Arizona Water Shortage 2018

Governor ducey has prioritized arizona s water future as one of the most crucial policy issues facing the state.

Arizona water shortage 2018. Subscribe now 1 for 3 months. It was the proactive nature of our predecessors and our state s willingness to take on complex issues. Arizona will be most affected by the cutbacks because it holds relatively low priority water rights. Here s how to survive it opinion.

E arly one morning in july 2014 lori paup awoke in her new home in the sulphur springs valley of arizona and began unpacking boxes of clothes hanging photographs and prepping the. With a water shortage looming arizona s top water officials say they re making progress on talks toward a colorado river deal. The long term drought status for each watershed is determined by comparing the precipitation and streamflow percentiles for the past 24 36 and 48 months to a 40 year historical record. It would lose 320 000 acre feet of water under a tier 1 shortage or about 12 percent of its colorado river supply.

Most recent projections show a probability of shortage as soon as 2020 although expected shortage volumes are relatively small compared to arizona s total. Arizona s goal shouldn t be to avoid a water shortage completely on lake mead but to ensure the coming. In his 2018 state of the state address governor ducey highlighted the issue. This has resulted in lake mead dropping to historically low reservoir levels.

Because arizona has the most junior water rights it would take the lion s share of cuts. It also relies on the river more heavily than the other states. There are three tiers of shortage at 1 075 1 050 and 1 025 feet which would result in ever larger cuts. A water shortage is in arizona s future like it or not.

The colorado river system which supplies 36 percent of arizona s total water use has experienced extensive drought conditions for the past 19 years.