Civil engineer: Lake Mead water conservation efforts are working
Drought is still an issue for the Lower Basin of the Colorado River — but officials have seen some success with water conservation measures.
The Colorado River Citizens Forum, a conference put together by the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, heard from a civil engineer and expert in water conservation efforts for the Lower Basin of the Colorado River recently.
The International Boundary and Water Commission is an international body set up by Mexico and U.S. to ensure that agreements regarding shared boundaries and water are met.
Noe Santos, with the Boulder Canyon Operations Office for the Bureau of Reclamation, said the Lower Basin of the Colorado River, which includes Yuma and Imperial Valley, is experiencing a drought. Water levels for the Colorado River are decreasing and the main solution will involve different regions and agencies.
“The Colorado River Basin continues to experience an unprecedented drought,” he said. “Even with above-average inflow and a slight improvement in system conditions in 2019, there is a chance for Lower Basin shortages as early as 2022. Cooperation and collaboration will be key in finding sustainable solutions and addressing current and future challenges.”
The Colorado River begins in Wyoming and travels south through Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California and Arizona before emptying into Mexico and into the Gulf of California and the Sea of Cortez, Santos explained. Along the way, the river is diverted in several places to bring water to different areas.
The river is shared by the two countries and the six states through which it travels as well as New Mexico, which accesses the river through tributaries and diverted streams. About 16.5 million acre-feet, enough water to cover West Virginia, is diverted from the Colorado River — 7.5 million acre-feet to each basin and 1.5 million acre-feet to Mexico.
About 13 million to 14.5 million of those 16.5 million acre-feet is consumptive use, which means they never return to the Colorado River.
The upper basin becomes the lower basin along northeastern Arizona and its border with Utah. The Lower Basin includes Arizona, parts of Nevada, California and Mexico.
Santos focused on water diversion from Lake Mead. Lake Mead, a reservoir created by the Hoover Dam, is responsible for delivering a minimum requirement of 8.23 million acre-feet of water to homes, businesses, farms, Native American communities in the southern part of the lower Basin, which includes Yuma and Imperial Valley.
The water storage of Lake Mead is declining 1.2 million acre-feet each year because of the drought. The current water elevation level, which marks how high the water reaches in Lake Mead, is the lowest it has been since the 1930s, when Lake Mead was first filled.
This decrease has been going on roughly since 1999, Santos said, and as the Bureau of Reclamation has seen the lake emptying, they’ve created plans to address the issue for the short-term.
“Lake Mead was full in 2000 and since then we’ve seen a steady decrease in water elevation,” Santos said. “(The Bureau of Reclamation) started drafting drought contingency plans a few years into that decline and 2020 will be the first year of the official drought contingency plan.”
The goal of the plan was to prevent Lake Mead from reaching a critically low elevation level of 1,020 feet by adding water contributions from Lower Basin states, store and recover more water and manage water usage in the Upper Basin.
Santos said that Lake Mead decreased in water elevation by about 134 feet since 2000, and its current water elevation level sits at 1,089 feet. However, drought
response activities, such as created water surpluses and deferred delivery to Mexico, which were initiated by the Bureau of Reclamation in 2017 mitigated some drop off, Santos said. He said that those efforts combined with the drought contingency plan should restore some water elevation to Lake Mead.
“Lake Mead could end January with water levels higher than previously recorded for the first time in a while,” he said. “Without the programs we have in place, we don’t think water levels would be where they are. Lake Mead, by our estimates, is around 38 feet higher than
it would have been without the programs we’ve been putting in place.”
For Santos, the efforts made by the Bureau of Reclamation, including the drought contingency plan and previous water conservation measures, are working, and the water elevation levels show that they have a trustworthy system in place.
“We feel like this shows us that water conservation programs are working,” he said. “Water programs work in bringing water to parts where we’re seeing a shortage. We saw an above-average year for water elevation in 2019 compared with
what we’ve been seeing in recent years.”
The key for Santos moving forward will be working with states and different offices of Reclamation that are scattered throughout the Upper and Lower Basin. For him, this cooperation will keep the water running and prevent shortages.
“I think much of that has to do with states cooperation with reclamation and different parts of reclamation working with each other to figure out what works,” he said. “I think most of us in Reclamation have been keen on addressing current system issues, and that’s the direction we’ll keep moving in.”