Over the past two years, Mexico's share of Colorado River water was slashed by 7%, and while those cuts have yet to affect Tijuana, hydrologists and policy experts emphasize that the city and state of Baja California need to secure other water sources soon. And it's now about 180 feet above the water level. And a big chunk of that money is going to go to just those sorts of contracts I just mentioned, to paying farmers not to use water or to fallow their fields for season and preserving their rights after that season. So it wouldn't generate any electricity at all in that case? LUSTGARTEN: Well, the federal government has maintained a position of some optimism but also is kind of cloaking the talks that are still underway. DURATION: 1/3 Day. This is FRESH AIR. JB Hamby: Building a multibillion dollar pipeline to pump out more water from an already rapidly declining reservoir simply doesn't make sense in the 21st century. Then theres the estimated 7% of water that Tijuana loses to leaks, according to the state water utility. And it's just, you know, become a bit of an intractable problem. And I dont think they use much more for cooking there, and I dont think showers are much longer. So it's pretty close to proving itself, you know, useless as it is. The damming and diverting of the Colorado, the nation's seventh-longest river, may be seen by some as a triumph of engineering and by others as a crime against nature, but there are ominous new . So you know, for example, the federal government declared, you know, a shortage officially about a year and a half ago. DAVIES: There's also just the kind of agriculture that is practiced in a lot of the states - Arizona, California. We'll be back to talk more after a short break. Bill Whitaker: And what percentage of your water is supplied by this canal? How much - how big were those reductions? And at the time, it wasn't really part of the mainstream conversation. On any given morning, the Colorado rancher and father of two is checking soil moisture levels, fielding calls from journalists from his tractor or meeting with extension specialists about planting schedules. Is there something that could happen which would make people realize, my heavens, we've got a crisis that demands attention? Where it will end up, I dont know. Bill Whitaker: So it drops so low that it may not be able to generate--, Brad Udall: It may not be able to generate power--. To all these demands add the stress of a 22 year drought - as dry as any period in 1,200 years - and you have a river in crisis. We've asked him to come back for an update on the crisis and a look at what lies ahead. Now, they are booming and say they need the water they've been promised. And, you know, their projection is that Lake Powell could reach dead pool by the end of 2023, that the elevation of the water there would go below the intake pipes that run the generation plant and pass water through the rest of the Colorado River. However, since the Southwest has been plagued by drought for the past ten years, the Colorado River has been particularly low. The river's biggest user calls deadline "coercion" How does that source fit into this picture? We grow it across Arizona and parts of California. July 2, 20235:38 PM ET. LUSTGARTEN: Yeah, that's right. Video journalist Jordi Lebrija contributed to this report. So people have been kind of creatively working around that system and defining, you know, the word, use, basically, so that, you know, money can compensate a rancher for not using what they need but the redistribution of their water can still count as the use that preserves their water rights. Climate change is shrinking the Colorado River - SOURCE Colorado River water cuts needed to avert supply crisis, Senate - Axios Sign up for NewsHour Classrooms ready-to-goDaily News Lessonsdelivered to your inbox each morning. Updated: June 29, 2023. The Colorado River water shortage is forcing tough choices in 7 states Forty million people rely on the river. And the states and, you know, governors of the river have just shown a, you know, an unwillingness to respond with the sense of urgency and at the scale that all of that data and science suggest is needed. But generally speaking, water rights are given to the first to arrive. Neither one of those are easy questions to answer, by any means. SUPPORTED BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU. What Is Happening With The Colorado River Drought Plans? Well, let's just talk a bit about how we got where we are and what some of the problems are with usage of the water there. It is the biggest problem we have, said Hernandez, who has lived in Rancho el Chicote for 20 years, about the lack of running water. 'Cause the only lever we control right now in the river is the demand lever. The Arizona water shortage 2021 is just the beginning of an ongoing crisis in the region, as climate change-induced droughts and heatwaves have driven water levels at Lake Mead and the Colorado River to plummet. But suffice to say that things that once seemed absolutely out of the question are no longer out of the question. When the fun begins, your heartbeats could be heightened to conquer the rapids of the Colorado River through Grand Canyon National Park. Its difficult, but we have to deal with it, Trinidad said. DAVIES: Now, the federal government this summer asked states to agree on voluntary reductions. Amelia Flores is chairwoman of The Colorado River Indian Tribes, a reservation of four tribes a few hours west of Phoenix, with the oldest and largest water rights in Arizona. I think a water rate structure is part of it, but you may not get all of the response you want if you simply rely on that. Let's let ag grow crops that use less water. Wow (laughter). His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Scientific American, Wired, Salon and Esquire, among other publications. Conservation measures that keep more water stored in Lake Mead have reduced flows downstream through habitats for endangered fish, birds and snakes, necessitating ever more intervention to avoid . There's always hope that there's going to be a big water year. There was also the issue, last time we spoke, of cotton being grown in Arizona, which, at the time, didn't - there wasn't a great market for it. So what this boils down to is a lot of outdoor water usage, and specifically lawns. I mean, what you have is, you know, a national system of food supply and distribution, not to mention an enormous chunk of - you know, of the whole country's population that is entirely dependent on what's happening with water in the West. And we're not quite seeing that from this administration or any administration, for that matter. In the West, a lot of those subsidies are sent to farmers that have historically grown things that happen to be very water-inefficient - so farmers who grow alfalfa and, in the example you're describing that I reported on, farmers who grow cotton in the Arizona desert. Its obviously not essential, especially in a critical situation like this. Its looked at as a shift in the climate regime that will require deeply rethinking this whole thing? We're living in this drought as if nothing were happening, said Manuel Becerra, a water consultant based in Tijuana and former city superintendent of public services. The court is where a lot of the Western water law has been settled. His family has tilled soil here for four generations. So that's to say we've divided up who gets access to Colorado River, and it's regulated separately from who can take water from underground aquifers. Seventy percent of Colorado River water goes to agriculture. Waylon Wuertz: Yeah, kinda the-- the lifeline of our-- irrigated ag here. The water fight over the shrinking Colorado River - BBC News And - but as long as people turn on the tap and get water, and we can buy our carrots and celery grown in California, we're just not going to get that invested in this. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. DAVIES: Wow. Belfer Center research director examines recent assessment from entire U.S. intelligence community, There are new clues about how and why the Maya culture collapsed, Modernized infrastructure may be best response to episodic floods, Lower courts, along with over 40 years of precedent, have approved using race as one factor among many in admissions, Education has been a force for racial progress in the U.S., but we still have a long way to go. The federal government has resisted. Waylon Wuertz: Correct. For example, after all the litigation and negotiations, the law ends up allocating more water than actually flows down the Colorado. 1:32 PHOENIX - Lake Mead has declined to its lowest level since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s following the construction of Hoover Dam, marking a new milestone for the water-starved. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying. But more than likely it's gonna stay brown for quite some time. We grow it across Colorado. Plan your Colorado vacation now and find out if you know how to Do Colorado Right. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. Lake Mead has this famous bathtub ring, which is a chalky mark left by the high water mark. The Colorado River: What's broken and how to fix it | GreenBiz LUSTGARTEN: Yeah, that's exactly right. Is global tide turning in favor of autocrats? DAVIES: Abrahm Lustgarten is an investigative reporter focusing on the environment at ProPublica. Zach Renstrom: So right now we're in the process of implementing really strict conservation measures. We want to make sure that we have water for our future, for a hotter dryer scenario that's coming up. First published on October 24, 2021 / 7:35 PM. Colorado Tourism - Official Colorado Vacation Guide | Colorado.com U.S. officials on Tuesday announced unprecedented measures to boost water levels at Lake Powell, an artificial reservoir on the Colorado River that is so low as to endanger the production of. Colorado River Shortage Creates Arizona Water Crisis - BuzzFeed News And it's crucially difficult now. The average U.S. family uses more than five times as much water each month, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, yet pays less, despite Mexico's much lower wages. Do we need a national water policy? Bill Whitaker: But it was a budget that was set when water was plentiful.

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