the colorado river It is one of the most powerful tributaries in the United Statesits flow supports more than 40 million people and a thriving agricultural industry in the Coachella and Imperial Valleys of California; its waters drain into Mexico, and supply the Valley of Mexicali, as well as three modules in Sonora and Baja California, but a drought that has lasted since the year 2000 has brought the dams to their most critical levels in their history, putting the operation of the system’s dams at risk and with it the supply of all uses in both countries.
“Since the year 2000, a drought began to be registered in the Colorado River basin, this drought was lowering the levels of the main storage systems of the system which are in the part of the United States, the Hoover Dam and the Glen Canyon Dam. As this drought has been sustained for 22 years and we are already in year 23, there is a risk that the levels reach a critical level in which water can no longer be delivered,” warned Adriana Reséndez Maldonado, head of the Mexican Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission between Mexico and the United States (CILA), in an interview with MILLENNIUM.
The CILA highlights that the current drought is the worst in 114 years of recorded history and one of the worst in the last 1,200 years, with a total storage – as of March 2023 – at the Hoover (Lake Mead) and Glen Canyon (Lake Powell) dams of 15,295 million cubic meters, 24.6 percent of their capacity, the lowest level.
Through the 1944 Treaty, Mexico is assigned a volume of 1,850 million cubic meters per year of the Colorado River, but it also establishes that in cases of extraordinary drought, the volume of deliveries will be reduced proportionally between both countries, and they can recover when conditions improve, explained Adriana Reséndez.
So for this 2023, Mexico’s allocation was reduced by 86 million cubic meters (Mm3) added to a contribution of 42 Mm3 of recoverable water savings under the Binational Contingency Plan for Water Scarcity (PBCEA), with which which, deliveries to Mexico register a total decrease of 128 Mm3. While the users of the lower basin in the United States have a reduction of 514 Mm3 and a saving of recoverable water of 247 Mm3, with which the deliveries to the users of the Lower Basin in USA registered a total decrease of 761 Mm3.
Thus, in 2023, water deliveries from the Colorado River were reduced by a total of in 2023, which represents 8% of the normal total allocation to users of the Lower Basin in the United States and Mexicobut the CILA authorities anticipate that the cuts will increase in the coming years.
Minute 323 signed by the International Boundary and Water Commission between Mexico and the United States (CILA) establishes that both countries must reduce the use of their annual allocation of water from the Colorado River when it is projected that as of January 1, the elevation of Lake Mead (Hoover Dam) will be at or below an elevation of 1,075 feet, or 37 percent of its level. By January 2022, the elevation was placed at 1,065 feet, 34%; by January of this 2023, it dropped to 1,045 feet, 28 percent of its capacity. The forecast for January 2024 is that the level will drop to 25% and for January 2025, to 21 percent, so more cuts are expected, since “its normal capacity should be at an elevation of 1,213 feet.”
“This year there is a cut of 128 million cubic meters: 86 million is a cut volume and 42 million are savings according to the contingency plan once morest water scarcity; last year the cut was 99 million cubic meters: 62 cut and 37 savings. The water allocations depend on the snow cover (in the Rockies) and the runoff that occurs in the basin, what we have so far is that we reach a cut level of 180 million cubic meters, but this is defines until August”, explained José de Jesús Luévano, secretary of the Mexican Section of the CILA.
Commissioner Adriana Reséndez stressed that if deliveries had not been reduced, “the dams would already be at a level of collapse, because in USA a higher cutback volume was applied, and they implemented several actions to prevent the dam from going so low that it was no longer possible to extract the water; In the United States, additional volumes were discharged to the dams that are in the upper basin, to Lake Powell, which is where the Glen Canyon dam is, and in addition, a volume was retained to prevent the collapse of this dam.”
Likewise, the engineer Luévano explained that additional actions were taken in the American Union, such as land rest, where farmers were paid not to plant “and those waters that were not used were stored in the system’s dams, that helped to avoid this collapse, because there is great uncertainty as to how the system might be operated with levels that are already lower than what we are having now”.
“Never in history have these types of situations presented, there is a lot of uncertainty as to how the dams might operate in such low conditions, that is, if the water might be extracted, what volumes might be extracted, and how electricity generation would be affected, there are a series of conditions that it is not certain how it would be handled with such low storages in the dams that had never been had before and what is sought is to avoid reaching those critical situations”.
The Colorado River rises in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, United States, and flows southwest through the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California.. In Mexico it has an international section of 30 kilometers –which is the border between Baja California and Arizona– it continues its path through Baja California and Sonora in our country, ending in the Gulf of California.
According to Reséndez Maldonado, the critical drought that is being experienced is due to “all the users of the lower basin, both Mexico and the States have already been using their allocation; and also the natural runoff is lower than what was registered, plus the condition of climate change, more temperature less snow cover, is what is occurring ”, she indicated.
The commissioner explained that unlike dams in Mexico that rely on the rainy season to fill, the dams on the Colorado River rely on runoff from melting snowpack from the Rocky Mountains.
So the CILA highlights that the conditions of the system continue to deteriorate, and anticipates that it will continue to do so until the thaws begin this spring, which despite currently having a snow cover with 30% above average, is forecast that the generated runoffs are not proportional considering the behavior of the last years.
“Not necessarily all the snow cover is reflected in runoff, because sometimes warm spring winds come and evaporate the snow, and it is no longer enough to melt it so that it becomes water that flows to the dams,” added the engineer. Luévano.
Given the bleak outlook, the CILA has insisted on the importance of implementing modernization and modernization projects for the efficient use of water, as well as continuing to explore potential projects for new water sources, for which reason meetings will be held to jointly explore “Specific actions that make it possible to face this situation of scarcity and ensure, at least, the minimum supplies of water that depend on the waters of the Colorado River.”
According to the secretary of the Mexican section of the CILA, it is the National Water Commission (Conagua) that must define what actions must be taken to protect users in Mexico.
“What we are observing is that the hydrology that existed in the Colorado River in the middle of the last century no longer exists and we have to prepare ourselves to face a future with perhaps less water but having the same productivity with less water, For that we have to reconvert crops, modernize, a series of works that allow the modernization of the irrigation district and that is where we have been working together with Conagua”, he pointed out.
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