Quote:
Originally Posted by mdj930
No but if you stopped the release of water you may be able to fill it.
The Colorado river has always been feast or famine untill dams were built. I think it's foolish to not expect situations like this to a cure.
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True. The dams/reservoirs were built to allow management/manipulation to reduce that feast or famine. Make the lows less low, and the highs less high (I know I'm stating the obvious) and in the process produce more reliable (predictable might be a better word) water supply with the added benefit of power generation.
The "manipulation" that occurs is political of course, water is and has always been intensely political in dry parts of the world. But its also pragmatic, balancing harm/benefit for the people dependent on that system. The current situation has developed mostly as a result of over 2 decades of generally below normal snowpack in the upper basin states. There have been wet years in there, but more dry than wet. That's in contrast to the previous 20 years that were generally more wet than dry. There is a "normal" and well-documented climate record (tree ring data) in the desert southwest going back 1000 years that shows pretty consistent 20-30 year wet/dry cycles.
Exacerbating this recent dry period is that the upper basin states have gradually been using more and more of their allocation. The lower basin states have always used their full allocations, and then some. This worked out OK in the past because unused upper basin water provided a little "slop" in what was probably an overallocated system.
Several here have noted that upper basin storage is very low. The poop was about to hit the fan 5 years ago, with Mead/Powell storage levels about to trigger reductions in deliveries. A "shortage sharing" agreement was reached that resulted in smaller reservoirs in the upper basin states being largely emptied to maintain Mead/Powell at sufficient elevation to avoid those restrictions. The thought was that a lucky snowpack or three could refill those upstream reservoirs quickly. There has been some luck, but not enough, and so now you have those triggers at Mead/Powell again being reached but with the upstream storage also depleted. That's the sort of "manipulation" that happens. It is political, but in the way it is supposed to be. Representatives from the 7 states get together, all looking out for their own best interest, but negotiating and compromising to find solutions.