The latest on the Colorado River and Lake Mead report

The Department of the Interior said Tuesday it is prepared to take action again next year to limit the water releases from Lake Powell to prevent it from plunging below 3,525 feet above sea level by the end of 2023. Below that level, the Glen Canyon Dam, which forms the reservoir, cannot produce hydropower.

Lake Powell’s water level is expected to fall to reach 3,521 feet above sea level by the end of December.

The Bureau of Reclamation announced unprecedented, emergency steps earlier this year to help boost water levels at Lake Powell, beginning with releasing more water from upstream on the Colorado River, then holding back water in Lake Powell itself, instead of sending it downstream to Lake Mead.

At the end of July, Lake Powell had fallen to around 3,536 feet above sea level, which is 26% of its full capacity.

“There's significant uncertainty in 2023 and two years out in 2024,” Dan Bunk, deputy chief of Boulder Canyon Operations Office, said at a Tuesday news conference. “While there's the possibility of improved conditions at Lake Powell -- with above-average inflow next year -- it would take multiple years of above average inflow for Powell to recover, and the vast majority of hydrologic projections show that Lake Powell would remain at about the same level or continue to decline over the next two years.”

“We are particularly concerned about the projections … [that] show Lake Powell declining below elevation 3,490 as early as the middle of 2023.”

Glen Canyon Dam provides power for many states including Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Nebraska.

Additionally, in concert with its rapidly declining levels, a recent government report also showed that the amount of water Lake Powell could store is also shrinking as sediment fills the bottom of the reservoir.

Because of that, Powell had sustained an average annual loss in storage capacity of about 33,270 acre-feet of water, or 11 billion gallons, per year between 1963 — when Glen Canyon Dam was built — and 2018. That's enough water to fill the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall about 1,600 times.

Of the states impacted by next year's mandatory water cuts, Arizona will face the largest — 592,000 acre-feet, or about 21% of the state’s yearly allotment of Colorado River water.

An acre-foot of water covers an acre one foot deep.

Meanwhile, California will have no cuts. This is because Arizona has junior Colorado River water rights, due to a decades-old compromise with California.

The Central Arizona Project, authorized by Congress in 1968, is a massive, 336-mile canal and pipeline system that funnels water from the Colorado River system across the Arizona desert to cities such as Phoenix and Tucson, as well as farms and towns in between. 

Prior the project’s completion in the 1990s, central Arizona relied heavily on groundwater pumping, which quickly sucked aquifers dry. Although the state was entitled to some of the water flowing in the Colorado River, it was only using about half of the allocation before CAP was completed. No channels or infrastructure at the time could deliver Colorado River water to cities in the middle of Arizona.  

California long opposed the project until Arizona made a key compromise to gain its support: In the event of a water shortage — which the lower Colorado River basin states are facing right now — California’s water deliveries would have priority over the needs of Arizona's CAP water users.  

While Arizona will take the steepest cuts, the state does have some banked excess Colorado River water in underground aquifers in central and southern Arizona, which it has been recharging since 1997.

But “these supplies are finite and must be used carefully so that they can be used to assist cities and tribes in the years to come," Evans said.

Tanya Trujillo, the assistant secretary for water and science at the Bureau of Reclamation, said the agency is taking several immediate actions in both the upper and lower Colorado River basin to ensure the water is being used efficiently.

Shortly after the bureau announced the results of its annual forecast on the Colorado River and the country's largest reservoir, Lake Mead, Trujillo said everyone has a responsibility to safeguard the water system. The report showed water levels dropping as the region suffers from a multi-year drought.

Federal investments and expanded resources now available through climate provisions in big bills like the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden is expected to sign Tuesday, are critical, Trujillo said.

Without investments now, she said the Colorado River will "face a future of uncertainty."

Now, Trujillo said the bureau is "moving forward with several efforts at the same time."

This means setting into motion short-term operational actions while also developing innovative strategies to help communities combat the conditions created by climate change in a more long-term way.

According to a statement, here are some of the things the Bureau of Reclamation says it will do:

The Upper Basin:

The Lower Basin:

The US Bureau of Reclamation will not yet act on a demand for Colorado River states and stakeholders to come up with a plan to cut up to 25% of their water usage — 2 to 4 million acre-feet per year, annually — to stabilize the river basin. That plan would have been in addition to the mandatory cuts announced on Tuesday.

Bureau chief Camille Touton made the demand for the plan at a Senate hearing in June and gave river stakeholders a deadline of Aug. 15. Touton said at the time that if states failed to come up with a plan, the federal government would do it for them.

Instead, administration officials said they are beginning that process.

Touton said at a news conference Tuesday that her agency is “starting the process,” but she did not specify any new deadlines that might be set for states to come up with a plan for the drastic cuts.

Administration officials indicated they did not want to impede state negotiations and wanted to focus on using federal money from climate and infrastructure bills to make improvements to Western water infrastructure.

US Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau called the current situation with state negotiations “a complex environment.”

Tuesday’s mandatory cuts, as a result of the Bureau of Reclamation’s August study for Lake Mead, will lead to a reduction of 721,000 acre-feet of river water usage.

An acre-foot is the amount of water that would fill one acre a foot deep — roughly 326,000 gallons.

As the Colorado River Basin is experiencing its driest 23-year period on record, its total systems storage is at 37% full, down from 46% last year.

Lake Powell's current elevation is at 3,534 feet, or 26% of capacity, according to Chris Cutler, the manager for the Water and Power Services Division at the Bureau of Reclamation. 

During a presentation, he showed that water storage levels of both Lake Powell and Lake Mead has fluctuated over 50 years.

But as a result of below-normal runoff this year, Lake Powell is projected to drop to 23% of storage capacity by the end of 2022.

The drought in the Colorado River basin is reaching "a tipping point," Camille Calimlim Touton, the Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner, said. Her remarks come as the bureau announced its forecast for the water system in the West at a time when the region is experiencing a multi-year megadrought made worse by the climate crisis.

Touton said the Colorado River basin is in its 23rd year of a "historic drought." This year's forecast prompted the bureau to declare a Tier 2 water shortage on the Colorado River — forcing several Southwest states to make mandatory water cuts for the second year in a row.

The commissioner said Lake Powell and Lake Mead — the country's two largest reservoirs — are also at "historically low levels."

By taking conservation actions, like water cuts, she said the bureau needs to ensure communities, tribal nations and the environment are sustained, not just next year but for the future

"Protecting the system means protecting the people of the American West," she said.

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 the 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.

Lake Mead’s level has been around 1,040 feet this summer, just 27% of its full capacity.

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 it receives from the Colorado River. (The threshold for California’s first cut is 1,045 feet in January.)

Of the impacted states, Arizona will face the largest cuts — 592,000 acre-feet — or about 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.

Interior’s projections show that by January of next year, Lake Mead’s water surface elevations will be at 1,047.61 feet. Meanwhile, Lake Powell’s water surface elevation will be at 3,521.84 feet – 32 feet above minimum power pool, or the amount needed to generate electricity from hydroelectric operations.

Separately, US Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton and other federal water officials said they are prepared to take additional administrative actions needed to protect the Colorado River, Lake Powell and Lake Mead from falling to “critically low levels.”

Earlier this summer, Touton set a deadline of mid-August for the seven Colorado River states to come up with a plan to cut as much as 25% of their river water usage. It became apparent early this week that those negotiations have stalled, which led some lawmakers and state water officials to call on the federal government to take aggressive action on their own.

Interior has not yet outlined next steps in Touton’s demand for the states’ plan.

At a June Senate hearing, Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton laid out a stark warning. In order to stabilize the Colorado River basin, states and water districts would have to come up with a plan to cut 2 to 4 million acre-feet of water usage per year by mid-August, or the federal government would step in and devise a plan for them. 

It’s a massive amount — the high end of the target is about 25% less water than states currently receive. And the low end of the target represents the vast majority of Arizona’s yearly allotment of Colorado River water.  

Touton made clear in June the federal government would act if the states didn’t. 

Reclamation has not often stepped in and taken control of water management plans from the states, but it has the authority to do so in the lower Colorado River basin — which includes Arizona, southern Nevada and southern California. Experts told CNN the threat of federal action is something states will respond to. 

“We kind of need the federal government to make some threats to spur action,” John Fleck, a West water expert and professor at University of New Mexico, told CNN earlier this year. “Progress seems to happen when the federal government comes in and says to states, you need to do this or we’re going to do something you don’t like.”  

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 preparing to make mandatory water cuts and asking states to devise a plan to save the river basin.

Two major announcements could come Tuesday:

The growing concern is that the mandatory cuts aren't enough to save the river in the face of a historic, climate change-driven drought.

At a June Senate hearing, Bureau of Reclamation chief Camille Touton laid out a stark warning: In order to stabilize the Colorado River Basin, states and water districts must come up with a plan to cut 2 to 4 million acre-feet of water usage by next year. (An acre-foot is the amount of water that would fill one acre a foot deep — roughly 326,000 gallons.)

She also made clear that if the states cannot come up with a plan, the federal government will act.

Keep reading here.