ICYMI: Cities and farms across Arizona are struggling to figure out how to deal with major cuts in Colorado River water deliveries, which could lead to more pumping of ancient groundwater.
Tony Davis Robbie Woodhouse’s grandfather began nearly a century of family farming along the Gila River near Yuma in the mid-1920s when he dug up a bunch of mesquite stumps on his land to make way for his barley, wheat, Bermuda seed, cotton and melon fields.
Due to a logjam in interstate negotiations for massive cuts in Colorado River water deliveries, farmers and urban users have no idea how much water use they will be ordered to cut or when cuts would occur. Arizona got about 36% of its total water supply from the river as recently as 2020. That share of river water feeding farms and cities has declined some since then, with the advent of a federally approved Drought Contingency Plan that will cut the state’s river water use by 21% starting in 2023. It’s expected to drop even further in the coming years.
With that money, the districts would invest in water-efficient farming tools like drip irrigation, gradually switch to less thirsty crops from water-slurping alfalfa, and weather economic losses from reduced water use, Woodhouse said. That will likely involve crop rotations and other changes, he said.
The CAP’s board president Terry Goddard and its previous president Lisa Atkins wrote a letter on Aug. 19 to the Interior secretary that made essentially the same point. To date, Interior hasn’t responded. Until now, the Gilas have left almost 600,000 other acre-feet of their CAP supply in Mead since 2016. In 2022 alone, CAP users and other Arizona Colorado River users left nearly 800,000 acre-feet in Mead, led by 512,000 acre-feet the CAP had to leave there under the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan due to the lake’s falling levels.
Officials of Tucson Water are optimistic about the city’s ability to survive major CAP cuts, although they know that at some point they’ll likely be pumping groundwater in its place. But there is a cautionary note. A recent Bureau of Reclamation study found that as the Southwest’s climate warms, runoff of melting snows into rivers and washes surrounding Tucson is likely to decline, meaning less water will be replenishing its aquifer than in the past.
Her ideas for achieving that goal include banning decorative, “nonfunctional” turf for homes and businesses, starting with new development and eventually phasing it in on existing development. She also suggests rebates for low-flow appliances and for rainwater harvesting and gray water equipment to homeowners living outside Tucson Water’s service area.
In Scottsdale east of Phoenix, CAP supplies about 70% of the water for its 250,000 residents. Most is delivered directly to homes and businesses. If Scottsdale sustained a large cut in CAP supplies, it would have to rely much more heavily on groundwater, although it doesn’t know how much now, said Gretchen Baumgardner, the city’s water policy manager.
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