New water cuts coming for Southwest as Colorado River falls into Tier 2 shortage

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN

(CNN)An extraordinary drought in the West is drying up the Colorado River and draining the nation's largest reservoirs -- Lake Mead and Lake Powell. And amid the overuse of the river and the aridification of the region, the federal government is implementing new mandatory water cuts and asking states to devise a plan to save the river basin. The federal government announced Tuesday the Colorado River will operate in a Tier 2 shortage condition for the first time starting in January as the West's historic drought has taken a severe toll on Lake Mead.

According to a new projection from the Department of Interior, Lake Mead's water level will be below 1,050 feet above sea level come January -- the threshold required to declare a Tier 2 shortage starting in 2023. The Tier 2 shortage means Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will have to further reduce their Colorado River use beginning in January. California will not yet have cuts made to the water they receive from the Colorado River. Of the impacted states, Arizona will face the largest cuts -- 592,000 acre-feet -- or approximately 21% of the state's yearly allotment of river water.

"Every sector in every state has a responsibility to ensure that water is used with maximum efficiency. In order to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the Colorado River System and a future of uncertainty and conflict, water use in the Basin must be reduced," Interior's assistant secretary for water and science Tanya Trujillo said in a statement. It was just a year ago that the Department of Interior declared the first shortage on the Colorado River -- a Tier 1.

But the past 12 months did not bring enough rain and snow. Lake Mead's level has been around 1,040 feet this summer, just 27% of its full capacity. The growing concern is that the mandatory cuts announced today -- part of a system that was updated as recently as 2019 -- aren't enough to save the river in the face of a historic, climate change-driven drought. States, water managers and tribes are now back at the negotiating table to figure out how to solve the West's water crisis.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/16/us/colorado-river-water-cuts-lake-mead-negotiations-climate/index.html

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[ripcord]

1. The California Coastal Comission rejected plans for a desalination plant

California needs desalination to survive at this point, now the state is dealing with the strict environmental laws and regulations builders have been complaining about.

[NullTuples]

3. We can't spare the massive electrical drain

What we need are massive reservoirs.

We used to have one that was truly massive, in form of snowpack that slowly melted throughout the year.

We had another truly massive one under the Central Valley, but it was used faster than replenished over 100 years & is pretty much used up.

The rain falls mostly in the North & on the West side of the Sierra Nevadas.

Our largest reservoir is Shasta Lake: It holds 4.5 million acre feet.

California uses 42 million acre-feet per year.

[hunter]

22. New reservoirs don't help anyone if there's no water to fill them.

Look at the Colorado River. In that basin 100% of the water is captured. It's no longer enough.

More reservoirs will only make the situation worse in times of extreme drought as we will become increasingly dependent on them.

Water use needs to be judged in terms of environmental impacts. Restricting water uses that have the most negative environmental impacts results in a more robust water distribution system than simply building more reservoirs.

In the long term, measured in centuries, reservoirs are a liability. Eventually they'll have to be torn down.

[The Jungle 1]

26. Or we could farm in other parts of the country!

[NullTuples]

30. I agree about the priorities, but once those restrictions are in place we'll still need more storage

And I agree that if we build the storage first, the conservation won't happen b/c it will be unpopular.

[The Mouth]

8. We need a bunch of new nuke plants and desalinization

And maybe not growing almonds and rice in the middle of a desert.

[hunter]

27. Cows are worse than almonds.

The factory farm dairy industry is not pleasant for the cows either.

The thing about almonds is that they were domesticated by humans on irrigated lands. They are grown in their ideal environment.

Dairy cows, not so much...

Humans need to eat, nobody should starve, but I don't think cheap ground beef and gallon jugs of milk are a basic human right.

I'm not a militant vegan or anything like that, but it would be nicer for the cows if they were raised on well managed fields and hillsides covered with grass.

[womanofthehills]

33. You can always just support ranchers whose cows are grass fed/grass finished

No meat from tortured cows for me. Some people do well on a vegan diet and some better on a carnivore diet.

Problem I hear with the almonds -high levels of glyphosate used.

[MarcA]

14. +1000 n/t

[NickB79]

17. Desal water is too expensive for agriculture anyway

And that uses the lion's share of the water allotments.

No farm in California is profitable using desalinated water.

[The Jungle 1]

25. Farms are the problem.

[NullTuples]

31. Farms are necessary. Cattle & almond ranches, not so much. Crop summary for CA:

Here are California's biggest agricultural products, in sales (from: https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/ )

Dairy Products, Milk — $7.47 billion.
Almonds — $5.62 billion.
Grapes — 4.48 billion.
Pistachios — $2.87 billion.
Cattle and Calves — $2.74 billion.
Pistachios — $2.87 billion
Cattle and Calves — $2.74 billion
Lettuce — $2.28 billion
Strawberries — $1.99 billion
Tomatoes — $1.20 billion
Floriculture — $967 million
Walnuts — $958 million

And here are the most water intensive crops in California: (from: https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Water-Use-And-Efficiency/Land-And-Water-Use/Agricultural-Land-And-Water-Use-Estimates )

Pasture (clover, rye, bermuda and other grasses), 4.92 acre feet per acre
Almonds and pistachios, 4.49 acre feet per acre
Alfalfa, 4.48 acre feet per acre
Citrus and subtropical fruits (grapefruit, lemons, oranges, dates, avocados, olives, jojoba), 4.23 acre feet per acre
Sugar beets, 3.89 acre feet per acre
Other deciduous fruits (applies, apricots, walnuts, cherries, peaches, nectarines, pears, plums, prunes, figs, kiwis), 3.7 acre feet per acre
Cotton, 3.67 acre feet per acre
Onions and garlic, 2.96 acre feet per acre
Potatoes, 2.9 acre feet per acre
Vineyards (table, raisin and wine grapes), 2.85 acre feet per acre

And here are the top crops grown in California by acreage harvested: (from: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Less-rice-more-nuts-How-California-crops-are-16570100.php#:~:text=Almonds%20are%20by%20far%20the,is%20more%20than%20$5.6%20billion. with link to USDA source)

Almonds 1,000,000
Grapes 844,000
Hay 825,000
Alfalfa hay 580,000
Rice 514,000
Pistachios 327,000
Haylage 185,000
Oranges 145,000
Cotton 111,000
Wheat 102,000

We could do soooo much more with what we've got by not growing cows and almonds.

But hey, that's now how "Free Market" Capitalism works, is it?

[The Jungle 1]

32. Farming in the west is not sustainable.

The majority of water in the west is used for irrigation. 90% in some western areas. If people want to live in the west we have to stop farming there.
I live in the east my grass is green and I have a lot of water.

[womanofthehills]

34. I live in NM in the middle of the state - it's weird everything is so green

Ranchers are really happy. The closest town flooded. It’s like the NM monsoon is on steroids out here this year. I think we could all be looking at erratic weather. Plenty of grass for the cows this year - but no one can predict what’s next.

[NullTuples]

38. The entire planet is moving into a state of weather chaos

Take a balanced system of energy in, energy out and the weather that results planet-wide. That weather is the result of energy moving from one area to another in order to equalize energy.

Now throttle the amount of energy that can leave, just a tiny bit.

The old patterns - the mechanisms of energy (heat) transfer - become overwhelmed. They can't move heat fast enough.

Boom. Chaotic weather until the entire planet can settle into a new balanced set of patterns.

One problem though: we're still adding to the throttling of heat leaving the planet.

Also? Farming depends on predictable weather. Without that steadiness, it's nearly impossible to maintain even a fraction of the production we've been enjoying.

[NullTuples]

36. In the east, growing season is around 180 days.

In California - with irrigation - it's 365 day a year in many growing areas. Twice as much can be grown per year & thus twice as much profit all other things being equal.

Capitalism wins; humans lose.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. I keep nudging my GF that we should GTFO while the gittin's still good

We're both East Valley (PHX) homeowners ... but she has much stronger ties, grew up here, has a kid in HS, etc. And we're pretty early on in the relationship so I don't want to come off pushy or anything, but ... damn.

I really feel like I need to take my (home appreciation) money and run.

AZ is gonna be f***ed, real soon, imho.

Unfortunately, I'd go back to Cali if I was going anywhere, so there's that. Out of the frying pan, as they say.

[hunter]

28. Eventually Arizona is going to be buying desalinated water for users in California and Mexico...

... in exchange for Colorado River water.

It will be interesting to see how long Arizona resists this.

It's possible the "conservatives" in Arizona would rather see their state's economy in ruins before they negotiated with California or Mexico in good faith.

[Torchlight]

4. We have to think and work our way out of this together.

Every man-made problem has a man-made solution.

If we invest as much time, effort and money into mitigating, then reversing the effects we've created as we have in producing them in the first place, I'd think we can get out of the hole we've dug for ourselves, regardless of how uncomfortable or inconvenient it may be.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. One of the "problems"

has been the decades of promotion that encourages more and more people to move to areas in the west and southwest (often tech-related) that had already been natural deserts over the millennia, and can in no way support the populations that they have living there.

And now with excess population + natural resource waste + climate change, you have accelerated the timeline for an environmental collapse of what was already on the road to becoming a state of untenable conditions. And save for California, the saddest thing is that the politically-elected caretakers of several of those states don't give a damn and will extract everything they can out of their states until they leave them barren and bereft, and then will move onto the next place.

What I have seen sometimes suggested is that someone consider an infrastructure project that actually moves (aquaduct)/pumps water from wet areas (see KY with catastrophic floods) to areas in drought. All the nonsensical focus the GQP have agitated for regarding "oil pipelines" should instead be focused on "water pipelines".

There is an old meteorologist's refrain - "dry begets dry" and unless those drought areas regain moisture, they will permanently be desert. I.e., there is a point during the degradation of the soil where it crosses a threshold of no return, where it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to recover.

[The Mouth]

9. Thank you governor Edmund Brown Senior

Who did all he could to make California the most populous state in the nation.

[Warpy]

11. Aqueducts and pipelines work well in semi arid areas

but a lot of the problem in the southwest is that it's arid, period. The area has been misused for decades by people who thought they could divert rivers and create the lifestyle they'd enjoyed back east instead of respecting the area for what it has always really been.

Agricultural misuse is a large part of this. Winter salads are going to get a hell of a lot more expensive as surface water dries up and ground water is totally depleted.

Some areas are going to become unlivable. Subsidence from pumping out ground water is a problem now as it threatens houses and businesses and it will get worse and spread beyond AZ. Throwing water at this area from other parts of the country is only a stopgap and won't stop the damage that has already been done.

The recent floods in Las Vegas that all ran off into the Colorado Basin didn't raise water levels appreciably. They just stopped from dropping that week.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. "Aqueducts and pipelines work well in semi arid areas"

Have to work to get the "arid" to "semi-arid" and the "semi-arid" to "dry" and work your way back. If you can at least handle the "dry", it can help to break the "dry begets dry" cycle - at least in that area.

Agree that the crop selections have been completely bizarre.

I know my Depression era mom always talked about how people "ate in season" and we have gotten spoiled.

[ripcord]

15. As water becomes more scarce

Don't be surprised if the California aqueduct is bombed again.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. If they stop getting the annual snows up in the mountains

then that whole system would sadly become irrelevant.

[Warpy]

20. We got next to no snowpack last winter in much of NM

which is why last spring we had the biggest wildfire in history.

Droughts like this have happened historically, this is equivalent to the one that finished off the Anasazi culture, probably by drying up the water sources along the trade routes.

Phoenix and Las Vegas will be hit the hardest, exurbs and then suburbs going as wells dry up completely, ground water pumped out by inappropriate agricultural use.

[NullTuples]

40. Re: Every man-made problem has a man-made solution

First, women make problems and solutions, too. As do nonbinary people.

(climbs off soap box)

Second, nature has solutions for us, too.

Deadly viruses are way up and farming may soon at least partially collapse.

Human population crash = far less greenhouse emissions.

The question is who will put their solution in place first, us or nature?

Hint: Nature has a several decade head start and we can't even agree we should do much if it cuts into profits.

[Chainfire]

6. To heck with the people of California, they have a whole ocean full of water...

We have to keep growing lettuce in Arizona. Arizona's largest crop is cattle. It hot weather cows need up to 30 gallons of water a day.

[DSandra]

13. As someone who formerly lived in Arizona...

Phoenix is the epitome of wasting water, they have canals full of water all around (with nothing to mitigate evaporation) and there are huge golf courses and houses with lawns all over the metropolitan area. The Republican controlled state likes to deny reality as is typical with Republicans.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

16. I have said that for over 10 years...

... and I, too, recall the canals and ditches supposedly for transporting water somewhere further south. At the time I thought, "why in the bleep don't they put canopies of solar panels over those canals and make solar electricity (for all the swamp coolers), along with protecting some of that water from evaporation.

[The Jungle 1]

24. Farms are the problem!

[womanofthehills]

35. More vegetables are being grown hydroponically

Way less water needed.

[Initech]

10. Hey conservatives, want places to take your boats and jetskis and other toys?

Then you might want to pay attention because when the rivers dry up, you won't have a place to play!

[KewlKat]

18. Berkeley's been working on a harvester...might be something to help down the road?

&t=185s

[Slammer]

21. water solution

Charge people in arid areas for water as if it were a scarce natural resource.

Charge people for surface water elsewhere as if it were a fairly rare natural resource.

Charge people for ground water as if it were an irreplaceable natural resource.

Then let people decide if they want to wash their car, water their grass, and run their fountains...right up until the public starts demanding laws against washing cars, watering grass, and running fountains.

And let people decide whether it's a good idea to live in arid places and build businesses in arid places, considering what you have to pay to get water there.

The population in arid places, over time, would adjust to match the available water. And everywhere else, people would quit treating water as if it were a free and unlimited resource.

[womanofthehills]

37. Where I live is a designated conservation district

Because of water concerns. I think that was a smart move by my county in NM. Only one house and mother in law house allowed on 40 acres with one well. We have a nice community and lots of gardens. I discovered gardening in raised cloth bags cuts my water use to tenth of what is was when gardening in the ground. My water is pumped up by solar panels into a holding tank -& whenever I have to pull the pump to get it serviced, the water level hasn’t dropped in 20 yrs - so I’m lucky.

[The Jungle 1]

23. I just don't understand the logic and lack of action.

Irrigation is the largest of all western water demands. The 17 western states account for 81% of the country's irrigation water use. They grow lettuce and put it in refer trucks to ship to the east. Lettuce is 95% water.
There is still plenty of water in the west for people. Yo, farming in the west is NO LONGER sustainable.
Why is no one talking about a new plan for farming????
California is presently pumping the aquifer to grow lettuce!!!!! STOP already.
We need a national plan to change farming in America. My lawn is green and my flowers are blooming. We have plenty of farm land on the east coast.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is now predicting that California only has enough water supply to last one year. So we should just wait and see what happens. I bet the golf course has plenty of water.

[hunter]

29. Blame it all on Abraham...

... or maybe the Egyptians before him.

In the arid West water use is tightly intertwined with Christian fertility cults.

God wants you to make all those useless deserts green so you can make more babies. It's your sacred duty.

( Covering the desert with solar panels is a modern day variation of that... )

Go forth and multiply!

[womanofthehills]

39. Here in NM, I think most of our veggies come from Mexico

And hydro farms.