Farmers to bear brunt from Colorado River cuts
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Arizona Department of Water Resources and the Central Arizona Project said the anticipated reductions will be painful Author: The Associated Press Publish date: May 5, 2021
Lake Mead is the largest reservoir on the 1.450-mile Colorado River, which serves millions of people in the Southwest. (Photo by Jordan Evans/Cronkite News)
The Arizona Department of Water Resources and the Central Arizona Project said the anticipated reductions will be painful
Felicia Fonseca
Associated Press
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Arizona is prepared to lose about one-fifth of the water the state gets from the Colorado River in what could be the first federally declared shortage in the river that supplies millions of people in the U.S. West and Mexico, state officials said.
Arizona stands to lose more than any other state in the Colorado River basin that also takes in parts of Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Nevada and California. That's because Arizona agreed long ago to be the first in line for cuts in exchange for federal funding for a canal system to deliver the water to Arizona's major metropolitan areas.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources and the Central Arizona Project, which manages the canal system, said the anticipated reductions will be painful, but the state has prepared for decades for a shortage through conservation, water banking, partnerships and other efforts.
"It doesn't make it any less painful. But at least we know what is coming," said Ted Cooke, general manager of the Central Arizona Project.
Farmers in central Arizona's Pinal County, who already have been fallowing land amid the ongoing drought and improving wells to pump groundwater in anticipation of the reductions, will bear the brunt of the cuts. Most farms there are family farms that are among the state's top producers of livestock, dairy, cotton, barley, wheat and alfalfa.
In Pinal County, up to 40 percent of farmland that relies on Colorado River water could be fallowed over the next few years, said Stefanie Smallhouse, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau Federation.
"That's a big blow," she said. "I can't think of many other businesses that can take a 40 percent cut in their income within a few months and still be sustainable. When you farm, it's not only a business, it's your livelihood."
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation projected earlier this month that Lake Mead, which delivers water to Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico, will fall below 1,075 feet for the first time in June 2021. If the lake remains below that level in August when the bureau issues its official projection for 2022, Arizona and Nevada will lose water.
The two states already voluntarily have given up water under a separate drought contingency plan.
The voluntary and mandatory Tier 1 cuts mean Arizona will lose 18 percent of its Colorado River supply, or 512,000 acre-feet of water. The amount represents 30 percent of the water that goes to the Central Arizona Project and 8 percent of Arizona's overall water supply.
Some of that water will be replaced through water exchanges, transfers from cities to irrigation districts or through water that was stored in Lake Mead in a sort of shell game. The state, tribes and others also contributed financially to help develop groundwater infrastructure.
"We like to think we find ways to take care of ourselves collectively," said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
Smallhouse said farmers are thankful for the help coming but believes there's more flexibility in the system to further ease the reductions. While farmers regularly face criticism for the amount of water they use, Smallhouse said the coronavirus pandemic highlighted the importance of a local supply chain for meat, dairy and crops.
Some water users simply won't get the water they once had if the Bureau of Reclamation's projections pan out.
The cutbacks come at a time when temperatures are rising and drought has tightened its grip on the U.S. Southwest, increasingly draining Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S., to their lowest levels since they were filled.
Lake Mead along the Arizona-Nevada border has dropped by about 16 feet feet since this time last year. Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border has fallen by 35 feet, the Bureau of Reclamation said.
The reductions in Arizona won't hit cities or people's homes, or affect water delivered through the canal system for Native American tribes. Still, anyone living in the desert should be concerned — but not panic — about water and think ways to live with less, said Rhett Larson, an associate professor at Arizona State University and an expert on water law and policy.
"The fact that you're not feeling it in your tap doesn't mean you won't feel it at the grocery store because Pinal County farmers are growing a lot of the things you eat and use," he said.
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The population growth in both Nevada and Arizona is, IMO, unsustainable. We lived in Henderson NV (a suburb of LV) for nine years and the growth was amazing. After the meltdown in 2008 it population is once again expanding at a rapid pace.
When we moved to Henderson in 2003 the population was 213,000. In 2019 it was 320,000 and it's gained more in the ensuing year.
The simple fact is that there isn't enough water for this type of growth. The Colorado River cannot produce the amount of water being taken out of it.
Dry farming was and is being done by Native American tribes in the SW, and we may be seeing a heck of a lot more of it.
in colorado, mining claims and water rights are deadly serious.
Without a doubt they are, devan.
I agree Kavika, I live in Phoenix we are running out of housing and water quickly.
We have already been warned water rationing is probably in our future.
Building houses at this time is so expensive not enough are being built so the prices of existing homes is skyrocketing here too.
No one listens, but we all end up paying.
My advice, find somewhere else to relocate to. You will not like it here.
(self preservation) lol
I have a number of friends that live in AZ and they are voicing the same thing.
The growth rate is not sustainable.
I read a very interesting book back in the early '90s and its premise was that the next great war will not be fought over oil but water and from what we are seeing worldwide that seem to have hit the nail on the head.
I've heard that as well and it's probably correct. World wide.
Humans do not live on oil alone. In fact humans can't live on oil at all. Water is necessary for life. It will be one Hell of a battle and from what little I know the battle has already begun years ago for many. Worldwide.
ww.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2020/12/31/tribal-water-settlements-can-win-win-arizona-must-finalize-them/4026285001/
Our state is lucky to have past and present leaders who understand the importance of tribal water settlements. After Sens. Jon Kyl and Jeff Flake blazed the trail, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has secured a number of key victories in Arizona, such as extending an environmental review deadline in the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s settlement .
In a world where much of the thinking is zero sum, Arizona leaders need to continue making the most of these win-win opportunities.
I have friends in a number of the AZ tribes and have been following the water battles for many years. These settlements need to be reached and put into effect. Waiting years for a settlement to be OK'd is nonsense.
Hopefully, AZ can move forward with the settlements especially now that a NA is the Secretary of the Interior.
It does look like many here are trying we see it in our local news quite a bit now.
uhhhh.... That doesn't mean you should move to my back yard either. LOL.
LOL Better their backyard than mine.... right.
"The Great Lakes area, will be one of the few places in America where the effects of climate change may be more easily managed."
I came from there, I won't be going back.
It's cold and poor there and has been all my life. Places like Peoria especially haven't changed in decades. There is NO money there, only a future of cold and poverty for the average person.
NO Thanks !
Housing is cheap there but finding a way to pay for it is still a big problem though. Not to mention the out of control meth problem.
So, no thanks.
PS: I have relatives there, they all hate it but stay because their whole family is still there suffering together. Again, No thanks.
I wanted more out of life 40 years ago and I got it. I left Illinois and never looked back, one of the best decisions I ever made !
The Hyperion Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) Pilot Facility in LA should be coming online soon ... not all is dry and dreary.
That is a bit of good news, Hallux. San Diego opened the largest desalinization plant in the Wester Hempisphear in 2016/17.
Sadly, IMO, this isn't going to help the states like Nevada and Arizona. Clark County NV (Las Vegas/Henderson) receives 95% of its water from Lake Mead which is the Colorado River.
An infrastructure project that will be needed will be canal systems running from desalination plants along the coasts inland to states like Arizona and Nevada. Otherwise I do t know where a lot of the people living in the Phoenix/Vegas areas are going to relocate to.
The building of the desalinization plants is quite costly and the cost of canals adds multi-millions more to the cost. I'm not sure if this is feasible but there are not any other alternatives that I'm aware of.
We recently sold our Fort Mohave AZ home and stayed at nearby casino resort on the Colorado.
At that point on the river, the beach had already grown by a hundred yards and the river
wouldn't be large enough to be acknowledged as a creek in SE PA.
Sad
Are you saying we should use aging celebrities liposuctioned cellulite to water farm land? It's probably not a bad idea, but what would the produce taste like?...
or a "crick"
That is the correct pronunciation, lol, in PA, lmao!
Hmmm...I'm sitting here thinking about the Romans did to supply water to the City of Rome. I'm probably wrong, but didn't they build aqueducts from the Alps to Rome to take advantage of snow melt?
Directly on the western bank of the Mississippi River are several water rich states. I'm no engineer and I do think this would be costly, but what about a system of aqueducts/canals interspersed with reservoirs?
Or maybe I need a nap?
Actually, you don't... In 2010 the water manager for the state of NV proposed something similar. To build pipelines or aqueducts from the areas of the Mississippi that flood on a regular basis to Lake Mead. It would not hurt the water flow of the Mississippi and would lessen the damage caused by the flooding.
No one outside of NV thought it was a good idea. Lack of critical thinking and or foresight is one of the biggest problems that the US faces.
The southern parts of Arkansas flood on a regular basis, so do parts of Missouri and Louisiana. I think it's an idea that should be considered
The root cause of this problem is overpopulation
I'll agree with that if you're talking about NV and AZ. It's a desert with limited water supplies. You cannot keep building homes there and expect to have an unlimited water supply.
You cannot keep building homes there and expect to have an unlimited water supply.
It's conjectured that the Mayans abandoned their cities just for that reason when a prolonged El Nino event occurred. Think our science and technology are up to the task?
I think that both are, the problem is the lack of foresight by the powers that be.
reading this made me decide to go check the canal here , usually its not opened up and flowing until mid may , I have water flowing , so that means i slacked off too much and didnt get the part i take care of ( making sure there is no trash or blockages ) done in time luckily there was no blockages otherwise i would have found out sooner , so tomorrows chores are already dictated
have to say , thinking about it , piping flood waters west to the colorado wouldnt be a bad idea , really no need to go over the rockies or into northern rivers that flow west, it would be though one hell of a long pipeline.
it's just an oil pipeline carrying water instead, right?
HEH, HEH,HEH....
Yes, indeed.
From St. Louis to Lake Powell is 1400 miles driving distance probably a bit shorter in a somewhat straight line.
The longest pipeline in the US is 1900 miles and worldwide over 8,000 miles.
It's very doable, IMO.
I think the pipeline is doable .
Other concerns are , because floodwaters are not exactly considered up to potable or culinary standards , what degree of purification would be needed , then the where the purification takes place needs to be thought out and planned , I mean i doubt that lake powell or mead would like midwestern contaminated floodwaters dumped in what they are already drinking in the service areas .
And then there is the over all cost to do the project and the inevitable cost to maintain all the things that will be needed to make it all work, as well as the who is going to actually pay for it all to happen. .
they can put traps in the pipeline to catch debris and sediments and pay someone to maintain the traps and sell the
effluent for fertilizer, LOL !
Consider this, the California Aquaduct is roughly 450 miles long and went it reaches the Tehachapi Mountain it was to be pumped up 2,000 ft. It was built in the early 1960s and faced the same concerns about water purity and all those concerns were addressed. If it wasn't for the California Aquaduct California would not have the agriculture in the central valley nor the water for Southern Ca to grow. It was financed in the early '60s on a massive bond sale of I believe around $2 billion dollars.
The Colorado River Basin states are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Each state is a party to the Colorado River Compact entered into in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on November 24, 1922.
The Colorado River basin drains 242,000 square miles of the US and 2,000 miles of Mexico. 40 million people are dependent on it for drinking water and livelihoods ranging from farming to recreation. 4 million acres of farmland are dependent on the Colorado, no water no food, simple as that.
We've kicked the can down the road long enough we are running out of options and unless we make some major decision the long term doesn't look good.
We created Lake Powell and Lake Mead in the 1930s and built the Hoover Dam or what we have now would not be there. The Colorado is the lifeblood of much of the western US. Better start treating it that way.
preferably, any major debris would get filtered out before the water started getting pumped from containment ponds , sediment thats another issue but as you say maint. would take care of that .
Another issue would be invasive species making their way into the system, or other contaminants / pathogens .
And im pretty sure some ecological person will have more concerns about upsetting the natural balance of different areas would affect things should something go wrong at any time....
start pumping water out of the Mississippi or Missouri, and that can have an effect on the gulf coast and the gulf itself , have a pipeline break between point A and B and all that extra water where it normally isnt is going to affect the local biosphere.
Starting to get a head ache yet?
I think it is doable , but at what cost ?
Not yet, the invasive species situation and pathogens situation has been addressed with the California aqueduct.
The proposal is not pumping water out of the Mississippi nor Missouri but using the flood water that it creates.
A water spill, come on we have 100,000 miles of pipelines carrying NG and oil to include the direst of all oil, tar sands oil and we have spills on a regular basis. Would you rather have water pouring into an area or oil?
Yeah i know , doesnt sound so bad really, but i would bet dollars to doughnuts that some person would jump on it and say how its destroying the natural balance of an arid area. The type of person that would cut the bottom 6 inches from their blanket and sew it to the top and declare they now have a bigger blanket.
Dont get me wrong i think it would be a good idea .
right now the proposal is simply floodwaters , excess water that would take time to get back in river banks or soak into the aquifer, problem is flooding might happen annually , but it can not be guaranteed that sufficient amount would happen , so eventually the demand would come about to take water from the 2 rivers i mentioned and i only mentioned the 2 on purpose because that drainage has too many tributaries to mention, and that demand would be based on the fact the system exists and there is an apparent need in somes minds .
I am aware of the compact , but wyomings share deals only with the waters in the green river basin within the state , not the entire states waters. being wyomings share is in one drainage and considered the "headwaters ", things arent that bad but things change .
most of that basins waters come from percip / snow melt . last i saw , my county is sitting at roughly `135% of snow pack per date only due to the last snow storm a week ago , and that poercentage is dropping fast with the 70 and 80 degree weather we are having, before that it was in the high 80 low 90 percentile . the snow also fell into the wrong river basin drainage to affect the green or the colorado.
Now you've hit on the one thing that engineering/science or any else man-made can control. How often will flooding happen and to what degree. Here is a link to the flooding history of the Mississippi. Note that flooding is sporadic but for the last five years when it has flooded every year. (2020) was in a different chart but 2020 had severe flooding.
I remember the "bad" 100 year floods of the 90s , the government ended up paying people to move out of the flood plains .
might be a good idea to use some of that now government owned land to engineer some drainage areas that can be used as sites to start the pumping , and it will all have to be pumped for the most part.
Im not an engineer , but it would make sense to me to have a channel to the holding pond whatever the size with a controllable flood gate that once a certain level is reached before flood stage can be operated .
might even be able to use the water pressure and flow in the pipeline itself to power the pumps needed to keep the water flowing . making it a neutral effect on the power grids .
I agree, that would make sense.