Tags: Associated Press, New Mexico, Wyoming, natural disasters, Colorado, Nevada, California, allergies, Arizona, Utah. This led to domination by professional investors with no ownership of farmland, Mr. Kells said. By design, the five-year process is ponderous and built to be consensus-driven, with an eye toward shared sacrifice. The Colorado River Water Users Association conference, normally a largely academic three-day affair, comes at a time of growing concern about the river's future after more than two decades of record drought attributed to climate change. Biden should not let Venezuelas regime run out the clock on democracy, Floridas surgeon general played loose with facts about vaccine risk, in negotiations with the seven states affected. A field of alfalfa, freshly cut, dries in the sun. Californias agricultural water markets a mosaic of online exchanges connecting farmers and water brokers are considered a potential model for the West: fast, flexible and responsive to extreme weather. 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. Before above-average snows in recent weeks, the Bureau of Reclamation was projecting that Lake Powell could start to reach such thresholds by this summer. John Hernandez, a Mexican-American activist, says that there's also a question of fairness if most of the money that the irrigation district gets for using less water potentially hundreds of millions of dollars each year gets passed out to just a few hundred farms. The upper basin includes Utah, Wyoming,. But here there was nothing to see: just an empty field of ankle-high weeds and crimson splotches of peat. The negotiations have the potential to redefine rules that for the last century have governed one of the most valuable economic resources in the United States. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. It powers agricultural land and urban areas, serving roughly 1 in 10 Americans. The New Deal brings Colorado River water to a desert. His great-grandfather came to the valley from Sweden in the 1920s. He believes that the last best hope against the drought is a market-based solution, one that allows private investors seeking a profit a significant hand in redrawing the map of water distribution in the West. Were not going to wreck our local economy so that they can continue to grow their urban economy.. The Colorado River provides water for one out of every eight Americans for residential, indus-trial, mining, agricultural, and recreational needs. The negotiating states will be focused on restoring the flow of the Colorado River, which has been so diminished by use that from 1998 to 2014 it did not even reach its natural terminus in the Gulf of California. Throughout the river basin, warnings have increased and measures have tightened markedly in 2022. 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. In addition, those states are getting a hand from scientists at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In 2001, Pueblo West, a planned community 100 miles away, came calling. For the second time in six months, states that depend on the Colorado River to sustain their farms and cities have failed to reach an agreement on restricting water usage, setting up the prospect of the federal government making unilateral cuts this year. Its not necessarily a new concept in parts of Southern California, farmers have been paid for more than a decade to fallow land. The whole history of the American West is about moving water, Mr. Gammage of Greenstone said. A Florida ethics board has dismissed a complaint that allies of former President Donald Trump filed against Republican rival Gov. Want to know how your actions can help make a difference for our planet? Farmers, however, would almost certainly challenge such an order in court. Lake Mead to rise one foot by Sunday after federal high flow water release, Las Vegas police: Man shot in street in west valley, 1 dead, 2 hurt in southwest Las Vegas Valley crash, Heavy, black smoke, flames seen near Cheyenne, Lamb, 2 suspects face arson charges after setting fires at Las Vegas Strip hotels, Clark County in dire need of foster parents for teens; Heres how to help, I lost everything: Recovering addict shares story of hope, helping others in Las Vegas, City turns on water at splash pads at parks across Las Vegas. Obviously, its not going swimmingly, said Jeffrey Kightlinger, the former general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a water provider that is a major player in the talks. The system of tunnels and dams at the New Mexico state line diverts water into the Rio Grande Basin. But if you know one tribe, you only know one tribe. The Colorado River provides water to more than 40 million people across seven southwestern states, 29 tribal nations and Mexico - and a lot of major cities in those states are heavily dependent on . Dealing with the threat of climate change to our water requires all sectors, public and private, working together.. [1/3]An aerial view of Lake Powell is seen, where water levels have declined dramatically as growing demand for water and climate change shrink the Colorado River in Page, Arizona, U.S., November 19, 2022. It would never reach the canal that supplies Imperial Valley. Ever since the late-2000s, the last time that water supplies in Colorado River reservoirs reached critically low levels, the biggest water users in Arizona, California, and Nevada have been stashing water in Lake Mead, in preparation for another emergency to come and in an attempt to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the region's water . Demand for Colorado River water picked up in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Often, the best land in the West is not along rivers, so you needed to move water.. It should free him. The rules governing the system are not sustainable.. 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. But Mr. Eklund would like it to be. Sprinklers deliver vital Colorado River water to a field of celery in California's Imperial Valley. as temperatures rise, mountain snows melt faster in spring, and the state lacks capacity to store the runoff. KGNU is made possible by listeners like you! The Colorado River Compact was signed in 1922, just 10 years after New Mexico became a state. Reclamation water managers responded with plans to hold back more water in Lake Powell but warned that Lake Mead water levels would drop. On a map, this is the very top of the Gulf of California. SEATTLE, Wash., Feb 1 (Reuters) - 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 by climate change. WAM has become one of the largest landholders in the Grand Valley, a high-mountain desert on the Western Slope of the Rockies, 250 miles west of Denver. The . But Lpez said the additional release could have jeopardized regional water supplies. Lake Powell, last full in June 1980, is at 25%. To me, the value of water is to the grower and to the community that sends it down the river.. 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. In an online presentation last spring outlining WAMs long-term strategy, Marc Robert, the chief operating officer, professed his belief that U.S. consumers would be compelled to use more wisely in coming years. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Interior officials did not issue any mandatory water cuts for New Mexico. Beef cattle are the top agricultural product of Imperial County. Dan Charles for NPR Is that something that can change? The term consultation gets thrown around in the basin a whole lot, Vigil said. 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. It sold those to owners unaware of their obligation to revegetate the land, now without access to water. 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. The proponents of water markets say they are not in it just for the money. Researchers at the New Mexico State University Agricultural Science Center in Farmington, N.M., works with alfalfa on July 22, 2020. When I reached Holly Irwin, a county supervisor who lives in Cibola, by phone a couple of weeks after my visit, she was angry. They cant follow the priority system. California on Tuesday submitted its own proposal for how reductions should play out in coming years, depending on the elevation in Lake Mead. 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. But the basins water is essential for the states largest city: Albuquerque. 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.. 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. Sandbars are important, according to the feds: they are places for people to camp, fish, and also protect important archaeological sites throughout the Grand Canyon and across the Colorado River. If you're reading this, the chances are that some (or all!) Strategies include fallowing fields and making irrigation more efficient. 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. Lake Powell in Big Water, Utah. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. The California proposal makes a constructive effort to uphold the Law of the River while making substantial efforts to protect the Colorado River system with voluntary reductions far beyond Californias legal obligations, JB Hamby, chairman of the Colorado River Board of California, wrote in the introduction to the plan. Exclusive news, data and analytics for financial market professionals, Reporting by Liliana Salgado and Temis Tormo; Writing by Clarence Fernandez; CNN Deep uncertainty looms over the Colorado River and the 40 million people who depend on it for their water supply as the basin enters a critical year that could determine its future. As a result, water has turned into a financialized product like what happened to energy in the late 1990s, he said. The Colorado River system is in a very dire condition, Dan Bunk, a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water manager, declared during internet presentations streamed Nov. 29 and Dec. 2 that invited public comment about possible actions. The platform is designed to engage citizens and government leaders in a discussion about what needs improvement across the country. It wasnt until 1944 that a separate agreement promised a share of water to Mexico. Wall Street investors recognize the term valuable, he said, and now theyre here., Wall Street Eyes Billions in the Colorados Water, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/business/colorado-river-water-rights.html. Private investors would like to bring in or amplify existing elements of Wall Street for the water industry, such as futures markets and trading that occurs in milliseconds. States that receive more rainfall and precipitation logically have lower water usage. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs. 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. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in June told the seven states that are part of the Colorado River Basin Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming to determine how to use at least 15% less water next year, or have restrictions imposed on them. Close to 40 million people use water from the Colorado River. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. WAM and other investors could theoretically create their own reservoir accounts and let the water sit until its value was maximized. When the states struck their agreement 100 years ago, it envisaged the river could provide 20 million acre-feet of water a year. "The river has a gun to everybody's heads, and it's in everybody's interest to try to work out this thing," says JB Hamby, a member of the irrigation district's board of directors. This area gets less attention than California's Central Valley, the nation's leading producer of produce and nuts, which draws its water from rain and snow in the Sierra Mountains, or pumps it from shrinking underground aquifers. To proponents of open markets, water is underpriced and consequently overused. 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. In a general, larger picture, its a national park, and the way the river was before the dam came in has changed a lot, Tusso said. 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. 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. My kids'll be happy.". Its quite possible that there just wont be as much San Juan-Chama water available in the future because of drought and climate change.. Australia has also seen the advent of a market in complex financial products, such as derivatives, based on water. But Colorado River and reservoir management was designed during a much wetter period. The High Flow Experiment and its gushing water will ultimately decrease Lake Powell levels by 4.5 feet from April 24 to April 27. According to water-policy professionals I spoke to, investors are already lobbying for it. Matthew Diserio, the president and co-founder of the hedge fund Water Asset Management, has called the U.S. water business the biggest emerging market on earth and a trillion-dollar market opportunity.. 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.. Because the Colorado River is so large, envisioning the local impacts of water transfers can be a challenge for decision makers, especially when the communities are as remote as Cibola. Colorado River expert John Fleck, a professor at the University of New Mexico, wrote that Californias plan gets to roughly the same place as the six-state plan at the most extreme reservoir levels, but the difference is timing waiting until water levels drop further at Lake Meads Hoover Dam. California receives the largest allotment, 80% of which is consumed by its $50-billion agricultural industry. Those who grow alfalfa in Southern Californias Imperial and Coachella valleys would keep their water before people in parts of Los Angeles. 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. Farmland meets the desert, separated by an irrigation canal, near Fruita, Colo.CreditNick Cote for The New York Times. Everybody got a little, he added. Nevada, Arizona and Mexico will all receive less water from the Colorado River next year because of rapidly-declining reservoirs, the Interior Department announced on Aug. 16. Researchers at the New Mexico State University Agricultural Science Center in Farmington, N.M., works with . The other half is mile after mile of green fields lined by irrigation canals. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. 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. In 2006, Pueblo West agreed to irrigate and revive the land. "Something will have to give," said Sharon Megdal, director of the University of Arizona's Water Resources Research Center. The markets have become a paradise for arbitrage. He compared the dynamic to California in the 1990s, where fires and outages were beneficial for traders because of price spikes and you saw Enron traders cheering on fires.. (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 . Bunk said the two largest reservoirs on the river Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona state line and Lake Powell formed by the Glen Canyon Dam on the Arizona-Utah line are at unprecedented low levels. Dec. 13, 2022, at 6:19 a.m. Colorado River Water Users Convening Amid Crisis Concerns. The high-tech market there services Denver and other cities, fueling development in some of the fastest-growing housing markets in the country. As a result, the talks starting in January will be a vehicle for urgent attempts to manage the water, including replenishing downstream reservoirs. As of Wednesday morning, the surge of water released from the Glen Canyon Dam has reached Lake Mead, KTLA's sister station KLAS reports. Victoria must navigate love and loss while her home town drowns under the rising waters of the Gunnison River. Adel Hagekhalil, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California general manager, warned this month in a statement that another dry winter could force officials to make voluntary measures mandatory. In reality, nobody really expects cities to get cut off completely. From 2005 to 2010, California consistently used more water than any other state, followed by Texas, Idaho, Florida, and Colorado. Touton said the states need to conserve an additional 2 to 4 million acre-feet of water next year to protect levels at Lake Powell in Arizona and Utah and Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona. A few years ago a firm called Greenstone, a subsidiary of a subsidiary of the financial-services conglomerate MassMutual, quietly bought the rights to most of Cibolas water. Last month, 30 agencies that supply water to homes and businesses throughout the region joined the Las Vegas area in restricting the planting of decorative lawns that no one walks on. "We have a situation where some of the water rights holders in California are saying, 'We're not willing to give up more water, and we think we have legal rights and we're willing to go to court if we have to'," said David Hayes, a lecturer at Stanford University Law School. In the last few years, Colorado has been debating a water policy approach that has further piqued the interest of private investors: paying farmers not to use the river at all. But from the perspective of other states even those cuts wouldnt be nearly enough. Water Law in Colorado Near its headwaters, in the farming community of Nathrop, Colo., I met up with Greg Felt, a county commissioner. The market in the Colorado-Big Thompson Project is also nimble and responsive. This modeling proposal is a key step in the ongoing dialogue among the Seven Basin States as we continue to seek a collaborative solution to stabilize the Colorado River system, Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said in a statement. But less snowpack and spring runoff resulting from climate change have led to several consecutive years when the utility and other New Mexico entities have received far less water than expected from the inter-basin project. As WAMs Mr. Diserio likes to say, When you need water, water is the only thing that will do.. Thats not what water is meant to be.. But those plans, say members of Colorado's outdoor recreation, real estate, and tourism industries, jeopardize a $9 billion dollar economy that hinges on healthy rivers - and supports more . Agriculture all over the West required the development of irrigation infrastructure, such as dams and ditches, Mr. Libecap said. The idea is to kind of mitigate that sand loss, and keep things close to the way they were before the dam, said Bob Tusso, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist. The April selection for the Radio Bookclub is Go As A River by Colorado author Shelley Read. 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