On drought and spreading risk

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The anthropologist William Abruzzi wrote a fascinating essay some years ago explaining the success of early Mormon agriculture in the Little Colorado River Basin, one of the more bad-assed desert environments in which one might want to do one’s 19th century, pre-federal-irrigation-subsidy farming. Holbrook, which spans the Little Colorado, averages a bit more than 8 inches (20 cm) of rain per year, with nearly half of that falling during

Holbrook, Arizona. Going through the town on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Gallup, New Mexico and Winslow, Arizona. Photo by Jack Delano, courtesy Library of Congress

Holbrook, Arizona. Going through the town on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Gallup, New Mexico and Winslow, Arizona. Photo by Jack Delano, courtesy Library of Congress

the chaotic summer thunderstorm season. But by spreading across multiple climatic zones, from the high country to the low country, and then sharing stuff among communities across the region, the early Mormons pooled their risk, according to Abruzzi:

Because the various Mormon towns were situated in widely dispersed river valleys, they generally experienced distinct schedules of variability; that is, while they all suffered the vagaries of environmental instability, they did not all experience the same instabilities simultaneously. Due to local differences in elevation, precipitation, temperature, growing season, soil quality and surface water availability, droughts, floods and other catastrophes occurred at different times and places. In addition, regional developments affected individual communities differently. For example, while higher temperatures threatened crops at Woodruff and St. Joseph by increasing evapotransporation rates throughout the lower valley, they raised the probability of a good harvest at Showlow and Alpine in the southern highlands by increasing the length of the growing season. Similarly, while cooler temperatures increased the likelihood of destructive early frosts in the southern highlands, they reduced the heat stress on crops at lower elevations and increased the prospects of a good harvest among the town in this sub-region.

This generalizes.

Consider Fitch’s recent bond rating for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California:

Water is provided from two independent supply sources. Supply fluctuations occur on the in-state water supply, the State Water Project (SWP). The Colorado River supplies, banking arrangements, and Metropolitan’s substantial storage facilities help balance this risk. Consequently, Metropolitan has sufficient supplies to meet customer demands through at least 2014 despite statewide drought concerns.

While California’s in-state water system is suffering epic drought, Met has alternative supplies from the Colorado River Basin on which to draw, as Brett Walton recently explained in Circle of Blue:

Though it will not get much water from a state canal that moves supplies from the north to the south, Metropolitan will get a full allotment this year from the Colorado River.

Diversity of supply, from lots of different kinds of sources, reduces vulnerability to drought. Again Walton:

Many of Metropolitan’s customers are making significant investments in water treatment infrastructure that decreases its risk during drought by developing local supplies: groundwater, recycled wastewater, and capturing rainfall.

This cuts both ways. Back in 2003, when Met lost a substantial supply from the Colorado River, it was able to fall back on California’s in-state supplies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stuff I wrote elsewhere: New Mexico drought, Billy the Kid edition

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Cracked mud for illustrative purposes only, it's only an irrigation ditch at the end of the season, but you get the idea, right?

Cracked mud for illustrative purposes only, it’s only an irrigation ditch at the end of the season, but you get the idea, right?

From the morning paper:

The last time New Mexico was (by at least one measure) this dry, Billy the Kid was shooting up the state and pueblo crops in the Rio Grande Valley were wilting.

The “one measure” in this case is consecutive dry years on the Rio Grande:

From 1873 to 1883, the Rio Grande experienced four straight dry years, had a break with an average year, then another six dry years in a row, according to University of Arizona professor Connie Woodhouse. Since that time, we haven’t had six dry years in a row until now.

Landscape, interrupted

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Landscape, Interrupted I, by John Fleck

Landscape, Interrupted I, by John Fleck

One of my favorite Albuquerque views is from the bike trail by what we call the “Big I”, the interchange of two interstates in the middle of town. The trail runs along the northwest bank of a flood control channel, and the geography is such that you’re at the highest point around, including (mostly) the freeways. The result is a nearly 360-degree horizon – the Manzano and Sandia mountains to the east, the Jemez to the north and Albuquerque’s volcanoes to the west.

But when I stopped today to try to photograph it for this blog post instead of just enjoying it as I rolled by, I noticed something that I’d never seen before in the hundreds of times I’ve done that ride. There is a tremendous amount of city interrupting the view of the landscape. For years, my eye and brain have been clearing all that clutter away. The view of the volcanoes was the most striking example:

Landscape, Interrupted II, by John Fleck

Landscape, Interrupted II, by John Fleck

Those little bumps on the horizon, toward the right side of this picture. Those are the volcanoes. There’s a lot more city in the way than I realized.

vegetarianism, water and growth

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From the Daily Herald in Provo, Utah:

“This is a very, very important issue and we are trying to offer some leadership in this regard and brought in people to give direction,” Freeze said of the summit. “We want what is best for our communities and families. We all realize that, like it or not, our region and state is going to grow. There is nothing we can do to stop that.”

Given the limited supplies of water, what ever are Utahns to do?

The experts said Utah County would have to learn to conserve water and even suggested residents might have to give up eating meat.

California’s water policy failings on display, but is there a lesson of success here as well?

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tl;dr While Northern California flounders, Southern California’s drought planning kicks in as Met taps into its Lake Mead water savings bank

California Poppies

California Poppies

Brett Walton, writing about President Obama’s visit to California’s drought-stricken Central Valley, captured that state’s water policy dilemma:

“It can’t just be a matter of there’s going to be less and less water so I’m going to grab more and more of a shrinking share of water,” Obama continued. “Instead what we have to do is all come together and figure out how we all are going to make sure that agricultural needs, urban needs, industrial needs, environmental and conservation concerns are all addressed.”

That is a tall order, requiring a radical reinvention both of California’s water supply hardware and its operation – changes that politicians, environmentalists, and farmers have fought over for decades. Indeed, the drought has catalyzed a consensus that something should be done, but there is little agreement about the details.

Yes, but… To the south, the fruits of some years of wrestling over these issues has left a more orderly process for dealing with the current mess.

The Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and Coordinated Operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead, approved in 2007, allowed Lower Colorado River Basin users to take a variety of steps to conserve or otherwise increase water supply, banking the resulting savings in Lake Mead for use when needed:

The primary purposes of ICS are to: (a) encourage the efficient use and management of Colorado River water; and to increase the water supply in Colorado River System reservoirs, through the creation, delivery and use of ICS; (b) help minimize or avoid shortages to water users in the Lower Basin; (c) benefit storage of water in both Lake Powell and Lake Mead; (d) increase the surface elevations of both Lake Powell and Lake Mead to higher levels than would have otherwise occurred; and (f) assure any Contractor that invests in conservation or augmentation to create ICS that no other Contractor will claim the ICS created by the Contractor pursuant to an approved plan by the Secretary.

We don’t have the final 2013 accounting yet, but at the end of 2012 the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California had banked 579,786 acre feet of water in Lake Mead. Overall, the Lower Basin water contractors as a whole had banked 1.2 million acre feet in Mead (p. 44 here, pdf).

This year, with California State Water Project deliveries reduced to a trickle (is “zero” a “trickle”?), MWD has said it plans on tapping into some of its ICS water in Lake Mead, to the tune of about 200,000 acre feet (though a final decision has not been made). The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation granted MWD approval to store more ICS water in Mead this year, but according to a staff report to MWD’s board last week (pdf) that appears unlikely:

Due to dry conditions in California, however, it is unlikely Metropolitan will store water in Lake Mead this year, and has initially planned to withdraw water from its storage account in Lake Mead.

I’ve argued that a century of fighting over the Colorado River has created a robust framework for water management decisions on the Lower Colorado that makes it much less difficult to handle trouble in times like this.

 

 

 

 

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

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From Brett Walton, a visit to California’s Central Valley to witness Stein’s Law in action:

David Zoldoske, who has worked at Fresno State for 31 years, sees this as the future of agriculture in the Central Valley. Fewer acres will be irrigated, less groundwater will be pumped.

Walton’s entire piece is worth reading. Wikipedia has a nice brief explanation of Stein’s law.