No water shortage for 2019, feds say
But new report indicates Ariz. may see 2020 cuts
Arizona will avoid a water shortage next year, but water users may be forced to cut back in 2020, according to a new federal report released Wednesday.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s outlook comes as Arizona managers and stakeholders work to finalize a drought-contingency plan in time for the next legislative session. Overallocation, climate change and long-term drought have contributed to decline at Lake Mead, where water levels hover just a few feet above shortage triggers.
A water shortage will be declared if water levels at Lake Mead are projected
to fall beneath an elevation of 1,075 feet above sea level by the end of the calendar year. The reservoir will end 2018 nearly 5 feet above the shortage threshold, according to the bureau’s August study, which covers 24 months.
Officials say a strong conservation ethic among Arizona’s water managers helped keep the lake above shortage levels thus far, but they say Wednesday’s report serves as a reminder of how sorely Arizona needs a drought-contingency plan.
“Every single human being is a water user,” said Jennifer Pitt, Colorado River program director for the National Audubon Society. “The prospect of a continued drought without that policy in place really puts all of us at risk.”
The Bureau of Reclamation releases a study each month projecting the Colorado River’s supply for the next two years, but officials use the August outlook to determine whether water levels at Lake Mead will trigger a shortage in the next calendar year. An official shortage affects the lower reaches of the river, which serves Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico.
Even if Lake Mead falls below the 1,075-foot threshold during the year, a shortage is only declared if it’s projected to be below that level at the end of December. Under long-held agreements, Arizona, along with Nevada, would take the brunt of any water-delivery cutbacks.
Officials use the August study because it’s the month before water orders for the upcoming year are developed, said Chuck Cullom, Central Arizona Project’s Colorado River programs manager, in a July interview.
“While we’ll fall below 1,075 sometime in the summer potentially, the reservoir ... will end the year above 1,075,” he said.
While the federal study bears some good news for the next year, experts fear Arizona isn’t in the clear yet.
The study projects the reservoir will fall to 1,070 feet by December 2019, which would trigger a Tier 1 shortage and cutbacks for water users.
“That’s alarming, certainly,” said Kim Mitchell, senior water-policy adviser for Western Resource Advocates in Arizona. “Even though we’ve avoided a shortage declaration in 2019, there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
Under the current guidelines put in place more than 10 years ago and under a potential drought-contingency plan, rural farmers with low-priority water rights would be hit hard during a shortage.
Mitchell said she wants to see the drought-contingency plan mitigate that blow to farmers.
“(It) is likely that water levels are going to decline past that 1,075 level,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t have solutions.”
Under a shortage, farmers in central Arizona lose out on a large share of their Colorado River water. Mitchell is hopeful a drought-contingency plan will add provisions to mitigate those losses.
“The DCP and the steering committee ... are focusing on mitigation efforts to try to lessen the impacts on water users,” Mitchell said.
Experts credit water conservation with preventing shortages up to this point, but they say conservation alone won’t always be enough.
“We have been able to actually push off shortages for the last few years because of voluntary conservation efforts that have really been successful in the lake,” Mitchell said. “(But) more needs to be done.”
Although experts laud a strong conservation ethic, the harsh drought in Arizona and the Southwest is a formidable adversary and signals the need for a drought plan sooner rather than later.
“We had a bad winter last year. Lake Mead is well below where it was a year ago,” Pitt said. “Staying at the table and doing the hard work of figuring out how to finalize the lower-basin drought-contingency plan is more important than ever.”
Adopting a drought plan is a key step toward leaving water in Lake Mead and keeping water levels above drought triggers. Agricultural use has emerged as one of the key factors in devising the plan.
At an August drought-plan steeringcommittee meeting, officials discussed potential ways to mitigate cuts for agricultural water users after a presentation from Paul Orme, general counsel for irrigation districts in Eloy and the Queen Creek area.
In his presentation, Orme said most of his clients are trying to transition off CAP water and solely use groundwater by 2030.
Under a Tier 1 shortage with a drought-contingency plan in place, the entire CAP agricultural pool would be eliminated in hopes of avoiding further shortages, he said. That would leave his clients 100 percent reliant on groundwater a decade before they had planned to be.
By contrast, the guidelines adopted in 2007 wouldn’t eliminate the entire agricultural pool until a Tier 3 shortage, when Lake Mead hits an elevation of 1,025 feet.
All of this is why a smart drought plan is needed, officials say. While the outlook for a shortage in 2020 is just a projection, they say it’s time to act before conditions become too dire.
“These are projections,” Mitchell said. “But they’re real. You can’t quantify them exactly, but the risk is real. The concern is that we need to take action now before we’re at a crisis level.”
In June, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman visited Arizona and stressed the importance of a drought plan, calling Arizona’s drought the worst in 1,200 years. At that gathering, officials vowed to have a plan ready for the state Legislature to vote on next year.