Preparing for ongoing drought on the Colorado River

Cyberspace has been humming these last few weeks with news that the likelihood of a shortage on the Colorado River has gone up to 57 percent likely for a shortage condition in 2020. For the man on the street, that sounds like a good chance that it won’t happen, and 2020 seems like a long way off. Think again. What if you received that diagnosis as a likelihood for having a serious heart attack?

You’d get up and do something about it.

That’s what most of the Colorado River agencies have been doing. Something. But not enough. Since 2007, many agencies on the river have been working toward deals called Drought Contingency Plans, or what one writer calls “doomsday” plans.

Lake Mead is now at 38 percent of full. A shortage is called when the lake’s surface drops to 1075 feet above sea level. For the last several years, the lake has been just a foot or two above that —mostly because of extra infusions of water from Lake Powell upstream, which is now less than half full.

If shortage conditions are called, disaster strikes for Arizona and Nevada, with cuts of 333,000 acre-feet of water.

Agencies have different approaches to the looming loss of water. Arizona has been dumping water into underground storage. The Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles made a deal with the Palo Verde Irrigation District back in 2005 to fallow up to 26,000 acres of land. MWD has paid landowners there (landowners control the PVID) more than $190 million for 118,000 acre-feet of water per year. The Blythe area economy has suffered as a result of nearly one third of farmland being removed from production.

The Palo Verde scene got even more intriguing when MWD bought 12,000 acres of land in 2015. The Irvine Ranch Water Co., a customer of MWD, bought another 4,000 acres as “an investment.” You don’t have to be clairvoyant to figure out why two water agencies on the coast are buying Blythe area land.

In Mohave County, Arizona, landowners changed the rules to allow transfer of water out of the region. The county supervisors there are suing against what they call an illegal transfer of wealth.

The Colorado River Indian Tribes just made a deal with Arizona and Nevada to fallow 1884 acres to keep 11,000 acre-feet in Lake Mead. Unfortunately, in a reservoir that holds 29 million acre-feet, that’s a drop in the bucket.

Here in the IID service area, our water rights are first priority, so we are protected from the initial cutbacks. However, because the IID wants to be a good neighbor along the river, it has participated in negotiations to voluntarily cut back during a shortage. Over many years, it developed an Equitable Distribution Plan and also has invested in keeping some of its water in Lake Mead through a program called Intentionally Created Surplus.

IID General Manager Kevin Kelley reports that the IID and MWD are 95 percent toward making a deal to store IID water in Lake Mead. But at what cost to the IID? No answers yet.

When local judge Brooks L. Anderholt invalidated the EDP in 2017, IID was left in limbo about how to respond during shortages. IID is appealing that decision. A local group of concerned citizens called the Imperial Valley Coalition for Fair Sharing of Water will also be filing a “friend of the court” appeal. (Full disclosure: I am part of that group.)

Until Judge Anderholt’s decision, IID seemed to be the keeper of the keys to the water gates. But when Anderholt wrote “… the District lacks authority to further implement the EDP,” IID’s ability to plan for shortages became questionable.

Anderholt also wrote, “[The] District cannot take perfected water rights from the present owner of the lands to which they are appurtenant and transfer those rights or the appurtenances to other beneficiaries without appropriate consideration.”

This means that the IID might have to pay landowners for water it provides to other users, including cities and industry. Landowners may even have a case under Anderholt’s ruling to claim that all the moneys paid to the IID for water transferred to San Diego and Coachella since 2003 is owed to them, amounting to nearly $600 million.

As the drought shows no sign of abating, and less water flows from the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado into the river’s giant reservoirs, we in the Valley need to stay informed and do what we can to promote sober planning for what appears to be a new normal of less water.