The presentation by State Engineer Pat Tyrrell, Chris Brown of the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office and Steve Wolff of the SEO highlighted the serious situation that upstream water users face as the Colorado River Basin’s flows decrease and key reservoirs show critical declines, particularly at Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
In the worst-case scenario, Tyrrell said, some Wyoming water users could be curtailed if drought contingency plans for the Upper and Lower Colorado River basins are not implemented soon.
That equates to an average of 7.5 million acre-feet per year for 10 years.
From 2014 to 2018, some irrigators were paid to voluntarily decrease water use from what their water rights would allow “and help protect storage.” Drought contingency plans Wyoming is one of seven Colorado basin states being called upon to deal with potentially critical water shortages that could occur at Lake Powell in the Upper Colorado and Lake Mead for the Lower Colorado basin.
The draft Upper Basin Drought Contingency Plan has two agreements, the “Drought Response Operations Agreement” and “Demand Management Storage Agreement.” The Lower Basin, which gets most of its water from the Upper Basin, has its own draft of agreements.
The Upper Basin DCP would help protect critical elevations at Lake Powell for continued compliance with the 1922 Colorado River Compact and “authorize storage of water conserved in the Upper Basin” in as-yet undeveloped federal programs.
Wyoming’s share Under the Upper Colorado River Compact, Wyoming’s annual allocation is 14 percent of the available supply at about 1.04 million acre-feet.
… The water rights after 1922 are what could be curtailed for use.” Water officials at all levels are considering how to increase storage in both Lake Mead and Lake Powell with conservation and management programs.
“Under certain rules, water users in the Lower Basin can get water back out later if they leave it in Lake Mead now,” Tyrrell said.
First, each Upper Basin state has to agree on the DCPs, Tyrrell said.