Kate Twomey, Junior
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
The Colorado River, which provides water and power to over 40 million people in seven states, has been hit hard by overuse and the ongoing drought in the region. This has led to drops in the water levels of Lakes Mead and Powell, huge reservoirs that power the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams. This is causing issues of water shortages and the production of hydroelectric power.
The US Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation has recently released a report with two potential solutions for dealing with the lack of water. In both scenarios, states, farms, and tribes in the region would be forced to cut almost 2.1 million acre-feet (684 billion gallons) of their usage of the river by 2024. The difference between the two plans is that in one, cities such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix would bear the brunt of the water cuts, as they have a lower priority claim to the water than farmers and Native tribes. The other plan would include the water cuts being spread more evenly among states, farmers, and tribes, which could cause severe challenges for high-priority water users and potentially lead to court battles. Neither solution is ideal, as the proposed water cuts would be devastating for everyone involved, but states and the federal government have agreed that doing nothing is not a viable option at this point, as the river continues to decline due to anthropogenic (human-caused) factors.
There is some hope provided by the heavy snowfall in states, such as California, this past winter. The melt from that could be enough of a short-term solution to stave off larger cuts, at least for the moment, but they will not solve the problem in the long run. Short-term, less severe water cuts could be another short-term solution. For example, administration officials are incentivizing agricultural water cuts and fallowing of water-intensive farmland. Neither of these solutions is going to completely solve the problem, but they could help enough that the extent of the water cuts could be decreased when a final decision is made.
To really solve this problem, climate change needs to be addressed. Droughts are normal, but the one affecting this area is prolonged and has been exacerbated by climate change. As a country, we also need to be more conscious of how we use resources and be careful to not overuse and deplete them. It would be better if we could prevent these problems from ever arising in the first place, and then prevent people from having to struggle to survive with insufficient resources.