(The Epoch Times)
Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will lose significant portions of their water supply in 2022 after a U.S. federal agency declared the first-ever water shortage condition at Lake Mead, a massive reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced on Monday that the projected water elevation in Lake Mead for Jan. 1 next year is 1,065 feet, which is 9 feet lower than the level which triggers the shortage condition.
As a result, Arizona’s annual water apportionment was reduced by 18 percent or 512,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot is the volume necessary to cover one acre of land with water. Nevada will lose 21,000 feet, and Mexico will lose 80,000 acre-feet, totaling 7 percent and 5 percent of their annual apportionment respectively.
“Like much of the West, and across our connected basins, the Colorado River is facing unprecedented and accelerating challenges,” Tanya Trujillo, the assistant secretary for water and science at the Department of the Interior, said in a statement.
Most of the water in the Colorado River comes from the Rocky mountains. The river’s basin in that area had a severely dry spring this year despite a regular snow season.
As a result, the unregulated inflow into Lake Powell, the amount which would have flowed to Lake Mead if not for the Hoover Dam, was approximately 32 percent
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