Colorado River drops to record low levels, slashing Arizona’s water supply

What does it mean to maintain 100+ years of water? As in reserves to last them 100+ years or something else?

While this is true, we're not 100% out of the woods. My brother is an architect in the region and mentioned to me that our exurbs and suburbs are notorious for fudging their water sustainability numbers vs actual use.

> Save your outrage for the cities on our coasts whose antiquated and poorly managed treatment systems dump millions of gallons of untreated sewage into our rivers and oceans.

I was with you until that last comment.

Most West Coast cities have adequate water supplies and management. The drought affects small towns the most. If they are caught off guard its because these are unprecedented weather events. It is reasonable for Arizona to conserve water from the get go. Not so for the west coast, which could rely on precipitation/snow melt for the past several decades.

Also the root cause isn't poor water management by cities, its that the farming industry consumes most of the water.

Cities and suburbs are only one component of water use. A large amount of water is used by agriculture, and they have different restrictions, if any. So it's not a disaster for the metro areas, but really impacts rural areas and farmers.

Many of the rapidly growing Phoenix suburbs are projected to find themselves in trouble with regards to water resources in the future. These suburbs have met their 100+ years of water requirement using the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District (CAGRD), an entity created in the 1990s tasked with replacing pumped groundwater by finding renewable water supplies and injecting that water back into the aquifer.

However, the current drought and temperature projections going forward show that it will be increasingly difficult for CAGRD to find water to inject back into the aquifer to meet its obligations. In the end these suburbs will either need to pay super high rates for water to inject into aquifers or will need to slow growth.

https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.6/south-water-rapid-growth-in-...

I haven't been to Phoenix in twenty years, but it's hard for me—as someone who is not a civil engineer—to grasp how this is the case. I remember walking around there in the summer and being shocked to see a higher concentration of lush green lawns there than in Ohio where I lived at the time. Homeowners had spigots poking out of the corner of their yard, which they'd turn on to literally flood their yard. Flying into the airport you could see the profusion of green lawns, private backyard swimming pools, and expansive golf courses. Is there a good resource where I can see how that opulent water use squares with having a 100+ year native supply and is actually a net water contributor?

The Colorado River Delta is an ecological disaster. Because it is in Mexico, it is not part of the analysis done in places like Phoenix.

The Gila River in Arizona is about run dry before it reaches the Apache Nation at San Carlos. Mostly for cotton in the desert. Cotton in the desert is only possible because of water rights.

Since you seem to be knowledgeable, care to comment on this:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environme...

It very much sounds like it directly contradicts your confident tone.

Thanks for this comment, and largely good points here, but you're certainly mistaken on the most pertinent point you made here, namely the role of Colorado River water in Arizona's water plan.

Arizona gets 35% of its water from the Colorado River [0]. "A literal drop?" I wouldn't agree.

However, since reductions affect various water-using constituencies differently, Tier 1 reductions don't have an effect on municipalities' water availability (but future tiers do) [2].

Again, largely important points you've raised here, but it's also important not to understate the value of the Colorado River / Central Arizona Project in municipalities' water availability and water contingency planning, as you have.

[0]: http://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/climate/colorado-river-wa... [2]: https://www.amwua.org/blog/tier-1-shortage-what-does-it-mean...

You can drain a river to dust, harming everyone down stream and still be a net contributor to ground water by, say, dumping it on desert sand to grow crops.

Arizona is not in any form a net contributor to water resources as that is physically impossible unless they are fusing hydrogen and oxygen from space.

If there's no precipitation, every drop of water we have came from someone else's bucket.

There is only money to be made by completely destroying our environment.

Or if we aren't willing to move crops out of CA and other sunny arid places (maybe the tradeoff of better growing conditions is worth it) we should put desalination on the coast and pipe it in. Power with renewables. There is plenty of water if we want it enough.

There will be political ramifications to that. If you force it to rain on you that rain isnt landing naturally on someone else.

What? There's multiple full states in the way. What would that even accomplish?

would be nice but kind of a big project: https://i.redd.it/igp7056s4a361.jpg

It would probably be easier given the geography to build pipelines or canals from the Northwest or Canada.

There actually is a pump + tunnel system connecting the Colorado and Mississippi river systems, though it runs the other way around, bringing water from the Colorado river drainage across the mountains to the east:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_B._Adams_Tunnel

The problem is that even once you cross the mountains to the Mississippi catchment, there isn't much water on the east side for hundreds of miles.

If you wanted to get water from the Mississippi River itself all the way west to the Rockies, you'd have to pump it about a mile uphill just to get it to the Denver area.