Drive for drought plan is revived

But Yuma’s role in agreement remains unclear

Federal and state officials held a statewide briefing in Phoenix last week to formally relaunch their drive to complete a drought contingency plan, in which water users would agree to forego some of their consumption of Colorado River water to keep a bad situation from getting worse.

Yuma County irrigation district leaders said after the meeting they still aren’t sure what they could or should be asked to do under the agreement, but know the state is nearing a crisis point.

“The Colorado River is basically generated by snowpack in a couple of states. And we’ve just been in this 16, 18-year-drought,” said Tom Davis, general manager of the Yuma County Water Users Association, one of the seven irrigation districts in the Yuma area that take water deliveries for its approximately $2B agriculture industry.

“Who knows? The Southwest hasn’t been inhabited in recorded time, long enough to know. Some droughts could last 100 years, 30 years, 50 years. This has been about 16 to 17 years. I don’t want to sound like a doomsayer but — that’s the whole thrust of this, everyone’s trying to get unified and commit to implementation of things that will leave more water in Lake Mead.”

As for what the irrigation district he runs might be asked to contribute to the drought contingency plan, or DCP, Davis said the association delivers about 100,000 acre-feet of its 350,000 acre-foot allocation every year to be used for agricultural fields south of San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., Mexico.

Mexico, in return, leaves 100,000 acre-feet of water it would otherwise be entitled

to use in Lake Mead.

“So we feel that we do our share by doing that. The pumping cost is entirely on our producers. We absorb that cost. So we are doing our share, and have for decades,” Davis said.

The irrigation district was the first on the river to be formed, so it holds the most senior rights on the river, which means it would be the last to be forced to cut back deliveries under a shortage declaration, Davis said.

The other Yuma-area tribes, irrigation users and municipal users are just behind YCWUA on the list.

Elston Grubaugh, general manager for the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District, observed last week’s meeting by the webcast, and said, “as far as what Yuma will do, we’ll have to take a look at that. As they said at the meeting, it doesn’t matter what priority you have. We’ve had some discussions if the river were to fall that far, what could we offer to do?

“In our view, WelltonMohawk, we’ve done a lot over the years. We’ve shrunk from 75,000 acres to about 62,000 acres. We’re very efficient with our water use, but we’ll be monitoring the situation,” and hope to take part in the next steps at the state level, he said.

The lake, on Arizona’s northwestern border with Nevada, is the Southwest’s barometer for the severity of its droughts. When its surface level hits 1,075 feet above sea level, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will declare a shortage on the river for the first time in its history and begin mandating cutbacks in water deliveries for selected users, beginning with the Central Arizona Project, which serves Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the elevation was at 1,076.8 feet.

The current drought cutback agreement was reached in 2007, but the worsening conditions led to work on the new Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan starting in 2015 among the three states in the Colorado River’s lower basin: Arizona, California and Nevada.

In 2017 Mexico agreed to conserve defined volumes of water at specific elevation “in parity and alignment” with the lower basin plan. But by this time, conflicts between the Arizona Department of Water Resources and the CAP began to intensify, and sidelined the effort.

Last May the state’s water management agency and largest water user reiterated their commitment to completing the DCP. This was followed up by the agencies collaborating on last week’s meeting, where they announced the formation of a new steering committee of Arizona water users, lawmakers and stakeholders.

Their goal is to have a DCP completed by the beginning of next year, so it can be submitted to the state Legislature at the start of its next session. Its approval is needed to authorize ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke to act on the state’s behalf as the plan is presented to the other states, and ultimately to the Bureau of Reclamation for final approval.

But many details, including how much water should be conserved by each entity on the river and when, still aren’t finalized.

Yuma attorney Wade Noble, who represents four Yuma County irrigation districts, said the plan “needs” to be done by January in order for it to make much of a difference.

“This is a make-or-break situation for us on the river, and while, if there is a shortage direction that it’s going to fall below 1,075, that is becoming more and more probable. What we’re trying to do is get together and plan so we can be ready,” he said.

The BOR projects there is about a 65 percent chance of a shortage being declared on the Colorado River by 2026, based on historical hydrology going back to 1906. When just the last 30 years of data are used, the probability jumps to almost 90 percent just two years from now, 2021.

If the lake level continues to decline, more severe restrictions will be implemented at 1,050 feet and 1,025 feet. And since Lake Mead sits in a V-shaped canyon behind Hoover Dam, the water level will start dropping more quickly.

Noble said Yuma water districts will need to take on some responsibilities in the DCP, in the spirit of cooperation as well as selfpreservation.

“You’re not going to have any forced changes in the way the Yuma area uses its water until you get down below 1,050, down toward 1,025, and then there could be some changes. But obviously when those changes have to be made, you’re going to have people look and say, what were you doing earlier, to keep us from getting to 1,025?” he said.

“If it appears that some of those high-priority users were not looking for ways to help things out, then there might be some retribution for things that could have been done,” he said.

He doesn’t see all Yuma County users coming in with one plan, but with individual contributions that could add up to water savings, Noble said.