Colorado River Deal Could Ease State’s Drought Woes : Water: Official is optimistic that California’s needs can be met. Dry spell still parches much of the West.

The hero of California’s last drought, the mighty Colorado River, is suffering its own water shortage this time due to a dry spell in the West that has left pockets of five states in Dust Bowl-like conditions and dropped Lake Powell--the river’s jewel reservoir--to its lowest level in 15 years.

Nonetheless, California, facing the most widespread water shortage in the Western United States, is negotiating what could be an unprecedented deal that would again tap the Colorado River to ease some painful effects of drought on Southern California cities.

The deal, which needs the approval of the six other Western states that use the river, would not eliminate the need for water rationing. It would avert a worse shortage by taking water out of storage to give Southern California more than its yearly share of the river--in practice, withdrawing from savings to cover this year’s bills.

“I think we’re going to find a way for California’s needs to be met this year,” said Wayne Cook, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission in Salt Lake City, which represents Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico.

During the last big California drought, in 1976-77, the Colorado River saved Southern California from the severe rationing that became common in Northern California. With less water available within California, the Southland took more than usual out of the Colorado.

This time, the bleak drought forecast by California officials already assumed an extra share of Colorado River water being pumped into Southern California.

Also unlike the 1976-77 drought, the dry weather this time extends across the entire West, including the watersheds that replenish the Colorado.

The drought toll is most visible at Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border. Boat ramps are stranded high and dry by a 60-foot drop in the immense lake, which took more than a decade to fill after the Glen Canyon Dam was completed on the Colorado River in 1966. But, due to natural conditions, Colorado River flow into Lake Powell is expected to reach 5 million acre-feet this year, up from 3.2 million acre-feet in 1990 and the most since the 7.8 million acre-feet in 1987.

Elsewhere, Reno and northern Nevada are enduring the third-driest winter since the Nevada territory became a state, with less than an inch of moisture.

“We’re talking about something that is almost unheard of,” said Nevada climatologist John James, chairman of the governor’s drought task force.

As in California, the Western drought is dragging into its fifth winter, but it shows signs of easing in some areas. Arizona and New Mexico, which suffered the worst effects of drought two years ago, are under deep snow this winter.

The drought is worst in pockets of Wyoming and Idaho and the valleys of Washington and Oregon east of the Cascades Range. In some cases, sparsely populated areas have been hit more severely than California, based on the widely used Palmer drought index compiled by the National Weather Service.

Zero on the Palmer scale is normal water conditions, -2.0 is moderate drought and -4.0 is extreme drought. South-central Oregon was at -7.9 last week and part of Washington was at -6.5. In California, the worst area on the Palmer index is the South Coast at -6.2.

“Those are the sort of numbers that occurred in the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl years,” said Mike Smith, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides weather statistics to The Times. “This is a very severe drought.”

The Palmer index is a measure of a drought’s severity, not just a statistic on rainfall and snowfall. It takes into account the length of a dry spell, the levels of key reservoirs and other factors that determine a drought’s impact on water supplies, Smith said.

Around the West, those hurt the most have been ranchers and dry land farmers who get by on rainfall alone, and towns that have small water systems sensitive to the weather. The pinch could spread this year to cities and irrigated farms, as it has in California, if the winter does not finish with a rush of storms.

In northern Nevada, where the Palmer index last week was at -4.3, Reno is making plans for tough water rules to cope with its first year without a flow of Lake Tahoe water into the Truckee River, through the center of the city.

Even in the midst of winter, when the lake should be rising, Lake Tahoe has dropped to a record low. It is not expected to rise high enough this spring and summer to allow water to spill out into the Truckee River.

“We need 50 feet of snow, folks,” the Truckee’s federal water master, Garry Stone, told a drought panel last week. The panel urged Reno officials to ban lawn watering through March. Watering once a week would be allowed in spring, twice a week in summer but not during the heat of day. Reno homes do not have water meters so rationing is impossible, officials say.

Wells have helped Reno through the early years of the drought, said climatologist James, but if conditions worsen, city officials could shut down pools and spas, order restaurants to use plastic utensils to save on dish washing and impose a building moratorium.

In the desert and mountain West, the Colorado River has kept the drought’s effects at bay. The longest river in the West, the Colorado and its major tributaries--the Green, San Juan and Gunnison rivers--cross seven arid states, all of which get some of the water. The Colorado River ends in a trickle after 1,450 miles at the Gulf of California in northern Mexico, which has treaty rights to less than 10% of the Colorado’s flow.

Dams along the river are holding a massive amount of water by California standards, even in the fifth year of a drought. Lake Powell and its sister downriver, Lake Mead, contain more water than the California State Water Project delivers in 15 years.

Runoff into Lake Powell is expected to be slightly better this spring than in the past three years, but still below normal. New Mexico has above-average snowfall this winter, Colorado and Arizona are near normal, and Utah has about 75% of normal. In contrast, California is at 24% of its usual winter snow and rainfall.

Even so, Lake Powell’s water storage has dropped from 25 million acre-feet to below 15 million acre-feet--meaning it has lost enough water to supply the city of Los Angeles for 14 years.

“This is the lowest it has been since 1976,” said Randy Julander, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service river forecast center in Salt Lake City.

Lake Powell is expected to lose another 3 million acre-feet this year because contracts promise the delivery of more water than the river is likely to replenish. Chances for wetter weather grow slimmer as spring approaches, and the weather service would not speculate on the prospects for late winter storms.

“Meteorology right now is basically a two- or three-day science,” Julander said. “So if somebody tells you they know the weather next week, I’d be very suspicious.”

The extra Colorado River water for California would total about 400,000 acre-feet, a relatively modest amount compared to the size of the giant reservoirs. It would increase by 15% the water supply available this year to the Metropolitan Water District, which supplies water to cities in six Southern California counties.

The district and a state agency, the Colorado River Board, have been negotiating with other Colorado Basin states for several months. Representatives of both sides said an agreement is likely, perhaps later this month.

States on the upper reaches of the Colorado want assurances that California’s extra water will come from Lake Mead, the downriver reservoir, and not from Lake Powell, upriver where those states store water. There seems to be agreement on the point, negotiators said.

“It’s looking favorable,” said Jerry Zimmerman, executive director of the Colorado River Board, California’s arm for overseeing the river.

If an agreement is reached and is approved by Manuel Lujan Jr., secretary of the Interior, the extra water would restore California for this year to its full historic claim on the Colorado of about 1.2 million acre-feet. That is all the water that the Colorado River Aqueduct can physically carry into Southern California in a year.

California’s take of the river has declined in recent years under the Colorado River Compact, a treaty of sorts among the states, and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gives Arizona an increasing share of the water.