A new federal system to project the water flows of the Colorado River over the next two years confirms dire news about the drought in the west’s major reservoirs and increases pressure on Colorado to save water immediately to avoid future claims from downstream states, say Conservation groups.
The Federal Bureau of Reclamation’s new system for projecting vital rivers of the Colorado River for the next two years drops out of historical reference to earlier, wetter years and gives more weight to the last two decades of drought. This week’s regular October update shows that water runoff in Lake Powell, the reservoir for four states in the Upper Colorado Basin, was only 32% of the average for the water year 2021, which runs from October through September.
The new projections for the next two years show that even if federal officials drain portions of the Blue Mesa, Flaming Gorge, and Navajo reservoirs to bring more water to the Lake Powell hydropower plant, a temperate winter will break the Colorado River the same crisis as every year. And a low water scenario in the coming winter season would bring Lake Powell well below the minimum level required to generate electricity by November 2022.
In addition to federal officials trying to protect hydropower generation at Lake Powell and Lake Mead as a downstream water bank for the Lower Basin states, water compacts regulate how much water from the Colorado River is needed downstream for agriculture and urban use.
Colorado and the other states of the Upper Basin of Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico are required by Interstate Compacts to divert 7.5 million acres of feet of water per year into Lake Powell on a 10-year moving average. If enough bad water years ruin that average below the compact, Colorado must find water to direct it downstream to Nevada, Arizona, and California – and 80 to 85% of the available water in Colorado is used for agriculture. Most of the water in the Upper Basin comes from the snowpack of the Colorado highlands.
“We don’t have time to talk about it,” said Matt Rice, co-chair of the Water for Colorado Coalition and director of American Rivers’ Colorado River Basin Programs, after reading the latest update from the Bureau of Reclamation.
Beginning with the October 1991 update, the office begins using historical averages instead of the 1981 cutoff previously used. The 1980s were much wetter in the Colorado River Basin, Rice said.
“These predictions are worse than in the past, but they are also more realistic,” said Rice. Many conservation groups think this is a positive move despite the bad news, Rice added, as it puts pressure on state water authorities, local water protection districts, agricultural interests, cities and environmentalists to work on solutions faster.
At the same time, Rice said, the updated numbers should reflect the reality that the Colorado River now has 20 percent less water than it did in 2000. “The system isn’t more flexible, is it? We look over the edge of the cliff. “
Water conservation professionals in Colorado have worked for years to avoid their worst-case scenario, which is a “call” or sudden demand from federal executives to add more water to hydropower or to satisfy the compacts with the Lower Basin. Without prior planning, an appeal would force the state water engineer and local conservation districts to cut irrigation companies’ water rights based only on the rank of their water use rights.
While state and local officials have worked with nonprofits on conservation plans, there is legal clutter that may require new laws and seemingly endless ethical questions about which parts of the state would suffer the most water loss, said Sonja Chavez, director of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District.
The Blue Mesa Reservoir in their area has been nearly drained by drought and by federal officials harvesting additional material from western reservoirs to consolidate Lake Powell’s energy pool. Blue Mesa is expected to be 27% occupancy soon, Chavez said. According to the Bureau of Reclamation, Blue Mesa was 33% full by mid-September.
State and private officials have worked together to experiment with “demand management” programs where, instead of buying farmland and water rights directly, they buy the right to rent the water for a few years in a decade. The leased water can be directed downstream in dry years, and in theory restoring water in other years should preserve the farm or ranch land while providing the farmer with an income.
But renting or buying water rights on the order to meet compact needs would take hundreds of millions of dollars with no cash currently being drawn, water experts say. Colorado officials have mentioned the possibility of using funds from the infrastructure stimulus plan currently being debated by Congress, but it is uncertain whether the bill will pass and how much water-related money it will include if it does.
“There are a lot of questions that really aren’t cleared,” said Chavez. “Who will the cuts come from? How should it be distributed fairly? Who will guard this water? ”
Gunnison officials also spent considerable time and energy protecting the sage chicken, an endangered species, Chavez noted. If a nationwide demand management program seeks blanket cuts and “if we get rid of 10% of our wetlands, how does that affect the bird?” She asked.
By far the greatest amount of water to be saved is in agriculture, but Front Range residents need to be part of the nationwide discussion about finding more water for the downstream Colorado River, Rice and Chavez said.
“You won’t get that much out of a city compared to the amount of irrigation water diverted for agriculture,” Chavez said. “But there is also agriculture in the Front Range that benefits from our transmountain diversions,” some of which are created and controlled by municipal water authorities. “That has to be part of the picture.”
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