{"id":46207,"date":"2023-05-24T06:16:20","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T13:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=46207"},"modified":"2023-07-19T11:22:11","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T18:22:11","slug":"lower-colorado-river-basin-states-come-to-an-agreement-on-water-conservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/lower-colorado-river-basin-states-come-to-an-agreement-on-water-conservation\/","title":{"rendered":"Lower Colorado River basin states come to an agreement on water conservation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

FILE – Water flows along the All-American Canal, Aug. 13, 2022, near Winterhaven, Calif. The canal conveys water from the Colorado River into the Imperial Valley.
Gregory Bull \/ AP Photo<\/p><\/div>\n

(Ria Roebuck Joseph<\/em>) – <\/span>Governors Katie Hobbs of Arizona, Gavin Newsom of California and Joe Lombardo of Nevada have developed a short-term plan to conserve 3 million acre-feet of water through 2026, to protect the Colorado River system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to the partnership of our fellow Basin States and historic investments in drought funding, we now have a path forward to build our reservoirs back up in the near-term. From here, our work must continue to take action and address the long-term issues of climate change and overallocation to ensure we have a sustainable Colorado River for all who rely upon it,\u201d said Governor Hobbs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\u201cThe entire Western United States is on the frontlines of climate change \u2014 we must work together to address this crisis and the weather extremes between drought and flood,\u201d said Governor Newsom at today\u2019s announcement of the Lower Basin\u00a0Plan.<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The plan proposes early and large conservation of 1.5 million acre-feet of water by the end of 2024 to reduce the risk of\u00a0 Lake Mead and Lake Powell declining to critically low elevations.\u00a0 This is achieved by voluntary agreements with Tribes, cities and agriculture in the Lower Basin states.<\/span><\/p>\n

Altogether the seven<\/span>\u00a0Colorado River Basin States<\/span>\u00a0are responsible for the conservation of the Colorado River system, with Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico being the Upper Basin states.<\/span>\u00a0All seven states representing 40 million water-users, support the plan as an alternative within the Near-Term Colorado River Operations Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (Draft SEIS).<\/span><\/p>\n

With water being a critical resource for the Western states, Governor Lombardo affirmed \u201cThrough this partnership, we look forward to equitably advancing our mutual goal of conserving our shared water resources. It\u2019s never been more important to protect the Colorado River System, and this partnership is a critical next step in our efforts to sustain this essential water supply.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The total compensated System Conservation proposed will be mandatory, enforceable, measurable, verifiable, and non-retrievable with up to 2.3 million acre-feet of conserved water federally compensated through the\u00a0 Inflation Reduction Act covering drought mitigation and preparedness, and the remaining .7 million acre-feet \u201cin whole or in part compensated by state and\/or local entities or be uncompensated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The plan also makes accommodations for Lake Mead\u2019s levels, Glen Canyon Dam operations, and Lake Powell releases.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lower Basin Plan is the product of months of tireless work by our water managers to develop an agreement that stabilizes the Colorado River system through 2026,\u201d said Governor Katie Hobbs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The governors of Arizona, California and Nevada\u00a0 submitted the plan to Camille Calimlim Touton, Commissioner U.S. Bureau of Reclamation asked that it be considered as an alternative to the Near-Term Colorado River Operations Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement published in April by the Bureau.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a separate\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>to Deb Haaland Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior, the governors of the lower basin emphasized that the implementation of the proposal would allow the basin states to focus discussions on measures that may be required after 2026 address the impacts of climate change on system water supply availability and the existing overallocation of water.<\/p>\n

\n

By<\/p>\n

Ria Roebuck Joseph | The Center Square<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Ria Roebuck Joseph) – Governors Katie Hobbs of Arizona, Gavin Newsom of California and Joe Lombardo of Nevada have developed a short-term plan to conserve 3 million acre-feet of water through 2026, to protect the Colorado River system. \u201cThanks to the partnership of our fellow Basin States and historic investments in drought funding, we now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88912,"featured_media":46209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[748],"tags":[3466],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46207"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46210,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46207\/revisions\/46210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}