 | | Lake Powell, one of two big Colorado River reservoirs along with Lake Mead, is just 26 percent full. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue
The precarious status of the Colorado River basin was brought into sharper focus this week.
The Bureau of Reclamation released the August edition of a monthly study that projects reservoir levels in the basin in each of the next 24 months. This month’s study is particularly important, as it determines how much water will be released from Lakes Mead and Powell—and the extent of water cuts in the lower basin states, as well as Mexico.
The results of the study will force Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico to forgo a combined 721,000 acre-feet of water in the next year. This is in addition to between 2 and 4 million acre-feet of cuts federal officials requested basin states to make. At the high end, that amount of conservation is nearly five times the cuts announced today and roughly equal to a third of the river’s recent annual flow.
Without these additional cuts, Mead is projected to drop another 20 feet by July 2023 due to reduced releases from Powell, located upstream. As state leaders and water managers continue to negotiate those cuts, they will be implementing the reductions dictated by this week’s study.
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 | | Tehuacán Valley, Mexico (file). Photo © Brent Stirton / Reportage by Getty Images for Circle of Blue
Months ago, taps in Monterrey ran dry. The current water shortages continue a seven-year dry spell. Water shortages have hit the northern Mexico city almost every year since 2015.
Officials last month announced a new water rationing plan that they say will secure the city’s long-term water supply for the next eight to 10 years. But any long-term response must confront the historical squeeze at the region’s core: that urban growth is outpacing infrastructure capacity. Monterrey’s economic development, ignited by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, supercharged its growth. The population has doubled since the early 90s.
Money poured in, but water resources suffered. Experts have warned for years that rapid residential growth, contamination of freshwater sources by manufacturers, and the unquenchable thirst of industry would push the city to the brink.
Now, the breaking point has arrived. While wealthier homes often have cisterns or access to private gyms, millions of people are rationing murky, green water from tanker trucks. Monterrey’s water inequality is stark, and years of drought have made it all the more apparent.
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Dry: A Weekly Western Drought Digest — August 16, 2022
Drought in the American West is impacting more than 127 million people. Here’s the latest: - As of August 9, nearly 42 percent of the U.S. and Puerto Rico are in drought, down three percentage points in the last month. Monsoon precipitation and soil moisture have slightly eased drought conditions throughout the Southwest.
- The House passes the Inflation Reduction Act, which allocates $4 billion to the Bureau of Reclamation.
- Flash floods in the driest spot in North America cause damage to roads and water systems.
- Texas border counties issue emergency disaster declarations as the Falcon International Reservoir reaches historic lows.
Each week, Circle of Blue breaks down the biggest stories, the latest data, and the most promising solutions to the United States’ most urgent water crisis. Read Dry, your go-to news brief on the drying American West. |
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 | | A uranium mill in New Mexico polluted air and water in a rural northwestern community long after it shut its doors. Photo © Ed Ou / ProPublica
A Uranium Ghost Town in the Making
A ProPublica investigation found that regulators have failed to hold companies to account when they missed cleanup targets and accepted incorrect forecasts that pollution wouldn’t spread. The federal government will eventually assume responsibility for the more than 50 defunct mills that generated this waste.
In the small northwest New Mexico communities of Murray Acres and Broadview acres, air and groundwater contamination from uranium contamination has caused disease and cancer, claiming numerous lives.
Beginning in 1958, a uranium mill owned by Homestake Mining Company of California processed and refined ore mined nearby. State and federal regulators knew the mill was polluting groundwater almost immediately after it started operating, but years passed before they informed residents and demanded fixes.
Time and again, Homestake and government agencies promised to clean up the area. Time and again, they missed their deadlines while further spreading pollution in the communities. Rather than finish the cleanup, Homestake’s current owner, the Toronto-based mining giant Barrick Gold, is now preparing to ask the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the independent federal agency that oversees the cleanup of uranium mills, for permission to demolish its groundwater treatment systems and hand the site and remaining waste over to the U.S. Department of Energy to monitor and maintain forever.
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 | | Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue
What’s Up With Water — August 16, 2022
Tune into What's Up With Water for your need to know news of the world's water on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and SoundCloud.
Featured coverage from this week's episode of What's Up With Water looks at:
- In Europe, countries continue to endure an extremely hot and dry summer. Another heat wave is pressing across the continent, influenced by climate change.
- In Germany, transport authorities are monitoring the Rhine River as water levels drop to critical levels. The AP reports that the key waterway could soon be too low to move most cargo.
- And in Great Britain, officials who are considering an emergency drought declaration will not have a backup water supply at the ready. A major desalination plant in London said it will be at least another year before it will supply drinking water to residents.
This week, Circle of Blue reports on what flooding in Kentucky means for its poorest residents. |
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 | | Precipitation in the mountains of Colorado is a source of uncertainty for water availability in the Colorado River basin. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue
Colorado River Forecasts Not a ‘Crystal Ball’
Every month the Bureau of Reclamation attempts to peer two years into the future of the Colorado River and its reservoirs.
The 24-month study, in the simplest terms, projects water levels for the next two years at 12 federal reservoirs in the Colorado River basin. Produced monthly, it’s one of several forecasting products that give water managers a sense of possible futures. It is also the foundation of essential water management decisions in the basin. Reclamation’s other forecasts, updated less frequently, look at mid-term (five years out) and long-term (multiple decades) scenarios.
Typically nested in wonkish obscurity, the August results acquire public prominence, Circle of Blue reported last year. It is most important of all the months because they determine how much water will be released in the following year from Mead and Powell. But more eyes than usual on a technical product that was designed to guide reservoir operations means more potential for misinterpretation, especially by people unfamiliar with the study and its assumptions.
Reclamation’s models, in fact, are not a crystal ball. Critics say that they are not pessimistic enough about the potential for extremely dry years. But as the Colorado River basin dries due to a warming planet, experts are actively considering how best to convey to the public and water managers alike the looming risks to water supplies and to prepare people, at least mentally, for the possibility that reality could turn out much worse than the forecast had projected.
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