#climatechange#enviroental#helpstopglobalwarming#recycle#federal guidelines, a shortage is to be declared at the start of any given year if Lake Mead’s water levels have sunk below 1,075 feet above sea level. The new federal projections, spanning the next 24 months, suggest that the elevation will be hovering just below 1,079 feet at the end of this December. By the end of December 2017, however, the report predicts that water levels will have sunk to about 1,074 feet. If this occurs, the federal government will declare a shortage and affected states will be obligated to reduce their water consumption. Avoiding a shortage in 2017 can be viewed as a temporary victory, said Jennifer Pitt, the National Audubon Society’s Colorado River project director. “Were it not for some extraordinary efforts by lower basin water users in California, in Arizona, in Nevada and in Mexico to reduce their use of water already, we would in fact have seen a shortage in the lower basin,” she said. In 2012, the U.S. and Mexico entered into an agreement known as Minute 319, a cooperative water management plan under which Mexico has been storing water in Lake Mead to help bolster the reservoir’s falling water levels. Under the agreement, Mexico agreed to take part in both surpluses and shortages as they’re declared for the reservoir. The agreement is set to expire next year, but officials have already opened negotiations to potentially extend it. And in 2014, the Bureau of Reclamation launched the Pilot System Conservation Program in cooperation with states in the lower Colorado River basin, which has involved a number of projects in California, Nevada and Arizona aimed at conserving water through storage initiatives and demand reduction. The agency estimates that the projects approved so far will have conserved more than 50,000 acre-feet of water — approximately 16 billion gallons — by the end of this year.
