Water Shortage Will Hit American Farmers

The Colorado River, which supplies water to 40 million people from Denver to Los Angeles, has been in long-term decline amid what bureau officials call the driest 19-year period in recorded history. The river feeds Lake Mead, the largest water reservoir in the western half of the USA.

[Lake Mead - High water level]

But Lake Mead is running dry again and is on track to fall below a critical threshold, according to a new forecast by the Bureau of Reclamation. Las Vegas and its 2 million residents and 40 million tourists a year get almost all their drinking water from the Lake.

In 2016, Lake Mead water levels already dropped to record lows (since it was filled in the 1930s) leaving Las Vegas facing existential threats unless something drastic was done. As you would expect, nothing was done.

[Lake Mead - Low water level]

In a 2018 prediction, the Bureau of Reclamation, a multistate agency that manages water and power, said there is a 52% probability that water levels will fall below the threshold of 1,075 feet elevation by 2020.

Lake Mead, which serves as the biggest reservoir of the river’s water, resumed its decline this year after the region returned to drought conditions. As of August 15, 2018, it stood at 1,078 feet, about 150 feet below its peak.

If Lake Mead’s water levels fall below the 1,075 feet threshold, it could trigger the first ever federal shortage declaration on the Colorado River - which experts say could undermine the Southwest’s economy.

Farmers in Arizona - which would be among the first states hit with cutbacks - are taking precautionary measures. Officials of the Maricopa Stanfield Irrigation and Drainage District, which could lose about half its Colorado River water if a shortage were declared, say they are working on alternatives such as digging more wells. The district, with 60,000 acres under cultivation between Phoenix and Tucson, might see as much as 15% of its planted fields left fallow under a shortage, said General Manager Brian Betcher.

"We’re not sure how much acreage will go out,” he said, “but we know there will be a hit."

This problem will only exacerbate the growing problems the farmers have. Not only are farmers drawing groundwater from the giant Ogallala Aquifer faster than nature replaces it, but grobal warming and trade wars are also putting their very existence at risk.