No Action for the Glen Canyon Dam? A State Sensitivity to State Scales, Water Conservation Laws, and Public Health and Safety

Interior said Friday it would soon issue a notice of intent saying the Bureau of Reclamation may need to modify the current operations of Glen Canyon Dam and reduce its water releases downstream – which could cause water levels at Mead to drop further. This would be done in order to make sure the Glen Canyon Dam can continue operating and generating power.

In order to protect Hoover Dam operations, system integrity, and public health and safety, there may need to be a restriction on downstream water releases from the Hoover Dam.

The Bureau of Reclamation says that the levels of the two Dams are declining so much that they could stop producing power in the future.

“You can’t live with no water in the reservoirs hoping for good years; you need to refill the system,” Eric Kuhn, former manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, told CNN. People realize you can not live on the verge of disaster.

Officials will be fighting an uphill battle to get the cuts done because of the large amount of water that is needed. State officials tried drastic measures to cut their usage this year, but the river’s continued decline was an alarming reality check.

At a recent virtual event, Touton said she’d rather strike a deal with the states, but the Bureau was prepared to act on its own.

“To me, it expresses a hope that there would be a consensus agreement, which would make life so much easier for the bureau and Secretary of Interior,” said Sarah Porter, the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. It is a signal that the bureau does not have forsworn action.

California Natural Resources Agency is optimistic that negotiations with other states including Arizona and Nevada can be fruitful, but it’s important for federal partners to prepare for actions that might be needed to protect critical elevations, according to Lisa Lien-Mager.

A “reservoir options modification” plan, where the federal government would take unilateral action and tell states how much water each must cut in order to save the river system

Porter said that even though a no action alternative is standard, it might be useful for Interior to show how devastating an absence of action would be to the river system.

Arizona Appeals to the Legislature on Water Laws, and how the U.S. Water Budget will be used up by the Raytheon Missiles and Defense

A draft of the changes would be released in the spring of next year, according to the bureau, with a final decision being released in late summer. The decision would go into effect for the next water year, which begins in the fall of 2023.

And it’s not just farming operations. Other sectors like mining and the military, which have a huge presence in the state, also benefit from Arizona’s lax water laws. It’s difficult to know how much water is being used up by one of the state’s largest employers, Raytheon Missiles and Defense, which, like Almarai, has a footprint in Arizona and Saudi Arabia. There is a water cost to manufacturing missiles. And like Fondomonte’s alfalfa, Raytheon’s product is being shipped to Saudi Arabia.

If they don’t act, the lakes could reach a dead pool in the next two years, where the water level is too low to make a difference for farmers and communities.

The western state officials agreed in a letter to leave 1 million acre-feet of water in Lake Powell. Then, they watched as the same amount of water disappeared due to system losses and evaporation.

Tom Buschatzke, the top Arizona water official, told CNN that everything they attempted to do was wiped out by Mother Nature. “We have to understand that could happen to us again. It’s been happening to us almost every year for the past few years.”

The anxiety is growing as the level of water begins to fall. Negotiating between the states on water cuts has been tense, especially between the states of California, Arizona and Nevada.

Those talks have stalled amid disagreement on how much water each state should sacrifice and how much money farmers, tribal nations and cities should be paid to reduce their water consumption.

The federal government is expected to decide how to spend the $4 billion in relief money, which the Biden Administration fronted from the Inflation Reducing Act to essentially pay people to not use water.

But, he says, “it makes it a little more difficult because of the uncertainty and not knowing” what the difference will be between the money the federal government is offering, and the voluntary cuts districts are willing to make.

If voluntary cuts don’t come close to what is needed, the federal government may step in. But that plan would almost assuredly be greeted with a court challenge.

Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, told CNN that federal officials are working carefully to prepare for a potential lawsuit over mandatory cuts.

At the December conference, the assistant secretary of the Department of Interior spoke about that likelihood.

Why is the Colorado River Basin so Wet? State Senator Isla Simpson says climate change is going to keep the Southwest dry and wet

While West Coast states have seen a boon in precipitation in recent weeks – California snowpack is running around 150% of average so far this winter – the weather over the Colorado River Basin in the Intermountain West has been less wet. Snowpack in parts of the upper basin in Utah and Colorado is slightly above average, but lower basin mountains have seen below-average snow.

Isla Simpson, climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said that climate change is going to make dry years worse.

Since the 1980’s the Southwest region has seen a decline in precipitation. Simpson, who co-leads a federal task force on drought, said decades-long lack of rain and a rise in planet-heating emissions have worsened the conditions.

Dry air evaporates water from the soil during extended periods of heat. The air sucks up water from the Colorado River when there is not enough rain, and this is a reason why there are water shortages.

She said there is a high chance that there will be no rain in the foreseeable future. La Niña is expected to persist through the winter, which typically causes the jet stream – upper-level winds that carry storms around the globe – to shift northward. That means less rainfall for a region that desperately needs it.