The year ended up being the second-driest in recorded history, he said. “In 2021, water was scarce and pain was plentiful,” he said. Those gains are not going toward the conservation goal set up in the plan, he said.Īddressing conference attendees Wednesday morning, Entsminger did not shy away from confronting the grim reality the Colorado River faces. “We are continuing to make conservation gains locally, however,” Mack said. That’s largely because Nevada has the smallest share of the river, water authority spokesman Bronson Mack said. Nevada will contribute $20 million to the plan, but has no additional conservation projects on deck to contribute additional water to the 500,000 acre-foot goal, Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager John Entsminger said. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California will also contribute $20 million. That report does not consider contributions from the new agreement.īuschatzke’s department is contributing $40 million to the effort, with the Central Arizona Project contributing another $20 million. Officials use the August report when determining shortage conditions for Lake Mead.Īccording to the December report released Wednesday, Nevada, Arizona and Mexico could face deeper cuts as early as 2023. Bureau of Reclamation to plug the contributions into its modeling for the agency’s August version of monthly water level projections. He said he wants to get all of the deals finalized in time for the U.S. “Again, we have various boards, councils and governing bodies that need to review these potential agreements and we don’t want to get too far ahead of them,” he said. Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said officials are in the process of wrapping up other deals, and that he is confident the 500,000 acre-foot contribution needed for 2022 will be met. “Now this demonstrates the vital role that sovereign, tribal nations can and are playing in helping to preserve the Colorado River,” Lewis said. Stephen Roe Lewis said his community hopes to repeat its contribution in 2023. One commitment that is a done deal is a contribution of nearly 130,000 acre-feet by the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. It is about what two Las Vegas Valley homes use over the course of 16 months. Individual plans to meet the goal of leaving 500,000 acre-feet in Lake Mead per year in 20 are still in the works, but Wednesday’s agreement represents a commitment from the lower basin to scale back consumption.Īn acre-foot of water is enough to cover an area about the size of a football field in 1 foot of water. Lower basin states will pitch in $100 million for the plan and the federal government will commit another $100 million. We’re not going to turn against each other.” “We’re not going to turn our backs to it. “In short, we’re not going to abandon the Colorado River,” Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said during the signing ceremony.
The move was met with applause at the Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas, where hundreds of water officials from across the West gathered to discuss the future of a parched river that about 40 million people rely on for water. Bureau of Reclamation in signing the so-called “500+ plan,” a new effort to buoy Lake Mead’s elevation by about 16 feet over the next two years. Water agencies in Nevada, California and Arizona joined the U.S. Three states and the federal government signed an agreement Wednesday that seeks to slash water usage from Lake Mead in an effort to prevent the reservoir from falling to a critically low level. John Entsminger, president of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, center, signs an agreement called the “500+ plan,” that will slash water usage from Lake Mead over the next two years as part of an effort to prevent the reservoir from falling to a critically low level, at the Colorado River Water Users Association Conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Wednesday, Dec.
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