Through several years of drought, Colorado and neighboring states have relied on Lake Powell to deliver water downstream. But as the reservoir's water levels drop, fears of a water war, or of severe shortages, rise.
By Theo Stein Denver Post Environment Writer Sunday, April 04, 2004 -
Lake Powell, the desert oasis that has served Colorado as a crucial fail-safe for water deliveries throughout the Southwest during five years of hard drought, is now more than half empty.
If the drought persists a year or two more, the 186-mile-long reservoir in Utah and Arizona could be drained dry as early as 2007, federal officials say.
That would propel Colorado - and 30 million other Westerners who depend on the Colorado River for their drinking water - into an uncertain future punctuated by recurring water shortages and decades of litigation, experts warn.
On Friday, the Bureau of Reclamation said it expects only 55 percent of the normal runoff to flow into Lake Powell between April and July. That guarantees the big reservoir, already down to 42 percent of capacity, will recede even further by 2005.
"Time is running out," said Pat Mulroy, director of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. "The drought no one thought would even happen is here."
Under the Colorado River Compact of 1922, the states of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are required to allow an average of 7.5 million acre-feet per year to flow past a river gauge below Lake Powell for use by California, Arizona and Nevada.
The four upper-basin states have met their compact obligations during the five-year drought by releasing water from Lake Powell. But if Powell dries up - and hydrologists caution that is still a big if - the state could eventually be required to turn off the massive transmountain tunnels that have supplied Colorado River water to Front Range residents and Eastern Plains farmers for more than 50 years.
Federal and state officials have not thought through how they would react to the nightmare scenario of a severe extended drought. But Lake Powell's steadily declining levels have convinced many that the time to evaluate the vulnerability of the West is now.
"That's something we in Colorado need to address," said Scott Balcom, a Glenwood Springs water lawyer who represents the state on Colorado River issues. "These issues haven't been explored as deeply as we need to this year."
State Engineer Hal Simpson said that if the next year is dry, he will begin a formal process of developing a plan for shutting off state water users in the event that Powell drains.
Simpson, who spent most of the 1990s involved in fights with Kansas and Nebraska over Colorado's overuse of the Arkansas and Republican rivers, said developing a curtailment plan would be difficult.
"But if this year's predictions hold true and we drop Lake Powell an additional increment, we have to make sure we're in a position to administer the state's water," he said.
The forecast released Friday follows four years in which mountain runoff was 62, 59, 25 and 53 percent of average, and establishes the period as the driest five consecutive years in a century of record-keeping, Bureau of Reclamation hydrologist Tom Ryan said.
"We can handle another two or three more years like this," Ryan added. "Then it's too late to plan."
Lake Powell was created to be a 24.3 million-acre-foot water bank, storing snowmelt in wet years and releasing it in dry years. (An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, or enough to supply two families for a year.)
As recently as 1999, the lake brimmed full, forcing engineers to spill excess water through the dam - water that was quickly slurped up by California.
But the lake's volume dipped to 10.2 million acre-feet this month, a level not seen since 1971 - when the impoundment was first filling.
Now the receding shoreline has stranded the once-bustling marina in Hite, Utah, and forced National Park Service officials to stop laying new concrete boat ramps to chase the falling waters for boaters at Wahweap, on the Utah-Arizona border.
Drought is also draining Lake Mead, Powell's slightly larger downstream sibling reservoir, which sits at 59 percent of capacity. During the past five years, the two vast impoundments have lost a volume equivalent to a full Lake Mead, officials say.
Several water experts point out that the lakes are functioning exactly as intended, and that the seven states that depend on the river still have time to prepare for a worst-case scenario - and settle contentious and unresolved issues outside of the courtroom.
"It makes you thankful for the people who had the wisdom to build Powell as big as it did," said Department of Natural Resources Director Russell George, Colorado's top water official.
Several former state and federal officials added that, at minimum, the threat of continued drought should force water managers to seriously consider questions that were once unthinkable.
For example, what would happen if Simpson had to start shutting down existing Western Slope water users to allow the legally required amount of water to flow to California, Arizona and Nevada?
Or should the administration of Colorado Gov. Bill Owens continue with plans to encourage diversions of more Western Slope water to the Front Range to provide for the estimated 2.8 million new residents the U.S. Census Bureau estimates will flood into Colorado by 2030?
"The moral is that if we think we have more Colorado River water that's developable, we'd better think again," said David Getches, dean of the University of Colorado Law School. "We may already be beyond the point of safe development of Colorado."
It's unclear whether, under a continuing severely dry scenario, there is additional water to be developed, agreed Denver Water Manager Chips Barry, whose agency is evaluating a project that will bring more water from the Western Slope.
Getches, the state's natural resources director under Gov. Dick Lamm, knows he is delivering an uncomfortable message.
"If there is a compact call, we hit the wall," he said. "We wouldn't be able to use water called by the lower basin. We have to think about that."
If Powell were to dry up, the upper basin might still have two or three years of grace before the Interior Department, which is the lower-basin river master, declares a "deficit" and orders Colorado, Wyoming and Utah to curtail their use.
The compact requires an average of 7.5 million acre-feet a year for 10 years, but the Bureau of Reclamation has been releasing 8.23 million acre-feet a year from Powell. State officials say Colorado would argue that it owed the lower basin no water until the 10-year average fell to the minimum of 7.5 million acre-feet a year.
In addition, Bureau of Reclamation officials would first drain Blue Mesa and other federally operated reservoirs in the upper basin before demanding more from the states. That might buy Colorado one more year of grace.
But after that, ranchers, ski resorts and cities whose water rights postdate 1922, the year of the compact, could be required to stop using the water they have come to depend on.
"One scenario is, we start with most junior rights and start regulating those until we get the desired amount of flow at the state line," Simpson said.
But very little of the state's western waters were developed prior to the compact, so experts warn that a call on the Colorado River has the potential to affect nearly everyone.
If the shutoffs proceeded in a strictly chronological order, the losers could potentially include:
The Colorado-Big Thompson project, which takes about 250,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water to Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley and the farms of the Eastern Plains.
Denver Water's transmountain diversions, including water from Lake Dillon and the Fraser River Valley, which average 120,000 acre-feet a year.
Colorado Springs' supplies, including the Homestake Tunnel and the Frying Pan-Arkansas Project.
A large majority of the water users in the Gunnison Valley who draw water from Blue Mesa Reservoir - which would be one of the first to be drawn down by federal officials.
Summer mountain recreation, particularly golfing and rafting.
But Simpson said there might be an argument for spreading the shutoffs around the state's western basins based on criteria other than strict adherence to the prior appropriation doctrine.
"It gets quite complicated," he said. "And at the same time there would be some really big legal issues with other states that would have to be dealt with."
One of those issues involves whether the upper basin is required to contribute half of the 1.5 million acre-feet the United States owes Mexico every year. Colorado, Wyoming and Utah might demand credit for their contribution, several water lawyers said.
Other fights would likely erupt in the lower basin, where Arizona could get shut off completely.
"That would be the single most counterproductive thing they could do," argued Mulroy of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, whose agency is spending $32 million this year alone to rip out turf across Las Vegas to free up more water.
Mulroy said a megadrought like those recorded in tree rings and other paleontologic records would require Westerners to suspend fiercely guarded traditions regarding water use. That could mean some residents of one state would temporarily give up the use of their water to prevent a crisis in another state, she said.
It could also mean suspending the "doctrine of prior appropriation," which has assumed an almost sacred position in Western water law, Mulroy said.
"We will have to shift from what's on paper to what's needed for homes and communities," she said. "It doesn't have to be perpetual, but in order to get through an emergency, it's going to have to happen."
Many water scholars point out that the laws governing the Colorado River, of which the 1922 compact is but one part, have never really been tested. Rather than a coherent whole, the "law of the river" - a mix of compacts, congressional acts and legal decisions - is "really a bunch of moving parts," said John Leshy, a Hastings College law professor who served as a lawyer with the Clinton administration.
"If there is a compact call, we really are in no man's land," he said. "If there can't be some sort of settlement patched together, we're looking at horrendous litigation."
Leshy said the legal fights could drag out for decades against a backdrop of severe water shortages.
"It would stack up as the biggest water war in the West."
Even if Powell doesn't bottom out, Bureau of Reclamation officials say it will take a minimum of 13 years to refill with average precipitation. With current demand in the upper and lower basins, an average inflow year will increase system storage only by about 3 percent, they said.
As long as Powell remains less than half full, Colorado could remain vulnerable to an extremely dry year.
"If Lake Powell is sitting there with 10 million acre-feet or less, we will always be at risk of the next 2002 or 2004," said Eric Kuhn, manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District.
Others wonder whether the potential crisis may be a trial run for a rancorous new future that may be closer than anyone imagined.
"If this is the beginning of global warming," said Mulroy, "then we've got issues."
A top federal water official had a grimmer message: The massive plumbing network built to serve the exploding Western states has removed much of the cushion that was available in earlier decades.
"We're no longer fighting about the water we will need decades in the future," said Assistant Interior Secretary Bennett Raley, a former Colorado water lawyer.
"The crises we will face will be in normal years, and they'll be about meeting existing demands.
"There's just not enough water."
Letters to the editor
April 11, 2004
More serious problems
Your article on the natural draining of the Lake Powell reservoir served the public well in preparing those who rely on the Colorado River for sustenance. But the problem is actually more serious, considering other factors related to the lowering of reservoirs held back by high dams in desert regions such as the Colorado River basin.
For example, in the upper reaches of Lake Powell, the Colorado and San Juan rivers combined are currently flowing over 60 miles of exposed sediment fill. It is this sediment fill that closed the boat access at Hite Marina. Through natural erosion, these two rivers are re-mobilizing sediment and organic materials into Lake Powell. The re-mobilized sediment is advancing closer to Glen Canyon Dam and diminishing its lifespan, and the decomposition of the organic material is consuming the oxygen in the reservoir and lowering the water quality.
Another water-quality problem is that there is not enough input of fresh water, and the saline content of the reservoir is consequently much higher. Saline water is detrimental for agriculture and corrodes the plumbing systems in our homes and businesses.
Power production is also in jeopardy. When Lake Powell reaches a capacity of 6 million acre-feet, the turbines cannot be safely operated any longer. With only 10 million acre-feet in the reservoir at present, we are closer than we realize to occasional shutdowns of turbines at Glen Canyon Dam.
When a turbine shutdown occurs, the emergency river outlets must be opened to keep the river ecosystem in Grand Canyon National Park alive. This water comes from the very bottom of the dam where the water is not only very saline, but is also high in hydrogen sulfide, which is corrosive to the metal working parts of Glen Canyon Dam. It is obviously not ideal water for an ecosystem that has already lost four species of native fish.
More importantly, we are not fully aware of the amount of waste that occurs from evaporation and seepage from our reservoirs and canals. Basinwide, the total loss from such unconsumed water amounts to 3 million acre-feet per year.
Keeping Lake Powell drained and then decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam makes more and more sense. It is obvious that we have too much storage in the system and that we have planned our communities to be water-intensive, as opposed to water-conservative. If we want a healthy Colorado River ecosystem and healthy communities, we must re-evaluate the way we manage the Colorado River system as soon as possible.
JOHN WEISHEIT Moab, Utah The writer is conservation director of Living Rivers, a national organization that promotes large-scale river restoration, habitat preservation and water user responsibility.
