“California, Arizona, and Nevada agree to reduce Colorado River water usage amid historic drought”

Faced with the aridification of the American West, California, Arizona and Nevada have decided to use less water from the Colorado River over the next three years. The agreement, announced Monday, May 22, responds to the historic drop in the level of the river which, 2,340 kilometers long, supplies some 40 million people with drinking water and some of the most productive agricultural land in the United States.

In a letter released on Monday, the three states announced that they had agreed to reduce their collective consumption by 3 million acre-feet until the end of 2026 (3.7 billion cubic meters of water). , in exchange for aid of 1.2 billion dollars (1.1 billion euros) from the federal government. The Colorado crosses seven states, four in the upper basin (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico), three in the lower basin (Arizona, Nevada, California, the signatories of the agreement). Under the effect of global warming and development, the river has lost 20% of its flow in a century.

According to a White House statement, two-thirds of the water savings will be offset by the subsidies enshrined in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in September 2022 by Congress. The text had provided for an investment of 4.6 billion dollars to compensate the victims of the effects of the unprecedented drought observed in the Colorado basin. The rest of the savings will have to be achieved through voluntary reductions – and not compensated – in the states of the lower basin.

Threatened lakes

As early as the summer of 2022, the Biden administration had asked the seven states bordering Colorado to reduce their consumption by 2 to 4 million acre-feet to prevent the level of the two large reservoirs (Mead and Powell) from reaching the so-called point of dead pool, when the water could no longer run the hydroelectric turbines. In August, the level of Lake Mead had fallen to its lowest level (316 meters above sea level), triggering a first round of rationing (21% of its allocation for Arizona; 8% for Nevada), a first since the inauguration in 1935 of the Hoover Dam, which formed the reservoir, 40 kilometers from Las Vegas.

This year, the level has risen, thanks to the exceptional rainfall enjoyed by the American West. On May 22, the level of Lake Mead was 320.6 meters. An improvement of 4 meters in six months, but the lake is still more than two-thirds empty.

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