Colorado tells Lower Basin states to cut water use to meet federal demand to conserve | government

Colorado has no plans to make additional cuts to water use next year to meet the Bureau of Reclamation’s demand to conserve millions of acre-feet of water, a step needed to preserve power production in Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Instead, Colorado officials insist that other states should do the cutting.

“I think that at this point, we stand ready to hear what the Lower Basin has in mind,” said Amy Ostdiek, a section chief with the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

Ostdiek told The Gazette the Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah — dramatically reduced their water use in 2021 because of drought conditions. Specifically, they cut 1 million acre-feet in use in 2021 compared with 2020, bringing it down to 3.5 million acre-feet.

But, at the same time, total water use in the Lower Basin has not been cut enough to preserve levels in the lakes, said Ostdiek, who is chief of the Interstate, Federal, and Water Information Section.

She said water users in Colorado cut their consumption to meet the obligations of the 1922 river compact that governs use between the seven states and Mexico, who all share the river.

“The most impactful thing we can do is live within the means of the river,” she said.

Living within the river’s means could directly affect life on the Front Range because Colorado Springs Utilities, Denver Water and others import a substantial amount of water from the Colorado River basin. In Colorado Springs, the basin provides 70% of the community’s water.

In June, the US Bureau of Reclamation asked the seven states that rely on the river to come up with a plan within 60 days to conserve between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet of water next year to protect the power generators at Lake Powell and Lake Meade. For comparison, when completely full, Blue Mesa Reservoir holds 940,700 acre-feet of water.

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Ostdiek said Colorado is already doing its part and has met the terms of the compact by using less water to ensure enough water makes it to Lake Powell for the Lower Basin states to meet the compact. The Lower Basin states take their water from Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which are both reaching critically low levels.

The federal government has also ordered the release of water from Upper Basin reservoirs to protect Lake Powell.

The Bureau of Reclamation ordered the release of 181,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo reservoirs last year and an additional emergency release of 500,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge this year. Flaming Gorge is on the Wyoming-Utah border, Blue Mesa is on the Western Slope and Navajo is on the Colorado-New Mexico border.

The water released was kept in storage to support the overall Colorado River system. Ostdiek said it was a sacrifice for Upper Basin states because they don’t have much water supply security going forward.

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In contrast to Colorado, officials in Lower Basin states urged collaboration upon hearing the US Bureau of Reclamation’s request to conserve up to 4 million acre-feet of water.

“Arizona and others in the Colorado River Basin have conserved substantial volumes of water since 2014,” Tom Buschatzke, director of Arizona Department of Water Resources, said in a news release. “Taken together, those efforts have resulted in an additional 70 feet of elevation at Lake Mead. Arizona Department Of Water Resources When earlier steps proved insufficient, we did more. That needs to be our united approach going forward: We will do whatever it takes . Circumstances now beckon us further toward immediate and substantial actions.”

Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a district that serves 19 million people in six counties, echoed that sentiment.

“The accelerating drought now has us at a turning point,” Hagekhalil said in a statement. “We must do more to respond to the decades long drought that continues to stress our infrastructure, causing storage levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell to plummet, reducing the river’s water supply reliability and threatening the loss of power generation.”

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Hagekhalil added: “We remain committed to pulling together with the seven Basin states, federal government, tribal nations and Mexico to address this crisis and promote long-term sustainability of this shared water source that is vital to our communities, farms and environment.”

How the seven states will meet bureau’s targets is unknown.

Colorado Springs Utilities has 2½ years of water in storage and officials have not called for additional water conservation methods in addition to existing summer outdoor watering rules. The city’s rules limit outdoor irrigation to three days a week and prohibit watering between before 10 am or after 6 pm The city does not limit how much high-water-use grass residents and businesses can have, but officials are weighing new limits as part a rewrite of the zoning code.

“While we don’t yet know how the Colorado River situation will be resolved by the states that depend on it, we do know that water scarcity in the West is a reality. By continuing to adapt our urban landscapes to water-wise landscapes that thrive in our semi-arid climate, we can assure our community remains beautiful and vibrant, even with possible increased outdoor watering limits in our future,” Utilities spokeswoman Jennifer Jordan said in an email.

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