{"id":36753,"date":"2022-12-16T11:19:52","date_gmt":"2022-12-16T18:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/more-questions-than-answers-at-colorado-river-water-meetings\/"},"modified":"2022-12-16T18:19:52","modified_gmt":"2022-12-16T18:19:52","slug":"more-questions-than-answers-at-colorado-river-water-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/more-questions-than-answers-at-colorado-river-water-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"More questions than answers at Colorado River water meetings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Joe
Joe Bernal walks on his family's farm on Sept. 1, 2022, in Fruita, Colo. Living with less water in the U.S. Southwest is the focus for a conference starting Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, in Las Vegas, about the drought-stricken and overpromised Colorado River. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun via AP, File)<\/span>Hugh Carey<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LAS VEGAS \u2013 Key questions resurfaced Thursday at a conference of Colorado River water administrators and users from seven U.S. states, Native American tribes and Mexico who are served by the shrinking river stricken by drought and climate change.<\/p>\n

Who will bear the brunt of more water supply cuts, and how quickly?<\/p>\n

What target goals need to be met for voluntary cutbacks in water use by the seven states that rely on the river before the federal government steps in?<\/p>\n

What about controlling water evaporation once snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains enters the system and begins flowing to Mexico?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have answers. I just have questions right now,\u201d Ted Cooke, general manager of the Central Arizona Project, said during a Colorado River Water Users Association panel about the state of the river.<\/p>\n

The agency manages canals delivering water to much of Arizona, and was the first to feel the effects last year of drought-forced cuts to water flow from the river.<\/p>\n

The Colorado provides drinking water to 40 million people, irrigation for millions of acres of agriculture and hydropower in the U.S. Southwest.<\/p>\n

\u201cCollective painful action is necessary now,\u201d Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said during the same panel.<\/p>\n

The river serves four headwater states \u2014 Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming \u2014 and three so-called Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada. Tribes and Mexico also have water entitlements.<\/p>\n

Talk at sessions Wednesday and Thursday has focused on cooperation between users to solve shortages. But data showing less water flows into the river<\/a> than is drawn from it has dominated over the conference. And after more than two decades of drought and climate change, the annual conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas has taken on a crisis vibe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe alternative to inaction is brutal and entirely obvious,\u201d Cullom said of a domino effect of shortages that would be borne first by entities with junior water rights advancing to those with senior standing. \u201cWe agree all states, sectors and tribes must play a role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deadlines about what to do are fast approaching, along with a deadline next Tuesday for public comment on a federal Bureau of Reclamation effort expected to yield a final report by summer about how to save about 15%<\/a> of river water now distributed to recipients.<\/p>\n

David Palumbo, the Bureau of Reclamation deputy commissioner of operations, told the conference panel with Cooke and Cullom Thursday he hoped for answers. Those include assumptions about the amount of water flowing in the river; effects of changing river flows in the Grand Canyon; how officials should administer reductions; and considerations about public health and safety.<\/p>\n

Limiting population growth was not discussed as an option. Cooke said market forces, not the government, should dictate who moves where.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have the right to make a good choice or a bad choice,\u201d he said, \u201cand that includes moving to a spot that might not have water.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bureau controls the flow of the river with waterworks including the nation\u2019s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona state line and Lake Powell formed by the Glen Canyon Dam on the Arizona-Utah line.<\/p>\n

Lake Mead was at 100% capacity in mid-1999. Today it is 28% full. Lake Powell, which was last full in June 1980, is at 25%.<\/p>\n

Water deliveries were cut last year for the first time to Arizona and Nevada, mostly affecting farmers in Arizona<\/a> under a 1968 agreement that gave the state junior rights to river water in exchange for U.S. funding to build a 336-mile (540-kilometer) canal to its major cities.<\/p>\n

The bureau could impose top-down rules that override shares that states agreed to take in 1922 and subsequent agreements. However, although federal officials are due to speak on Friday \u2014 including Camille Touton, bureau commissioner, and two top Interior Department representatives \u2014 blockbuster announcements are not expected.<\/p>\n

Reclamation officials last June told the seven states they\u2019ll have to cut more, and left it to them to identify ways to cut the 15% next year, or have restrictions imposed on them. The federal government has also allocated billions of dollars to pay farmers to fallow fields and to help cities cut water use.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re using more than we have,\u201d Brenda Burman, former head of the Bureau of Reclamation, said during \u201cColorado River 101\u201d on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could be looking at a lot of cuts. We could be looking at a lot of changes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As head of the bureau, Burman had warned the Water Users Association four years ago that drought action was needed. She’ll be replacing Cooke, who is retiring, as general manager of the Central Arizona Project.<\/p>\n

Becky Mitchell, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, expressed frustration Thursday that people don’t realize that water is captured in Upper Basin states and then doled out by the bureau in Lower Basin states.<\/p>\n

Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming “live within the means of the river every day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

John Entsminger, general manager of the Las Vegas-based Southern Nevada Water Authority, compared dealing with the effects of drought on the Colorado River to a national emergency like a hurricane in Florida, and said the federal government could invest national emergency funds.<\/p>\n

Entsminger also said it’s time to chart the amount of water lost to evaporation when usage and allocations are considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not accounted for the amount of water we are losing from the system,\u201d he said. \u201cCall it evaporation, system losses, call it strawberry shortcake for all we care. Do the math and the analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press journalist Peter Prengaman in Las Vegas contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

\"FILE
FILE – Water from the Colorado River diverted through the Central Arizona Project fills an irrigation canal on Aug. 18, 2022, in Maricopa, Ariz. Living with less water in the U.S. Southwest is the focus for a conference starting Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, in Las Vegas about the drought-stricken and overpromised Colorado River. (AP Photo\/Matt York, File)<\/span>Matt York<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"FILE
FILE – A formerly sunken boat sits upright into the air with its stern stuck in the mud along the shoreline of Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area on June 10, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. Living with less water in the U.S. Southwest is the focus for a conference starting Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, in Las Vegas, about the drought-stricken and overpromised Colorado River. (AP Photo\/John Locher, File)<\/span>John Locher<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bernal walks on his family's farm on Sept. 1, 2022, in Fruita, Colo. Living with less water in the U.S. Southwest is the focus for a conference starting Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, in Las Vegas, about the drought-stricken and overpromised Colorado River. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun via AP, File)Hugh Carey LAS VEGAS \u2013 Key […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,138],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-36753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36753"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=36753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}