Water transfers from farmlands to cities, increased conservation, water banking, desalination and new storage capacity are among the methods water managers in the Southwest must consider to close a drought-induced gap between water supply and demand, members of a Senate subpanel were told last week.
The Water and Power Subcommittee of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee organized the hearing to review the Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado River Basin Water Demand and Supply Study, which was released last December. The study details the costs and benefits of a range of proposals aimed at ensuring the Colorado River Basin maintains sufficient access to water in the coming decades.
Testifying at the hearing, Reclamation Commissioner Mike Conner told lawmakers that the Colorado River is already over allocated in the lower basin, with climate change expected to further reduce water flows. The period from 2000 to 2013, he said, “is shaping up to be the lowest 14-year period in the over 100-year record for the Colorado River.”
Conner explained the Bureau’s study was not intended to identify a single answer to water challenges in the Colorado River Basin or throughout the Southwest, but instead to provide a “range of solutions … that may be considered to resolve those imbalances.”
Connor also criticized the FY14 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill passed by the House of Representative earlier this month, saying it would “eliminate the vast majority” of funding for the WaterSMART program that supported the study. Cutting this research, he said, “undermines the federal government’s ability to partner with local communities on improving resilience against climate-related impacts.”
A webcast of the hearing and copies of all written testimony are available online.