Arizona, California and Nevada on Monday proposed plans to significantly reduce water use from the drought-stricken Colorado River over the next three years.
What is the plan to conserve water in the Colorado River?
The plan would save an additional 3 million acre-feet of water through 2026, the year current guidelines for how the river is shared expire.
Roughly Half of the cuts will occur by the end of 2024.
In exchange for using less water, cities, irrigation districts and Native American tribes in three states would receive federal funding, though officials did not detail how much they would receive.
Why is the Colorado River important?
The Colorado River is 1,450 miles (2,334 kilometers) long, providing water for 40 million people in seven western U.S. states, parts of Mexico—northern Baja California and Sonora—and two dozen American tribes.
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How much water do the three treaty states receive from the Colorado River?
The three states in the lower reaches of the river are entitled to a total of 7.5 million acre feet of water. One acre-foot of water is enough for two to three American homes per year.
California gets the mostDue to the century-old priority system of water rights.
A large portion of this goes to farmers in the Imperial Irrigation District (a (a community-owned utility that supplies water and electricity to the lower desert of southeastern California)Another portion also goes to smaller water districts and cities in the southern part of the state.
Arizona and Nevada have already experienced power outages in recent years The volume of major reservoirs has decreased based on previous agreements. But California has so far been spared.
Under the new plan, California would give up about 1.6 million acre-feet of water by 2026, more than half of the total. It is the same amount that the state had originally provided six months ago.
It’s still unclear why other states agreed to the deal when California didn’t offer further cuts. Governments in Arizona and Nevada did not detail how they would divvy up the 1.4 million acre-feet of cuts they are entitled to achieve in the plan.
Has a final deal been reached to manage the waters of the Colorado River?
Tom Bushatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, He stressed that the project announcement is not a final agreement.
“We agreed on a plan. It’s not an agreement,” Puschatzke insisted during a conference call with reporters. “It’s fundamental to understanding what we’ve done here.”
Puschatzke said the proposal still needs to be reviewed and approved by the federal government, which will determine how much funding will be allocated to companies that give up water.
In a statement Monday, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said it provided a way to “rebuild our reservoirs in the short term,” but added that there is work to do to address the long-term effects of climate change and oversubscription.
Governors Gavin Newsom of California and Joe Lombardo of Nevada also praised the deal, emphasizing the work of their individual states to come to terms with the plan on Monday.
How is the drought crisis facing the Colorado River?
The Colorado River has been in crisis for years Due to decades of advanced drought But it has intensified due to the effects of climate change, increasing demand and overuse of water.
In recent years, the river’s problems have forced the federal government to cut some water allocations and provide billions of dollars to farmers, cities and others to cut back.
But water management officials don’t see those efforts as enough to prevent the system from collapsing.
Will the Colorado River Project Solve the Drought Problem?
The plan represents a temporary solution, but falls short of achieving the goals suggested by the researchers.
Last summer, the U.S. bureau asked the seven states in the Colorado River basin—California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah—to reduce their combined use of river water by about 2 to 4 million feet. Acre feet in 2023 only An amount equal to 15% to 30% of your annual usageBut states missed that deadline and negotiations to agree on a plan are still months away.
In April, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released a plan considering two ways to create a river basin from the Colorado River to Arizona, Nevada and California.
One contemplated using a decades-old water priority system to limit use that would benefit California and some Native American tribes with senior water rights. Another has a percentage cut across the board.
Michael Cohen, a Pacific Institute principal investigator focusing on the Colorado River, noted that the river’s hydrology has improved somewhat since last summer. He said the number of cuts proposed by the three states was a “big, big push” and a significant step forward.
“It gives us a little extra time,” he said. But if more dry years come, “This agreement does not solve that problem”.
Announce water cuts in states that rely on the Colorado River to weather severe droughts
