The Colorado River basin has experienced three D4 droughts in the past 20 years, including the current one. In the last few years, a new force has emerged: From the Western Slope of the Rockies to Southern California, a proliferation of private investors like Greenstone have descended upon isolated communities, scouring the driest terrain in the United States to buy coveted water rights. 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. 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. The reality is we have an overallocated river, said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the largest water supplier in the country. Another supporter is Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager portrayed by Christian Bale in The Big Short, who made more than $800 million shorting the subprime mortgage market in the mid-2000s. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. Colorado River tributaries in New Mexico bring water to the alfalfa fields in the Four Corners and the forested hills of the Gila wilderness in the southwestern part of the state. Arizona, California, and Nevada combined to consume just over 6.5 million acre-feet last year, according to an annual audit from the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that oversees the lower basin. A water conservation deal is in the works. Gary Libecap, a professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who specializes in water issues, believes that movement of water necessarily generates a public good, whatever form it takes. And youre still seeing continued growth. Native American tribes werent included and were referenced in one sentence: Nothing in this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States of America to Indian tribes.. By the summer, the process is expected to clarify the federal governments legal authority to make unilateral cuts to states water allotments. Often, the best land in the West is not along rivers, so you needed to move water.. If you're reading this, the chances are that some (or all!) In addition, those states are getting a hand from scientists at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. California on Tuesday submitted its own proposal for how reductions should play out in coming years, depending on the elevation in Lake Mead. Arizona, by contrast, is entitled to 2.8 million acre-feet of Colorado River water every year. "Six of the seven basin states are playing catch-up to reduce water use from the Colorado River, which is absolutely critically needed after 20 years of drought and the impacts of climate change," Moran told Reuters. Interior Department has said it will engage with tribes in the basin as parties hammer out some management details of the compact that are set to expire after 2026. The cuts could be drastic, she warned, reducing Colorado River water access by between 2 and 4 million acre-feet across seven states that rely on itclose to the 4.4 million acre-feet of Colorado River water California is entitled to annually. "Something will have to give," said Sharon Megdal, director of the University of Arizona's Water Resources Research Center. Since leaving government, Mr. Eklund has become WAMs legal counsel and public face. When you have pistachio and almond farmers willing to pay 10 times the average price, people sit up and say, How can I own some of this? he said. A historic influx of funding for infrastructure and drought response could also help New Mexico and other basin states reduce water use and prepare for a drier future. It would never reach the canal that supplies Imperial Valley. hide caption. A Farmer, A Chef, An Advocate And A Pie Guy Discuss Local Food Systems. Later, as the states negotiator on the Colorado River, he helped make it an official goal of the compact states. Researchers at the New Mexico State University Agricultural Science Center in Farmington, N.M., works with . They're trying to jump on the market early and have the first lettuce to be harvested.". 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. The Colorado River, which provides drinking water to 40 million people in seven U.S. states, is drying up, straining a water distribution pact amid the worst drought in 12 centuries, exacerbated . A more arid climate means all water users need to work harder to live within our means, said Estevan Lpez, New Mexicos representative on the Upper Colorado River Commission. In April, water administrators in Southern California imposed a one-day-a-week outdoor watering limit on more than 6 million people. "I think we would rather come up with voluntary agreements to live with a little bit less, to ensure that we have water," he says. The Radio Bookclub is a collaboration between KGNU and the Boulder Bookstore and is broadcast on the 4th Thursday of every month at 9am. The Colorado River provides water for one out of every eight Americans for residential, indus-trial, mining, agricultural, and recreational needs. Best States is an interactive platform developed by U.S. News for ranking the 50 U.S. states, alongside news analysis and daily reporting. His great-grandfather came to the valley from Sweden in the 1920s. James Eklund, legal counsel for Water Asset Management, favors a market-driven approach to water distribution in the West. The water will flow down the Colorado River system and eventually hit Pearce Ferry by April 26, and more water will flow into Lake Mead from April 26 to April 30. Best States is an interactive platform developed by U.S. News for ranking the 50 U.S. states, alongside news analysis and daily reporting. The way this priority system works, residents of Phoenix would lose water before vegetable farmers in Yuma. Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. In the last 20 years, tensions over increasingly scarce Colorado River water supplies have been rising in step with climate change and global temperatures. KGNUs Alexis Kenyon spoke with Dr. Jack Schmidt the director of the Center of . Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Its not necessarily a new concept in parts of Southern California, farmers have been paid for more than a decade to fallow land. Victoria must navigate love and loss while her home town drowns under the rising waters of the Gunnison River. LCRA's mission is to enhance the lives of the Texans it serves through water stewardship, energy and community service. But we will not serve as an emergency reservoir for uncontrollable, unsustainable urban sprawl, Cardenas said. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. The other half is mile after mile of green fields lined by irrigation canals. 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. Driving across the expanse, where the temperature often hovers near 115 degrees, I found myself comforted by the sight of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler carrying bales of hay, which at least implied the existence of something living where I was headed. For two years, the states have released additional water from at least three reservoirs including New Mexicos Navajo Reservoir to prop up Lake Powell levels. What is new is for private investors in this case an investment fund in Phoenix, with owners on the East Coast to exert that power. Those forage crops, which cover the majority of the land, aren't usually as valuable as vegetables. Many call conservation crucial. Florida Power & Light, a part of NextEra Energy. If power production ceases at Glen Canyon Dam, rural electric cooperatives, cities and tribal utilities would be forced to seek more expensive options. When started, they were hailed as a fast, flexible way of redistributing water on the driest inhabited continent, with little regulation attached. Otherwise, the state has to invest in the whole thing and pay the opportunity cost of just having that water sitting there.. The term consultation gets thrown around in the basin a whole lot, Vigil said. Access to it can make or break both cities and rural communities. U.S. cities that receive river water include Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego. Exclusive news, data and analytics for financial market professionals, Reporting by Liliana Salgado and Temis Tormo; Writing by Clarence Fernandez; In exchange, San Diego pays the irrigation district more than $100 million each year. Southern California water districts recently submitted a proposal to the federal government. Hay, corn, wheat, sorghum, and millet are the top five. And crisis drives change.. However, over time, as the West has grown in population, constraints on water supplies have emerged, leaving a system that was originally designed around the needs of farms to support the growth of vast cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix. In the West, few issues carry the political charge of water. The Colorado River empties into the Gulf of California. In 2001, Pueblo West, a planned community 100 miles away, came calling. Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter, in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday. California split from the six states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming on Tuesday in the face of a U.S. government deadline to negotiate their own supply cuts or face possible mandatory cutbacks by the federal government. The rain and snowstorms that battered California in January raised reservoir levels in the state and coated the Sierra Nevada mountains in snowpack that is 210 percent above normal for this time of year. Meanwhile, bodies have surfaced as Lake Mead's shoreline recedes, including the corpse of a man who authorities say was shot, maybe in the 1970s, and stuffed in a barrel. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. In fact, it's 5 feet. As investor interest mounts, leaders of Southwestern states are gathering this month to decide the future of the Colorado River. The Imperial Valley, by contrast, has only one source of water: the Colorado River, 80 miles to the east. And it had to be a pretty good process, because it lasted 100 years.. Theyd have to have a storage account of their own in a federal reservoir, and from my perspective thats a nonstarter, Mr. Mueller said. Lake Mead, seen here on April 3, has plummeted in recent years amid an epic drought. In Colorado, when we look up at the rocky mountains, its difficult to imagine how much those snowy white peaks mean to the rest of the world. What top five states have rivers? 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. But the states existing water conservation programs could be under increased scrutiny. At the edges of Lake Mead, the Nation's largest reservoir, a "bathtub ring" of mineral deposits approximately 100 ft. high shows the drop in water level after years of drought along the Colorado River. Investor interest in the river could redefine century-old rules for who controls one of the most valuable economic resources in the United States. Lake Powell's drop last March to historically low water levels raised worries about losing the ability perhaps within the next few months to produce hydropower that today serves about 5 million customers in seven states. Dan Charles for NPR Along both banks, a few hundred acres produce lush alfalfa and cotton, amid one of the more arid and menacing environments in North America. The bureau forecasts that for the first time, Lake Mead will operate in a Tier 2 shortage condition starting in 2023. The most valuable of these rights were grandfathered in decades before the population explosion in desert cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas, and privilege water access to small, often family-owned farms in stressed communities. Drafted in 1922, it allocates the rivers annual flow, dividing the water among seven states desperate for their share. Water markets have been called a paradise for arbitrage, an approach in which professionals use trading speed and access to information for profit. IID laid claim to water from the Colorado River before cities like Phoenix and Tucson showed up. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is pushing the . The state representatives said they would continue to work together and with the federal government and others to reach consensus on how best to share the burden of protecting the system from which we all derive so many benefits.. But officials in these farming districts with long-standing water rights do not intend to give them up without a fight or without compensation that meets their needs. He also pointed out that unlike the private investors who quietly, quickly and pseudonymously bought up valuable property in the Wests notorious land grabs like the acquisition of the Owens River rights by the City of Los Angeles WAM has purchased water rights in its own name. The Evergreen State takes the top spot again in the U.S. News Best States ranking on the strength of its tech sector and other industries. 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).
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