“Everybody keeps hoping that the only way we’re going to really rebuild storage is if we have another ridiculous, gangbuster year like 2023,” said Jack Schmidt, a watershed sciences professor at Utah State University and Director of its Center for Colorado River Studies.
But, he continued, “that’s highly unlikely.”
jfleck at inkstain
A few thoughts from John Fleck, a writer of journalism and other things, living in New Mexico
Duh. ?
Duh. ?
Apportion 90% percent of the previous year’s flow (or mean of previous 3 years’ flow) in proportion to the 1922 compact with the Minute giving a share to Mexico. Lake Mead’s evaporation comes out of Lower Basin total and Lake Powell’s evaporation comes out of Upper Basin total. (Powell is upstream from “Lee Ferry,” and so is the Paria.) 5% each is allotted to “refilling” ( a joke) or actually slowly adding storage to Powell and Mead. (I actually think it should be 80, 10, 10%).
This gives some advantage to Arizona (full disclosure, that’s where I live) considering the junior right that Arizona agreed to for the Central Arizona Project. HOWEVER, OF ALL THE STATES, CALIFORNIA IS UNIQUE IN NOT CONTRIBUTING A DROP OF PERENNIAL WATER TO THE COLORADO RIVER and gets 40% of the water.
What are the quantitative contributions of the Paria, Little Colorado, Havasu Creek, Gila and smaller tributaries in Arizona, and who gets that water?
It worked for 80 years because the Upper Basin did not take its share. That’s a two-edged sword. In any other appropriated rights context, they would have lost that water right. Lower Basin States were paid handsomely to leave water in Lake Mead. Upper Basin states got nothing. Seems like a raw deal to me. They gave away water for 80 years. As I understand it, the Upper Basin wants the Lower Basin to absorb all the reductions. Seems to me that they could shrink to what they took, on average, for 80 years, plus some more, without a sweat. BUT, THAT’S WHERE THE WATER COMES FROM. What does hydrology and reality have to do with a poorly thought out and poorly worded agreement 100 years ago? “Lee Ferry”? One mile downstream from the mouth of the Paria River, but the gage is upstream?
Please correct me if I am wrong. As I understand it there is no streamflow gage measuring DISCHARGE into Lake Powell, and only one gage remains in the Grand Canyon at Phantom Ranch. LCR, National, and Diamond Creek are gone as well as Havasu. The Lee’s Ferry gage is upstream from the Paria, and no gage remains on the Paria. Contributions of these tributaries are usually small, but may be significant in comparison with evaporation and stream loss (which nobody mentions as well as I can tell).
I agree with Jack on this point. Our planning for the Colorado River has been baked in hope for many years. We need to plan for the river we have (and may have), not the river we want. If we plan for an 11 or 12 maf river and sometimes get a 16 maf river, then that’s a better problem to have.
@Mike Carpenter
Your comment: ” HOWEVER, OF ALL THE STATES, CALIFORNIA IS UNIQUE IN NOT CONTRIBUTING A DROP OF PERENNIAL WATER TO THE COLORADO RIVER and gets 40% of the water”, I would have expected the question to be asked by Delph Carpenter.
I’ve been waiting for someone to ask that question. California actually contributes no sustainable water to the Colorado River. The only occasional contribution happens when there is that rare thunderstorm happening over the Hacienda wash (northwest of Needles) or the Milpitas wash (southwest of Blythe). I’ve seen only two episodes of any water reaching the river from these natural sources in over the two decades that I noticed. Oh…wait…there are two distinct 24/7 minor streams that flow into the Colorado River from California. Both come from leakage from MWD’s reservoirs. As I’m the first to mention this, I’ll call them MWD North Fork (which empties into Lake Havasu) and MWD South Fork (which empties about three mile below Parker Dam). The total CFS of these massive streams amounts to less then 10 CFS total. Had the total been more significant I would have called them Dave’s Rivers.
All kidding asides Mike, your point is well taken. The basic question is why did California end up with the Lion’s share of the river? Was it due to that California had more votes in Congress than all of the basin states? Was it due to it had more potential to utilize the resource? If you think about the problem of how to deliver the water to where the population was in the early 1900’s, you can see that the distribution relied mainly to areas adjacent to the river. The upper basin states had the disadvantage of limited growing seasons and limited land close to the river to grow crops. California and Arizona had better opportunities due to several valleys adjacent to the river. They also had a better climate to accommodate more crops. In the big picture, the deck was always stacked in California’s favor.
California was decades ahead of all the other basin states as far as commerce was concerned in the early 1900’s. Commerce drives politics. Politics in turn drives how the river was distributed. It’s just that simple. Also, California paid for a great deal of the development. MWD and LADWP paid a fair share for Hoover and Parker’s construction during the great depression. Historically, Hoover and Parker’s construction happened in conjunction with the building of the MWD aqueduct and the building of the All American Canal (IID) system.
We all lament about the problems on the Colorado River but ignore the fact that it is commerce that actually is the bottom line.
As much as California irritates me in Colorado River issues, water rights are water rights (like deep high capacity wells draining basin aquifers in Arizona as well as the Central Valley in California). An unlined All-America Canal created a recharge mound in Mexico. Mexico even tried to make the case for water rights after the canal was lined. (It also made a mound of sorts on the US side). It will be interesting to see how it plays out. The reason it worked for 80 years was because the Upper Basin didn’t take its share. Now they want the Lower Basin to absorb all the reduction. In any other appropriative-rights situation, the Upper Basin would have lost those rights. On the other hand CA and AZ users were handsomely rewarded for leaving water in Lake Mead.The Upper Basin has lots of reservoirs to screw with storage.
@Mike Carpenter
Again you make some great points starting with the All American Canal (IID). Yes, I remember when we had proposed that years ago and the Mexicans complaining that how that would ruin the ecosystem around the Alamo Canal. Speaking of ecosystems in Mexico, is everyone here aware that no river water is released below Morelos Dam? Mexico controls that Dam. No water reaches the delta. Yet they complain that any leakage into the porous sand on the American side was sustaining the wildlife in Mexico? I’m pretty sure that they were pumping any and all water adjacent to the border for AG usage. Yes, the AAC got lined. Also Brock Reservoir was built to absorb any over deliveries before the water made it into the IID system. Both of these projects were underwritten by California water agencies to ‘save water’.
Your next point about ground water is well taken. This falls into what happens within the state. Be it California, Arizona and elsewhere. If the state does not take ownership, there will be trouble in the long run. Arizona is a prime example. You’ve driven past Vicksburg AZ and have seen this firsthand. I believe that the state and Senator Mark Kelly are looking into this.
And what about using more water over time? It is indeed true that in 1925 the total population in the basin states was around 6 Million. In 2025 that population went up to over 60 Million. AG usage went up too. Are you aware that the farmers in both Southern California and Arizona are probably the most productive farmers anywhere. They have a growing season of nearly a year in duration and total control in when (and how much) water gets distributed to the crop. Alfalfa accounts for 32% for total usage of the Colorado River. They can get up to 12 cuttings per year and it is not a labor intensive crop. Of course, cattle is the main consumer of the crop. When asked about this, the farmer says – “You like Dairy Products…Right?” The bottom line is that one pound of Hamburger the family consumed in last night’s dinner accounted for 1850 gallons of water. Most of which was that Alfalfa.
In my earlier response in this thread, I talked about California having the upper hand back when things were being discussed back in 1922. Arizona was always upset on how the distribution would work out. In my profile ‘link’ above, I’ve included a political cartoon that addresses the situation.
I didn’t know that the percentage of Colorado River water for alfalfa was 32%. Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) gets almost 700,000 AF. About half is return flow. They (contractors) grow mostly alfalfa and much of that is eventually sold to Saudi Arabia. Senator Kelly and the late Representative Grijalva got a law passed that CRIT could now “lease” water as other tribes already can. I hope Tucson is after as much of that water as they can get. The Saudis leased Arizona state land, bought large swaths, drilled deep high-capacity wells, and raise alfalfa. The state cancelled leases on state land, and the state attorney general is trying to end their pumping on the basis of “nuisance.” I don’t think that will fly because AZ is a “rule of capture” state in unregulated land. I worked on the Lower Colorado accounting surface project (gravity study and other things) ’95-’04, Glen Canyon Environmental Studies ’85-’96 (Jack Schmidt started with Julie Graf in the USGS about ’85), and Upper Colorado Endangered Fish Recovery Program (erosion sensor in spawning beds of razorback suckers) about ’95-about ’04. It’s in my blood.
CRIT’s allocation of the Colorado River is greater than the state of Nevada. I was surprised at the amount you quoted as return flow. I’m sure there is a backstory here. Back in the 90’s I was involved in one of these bootstrap projects that Reclamation partnerships with the local irrigation district. In this case it was CRIT and BIA that actually ran the irrigation system. They had no way to monitor their distribution system and measurements were as good as the person making them. We installed a handful of sites that did the measurements using instruments and data loggers and a radio system where they could be monitored in real time. BIA had nobody on staff that knew anything about instrumentation nor radio systems. The only guy was an irrigation engineer with no background in automation. It was a good match for me as I had no experience in Canal Operations. Both of us got an education that summer.
My big takeaway was understanding the necessity of the concept of constant monitoring in the collection of data for water accounting. What I learned at CRIT was applied across the board.
In 2017 I gave a presentation to BoR’s Regional Office in Boulder City on the Data Collection system we had. We had added up all the measurements we had logged we had made in the previous year. The amount was 44 million logged entries. I said that actual raw instrument readings actually was ten times that,
Water accounting standards are actually higher than USGS standards. Be it at MWD’s or CAP’s intakes or some farmers field, we measured constantly.
CRIT’s allocation is nebulous, having to do with adequate flow to irrigate crops, etc., rather than a set amount. It precedes the Compact, however. I was sidekick to my friend and USGS colleague Richard Wilson after we retired, consulting for CRIT. The “spillage” control structures were the most bazaar “weirs” I ever saw in my entire life. I kept thinking that any one of several cities would love to have the quantity of water that turned from potable to higher TDS return flow at those structures. The guy who measured them for years did it diligently, but he measured in the downward curving flow rather than the backwater. Didn’t really matter because they were such bizarre structures. We recommended Parshall flumes or standard weirs with telemetered data to automated gates to minimize “spillage.” The council changed leadership and we were out. As I understand it, they have since done something like that through an engineering company contracted by BIA. We also addressed some of their root flooding and excessive vertical flow problems. It was apparent to us that the engineering consultants didn’t understand multilayered groundwater flow or what kind of piezometers to install to figure it out. They were going to install shallow 2-inch pipes screened over several feet with gravel pack in 4-inch holes. Wells are not piezometers. We went off on a project of mine to monitor an earth fissure in Chino, CA.
Mike are you talking about the duckbill weirs that CRIT had? Also CRIT’s returns were in two outlets. One was on a ditch just south of the Agnes Wilson Bridge. The other on the south end of the Res just above the Palo Verde Dam. We monitored those sites in the 90’s but later farmed them out to the USGS.
You’re correct about the quality of water in those returns. However that’s common with every return drain I’ve seen.