Scientists - Colorado River Water Crisis Lake Powell and Mead

[Pegasus]

I read this as there are still those pushing draining Lake Powell out there, funded by our tax dollars. It is a good read with facts presented among opinions statements.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/new...ver-water-crisis-lake-powell-mead/1088871002/

 

[Dorado]

Hard for me to believe they still want to pull even more water out to send to St. George. The river has been over-allocated for a long time! Talk about wasting tax payer dollars!!

 

[Waterbaby]

A hearing starts this week on the Hopi being able to draw more water from the Little Colorado - which drains into the Colorado below Lake Powell and then into Lake Mead.

 

[Pegasus]

Hard for me to believe they still want to pull even more water out to send to St. George. The river has been over-allocated for a long time! Talk about wasting tax payer dollars!!

I'm not an advocate of the St. George pipeline (actually against it), but from what I read, the upper basin states are currently using only 70% or so of their legally allocated water, and CA is using far more than their legally allocated Colorado River water. So upper basin states should be able to utilize more water, and CA should reduce their use to be within current law.

The problem as I hear it is that CA has no plans to reduce water use, and has implied that they will lock the entire Colorado River water use subject up in court for many years while still using more than their legal amount of water if push comes to shove.

One thing seems for sure though, the river system is over-allocated, and those allocations need to be altered - but I've heard of no movement to pursue this change from the powers that be. This seems to me like it should be a HUGE focus of our state and federal government, but it isn't.

 

[Waterbaby]

I'm not an advocate of the St. George pipeline (actually against it), but from what I read, the upper basin states are currently using only 70% or so of their legally allocated water, and CA is using far more than their legally allocated Colorado River water. So upper basin states should be able to utilize more water, and CA should reduce their use to be within current law.

The problem as I hear it is that CA has no plans to reduce water use, and has implied that they will lock the entire Colorado River water use subject up in court for many years while still using more than their legal amount of water if push comes to shove.

One thing seems for sure though, the river system is over-allocated, and those allocations need to be altered - but I've heard of no movement to pursue this change from the powers that be. This seems to me like it should be a HUGE focus of our state and federal government, but it isn't.

Colorado and California get the same allocation. The differences in allocation is between WY, Utah, NM, AZ and NV - NV with Lake Mead on it's border actually receives the smallest allocation of the Colorado River and they purify hotel water and send it back to Mead. The first State to be cut off if Mead drops to a certain level is Arizona - one reason Arizona seriously saves as much water as possible. We pump it into California out of Lake Havasu and to Tempe and Tucson from the farthest end of Havasu.