Let’s Refill Lakes Mead & Powell Now
Bad News for Lake Powell
As of Monday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) forecast for this year’s expected water supplies in the Colorado River is at 59% of average. That’s not good news.
If that prediction proves true, this will be one of the driest water years since Lake Powell was constructed nearly 60 years ago. The volume of water stored in Lake Powell each year is affected by three primary factors: the amount of water flowing into the reservoir after ‘Upper Basin‘ water users have extracted water for their use, minus water released from the reservoir to support Lower Basin water users, and minus evaporation from the reservoir itself. Lake Powell will lose – by my estimation — about 22 feet of water this year, or about 2.1 million acre-feet (MAF) of storage.
At that point, the reservoir will be 60% empty.
If we see four more years at this pace of reservoir loss — which nearly matches the rate at which Lake Powell lost water during 2000-2004 when it went from full to half-full — the reservoir could be functionally dry by 2024, meaning that it will become physically impossible to release enough water from Lake Powell to fulfill the Lower Basin’s share of the river.
Lake Mead Will Drop As Well
The Bureau of Reclamation plans to release 8.23 MAF of water from Lake Powell into the Lower Basin this year. For context, releases in recent years have averaged nearly 9 MAF, and those high releases had a big effect on draining Lake Powell over the past 20 years, but the ‘extra’ water flowing downstream into Lake Mead slowed its decline substantially. With a release this year of 8.23 MAF from Lake Powell, we can expect Lake Mead’s levels to drop again. The extent of that drop, of course, depends upon how much water is taken out of Lake Mead and consumed in the Lower Basin.
If the Lower Basin water users consume at the average recent rate (i.e., past five years), Mead will lose about 1.2 MAF (a 15-foot drop); if they can manage to consume only what they consumed last year (the lowest in 22 years), Mead would lose only about 0.7 MAF (a 9-foot drop).
I don’t expect the Lower Basin’s water use this year to be as low as last year. In California, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) is expecting to receive only 15% of their allocation in the State Water Project (i.e., water imports from Northern California) due to a very meager snowpack in the Sierra Nevada this year. As a result, MWD has signaled their intent to take nearly twice as much water from the Colorado River this year as compared to last year’s take.
By year’s end, Lake Mead will likely be somewhere around 65% empty.
The Delicate Balancing Act between Lake Mead and Lake Powell
Under a mind-boggingly complicated set of rules called the “2007 Interim Guidelines,” the US Bureau of Reclamation has some flexibility in deciding how much water to release from Lake Powell. For instance, they could reduce the releases from 8.23 MAF (the rate planned for this year), down to as low as 7 MAF in future years to keep Lake Powell from draining completely. The idea is that this flexibility in release rates enables Reclamation to “share the pain” between water users in the Upper and Lower Basins.
However, any reduction in Powell releases below 8.23 MAF will cause increasingly severe pain in the Lower Basin. By next year, the Lower Basin water users could realistically be facing a mandatory reduction of ~10% of their share of the river due to dropping water levels in Lake Mead.
A recent economic assessment estimated that a 10% reduction of water across the basin would cause a loss of $83 billion in economic activity in just one year. If only the Lower Basin water users face water cutbacks, we might cut that dollar number in half. It would incur a loss of ‘only’ $42 billion.
I can’t imagine how controversial this decision — about how much water to release each year from Lake Powell — will become if we are in fact entering into a string of bad runoff years similar to 2000-2004. But……………….
We Could Instead Be Refilling the Reservoirs!
It’s time to shift from this “lose-lose” situation to the “win-win” opportunities that will emerge if we can start implementing measures that will stabilize and then rebuild water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. In recent blog posts, I’ve been pretty clear about the need to arrest these reservoir declines and begin to refill the reservoirs so that those dependent on Colorado River water can avoid severe cutbacks in their allowable water use in coming years and we don’t push endangered species into extinction. And now we have a well-respected political leader saying the same in this OpEd from Bruce Babbitt, a former Interior Secretary and past Governor of Arizona.
Below I’ll briefly discuss two recent developments that illustrate how water savings can be achieved on both farms and in cities.
Intentionally Created Surplus in the Lower Basin
The Interim Guidelines created an opportunity for farming and urban entities to leave some of their water in Lake Mead when they don’t need all of their water entitlement, known as “Intentionally Created Surplus” or ICS. This program benefits Lake Mead because ICS stored in the lake helps to raise the water level. The graph below tracks the success of four entities that have been participating in the program to date.
Similar to a financial bank account, when an entity ‘banks’ water in Lake Mead as part of the ICS program, they have the opportunity to withdraw that water in the future. As you can see in the graph, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) made a series of withdrawals from their account during 2013-2015 that depleted Lake Mead’s storage by 486,000 acre feet.
If we can find a way to incentivize some of the creators of these ICS credits for permanently depositing their surplus water in the reservoir, it would be immensely helpful in stabilizing and eventually rebuilding reservoir levels in the future, a point illustrated below by the Mohave Valley Irrigation and Drainage District in Arizona.
Opportunities for Farmers to Help Conserve Water
There are many ways that farmers can reduce their consumptive use of water, particularly if they are financially incentivized to do so (see my blog post on Growing Water).
This year, the Mohave Valley Irrigation and Drainage District (MVIDD) was approved by the Bureau of Reclamation to join the club of entities creating ICS credits. They plan to save water by temporarily fallowing a portion of the alfalfa grown in the District. Their plan this year is to fallow 1,200 acres, reducing their consumptive use by 6,100 acre-feet.
However, their participation in the ICS program in future years will likely depend upon whether there is a funding source to compensate them for saving water and leaving it in Lake Mead.
Opportunities for Cities to Help Conserve Water
Three of the entities that have been participating in the ICS program to date are urban water providers, and they have been able to save huge volumes in recent years. In 2019, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) banked more than 400,000 acre-feet (note: it takes ~80,000 acre-feet of water savings to raise Lake Mead by one foot from its current level, so MWD raised the lake by about 5 feet this past year).
Potential exists for even greater savings from urban water utilities in the future. However, this potential is at present constrained in two ways. First, there is a cap on how much the Bureau of Reclamation will allow to be stored as ICS in each year (625,000 AF/year max), as well as a cap on the cumulative volume of ICS that can be stored (2.7 MAF max). This doesn’t make sense given that current over-use of the lower river is around 1.2 MAF/year, and there is 17 MAF to be refilled!
A second constraint is that other entities that would like to create ICS are presently prohibited from doing so because they lack a designated storage account in Lake Mead.
The San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) is a case in point. The Authority has made huge positive strides in bolstering their overall water security by diversifying their water sources (see below), and by incentivizing water conservation.
Since 2000, the SDCWA has been able to reduce per-capita water consumption AND its total water use by 35%. When coupled with variable local precipitation, this has enabled the Water Authority to move into the enviable position of having surplus water supplies that can be stored during wet years. For that reason, the SDCWA has expressed its interest in banking water as ICS in Lake Mead.
However, SDCWA does not have the ability to do so because it currently doesn’t have a Lake Mead storage account. SDCWA receives 280,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water through a conserved water transfer agreement with the Imperial Irrigation District and from projects that conserve water by lining portions of the All-American and Coachella Canals. Both of these supply sources could be used to produce Lake Mead ICS storage. Because SDCWA is a sub-contractor for water from MWD, it would be possible for MWD to allow SDCWA to use some of their ICS storage account. MWD, however, has not been willing to allow SDCWA to utilize their account, even though there have been many years in which MWD has not been able to use their account fully.
Let’s Maximize Our Potential to Save Water
It’s not sensible to limit the ability of entities to save and bank water in Lake Mead, so I’m hoping the Bureau of Reclamation can work with the states to open up the ICS accounts to maximize water-saving potential, and also to earmark funding that can be used to incentivize ICS creators to save water. Secretary Babbitt offers one idea to fund water savings, but there are additional sources that can be tapped to provide compensation for farmers and others.
Current use of the Lower Colorado River remains 16% (1.2 MAF/year) too high, so the sooner we can begin to stabilize and refill Lakes Mead and Powell, the better.
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This is somewhat like moving the deck chairs around for the 6 O’clock cocktails. Filling Powell and Lake Mead is a great ideal but the sad truth is this is not a drought! it is desertification. There is no reason to believe that the flowing in the Colorado will ever go back to the 1980’s and previous years.
Jerry Mallett
Colorado Headwater
While I don’t agree with the metaphor, Jerry, I do understand your point. I view the refilling of Powell and Mead as a necessary transitional strategy. We have to get consumptive use down to the point where the lakes can refill over the coming decade, even against the ‘headwind’ (a metaphor consistent with your deck chairs) of climate change; we need full reservoirs to buffer against short-term extremes in river flow. I’m confident this can be done with transitional strategies such as temporary, rotational fallowing over the next decade or two. But we absolutely need a more permanent fix of the basin’s water budget, meaning that we need to wean cities and farmers off the river on a permanent basis, to the point where we can get total use down to a long-term, sustainable level. And to your point, that ‘sustainable’ level will be a moving target, with river flows continuing to decline going forward under climate change.
How about piping water from the missouri river and lake superior to the headwaters of the colorado river. This could help to refill specifically in flood seasons in the missouri river basin.
Jake, the biggest challenge with that concept is the resultant cost of the water, given that many families are already unable to pay their water bills. The high cost is due to the energy requirements of moving large volumes of (heavy) water over such a long distance, and pushing it uphill against gravity in many stretches (i.e., through the mountains). There are alternatives that come with much lower cost — particularly water conservation in cities and on farms — that should be implemented to their maximum potential before considering costly alternatives such as long-distance water transfers.
Use money from the Infrastructure budget to pay for the pipelines to move the water. Lower water levels not only result in lack of irrigation water and drinking water but also mean no electricity will be produced by the dam.
Paul, even if we could use infrastructure funding to pay for constructing a pipeline, we still wouldn’t be able to pay for the energy, i.e., the ongoing electricity bill year after year. The cost of that water will be way out of the reach of irrigation farmers, as well as many urban water users. And where will all of that electricity come from? If it comes from burning carbon-emitting fossil fuels then we’ll just be exacerbating the climate warming that is partly responsible for these water shortages. Long-distance water transfer projects are energy hogs: the largest electricity user in Arizona is the Central Arizona Project (CAP) and the State Water Project is California’s biggest electricity user.
My brother spent several years in the middle east as a water engineer and building massive desalination plants in saudi arabia,quatar, dgabuti,and dubai. All of these places use desalination as their primary sources of domestic water. I know the expense involved but look at the alternative. Desalination would go a long ways in refilling both mead and powell.
Yes, use infrastructure money. Here are some people to tell… CA Gov. Gavin Newsom, Assembly Member Lorena G. Fletcher, State Senator Ben Hueso….State Capitol Building, 1315 10th Street, Sacramento, CA
♦️Mitt Romney, U.S. Senator, 125 S. State Street #8402, Salt Lake City, UT 84138♦️ Gov. Spencer Cox, 350 N. State Street, #200, P.O. Box 142220, Salt Lake City, UT 84114-2220♦️ Mayor Carolyn Goodman, 495 S. Main Street, Las Vegas, NV 89101♦️ City Council Members Olivia Diaz / Brian Knudsen / Michele Fiore / Victoria Seaman….City Hall, 495 S. Main Street, Las Vegas NV 89101♦️Alan Stock, 840 KNXT Radio, 7255 S. Tenaya Way #100, Las Vegas NV 89113♦️ Mayor Kate Gallego , Phoenix City Hall, 200 W. Washington Street, Phoenix AZ 85003♦️ Governor Doug Ducey, 1700 W. Washington Street, Phoenix AZ 85007♦️ KPHX 1480 AM Radio, 824 E. Washington Street, Phoenix AZ 85034
Absolutely right! In times of flooding, water from the Missouri River should be piped to the start of the Colorado River..along the same route driven by cars. Ridiculous arguments against plan say it would take 30 years. Absurd! The longer and much more complex Alaskan oil pipeline was done in 4 or 5 years. The cost would be billions and billions? Again, check your math. And the catastrophic results of Lake Mead non stop drop in its water level far outweighs the cost of running this pipeline. And this one pipeline is not expected to refill Lake Mead and Lake Powell. There are additional solutions to also be implemented.
I’m open to all ideas, Mark. But only if they fairly and objectively evaluate options on the basis of cost, energy requirements, social justice, and environmental sustainability. When those analyses are done properly, we’ll see that there remains tremendous potential to conserve a lot more water at far less cost and environmental damage than water importation or desalination or other options. We need to exhaust all conservation potential before investing in those other strategies.
It seems to me that as a country we have the capability to do a pipeline. The Mississippi River and Missouri river seem to flood on a regular basis during runoff of the spring. There is no reason we could not install a series of complex and manageable pipelines to divert flood waters to the west. The argument of environmental issues just don’t hold water… Moving water from one part of the country that is over full to another that is in need is a simple easy fix. The pipeline can run all directions depending on what the year is doing. The water for the country as a whole is more than enough. This would be true water management. And not to mention a great jobs creator. Not just the construction of it, but also the maintaining of it.
You’re not thinking straight : The cost and the environmental damage of piping water to the Colorado, just so people can live in the desert goes against all logic. The effect of such a pipeline would damage the Colorado, the Missouri, the Mississippi, Lake Superior, and the Gulf of Mexico. The real answer to your problem is to leave the southwestern desert just as the ancient people did thousands of years ago due to the lack of water. The American Sonoran desert environment, evolved along with the lack of water. You should learn to do the same.
Exactly. People trying to live in the desert with 21st century amenities. There are plenty of efforts being done all over the world to regreen deserts. Perhaps that is an idea instead of building more homes in the desert. And instead of culling efforts to grow cities in the desert we have a boomer like philosophy of “gimmie your water it’s mine” I live in the lovely midwest where this time of year all the lakes are full to the brim, plenty of boating and outdoors activities, cheap energy, cheap homes. In 30-50 years the Midwest will be the economic center of the country along the Missouri River. Populations boom and bust over water. Look at Lake Mead now just a couple years after this article. Almost dry.
I am no scientist but i must ask a question. What if we flooded Death Valley out with sea water, will it create more rain in this region? I am aware that filling must also involve having an outlet or it will be a dead sea. But its just an idea that i was thinking about. Can someone answer?
Thanks for the creative thinking, Junior! If we created a lake in Death Valley it would likely create more rain in that area, but there’s no guarantee where that rain would fall – that would depend on where the winds blow the rain clouds and the rain may not fall where you want it to. Most importantly, we wouldn’t want to destroy a truly unique natural wonder like Death Valley in our efforts to create a little more water — there are many better ways of doing that!
Instead of flooding Death Valley, why build a solar desalination plant at the high elevation point along side the I-8 freeway between San Diego and El Centro, CA. The desalinated water would flow downhill by gravity and the brine returned to the sea also would run downhill. Pumping the seawater uphill to the desalination requires electricity. A small price to pay. Energy costs to desalinate is zero…it would be solar powered. The cost to initially build this plant should be proportionately shared by all the southwestern states. This water would be for agriculture in the Imperial Valley, CA. But this means less water taken from the Colorado River for the Imperial Valley.. and that means more water remaining in Lake Mead for the benefit of everyone else.
Even solar power is not free energy, Mark. Even though it has become the most cost-effective (and least environmentally damaging) form of energy production, it still costs money to construct and operate, and even those costs will make the water cost-prohibitive for agricultural use. We also need to be realistic about size limitations — individual desalination plants are now capable of providing water supplies for large cities, but not for entire states or regions.
Getting the water to the top of the Continental Divide is the hard part. Once it. Starts going down the west side it should be generating electricity as it flows. That electricity can then be sent to the east side to power the lifting pumps. Yes it will cost billions probably but it may be worth the cost.
In the meantime we need to eliminate backyard pools and grass in our yards. Farmers need to stop growing water hogging crops such as almonds.
Bill, it’s important to acknowledge the strong progress that cities have made in recent decades, see my post here. On the energy issue, there’s no way that we can generate enough electricity in the water transfer project to offset the enormous energy demand of pumping water nearly 1,000 miles and against 10,000 feet of elevation. We should also expect daunting political challenges in getting cities to pay for this water (farmers will not be able to afford it) when they have lower-cost alternatives.
I live on the western slope of colorado Bill and unknown to many there are already 23 water diversion projects shipping western water to front range cities. Fine build a pipeline from the mississippi to colorado then stop all diversions to the front range and use those diversion tunnels to ship mississippi water to the colorado headwaters.
My personal belief is in desalination. My brother was a chief water engineer on many desalination projects in the middle east where most all their domestic water comes from desalination. If those nations can afford to build then the US can too
and what if we should close hoover dam for some weeks, can that help filling up lake mead ? power is more easy to transfer then water, so close hoover dam for some weeks, transfer power from other power plants and let the lake fill up a bit ? Like putting the plug bad in the bath tub
They should start using the products from Flexible Solutions INC. to stop the evaporation from the lake. Billions of gallons of water would be saved.
Why aren’t they doing this?
You are absolutely right that reducing evaporation from reservoirs is a worthy and important endeavor, Bob. I’ve not seen approaches that can do that on the scale of Lake Mead or Lake Powell, but I remain ever hopeful.
Piping in desalinated water from the Pacific may be the answer.
Something needs to be done in regards to Lake Mead receiving water that has been allocated or allotted immediately! What is going on!?!? It seems like nobody cares if Lake Mead dries up or nothing is being done until the last minute to help remedy the issue!!! Nobody has put a halt to population increase – specifically to Las Vegas- and all the new construction and accommodation to new communities! This is a tourist town and water usage is 24 hours a day everyday! Things are not going to miraculously improve a dire situation due to people not watering landscapes or filling swimming pools! It isn’t an option to let it dry up- without Lake Mead- where will Las Vegas get water from- where will enough power be available that can facilitate the city!?!?! The issue needs to be resolved now and then brainstorming about water conservation and cost of supplying water and best route to take in doing so should be focused on!! Many places draw and dam water from this source! It’s time to give back!
While I noted what you replied about cost, eventually infrastructure is going to have to be paid for whether now or when we they actually run out of water. The federal govt. is going to come up with a comprehensive plan that ultimately will help all those that get water from the Colorado. Having said that from a power standpoint I think that a carbon zero solution would be nuclear. I’m not sure what the power requirements of water pumping stations are , in regards to desalination plants, according to wikipedia, Carlsbad requires 40 MW of power which is well within a nuclear power plants capacity. I would think multiple large desalination plants and pipelines would be required. I don’t think solar or other clean energy has the capacity at this point. I know in certain circles nuclear is a dirty word but it does provide Carbon free power, and it seems unlikely that without large amounts of electricity much can be accomplished.
Perhaps with the infrastructure money being spent this could happen…
In regards to what someone posted earlier about the Missouri river I would think that there are issues east of continental divide as well. If one were to divert water from out east I would think that recharging the Ogallala aquifer may be a bigger priority . Also probably easier to do since the Platte, Arkansas, Red, Brazos rivers all pass over it.
Over popularization, building of more and more homes and concrete is what is killing us. In SoCal we are building house at an alarming rate. Water that soaks into the ground is no longer taking place and is becoming run off that goes to the ocean. We need to collect that water and use it. What about putting in two water lines for each new house that is built? One is reclaimed water used only for outside. Second line acceptable drinking water. We need to start using reclaimed water where it can be used. Concrete is the biggest polluter and it prevent water from getting into the ground. I am not trying to knock concrete plants but we need to figure this out
As for getting water from the East to the west, that plan has to be in place for emergencies. We can’t wait to act. I agree we need to look at other options first but we can’t put that on the back burner, it needs to be an option always. Would eliminating the amount of Fresh drinking going into the oceans help curve the rising ocean levels? I get less fresh water in the ocean will raise the salt intake. Thus why desalination plants are not necessarily a great idea because we are putting all that brine back into the ocean as straight brine it will raise the salinity of salt in the ocean. But here comes the trade off why not use reclaimed water to mix in before sending it back to the ocean. Everything has cause and affect. We won’t know for years whether are choices are right or wrong but all plans need to be out there and ready to execute. To me it’s over popularization and the amount of concrete we are putting down out west. Think about all this construction, with the amount of houses being built we are wasting water to keep the dust down. Why not make them used reclaimed water for those projects? Fire hydrants that are reclaimed water.
Someone call Elon! We should use the Boring Company to dig tunnels for the pipelines. It needs to happen soon though! The amount of food grown using water from Lake Mead is staggering! If what I read is correct, it’s around 60% of the total produced by the USA. We will all starve if we don’t fix this soon.
This topic seems to have been pushed under the carpet for many years. The politicians and environmental officials have their heads in the sand. Las Vegas continues to grow in housing and megaresorts. How does this happen? Why is there no slowdown of building? Does anyone plan for the future? Surely if we can send humans to the moon some plan should be erected to take care of this planet, our homes and our future generations. Why can’t we tax the resorts to contribute to the cost of a desalination plant. If we continue at this rate the resorts will be closed and we will become a ghost town. Let’s plan ahead before it’s too late.