For Star subscribers: Runoff into Lake Powell is set to be the highest since 2011, but a top Arizona water official won’t say if that will mean an easing of cuts in water use.
Tony Davis This year’s spring-summer runoff into Lake Powell is set to be the highest since 2011, but a top Arizona water official won’t say if that will mean an easing of cuts in Colorado River water use proposed for 2024.
Some state officials, however, have said that while the river’s long-term outlook remains bleak or at least troublesome, this year’s massive runoff will “buy time” for state and federal negotiators to work out longer-term solutions and to avoid drastic, immediate cuts. “Everything I’ve heard from the states is that they expect to come up with a plan and the cuts will be in proportion to what’s required by the plan,” said Eric Kuhn, an author, water researcher and former general manager of a Colorado water district. ”Any plan put forth will be based on water availability. I think they’ll be prepared for a drier year next year. If it’s not a drier year, the cuts won’t be as dramatic.
The 2011 spring-summer runoff, the highest since the river’s 23-year period of aridity started in 2000, was about 12.5 million acre-feet. By comparison, the Central Arizona Project canal system delivered about 1 million acre-feet last year to Tucson, Phoenix and other cities and farms in Southern and Central Arizona. An acre-foot is enough to serve about four Tucson households for a year.
Mead is now 29% full and Powell is 24% full, but both reservoirs are expected to reach 35% full by the end of 2023, Bunk said. The two differ in how much water would be cut from Arizona and California, respectively. But each alternative would end up cutting about the same amount of water in total: Up to nearly 2.1 million acre-feet in 2024 and up to 4 million in 2025 and 2026. The amount of cuts would depend on how high or low Lake Mead sits at the end of each year.
“We don’t want to squander that hydrology by saying that the rain has saved us. It’s not the case. We could go right back down if we don’t do things to hopefully protect Powell and Mead,” Buschatzke said at the briefing, held at CAP headquarters. “That doesn’t mean we will do nothing,” said Hasencamp, the Metropolitan district’s Colorado River programs manager.
On Thursday, the CAP’s governing board approved plans to compensate various Arizona water users for 183,000 acre-feet worth of cuts starting this year. One participant in those cuts is the city of Tucson, which has agreed to cut its CAP deliveries by 50,000 acre-feet this year and 30,000 acre-feet in 2025 and 2026.
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