Despite a wet winter that raised Colorado River reservoirs this year, Lake Mead will come under a federal water shutoff by 2024 for the third year in a row.
However, rising water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell in recent months due to severe winter snowmelt mean cuts to Nevada, Arizona and Mexico in 2024 will soften slightly from reductions this year. .
The announcement is based on water level projections released Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, a report that shows Lake Mead will end by 2023 more than 20 feet above where the lake surface was at the beginning of January.
The slight relief from water shortages comes after a winter season that brought welcome relief to the Colorado River, which supplies water to 40 million people in seven states and Mexico. But experts believe the relief will only offer temporary protection to the river system, which has been plagued by decades of chronic overuse by cities and farmers, combined with decades of drought that have caused significant declines in annual river flows. Colorado River.
“This year’s above-average rainfall has been a welcome relief, and along with our hard work conserving the system, we have time to focus on the long-term sustainability solutions needed in the Colorado River Basin. However, Lake Powell and Lake Mead – the two largest reservoirs in the United States and the two largest storage units in the Colorado River system – remain at historically low levels,” Recovery Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said in a statement. “As we experience a hotter and drier West due to prolonged drought, accelerated by climate change, the Office of Reclamation is committed to leading inclusive and transparent efforts to develop the next generation framework for river system management.”
The federal government made its first declaration of water shortages for the Colorado River in 2021, which required significant allocation cuts for Arizona, Nevada and Mexico by 2022, and those reductions increased the following year when Lake Mead hit record lows as it the drought worsened.
Tuesday’s announcement will bring the lower basin states and Mexico back to the same cuts announced in 2021, or a “Tier 1” shortage.
The cuts are determined through prior drought agreements between the seven states of the Colorado River Basin and Mexico. Arizona has borne the brunt of those cuts under the agreements, while California hasn’t had to make any mandatory reductions to its 4.4 million acre-feet allotment.
What does it mean for Nevada
The reduction in cuts means that Nevada will have 279,000 acre-feet of river water available in 2024, or seven percent less than it normally receives. That’s 4,000 acre-feet more than the state’s allocation this year under the most aggressive shortage level.
Under normal conditions, Nevada receives 300,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River, which provides approximately 90 percent of the water for southern Nevada. One acre-foot of water is enough to supply two or three homes for a year.
John Entsminger, CEO of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and Nevada’s top dealmaker on the Colorado River, said the continued shortage won’t make much of a difference to the Las Vegas Valley, thanks to the region’s success in conserving the water in the last two decades.
Southern Nevada recycles nearly all of the water it uses inland, allowing the state to receive return flow credits for every gallon of treated wastewater returned to Lake Mead and stretching its small portion of the river.
The Las Vegas Valley has also been aggressive on water conservation measures over the past two decades, including incentivizing residents and businesses to tear up water-intensive grass, banning the installation of new commercial evaporative coolers, and setting caps. to the size of the new swimming pools.
In 2022, Nevada only consumed 223,000 acre-feet of water, and this year the region is on track to consume less than 200,000 acre-feet.
“As long as we continue to meet our conservation goals, these reductions will not affect our community,” Entsminger said.
Lake Mead levels remain low
While the slight easing of the cuts will bring some relief to farmers and cities in the Southwest, the long-term outlook for Lake Mead and the Colorado River remains challenging.
Last winter Lake Mead rose for the first time in years, but the reservoir east of Las Vegas was still only 33 percent full Monday, according to the latest data from the Office of Reclamation. The combined storage of Lake Mead and Lake Powell is only 36 percent.
“Climate change gives us very little room to refill reservoirs,” says Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network. “Look at history. Elevations are basically the same as two years ago. What will it take to bring us back to the brink of the abyss? Not much. There is more pain ahead for plant life, wildlife and human life, and I have little faith that water managers will take the right long-term course to mitigate hardship.”
The three states that make up the lower Colorado River basin – Nevada, California and Arizona – announced an agreement in May to voluntarily reduce their collective use of the river by three million acre-feet through 2026, a plan spurred by $1.2 billion in federal government funds.
That plan, which is being evaluated by the federal government, would require California to reduce its use by an average of 400,000 acre-feet a year, or about 9 percent of the state’s annual allocation.
Nevada, for its part, would commit to leaving 285,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead over the four-year period, starting with 75,000 acre-feet this year.
Tuesday also passed the deadline for the public and agencies to submit comments on how they think the Colorado River and its reservoirs should be managed after 2026, when current development guidelines expire.
According to Entsminger, the most important element of the negotiations will be for the states to agree on the seriousness of the future hydrological conditions of the most important river in the West.
The original compact divided the river among the states based on an annual flow of 15 million acre-feet. But studies have shown that the average flow of the Colorado has decreased by 20 percent since the year 2000, approaching 12 million acre-feet per year. And scientists predict that climate change will only shrink the river further in the future.
“If we’re going to act like 12 or 13 million (acre-feet) a year is the worst case scenario, and then it turns out to be 10 or 11, then whatever human system is put in place won’t be able to accommodate that,” Entsminger said.
