🔋Water You Doing?
Despite record snowpack, the Colorado River basin faces an existential water problem if trends continue. Will water rations or new projects be the solution?
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I’ve been in Arizona recently and visited the Grand Canyon as part of my trip. This beautiful wonder of nature was carved out by the mighty Colorado river starting about 5 million years ago. Growing up in the northeast we were generally concerned with too much water rather than too little, so whenever I travel to the southwest it is a stark reminder of the water issues that plague the US today. As a leading developed nation, the US has been able to build tremendous infrastructure to support the basic necessities of tis population over the years. This includes allocating massive loads of water to even desert locations such that the standard of living is on par with anywhere else in the country (You silly people for living in the literal desert). Of course there is nothing wrong with this, except that the usage of the Colorado river’s water is being used faster than it is supplied creating a bit of a problem. This “deficit” has been referred to as a slow motion train wreck since there are no immediate problems, however there comes a point where the trend simply cannot continue.
The Colorado river begins in the rocky mountains where the primary source of the water is snowmelt off the mountains. It proceeds 1450mi through and supplies water to 7 US and 2 Mexican states before exiting into the Gulf of California in Mexico. Most notably, Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles, Denver, Salt Lake City, Tucson, and Albuquerque rely on the Colorado for water supplies in some capacity. While this seems stark, it is worth noting that 13-50% of water supplies are actually from ground water in the southwest region. While these cities are still reliant, they aren’t completely at the whim of the river.
Water allocation is not left up to the free market and traces back to laws as far back as 1922. Originally the Colorado River Compact, now “law of the river” is the set of laws governing the water allocations to each state/country. The allocations are as follows, with California (specifically the Imperial Valley region) being the biggest benefactors. The imperial valley with their large share of the allocation became a thriving agricultural area home to vast supplies of vegetables, gains, and nuts due to its prolonged growing season and water supply.
The problem is that water levels have been decreasing for many years due to the increasing population, agriculture, and historically severe ongoing draught. The state of the water situation can be seen through the water levels at the two largest hydroelectric dams on the river, the Hoover Dam at Lake Mead and the Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell. Lake Mead water levels reached historic lows in 2022 seen below and if they get down to 950ft the Hoover Dam loses capability to generate electricity, another huge problem. In better news, water levels are currently rising due to snowmelt from a wetter than normal year and higher levels of snowpack. That’s all the good news because the levels went from only from 20% up to 30% of ideal capacity so it has not solved the problem and would take years of historically wet seasons to refill these lakes.
With the states naturally unable to come up with a plan to cut back on their allocations together, the federal government has stepped in with proposed plans of its own. Evenly cutting water would harm California and its agriculture region dramatically and would be met with fierce pushback. Holding to seniority rights would screw Arizona’s growing cities as well as native populations who have claim on the river through various treaties. Further guidance on cutbacks that will receive pushback either way is expected sometime in the summer.
One solution that have been proposed include desalination plants to leverage unlimited water from the ocean along California or in Mexico. This option is has promise except desalination is a relatively expensive process, the byproducts can harm local marine life, and the political climate in California is not friendly to new infrastructure developments. With one currently operational desalination plant in Carlsbad, construction of another in Huntington Beach was in the pipeline for 20 years before being rejected last year amidst the historic water issues. The Doheny desalination project was approved with better environmental safeguards, still meeting pushback from environmental groups though.
On the same vein, northern California can’t divert portions of their water resources for human use due to environmental regulations. Environmental groups have lobbied for protections of certain wildlife and thus a large percentage of water drains into the San Francisco Bay because of a little fish called the delta smelt for example. Policies like this leave a significant portion of the useful water in California mismanaged in many peoples eyes.
Another option would be to transport water from water abundant areas. The two popular candidates would be Lake Michigan or the Mississippi river. The former would be a massive cross state project via pipeline or aqueduct requiring extensive pumping infrastructure due to elevation changes not to mention the political battle it would have to go through in the states as well as Canada. Canada has allowed Wisconsin access to Lake Michigan water already though. The latter has a similar set of challenges - geography, economics, and politics to overcome.
Without finding alternative water sources to meet the demand, cutting back the Colorado means water rationing looms on the horizon. That or less likely the states could limit immigration, both wildly unpopular policies. The problem with rationing is who gets rationed. Is it households while agriculture/industry still can use wild excess? Or is it the industry leaving investment in the states to suffer not to mention lower crop yield. A price on water is one solution but comes with its own drawbacks like its effectiveness in meaningfully reducing overconsumption and its equity While none of the solutions are without flaws, the southwest is in for a world of hurt if droughts keep up and governments are unable to approve construction of any new sources of water. While it is important to take the environmental impacts seriously, there is somewhere between destroying the ecosystem and 20 years of permitting and approvals for a desalination plant that seems reasonable to me… Until next week,
-Grayson
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The dirty little secret in California is that cattle production accounts for up to half of the states water use, directly and indirectly. While residents are routinely punished for watering lawns and washing cars, commercial and residential use, including golf courses, use only about 20 percent of CA water. Meanwhile vast acreage of alfalfa is sucking up precious water in the blistering summer sun in the Imperial, Colorado River, and San Joaquin Valleys due to antiquated water rights (I drive occasionally from Fort Worth, Texas to San Diego, CA and really the entire SW US is one big cattle pasture--either grazing on fragile desert lands directly or land under plow for alfalfa and hay. Not only that but a good chunk of this production is sent Saudi Arabia and China). Cattle also contribute as much greenhouse gases as the transportation sector! Looks to me like we have a two-fer: eat less beef and we get both birds, as opposed to desal, for example, which is expensive AND produces CO2.. If a massive government subsidy would help get lab grown beef to the market that could at least supplant ground beef in fast food establishments which is a huge amount.