Best States is an interactive platform developed by U.S. News for ranking the 50 U.S. states, alongside news analysis and daily reporting. Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. EL CENTRO, Calif. A few hundred farms in the southern tip of California, along the Mexican border, may hold the key to saving the drought-plagued Colorado River from collapse. Clay Electric Cooperative. Most of the water in the 1,450-mile-long river comes from Colorado, and as that states top water official from 2013 to 2017, James Eklund directed the creation of a comprehensive long-term plan to address climate change, the first by a state in the West. According to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Lake Mead will rise from 1,047 feet on Monday to 1,048 feet by Sunday. Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River District, at the river in Glenwood Springs, Colo. Marc Catlin, a Colorado state representative, noted the financial incentives for farmers. In Colorado, which is both an agricultural state and an outdoor recreation magnet, water is not just critical to the economy but an emotional part of the states identity and a political third rail. The previous owner had owned rights to the Chalk River, a tributary of the Arkansas, which irrigated the hayfields using ditches that dated from the Civil War. The Upper Basin states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming did release a five-point plan this summer that points to the regions limited conservation options. Hernandez says that the crisis on the Colorado River provides a time for the predominantly white people who've claimed that water and the wealth and power that came with it to share more of it. It's now more salty than the ocean, heavily contaminated with agricultural runoff, and shrinking. It lies below sea level, allowing water from the Colorado River to flow there by gravity alone. a line, or reservoirs have been emptied, have the water consumers show the amount of water they drew by raising their cups or calling out the amount. They inherited the legal right to use that water, but they're now under pressure to give up some of it. Felt drove me in his pickup to a wide spot in a two-lane highway where trucks towing horses and inflatable river rafts whizzed past. All rights reserved. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - Lake Mead will be one foot higher by the end of the week after the release of water from Glen Canyon into the Colorado River. The water tower in El Centro, the county seat of Imperial County, notes a geographic fact that shapes this area's destiny. These farms use more Colorado River water than 2 states combined - NPR Much of the money goes to pay for projects that conserve water. In April, water administrators in Southern California imposed a one-day-a-week outdoor watering limit on more than 6 million people. Wall Street Eyes Billions in the Colorado's Water The Biden administration is pushing to cut 2 to 4 million acre-feet in water usage, and is in negotiations with the seven states affected. PDF Saving the Environment with Economic Ideas: Lesson 1: Water Rights Farmers could buy new, more water-efficient irrigation equipment. Lake Mead to rise one foot by Sunday after federal 'high flow' water Living with less water in the U.S. Southwest is the focus this week for a conference in Las Vegas about the drought-stricken and overpromised Colorado River, Colorado River Water Users Convening Amid Crisis Concerns, FILE - A buoy sits high and dry on cracked earth previously under the waters of Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Boulder City, Nev., on June 28, 2022. Researchers at the New Mexico State University Agricultural Science Center in Farmington, N.M., works with . But the entire region must work together, Lpez said, to avoid more mandatory cuts. Whats being done? Some fear that less water, and less farming, means fewer jobs and economic decline. Farmland meets the desert, separated by an irrigation canal, near Fruita, Colo. Almonds and Walnuts According to a UNESCO Institute for Water Education study, shelled almonds and walnuts were among the top three most water-intensive foods. What are the top crops grown in Colorado? "What happened today was a step forward," said Kevin Moran, a water policy specialist at the Environmental Defense Fund. Otherwise, the state has to invest in the whole thing and pay the opportunity cost of just having that water sitting there.. Often, the best land in the West is not along rivers, so you needed to move water.. The Salton Sea still exists, although it's in deep trouble. The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. Six of the seven Colorado River basin states sketched out a joint proposal for how they could meet the federal governments demand to make unprecedented cuts to water usage as more than two decades of drought in the West have pushed crucial reservoirs to dangerously low levels. It certainly seems that we have to reset our expectations for what we might be trying to get out of the river, said Lpez, a former Reclamation commissioner. Thats exactly what we were hoping that our use of surface water would allow the aquifer to do, Morris said. Rio Grande flows in Albuquerque are closely tied to the Colorado via the San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. An engineering marvel from the heyday of federal water construction, the project is a vast network or reservoirs filled by a tunnel that pipes water from the Colorado River 13 miles under the Continental Divide. Federal Water Shortage Limits Loom Over Colorado River And All - NPR The Biden administration helped pave the way for that offer by pledging $250 million for environmental projects to address the dust-ravaged shorelines around the Salton Sea, Californias largest lake, thats fed by agricultural runoff from the Imperial Valley. KGNUs Alexis Kenyon spoke with Dr. Jack Schmidt the director of the Center of Colorado River Studies at Utah State University about what a shrinking Colorado River means for everyone and everything it sustains. But if you know one tribe, you only know one tribe. Use less waterevery drop counts! There is plenty. When I reached Holly Irwin, a county supervisor who lives in Cibola, by phone a couple of weeks after my visit, she was angry. Right now, we have legal and political mechanisms in place to prevent that from happening., He added, though, that the pressure of the drought could shift the terrain. Touton and two top Interior Department officials are scheduled to address the conference on Friday. Australia has also seen the advent of a market in complex financial products, such as derivatives, based on water. Camille Touton, bureau commissioner, tempered a warning during the water webinars about federal intervention she called it moving forward on the initiation of administrative actions with a vow to find a collective solution to the challenges that we face today.. It wasnt until 1944 that a separate agreement promised a share of water to Mexico. Geography was the key. Increasing Pressures on Colorado River Water in New Mexico, Researchers at the New Mexico State University Agricultural Science Center in Farmington, N.M., works with alfalfa on July 22, 2020. This allowed water to flow through the canal powered solely by gravity. Thats the dilemma looking at how we can reduce demand with as soft a blow as possible, Hamman said. And it had to be a pretty good process, because it lasted 100 years.. The past two years have also seen healthy winter snow accumulation in the Rockies only to have runoff levels into Lake Powell that were a fraction of normal, as terrain dried out by the warming climate absorbed more of the water before it can reach the reservoir. Her life changes forever when she meets Wilson Moon, a young drifter, displaced from his tribal land in the Four Corners region. It can decide the fate of every part of the economy, from almond orchards to ski resorts to semiconductor factories. Key Colorado River reservoirs unlikely to refill in our lifetimes - Los They cant follow the priority system. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. California on Tuesday submitted its own proposal for how reductions should play out in coming years, depending on the elevation in Lake Mead. The four states at the headwaters of the river Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming also recently announced they plan to ask Congress to let them use federal money through 2026 for a program dubbed strategic conservation. It would resurrect a 2015 to 2018 pilot program that paid farmers to fallow land to cut water use. We let anyone come play.. These farmers, in Imperial County, currently draw more water from the Colorado River than all of Arizona and Nevada combined. "There's been a bad crop in northern California. It's the thirstiest crop in the US south-west. Will the drought put The other half is mile after mile of green fields lined by irrigation canals. His water district uses about 2.6 million acre-feet of water per year to irrigate more than 400,000 acres of farmland for alfalfa, grasses and other crops. Colorado is next (3.8 million acre-feet), followed by Arizona (2.8 million acre-feet), Utah (1.7 million acre-feet), Wyoming (1.04 million acre-feet), New Mexico (0.84 million acre-feet) and Nevada (0.30 million acre-feet). Udall's projections for the Colorado River aren't a certainty, but if climate, drought and water conditions continue as expected over the next five years, the amount of water delivered from . Rechanneling water from rural areas to thirsty growth spots like Queen Creek has long been handled by municipal water managers and utilities, but investors adept at sniffing out undervalued assets sense an opportunity. The effect has been dramatic on a vast river basin where the math never added up: The amount of water it receives doesn't meet the amount that is promised. When the states struck their agreement 100 years ago, it envisaged the river could provide 20 million acre-feet of water a year. Its quite possible that there just wont be as much San Juan-Chama water available in the future because of drought and climate change.. The price had risen tenfold in a matter of months. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. And now, water officials are grappling with how to make do with less. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post) For the second time in six months, states that depend on the Colorado River to sustain their farms and cities have failed to reach . Cities use roughly 20% of the Colorado River's water, while agriculture uses approximately 80%. (c) 2023 KGNU News Boulder Community Broadcast Association, If The Colorado River Were A Bank Account, We Ran Out Of Cash More Than 20 Years Ago, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), https://kgnu-news.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/4-27-23AK_ColoradoRiver.mp3, Seicento Baroque Ensemble Brings Landmark Performance to Colorado with Bach's, "St. John Passion", Colorado Tax Payers Gave Away A Lot Of This Year's TABOR Rebates To A Handful Of Wealthy Coloradans, After Deadly Prom Night Crash, This Year Boulder Parents Are Organizing After Prom Parties And Safe Rides Homes, Somatic Psychotherapist Speaks On The Art Of Healing Ceremonies, Fernanda Nieto Plays A Mean Piano & Speaks On Lack Of Diversity, Poet Exposes Injustices & Promotes Self-Love. Roughly 180,000 people, most of them Mexican-American, live here in towns that include El Centro, Calexico, and Brawley. All rights reserved. I have seen time and again the wisdom of using incentives that attract private sector investment and innovation, Mr. Eklund said. "And there's not enough time to litigate these issues," added Hayes, a former top climate aide to President Joe Biden. Water markets have been called a paradise for arbitrage, an approach in which professionals use trading speed and access to information for profit. The most comprehensive solution to manage all your complex and ever-expanding tax and compliance needs. That a lush hay farm had once been here seemed hard to believe. Agricultural water use makes up nearly 80% of total water consumption in the Colorado River basin, with roughly half of that going toward the production of alfalfa hay, according to a 2020. Lake Powell in Big Water, Utah. And crisis drives change.. But Lpez said the additional release could have jeopardized regional water supplies. Ultimately, we argued against it, he said. That lettuce will be in grocery stores by mid-November. The Upper Basin plan hinges on existing conservation programs. Seven arid states comprise the Colorado River BasinColorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Californiaand all exceed the national average for farm water use, with the exception of Wyoming, which uses 1.5 acre-feet of water per acre, in line with the national average. The six states made their case in a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation on Monday. If power production ceases at Glen Canyon Dam, rural electric cooperatives, cities and tribal utilities would be forced to seek more expensive options. Steve Benson says a further cut of 20 percent is feasible, but it does involve costs. Lake Mead was at 100% capacity in mid-1999. In 1922, a landmark agreement called the Colorado River Compact divided the river among two groups of states: the upper basin and the lower basin. The way the markets were set up left them open to being gamed.. The situation has been compared to the energy markets of the late 1990s, in which firms like Enron made money from shortages (some of which, it turned out, traders engineered themselves). The High Flow Experiment and its gushing water will ultimately decrease Lake Powell levels by 4.5 feet from April 24 to April 27. Water curtailment has long loomed over the Southwest. What top five states have rivers? But theres this public perception that, Look, theres flooding. But over the last two decades, the actual flow has dwindled to 12.5 million acre-feet on average, leaving state water managers with more rights on paper than existing supply. Farmers, however, would almost certainly challenge such an order in court. According to water-policy professionals I spoke to, investors are already lobbying for it. WAM and other investors could theoretically create their own reservoir accounts and let the water sit until its value was maximized. A Florida ethics board has dismissed a complaint that allies of former President Donald Trump filed against Republican rival Gov. Could A Boulder Company Solve The Takeout Food Container Trash Conundrum? Five things you can do for the Colorado River: 1. The platform is designed to engage citizens and government leaders in a discussion about what needs improvement across the country. Many see the compact as a safeguard isolating the river from the market. Most would like to see the price of water, long set in quiet by utilities and governments, rise precipitously. That would be: Were basically going to put all the cuts on the major share of the economy. The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) is a nonprofit public utility created in November 1934 by the Texas Legislature. Cardenas said the prospect of a 10 percent cut to the regions $5 billion agricultural economy would mean serious economic pain for a community that already suffers from high unemployment. LCRA provides public power, manages the lower Colorado River, builds and operates transmission lines, owns public parks, and offers community services. Those forage crops, which cover the majority of the land, aren't usually as valuable as vegetables. U.S. cities that receive river water include Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego. Californias snowpack, aided by atmospheric rivers, could help drought.
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