What is water?

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We have revolutionized our concept of what western water is. It is no longer simply a commodity to be removed from a watercourse for use on farmland or in a factory. There is life and beauty in water. It is a valid use of water simply to allow it to remain in a stream or lake. In a sense, after first rejecting the riparian rule so resoundingly, we have reconsidered and have reached a deeply held consensus that there is undeniable merit in some aspects of riparianism: sufficient water absolutely must be available to meet a broad range of public environmental, recreational, ecological, and aesthetic needs.

– Charles Wilkinson, Western Water Law in Transition, 1985

In western water, what’s the right role for the feds?

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After spending the day reading about the federal government’s, shall we say, persuasive role in assisting Imperial Valley farmers that it was in their best interests to figure out a way to share a bit of their water across San Gorgonio Pass with the city folk to their west, I this evening ran across this:

Reed Benson, a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law in Albuquerque, said states need what he called a gorilla in the room, and federal money, to reach agreements.

“Federal money has been, and is today, important in addressing challenges with water resources where the deep pocket is needed,” Benson said. He cited the need for parties to cooperate and compromise on issues affecting water basins stretching across several states, questions about tribal water rights, and overarching concerns about water quality and quantity.

“Finally, climate change is going to make these issues all the more difficult and that much more challenging,” Benson said.

I’m not sure that’s quite the way the gorilla behaved in the Imperial Valley in the period from the 1980s to the early 2000s that led to the still unhappily lurching Quantification Settlement Agreement. At times it sounds a bit more like, “Nice valley ya got here, Imperial. Shame if something was to happen to it.” But the gorilla was relatively important.

In British rivers, pollution control seems to be working

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Pollution control efforts seem to be working on Britain’s urban rivers:

Britain’s urban rivers are the cleanest they have been for more than two decades, a study has found.

More than 2,300 river sites in England and Wales were analysed between 1991 and 2011 by Cardiff University.

They examined the presence and spread of 78 organisms – including insects, snails and others – and claim many are making a comeback following decline.

The scientists say the improvements are largely due to reductions in pollution levels.

I learned of this via the always helpful Circle of Blue’s The Stream.

That thing I wrote about Lake Mead being the lowest ever turned out to be true

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If I wanted to make mischief, I’d write a blog post pointing out that Lake Mead ended May at a historic low right after release of 105,392 acre feet of water for a historic environmental flow through the Colorado River Delta. I’d calculate how much higher Lake Mead would be if that 105,392 acre feet of water was still sitting in the big reservoir behind Hoover Dam, ready to serve the needs of Las Vegas or the farmers of the Imperial Valley. But that would be a sneaky, mean thing to do. It also would be misleading, and the reasons illustrate one of the central themes I’m arguing in the book I’m writing. You can’t look at any one piece of Colorado River management in isolation.

Colorado River "pulse flow" reaches the sea. Image courtesy of Sonoran Institute/NASA

Colorado River “pulse flow” reaches the sea. Image courtesy of Sonoran Institute/NASA

Yes, Lake Mead ended May at elevation 1,087.45 feet above sea level (or maybe 1,087.46?) the lowest end-of-May level since 1937, when the reservoir was first being filled. (The USBR web site is having problems, I’ll try to come back and add links later, sorry.)

Yes, that’s lower than it would have been had the Minute 319 environment pulse flow not been carried out this year.

But there’s more to the story.

In mid-May, the USBR released its annual “Colorado River Accounting and Water Use Report,” a tome of tiny print that explains why it would be sneaky and mean to write such a blog post as I described above. On page 24, the report points out that since 2010, Mexico has stored 294,067 acre feet of water in Lake Mead, including 126,812 acre feet of “deferred delivery” water during calendar year 2013. Colloquially, they call this “earthquake water” – water stored initially under an agreement in the fall of 2010 that for the first time allowed Mexico to store water in Lake Mead for later use. The proximate cause was a spring 2010 earthquake that damaged water delivery infrastructure in the Mexicali Valley. The resulting agreements for the first time allowed Mexican Colorado River water to be stored in a U.S. reservoir. Big breakthrough.

The 105,392 acre feet used for the pulse flow is part of that 294,067. Without “earthquake water”, Mead would be even emptier.

But it’s an even richer story than that. Minute 319 and the environmental pulse flow made for some great photo ops, but there is much more being done. The water use report documents a number of steps taken by U.S. water agencies to buffer Lake Mead’s contents through “Intentionally Created Surplus,” a mechanism established in 2007 that allows water agencies storage credit for water conservation steps they take back home that allow them to reduce the amount of water they need to divert. The accounting shows more than a million acre feet of ICS water in Mead right now. Without a closer look at the accounting, I wouldn’t swear that that is real wet water in Lake Mead, but some portion of it clearly is.

For Southern California right now, this is crucial. The Metropolitan Water District ended 2013 with 474,063 acre feet of ICS water, some of which it plans to draw down in 2014 to make up for shortfalls in in-state water deliveries because of California’s epic drought.

Will this be enough? I don’t know, that’s why I’m writing a book. But it’s not nothing.

The bottom line: LAKE MEAD AT HISTORIC LOW is cheap and successful clickbait, and it would be easy to point to the recently completed environmental pulse flow and arch my eyebrow at such a use of precious water at a time when the Colorado River system is on the edge. But that would be sneaky and mean and misleading.

Monthly weather report, May 2014

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satellite-derived soil moisture estimates, based on NASA GRACE data, courtesy National Drought Mitigation Center

satellite-derived soil moisture estimates, based on NASA GRACE data, courtesy National Drought Mitigation Center

 

Poking in the garden this morning, I’d never have guessed without actual rain gauge data that we just finished a wet month. It’s really dry out there. But drought is a funny thing, eh? 0.55 inches (1.4 cm) of rain at our house in May was the first above-average month since November. My total now stands at 2.91 inches (7.4 cm) for the water, year (the period beginning last Oct. 1). That is 59 percent of the mean for my house (per PRISM data). The soil’s just always dry at this time of year in New Mexico, I guess.

I live right in that area of white pixels in the north-central part of the state in the map above, which is an experimental attempt at using satellite data from NASA’s GRACE to estimate moisture at various depths – and at various levels of importance to measuring drought. Here’s the root zone map, a variable of interest to the plants in my garden:

root zone moisture

satellite-derived root zone moisture estimates, based on NASA GRACE data, courtesy National Drought Mitigation Center

But here’s why drought’s a very difficult thing to write about in the newspaper. It’s one word – “drought” – but a range of phenomena, depending on how you use water. Let’s say you depend, not on soil moisture in the root zone, but on groundwater:

groundwater

satellite-derived root zone moisture estimates, based on NASA GRACE data, courtesy National Drought Mitigation Center

Yowza.

That looks like a nice place for a dam!

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Black Canyon on the Colorado River, from the 1871 Wheeler survey, courtesy USGS. This is the area eventually chosen some years later for what was called Boulder or Hoover Dam:

Black Canyon of the Colorado River, looking below from Camp 7 in Nevada. Photo by T.H. O'Sullivan.U.S. Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian (Wheeler Survey, 1871 Expedition).

Black Canyon of the Colorado River, looking below from Camp 7 in Nevada. Photo by T.H. O’Sullivan.U.S. Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian (Wheeler Survey, 1871 Expedition).

Has desal drought-proofed Israel?

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Another example of reasons to be optimistic about our water future?

With just half its normal precip last winter, Israel is in what might properly be characterized as a meteorological drought this year. But not to worry, according to this AP report:

Tenne said the country has managed to close its water gap through a mixture of conservation efforts, advances that allow nearly 90 percent of wastewater to be recycled for agricultural use and, in recent years, the construction of desalination plants.

Since 2005, Israel has opened four desalination plants, with a fifth set to go online later this year. Roughly 35 percent of Israel’s drinking-quality water now comes from desalination. That number is expected to exceed 40 percent by next year and hit 70 percent in 2050.

The turkey vultures of Mesa Verde

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Six turkey vultures roosting at Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde, May 2014, by John Fleck

Six turkey vultures roosting at Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde, May 2014, by John Fleck

Five years ago, Lissa and I stopped to talk to a ranger on the Petroglyph Point Trail at Mesa Verde. We’d been admiring the turkey vultures soaring above the canyon, and the ranger clued us in. If you like turkey vultures, she told us, go to the Spruce Tree House overlook at dusk tonight and you’ll see a whole bunch of ’em coming in to roost.

We did, and Oh My. That year, I think it was in July, we counted more than a hundred at one time. They soared in a few at a time – one, two, three, four – over a period of hours. They’d sit on the cliff opposite, warming their wings in the setting sun, before settling in for the night, one at at time, in the trees in the canyon below Spruce Tree House. It was a life experience. That summer, we detoured on our return from vacation to see it again.

So this year, on vacation in the same territory earlier this month, we went back. After a dinner of Navajo tacos at the cafeteria, we perched on the porch on the back of the ranger station, overlooking Spruce Tree House, and waited.

Vulture-watching perch, Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde, May 2014

Vulture-watching perch, Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde, May 2014

Turkey vultures or not, it’s a lovely spot. We brought all the glass we had at our disposal – two cameras, two pair of binoculars. And snacks and drinks.

This year, the rangers had a second clue for us. While it was still early in the season (only a few dozen turkey vultures had arrived, they said), the Mesa Verde birds had added a routine to their show. At dusk, the rangers explained, turkeys who lived in the woods atop the cliff would walk out, one at a time, perch on the cliff, and then fly clumsily in a downward path (these are turkeys, remember) toward the trees the vultures had staked out for them.

Turkey, staring into the abyss, by L. Heineman, May 2014

Turkey, staring into the abyss, by L. Heineman, May 2014

We had at least two hours of vultures coming and going in small numbers, with a few roosting in the trees, before the first turkey showed. It was hilarious. It walked out of the woods opposite along the hiking rail, where the humans go. It wandered off to the north, then a second showed, and eventually one of the turkeys walked out to the edge of the cliff.

Turkeys are not known for the ability to fly, and it showed. It was more a leap, a clumsy flapping, and then a no-turning-back landing. If there was already a vulture on the chosen tree branch, tough shit. The vultures were hip to this routine, and seemed to understand that the turkeys didn’t have a lot of maneuverability. The vultures moved.

It was dusk, and neither of us had the lenses to really capture the comically remarkable turkey vulture flight in the low light, but it was a treat. Eventually, six turkeys had joined the vultures in the trees by the time it got too dark to see any more. This one will have to do, and you’ll just have to take my word for the fact that this is a turkey, flying downhill from the top of a cliff toward a tree, and that watching them pull off this stunt added, if that is possible, to the life experience of vultures at Spruce Tree House:

Turkey, taking flight to its Spruce Tree House roost, May 2014

Turkey, taking flight to its Spruce Tree House roost, May 2014

Lake Mead: lowest end-of-May levels in history

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Unless tropical depression Amanda does something miraculous, and quickly, Lake Mead will end May at its lowest level for this point in the year since Elwood Mead and his buddies filled the reservoir in the 1930s, 20 feet in surface elevation below last year at this time.

The “tropical storm Amanda” thing was a joke. It would take enough rain to raise Mead’s surface elevation 6 feet to avoid the ignominious record. That will not happen. We are headed into new territory this year in the management of the Lower Colorado River, or “LOCO,” as my new favorite acronym would have it. But it’s not fair to call this, as I did in the first draft of this post, “uncharted territory”. We have some pretty good charts to guide us through this territory. Let’s start here, with the latest estimates presented at this week’s USBR meeting of water managers (pdf):

Lake Mead projected elevations, 2014-15, USBR

Lake Mead projected elevations, 2014-15, USBR

Based on the current projections, I’ll be able to do this cheap journalistic IT’S THE LOWEST IT’S BEEN THIS MONTH SINCE THEY FILLED IT clickbait schtick pretty much any time I want at least through the end of the water year, Sept. 30.

Why is this happening?

Annual inflow into Lake Powell, USBR

Annual inflow into Lake Powell, USBR

It is tempting to say “drought”, and that’s not wrong. 2014 is likely to end up as just the fifth year in the last 15 with above-average flows in the Upper Colorado River Basin, where most of the river’s water originates. This is a funky bar chart, but ignore the two brown bars, the red one is the most likely 2014 Lake Powell “unregulated inflow” – the amount of water that would flow into Lake Powell if there were no dams or water users upstream. So yes, the system as a whole has been dry.

That has resulted in a under-delivery this year of water from upstream into Lake Mead, but as I wrote last summer, the gap here is small, and more than made up for by a massive slug of bonus water delivered in 2011.

But equally important if not more important, the second reason Lake Mead is dropping is because they river’s managers release so much water each year for downstream users. The latest data (pdf) estimate this year’s inflow into Lake Mead at 8.2 million acre feet of water. Combined releases for downstream use in LA, San Diego and Imperial Valley, plus evaporation, plus the water pumped up the hill to Vegas, total 10.4 million acre feet.

The result of all that takes us into the charted territory I was talking about above. That little circle on the right of the first graph – note the dotted red line – shows a real possibility that Lake Mead could end 2015 with a surface elevation below 1,075 feet above sea level. At that point, the first ever shortage would be declared in the lower basin. We have a quite clear roadmap, laid out in the 2007 river management agreement among the basin states. Deliveries to Arizona and Nevada would be cut. (Brett Walton has done a great job of explaining the nitty gritty.)

If all goes well, this would be about the time my book comes out, which would be great for sales. I’ve got some perverse incentives as I watch this play out.