Months of bitter negotiations between seven states that rely on the Colorado River’s vanishing water have collapsed along a clear fault line over the past week: California versus everyone else.
The multi-state talks, which have been ongoing in fits and starts for months, were focused on achieving unprecedented water cuts to save the Colorado River – a system that provides water and electricity to more than 40 million people in the West.
As less and less water has been flowing through the river and its reservoirs, US Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton last year called on the basin’s seven states – California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming – to figure out how to cut 2 to 4 million acre feet of usage, or as much as 30% of their river water allocation.
If they couldn’t agree on how to do it, Touton vowed the federal government would step in.
On Monday, six states – including lower basin states of Arizona and Nevada – released a letter and a proposed model for how much Colorado River water they could potentially cut to stave off a collapse and prevent the nation’s largest reservoirs, Lakes Mead and Powell, from hitting “dead pool,” when water levels will be too low to flow through the dams.
The maximum amount of basin-wide cuts the six states are proposing in their model is 3.1 million acre feet per year. It accounts for water conservation and evaporation and, if approved, could kick in if reservoir levels fall to catastrophically low conditions.
California – the largest user of Colorado River water – is conspicuously absent from the text and will release its own letter and model calling for more modest annual cuts of around 1 million acre feet later this week
lol lmao californian farmers are going to destabilize the western united states
Would just have to rename the Department of Water Ressources, which I assume already have half a standing army for police purposes
I read somewhere that the water rights were negotiated during like a 1000 year high water period to boot.
It's all so stupid. A hundred thousand petty tyrants all with their sacred private property water rights that cannot be violated, and it's going to cause untold misery and suffering for the whole world.
If Stalin were here this wouldn't be a problem because Lenin would have already shot all these Kulak scum.
Appreciate the posts on this site helping me keep up with this slow motion train crash
If they couldn’t agree on how to do it, Touton vowed the federal government would step in.
I remember when the so called deadline for states to act was in August 2022 or something and then when nothing happened after all the blustering from the feds they were like "what, you states thought we had a plan? We thought you had a plan! That's why we told you to come up with one!" And the can was swiftly kicked as the states got a do-over.
Anyways everyone vs California is definitely an interesting move. Folks, if you thought food prices were high because of "inflation" get ready for food prices going up due to water scarcity :dean-smile:
I wish a very immediate:stalin-gun-1::stalin-gun-2: to every almond baron
one time i was car shopping on central valley craigslist and i came across a white chevy colorado that was bro'd out with chrome wheels, big lift, and a huge "NUT MONEY" decal across the rear windshield. he said he was selling it to buy a bigger truck
critical support to the united states, the number one destabilizer of the united states
Cut a canal from the Great lakes and the Mississippi all the way to the Colorado River. But make it so only Kalifornian kash krop kulaks, the rich, and the tech bros get all the water!
Every day I read an article that screams at me that I have to get the fuck out of this shithole country or I'm going to die
I mean if you're going full on water wars civilizational collapse there's parts of the US that would seemingly fare very well? I mean this is a local phenomenon, but not for very long.
I wonder if Illinois residents will get water dividends like they do for oil in Alaska.
The Front Range of Colorado, the Denver part, is going to be interesting in a few years. They've supercharged sprawl development all the way up to the Wyoming border and it all hinges on this fascinating aqueduct system that siphons from the headwaters of the Colorado River: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado%E2%80%93Big_Thompson_Project . Population density on the east/west halves of the state is inversely proportional to rainfall so the east where all our major cities/agriculture are is fucked if it can't access western water.
Already cities on the Front Range are fighting each other to protect municipal supplies from new developments in other towns. When the tap is cut off for everyone and we're forced to use the rivers that flow on this side of the continental divide, those are the only waterways sustaining farmland that has depleted its underground aquifers and sits on the edge of Dust Bowl territory. Those areas are extremely reactionary, as are the ones at the headwaters of those rivers. Shit will kick off fast.
Living in America is just like "What flavour of apocalyptic scenario would you like to spend your middle years in?"
Say, isn't the imperial valley where the Saudis grow alfalfa?
"Command economies don't work!"
Meanwhile Fallout is becoming a documentary.
I know there's no logic to it and it's pure greed, but omg they're actually willing to destroy the river for continuing their current water use a bit longer. :agony-shivering:
Hey hey hey, give them some credit. It's not PURE greed, it's greed combined with having no alternative systems in place because they thought they could pillage the earth forever at no cost.
Federalism is stupid you need a strong central government to solve this
There have been decades for these states to prepare for this, to do jolly independent cooperation just as the framers intended. To nobodies surprise, the cut number is going to come down from the federal government because there can be no compromise
but in true Democrat reaching across the aisle fashion, it'll be a week late and a dollar short :freedom-and-democracy:
half a century really but i dont have the confidence to mutate or coin idioms :sadness:
We could say the entire concept of modern hydrology fucked up and push it back to ole Billy Mullholland
All-American Canal running near and parallel to the border. :amerikkka:
California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming
RIP Arizona, New Mexico and Utah
This city should not exist. It is a monument to man's arrogance
I'm pretty sure the last time drought conditions were this bad in the southwest there were major collapses of several cultures in the region.
at long last those wretched monuments to false gods shall be forsaken! (apply as desired to SLC, Pheonix, Vegas, etc.)
I think Phoenix will be mostly okay actually. The local government has actually spent millions on water security , so they have huge underground water aquifers they can fill up that will last for years. They also built a ton of canals so they get 60% of their water from the salt river. Of course the Salt river could also dry up but Phoenix is a major city and they recognize that water is their weakness.
It's the outlying towns that are really fucked, they don't have any of the municipal water infrastructure Phoenix, and when cuts happen those people will be first to go since they're just leeching off the city water right now. Tucson probably also fucked but that's nature doing us a favor honestly
