Water supplies on some of the ag industry’s most important waterways are sitting at below-average levels. It is a concerning situation and it has been an issue for more than two decades.
According to USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey, “With the Colorado River Basin, we have seen chronic drought situation there over the last quarter century accompanied by above-normal temperatures, elevated temperatures, for several decades now and that has left that gigantic basin with storage that is currently 60% of average and just 39% of capacity. That of course includes the gigantic dams, the catchements, Lake Powell, and Lake Mead. So, that is not an issue that’s going to go away anytime soon. It’s partly a changing climate issue, and it’s also partly a human-caused issue. Just heavy demands on a limited or a finite water resource.”
Low water levels are concerning, especially this close to harvest. However, Rippey says that most western states are in good shape heading into a large shipping season.
“But if you look at the individual state storage across the eleven western states, nine of them have either close to normal or above-normal storage as we head into the autumn, that means we’ve gotten through the entire irrigation season with most of the states in pretty good shape,” he explains. “The two exceptions, and we’ve been talking about these two states for many, many months, if not years, New Mexico and Washington state. Areas where storage has dipped a little bit this summer due to heat and dryness and obviously irrigation demands.”
Some states are even coming in above-average with water levels. Those include places like Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and California.
