In 2015, I wrote a post entitled “Water…An Issue Almost As Important As Public Education” in which I wrote that, “[m]ost people however, are probably insufficiently incentivized to take appropriate action. I don’t believe we’ve made enough progress in the last six years.
Evidently, AZ Representative Andre Canos agrees, as he wrote in yesterday’s AZ Daily Star,
It is beyond time to act. While we cannot stop all the effects of climate change and burgeoning consumption, every elected leader and fellow Arizonan, regardless of political party, must commit to building a sustainable and resilient economy that relies on a reduced water supply, in addition to advocating for clean, renewable energy sources.
You can “hear” his frustration as he writes that the bills he and his Democratic colleagues introduced in the last legislative to protect Arizona’s water, weren’t even allowed a hearing. He also raised concern about the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan which expires in less than four years and didn’t go far enough to begin with.
I understand where he is coming from as I can’t believe I still meet people who don’t think Arizona has a water problem. In 2018, the New York Times published an article titled, “The Water Wars of Arizona”, which stated that “[w]ater is so crucial to so many aspects of our lives that it can be difficult to grasp just how much we use.” And, because in most places we have water at the turn of the tap, most people don’t understand the tenuous nature of our water supply.
Yet, the results of continued rampant growth and insufficient action are dry wells, collapsed aquifers, and fissures erupting from groundwater over pumping. In June 2020, the Environmental Defense Fund reported that,
As a result of this open access to groundwater, more than a third of Arizona’s perennial rivers have been lost or altered; the city of Kingman’s main aquifer is projected to run out of accessible water in 60 years or less; and residents in some areas of rural Arizona are already losing access to drinking water as their wells run dry.
It’s not like we haven’t seen it coming. In 1922, seven states and Mexico agreed to the Colorado River Compact (Arizona didn’t ratify it until 1944). It divided the river into the Upper Basin (CO, NM, UT and WY) and the Lower Basin (AZ, CA and NV) and establish an allotment for each. It also provided a framework of management of the river. According to WaterEducation.org, it “was and remains a historic achievement. It was the first time in U.S. history that more than three states negotiated an agreement among themselves to apportion the waters of a stream or river.” Unfortunately, they estimated river flow at 20.6 million acre-feet or “maf”, (the standard unit of measure in farming, and equals almost 326,000 gallons, half an Olympic pool, or 50 bushels of corn), per year and in 2018, the volume had dropped to almost half of that at 12.5 maf. And, on top of that overestimation of available water, more and more people are moving to the areas where the water is scarcer. “Phoenix expanded more over the past 10 years than any other large American city”, and in total, the Colorado River water supports about 15 million more people today than two decades ago.
Thankfully, we have the Groundwater Management Act, passed in Arizona in 1980, which “mandated water conservation from all sectors (agricultural, industrial, and municipal) leading to a trend that continues today: declining per person water use. More than 75 percent of Arizonans live within an Active Management Area, which have groundwater use protections. Unfortunately though, those rural areas outside the Active Management Areas (AMA) have few restrictions on groundwater usage, weak consumer protections, and real emerging problems. This groundwater reform:
effectively deem[ed] groundwater a public rather than a private resource. But in the years since, few regulatory safeguards have extended beyond the boundaries of Tucson and Phoenix. Outside those places, little has changed since statehood in 1912: A farmer needed only to file an Intent to Drill notice and pay a $150 permitting fee and was then free to pump as much as desired. For valley farmers, growing high-water crops like alfalfa and nuts, this often meant about 2,000 gallons, roughly the capacity of a tanker truck, every minute, 24 hours a day, with only intermittent breaks for several months. In 2017 alone, one farm pumped 22 billion gallons, nearly double the volume of bottled water sold in the United States annually.
To understand the problem, it helps to know where Arizona’s water comes from. Deep buried groundwater (most reserves not stored in polar ice lie at depths below 3,000 feet) supplies 25 to 40 percent of global drinking water, agriculture uses about 70 percent of that withdrawn from aquifers. And unfortunately, “[a]quifers are unimaginably complex and incredibly fragile; once tapped, they can take more than 6,000 years to replenish”. Some 41 percent of Arizona’s water use comes from groundwater, 38 percent of Arizona’s water use from the Colorado River, 18 percent from in-state rivers (such as the Salt and Verde), and 3 percent from high-quality treated wastewater (often called reclaimed water or effluent).
To add insult to injury, we were already in a hole and the environment is not helping us dig out. The New York Times recently published an article by ProPublica reporter Abraham Lustgarten entitled, “40 Million People Rely on the Colorado River. It’s Drying Up Fast.” In it, Lustgarten wrote about the “record-breaking heat waves and ceaseless mega-fires” and said that “even though rainfall and snowpack high up in the Rocky Mountains were at near-normal levels [this year], the parched soils and plants stricken by intense heat absorbed much of the water, and inflows to Lake Powell were around one-fourth of their usual amount.” This he wrote, has led to a decline in the Colorado River’s flow of nearly 20 percent on average, from its flow throughout the 1900s, and if warming stays on its current course, could lead to a loss of 50 percent by the end of this century.
Yes, politicians and experts have been working on solutions, such as the “banking” of more than 4 million-acre feet of water underground by the Arizona Water Banking Authority, but not enough has been asked of individual citizens for my taste. Joanna Allhands writes in the AZ Republic that,
Be thankful that Arizona had the foresight to squirrel this much water away while it was available. While 4 million acre-feet certainly isn’t enough to last forever – or roughly 13 million acre-feet, if you include what others have stored for themselves – it should offer a more comfortable step down into a new, drier normal.
I think we should be beyond worrying about our “comfort” and begin real personal and collective action to ENSURE the sustainability of this, our most valuable of resources. After all, water is more valuable to life than gold (or really, anything else) and yet gold is currently fetching about $1,800 per ounce while at least in Tucson, water is only about four cents per gallon. Anyone who has seen the movie “Waterworld” or read the book “The Water Knife”, can easily envision a world where water becomes the only currency. Where those who have it live and those who don’t, die. To anyone paying attention, that world looks to be on the horizon.
And water for crops, flora, and human and animal consumption isn’t the only concern. Lake Mead feeds Hoover Dam with a generating capacity to produce enough electricity to supply 450,000 average households in Nevada, Arizona and California. The plant has already lost 25% of its capacity and if the water level goes below 950 feet, it won’t be able to generate power at all.
Unless you’ve lived under a rock for the last few years, you’ve heard that the cuts have begun. In August, Lake Mead dropped to the 1075 foot level which triggered a Tier 1 shortage declaration and projected to leave the lake at 40% capacity by the end of 2021. For the first time, the federal government has now declared an emergency water shortage on the Colorado River. The first to take cuts in the multistage compact, is Arizona. The cuts go into effect with the new year, and will force an “abrupt cutoff of nearly one-fifth of Arizona’s supply from the river. The most pain will be doled out to Pinal County farmers who will likely be forced to fallow some 40 percent of their fields. Robert Glennon, a water law professor at University of Arizona, wrote,
The cities are protected because they enjoy the highest priority in Arizona for water delivered through the Central Arizona Project, a 330-mile canal from the Colorado River. From my experience analyzing Western water policy, I expect that this declaration won’t halt growth in the affected states—but growth can no longer be uncontrolled. Increasing water supply is no longer a viable option, [emphasis added] so states must turn to reducing demand.
Some lawmakers understand the problem as evidenced by several bills that were introduced in the AZ Legislature this year “that would establish some groundwater rules in unregulated rural areas where there are no limits on pumping and where water levels are dropping”. Unfortunately, they were never heard since the agriculture industry and key Republican leaders opposed them. One advocate who spoke in favor of the legislation was Kathy Jacobs, director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions. She said, “Arizona is way behind many other western states in its ability to protect the environment, Arizona is at a crossroads, and it’s time to take a stand on these issues and really protect the environment for future generations.”
Arizona’s water future fared no better in last year’s legislature despite 12 bills introduced to “strengthen groundwater rulesand oversight in rural areas where pumping is unregulated and where farms aren’t required to report how much water they’re using”. Again, the agriculture industry opposed some of the bills and none reached a vote in either chamber. This despite demands by leaders of La Paz and Mohave counties to act now. La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin said, “[p]eople are still running out of water. And it just amazes me that there’s no consideration for the rural communities. They are the ones that are suffering right now. We need to have change done right now, not a year from now.”
One bit of good news is the measure Governor Ducey signed into law in February of this year “that will enable farmers and ranchers to conserve surface water without worrying about possibly losing their water rights later on — a change to the state’s “use-it-or-lose-it” system that some conservation groups said can help free up more water for rivers.” It is sad that we are reduced to lauding a move that allows farmers to not waste water, especially when that action is (pardon the pun) just a drop in the bucket of what is needed.
“The ultimate problem” writes professor Glennon, “facing the Colorado River Basin states is simple. There are more water rights on paper than there is water in the river. And that’s before considering the impact of climate change and evaporation loss from Lakes Mead and Powell.”
We are not however, totally helpless. There are many actions the average Arizonan can do to help reduce water usage and they should be encouraged, and incentivized if need be, to do so. As an example of how a small change for each of us can deliver big change for all of us is that:
“[w]ater usage data suggests that if Americans avoid meat one day each week they could save an amount of water equivalent to the entire flow of the Colorado each year, more than enough water to alleviate the region’s shortages.”
Of course, there are many more really easy ways for each of us to do our part such as collecting water in the shower while you are waiting for it to get hot and then using it to water plants, fixing leaks, not leaving the water running while you are brushing your teeth, using the dishwasher instead of washing by hand, etc. Professor Glennon agrees that conservation “remains the low-hanging fruit. Water reuse—treating wastewater and using it again,” he says, “including for drinking—is also viable. A third option is using pricing and trading to encourage the reallocation of water from lower-value to higher-value uses.”
Unfortunately, as long as individuals are not made to feel the pain, whether proactively increasing water prices and ensuring increased revenue is used for improving conservation, or reactively suffering with less availability, many of them won’t understand the scope of the problem. And, as I’ve already mentioned, our state leaders aren’t taking sufficient action. Again, Professor Glennon:
The gospel of growth still motivates some cities. Buckeye, Arizona, on the west side of Phoenix, has a planning area of 642 square miles, which is larger than Phoenix. The city has approved 27 housing developments that officials project will increase its population by 800,000 people by 2040. Yet its water supply depends on unsustainable groundwater pumping.
You know, that groundwater stored in depleted acquifers that take 6,000 years to replenish. It should be obvious that the situation won’t improve in our lifetime (maybe never) unless we take aggressive action. Hold yourself and your elected officials accountable. Without that, there is little incentive for them to act. After all, Mother Nature doesn’t lobby.
