Water levels are sinking: water is becoming scarce in the reservoirs

The western United States is running out of water. For the first time in the country's history, the Washington government declared a state of emergency on the Colorado, one of the longest and most important rivers in the region. After heat waves and historic droughts, the water level of reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which are fed by the more than 2,300-kilometer-long river, had fallen dramatically in recent months. For Lake Mead on the border between the states of Arizona and Nevada, the land reclamation bureau reported Tuesday that the water level was 325.4 meters above sea level, the lowest level since the Hoover Dam was completed more than 80 years ago. Lake Powell, also a reservoir of the Colorado Dam, was only less than a third full on Tuesday.The United States Drought Monitor has meanwhile declared more than 95 percent of the American West a drought area.

The first stage of water scarcity, which the US Bureau of Reclamation announced on Monday, provides for a supply cut from January 1, 2022.

The savings hit farmers in Arizona and Nevada in particular, as well as in some regions of Mexico.

“We have taken precautions and worked out a plan for bad circumstances.

But we're not prepared for the absolute worst, ”said John Entsminger, head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority utility, the broadcaster CBS.

Among other things, the Silver State has refrained from planting in the past few months that have to be heavily watered.

Do without a fifth of the water supply

Meanwhile, the neighboring state of Arizona is expecting the heaviest savings in the west. Grand Canyon State's farms will have to cut off about a fifth of the water supplied by the Colorado River by January, about eight percent of its total water needs. After repeated periods of drought, the state's farmers have been experimenting for years with water-saving cultivation methods and crops that thrive in the heat. Much of the arable land is now fallow to save water. The state government, meanwhile, dug underground reservoirs and drafted plans to supply water to cities like Phoenix and Tucson from more distant regions of Arizona.

“There is no doubt that climate change is here. We can see him every day on the Colorado and every other river bed in the west, "said Tanya Trujillo, deputy director of the Department of Water and Science at the Department of the Interior, when announcing the water savings on Monday. In order to develop a strategy for the future, all scenarios should be played through. "We need to work with every agency on the Colorado River to really explore every possibility of hydrology."

If the water level of Lake Mead Reservoir, the largest man-made lake in the United States, continues to fall, the Department of the Interior plans the next reduction in the levy. If the water level is less than 320 meters above sea level, the second level of restrictions threatens. According to the farms, cities and Indian reservations in the west will probably also have to drastically reduce their water consumption from 2023 onwards.