Drought has CRMWD scrambling

June 13, 2011

For the Colorado River Municipal Water District, it's a matter of simple math — limited number of water sources plus limited pumping capacity equals reduced deliveries to customers.

CRMWD, which had already reduced deliveries to its member cities by 10 percent this summer, announced an additional 10 percent reduction effective July 1.

General Manager John Grant said a worsening drought and extremely low water levels have taken two of the district's three reservoirs out of the delivery equation — as of Friday morning, Lake Thomas was about 3.5 percent full, while Lake Spence was at less than 2 percent of capacity.

That leaves Lake Ivie (currently 26 percent full) and two groundwater fields in Ward County as the district's only reliable sources of water, and CRMWD cannot produce its normal delivery quotient from just those two areas.

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