Reduced Colorado River releases from Lake Powell

In Salt Lake City last week, the BLM announced that the amount of water released from Lake Powell in water year 2014 (starting in October) will be reduced by 9%. The volume of water released each year is based on guidelines set in 2007 by the Secretary of Interior, which coordinate the management of large reservoirs along the Colorado River, including Lake Powell and Lake Mead. According to the guidelines, "A Shortage Condition exists when the Secretary determines that insufficient mainstream water is available to satisfy 7.5 maf [million acre feet] of annual consumptive use in the Lower Division states." This certainly applies today, and the release from Lake Powell will be 7.48 maf, the lowest release since Glen Canyon Dam was constructed in the 1960s. The BLM projects that Lake Mead levels will decline an additional eight feet next year as a result of the reduced release from Lake Powell.

Upper Colorado Regional Director Larry Walkoviak said in a statement, "This is the worst 14-year drought period in the last hundred years."

photo credit: Glen Canyon National Recreation Area

Although the immediate effect on Colorado River water rights holders is small for now, shortages like this are predicted to become more frequent because of changing climate conditions. As Erik Stokstad reports in Science Insider, more water has been promised to users than can be delivered.

Water Infrastructure getting more attention, discourse, and... funding?

Water infrastructure issues are getting more attention across the country as communities struggle with water availability and aging infrastructure issues during the hottest months of the year. States, communities, and private organizations (both non-profit and for-profit) across the US are calling attention to the problem and pledging to commit finances and legislation to try to address these water-related challenges.

Water availability issues, such as those faced in the U.S. West and in rapidly growing regions across the whole country struggle with not only having to maintain and repair their systems to meet the capacity and level of service for which they were designed, but also having to consider future growth and increased strain on water sources as populations expand, or as drought constricts the amount of water available. Aging infrastructure is an issue facing many communities because infrastructure projects built decades ago with large investments are now facing the end of their useful designed life, and the funding for replacements is harder to come by due to strained economic and political conditions. This is having an effect on water quality in many areas, as well as leading to infrastructure failures and water restrictions.

So what does all this mean? Well, it will likely lead to rate increases, a trend which has already begun and will continue. This has implications for lower income communities who already pay a greater share of their income for water services. Rate increases will likely be more noticeable in smaller communities, where the lack of economies of scale precludes the utility from spreading the costs over more people.

This could lead to increased violations of water quality regulations under the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. Both health-based and non-health based violations could go up as a result of water systems not being able to pay for needed infrastructure upgrades.

It could also lead to consolidation of water utilities, especially by larger and more financially viable water systems or even private companies.

The United Nations recently decided that access to safe drinking water was a human right. Here in the United States, we have been fortunate to have relatively cheap access to very high quality drinking water. However, water infrastructure is a huge challenge that casts a spotlight on several related issues including funding for infrastructure projects, affordability and rate setting, environmental justice, water availability and population growth, and climate change.

Think at the Sink for Drinking Water Week!

Originally posted at It's Our Environment.

This week is national drinking water week, and the theme is “What do you know about H2O?” Have you ever considered how water travels from its source and ends up in your kitchen sink?

In 2006, I worked as a volunteer in South Africa. One day I drove across the province to visit a game preserve, leaving the city where I spent most of my time. The contrast between the city and the country was always jarring, and this day I drove farther into the countryside than I’d ever been. Gradually towns dissipated and were replaced by clusters of domed huts. Off to one side of the road, I spotted a woman and her daughter carrying buckets of water into their village. It is hard to describe the dissonance that I felt during this recreational outing to look at elephants with a liter of bottled water tucked into my seat. I’d never had to haul water into my home; I just turned on the tap and safe, clean water poured out. UNICEF estimates that many people in developing countries, particularly women and girls, walk six kilometers a day for water.

The Safe Drinking Water Act authorizes the EPA to set drinking water standards, protect drinking water sources, and work with states and water systems to deliver safe drinking water some 300 million Americans. In the U.S., the last century has seen amazing improvements to drinking water quality. Mortality rates have plummeted and life expectancy has climbed as a result of better science and engineering, public investment in drinking water infrastructure, and the establishment of landmark environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. Some historians claim that clean water technologies are likely the most important public health intervention of the 20th century.

Today, we can celebrate the fact that the vast majority of people living in the United States have access to safe drinking water. Ninety-two percent of Americans receive clean, safe drinking water every day, and EPA is working to make that number even higher by partnering with states to reduce pollution and improve our drinking water systems. However, we should be aware of new challenges to our drinking water systems like climate change, aging infrastructure and nutrient pollution.

For drinking water week this year, stop and think about how far we’ve come by paying attention each time you turn on your tap.

Utah Governor stops Nevada water sharing agreement

This month, Utah Governor Gary Herbert said he would not sign an agreement that would divvy water under the shared border between Utah and Nevada. This water had been eyed by the thirsty metropolis of Las Vegas a few hours south. The pact was drawn up four years ago in response to a 2004 Congressional order that required the states to reach an agreement before any transfers of water would be permitted in the Snake Valley. The agreement was controversial because of a proposed pipeline enabled by the pact that would send Snake Valley water to Las Vegas. The pipeline spurred protests from farmers, environmentalists, tribes, and ranchers in Utah and parts of Nevada.

It was not clear whether Gov. Herbert would support the agreement, and he shocked both supporters and critics of the project when he announced his decision. He told the Deseret News, "At the end of the day, when it comes down to those people who have the most to lose — it's their water, their lifestyle, their livelihood — I can't in good conscience sign the agreement. It's that simple."

In Utah, the reaction has been positive. The majority of local citizens and officials at the county level in Millard and Juab counties did not support the water sharing agreement.

The director of Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said that they are "evaluating all of [their] options in light of Gov. Herbert's decision." A lawsuit could be forthcoming.

America gets a report card and it's not good

This month, the American Society of Civil Engineers released a 2013 report card for America's infrastructure. Overall, America's GPA is a D+. Dams, Drinking Water, and wastewater each got a D. Inland waterways and levees got a D- each. It is clear that the infrastructure we rely on to transport, distribute, treat, and store water is in pretty poor condition.

Check out the interactive report card at www.infrastructurereportcard.org.

Water Restrictions Implemented in Colorado

As spring approaches, many Colorado cities, including Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and Denver, are gearing up for another dry year by instituting tight water restrictions.

In Colorado Springs, watering lawns will be restricted to twice a week for three hours in an effort to bring water usage down 30% from last year. Addresses with odd numbers are allowed to waer on Tuesday and Saturday, even numbers on Sunday and Wednesday. Fines for non-compliance are up to $500. The restrictions go into effect this week, and are typical to the type of restrictions being implemted across the state.



From tripadvisor



As drought conditions persist (long past the point of "severe" drought classifications), many other municipalities throughout Colorado are having to consider implementing restrictions. Cities that have traditionally kept water use unrestricted, like Loveland, will likely have to follow suit.

The Reporter Herald notes that some coservationists see a silver lining in the drought, which is that perhaps people will begin to understand the real consequences to living in an arid envionment. (However, this blogger is skeptical.)

market based energy and water conservation legislation introduced in Texas

This week, legislation was introduced to the Texas Senate to enable financing of water and energy conservation improvements for building owners using property assessments. Programs of this sort are in place in many other states, and are called Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs. Essentially, this allows cities to offer building owners a long-term loan that can be paid back each year on the property tax bill. The cost of improvements are added to the property tax bill over the course of several years. Depending on the improvement project, the savings will be reflected in monthly water and energy bills. According to the PR Newswire, this funding mechanism will enable building owners to put improvements in place that would otherwise be cost prohibitive without the low-cost, long-term loans and repayment method this program puts in place. The program is voluntary, and each loan is attached to the property, not the property owner. Similar legislation is expected to be submitted to the Texas Congress soon.

For more information about PACE financing of conservation improvements, watch this video:

Exceptional Drought Conditions Squeeze Farmers

Communities all over the Midwest and parts of the Intermountain West are continuing to suffer under extreme and "exceptional" drought. Cities all over the region are urging residents to conserve as much as possible, while crossing their fingers that rain and snow will fall and replenish water storage supplies. Communities like Paris, Arkansas, and many others, which have implemented strict water use restrictions.

The drought has severe impacts on agricultural production, an important economic service in the Mid-and Intermountain West. The U.S. Congress was unable to pass a bipartisan Farm Bill last year, but the drought has spurred many, including Senators Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, to plead to the House to pass the bill this year. The Farm Bill includes provisions to aide ranchers and farmers in times of drought.

In Colorado, the drought is in its third consecutive year, and many rivers are flowing below 10% of their normal levels. Yesterday, the USDA designated roughly two-thirds of Colorado's counties as disaster areas as a result of prolonged, extreme drought conditions (La Junta Tribune). Although snowpack is accumulating in the Colorado headwaters region in the western part of the state, the eastern part of the state continues to remain dry. For more information about the drought in Colorado, visit CSU's Colorado Climate Center.

A Twenty-First Century Water Policy: A Review - 2 of 3

This is part 2 of a review of Pacific Institute's latest book, A Twenty-First Century Water Policy. For part 1, click here.

Water quality and freshwater ecosystems are two areas of important consideration in the next century of water policy. They are addressed in Chapters 5 and 6 of the book.

WATER QUALITY
The chapter, written by Lucy Allen, begins with a brief overview of the development of water quality regulation and policy in the 20th century. The good news is, water quality has dramatically improved in most places, thanks in large part toe the Clean Water Act, which gave the federal government the power to regulate water pollution and manage the "biological integrity" of our nation's waters. Today, forty years after the CWA was passed, we still wrestle with water quality problems, but they have shifted in nature. Runoff from urban or agricultural sources, called non-point pollution, is a hairy and seemingly intractable problem now, and the CWA doesn't do very well at addressing how to mitigate this type of input. New contaminants (like volatile organic compounds) are not well understood. Monitoring and assessing the health of rivers has not been adequately pursued by states under the NPDES system.

Percentage of assessed waters found to be impaired, from
 A Twenty-First Century Water Policy (2012)

The soft path of water policy, advocated by the authors, would capture the power of the CWA and integrate it with existing legislation on drinking water (the Safe Drinking Water Act) in recognition that clean waterways would necessarily facilitate and lower the cost of clean drinking water. In addition, Best Management Practices, which have been shown to be effective in limiting pollution inputs from agricultural and urban sources, could be made mandatory. More research into the effects of VOCs and other less understood additive or synergistic effects of pollutions should inform state and federal water quality standards.

All of these measures are a far cry from re-inventing the wheel, and could simply be applied to legislation and policy frameworks currently in place.

FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS

Ecosystem values and services were rarely considered during the 20th century engineering boom. The authors of Chapter 6, Lucy Allen and Juliet Chrstian-Smith, explain what the soft path of aquatic ecosystem policy would look like. The soft path acknowledges ecosystems as legitimate users of water resources and the services they provide. The maintenance or restoration of ecosystems is an explicit policy objective. In our current policy environment, "...adequate ecosystems continue to decline, in large part due to water-use and land-use decisions that do not consider freshwater ecosystems and instream flows." Growing human demand for water, altered size and timing of river basins due to human engineering systems and withdrawals, and increasing extreme weather events contribute to degradation of aquatic ecosystems. As a result, an estimated 39% of fish and other aquatic species are endangered, threatened, vulnerable or extinct and 42% of the US stream length is estimated to be in "poor condition." The Environmental Species Act has been given priority and makes it extremely powerful, but also targeted for litigation and amendments.

The soft path for aquatic ecosystem policy would start with more data, more data, more data. Long term effects on biological indicators from contaminants and physical alterations to waterways needs to be understood in order to be integrated into actionable policy. In addition, the current language of the CWA supports using biological indicators as a standard, which means the focus can shift from chemical indicators as the sole measurement of stream health, a myopic approach. The Secretary of the Interior can coordinate with governors to designate more rivers under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which can provide instream rights and open up funding for better management and monitoring. Market-based solutions, including pricing and water market trades are likely to facilitate the conservation behavior of users. New water infrastructure projects should integrate environmental flows into the decision-making process, and unsafe dams should be removed. The authors state that "These solutions can be applied without compromising state sovereignty over water allocation."

Most of the problems and ideas outlined in these chapters have been state elsewhere by others. But to have it all compiled in a single book helps make the case that these changes are not only smart, they're obvious. The problem will always be that the solutions require more interagency cooperation, more funding, and more research. Implementing those things will be akin to turning the Titanic. It will probably be slow.

Las Vegas pipeline project approved

photo from wikia

The controversial pipeline proposal that would transport groundwater from rural Nevada to the thirsty city of Las Vegas was given approval by the BLM this week, according to the RCAC and the Associated Press. The pipeline has been on the project horizon for decades, and despite opposition from a diverse set of groups including ranchers, environmentalists, Native American tribes, and municipalities, the project has overcome what could be the last hurdle, and construction may begin this year. The population of Las Vegas is around 2 million, and continues to grow, increasing the pressure on the city to look for ways to augment the water supply.

The pipeline will transport 84,000 acre-feet of water from groundwater sources in rural Nevada counties across 263 miles.