The river is drying, America’s two largest reservoirs are bleeding out and the states whose 40 million residents depend on the previous resources still can’t balance their water budget together.
Past that deadline, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials threatened to take control from the seven Western states depending on the river and make the cuts themselves. But the statesAnd upstream states like Colorado are unwilling to pitch in further unless the biggest water users downstream – Arizona and California – go first and cut deep.
The sooner the better, experts agree, because the current impasse comes at a time when the path forward is narrowing quickly. “Everybody’s pointing the finger at everybody else and nobody’s willing to stand up and say ‘We’ll go first,’” Squillace said. “It doesn’t look very good for the Colorado River right now.”
Facing the ever-worsening shortage, the lower-basin states and Mexico agreed in 2007 to cut their water use if levels in lakes Mead and Powell sank below certain points, which is now expected to happen at the start of next year.“Failure of leadership.” The federal officials did, however, explain that the projections for Lake Mead early next year were low enough to trigger relatively minor water cutbacks for Arizona, Mexico and Nevada but not low enough to trigger cuts for California.
Reclamation likely doesn’t want to take over the situation and force cuts any more than the states want to lose control of their own water, she said. If federal officials did step in and move too strongly in forcing water cuts, they’d risk a lawsuit. Golfers play a round at Rancho de los Caballeros Golf Club on August 17, 2022 in Wickenburg, Arizona. Due to the worsening drought crisis the Interior Department is asking the state of Arizona to cut appropriately 21% of the state’s annual apportionment to Colorado River water. So far nobody appears willing to stand up and voluntarily slash their water use, Gimbel said. Although most of the fingers are pointing at the lower basin, specifically Arizona and California.
Irrigation water makes its way down the rows of a field in western Maricopa County on August 17, 2022, in Tonopah, Arizona.
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