Water cuts affecting 25 million people ordered on Colorado River for first time amid drought

Reservoirs along the Colorado River have reached historic lows

Amid a historic, climate crisis-fueled drought, the federal government has for the first time declared a water shortage along the dams and reservoirs fed by the Colorado River. This triggers automatic water cuts, effective next January, that could affect more than 25 million people in the US Southwest, tribal nations, and Mexico.

Water levels in Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US by volume, are at their lowest since the 1930s, when the reservoir was first filled in following the construction of the Hoover Dam.

The cuts will be deepest in Arizona, which will see a nearly 20 per cent reduction in its share of Colorado River water. The state’s farmers, rather than cities, will bear the brunt of the reductions, and many have reported planting less or different crops in anticipation.

“As this inexorable-seeming decline in the supply continues, the shortages that we’re beginning to see implemented are only going to increase,” Jennifer Pitt, who directs the Colorado River program at the National Audubon Society, told The New York Times. “Once we’re on that train, it’s not clear where it stops.”

One of the primary drivers of the shortage is the climate crisis, and the way it exacerbates naturally existing drought cycles. Last week, ahead of the Department of Interior’s announcement about the river, the US Drought Monitor declared 95 per cent of the West to be in a drought, the highest level ever recorded. Though unprecedented, the water shortage announcement isn’t a surprise. The states along the upper basin of the Colorado River—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico—along with the states in the lower basin—California, Nevada, and Arizona—negotiated the cuts in 2019, alongside tribal nations and Mexican officials.

The cuts announced on Monday will only affect states in the lower basin.

The rest of the West shouldn’t be complacent though. If water levels continue to fall, as they are expected to, deeper cuts could be on the way for the numerous communities that depend on both the natural and man-made features of the Colorado’s watershed, home to roughly 40 million people.

“It’s such a significant river,” Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, told CBS. “It used to be called the Nile of the West, which is almost impossible to believe these days.”