There is a term that the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) used to joke about a few years ago. The term is “dead pool,” according to the Department’s Communications Administrator Doug MacEachern.

“Maybe you heard the name of a movie, ‘Deadpool.’ Well, it’s also a term that refers to the inability of water to pass through either out of Lake Powell or Lake Mead,” MacEachern said.

Unfortunately for the seven Colorado River Basin states, Mexico, 11 national parks, seven National Wildlife Refuges and at least 22 federally recognized tribes, the joke is taking on water.

In 1999, combined water storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead reached 47.6 million acre/feet (MAF), or 92% of the maximum combined lake capacity.

By the end of this year, that number is expected to drop to 12.8 MAF, or 25% of the maximum combined lake capacity, signaling bright red emergency status for Arizona and its neighboring states.

“Dead pool is a crisis point that we are now working very hard to avoid,” MacEachern said to a crowded room of Four Peaks Rotarians at a Thursday morning meeting. “It’s the mission of everyone from the commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation down to little people like me to see to it that it doesn’t.”

On Tuesday, June 14, 2022, the Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner, Camille Touton, spoke in front of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee saying, “unprecedented actions” were needed to protect the Colorado River system.

Touton identified a mid-August goal for an agreement, signaling a two-month timeline for water resource officials to come up with a plan, “To leave infinitely more water in a system than ever,” MacEachern said.

As August’s deadline quietly passed and September comes to a close, the need for an agreement still lingers. “We haven’t done that,” MacEachern added. “We’re still working on it pretty much every day.”

According to MacEachern, the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan Authorization Act (DCP) began negotiations in 2011, amounting to a planning and negotiation stage of nearly eight years to put into words a plan to protect the Colorado River system.

While the DCP is currently adding value to the river and its thirsty patrons, its extensive planning stage only serves as an indication of how long it will take for the West’s water issue to be ironed out.

Under present circumstances, the DCP’s agreements on voluntary reductions and increased water conservation run through 2026. It is anticipated that new rules will be negotiated following this deadline.

The good news, according to MacEachern, is that despite the current crisis, “Arizona used about 6.9 million-acre-feet of water in 2019. That’s a little bit less than what we used overall in 1957.”

This trend of reduced water usage began in 1980 after the creation of the ADWR and the passage of the Groundwater Management Act, mandating conservation from all sectors (agricultural, industrial and municipal).

On July 6, 2022, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed legislation Senate Bill 1740, to invest more than $1 billion over three years toward securing Arizona’s water future.

SB 1740 lays the groundwork for large-scale water augmentation projects and investment into new technologies like desalination, filling the state’s break-in-case-of-disaster piggy bank named the Drought Mitigation Revolving Fund.

“Basically,” MacEachern said, “We’re going to do a desalination deal with the Republic of Mexico.”

With the passage of each new bill targeting water conservation, Arizona’s water future becomes clearer. Now, MacEachern says, the challenge is coming up with a plan palatable enough for all basin states to agree on.

“It’s one of those rare times when we want [the federal government] to impose their will because it's beyond the capacity, at least date, for states to come up with a deal on their own,” MacEachern said.

Brimming with ideas

For actionable solutions, MacEachern speaks of community-wide efforts to curb excessive water usage in the short-term.

“People could look at the water use in their house and say, ‘What difference could this possibly make?’ but in sum total, with the [state’s] population of 7 million people, conservation can make a difference.”

MacEachern points to a program put forth by Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA), a government water agency that services the Las Vegas Valley, that paid homeowners to extract their lawn, replacing it with desert landscape. As it relates to water conservation in Las Vegas, “It was incredibly successful,” he said.

“70% of water around the normal household in Arizona is consumed outdoors,” he added. “If this continues, and it probably will for some time…you’ll likely see a lot of effort to encourage people to be more water efficient around their home.”

Thinking more long-term, MacEachern again speaks of SNWA’s foresight, whose actions have awarded the Las Vegas Valley a clearer future as it relates to water conservation.

Facing historic drought conditions, in the summer of 2015, SNWA completed its massive project in the creation of the “third straw,” a subsurface intake pipe drilled 600 feet into Lake Mead’s bedrock that draws water from the lake’s underbelly.

This three-mile, 24’-diameter tunnel provides water to over two million residents, gaining access to water that other Southwest cities cannot. The “third straw” now serves as Las Vegas’ main water pump.

If Lake Mead’s water level dips below the point at which the Hoover Dam can no longer release water downstream to California, Arizona and Mexico, the third straw will still have access to its primary water supply.

MacEachern works closely with SNWA and hopes to gather more insight into long-term crisis mitigation projects like the third straw.

“In terms of efficiency…Nevada is second to none,” MacEachern said. “They’ve got some very smart people working in Southern Nevada.”

According to MacEachern, the Southwest’s water future largely depends on rainfall across the West. Another dry year could mean devastating chain reactions across the Rockies, exacerbating drought conditions, while heavy rainfall would help to stabilize the Colorado River system and buy water managers more time to negotiate long-term operating rules.

“This is our mission…to try and keep the Colorado river from going to mud,” MacEachern said. “That is the big challenge that we’re dealing with pretty much every day.”

According to a Drought Contingency Plan fact sheet, “DCP is a ‘sharing of risks’ and a ‘sharing of opportunity.’” With a water crisis looming, cooperation between states and water agencies may be at its most critical point.