Utah’s water landscape doesn’t look good. After an abysmally low winter for snow, 100% of the state is already in drought. Plus, negotiations on the future of the Colorado River are still going nowhere.
Gov. Spencer Cox thinks that grim reality could actually lead to more cooperation on the future of the Colorado River. One of the main sticking points is that nobody at the table could agree on what would happen in a worst-case scenario.
“And now we have the worst-case scenario,” Cox said during his April monthly news conference. “I think it helps sharpen a little bit the debate and potentially the solutions to say, ‘OK, what do we do in a year like this? And can that be the basis of an agreement?’”
He’s hopeful that last winter’s record-low snow could bring the states that share the river together after months of deadlock and the failure to reach an agreement by a February deadline.
The upstream states of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming have butted heads for years with Arizona, California and Nevada over who should cut back their water use as the West has faced a megadrought for the last quarter century.
“This drought is really forcing things to a head,” Cox said, and he believes a short-term deal could be on the table.
The bad news is that the drought isn’t showing any signs of letting up. At an April 28 briefing, Utah Division of Water Resources drought coordinator Laura Haskell said there are “strong indicators that this summer will be very hot, that temperatures will be above normal,” and beyond that, “there aren't as strong indicators on precipitation.”
In times of drought, Utah relies heavily on its system of reservoirs, which capture snowmelt and supply water throughout the state. Currently, statewide reservoirs excluding Lake Powell and Flaming Gorge stand slightly above normal at 72% full.
“That's great news,” Cox said. “The challenge is that we are already about 10% lower than we were at this time last year, and conditions vary significantly across the state.”
As Utah faces a tough summer of water, Cox stressed the importance of conservation “whether at the household level, in agriculture or across industry.”
While the state’s larger reservoirs are capable of holding several years’ worth of water, Haskell said others are highly reliant on yearly snowpack, which just didn’t materialize over the winter. Those reservoirs, she said, are “struggling a lot more.”
With current long-range forecasts, Haskell said as of now, late-summer precipitation would be ideal. But even then, a deluge could create a different problem.
“We just need to be aware that if there's very dry soils, very dry vegetation, we'll have to be aware of flooding,” she said.
In the short term, Cox said a statewide emergency drought declaration is coming and could be issued soon.
“There's a drought committee that will be meeting next week just to talk about what would be in that drought declaration and to talk about the timing, but I suspect that will be coming fairly soon,” he said.
