Colorado River Basin Water Management Evaluating and Adjusting to Hydroclimatic Variability (2007) / Chapter Skim
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4 Prospects for Conserving and Extending Water Supplies
4 Prospects for Conserving and Extending Water Supplies
Pages 112-132
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From page 112... ...
As described in Chapter 2, the strategy of building additional surface water storage capacity is encountering physical, economic, and political limits. As more traditional water projects have become less viable, and as water demands continue to grow, federal, state, and municipal water managers across the West are considering a new water project prototype that entails nonstructural measures such water conservation, water use technologies, xerophytic landscaping, groundwater storage, and changes in water pricing policies.
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From page 113... ...
Following the 1956 passage of CRSP and the construction of its authorized projects, new factors in the planning of western water resources began reducing the prospects for new projects. A burgeoning environmental movement in the post-World War II era raised awareness of environmental changes wrought by dams, leading in part to the defeat of proposals to build dams at Echo Park in Dinosaur National Monument (in the 1950s)
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From page 114... ...
Although future storage dams may be built within the Colorado River basin, the Animas-La Plata experience offers little evidence that they will be built quickly. SOURCES: http://www.usbr.gov/uc/progact/animas/background.html; Rodebaugh (2005)
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From page 115... ...
An interesting chapter in the history of efforts to augment Colorado River basin water supply storage involves various plans to import water from outside the basin. The most ambitious of these was the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA)
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From page 116... ...
. In 2004 the Weather Modification Association (WMA)
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From page 117... ...
, which would represent a notable increase in water supplies. In addition to the Colorado River basin states, entities such as municipalities and the ski industry are interested in the prospects of augmenting water supplies and snowpacks by cloud seeding.
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From page 118... ...
Furthermore, such experiments are seen by many as being relatively inexpensive even if they do not definitively result in greater precipitation. Given increasing demands for water across the Colorado River basin, cloud seeding is likely to continue to be pursued as a means for augmenting water supply.
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From page 119... ...
. State governments and municipal water districts are also investing in desalination research, development, and demonstration facilities.
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From page 120... ...
The water shortage led city officials to consider a new source(s) of water supply, and Santa Bar bara residents approved construction of a desalination plant to augment the city's water supplies (they also approved a piped connection to Cali fornia's State Water Project)
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From page 121... ...
Regulations and technologies to mitigate adverse possible environmental effects associated with desalination have been and will continue to be implemented by municipalities, states, and the federal government. Technical, economic, and environmental issues notwithstanding, desalination offers the Colorado River basin states an option for actually increasing water supplies.
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From page 122... ...
It did not take hold in Grand Canyon National Park or in the upper Colorado River basin, however, until large dams were constructed upstream in the 1960s (tamarisk had been previously controlled by large spring runoff from Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming flowing into the Grand Canyon)
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From page 123... ...
. Leaching of salts from the root zone can, however, increase salt loading to streams and aquifers, which was one of the processes addressed in the Bureau of Reclamation's Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program (which was mentioned in Chapter 2)
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From page 124... ...
There may also be prospects to increase water available for urban and instream uses by retiring some agricultural lands. URBAN WATER CONSERVATION As the Colorado River states have urbanized, growing water demands have stimulated more and more urban water conservation programs in many communities.
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From page 125... ...
. Given rapidly growing urban water demands across the West, the impacts of increasing demands on reservoir storage levels and ecosystems, and the potential for urban water conservation and efficiency programs, there is widespread interest in approaches and technologies to help reduce urban water demands.
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From page 126... ...
. Efforts at comparing urban water management across the region, and sharing knowledge of successful experiences, could be enhanced by more formal water conservation program collaboration, and some mechanisms have been created to coordinate and support urban water programs (see, for example, the activities of the California Urban Water Conservation Council; http://www.cuwcc.
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From page 127... ...
. Salient featuresof recent initiatives involving banking and exchanging Colorado River basin water are discussed below.
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From page 128... ...
Tucson's urban water conservation program is built around five in terrelated strategies: ter Code, and to assist in meeting Native American water rights claims settlements. The AWBA also provides some insurance to offset liabilities associated with the Central Arizona Project's junior water right, which is subordinate to California's 4.4 million acre-feet per year Colorado River allocation.
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From page 129... ...
. In 2004 the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California entered into a similar, but smaller scale, water banking agreement with the SNWA and the Colorado River Commission of Nevada (Davenport, 2005)
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From page 130... ...
A strategic water reserve bill was enacted in the first session of the 47th legislature in 2005 and funded in the 2006 second session in the amount of $4.8 million. The fund is administered by the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, which will purchase or lease water rights that become available and redeploy them for public purposes including agriculture, endangered species, and assurance that the state meets its obligations for interstate water transfers, especially downstream in the Rio Grande and Pecos rivers to Texas.
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From page 131... ...
Although limited opportunities exist to construct additional reservoirs or to implement interbasin water transfers into the Colorado River basin, these have diminished from a previous era. Changing economics and demographic conditions may increase the viability of such traditional projects at some point in the future, but immediate prospects for major new water supply reservoirs or interbasin transfers are limited.
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From page 132... ...
But broadly speaking, none of the technological or strategic options for either increasing or conserving and extending water supplies examined in this chapter directly confronts the relationships between urban population growth, water demands, and limited water supplies in this arid region. Technological and conservation options for augmenting or extending water supplies -- although useful and necessary -- in the long run will not constitute a panacea for coping with the reality that water supplies in the Colorado River basin are limited and that demand is inexorably rising.
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