California, Arizona and Nevada propose water-saving plan for Colorado River | Colorado river crisis
The states of California, Arizona and Nevada have proposed voluntary water conservation measures for the next three years aimed at buying time as negotiations remain deadlocked over the future of shrinking reservoirs filled by the Colorado River.
The Colorado River provides water to approximately 40 million people in the American West. But the two major reservoirs the river fills, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are at historic lows. consistent overdrawing This is accompanied by a decrease in snow cover and warming due to climate change.
The seven states that have the legal right to take water from the Colorado River have so far been unable to agree on how to spread the pain of losing access to the dwindling resource.
The downstream states’ plan would save 3.2 million acre-feet of water by 2028 with the help of voluntary cuts. The plan also calls for saving an additional 700,000 acre-feet of water through conservation measures and infrastructure improvements, as well as the creation of a conservation pool to ensure the federal government meets its trust obligations to tribes in Arizona.
“With this proposal, the Lower Basin is taking real action to stabilize water supply along the Colorado River,” said J.B. Hamby, chairman of California’s Colorado River Management Board. he wrote in a statement. “We are putting additional measurable water contributions into the system. Without that, the system will continue to decline.”
The proposed plan still requires approval from states’ water agencies and the Arizona legislature, as well as cooperation from the federal government. The plan is “structured as a unified package” that must be implemented or rejected in its entirety rather than piecemeal, states said.
Seven states with legal rights to take water from the Colorado River are deadlocked over how to apportion drastic cuts in water use.
The northern basin states of New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming have tried to put most of the burden on the southern basin states, arguing that they draw the most water from the nation’s two largest dams at Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Southern basin states opposed that all states should bear some of the responsibility.
Pressure on water from the Colorado River is expected to increase after many Western states experienced record temperatures this winter. As of April 1, snowpack in the Upper Colorado River basin was 23% of the historical average. accordingly New York Times.
In addition to the seven states that have legal rights to Colorado River water, dozens of tribes also have water rights, but many of these rights are not yet digitized and difficult to access.
