The culture of federal water projects has trained state interests, like a puppy to a dog biscuit, to believe that the federal government has limitless federal largesse and that no contract term will ever be enforced against state water project interest.
Robert Glennon, writing two decades ago, in Coattails of the Past: Using and Financing the Central Arizona Project.
Folks worried that Lake Mead might drop below elevation 1,075 and trigger a first-ever Lower Colorado River Basin shortage now have more to worry about. The latest monthly model runs from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (pdf) have increased the odds, and suggest that Mead (currently at 1,077.03) could drop all the way to 1,054 by the end of the 2016 “water year” – 18 feet lower than projected just one month ago.
This is all a result of the interaction of two important water management rules – one that calls for holding more water upstream in Lake Powell to keep that reservoir from dropping too far, and a second that calls for curtailing water deliveries to Arizona, holding the water back in Lake Mead, outside Las Vegas.
The latest monthly Bureau model runs, released this afternoon, point toward a likely need to cut releases from Lake Powell, on the Colorado River along the Arizona-Utah border, beginning Oct. 1. That would result in less water being delivered to Lake Mead, downstream, increasing the chances of a first-ever shortage declaration and cascading shortfalls in Arizona as early as Jan. 1. So far odds are against that second eventuality – Arizona cuts beginning Jan. 1. But it’s very close right now, with projected Jan. 1 levels of 1,075.92, just 11 inches from the trigger point.
Regardless of whether we hit the 1,075 trigger this time around, however, reduced releases from Lake Powell would ensure huge drops in Lake Mead next year.
This is all part of the complicated operating rules adopted in 2007 intended to balance shortfalls in Powell, the main upper basin storage reservoir, and Mead, the main reservoir downstream for use by Nevada, Arizona, and California. Powell has been hovering right around a trigger point (elevation 3,575 feet above sea level on Jan. 1) that would require cutbacks to keep more water in Powell. There’s a lot of “if this then that” rules stumbling over one another here, but if the August monthly modeling run shows Powell is too low, that automatically invokes a rule to hold more water in Powell and release less water to Mead. And less water in Mead translates to increased risk of triggering a second rule that would keep more water in Mead next year by cutting deliveries to Arizona.
Background:
The federal government, through its water agencies (and the funding providing via taxpayers in other places) used to be a major player in the development of the West. This Michael Doyle story, in describing a Congress up to its axles in California drought and unable to move an inch, suggests that is no longer the case:
Five months into a new Congress, and deep into a lasting drought, California water legislation still stymies and splits the state’s lawmakers.
Clearly Californians have not passed the first important hurdle for federal action on state-level water issues – unanimity within the state about what should be done. Traditionally a state gets its act together and presents a united position to Congress as a necessary precondition to federal action. But one of the reasons such unanimity is harder today than it used to be is a reduced federal ability to throw vast sums of money at internal state water conflicts. Used to be that part of a deal was federal dollars to build a big canal or dam or something that all the state players could get behind. We’re done with that.
Second is a deeper values division about the best way to deal with our water problems. California has always had a north versus south problem, but now…. Water for the environment? Ag versus urban? This may be greatest hurdle.
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The U.S. economy and population are growing. Our water use is not. New research by Peter Debaere and Amanda Kurzendoerfer of the University of Virginia helps further disentangle the reasons behind this remarkable U.S. water conservation success since the 1980s.
The break between population, economic growth, and water use is something Peter Gleick has pointed out before: “The assumption that demand for water must inevitably grow is false.”
Debaere and Kurzendoerfer have taken our understanding a step further by disentangling the roles of sectoral changes in our economy (has our core economy changed in a way that simply offshores our water use while we shift to doing other tasks that require less water?) versus underlying efficiency gains in the economy left behind:
Debaere and Kurzendoerfer, 2015
The top line is their model of water use simply tracked GDP growth. The middle line is a “what if” it was simply “sectoral changes” in our economy – essentially offshoring our water use. The bottom line is what actually happened:
Technological improvements are responsible for the remainder of the water productivity gains–at least 50%. Since actual water is influenced by technological changes as well as structural shifts in the economy, the difference between the lowest line in Figure 1 (actual water use) and the second-highest one marks the contributions of technological improvements. The sizeable impact of technological improvement is a welcome finding if one considers technology an opportunity for replication abroad. Indeed, transferring technology can be a more actionable way of bringing about less water use, especially compared to the slow-moving process of structural shifts toward a less water-intensive service economy.
Alfalfa, which recently handed over its”Demon Crop” title to almonds, is really a far better crop in drought than common wisdom suggests, according to U.C. Davis’s Dan Putnam:
Contrary to popular belief, alfalfa has several unique positive biological properties and advantages when it comes to water. Due to these properties, alfalfa is remarkably resilient when it comes to severe drought conditions.
Among other things, Putnam argues that “deficit irrigation” – the ability to cut way back on water during the heat of a summer drought – provides important water management flexibility. The full piece is worth reading.
Black-necked stilt, Gilbert Water Ranch
In Phoenix for a meeting, I had a couple of hours’ hole in my schedule and skipped out to the “Gilbert Water Ranch”. It’s an interesting example of what the water management solution space looks like in arid central Arizona.
It’s a series of groundwater recharge basins in the Phoenix suburb – both treated municipal sewage and imported Colorado River water. It’s also a lovely municipal park (lots of walkers on a weekday morning). And the birds seem to enjoy it as well.
It’s a nuance, but of such subtleties are progress often made.
In the Bureau of Reclamation’s new “Moving Forward” report on the future of the Colorado River Basin, a subtle change to the bureau’s canonical map:
Colorado River Basin map, courtesy USBR
There, at the bottom. See that little bit poking down into Mexico? That’s the Colorado River Delta. The Bureau’s official map used to cut off its depiction of the Colorado River Basin at the U.S.-Mexico border. Here, for example, is the map that appeared in the predecessor to the “Moving Forward” report, the 2012 Basin Study:
2012 Basin Map
On the heels of the enormously successful Minute 319 environmental pulse flow down through that Mexican Delta, a quiet recognition that the Colorado River Basin is a thing changed.
From Brett Walton’s piece on a proposal to divert water from the Gila River in New Mexico (in the Lower Colorado River Basin), an old school argument for building western water infrastruccture:
Gutierrez does not believe that the unit cost for water — what a city or a farmer will pay for an acre-foot — is required information. He believes that contracts for the water before construction begins are unnecessary as well. “There’s already a need,” he said. “Once the water is available people will use it.”
Is this Field of Dreams assumption — that if the project is built, someone will pay for the water — sufficient for the commission to continue pushing for construction?
“That assumption is enough for me,” replied Gutierrez, who talks about investing the AWSA money and using the returns to help finance the project. “It may not be enough for the environmental community.”
The long awaited “Moving Forward Phase 1” report on opportunities for managing water in the Colorado River Basin plopped into public view this afternoon.
I’m going to use the prerogative of a journalist no longer beholden to daily deadlines to wait until I’ve actually had time to review and think about the 448 page report about before writing about it. (Ah, the luxury.)
All-American Canal, above Bard, California
My quick reaction after a quick trip through the executive summary (and with a knowledge of how long it took to get the report out the door – the release was originally planned for December) is that it’s as interesting for what it doesn’t recommend as for what it does. By that I mean that actually solving the basin’s problems will require more than a report with a list of recommendations that we can all charge out and implement. You’re not going to see an “X million acre feet out of municipal use by taking the following steps, and Y million acre feet out of ag.” Those numbers must emerge from difficult tradeoffs and negotiations and institutional evolution over time, a process of innovation and experimentation. In that regard, the most interesting comment in the flurry of news releases that hit my inbox this afternoon came from David Festa at the Environmental Defense Fund: “With so many interests coming together with a shared sense of responsibility and opportunity, we can indeed move forward. We don’t have time to lose. Securing new funding sources and implementing pilot projects are key next steps.” In other words, this is about process. We have to do some stuff in order to learn how to do more stuff.
It’s worth sharing in the meantime comments from a group of prominent Colorado River Basin scholars who have had the time to review it. They argue in a new white paper also out today that we have a “window of opportunity” opening to shift the dialogue over the overtaxed river from “resource management” to “use management”.
The release of the new paper from the Colorado River Research Group coincides with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s “Moving Forward” report, the followup to its 2012 Colorado River Basin Supply and Demand Study.
Here’s the meat of the new CRRG white paper:
The challenges facing the Colorado River Basin are varied and significant. In particular, population growth, drought, and climate change all are likely to further strain the regional water budget unless our management of water uses evolves to match our expertise in managing water resources. Fortunately, there’s also no shortage of viable, cost-effective solutions, and the many reforms enacted during the past decade have opened a short window of opportunity for basin residents to consider what a lasting solution might look like. It’s clear that any real solution must take advantage of the many inefficient water uses that persist throughout the basin, which are every bit as much of an opportunity to embrace as a problem to lament.
It looks to me like the CRRG folks don’t think the new Bureau report goes far enough – focusing on quantifying past municipal conservation successes, for example, without quantifying expectations of future progress. Again, from the white paper, discussing the work of the municipal conservation work group:
To date, that workgroup has focused on documenting the effectiveness of past and planned conservation efforts in the major metropolitan areas serving over 29 million residents—more than 85 percent of all municipal water users served by the Colorado. Preliminary findings suggest conservation and re-use programs active since 1990 have reduced 2010 M&I demand levels by nearly 2.4 million acre-feet/year.
On the downside, this level of water demand savings was sufficient only in “partially attenuating the effect of population growth on M&I water use.” And in the next two decades (2010 to 2030), the workgroup suggests a much more tempered estimate of potential savings: roughly 700,000 acre-feet/year. While it’s true that conservation can become increasingly difficult as the most egregious wastes of water are eliminated first, we suspect that this modest savings projection—just like previous M&I demand estimates in the basin—is heavily influenced by the risk-aversive nature of water providers who understand it’s much safer for them to over-estimate (than under-estimate) demand.
But my inbox also is full of enthusiasm for the Moving Forward report, in the form of press release quotes:
John Entsminger, Southern Nevada Water Authority
There is a shared risk and shared responsibility among all water users associated with proactively managing the water supply and demand imbalance. Municipal and agricultural conservation and reuse have been used successfully in the past across multiple use sectors and are key elements in resource plans that will undoubtedly be critical programs in the future to provide sustainability of the river and its many resources.
Tina Shields at the Imperial Irrigation District:
There are opportunities to do more in all sectors to enhance western agriculture, environmental values and provide flexibility for growing water needs through voluntary incentive-based efficiency and conservation programs.
Jim Lochhead, Denver Water
Continuing drought conditions in the Colorado River basin, combined with the California drought, are a sobering reminder that the time for action is now. Doing nothing is not an option. Throughout the basin, and across all water sectors, we face a challenge to step up and lead. We can take control of our destiny, or we can allow drought and climate change to overwhelm us.
The Bureau’s Terry Fulp:
The impacts of the ongoing drought are widespread and are currently being addressed at the local and regional levels. Looking ahead to the longer-term challenges facing the Basin documented in the 2012 Study, it is clear that these challenges must be tackled collaboratively involving all sectors of use. The Phase 1 Report is a critical first step towards this level of collaboration.