PHOENIX — The Colorado River is one of the most important sources of fresh water in the United States, flowing through Arizona and six other states.
According to the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation, it provides water to nearly 40 million people for municipal use.
Without thoughtful planning and legislation to ensure sustainability, this life-giving source could die.
We spoke with Senator Mark Kelly about water levels at Lake Mead, a Colorado River reservoir, which had fallen to devastating lows last October.
"When you consider where the water level is today, and the amount of water that's in the reservoir, that's the lowest it's been since the Hoover Dam was built," said Kelly.
Some progress is being made.
Data from The Bureau of Reclamation shows Lake Mead's water levels were at about 1,046 feet in October of 2022. That number is considered a historic low. However, water levels at Lake Mead are projected to rise just above 1,065 feet by January 2024. The agency credits an extremely wet winter for easing the effects of the longstanding drought.
To keep the Colorado River from falling so low that it would jeopardize the drinking water supply for places like Phoenix, a team of bi-partisan lawmakers is working to secure water for the future.
Many of those efforts are being led by Arizona's top lawmakers, including Senator Kelly.
"We've come a long way since when I got here two and a half years ago on this issue,” Kelly said. “We had a drought contingency plan. Shortly after I got here I realized that that wasn't going to work."
The Arizona lawmaker also tells ABC15 that our state continues to make major strides to conserve water and noted that he believed bureaucratic red tape was getting in the way of progress.
He credits that change to the Senate passing a bill he helped shape to get more funding, faster.
While Arizona's summer of extreme heat didn't help, Kelly said forward-thinking projects will.
That's partly why he was able to secure $8 billion in federal funding to help.
"We're deploying this money to farmers, and tribes, and communities, to line canals and install drip irrigation,” Kelly said. “But also, in the immediate need of just keeping more water up in Lake Mead, we're going to be able to solve this problem."
To address those immediate needs at Lake Mead and Lake Powell, Kelly told ABC15 he was able to secure $4 billion more for Arizona's future.
"I mean, think about this for a second. We use less water today than we did in 1980, and we have three times the population,” Kelly said. “We're able to do this because we can build efficiencies like engineering and farming and homes and, and we're just gonna have to do more of that and we have the tools to do that."
