Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

It’s been an unusually warm and dry winter across the west, and that’s bad news for the seven states and 40 million people that rely on water from the Colorado River. The water flowing into the river from snowmelt and rain is dwindling, partly because of climate change. The basin's two major reservoirs are at historic lows, and without a sudden influx of snowstorms, streamflow forecasts for the coming year aren’t looking good. That adds stress to an already drought-stricken region where negotiations on how to share the river’s water in the future are tense and stalled out.  “We’re at a point where we have to make some serious long-term adjustment of expectations. In other words, people need to agree to take a lot less water than they've been counting on. And that is always really hard when water is scarce,” says Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. The federal government has given states a deadline of Feb. 14th to reach an agreement, after which the Bureau o