Future Conflicts on the Colorado River - a new angle on an old story

For those of us who closely follow media coverage and commentary on the Colorado River, a new angle on an old story is always appreciated. In this case, the old story is that the Colorado River Supply and Demand Study released last year is hailed as a “call to action”.  As discussed in a previous agua-zona post entitled A Call to Action – but to do what? (agua-zona’s most popular post, ever!)  there are lots of different opinions on the appropriate course of action. 

However, among the hundred-plus options for bridging the supply-demand gap, legal changes to the structure of the Law of the River were deliberately excluded from the report’s final analysis.  A well-done article published by Bloomberg earlier this year included interviews of several study participants who agreed that taking on legal and policy questions related to water allocations were “beyond the scope of the study." According to the article,

"When asked if members of the sub-team were reluctant to analyze legal and policy ideas because they respect the Law of the River, fear changing it, or view changing it as too difficult, sub-team member Don Gross told BNA, “All of the above.” "

So now here is another call to action for the Colorado River. The study authors are no doubt aware of the opinion held by Douglas S. Kenney, director of the Western Water Policy Program in the University of Colorado School of Law in Boulder, and others, who think there was a missed opportunity when the study did not analyze policy changes to river allocations. Kenney is quoted as saying,

"Shortages mean there is an inevitability of institutional change needed for the river, and I don't know how you avoid it...States have been ignoring the underlying legal issues, but they can't go on doing that forever."

A new angle on an old story AND a new Colorado River graphic! Image from Stratfor.

Another recent analysis concludes that the Upper and Lower Basin States will eventually need to align their total allocation with the annual discharge of the river (perhaps about 15 percent less). Published by contributor Statfor, at Forbes online, their conclusion is more of a prediction than a rallying call (it comes from authors who don’t have any immediately obvious agenda for the Colorado River.)  Through a lens of analyzing global events in a “geopolitical framework”, they claim that the Colorado River has a relatively small role in Mexico’s economy where its water is used mostly for agriculture and contributes only about 3 percent of the gross domestic product of the Baja Norte province. For this reason, they predict that future conflicts on the river are most likely to be domestic, not international: 

“ …there may come a time when regional growth [in the US] overtakes conservation efforts. It is then that renegotiation of the treaty* with a more realistic view of the river’s volume will become necessary. Any renegotiation will be filled with conflict, but most of that likely will be contained in the United States.”

 *It seems “treaty” is used here in a general sense, referring to the various interstate compacts and court cases that together comprise the legally binding formula for allocating water between the states - in other words, the Law of the River.

Bottom line for Arizona: Given the economic importance of the CR in the US, future conflicts on the Colorado River are more likely to be inter-state, and not international, and therefore the states should continue to nurture their positive relationships.  However, this should not be at the expense of good relations with Mexico - a status that was hard-earned as exemplified by the recent success of Minute 319 (see this  agua-zona post).  Also, Mexico plays a disproportionately important role in any US plans involving desalination/exchange, as it has the only ocean-front property in the basin.

Arizona's water supply vulnerability is power, not water

From Tucson-based water resource consulting firm  Montgomery & Associates:

"The Colorado River’s low flows and Lake Mead’s photogenic bathtub rings are again making headlines — but the most vulnerable component of Arizona’s water supply system today is its power supply."

"The Navajo Generating Station, a 2250 MW coal-fired plant, provides nearly all the power required to operate the Central Arizona Project. The plant’s future depends on the willingness of its partners / owners to invest in its continued operation." 

The required investment to keep the plant operating is increasing due to several critical factors. Read more  Montgomery & Associates' Arizona Water Policy Update (editor notes that this is her day job)

The Mark Wilmer Pumping Plant pumps water approximately 824 feet from Lake Havasu to enter the CAP aqueduct system. In total, the CAP lifts water more than 3,000 feet and transports it 336 miles, from Lake Havasu, through Phoenix, and to Tucson.

Bottom line for Arizona:  "Regardless of whether NGS shuts down or continues to operate, the power plant responsible for moving most of Arizona's water plant is going to have a major impact on the price and availability of Colorado River water supplies in Arizona in the near future."

 

 

May 2013, Issue 71

Arizona - do you know where your water is?

Katherine Royer and her communications staff at the Central Arizona Project have done it again - put together another informative video on the CAP. This 6-minute video, CAP 101: A Refresher Course , should be required watching for the 5.2 million residents in CAP's tri-county service area who represent 80 percent of the state's population.  CAP's motto certainly is applicable.

Arizona - know where your water comes from. Corollary - know where the energy comes from that moves your water to you (Navajo Generating Station) because without the energy, the water will not be there.

A Renewed Focus on Arizona's Verde River

This depiction of the Verde River water budget is from The Nature Conservancy.

Arizonans care a lot about the Verde River – after all it still has water in it year-round.  The residents of this river’s watershed have a long history of awareness, involvement, and activism around the Verde and the riparian habitat it supports.* A local paper, the Prescott Daily Courier, seems to have several reporters that cover the “water beat” whose articles often generate thoughtful and intelligent comments from readers, and at a forum to present results from a new groundwater modeling study, an 

estimated 400 people were in attendance! 400 people - to hear about a groundwater model?!

At this forum, USGS hydrologists presented results showing what might happen to the Verde River as a result of human activities (i.e. groundwater pumping) under various water demand scenarios. The actual groundwater model that forms the backbone of these predictions  - the USGS Northern Arizona Regional Groundwater-Flow Model  - was completed several years ago. However, projecting future impacts was delayed at the request of Prescott-area municipalities that were dissatisfied with the model. These communities plan to pump up to 12,000 acre-feet per year from the Big Chino Basin, which forms the headwaters of the Verde River.

Without municipal support, the USGS and the Walton Family Foundation stepped up to fund this latest phase of the study.  Details are in the recently released publication by the USGS “Human Effects on the Hydrologic System of the Verde Valley, Central Arizona, 1910–2005 and 2005–2110, Using a Regional Groundwater Flow Model”.

 

After the results were released last week, the Prescott Daily Courier and the Arizona Daily Republic (Phoenix) both ran stories with headlines about how “groundwater pumping reduces Verde River flow” – an attention-grabber that was even picked up by a San Francisco media outlet. But the interdependence of groundwater and streamflow is probably not news to any Arizonan with a pulse, and certainly not to the water-literate population of the Verde watershed. 

 

In spite of the unsurprising findings (that groundwater pumping reduces Verde River flow) and in spite of the uncertainties inherent in groundwater modeling, these results give decision-makers and community members a baseline for considering the consequences of future actions. For example, the model shows that 10,000 acre-feet of groundwater pumping equates to a loss of 14 cubic feet per second, or 12 percent of the entire baseflow of the river at Camp Verde.

This type of analysis equates the benefit of pumping a certain amount of water with the cost of doing so to the river - and that kind of information is useful to the general public. It is up to them, and the officials they elect, to decide what happens next.

Bottom line:  In Arizona a few cfs can be the difference between perennial and intermittent flow.

*  As an example – citizen activists recently produced  Viva La Verde  – a documentary film about the Upper Verde River …from the trailer, we hear that “this place matters” … “it is not an easy thing to save a desert river” …“so far the Verde survives -  a lush, living riparian oasis in the desert” …  

You can view 3 minute trailer with beautiful footage .