2023-07-04 10:03:00
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Behold the signals: the sparsely populated basin of Lake Mead, Arizona. © afp
A catastrophe is looming in the American Southwest: cities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles will run out of water in 20 years.
USA – The Hoover Dam, located less than half an hour outside of Las Vegas, has been a standard visit to the western United States for decades. The mega dam, more than 200 meters high and 380 meters wide, is considered a prime example of engineering and American pioneering spirit. Its construction in the 1930s provided more than 20 million people in the west of the country with water and electricity.
In recent years, however, a visit to the Hoover Dam has become an oppressive experience. The 180-kilometer-long Lake Mead, to which the dam dams the Colorado River in the high desert, offers a frightening sight. The crust that the water level has carved into the rock along the lake shore over the years is now almost 60 meters higher than the water surface. The lake reached its highest level almost 40 years ago, in 1983. The once mighty reservoir now looks like an empty bathtub.
Lake Mead is only at 25 percent of its capacity, the clearest sign that the Colorado River that feeds it is drying up. The amount of water the river carries has decreased by an average of 20 percent. Experts assume that by the end of the century it will only be transporting half of its highest water mass.
The states in the USA should have been saving water a long time ago – but they are not doing so
Such statistics would be tragic for any river. In the case of the Colorado River, however, drying up has potentially catastrophic consequences. The entire Southwest of the USA depends on this river: around 40 million people. Cities like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Denver or Phoenix cannot exist without the Colorado River. 29 indigenous tribes depend on its water, as do large tracts of land in northern Mexico.
The Southwest—a promised land of unlimited resources and unlimited opportunity in the US imagination for nearly 200 years—is threatening to become a disaster zone. In the summer of 2021, the US federal government declared a water emergency along the Colorado River for the first time, forcing the states of Arizona and Nevada to drastically reduce their water use. In 2022, Washington called on the seven states along the river to agree to permanently reduce their consumption by around 40 percent overall.
But as a pure recommendation, the call remained fruitless. As expected, the states might not agree on anything. And the federal government has so far shied away from exerting more pressure and intervening more.
The entire US food supply is under threat
But sooner or later, the US Southwest will not be able to avoid dramatic adjustments. “States need to radically rethink which cities they allow growth, which industries they support. The entire region has to start from scratch if it wants to survive,” says Abrahm Lustgarten, an investigative reporter for the Pro Publica foundation who has been studying the West’s water supply for many years. The path of unlimited growth that the region has trodden over the past 100 years has reached a dead end.
The drying up of the West is a catastrophe with an announcement. The region has known for decades that its resources will eventually reach their limits – even without climate change, which has made the situation even worse. As early as the 1922 treaty of the seven Colorado River states on the use of the river, more water was distributed than the Colorado carries. And users like the indigenous peoples and regions in Mexico that need the river have been completely excluded from the calculation.
Despite this, the company continued to expand. To date, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Denver are rapidly growing cities. In the past 30 years, the region’s population has grown by 15 million people. Above all, however, a large part of agriculture settled in the sunny valleys of the west. California’s Imperial Valley is the kitchen garden of the United States – around two-thirds of the national supply comes from the stretch of land along the Mexican border. With the river drying up, the entire food supply in the United States is now faltering.
Agriculture uses around 70 percent of the water in the region
In order to save both the region and the country’s food supply, drastic changes in existing practices would now be necessary. Agriculture uses around 70 percent of the water in the region. Decentralization and/or more sustainable practices might solve many of the problems. But Abrahm Lustgarten is rather pessimistic: “It’s a tricky problem. Agriculture in its current form is part of the culture and identity of this region. And a lot of income depends on it.” That is why politicians have so far not dared to really tackle the problem at its core.
As an example of the reform resistance of agriculture, Lustgarten cites the prioritization of alfalfa production. The alfalfa crop is primarily used for animal feed, with a significant portion of California’s production being exported. But Washington is reluctant to take on foreign trading partners and the meat industry, especially since ranchers in Arizona and Nevada have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to take on militant confrontations with the federal government if necessary.
If something doesn’t happen soon, catastrophe can no longer be averted
This is how the federal government perpetuates dysfunctional practices rather than intervening. Alfalfa and meat production are subsidized. At the same time, farmers are paid not to simply let the water they don’t need drain away. Outdated rules give users the right to the same amount of water once more if they used up their entire quota in the previous year. This has resulted in monumental water wastage in the Imperial Valley.
There is no way around tough intervention by the federal government, despite all resistance, if the region wants to survive. “We need a national water policy that is aligned with food and energy policies,” says Jay Famiglietti, director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan. And not a moment can be wasted in doing so. “We are at a crossroads. We are regarding to fail.” (Sebastian Moll)
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