(With expanded coverage of all the Western States)
by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20230202-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf
A Note to Readers
I refer the reader who may have missed it, to my article published on the LaRouche PAC website on January 18: “California—Flooded Amidst Drought”
By Patrick Ruckert
January 18, 2023
The report this week is heavily focused on the Colorado River, as January 31 was the deadline for the seven states of the Colorado River Basin to submit their collaborative agreement on cutting the amount of water they withdraw from the river by 2 to 4 million acre feet annually, beginning this year.
That section begins with this introduction:
January 31 was the deadline for the seven states that receive water from the Colorado River to come to a mutual agreement on how they will reduce what they withdraw by 2 to 4 million acre feet annually, beginning this year.
The U.S. government Department of the Interior, and its agency the Bureau of Reclamation, has actually set two deadlines, with the first one not complied with by August 15 of last year. The second was set in December last year, which is the one we will discuss now.
These reports have covered the crisis on the river extensively for months, and I shall not review it once again, except to emphasize that the crisis is now upon us and must be acted on now.
Regardless of the so-far generous snowpack both in the Sierras and the Rocky Mountains, not only will the California drought not go away, but the snowpack in the Rockies will do little this Spring to raise the reservoir levels of Lake Mead and Lake Powell on the Colorado River.
Both deadlines set by the Bureau of Reclamation made clear that if the states do not come to an agreement then the Bureau, which has legal and operational authority over the river will act and impose the cuts on the states it deems necessary to ensure that both reservoirs are not drained, threatening the water supply of 40 million people and electricity generation from the Glenn Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam, upon which 5 million people depend.
On January 30 six of the seven states submitted an agreement that would cut what all seven states would cut to achieve a reduction of about three million acre feet. California submitted a separate plan on January 31.
The difference in the two plans is significant and definitely divisive. You can read from the articles posted below the contents of both plans.
When the January 31 deadline was set it included the following likely procedure that would occur. It was put forward in the Department of Interior’s federal register notice, as reported in the second article below by John Fleck: “Deadpool Diaries: Trapped, again, in a world we never made.”
“It laid out three scenarios the agency hoped to evaluate.
“The first is a “no action” alternative which basically says fuck it, let’s just crash the system.
“The second is the one we’re currently all spun up about, so it’s worth reading the actual language of the notice:
“Framework Agreement Alternative: This alternative would be developed as an additional consensus-based set of actions that would build on the existing framework for Colorado River Operations. This Alternative would likely build on commitments and obligations developed by the Basin States, Basin Tribes, and non-governmental organizations that were included in the 2019 DCP.
“No deadline here, no requirement for all seven states to sign on. Suitably vague, to allow the players the room to move as they try to come up with something workable. Which is what is now happening.
“And finally…. “Reservoir Operations Modification Alternative—This alternative would be developed by Reclamation as a set of actions and measures adopted pursuant to Secretarial authority under applicable federal law. This alternative would likely be developed based on the Secretary’s authority under federal law to manage Colorado River infrastructure, as necessary, and would consider any inadequacies or limitations of the consensus-based framework considered in the above alternative. This alternative would consider how the Secretary’s authority could complement a consensus-based alternative that may not sufficiently mitigate current and projected risks to the Colorado River System reservoirs.”
The question that does not get asked is, could this crisis been averted? Yes, of course. The states over the past 20 years of drought could have reduced their withdrawals from the river. But, that would have been very destructive policy of, especially agriculture in the southwest, as, for example, 75% of the winter vegetables produced in the U.S. are grown in the Imperial Valley.
What else? As I have often reported here, the North American Water and Power Alliance project from the 1960s, had it been built, would have added more than 100 million acre feet of water to the Southwest and Midwest states’ supply. Some of the political leaders from long ago had the vision and determination to solve problems that they knew would emerge in decades ahead. But today, we just have those who attempt to manage crisis, not solve them, much less foresee the future and build what the future requires.
The rest of this week’s report:
The U.S. Drought Monitor map for this week shows no change in the extent and intensity of the drought in California from last week. Note that nearly 90% of the state remains in “Moderate” or “Severe” drought.
The California drought, water supply and snowpack are covered with several articles, with the proviso in most of them that the two largest reservoirs, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville, are still lower than the average for this date of the year. Though Lake Oroville’s water level has risen 182 feet and is now 65% of capacity. And, while the snowpack in the Sierras is 200% of normal, this abundant resource of water for the Spring and Summer still requires periodic snowfall through the rest of the winter or it will be below average by April 1.
The last section this week is, as discussed above, the Colorado River crisis and the January 31 deadline for the states to agree on reducing withdraws from the river by 2 to 4 million acre feet per year, beginning now.
