Colorado River water users convening amid crisis concerns

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Living with less water in the U.S. Southwest is the focus this week for state and federal water administrators, tribal officials, farmers, academics and business representatives meeting about the drought-stricken and overpromised Colorado River.

The Colorado River Water Users Association conference, normally a largely academic three-day affair, comes at a time of growing concern about the river's future after more than two decades of record drought attributed to climate change.

“The Colorado River system is in a very dire condition,” Dan Bunk, a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water manager, declared during internet presentations streamed Nov. 29 and Dec. 2 that invited public comment about possible actions.

“Flows during the past 23-year period … are the lowest in the past 120 years and (among) the lowest in more than 1,200 years,” Bunk told the webinar audience. The deadline for public submissions is Dec. 20 for a process expected to yield a final report by summer.

Bunk said the two largest reservoirs on the river — Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona state line and Lake Powell formed by the Glen Canyon Dam on the Arizona-Utah line — are at unprecedented low levels. Lake Mead was at 100% capacity in mid-1999. Today it is 28% full. Lake Powell, last full in June 1980, is at 25%.

Scientists attribute extended drought to warmer and drier weather in the West to long-term, human-caused climate change. The effect has been dramatic on a vast river basin where the math never added up: The amount of water it receives doesn't meet the amount that is promised.

Lake Powell's drop last March to historically low water levels raised worries about losing the ability — perhaps within the next few months — to produce hydropower that today serves about 5...