LAS VEGAS -- After five years of distressingly low rain and snowfall, a drought is hammering the West harder than ever, causing multibillion-dollar economic losses and prompting unprecedented measures in many states to cope with less water. As the 2004 winter season starts, there's little optimism that coming months will fix the problems. Weather forecasts are equivocal.
Explosive population growth, environmental lawsuits to divert water for wildlife and below-average precipitation have put a strain on the big federal reservoirs that supply the West but were designed decades ago when the outlook was far different.
"The drought is still raging in many places," said John Keys III, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that operates key dams in Western states. "Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Montana are in really bad shape. The Missouri River is at historic lows. The Platte River and Rio Grande are way down."
Nowhere is the situation more serious than the Colorado River basin, a key lifeline in seven states. Lake Mead has dropped by more than 90 feet in recent years -- so low that the federal government might have to curtail water deliveries in the next few years. And the outlook remains grim, with official estimates giving only a 20 percent chance that the lake will refill by the end of the decade.
Lake Powell, the massive impoundment of the Colorado River behind Glenn Canyon Dam in Utah, has dropped below the halfway mark for the first time since it was filled in the 1960s. Like a ring around a bathtub, a band of discolored rock for hundreds of miles shows the drought's progress. Less water also translates to less electricity production. The massive generators at Glenn Canyon produced just 30 percent of their capacity this year.
Water agencies are no longer betting on Mother Nature: The Southern Nevada Water Authority approved a plan recently to extend its intake pipes 50 feet deeper into Lake Mead to prevent sucking air if lake levels continue to drop.
The situation in Arizona, where the state pays $1 million a month for homeowners not to grow grass, is just as bad. "We have depleted our reservoirs," said Herb Buenther, director of the Department of Water Resources. "We still have groundwater basins to fall back on."
[COMMENT: Why would they pay a million a month for such a purpose? Who are they paying this money to? The homeowners who can't water their lawns? R.]
Across the Continental Divide, the conditions are similarly bad. At Elephant Butte Dam, the largest reservoir on the Rio Grande and the main supply of water for New Mexico is holding just 10 percent of its capacity, and managers have curtailed deliveries. In the Pacific Northwest, tributaries to the Columbia and Snake Rivers remain in drought conditions, and reservoirs in Oregon, Washington and Idaho are below normal. With court orders to maintain adequate water for endangered salmon and steelhead, the federal government is spending $15 million this year to buy water for the fish and make other recovery efforts.
California, meanwhile, embodies the best and the worst of the situation. It was the only Western state that received above-average precipitation last winter, meaning its big reservoirs at Shasta and Oroville are higher than average for this time of the year, according to the Department of Water Resources. But California has suffered some of the worst effects of the drought of any state, officials say. The wild fires that raged across six counties in Southern California's mountains in October were the direct result of the same drought that is causing Lake Mead to drop, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Fed by dry brush and dead trees, the fires killed 20 people and caused $3 billion in insured property losses.
Last month, when Colorado River water managers assembled on the Las Vegas strip for their annual convention, the city was deluged by a storm that dropped 2.5 inches of water in a few hours. But it provided only temporary relief. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told the group the Colorado River will carry less water than normal this winter. The weather outlook is so uncertain, owing to Pacific Ocean conditions, that forecasters say they have little reliable guidance.
Even if Mother Nature supplies above-average snow and rain, the soil is so dry and water tables so low across the seven-state Colorado River basin that runoff to the river will stay below normal.
The West's water system was based on expectations that developed in the early 20th century. But studies of tree growth rings have shown that those were the wettest decades in 500 years and the current drought may be a better representation of the norm. What's more, global warming could exacerbate the long-term water outlook, according to Dennis Lettenmaier, a University of Washington engineer who recently led a study of three big Western rivers: the Colombia, Sacramento/San Juan and Colorado.
More of the West's precipitation will fall as rain, rather than winter snow. The effect will increase the number of drought years in California and reduce the number of above-average wet years, Mr. Lettenmaier said. The Colorado, meanwhile, would incur a 10 percent loss of volume, which he calls "a big problem".
Federal officials are warning Western water officials to be braced for exactly that type of future.