown to 750 square miles (1,942 square kilometers). Winds can whip up dust from the dry lakebed that is laced with naturally occurring arsenic, said Kevin Perry, a University of Utah atmospheric scientist.
Smog blankets Salt Lake City. Photo credit Wikimedia Commons.
It blows through a region that already has some of the dirtiest wintertime air in the country because of seasonal geographic conditions that trap pollution between the mountains…
Luckily, much of the bed of Utah’s giant lake has a crust that makes it tougher for dust to blow. Perry is researching how long the protective crust will last and how dangerous the soil’s arsenic might be to people…
Most years, the Great Salt Lake gains up to 2 feet (half a meter) from spring runoff. This year, it was just 6 inches (15 centimeters), Perry said.
“We’ve never had an April lake level that was as low as it was this year,” he said.
More exposed lakebed also means more people have ventured onto the crust, including off-road vehicles that damage it, Great Salt Lake coordinator Laura Vernon said…
Brine shrimp support a $57 million fish food industry in Utah but in the coming years, less water could make the salinity too great for even those tiny creatures to survive.
American White Pelicans flying in formation. Photo credit Missouri Department of Conservation.
“We’re really coming to a critical time for the Great Salt Lake,” said Jaimi Butler, coordinator for Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. She studies the American white pelican, one of the largest birds in North America.
They flock to Gunnison Island, a remote outpost in the lake where up to 20% of the bird’s population nests, with male and female birds cooperating to have one watch the eggs at all times.
“Mom goes fishing and dad stays at the nest,” Butler said.
But the falling lake levels have exposed a land bridge to the island, allowing foxes and coyotes to come across and hunt for rodents and other food. The activity frightens the shy birds accustomed to a quiet place to raise their young, so they flee the nests, leaving the eggs and baby birds to be eaten by gulls.
Denver Water cuts back on some of its West Slope supplies to help struggling streams.
The Colorado River is hurting.
The struggles of the river’s largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have been well documented over the last decade as drought has ravished the West.
The story, however, starts more than 500 miles upstream in Grand County, Colorado.
The county is filled with streams that make up the beginning of the mighty Colorado’s journey in the mountains north of Grand Lake. Around 60% of the water in Grand County is diverted from these streams and used for agricultural and municipal water supply, mostly on the Front Range.
That includes the Denver metro area, which receives about 20% of its water from Grand County, where Denver Water has water rights dating back to the 1920s. Most of the water is captured in rivers and streams around Winter Park when mountain snow melts in the spring.
Rivers and creeks in Grand County are part of Denver Water’s North Collection System. Water flows through the Moffat Tunnel, under the Continental Divide, to Gross and Ralston reservoirs. Image credit: Denver Water.
But, after a lackluster runoff season on the West Slope combined with dry soils from the past year, the hot, dry conditions in early June meant the high-country rivers and streams needed help.
Denver Water responded by voluntarily reducing diversions from several Grand County creeks and coordinating with the Colorado River District, Grand County, Northern Water and other Learning By Doing partners to adjust operations, where possible, to help boost water levels in some of the more troubled areas.
“While our primary responsibility is to make sure we’re supplying water to 1.5 million people in the metro area, we’re always looking for opportunities to help improve conditions on the rivers, to help the aquatic environment, recreation and communities they flow through,” said Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s manager of water supply.
By reducing diversions, Denver Water foregoes collecting a portion of water it is legally entitled to collect for its water supply in exchange for improving streams and tributaries along the Colorado River.
The Fraser River flows below a Denver Water diversion structure in Grand County in June 2021. Denver Water voluntarily released around 11,000 acre-feet of water from streams in the county from June 6 through early July in 2021 to improve aquatic habitat downstream. Photo credit: Denver Water.
It started with a plea for help
On June 5, the Colorado River District asked Denver Water for help after reporting extremely low water levels and critically high water temperatures on the Colorado River. The river district reported conditions were creating unhealthy habitat for fish and aquatic insects.
“When the email came in Saturday morning, we were in a position to quickly respond and reduce the amount of water we were pulling from several Grand County creeks,” Elder said.
Denver Water has continued making operational adjustments since that email.
The utility estimates that by early July it will have voluntarily foregone collecting around 11,000 acre-feet of water from Grand County to help keep more water in the Colorado and Fraser rivers. That’s roughly enough water to supply over 44,000 residences for one year.
“It has been helpful to hear directly from stakeholders in Grand County, including Trout Unlimited and ranchers along the river, on where we may be able to truly help the river, the community and the environment with our operational adjustments,” Elder said.
“With help from the West Slope, we’ve been able to target specific areas and send some beneficial water downstream.”
This includes adjusting water releases from Williams Fork Dam twice a day in a way that also benefits the Colorado River.
For example, when releasing water from the dam, Elder and his team try to time the flows, so the water reaches the river in Kremmling — an area prone to higher river temperatures — during hotter times of the day.
The higher water level helps to cool down the water, which is better for the aquatic environment.
Warm temperatures and low water levels create unhealthy conditions for fish in Colorado streams. Denver Water worked with the Colorado River District to send cooler water downstream in June to help lower temperatures on the Colorado River near Kremmling. Photo credit: Denver Water.
Position to help
The wet spring conditions along the Front Range boosted water supplies in Denver Water’s South Platte River collection system, which drastically reduced customers’ demand for water across the metro area — where Denver Water serves a quarter of the state’s population.
In fact, from January to May, Denver Water’s customer water use hit a 50-year low across the metro area, despite nearly 600,000 more people in its service area since 1970. That includes years in which the metro area was on mandatory drought restrictions.
“Some of the low use may be due to COVID-19 impacts on business and obviously a wet, cool spring helped,” said Greg Fisher, demand manager for Denver Water.
“It’s a great sign that our customers really understand efficient water use and let Mother Nature do the watering for them when possible.”
This wet spring on the Front Range also helped provide additional flexibility on how Denver Water collected and distributed water across its collection system during the spring snow runoff.
“We were able to turn off the Roberts Tunnel in April, which helped bring water levels up in Dillon Reservoir for boating,” Elder said.
“The conditions also enabled us to send more water down the Blue River below Dillon Dam to help improve fish habitat around Silverthorne instead of sending the water to the Front Range.”
Denver Water uses the Roberts Tunnel to bring water from Dillon — the utility’s largest reservoir — under the Continental Divide to the Front Range.
But flexibility like this is not always possible, especially with the myriad threats Denver’s water system is facing.
“Between the rising temperatures, changes to the timing of spring runoff, extreme fire behavior and half a million more people expected in the metro area by 2040, our ability for flexible operations is decreasing in a time when we need it the most,” said Elder.
“We must take an ‘all-in’ approach that includes conservation, water reuse and development of new water supplies so we can continue to maximize the benefits of a large system.”
Wet conditions in the metro area during the spring of 2021 reduced demand for water for irrigation. The lower demand gave Denver Water more flexibility to fill its reservoirs and provide additional water for environmental benefits on the West Slope. Photo credit: Denver Water.
More flexibility
According to Elder, hot, dry weather conditions highlight the benefits of having a large water collection system, as it provides the water planning team more flexibility in its operational playbook.
Denver Water relies on a network of reservoirs to collect and store water. The large collection area provides flexibility for collecting water as some areas receive different amounts of precipitation throughout the year. Image credit: Denver Water.
The vision for the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project, which is in its final steps of permitting, is an example of how additional water storage can really help streams in times of drought.
“As part of the Gross Reservoir Expansion, some of the voluntary things we’re doing this year — like leaving more water in the Grand County rivers — will become required annual operations for us,” said Elder.
Denver Water is planning to expand Gross Reservoir in Boulder County. The additional storage capacity will create more balance in the utility’s storage and give water planners more flexibility in their operational strategy. Photo credit: Denver Water.
That’s because Denver Water is one of 18 partners who signed the Colorado River Cooperative Agreement in 2013, ushering in a new era of cooperation between the utility and West Slope stakeholders, all with the vested interest in protecting watersheds in the Colorado River Basin.
As part of that agreement, a process called “Learning by Doing” was created, which has helped the utility stay better connected on river conditions in Grand County. The partnership is a collection of East and West Slope water stakeholders who help identify and find solutions to water issues in Grand County.
“Denver Water has been part of Grand County for over 100 years, and we understand the impact our diversions have on the rivers and streams,” said Rachel Badger, environmental planning manager at Denver Water.
“Our goal is to manage our water resources as efficiently as possible and be good stewards of the water — and Learning By Doing helps us do that.”
That’s because Denver Water is one of 18 partners who signed the Colorado River Cooperative Agreement in 2013, ushering in a new era of cooperation between the utility and West Slope stakeholders, all with the vested interest in protecting watersheds in the Colorado River Basin. As part of that agreement, a process called “Learning by Doing” was created, which has helped the utility stay better connected on river conditions in Grand County. The partnership is a collection of East and West Slope water stakeholders who help identify and find solutions to water issues in Grand County. “Denver Water has been part of Grand County for over 100 years, and we understand the impact our diversions have on the rivers and streams,” said Rachel Badger, environmental planning manager at Denver Water. “Our goal is to manage our water resources as efficiently as possible and be good stewards of the water — and Learning By Doing helps us do that.”
The U.S. has the highest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions of any other country, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
Americans can take easy steps to cut planet-warming emissions like carbon dioxide and simultaneously save money.
Efficient households can save $1,560 a year on natural gas and utility costs over a 50-year period, according to a University of Michigan analysis.
1. Use LED lightbulbs
LED lightbulbs use at least 75% less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and last 25 times longer, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Households can save $75 on energy costs a year by swapping out just five of their most frequently used bulbs with Energy Star-certified LEDs, according to the Consumer Federation of America.
(LED stands for “light-emitting diode.”)
By 2027, widespread use could save more than a cumulative $30 billion at today’s electricity prices, the Energy Department said.
Replacing all bulbs in a household would be the equivalent of removing roughly 5.3 million to 6.4 million cars from the road, according to an estimate from Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy.
“The basic problem we have is often our default [choice] is not the best, and not necessarily the cheapest,” Hayhoe said. “It’s just the default.”
(As a practical note: Choose LEDs between 2700 and 3000 kelvins to match the soft, yellow-white light of old bulbs; 4000K to 6500K bulbs will have a cooler or bluish light, according to the Consumer Federation.)
2. Unplug devices
Energy consumed by electronic devices in standby mode accounts for 5% to 10% of household energy use — adding up to an extra $100 a year, on average, according to the Center for Sustainable Systems.
The Center recommends unplugging devices when not in use or plugging them into a power strip and turning off the power strip.
The Center recommends unplugging devices when not in use or plugging them into a power strip and turning off the power strip.
3. Change the thermostat
Households can reduce their heating and cooling bills by resetting their thermostats when asleep or away from home. A programmable thermostat does this automatically according to a pre-set schedule.
Here’s the concept: Set the temperature lower in colder weather and higher in warmer weather, which uses less energy.
This may be easier now that Americans who’d been working from home during the Covid pandemic are heading into the office more frequently.
Households can save up to 10% a year by turning the thermostat 7°F to 10°F from its normal setting for eight hours a day, according to the Energy Department.
Savings can total roughly $90 a year, according to Mel Hall-Crawford, director of energy programs at the Consumer Federation of America.
4. Use cold water
Running a dishwasher and washing machine with cold instead of hot or warm water could save on energy bills, according to environmental experts.
“Heating water is one of the more expensive things that we do,” according to John Hocevar, oceans campaign director for Greenpeace USA.
For example, washing clothes with cold water once a week can reduce a household’s emissions by over 70 pounds annually, according to the Center for Sustainable Systems.
That’s the equivalent of the emissions from driving the average passenger car 80 miles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Households can also consider using a drying rack instead of a drying machine, experts said. Drying is responsible for 71% of the electricity required to wash and dry a load of clothes, according to an estimate from the Sustainability Consortium.
Individuals can also ensure a dishwasher is full before running it, and even setting a timer in the shower to avoid overuse of hot water, experts said.
5. Cut down on plastic
Replacing single-use plastic with reusable alternatives has become easier than ever for households, said Eberhardt of the Environmental Defense Fund.
Consumers can replace Ziploc bags with silicon bags; Saran wrap with beeswax wrap; plastic water bottles with reusable bottles or a water filter; and plastic straws for portable, reusable ones, experts said.
(The same applies for single-use, non-plastic items like paper towels — which come wrapped in plastic and could be replaced with dish towels or sponges.)
“You’re really cutting your weekly grocery costs and it’s better for the planet,” Eberhardt said.
Top 10 sources of plastic pollution in our oceans.
More than 95% of plastic packaging is made from fossil fuels, Hocevar said.
And most isn’t recyclable — a commonly misunderstood fact about the plastic Americans toss in blue bins, he said. Even plastic that can be recycled is often only recycled once.
It’s then burned or put in a landfill, both of which contribute to the release of planet-warming gases, he said.
Buying non-perishable items in bulk is also generally cheaper and cuts down on plastic packaging, Hocevar added.
6. Tweak your diet
The food Americans eat can vary greatly in terms of its carbon footprint.
Generally, eating a more plant-based diet and cutting red meat intake can be cheaper, more environmentally friendly and healthier — which could help cut long-term medical bills, experts said.
“Diet is very personal and cultural,” Keoleian said. “But people should know they can save money and really reduce their carbon emissions.”
For example, beef has about seven times the emissions of fish (farm-raised) and 10 times those of chicken according to some sources. The difference is even starker relative to plant-based foods and proteins — beef has been found to have a carbon footprint 230 times higher than nuts or root vegetables, for example.
Storm clouds gather as cows graze at the USDA-ARS Central Plains Experimental Range near Nunn, Colo. Photo by David Augustine/USDA-ARS via the Fence Post
Those emissions may come from sources like food production, transportation and packaging. Cows, for example, generate a lot of methane, a greenhouse gas that’s much more potent than carbon.
Families can consider “meatless Mondays,” for example, to reduce their consumption of red meat, Eberhardt said.
About 1 in 4 Americans reported eating less meat (beef, pork or chicken) over the past year, according to a Gallup poll from early 2020. The environment was their No. 2 reason for doing so, behind health.
Trade groups representing farmers and beef producers — the American Association of Meat Processors, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and North American Meat Institute — didn’t return CNBC’s requests for comment on this article.
Jerry Bohn, a Kansas cattleman and president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, recently pushed back on the notion of decreased consumption of red meat for Americans.
“U.S. farmers and ranchers are the best in the world when it comes to producing safe, wholesome and sustainable high-quality beef for American families, and doing it with the smallest possible footprint and we’re committed to continuing on that path of improvement,” he said in April.
Families should also try reducing the amount of food they throw away, Eberhardt said.
About 30% to 40% of food produced in the U.S. isn’t consumed, with that waste largely on the consumer end — which then produces greenhouse gas as it decays, Eberhardt said. Her family creates a basic meal plan at beginning of every week to avoid buying excess food.
7. Buy efficient appliances
Consumers should replace old household appliances with energy-efficient options to help lower their electric bill.
Those can be anything from refrigerators to dishwashers, microwaves and air conditioners. (Efficient machines will carry an Energy Star label.)
This might be a longer-term decision for consumers — but doesn’t have to be.
“Many people think you want to extend the service life [of the old appliance] to save money,” Keoleian said. “You’re actually hurting your wallet by doing that because they are so inefficient.”
Refrigerators are among the largest users of household appliance energy, according to the Center for Sustainable Systems. (In 2015, the average household emissions from refrigeration equaled about 820 miles of driving.)
But switching other appliances could have a big difference, too. If all clothes dryers sold in the U.S. were Energy Star-certified, Americans could save more than $1.5 billion a year in utility costs and prevent emissions similar to about 2 million vehicles, according to Energy Star.
Coyote Gulch’s Leaf charging at the City of Thornton’s Infrastructure Maintenance Center August 31, 2019. Charging infrastructure partially paid for with a grant from the Colorado Energy Office.
8. Change how you get around
Consumers can also replace older cars with electric vehicles, for example — which may make sense especially for those who drive closer to home and don’t have “range anxiety” related to recharging.
FuelEconomy.gov can help consumers identify and compare efficient vehicles.
There are other, potentially easier steps consumers can take, too. For example, about a fifth of vehicle trips are shopping-related — but combining errands (“trip-chaining”) can help avoid unnecessary driving, according to the Center for Sustainable Systems.
Even making sure tires are inflated properly can play a role. Fuel efficiency decreases 0.2% for each 1 pound-per-square-inch decrease, according to the Center.
Carpooling or telecommuting once a week to cut down on driving (and associated costs) may help, too.
Wheat fields along the Colorado River at the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation. Wheat, alfalfa and melons are among the most important crops here. By Maunus at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47854613
The Colorado River Indian Tribes and another tribe in Arizona played an outsized role in the drought contingency plans that had the state voluntarily give up water. As Arizona faces mandatory cuts next year in its Colorado River supply, the tribes see themselves as major players in the future of water.
“We were always told more or less what to do, and so now it’s taking shape where tribes have been involved and invited to the table to do negotiations, to have input into the issues about the river,” first-term Colorado River Indian Tribes Chairwoman Amelia Flores said.
Lake Mead on the Nevada-Arizona border has fallen to its lowest point since it was filled in the 1930s. Water experts say the situation would be worse had the tribe not agreed to store 150,000 acre-feet in the lake over three years. A single acre-foot is enough to serve one to two households per year. The Gila River Indian Community also contributed water.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes received $38 million in return, including $30 million from the state. Environmentalists, foundations and corporations fulfilled a pledge last month to chip in the rest.
Kevin Moran of the Environmental Defense Fund said the agreement signaled a new approach to combating drought, climate change and the demand from the river.
“The way we look at it, the Colorado River basin is ground zero for water-related impacts of climate change,” he said. “And we have to plan for the river and the watersheds that climate scientists tell us we’re probably going to have, not the one we might wish for.”
Tribal officials say the $38 million is more than what they would have made leasing the land. The Colorado River Indian Tribes stopped farming more than 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) to make water available, tribal attorney Margaret Vick said…
While some fields are dry on the reservation, the tribe plans to use the money to invest in its water infrastructure. It has the oldest irrigation system built by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, dating to 1867, serving nearly 125 square miles (323 square kilometers) of tribal land.
The age of the irrigation system means it’s in constant need of improvements. Flores, the tribal chairwoman, said some parts of the 232-mile (373-kilometer) concrete and earthen canal are lined and others aren’t, so water is lost through seepage or cracks.
A 2016 study conducted by the tribe put the price tag to fix deficiencies at more than $75 million. It’s leveraging grants, funding from previous conservation efforts and other money to put a dent in the repairs, Flores said.
“If we had all the dollars in the world to line all the canals that run through our reservation, that would be a great project to complete,” Flores said. “I don’t think that’s going to happen in our lifetime.”
The tribe is made up of four distinct groups of Native Americans — Chemehuevi, Mohave, Hopi and Navajo. The reservation includes more than 110 miles (177 kilometers) of Colorado River shoreline with some of the oldest and most secure rights to the river in both Arizona and California.
While much of the water goes to farming, it also sustains wildlife preserves and the tribe’s culture…
The tribe can’t take full advantage of its right to divert 662,000 acre-feet per year from the Colorado River on the Arizona side because it lacks the infrastructure. It also has water rights in California.
An additional 46 square miles (121 square kilometers) of land could be developed for agriculture if the tribe had the infrastructure, according to a 2018 study on water use and development among tribes in the Colorado River basin.
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
“One of the things I like about the river is that my learning curve is perpetually steep because there are always challenges, there are always one-offs, and there are situations that we are facing on this river that we need to adapt to. Currently, we are facing hydrology and low reservoir conditions the likes of which we have never seen,” Haas said.
As Utah continues growing and drought intensifies the desert’s water scarcity, lawmakers fear losing some of the the state’s share of the river. Utah’s allocation is 1.725 million acre-feet of water or 23% of the water appropriated to the Upper Basin states that also include Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. Utah now uses about 1 million acre-feet and plans to develop about 1.4 million acre-feet of water, according to the Division of Natural Resources.
That’s where Haas comes in. She will lead the newly created Colorado River Authority of Utah, which begins its work in late July, officials announced last Tuesday.
A watchdog for Utah’s interests
Utah legislative leadership in the 2021 session sponsored the Colorado River Amendments bill, HB297, which, with $9 million in one-time money and $600,000 of ongoing money, set up the authority meant to serve as a “watchdog” for Utah’s share of water in the drought-challenged Colorado River.
Amy Haas, executive director, Upper Colorado River Commission, is critical of the 2007 operating guidelines (Source: Bureau of Reclamation via the Water Education Foundation)
Haas has lived in Utah part-time for the past four years for her work in the Upper Colorado River Commission, where she currently serves as executive director. She first began working on water issues about 20 years ago as an attorney in private practice in New Mexico representing institutional and private water interests. She then worked for New Mexico on policy representing that state in its interstate stream compacts.
Haas said she’s excited to be a part of Utah’s new authority as it forms “from the ground up.”
“The river is stressed, currently. I think many people know that, and I would like to be a part of sound water management, prudent water management, and I would like to be a part of a team. Utah has been and will continue to be a responsible steward of its Colorado River allocation. And I think that the authority, and the creation of the authority, really represents that Utah is proceeding in a very responsible manner regarding the development of its allocation,” Haas said.
In her new role, Haas will work with Gov. Spencer Cox, Brian Steed, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, and Colorado River Commissioner of Utah and Colorado River Authority of Utah Chairman Gene Shawcroft “to take full advantage of Utah’s entitlement to the Colorado River while engaging in prudent water management,” she said…
Lake Powell at historic low
Haas is stepping into her role even as Lake Powell’s water is at a record-low level. It’s 34% full now, she said, calling it “frighteningly” low.
“It’s about 35 feet above an elevation where the federal government together with the states (Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah) will develop a plan to operate the reservoir such that the states can meet their obligations under a 100-year-old agreement and also that hydropower generation, which is a very important feature of Lake Powell, can be maintained and will not be jeopardized,” she said.
If the lake reaches that critical level, the Bureau of Reclamation will go in and shore up its elevations, according to Haas.
Haas was involved in developing the federally authorized drought contingency plan for the Upper Basin of the Colorado River, which is now being deployed. The plan includes releasing water from federal reservoirs upstream of Lake Powell to store and use in Lake Powell, enhancing cloud seeding, removal of non-native vegetation and additional conservation measures…
She’s optimistic that the states in the U.S. and Mexico with interests in the river will continue working closely together on its management, as they have done in the past — and that that collaboration will increase due to current conditions. For example, Mexico recently partnered with the Basin states and federal government to take shortages in its allocation of the river, which Haas said helped water managers address constraints.
