{"id":473125,"date":"2025-08-15T11:56:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T18:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=473125"},"modified":"2025-08-15T12:08:45","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T19:08:45","slug":"colorado-river-basin-prediction-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_zh\/environment\/2025\/08\/colorado-river-basin-prediction-low\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Beyond awful\u2019 Colorado River forecasts put water talks under pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u603b\u4e4b<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

California shoots pointed words at states upriver, as negotiators struggle toward sharing supplies. Without a deal, the Trump Administration will step in. <\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n

After one of the Colorado River\u2019s driest years in decades, Lake Mead and Lake Powell \u2014 the largest reservoirs in the country \u2014 could see alarming declines<\/a> in the coming years, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal officials again called for Arizona and Nevada to cut back their supplies from the overtapped river \u2014 though California, with its senior claims to the river\u2019s water, will be spared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While expected, today\u2019s two-year projection ratchets up tension among seven states in the Colorado River basin, which have struggled to agree on the river\u2019s management after 2026, when current guidelines expire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe urgency for the seven Colorado River Basin states to reach a consensus agreement has never been clearer. We cannot afford to delay,\u201d Scott Cameron, the Department of the Interior\u2019s Acting Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, said in a statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lower-basin states \u2014 California, Arizona, and Nevada \u2014 are at odds with upper-basin states \u2014 Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico \u2014 as they negotiate over dwindling water supplies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe’re really sort of staring at what the deal is right now. But as close as it is, the harder it gets,\u201d J.B. Hamby, California\u2019s chief negotiator as chairman of the Colorado River Board of California, told CalMatters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamby also directed pointed words toward the upper-basin states. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe future of the Colorado River cannot rest on our shoulders alone. We have to ensure that every part of the basin takes responsibility for protecting the river\u2019s future,\u201d he added, in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Becky Mitchell<\/a>, Colorado\u2019s commissioner to the Upper Colorado River Commission, countered in an email: \u201cIf the lower basin is able to join us in adapting to a drier river, a basin states consensus is likely.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal officials have warned that basin states must hash out the broad strokes of an agreement by Nov. 11, or risk the U.S. government imposing its own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is \u201cnot looking forward to that,\u201d Cameron warned at a June conference<\/a>. \u201cBut in the absence of a seven-state agreement, he will do it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stakes for California are high. California takes the biggest share of Colorado River water \u2014 largely to irrigate half a million acres of alfalfa, winter vegetables and other crops in the Imperial Valley, and also to supply urban Southern California via the Metropolitan Water District. More than half of the power generated at Lake Mead\u2019s Hoover Dam<\/a> goes to California. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As negotiators haggle over a seven-state deal, California water suppliers are also in parallel talks about how to share future shortages amongst themselves and with Arizona, said Bill Hasencamp, Metropolitan Water District\u2019s manager of Colorado River resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plunging water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell only make that harder, he added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven with all of our efforts to do record amounts of conservation, it’s still not enough,\u201d Hasencamp said. \u201cWe have to do even more than we’ve been doing in dry years.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dividing up a shrinking river<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For more than a century, a collection of deals, treaties and legal agreements have divided up the Colorado River\u2019s water, a vital supply for 40 million people, seven states in the U.S. and two in Mexico, 30 federally recognized tribal nations and 5.5 million acres<\/a> of agriculture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demand has long outstripped supply, and climate-fueled megadrought and aridification have starved the river in recent decades \u2014 drying up the equivalent of Lake Mead<\/a> by 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the summer of 2022, the driest 23-year stretch<\/a> in over a century had sent the river\u2019s massive reservoirs plunging to historic lows<\/a>. It was a crisis for the basin, prompting the Biden administration to call for emergency cuts or face federal intervention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even with billions of dollars in federal funding<\/a> \u548c temporary drought efforts<\/a> anticipated to yield 3.7 million acre-feet of water conservation by the end of 2026, Lake Powell and Lake Mead are once again dipping concerningly low<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Negotiating a deal is hard enough, said Tina Shields, water department manager of the Imperial Irrigation District, which receives the largest share of California\u2019s Colorado River water. Worsening conditions mean \u201cyou have to do a lot more sooner rather than later. It doesn’t make it impossible, but it makes it more challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reservoirs, each only 31% full,<\/a> are projected to remain<\/a> at levels in the coming year that trigger 18% cuts to Arizona\u2019s total allotment, 7% to Nevada\u2019s, and a 5% reduction for Mexico. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal officials today released multiple different scenarios for the next two years. The one that experts say<\/a> is most likely shows that one more dry year<\/a> could send Lake Powell plunging below the levels needed to generate power by December 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that as climate change drives temperatures higher, thirsty soils drink up runoff before it reaches the river. Though precipitation reached 80% of average in the upper basin this year \u2014 and the snowpack hit 92% of the median at the end of March \u2014 spring runoff into Lake Powell was only 41% of normal<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brad Udall<\/a>, a senior water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University\u2019s Colorado Water Institute, told CalMatters that the situation is \u201cbeyond awful.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m still optimistic that we’re going to pull a rabbit out of the hat at the last minute \u2026 although there are mumblings that things are not going so well, \u201d he said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, under the Trump administration, a new proposal to allocate a certain percentage of the river\u2019s average flow to each basin is coming together, according to Hamby, California\u2019s negotiator. Under the proposal, the lower basin and Mexico would receive some as-yet unknown percentage between 55% and 75% of average flow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question that must be answered by November is what that percentage should be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn our case, it would be an agreement to live with less than we’re otherwise entitled to,\u201d Hamby said. And the upper basin states, he added, \u201cmay actually have to do something wild and crazy, like conserving water sometimes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Becky Mitchell in Colorado said that the water users in the upper basin already reduce their use during drier years, with shortages averaging 1.3 million acre-feet per year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving forward with a plan, she said, \u201cwill depend upon the specifics.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If current policies aren\u2019t updated, the reservoirs are highly likely to reach deadpool<\/a> \u2014 the level at which water can no longer be released \u2014 at least once in the coming decades<\/a>, according to a soon-to-be published study. 

\u201cThere’s a risk of these reservoirs dipping into lower water levels that can make them inoperable,\u201d the study\u2019s lead author Benjamin Bass,<\/a> a researcher at UCLA\u2019s Center for Climate Science, told CalMatters. \u201cThat’s really why we need to shift away from existing policy to something more stringent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\tREAD NEXT<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t
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\u2018A false front\u2019: The California agency failing to stop conservatorship abuses<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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California billionaire tax is a no-brainer for progressive Democrats, right? Wrong.<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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