While we’ve all been obsessing over the elevation of Lake Mead, there’s a second looming lake elevation problem that could really complicate Colorado River management and increases the risk of a 2016 Arizona shortage declaration beyond the current estimates. Depending on how things play out over the next couple of months, this second problem could …
Tony Davis reports the Bureau of Reclamation’s latest model runs up the odds of a 2016 Lower Basin shortage declaration to one in three: The odds of a shortage in water deliveries to Arizona and other Lower Colorado River Basin states in 2016 are now 33 percent, up from 21 percent as predicted in January, …
Continue reading ‘Risk of Colorado River shortage declaration rising’ »
In Las Vegas for a two-day conference on the Colorado River law and policy. Checked into my hotel room, looked out the window to see the Bellagio Fountains: My life has become self-parody.
People I talked to on my recent trip to Yuma repeatedly ticked off the three components of the regional economy: ag federal (mostly military) tourism If you count me as “3” on a Gila main canal ditch bank as a squadron of military helicopters flew over, this picture captures them all. I think it’s fair …
At the 7 p.m. Pacific Time reading this evening, the surface elevation of Lake Mead dropped to 1080.18 feet above sea level, surpassing the previous low set last August to mark the lowest the big Colorado River Reservoir has been since it was filled in the 1930s: The record came as Hoover Dam’s operators ramped …
Continue reading ‘1080.18: Lake Mead breaks another record, lowest since it was filled’ »
It was only when I was captioning and filing my pictures from my recent tours of the old bits of Arizona’s Lower Colorado River water infrastructure that I noticed what the graffiti here said: “I’m stuck in my ways.” It’s a surreal spot – springing from the side of a harsh desert canyon, a remarkable …
As I write, the surface elevation of Lake Mead is 2 1/2 inches away from setting yet another record for its lowest levels since it was filled in the 1930s. Henry Brean, with characteristic flair, writes that the threshold will likely be crossed Sunday: The last time Lake Mead was this low was May 1937, …
Continue reading ‘Lake Mead, always with the record setting lows’ »
The folks at the Central Arizona Project and Arizona Department of Water Resources held a workshop yesterday to discuss the implications of Colorado River shortage. I didn’t have time to get down there, but Summer Pauli covered the basic message for Cronkite News Service: Arizona’s communities, industries, mines and Native American tribes aren’t likely to …
Continue reading ‘In a Colorado River shortage, Central Arizona will be fine for now’ »
At the risk of nickel-and-diming you with bad forecast news, today’s Bureau of Reclamation mid-month report is bad forecast news. April-July flow into Lake Powell is now forecast to be just 3.4 million acre feet, 47 percent of average (pdf). That’s down from 3.75 maf (52 percent) just two weeks ago. Runoff for the full …
Continue reading ‘Lake Powell spring runoff forecast this year now less than half of average’ »
Mike Cohen of the Pacific Institute, in some conversations last week sparked by my post about the risk of what we often call the “first ever” shortage in the Colorado River Basin, points out that shortages in fact are routine in the river’s Upper Basin. This is a result of hydrology. The Lower Basin – …
Continue reading ‘The Upper Basin: the Colorado River shortage that has already happened’ »