White House Proposes Evenly Cutting Water Allotments From Colorado River

[Zorro]

Source: New York Times

As the river shrinks, the Biden administration is getting ready to impose, for the first time, reductions in water supplies to states.

After months of fruitless negotiations between the states that depend on the shrinking Colorado River, the Biden administration on Tuesday proposed to put aside legal precedent and save what’s left of the river by evenly cutting water allotments, reducing the water delivered to California, Arizona and Nevada by as much as one-quarter.

The size of those reductions and the prospect of the federal government unilaterally imposing them on states have never occurred in American history.

Overuse and a 23-year-long drought made worse by climate change have threatened to provoke a water and power catastrophe across the West. The Colorado River supplies drinking water to 40 million Americans as well as two states in Mexico, and irrigates 5.5 million agricultural acres. The electricity generated by dams on the river’s two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, powers millions of homes and businesses.

But the river’s flows have recently fallen by one-third compared with historical averages. Levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell are so low that water may soon fail to turn the turbines that generate electricity — and could even fall to the point that water is unable to reach the intake valves that control its flow out of the reservoirs. If that happened, the river would essentially stop moving.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/climate/colorado-river-water-cuts-drought.html?unlocked_article_code=v6er0VECZYZv-MB269sXYfHYflDPaouVHYLpaw2qSPYlLpLfrXbddujwQ1g9joF-vvhXdoH04rJyD4RPBpBH12GgIxKoS3a-4jhR1bMjqokcJZ5Q_8VlnI26DKSzlTRoxDZi25bYCpG65b3paFCizbF6RrfFTtwHPKvHaA8iIxXrzL4JdZzD4MRD7vnEUaPU9A2_-vHRGzbKKzkH--SKt4S_UZ5QgutZcXcT9eY7bXwl6s5CYalR7WzjmVKYdWPEVPBMmzsb6bMaV1Cq3VYCvFqeC6DbTePeb_57blr7XliQtcCnI8VpSKBP1MI_-Wsnl9hV5sm3uyKUtm48G7CdgzBo1fD8Hk5EHTx1&smid=url-share

[maxsolomon]

1. Inevitable.

Abandon Lake Bowell. Breach the Dam.

Focus on keeping Lake Mead functional - at least for now.

[Bo Zarts]

2. The Monkey Wrench Gang was right all along.

Abbey spins in his grave.

[maxsolomon]

3. And the "Mud Glacier" in Lake Powell isn't going anywhere

Last edited Wed Apr 12, 2023, 11:25 AM - Edit history (1)

except downhill. Tons and tons and tons of it that should be in the Gulf of California. It will bury the riverbed for decades, centuries.

I waded through it for several miles on the last day of a rafting trip down the San Juan River 7 years ago - pushing & pulling the raft against an upriver wind.

[VGNonly]

6. There are some places

in Lake Foul where the sediment layer is about 200 feet thick.

[roamer65]

7. U mean the Gulf of California, right?

[maxsolomon]

13. LOL, yes that's what I meant!

Geography 101...

[yonder]

4. Yes he was.

Along with Marc Reisner, Wallace Stegner, John Wesley Powell, etc.

[Magoo48]

5. Hayduke Lives

[LudwigPastorius]

8. Sounds like the river will be dead by the decade plus the inevitable lawsuits get sorted out.

[Lasher]

9. Seems reasonable to me.

The US Government will intervene as an independent arbiter to end the squabbling with a fair and sustainable solution.

[not fooled]

10. Getting rid of the wildcat subdivision loophole would help in AZ

but this corrupt, developer-run pit will continue unsustainable development unchecked.

(a wildcat subdivision evades having to document a 100-year water source required for new subdivisions in AZ by being built 5 houses or less at a time. In corrupt armpit yuma, houses are going up all over, 5 at a time.)

[AZLD4Candidate]

11. Actually, 80% of the water goes to agriculture

Ending cotton, melon, and non-native species in agriculture would be best.

Then putting a freeze on golf courses and charging them HUGE rates for water usage

Then the developers.

Then going after these idiots that demand grass in their backyards.

[not fooled]

14. The aquifer up where I live

is falling at the rate of about a foot a year, per anecdotal evidence from well drillers and property owners (I'm sure there are official stats from monitor wells but I haven't heard anything from local officials, unsurprisingly; they prefer the locals to be ignorant and uninvolved). I haven't heard about any actions being taken to deal with this. Whatever the cause, it's unsustainable. Don't worry, the lawns will go sooner or later once wells start being metered and eventually shut down as clueless residents will be forced into expensive, privatized water systems gifted to connected insiders to run as cash cows (see: Far West).

[Bayard]

12. What is the Navaho Nation's cut?

They have water rights there, but 30% still have no running water to their homes.

Even some rethuglican Supreme Court justices appear to have a problem with that, per previous treaties.

https://rollcall.com/2023/03/20/supreme-court-appears-divided-on-navajo-water-rights-lawsuit/

[newdayneeded]

15. California is nearly flooded out with

mountain melt water yet to come, why should they get even a drop of colorado river this year? that's 4.4 million acre ft (California's allotment) that should Stay in the Colorado system.

[maxsolomon]

17. California is huge. The vast majority of that snowpack isn't going where this water is.

How would you propose they get, say, Shasta Lake's impounded water down to the Imperial Valley, or LA? Over 500 miles.

[republianmushroom]

16. Do it, now, just do it

You are going to have to do it.