Internet Explorer 11 is not supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Drought-Stricken States Collaborate to Preserve Lake Mead

With a 14-year drought in the Colorado River basin showing few signs of breaking, states along the river’s path are taking new steps this month to ensure that Lake Mead — the Colorado River reservoir that is the water source for much of the Southwest — does not fail them.

With a 14-year drought in the Colorado River basin showing few signs of breaking, states along the river’s path are taking new steps this month to ensure that Lake Mead — the Colorado River reservoir that is the water source for much of the Southwest — does not fail them.

 

Officials from water agencies in Arizona, California and Nevada signed an agreement last week to jointly add as much as three million acre-feet of water to Lake Mead by 2020, mostly through conservation and changes in water management that would reduce the amount that the states draw from the lake.

 

The agreement, signed at the Colorado River Water Users Association’s annual conference in Las Vegas, is aimed at forestalling further drops in the level of the lake that could endanger not just the water supply for 40 million people, but also the electricity generated by dams there and upstream at Lake Powell.

 

Three million acre-feet, roughly what six million households use in a year, would add about 30 feet of water to a lake whose level is now just a few feet above its record low.

 

The agreement is a stopgap solution that is unlikely to solve the problems of a region whose demand for water far exceeds what the Colorado is able to deliver.

 

Many outsiders have suggested that the drought could set off a legal battle over the allocation of the Colorado’s dwindling water that could reach the Supreme Court. But for now, at least, the states appear to have decided to share the pain.

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
Special Projects