More than 10% of the water carried by the Colorado River evaporates, leaks or spills as the 1,450-mile powerhouse of the West flows through the region’s dams, reservoirs and open-air canals.
WASHINGTON — Exposed to the beating sun and hot dry air, more than 10% of the water carried by the Colorado River evaporates, leaks or spills as the 1,450-mile powerhouse of the West flows through the region’s dams, reservoirs and open-air canals.
The West's multi-decade drought has sent water levels in key reservoirs along the river to unprecedented lows. Officials from Nevada and Arizona say that they, together with California, now need to account for how much water is actually in the river.“It’s very hard to get consensus,” said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. She thinks it's unlikely that states will reach an agreement on their own, without federal intervention.
One proposal comes from Nevada: States at the end of the river would see their Colorado River portion shrink based on the distance it travels to reach users. The farther south the river travels, the more water is lost as temperatures rise and water is exposed to the elements for longer. “Calculating the losses as Nevada has proposed is probably the most equitable and matches the real, physical world,” Buschatzke said. “The further you are, the more the losses are.”
For Arizona, that could mean shouldering losses so significant that some experts say the drinking water supply for Phoenix could be threatened due to diminished deliveries to the the Central Arizona Project, the 336-mile aqueduct system that delivers Colorado River water to that metro area and Tucson.
“When you have a junior, right, that’s what you do,” Shields said. “You try to share the problem with other users.”
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In the West, pressure to count water lost to evaporationExposed to the beating sun and hot dry air, more than 10% of the water carried by the Colorado River evaporates, leaks or spills as the 1,450-mile powerhouse of the West flows through the region’s dams, reservoirs and open-air canals.
Les mer »