No one knows better than your Department of Water Resources that “weather” and “climate” are not interchangeable. Still…

As a Holiday gift to the drought-weary, we will note, simply, that the news just now about water in the Southwest — especially from our neighbors to the coastal west — is pleasing. See here, here and here.

It doesn’t mean our tough water times are ending. It certainly doesn’t mean the long-term challenges facing the Lower Basin Colorado River users are resolved. But at this time of year, it is welcome news nonetheless.

It certainly enlivens our Holiday cheer. Happy Holidays, one and all!

 

After CRWUA: Colorado River water users departed from their annual meetings without agreeing to a drought contingency plan. Where do they go from here?

The Colorado River Water Users Association held its annual meetings in mid-December without agreeing to a long-term plan to protect the integrity of Lake Mead and the Colorado River system from the effects of drought and allocation imbalances.

The result was disappointing… but widely anticipated. The negotiators, including Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke, have been engaged on the issues for many months, and are well-schooled by now in the complexity of the discussions.

On a rainy, stormy Thursday in late December, Buschatzke shared some of his thoughts on where the Lower Basin states and the region’s major water users go from here toward finalizing a DCP…

Click Below!

 

Over the years, the Department of Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation famously use the annual December meetings of Colorado River water-users to announce big policy changes.

That didn’t happen this time at the annual Colorado River Water Users Association meetings in Las Vegas. Despite a yeoman effort to push through an agreement on a drought contingency plan among the Lower Basin states, the many moving parts of the complex “DCP” agreement did not come together before CRWUA members parted ways.

That doesn’t mean the participants did not make progress on the numerous issues on the CRWUA tables, including but not limited to a DCP.

U.S. negotiators of a proposed extension to the U.S.-Republic of Mexico agreement on Colorado River operations – known as Minute 319 – reported progress toward development of a new agreement, tentatively known as “Minute 32x.”

Among the elements of the international-agreement extension are provisions for voluntary water conservation efforts to benefit the Colorado River system and make water available to users in both the U.S. and Mexico.

The extension agreement would also continue efforts to investigate and develop binational water augmentation programs as well as an on-going wetlands project in the Colorado River delta.

“The proposed minute is good for the United States and good for Mexico,” said Edward Drusina, the chief U.S. negotiator on the international agreement to reporters on the final day of the CRWUA meetings. “And we will do what we can to move it forward.”

At CRWUA, participants reported taking advantage of the opportunity to collaborate and brainstorm face-to-face as new concepts took shape.

Also at CRWUA, the Arizona Water Banking Authority announced its recent purchase of credits from water previously stored by Active Resource Management, LLC, a firm now solely managed by the Vidler Water Company.

Throughout the event, the Bank met with public and private interests to discuss other innovative firming concepts as well as water management strategies the Bank can employ in the future to meet its objectives.

The innovative water-banking authority was established in 1996 to increase the state’s utilization of its Colorado River entitlement and to develop long-term storage credits for the state.

The CRWUA meetings also afforded out-going Interior Secretary Sally Jewell an opportunity to complete her time in office on a high note, signing a decision for managing Glen Canyon Dam over the next 20 years.

Jewell authorized the plan – known as the Long-term Experimental and Management Plan (or, LTEMP) in the wake of an exhaustive environmental-impact review.

The Thursday afternoon signing ceremony gave Jewell an opportunity to weigh in on the on-going DCP negotiations. The Interior Secretary said she was optimistic a deal would soon be reached.

“We want to get as far as we possibly can, and that’s what we’re going to be urging everybody to do,” Jewell said to reporters.

Along with Deputy Secretary Michael Connor, Jewell also announced that upon completion, the collaborative “WaterSMART” program was expected to result in the savings of 1.14 million acre-feet of water within several U.S. water systems, including the Colorado River system.

A Thursday morning CRWUA session featuring Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke provided the event’s most “cards on the table” moment.

California water officials on the panel raised two still-unresolved issues that they see as impediments to a final drought contingency plan: a detailed plan of action from California elected officials regarding the environmentally sensitive Salton Sea; and, a resolution of water allocations issuing from the Northern California Bay Delta.

Buschtazke, however, said it was imperative that the states resolve intra-state issues and come to an over-arching agreement on protecting Lake Mead and the integrity of the Colorado River system overall.

“Failure is not an option,” said the Arizona Water Resources director.

“The details (of the DCP) are still in flux. Details matter. We have to make all pieces of the puzzle fit together. We have forward momentum.”

Arizona Water Resources Director Buschatzke joins a panel of California and Nevada water users discussing drought strategies

CRWUA meetings, Las Vegas — Following a welcome from Colorado River Water Users Association President Bart Fisher, Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke joined a keynote panel, titled “California – Conservation, Transfers and Drought Contingency Planning in the Lower Basin.”

Buschatzke joined John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority; Kevin Kelley, general manager of the Imperial Irrigation District; Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California; and, John Powell, Jr., President of the board of directors of the Coachella Valley Water District. The panel was devoted in large part to an airing of the most pressing drought-related water issues facing the Southwest, with an emphasis on those confronting major southern California water providers.

The panel was devoted in large part to an airing of the most pressing drought-related water issues facing the Southwest, with an emphasis on those confronting major southern California water providers.

Buschatzke told the audience of about 400 attendees at the Colorado River Water Users Association meetings that his State remains well-prepared in the near-term for the effects of the lingering drought. But he emphasized that, going forward, a drought contingency plan would be beneficial to all Colorado River water users, not just those in Arizona.

“The guts of the deal have been incentivizing flexibility,” said Buschatzke.

“At the bottom end, if we do get into trouble despite our best efforts, we do have a backstop.”

Kelley of the Imperial Irrigation District defined for an audience his concerns for the future of the Salton Sea, which has receded dramatically in recent years, exposing an enormous, now-dry expanse of former lake bed contaminated by decades of agricultural run-off.

“For us, it’s an existential threat,” said Kelley, who added that the area of the Salton Sea would be an “incredibly desolate” region if the lake dries up.

Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that a drought contingency plan that includes water for the Salton Sea remains a priority for his district’s users:

“We expect that there will be a solution to the Salton Sea because the situation at Lake Mead demands that there be one,” said Kelley.

On a much lighter note, Kightlinger of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the largest municipal water provider of the Colorado River system, joked that “We’re this agency in southern California, and we want to make our problems your problems.”

The audience representing the entire range of system water users roared in laughter.

Kightlinger noted the vital nature of the Colorado River system to his region’s water supply (observing, for example, that one in every 15 Americans gets water from his district). He also praised the recent U.S. Senate legislation that provides drought relief for the region, especially for California.

Powell of the Coachella Valley district told the audience that water levels in the valley’s enormous aquifer have been going up since 2005, an important conservation signal.

Buschatzke told the audience that Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is a strong proponent of maintaining the health of the Colorado River system. He recalled that Ducey had been in Las Vegas earlier in the week discussing water issues at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce-sponsored event.

“For Gov. Doug Ducey, DCP is his number one water related priority,” said Buschatzke.

CRWUA Meetings, Las Vegas — A water journalist on a panel about ‘communicating the drought’ observed that there’s a problem with the way most water agencies get the word out about drought.

It’s that they use the word ‘drought.’

“I talked recently with some federal officials,” said John Fleck, a former water-news reporter and author of a popular, new book on water in the Southwestern U.S.

“I tried to get them to not to use the word ‘drought.’”

The problem, Fleck explained, is that the word ‘drought’ creates the risk that people may feel powerless in the face of drought.

That, he said, “is problematic,” especially for water officials such as those at these CRWUA meetings.

Fleck, a former journalist is a popular news person at the CRWUA meetings precisely because his views about water in the West are anchored in an optimistic expectation of resolving drought issues.

Even Fleck succumbs to pessimism at times, however.

“I was at Lake Mead this morning,” he said. “I Tweeted out that Lake Mead was ‘kind of empty.’

“I immediately got a response from a water professional: “You could have said, ‘kind of full.’

Unfortunately, speaking positively and avoiding the word ‘drought’ is a challenge for a more complex reason than people may realize, he said:

“We don’t have a word for the opposite of drought. Anyone ever use the word ‘pluvial?’ it’s an extended period of excess precipitation.

“When was the last time you heard someone say that?”

 

CRWUA Meetings, Las Vegas –The federal Bureau of Reclamation released a statement this morning announcing plans to make official a “Long-Term Experimental Management Plan,” or LTEMP, for the operation of Glen Canyon Dam.

The LTEMP is the culmination of years of research to prepare the Environmental Impact Statement of Glen Canyon Dam. Its “Record of Decision,” or ROD, will provide a framework for adaptively managing the dam operations over the next 20 years.

According to the Bureau statement, the new LTEMP includes operational procedures that “are similar to what we are currently doing, but include some important refinements, tools and approaches that incorporate new science over the past 20 years.

“These tools help us better comply with the Grand Canyon Protection Act and more effectively protect endangered fish in the canyon.”

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is scheduled to sign the document at a ceremony Thursday afternoon at the CRWUA conferences.

Deputy Interior Secretary Mike Connor and Reclamation Commissioner Estevan López will be in attendance, as will Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke.

Director Buschatzke expressed support for the LTEMP in a letter to Secretary Jewell, noting that, among other pluses, the monthly and annual reservoir operations at Glen Canyon Dam continue to deliver and store water as determined by the Law of the River and in addition the new plan better protects the habitat of native fauna like the endangered humpback chub.

“As a lower division state which has the potential to be affected by the (Draft Environmental Impact Statement), Arizona has a particular interest in avoiding potential impacts from the DEIS and ensuring its success,” wrote Buschatzke.

Editor’s Note: As a service to our readers, the Arizona Department of Water Resources has created a live blog of events as they occur at the Colorado River Water Users Association conferences in Las Vegas, Dec. 14-16; see our Live Blog)

According to lore, the federal Bureau of Reclamation – the managing agency of the Colorado River system – often takes advantage of the annual gathering of Colorado River states and water-users held each December to make big announcements.

Each year, water leaders from the Colorado River system states and the federal Bureau of Reclamation — as well as the system’s major water users, such as cities and agriculture — gather at CRWUA, sharing ideas about management of the most complex water system in the country, the Colorado River.

This year, the dominant theme is a familiar one: The unprecedented drought that consistently has reduced Rocky Mountain runoff and restricted flows between the system’s two great reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

The first “colloquium” of the meetings – “Communicating the Drought: A Call to Action” – reflects what has become the primary obsession of water managers in the Southwest: Taking action to protect the system, notably Lake Mead, from the debilitating effects of the 16-year on-going drought.

Representatives of the Arizona Water Banking Authority also will be at the CRWUA conferences, focusing on the recovery of Colorado River water stored in Arizona through the novel banking system.

State and federal water agency directors have not been the only public officials discussing water-management in Las Vegas this week, however.

On Monday, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey joined Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper in a water-management question-and-answer session sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Called the “BusinessH2O Summit,” the event promoted best water-management practices employed by both the United States and Israel, one of the world leaders in water conservation and management.

Ducey told the audience that water is an issue that “transcends partisan politics.”

The Arizona governor noted the well-known names from Arizona’s bipartisan hall of water fame – Sens. Carl Hayden, Barry Goldwater and Jon Kyl; Reps. John Rhodes and Mo Udall; and, Gov. Bruce Babbitt – all of them leaders who, he said, “understood the fundamental reality of life in the desert.”

Ducey also noted the on-going efforts to stabilize Lake Mead – efforts led by ADWR Director Buschatzke and others less than a mile from the U.S. Chamber gathering in Las Vegas.

“We work on it together,” said Gov. Ducey. “There’s no other way to do it.”