Seven US states reach agreement to protect Colorado River

2023-05-22 22:55:00

The US government announced this Monday (22) that seven states in the west of the country reached a historic agreement to protect the Colorado River, whose flow has decreased due to 25 years of drought and worsening weather conditions.

“There are 40 million people, seven states and 30 indigenous territories that depend on the Colorado River basin for basic services like clean water and electricity,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement praising the deal that ends decades of conflict. of disputes.

The initiative was promoted by the three states – California, Nevada (west) and Arizona (southwest) – of the lower part of the basin of this river, which crosses the American southwest.

Under the agreement, states agreed to voluntarily adopt measures to save 3.7 billion cubic meters of water by 2026.

Part of the reduction will be “offset by funds from the Inflation Reduction Act,” a key climate law passed last year in Washington, according to the statement.

The government of Democrat Joe Biden has threatened to impose radical restrictions if negotiations remain stagnant.

The agreement “marks an important step in our efforts to protect the stability of the Colorado River system in the face of climate change and historic drought conditions,” Biden said in a statement.

For the governor of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, the agreement is the result of “months of tireless work”.

In a separate statement, he noted: “We now have a path to raise the level of our reservoirs in the short term. From there, our work will continue to take action and address the long-term problem, which is climate change.”

– ‘Significant cuts’ –

The Colorado River flows from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California in northwest Mexico (to the south).

Last year, water levels in Lake Mead – the largest reservoir in the United States, in Nevada – reached the lowest measurement since the Hoover Dam was built, exposing slopes that have not been seen since the 1930s. , the body of an alleged Las Vegas mob murder victim.

As early as 2022, federal authorities had asked the seven western states (along with Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico) to reach an agreement to reduce consumption to a maximum of 40% of the river’s flow.

The six states proposed that most of these restrictions be imposed on California, which had not accepted the plan and which then submitted a counterproposal, suggesting that the cuts be made upstream.

The system that has regulated the sharing of river water for more than a century favors farmers in California, the most populous state in the country.

“California has taken the lead on this,” pledging to make “significant cuts in water use,” its governor, Gavin Newsom, said Monday. “The entire western United States is on the front lines of climate change: we must work together to address this crisis.”