Arizona worries about access to Colorado River water
TUCSON, Ariz. — Robbie Woodhouse’s grandfather began nearly a century of family farming along the Gila River near Yuma in the middle 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.
Farming never really took off at the Woodhouse homestead until 1954, when the federal government finished a 75-mile-long concrete canal to bring Colorado River water to what’s now known as the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District, which covers about 58,500 acres along the Gila River east of the Colorado.
Today, Woodhouse presides over the governing board of a district with more than 120 individual growers, partnerships, trusts and other operating entities growing about 100 different crops, including seed crops as well as staples like wheat, cotton, lettuce and other produce. Wellton-Mohawk is one of six agricultural districts in the Yuma area that together grow 90% of the cauliflower, lettuce, broccoli and other winter vegetables sold in the U.S.
But now, the future of this district, of farming in the Yuma area in general and of Arizona’s second largest drinking water supply for urban residents are all mired in a sea of uncertainty. 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’ll be ordered to cut, possibly starting next year.
All the Yuma area irrigation districts depend entirely on Colorado River water to nourish their crops. While groundwater does lie beneath many of the farm fields, its quality is uncertain or poor in many places.
“Obviously we’re very, very concerned,” said Woodhouse, whose 1,250 acres grow mostly produce, such as cauliflower, broccoli and lettuce. “Without the water, we don’t grow anything. But I wouldn’t say we are scared. We do feel an obligation to do our part.”
Water officials of Arizona cities of Tucson, Goodyear and Scottsdale are also concerned and a little on edge although they’re not panicking. They are the most dependent of Arizona cities on river water delivered through the Central Arizona Project, a $4 billion, 336-mile-long canal system running from the river to the Phoenix and Tucson areas.
While all these cities have backup supplies, led by groundwater, to cushion them in the short- to medium-term in the event of river water cuts, their long-term picture is more uncertain because the CAP was extended into Arizona nearly 40 years ago precisely to get them off groundwater.
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 but nobody knows how much right now.
The uncertainty was triggered first in June, when Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton testified at a U.S. Senate Committee hearing that to stabilize the river’s declining reservoirs Lakes Mead and Powell, the basin states need to cut their water use by roughly up to 30% starting in 2023, and come up with a plan to do that by mid-August. If a plan doesn’t appear by then, she warned the federal government would impose its own, to “protect the system.”
But mid-August came and went with no agreement and no plan or timetable for a plan from the bureau. The bureau did say at an Aug. 16 news conference, however, that it was going to look closely at several measures such as modifying the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams so they can keep delivering water at lower elevations and counting evaporation of water from Lake Mead and the river against the Lower Basin’s total water supply, thereby reducing that supply by hundreds of thousands of acre-feet a year.
So now, Wellton Mohawk and the other irrigation districts are pushing a plan to cut one acre-foot of water used per acre annually, on 925,000 acres along the Lower Colorado River in Arizona and California. In return, they’re seeking $1,500 an acre-foot in compensation, or a total of $1.387 billion annually.
With that money, they’ll 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.
“What we want to have happen is for each individual farmer to operate their farms in the matter that they want to operate and plant the crops that they feel they can maintain the fertility of their soils,” he said. “I’m sure it’s going to greatly change crop rotations and also change management practices of individual farmers, to exist on less water. It’s real important that those decisions be left to each individual farm.”
This proposal has been roundly criticized by urban water leaders, however. While saying farms must take the biggest water use curbs because they use 72% of Arizona’s water and close to 80% basinwide, Central Arizona Project officials say the farmers’ price tag is unrealistically high and that whatever money is paid should be used strictly to modernize irrigation practices for the long term.