Tighter, costlier water shifting focus to curbing demand
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 27, 2009 at 6:44 amFrom the Arizona Republic:
“OUTSIDE EL CENTRO, Calif. – About 25 miles west of Yuma, across the Colorado River in California’s sand-dunes country, construction crews work day and night on two gaping basins that will, inside of a year, add another piece to Arizona’s increasingly complex water future.
The Drop 2 Reservoir, a name befitting the project’s utilitarian purpose, will collect the dregs of the Colorado, billions of gallons of water that seep through the cracks of an imperfect system. The water now flows south into Mexico if it can’t be used immediately, written off as a loss for U.S. users.
For its $28.6 million investment in Drop 2, about 16 percent of the total cost, Arizona will receive a small share of the water saved, to be taken in even smaller increments over 20-some years. California and Nevada will split the rest based on their contributions. … “
Read more from the Arizona Republic by clicking here.
Water planning after the age of infrastructure
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 15, 2009 at 8:20 amFrom Planetizen, an article on that begins with the early history of the Colorado River, and continues:
” … As the Homestead Act was pushing farmers westward and checkerboarding the uninhabited territories, Powell compiled his experiences exploring the rivers and lands of the western U.S. into a report and presented it to Congress in 1875. He advised an almost complete halt to the settlement of the West, suggesting that the western U.S. wouldn’t be able to support agriculture without extensive irrigation, and that without a more scientifically-based distribution of water rights, any further settlement would lead to devastation. Watersheds, he said, should define the location and extent of land settlement. Congress summarily dismissed his suggestions.
Instead, the country was taken into a century-long binge of engineering projects to command and control the rivers of the Western United States – corralling and contorting wild rivers to meet the needs of the growing west and, in many cases, dictating how and where it would grow.
But those days are over.
“You will never see another federal dam,” U.S. Department of the Interior Deputy Assistant Secretary Deanna Archuleta said at a recent symposium on water and land use in the West, hosted by the Urban Land Institute in partnership with the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Sustainable Sites Initiative, and Ernst & Young. Conspicuously held in Las Vegas, the event drew together a spectrum of developers, policymakers and academics to explore the role of water in the future of development in the arid region. As resources dry up and sustainability issues take a bigger place in the spotlight, many attendees concede that something has to change. … “
Read more from Planetizen by clicking here.
Senator Udall sponsors bill to attack pine beetles
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 24, 2009 at 7:31 amFrom the Fresno Bee:
“The insect infestation that has killed millions of pine trees is one of the West’s “biggest natural disasters,” says U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, sponsor of a bill to give forest managers more ways to respond to the outbreak.
The Colorado Democrat said Monday that the bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, would allow the U.S. Forest Service to identify high-priority areas and expedite analysis of proposed treatments. The bill would expand and make permanent programs allowing the Forest Service to contract with state foresters and treat trees that aren’t of high commercial value.
“This is one of the biggest natural disasters we face in the West,” Udall said.
More than 2.5 million acres of pine trees in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming have been killed by tiny beetles that burrow under the bark and lay their eggs, turning the green needles to the color of rust as they feed on the tree and restrict its ability to draw water.
Other Western states with beetle infestations are Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and eastern Washington. Forests in western South Dakota are also affected. … “
Read more from the Fresno Bee by clicking here.
Weber State University professor says the Great Salt Lake could be dying
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 3, 2009 at 12:04 pm
From Deseret News:
“Is America’s “Dead Sea” — The Great Salt Lake — dying?
Although the Great Salt Lake hasn’t dried up — yet, a Weber State University geography professor has concluded it is in real danger if something doesn’t change.
In an article titled “The Great Salt Lake: America’s Aral Sea?” in the September/October issue of Environment Magazine, Daniel Bedford wonders if the Great Salt Lake could become “an icon of 21st century American water problems in the same way that the Aral Sea became an icon of global water problems in the twentieth century.”
The Aral Sea in central Asia — another saline lake — lost 90 percent of its volume between 1960 and 2006 due to mismanagement and diversion, Bedford wrote.
“The shrinking sea and drying wetlands devastated the local economy and ecology, and loose sediments from the exposed Aral Sea bed were blown into pesticide-laced salt and dust storms that damaged crops, plants and the health of humans and animals to distances of some 300 miles downwind,” Bedford wrote in his article. …”
Read more from Deseret News by clicking here.
Cleaning dirty air risks costlier Arizona water
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 1, 2009 at 8:08 am
From the Arizona Republic:
“The Navajo Generating Station, the huge coal-fired power plant outside Page, supplies a fraction of Arizona’s electricity demand, but its role in moving water to the state’s largest cities
has thrust it into a growing battle over the cost of cleaning up air pollution.In the two months since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed rules that would require costly new air-scrubbing equipment at the plant, the debate has escalated into a war of increasingly dire predictions: Tribal economies could collapse. The plant itself could close. The price of water sold to Phoenix and Tucson
could quadruple.Environmental groups have targeted Navajo and the nearby Four Corners Power Plant for years because of the emissions-related haze that builds up over the Grand Canyon and other fragile landscapes. The EPA ranks Navajo as the nation’s third-largest emitter of nitrogen oxides, pollutants created when coal is burned. Four Corners is the second-largest.
The new EPA rules, if adopted by the agency, would force owners of the two plants to install complex new air scrubbers that use ammonia to break down the pollutants. Navajo’s owners say the systems cost too much money and could push power rates out of reach for the plant’s users. They also argue that the added scrubbers would produce visibility improvements imperceptible to human eyes. …”
Read more from the Arizona Republic by clicking here.
Toxic waste trickles toward New Mexico’s water sources: Radioactive debris has been found in canyons that drain into the Rio Grande, but officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory say there’s no health risk
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 1, 2009 at 8:01 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
“Reporting from Los Alamos, N.M. – More than 60 years after scientists assembled the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico.
Isolated on a high plateau, the Los Alamos National Laboratory seemed an ideal place to store a bomb factory’s deadly debris. But the heavily fractured mountains haven’t contained the waste, some of which has trickled down hundreds of feet to the edge of the Rio Grande, one of the most important water sources in the Southwest.
So far, the level of contamination in the Rio Grande has not been high enough to raise health concerns. But the monitoring of runoff in canyons that drain into the river has found unsafe concentrations of organic compounds such as perchlorate, an ingredient in rocket propellent, and various radioactive byproducts of nuclear fission. …”
Beetles on the move; a cure worse than the disease?
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 22, 2009 at 8:42 amFrom Arizona Star Reporter Shawn McKinnon’s Waterlogged blog:
“Biologists have found the first tamarisk leaf beetles along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.
By itself, that could be good news: The beetles eat tamarisk, or salt cedar, an invasive tree species that resource managers have been trying to eradicate along many Western river banks. Let the beetles in and maybe the tamarisk — another non-native import — will die off.
But this isn’t good news. The tamarisk leaf beetle was released in Colorado
several years ago as a biological control agent, a sort of natural weed killer. Biologists said the beetle couldn’t survive the climate south of about Lake Powell.Instead, the beetles have spread downstream on the Colorado and at least one of its tributaries, the Virgin River in southwestern Utah and southern Nevada. The concern now is that the little bugs have started to adapt to different environments.
Most at risk is habitat for the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, a migratory songbird that nests and breeds in riparian areas of Arizona and New Mexico. The birds like to make homes in — wait for it — tamarisk trees. …”
Read more from Waterblogged by clicking here.
Drought has eyes turning to Mexico
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 14, 2009 at 8:30 am
From the New York Times:
“The Southwest drought has reached the point where even drain water is coveted.
The plant may divert the purified water from the Ciénega for other uses under a treaty proportioning the Colorado River. More Photos »
Beginning nearly 40 years ago, the briny runoff from the “salad bowl” of southern Arizona, some of the most productive farmland in the nation, has been channeled into an arid plain of the Sonoran desert in Mexico.
It is an engineered solution to the vexing problem of keeping the nearby Colorado River free of agricultural wastewater too heavy in salt compounds for drinking water and other uses. A result south of the border has been a thriving man-made wetland, the largest in the river’s delta, a key stopover for migratory birds and home to a bounty of endangered and threatened species.
But now the protracted drought in the Southwest has led water managers to rethink the possibilities for the wastewater, placing the preservation of the wetland, the Ciénega de Santa Clara, at the center of a delicate balancing act between the growing thirst of California, Nevada and Arizona and the delta’s ecology. …”
Read more from the New York Times by clicking here.
Chip Ward on the red snow warning: The end of welfare water and the drying of the west
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 14, 2009 at 8:22 amFrom Chip Ward at the Huffington Post:
“Pink snow is turning red in Colorado. Here on the Great American Desert — specifically Utah’s slickrock portion of it where I live — hot n’ dry means dust. When frequent high winds sweep across our increasingly arid landscape, redrock powder is lifted up and carried hundreds of miles eastward until it settles on the broad shoulders of Colorado’s majestic mountains, giving the snowpack there a pink hue.
Some call it watermelon snow. Friends who ski into the backcountry of the San Juan and La Plata mountain ranges in western Colorado tell me that the pink-snow phenomenon has lately been giving way to redder hues, so thick and frequent are the dust storms that roll in these days. A cross-section of a typical Colorado snowbank last winter revealed alternating dirt and snow layers that looked like a weird wilderness version of our flag, red and white stripes alternating against the sky’s blue field.
The Forecast: Dust Followed by Mud
Here in the lowlands, we, too, are experiencing the drying of the West in new dusty ways. Our landscapes are often covered with what we jokingly refer to as “adobe rain” — when rain falls through dust, spattering windows or laundry hung out to dry with brown stains. After a dust “event” this past spring, I wandered through the lot of a car dealership in Grand Junction, Colorado, where the only color seemingly available was light tan. All those previously shiny, brightly painted cars had turned drab. I had to squint to read price stickers under opaque windows.
All of this is more than a mere smudge on our postcard-pretty scenery: Colorado’s red snow is a warning that the climatological dynamic in the arid West is changing dramatically. Think of it as a harbinger — and of more than simply a continuing version of the epic drought we’ve been experiencing these past several years. …”
Read more of Chip Ward’s post by clicking here.
Why comfy living in the Southwest will soon be history
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 14, 2009 at 10:52 pmFrom AlterNet:
“It is likely to be a source of unhappiness for us that we have taken natural bounty for granted in designing our civilization. But it is likely to prove tragic that we have assumed not only the indestructibility of nature (heck, some fossils still argue that climate change is impossible because it is not within human abilities to wreck the climate), but also that the particularly beneficial circumstances of the 20th century are what is ecologically “normal.” Nowhere is this more evident than in arid regions, and nowhere is it better studied than in the American Southwest.
There, in the deserts and mountains, we Americans have built huge cities, farms and ranches, and one of the world’s leading tourism industries (think Vegas) predicated on the reliability of cheap, plentiful water. This was a mistake. Water in the very near future will be neither cheap nor plentiful, and much of the Southwest is destined for real trouble. …”
Read more from AlterNet by clicking here.
Arizona’s precious water factor
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 9, 2009 at 7:19 amFrom the Arizona Republic, this commentary by Robert Glennon, author and professor of law at the University of Arizona:
“To understand the future of water in Arizona, one must first understand its value.
Consider the story of a Utah steel corporation. Built during World War II and located just outside Provo, Utah, Geneva Steel enjoyed a prosperous 20th century. But plagued by declines in the steel industry, the company eventually went bankrupt and, in 2005, liquidated its assets to pay off creditors.
Fortunately, it had substantial assets. Geneva Steel sold 1,750 acres of prime, developable real estate for $46.8 million. The company peddled the plant’s machinery and equipment to a Chinese steel company, which paid $40 million. A mining company purchased Geneva Steel’s iron-ore mine for $10 million. It was also able to sell its air-pollution-emission credits for $4 million. Collectively, these substantial assets totaled $100.8 million.
Then, Geneva Steel sold its water rights – for $102 million.
That’s right: The water rights were more valuable than all its other assets combined. …”
Read more from the Arizona Republic by clicking here.
Reports: Colorado will be crowded, thirsty in future
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 9, 2009 at 7:15 amFrom the Durango Herald:
“Ten million people will live in Colorado by 2050, putting strains on the water supply that can be overcome only by taking water from agriculture and building new pipelines from the Western Slope to the Front Range, such as the “Big Straw,” according to new government reports.
Reports from the Interbasin Compact Committee predict a doubling of the statewide population, with most of the growth happening on the Front Range. But the population of Southwest Colorado will grow at least that fast, to between 202,000 to 260,000, up from about 100,000 today.
All those new Coloradans will need water, and the reports predict a shortfall for cities and industry of 320,000 to 1.4 million acre-feet by 2050. The oil-shale industry, if it exists, could take half a million acre-feet per year. An acre-foot is enough for one or two suburban families for a year.
The numbers point to ominous conclusions for Colorado’s farm economy. The reports predict a continuing shift of water away from agriculture and toward cities. …”
Read more from the Durango Herald by clicking here.
University of Arizona expert: ‘It’s the farmers’ water’
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 8, 2009 at 4:17 pmFrom the Arizona Republic reporter Shawn McKinnon’s Waterblogged blog:
“A few years back, after Congress approved a landmark water settlement with some of Arizona’s Indian leaders, the conventional wisdom was that the tribes, with billions of gallons of newly acquired resources, would emerge as the state’s new water brokers.
Most of the tribes who won claims have since agreed to lease a little water to cities and water providers, but it seems more likely now that the new water bosses may be the same as the old ones.
“It’s the farmers’ water,” says Robert Glennon, a University of Arizona law professor and author of two books on water, including the recently published Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It. “They have the rights to it and they’re going to continue to do so.” …”
More from Waterblogged by clicking here.
Hydrating Phoenix: Quenching a city in the desert; How Phoenix and its 3.5 million people defied the odds, running on all cylinders without running dry
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 6, 2009 at 10:29 pm
From Mother Nature Network:
“Mayor Phil Gordon grew up playing in swampy back yards. During summers in central Phoenix, Ariz., he and his friends looked forward to the days when their parents would flood the grass, which meant a day or two of inch-deep splash puddles or soggy baseball games. Today, though the residents use the irrigation canals less frequently, nearby back yards are still separated by trenches, punctuated with pipes and valves that let homeowners flood their lawns about once a month rather than use water for daily sprinkler systems.
The network of canals sends untreated water from the Salt River Dam, where turbines generate electricity for the state of Arizona’s use, on its way to water treatment facilities. Using nothing more than gravity, city controllers can open up smaller networks of canals on a regularly scheduled basis for landscaping use, currently about two-thirds of the water used in the city, according to the city of Phoenix Water Resource Plan.
Gordon reminisces about his aquatic youth, telling me that central Phoenix was once a hotbed for citrus growers because the water was so plentiful. But that was decades ago, before the population exploded to more than 3.5 million residents, all thirsty, all washing laundry, and all wanting things like pools and golf courses and vegetables. Folks like Washington Post columnist Neal Peirce talk of imminent disaster: Arizona might run out of water and dry up like the desert surrounding its capital city. …”
Read more from the Mother Nature Network by clicking here.
Arizona’s rural areas face challenge to find next water source
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 3, 2009 at 7:27 amFrom the Arizona Republic:
“As Phoenix, Mesa, Tucson and the rest of Arizona’s big cities wonder if there will be enough water for the next 100 years, the question up in the cool pines of the high country is sometimes a little more basic: Will there be enough for the next year?
Rural Arizona has long been the weak link in the state’s water-supply chain. Its cities and towns can pump groundwater freely with almost none of the limits that protect urban aquifers. Renewable surface-water supplies are rare, and without the kind of federal subsidies that helped build the Central Arizona Project canal that delivers Colorado River water, those supplies can’t reach far.
The result for rural parts of the state is an erratic patchwork of wells, springs and seasonal streams and lakes – a water supply that fails occasionally because of overuse and carries few promises about its long-term sustainability.
“This part of Arizona, just like Central Arizona, needs to be plugged into a stable water source, like the Colorado River,” said Brad Hill, Flagstaff’s water-resources chief. “In the meantime, we have to look out for ourselves.” …”
Read more from the Arizona Republic by clicking here.
Unabated use of groundwater threatens Arizona’s future
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 2, 2009 at 8:12 am
From the Arizona Republic:
“Thirty years after Arizona tried to stop cities and towns from using up their groundwater, the state still can’t shake its thirst for one of its most finite resources. The steady drain on underground reserves grows out of two realities: Canals and pipelines don’t reach far enough to deliver surface water to everyone, and laws don’t reach far enough to stop people from drilling.
If the groundwater addiction continues unabated and under-regulated, the effects will be broad and potentially disastrous: Scarcer supplies could push rates higher and create uncertainty about water availability, discouraging new business and slowing economic growth. If wells start to run dry and aquifers collapse, the landscape could be dotted with fissures and sinkholes.
Lawmakers adopted some of the nation’s most progressive water-protection laws to avert such crises, but the laws excluded rural areas and allowed changes that let cities and subdivisions resume well-drilling, further depleting exhaustible aquifers.
Meanwhile, the renewable resource intended to replace groundwater – surface water fed by the annual runoff of mountain snow – can’t meet the demand of urban areas too far from the delivery canals. The result is holes in the state’s water bucket that are spreading as fast as the holes in the ground. …”
Read more of this comprehensive story from the Arizona Republic by clicking here.
Scientists study 2½-mile fissure in Utah’s Iron County; Over-pumping of aquifer is blamed
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 27, 2009 at 6:35 amFrom the Salt Lake Tribune:
The Utah Geological Survey has launched a study into a 2½-mile-long fissure in Iron County, trying to determine if such cracks in the earth are a growing trend throughout Utah valleys. UGS senior geologist Bill Lund said the study is focusing on the Enoch fissure and others that could be occurring throughout the state.
“The possibility is there that there could be others,” he told The Spectrum . “We need to see if the problem is bigger than just the fissure in Enoch.”
The study is being funded by the UGS and the Central Iron County Water Conservancy District.
Experts said a fissure is apparently the result of groundwater mining and the lowering of water tables, and the Enoch fissure stems in large part from over-pumping of the aquifer.
Read more from the Salt Lake Tribune by clicking here. You can read a related Utah Geological Survey Report on the fissures by clicking here. Hat tip to the Chance of Rain blog!
Salazar protects Grand Canyon watersheds from new uranium claims and exploration; Order temporarily bans new uranium claims and exploration across 1 million acres of public land surrounding Grand Canyon National Park
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 21, 2009 at 6:34 amFrom the Center for Biological Diversity:
Conservationists are applauding a notice issued today by the Obama administration to temporarily place 1 million acres of public lands surrounding Grand Canyon off limits to new mining claims and exploration or development of existing, unpatented claims. The order complies with a June 2008 resolution by the House Committee on Natural Resources enacting the same protections across the same area. The protections do not affect three existing mines in the area slated for reopening or the exploration of existing patented claims.
Uranium prices have caused sharp increases in new uranium mining claims, exploration, and permitting to reopen old mines on public lands surrounding Grand Canyon National Park. Uranium development threatens to damage wildlife habitat, industrialize iconic wildlands, and contaminate surface water and groundwater feeding regional water wells, seeps, springs and the Colorado River — prompting concerns from former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the Navajo, Hopi, Havasupai, Hualapai, and Kaibab Paiute tribes, Coconino County officials, and independent geologists.
“Secretary Salazar’s decision secures a much-needed, but temporary respite from thousands of new uranium claims around the Grand Canyon,” said Grand Canyon Trust spokesman Roger Clark. “For permanent protection, Congress now needs to pass the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act.”
Today’s order aligns the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management direction with the 25 June 2008 resolution by the House Committee on Natural Resources, which directed the secretary of the interior to enact an “emergency withdrawal,” banning new claims and exploration across the 1 million acres for three years. The Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust, and Sierra Club filed suit against the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management in September 2008 for authorizing uranium exploration in violation of the withdrawal. The groups are evaluating how today’s action affects that pending litigation.
“We are pleased to see Secretary Salazar take this action to protect the lands around Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, which provides the drinking water for millions of people downstream,” said Sandy Bahr, chapter director for the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. “Our waters and special places such as Grand Canyon deserve strong protections.”
The administration’s order comes as Congress considers legislative mining reforms. Tomorrow the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests And Public Lands will hear testimony on H.R.644, the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act of 2009, introduced by Representative Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz, that would permanently ban exploration and new claims on about 1 million acres of public lands bordering Grand Canyon. Last week the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources heard testimony on legislation to reform the antiquated 1872 mining law. The Environmental Protection Agency in that hearing noted that hard-rock mining has impacted 40 percent of all western watersheds and generates 28 percent of the toxic pollution in the United States.
“Grand Canyon’s uranium problem exemplifies the need for national mining law reform,” said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “America deserves a mining law that holds our parks, watersheds and wildlife above – rather than hostage to – mining industry profits.”
State air and water permitting has begun to open three existing mines in the area covered by today’s order but will not be limited by it. All three mines are owned by Denison Mines, a Canadian firm with Korean ties. Federal environmental approvals for all three mines are outdated and were completed in the 1980s. The Havasupai tribe will host a rally on July 25th and 26th near Grand Canyon’s south rim in protest of one of those mines, the Canyon mine, located on the Kaibab National Forest and traditional tribal lands.
The Valley’s untapped canals: For a visionary group of land-use experts and historians, it’s time residents stopped turning their backs on the Valley’s canals
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 12, 2009 at 6:52 am
From the Arizona Star:
They are not so much ugly, the 181 miles of canals that course through metropolitan Phoenix. They are plain. And utilitarian. Like tools hanging on a garage wall, the canals are here to do a job, not win design awards. They are concrete-lined ditches, mostly. Long, spare conduits for the millions of acre-feet of water issuing forth from Who Knows Where and flowing quietly to Who Knows Where Else.
The Valley’s omnipresent canals are diagonal, cross-cutting interlope rs in a community aching to be precisely square and orderly, and few of us have a clue about them.For most of us, they are an intrusion, cutting awkwardly through neighborhoods that otherwise would be sliced into perfect, tidy grids.
Who invited these things? Weird as it may seem when you think about it – Annoyed by the presence of water? Here? – the urban Valley turns its block-walled back to most of its canals.
For the most part, there are no trees or shrubs lining their banks. Just gravel pathways, wide enough for a truck. Which is precisely what the pathways are there for. Not for joggers. Nor strollers. This, emphatically, is not Amsterdam. Or even San Antonio with its Riverwalk. With odd exceptions here and there, the miles upon miles of irrigation canals in the Valley are stark and uninviting for a reason: We wanted them to be that way.
Now there is a movement underway in Phoenix to turn things around, so to speak. Read more from the Arizona Star by clicking here.
Picture of Phoenix’s Grand Canal by flickr photographer basile12.
Running on Empty: Water In the West – Author James Powell to give talk and book signing at Solvang Library June 4
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 30, 2009 at 7:35 amFrom edhat.com:
Persons who wish to drink, eat or bathe in the future are invited to a lecture by James Lawrence Powell, who will discuss water supply, climate change, and drought in the Southwest, the subject of his sixth book: “Dead Pool: Lake Powell, Global Warming, and the Future of Water in the West.”
The free talk and book-signing will be held on Thursday, June 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the Solvang Library at 1745 Mission Drive. The event is hosted by the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society and the Friends of the Library.
Dr. Powell will discuss the history and future of water in the West and examine the looming water crisis facing cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, all of which are heavily dependent on the Colorado River for their supply. Lake Powell, a half-empty Colorado River reservoir slowly filling with silt, is the focus of his book.
“We are fortunate to once again host Dr. Powell for a lecture,” said John Evarts, program chair for the SYV Natural History Society. “He is an outstanding interpreter of earth sciences, and his past presentations on other topics have been fascinating.”
More from edhat.com by clicking here.
Problems with Colorado River water could trickle down to Tucsonians
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 28, 2009 at 6:14 amFrom the Arizona Star:
For many years, many local officials and others with water expertise have seen the Colorado River as a regional plumbing system, providing water to thirsty cities, farms and Indian tribes. But at a congressional subcommittee hearing Wednesday in Tucson, speakers from a host of government agencies agreed that it’s time to give equal weight to water-quality issues plaguing or threatening the Colorado River, such as sewage discharges, pharmaceuticals, invasive mussels, uranium, salinity and a rocket-based jet fuel known as perchlorate.
The bottom line is that if more attention isn’t paid to these problems soon, they could filter from the Colorado River down to Tucson, which lies at the end of the 330-mile Central Arizona Project canal-pipeline system, said the subcommittee chairman and the head of one of the agencies.
The speakers said more federal attention is needed for these problems. The solution is not just more money, but a big-picture approach that looks at the problems as a whole rather than separately, they said. The Lower Colorado needs a massive, regional approach like those now being applied to cleaning up or restoring other major ecosystems such as Puget Sound, the Everglades and the San Francisco Bay, speakers said.
Read more from the Arizona Star by clicking here.
Southwest’s earliest known irrigation system unearthed in Arizona; The farming community near Tucson dates to at least 1200 BC
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 23, 2009 at 8:57 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
Archaeologists preparing for the expansion of a Tucson wastewater treatment facility have discovered the remains of the earliest known irrigation system in the Southwest, a farming community that dates to at least 1200 BC.
That predates the well-known and much more sophisticated Hohokam tribe’s canal system, which crisscrossed what is now Phoenix, by 1,200 years. The find suggests that the people who inhabited the region began with relatively simple irrigation systems and built up to more complex projects as the climate became hotter and drier.
“These are not the earliest canals known in southern Arizona, but they are the most extensive and sophisticated engineering [from the period] that we have identified to date,” said archaeologist James M. Vint of Desert Archaeology Inc. in Tucson.
The site, called Las Capas, or “The Layers,” sits at the confluence of Cañada del Oro, Rillito Creek and the Santa Cruz River. The name derives from the repeated layers of silt that buried the site until nothing was visible from the surface.
Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Commentary: All dried up – Foreclosures and forecasts in the American Southwest
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 8, 2009 at 8:06 amFrom the Environmental News Network, this commentary by Andrew Erdmann:
Not long ago, my fiancée and I were watching a movie about a small, waterless southern California town. The film led to a conversation about housing policies and the mortgage crisis. “It’s these dry western towns that are driving this mortgage crisis,” I declared, no evidence to back it up, waving a glass of wine in one hand while standing in front of the fire, “and this is just the beginning of the problems we’ll see from all this sprawling urbanism!”
The following morning, dropping the red envelope with the DVD to be returned into the mailbox, I reconsidered this point and was surprised that it held up under the sober first rays of the sun on the morning dog walk. It didn’t take much research to confirm that this foreclosure crisis is hitting us harder in the Southwest than in the rest of the country. Even so, foreclosure is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the problem of growth in the West and like any iceberg, the bulk of the thing—including its most dangerous parts—lies underwater. Like all icebergs, also, the ‘berg of western urban growth will have its existence and stability challenged by global climate change.
Read more of this commentary from the Environmental News Network by clicking here.
Severe Arizona water shortage possible; Population growth, warming imperil Central Arizona Project supply
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 26, 2009 at 6:59 amFrom the Arizona Star:
You could call Tim Barnett the Southwest’s water Cassandra — gifted with visions of the future, but doomed to be ignored.
Since the middle 1980s, many climatologists, hydrologists and other scientists have predicted that global warming and other forms of climate change will mean less water for the Colorado River and, by extension, the Central Arizona Project, the $4 billion collection of canals and pipelines that is Arizona’s water lifeline.
But few experts have belted that message as forcefully as Barnett, a marine physicist at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego. His warnings have been met with doubt by some of the West’s water managers who have long felt they could plan, design, engineer and manager their way out of a future water crisis caused by the collision course between population growth and the region’s aridity.
Some scientists questioned Barnett’s first study, which predicted that Lake Mead and Lake Powell had a 50 percent chance of drying up by 2021 due to human-caused climate change. In the second study, like the first co-authored with fellow Scripps researcher David Pierce, he predicts that by 2050 the river could see water flow cut in half in some years due to human-caused climate change and natural variation in precipitation.
Since Arizona has the lowest priority of any of Southwestern state for Colorado River water — California is legally entitled to get its entire share before Arizona gets any — that kind of shortage could curtail CAP deliveries to Tucson and Phoenix by one third to one-half for up to 10 years in a row.
The Arizona Star interviews Tim Barnett about his study; read the full text of the article by clicking here.
How clean is the Great Salt Lake?
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 26, 2009 at 6:54 am
From the Tooele Transcript Bulletin:
On many spring days, the Great Salt Lake is an inviting sight, the azure blue of the water blending into a cloudless sky. But how pristine is North America’s largest body of salt water? Can you swim in it? Can you eat foods associated with it? What if the water gets in your mouth?
Those are open-ended questions. State water quality officials and environmentalists admit there are contaminants in the Great Salt Lake that could be harmful, but opinions vary as to how dangerous they are and what risks they pose.
John Whitehead, an assistant director of the Utah Division of Water Quality within the Department of Environmental Quality, said mercury and selenium have been two issues of concern at the lake. But that doesn’t mean everyone who’s taken a dip in the brackish waters has reason to worry. “At this point, we’re not aware of a health issue [to humans] from contact with the water,” Whitehead said.
Still, Jeff Salt, director of the Great Salt Lake Water Keepers, an environmental organization formerly called Great Salt Lakekeeper, said he’s cautious.
“I’ve swam and played in the Great Salt Lake but I’m cautious about that because I believe, being that the lake is in a terminal basin, it’s receiving all of the pollution from the entire watershed,” he said. “Everything is flowing down and ending up in the lake, either through the Bear River, Weber River, or Jordan River — or pollution that’s been discharged directly into the lake by companies like Kennecott and US Magnesium.”
Read more from the Tooele Transcript Bulletin by clicking here.
Photo credit: BW Jones of flickr.
Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program: Backwater closures bring conflict; plus plan to use pesticide could put Colorado River at risk, some say
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 19, 2009 at 7:38 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
It’s turning out the best areas to grow endangered fish species as part of the Multi-Species Conservation Program along the lower Colorado River are conflicting with favorite areas for local fishermen and recreational users of the river. “This is the Colorado River in its purest form,” fisherman David Greaves said about the backwater areas of the Colorado River. “It’s one of the few last pristine areas left in the United States.”
The Multi-Species Conservation Program is a joint agreement with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and a variety of water agencies in California, Nevada and Arizona, including the IID. The goal is to preserve species of endangered fish that have been put at risk from water transfers among agencies in the three states.
John Swett, the multi-species program manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, said two of the endangered fish species, razorback sucker and bonytail, are prey for the sport fish, such as bass and catfish. “They don’t compete very well. Everything eats them,” Swett said.
Therefore, some of the 360 acres of backwater areas along the lower Colorado River are going to need to be closed to remove the sport fish. But coming to an agreement on which acres to close has become a major undertaking.
More on this part of the story from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Also the Imperial Valley Press, a related story regarding the concerns raised about the Lower Colorado Multi-Species Conservation Program plan to use a pesticide to kill off populations of sportfish in order to boost populations of endangered species:
Sport fishermen are concerned that a conservation program could use a possibly dangerous pesticide to kill off nonnative sport fish such as bass and catfish in parts of the Lower Colorado River, and that the pesticide could leech into the surrounding water supply.
“If Arizona does something it affects California. It’s basically all the same water, and it all flows to the same areas,” fisherman David Greaves said.
Greaves has been fishing in the backwaters of the river in Arizona and California for 35 years, and was president of the Yuma Bassmasters Club for three years before stepping down in January. He’s concerned with a pesticide called rotenone, which comes from the roots of tropical plants. The Environmental Protection Agency has approved it for use in isolated lakes to kill unwanted fish species, and it has been used that way for many years. But Greaves said that in the inter-connected backwater areas of the Colorado River, there’s no real way to isolate the poison from the general water.
“The problem is there’s no way they can control this substance,” Greaves said.
Read more from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Lake Mead water level set to drop below 1965 mark
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 15, 2009 at 8:24 amFrom the San Francisco Chronicle:
Drought-stricken Lake Mead is expected to drop this summer to its lowest level since May 1965, and water managers say it is approaching the trigger point for restrictions on water use by Nevada and Arizona.
A U.S. Bureau of Reclamation report projects that by July, the vast Colorado River reservoir behind Hoover Dam will stabilize about 13 feet below its current level of 1,105 feet above sea level. The lower level of 1,092 feet would be below 1,100 feet for the first time in 44 years, and just 17 feet above the 1,075-foot elevation that would trigger the first shortage declaration under a sweeping interstate pact signed in December 2007.
That 20-year agreement involving California, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico provided new rules for jointly operating the Lake Mead and Lake Powell reservoirs during extended dry spells such as the one that has gripped the Southwest since 2001.
Colorado River water flow to Mexico is not affected by the 2007 pact, said Bob Walsh, a Bureau of Reclamation spokesman in Boulder City.
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.
Time to face the possibility of losing every drop from the Colorado River
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 9, 2009 at 5:57 amFrom the New Mexico Independent, this commentary:
When the New York Times did a major spread in late March on “Reinventing American Cities: The Time Is Now,” I tried to imagine what a reinvented city in the American West might look like if our decade-long drought extends another ten or twenty years.
What kind of a city would a severely water starved Albuquerque have to become to survive? People who think about cities always do so with ideal scenarios in mind. It’s not that they are usually spoken of, but they are there, improbable and pie-in-the-sky though they might be.
My ideal of the perfect Albuquerque comes from a mixture of images from the past and the future in which the city had definite edges, was a fertile agricultural paradise along the Rio Grande or the American Nile as it used to be called, had a strong downtown core, flourishing local neighborhoods and businesses, and no sprawl at all into the oceanic landscape around the city.
Add to that the image of Albuquerque as a college town and a research and technology hub for America to think its way into a sustainable future, and you have a garden city that is still a regional center and one that has maximized its potential as a think-tank city too.
But now I read in a recent edition of High Country News of the possibility of New Mexico finding itself with no water at all coming from the Colorado and its tributary the San Juan. And I wonder if my ideal will go the way of the boomer’s ideal of Albuquerque as L.A. on the Rio Grande.
That vision is dead as a doornail now. And mine could well be too. How does a city reinvent itself in a deep drought with its aquifer shrinking and the dream of drinkable river water snatched away like candy from a baby by the ogre of Western water wars?
Read more of this commentary from the New Mexico Independent by clicking here.
Navajos want to run river trips at Grand Canyon
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 6, 2009 at 6:08 amFrom the Fresno Bee:
The Navajo Nation is lobbying for one of its businessmen to run coveted river trips through the Grand Canyon.
With only one American Indian tribe currently doing so, the director of the Navajo Nation’s Division of Economic Development says its time to open the door to others.
Allan Begay said the Navajo Nation would like for the venture to begin soon, but Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Steve Martin said that’s unlikely. The National Park Service tightly controls the number of people who can set out on the river and a management plan isn’t up for review. But, he said, “we also understand the importance of economic development, and the importance of working together. Our goal is to sit down with them and try to find areas where we can support one another.”
The 2006 management plan for the Colorado River was the result of years of talks among scientists, National Park Service managers and other professionals, with input from tour operators, Indian tribes and the public. Under the plan, 24,567 people on commercial and noncommercial trips are allowed to travel down the Colorado River each year. Those seeking to raft the river in private boats are selected through a computerized lottery system and are limited to one trip per year.
The Park Service has said the plan would be in place for 10 years, but alterations could be made if necessary.
Read more from the Fresno Bee by clicking here.
Colorado pipe dream: Water plan has a lot of hurdles
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 6, 2009 at 6:05 amFrom the Colorado Springs Gazette:
Depending on whom you ask, Aaron Million’s idea is either the solution to Colorado’s water problems or a quixotic scheme with no anchor in reality.
The Fort Collins entrepreneur wants to build a pipeline from western Wyoming to Colorado’s Front Range, a 560-mile journey that would terminate at a new reservoir in eastern El Paso County. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will hold a series of public meetings this month on the proposal.
Water suppliers here aren’t banking on the $2 billion to $3 billion pipeline being built. “Physically, it’s feasible. Politically, that is a whole different question,” said Kip Petersen, general manager of Cherokee Metropolitan District.
The water supplier on the east side of Colorado Springs has chronic shortages, and on Wednesday limited lawn watering to two days a week.
“I think there are political issues. There are legal issues. There are technical issues to move water that far. Clearly Mr. Million has hurdles to clear,” said Gary Bostrom, water resources manager for Colorado Springs Utilities. Utilities officials did not embrace the idea after meeting with Million in recent years.
Read more from the Colorado Springs Gazette by clicking here.
Quest for water as old as Colorado Springs itself
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 4, 2009 at 5:51 amFrom the Colorado Springs Gazette:
“Water, water isn’t everywhere and sometimes it takes a lot of doing to find a drop to drink.” – Colorado Springs Department of Public Utilities report, 1971
When Gen. William Palmer laid out a new town in the shadow of Pikes Peak in 1871, he probably never imagined it would grow to nearly 380,000 residents, the second-largest city in the state. If he had, he might have built it somewhere else.
Colorado Springs averages just 17.4 inches of precipitation a year – less than half that in Palmer’s native Philadelphia. The city has no Delaware River, like Palmer’s hometown; or a South Platte River, like Denver; or an Arkansas River, like Pueblo. To keep up with population growth, Colorado Springs has extended straws in practically every direction, from the high peaks of the Sawatch Mountains to the arid southeastern plains, a water system spread out across hundreds of miles.
The Southern Delivery System may be the last straw. The exact route of the $1.1 billion pipeline – from either Pueblo Reservoir or the Arkansas River in Fremont County – is undecided, but it seems likely the Department of Public Utilities will begin construction this year. It will bring 78 million gallons of water a day to a new reservoir east of Colorado Springs, which officials say will provide enough to meet demand here through 2046. It will be the most expensive project Utilities has ever done.
Read more from the Colorado Springs Gazette by clicking here.
Water wars leave northern Colorado farmers dry
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 3, 2009 at 6:31 amFrom the Associated Press:
Many farmers in this northern Colorado plains region are struggling to keep their crops irrigated and stay afloat as they find themselves on the wrong side of state water rules dating back to the 19th century.
The farmers around Wiggins, population 830, recently lost a lengthy war over access to the nearby South Platte River. To make ends meet, several of them banded together for a recent auction to raise money: combines, tractors, vintage trucks and piles of rusted scrap metal, all arranged in rows, waited to be gobbled up by buyers amid a cloud of dust hanging over the auction site.
“I’ve been auctioneering for 31 years. I’ve had the opportunity to call auctions for many different reasons — retirement, just broke. This is the most uncalled for, sad situation I’ve ever seen in my life,” said auctioneer Chuck Miller.
The farmers’ plight traces back to the late 1800s, when reservoir and ditch companies bought senior rights to the Platte. Some 30 years later, farmers drilled their first wells in the South Platte River Valley.
Water in Colorado is first come, first served. State law requires well users to have a supply of replacement water ready before they start pumping from the river to ensure there’s enough for the senior rights holders. For years, the state water engineer worked out ad hoc deals with farmers, allowing them to pump their wells without replacing water required by the law. There was enough to go around, and senior rights holders were satisfied.
Read more from the Associated Press by clicking here.
Energy Dept. boosts clean up of uranium tailings near Colorado River
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 31, 2009 at 11:29 amFrom the San Francisco Chronicle:
The U.S. Energy Department has allocated $108 million in economic stimulus aid for removing the 16 million ton radioactive tailings pile on the Colorado River near Moab, Utah.
Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said Tuesday the funding commitment shows that the Energy Department is trying to meet a 2019 cleanup deadline. As recently as February, the department maintained the cleanup would not be finished before 2028, he said.
The money will help remove an extra 2 million tons of tailings by 2011 — the end of the current five-year removal contract. That will be accomplished by adding more rail cars and more rail shipments from the former Atlas Mineral Corp. site near Moab to a disposal site about 30 miles away.
Shipments are set to begin in April.
The waste is part of a Cold War legacy in Moab, where rich uranium deposits were mined during the 1950s for nuclear weapons. The Atlas Minerals Corp. bought the mill in 1962. It closed in 1984 but left behind the heap of tailings on the banks of the Colorado River.
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.
Experts look to balance desert-river flows; Scientists search for the right amount of water to revive desert rivers
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 29, 2009 at 7:00 amFrom the Arizona Republic:
Since early February, millions of gallons of water have flowed down the lower Salt River through Phoenix, spilling out of Roosevelt Lake, swollen with melted snow about 90 miles upstream. The water, released by Salt River Project to keep the reservoir below a federal flood-control limit, has filled a channel that most of the year, most every year, sits dry except for an occasional burst of storm runoff.
As the water flows downstream, it percolates into rarely fed aquifers and begins to nourish a riparian system starved of water. Dormant plants grow, birds find water and the first hints of new habitat emerge. What was a wide, weed-choked wash finds life.
So is the Salt River a river again instead of just a part-time ditch?
For now. The new plants will probably survive the spring and maybe the summer if monsoon rains temper the heat. But by fall, the ground will dry up and, except for a few artificially-fed stretches, the lower Salt will fade once more.
The brief flush of excess runoff illustrates how quickly a desert river can spring to life given enough water and how abruptly it can go dormant once the flow stops. A river needs water, especially in the desert. Just how much it needs is a question scientists are trying to answer.
Read more from the Arizona Republic by clicking here.
Environmentalists say shale imperils other water uses
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 27, 2009 at 5:55 amFrom U. S. Water News:
An environmental group says oil companies have rights to large volumes of Colorado water for producing oil shale, calling it a potentially dangerous drain in an already water-scarce area.
A recently-released report by Boulder-based Western Resource says companies have rights totaling about 7.2 million acre feet in diversions from western Colorado waterways and nearly 2 million acre feet in stored water. “The companies have essentially cornered the market in water rights in western Colorado,” said Karin Sheldon, the group’s executive director.
Companies are still testing the best ways to tap the vast reserves locked in rock below Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. Commercial production is likely at least a decade off.
But the Bush administration last year approved a plan to make nearly 2 million acres of public land available for oil shale development and finalized rules for commercial production.
Sheldon said in a teleconference that the report “Water on the Rocks: Oil Shale Water Rights in Colorado” is a warning that public debate is needed on oil shale. “It’s not a technology that’s ready for prime time, and the potential impacts are huge,” Sheldon said.
Read more from U. S. Water News by clicking here.
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