On August 21, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation cut the allotment of river water to Arizona, California and Nevada.<\/p>\n
Due to a nearly three-decade-long drought, overconsumption of the available water and the inability of the seven states along the Colorado River to agree on how to share the resource, the federal government has cut water deliveries to the three lower-basin states \u2014 Nevada, Arizona and California \u2014 over the next two years.<\/p>\n
For most of the 20th century, water use stayed well below what the river carried. Dams completed in 1935 (Hoover) and 1964 (Glen Canyon) created Lakes Mead and Powell \u2014 below and above the Grand Canyon \u2014 generating hydropower and functioning together as one giant reservoir.<\/p>\n
Water use peaked in the late 20th century. Consumption has eased since, but the U.S. still draws more from the Colorado than the river provides \u2014 a gap widened over the past two decades by a megadrought that has pulled reservoir levels sharply lower.<\/p>\n
The river\u2019s reservoirs, chiefly Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have worked like liquid bank accounts \u2014 filling in wet years and paying out when snowmelt fell short of what the math demanded.<\/p>\n
But a drought now in its 27th year \u2014 capped by a poor 2025-26 snowpack that produced little runoff \u2014 has drained the account, and both reservoirs are nearing dangerously low levels. Today, nearly every drop is diverted for use and the Colorado no longer reaches the sea.<\/p>\n
The Pacific Ocean is warming to record levels in what forecasters are calling a super El Ni\u00f1o \u2014 a pattern that can bring drier conditions to the river\u2019s mountain headwaters where snowmelt provides most of the river\u2019s streamflow. Some scientists see the megadrought as a lasting aridification of the western U.S., and the river\u2019s lower flows as the new normal \u2014 meaning modest cuts from three states may not be enough. Federal officials will recalculate how the water is shared on a two-year cycle over the next decade. Emergency actions would be triggered if either Lake Powell or Lake Mead fell to a level that threatened their ability to generate hydropower.<\/p>\n
Cut volumes for Arizona and Nevada are pending final figures.<\/p>\n
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (natural flow and consumptive uses and losses reports); U.S. Geological Survey (streamflow).<\/p>\n
Julia Wolfe, Donna Bryson and Nia Williams<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On August 21, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation cut the allotment of river water to Arizona, California and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,7368,50,254404,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-770780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-graphics","tag-news","tag-reuters-news","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}