The Wild Water West

The federal government announced new water cuts for Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico yesterday in response to an ongoing drought depleting the Colorado River and its two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell.

⚖️💧 A deeper shallower dive… The Colorado River's water was divided among seven Western states a century ago, in a pact giving half of the river's water to the Upper Basin states (CO, NM, UT, & WY) and half to the Lower Basin (AZ, CA, & NV).

The seven states had a deadline of Monday to reach an agreement on how to conserve water usage amidst an ongoing megadrought, which represents the driest 22-year period in southwestern North America in 1,200 years, causing the Colorado River and its reservoirs to reach historic lows.

• After the Monday deadline came and went, the federal government stepped in and ordered Arizona to stop using 592,000 acre-feet of water (21% of its annual allotment), Nevada 25,000 acre-feet (8%), and Mexico 104,000 acre-feet (7%) during the course of next year, based on a plan agreed to in 2019 in case of shortages.
• For reference, an acre foot is enough water to last a typical family of four about one year.

📸 Big picture: The Colorado River is the current water source ​for ~40 million people between Denver and Los Angeles, fueling $1.4 trillion in annual economic activity across the basin states, according to a 2015 study by Arizona State University.