Between drought, climate change and overuse, the amount of water flowing into the Colorado River has decreased while the number of people depending on it has never been higher.
BOULDER, Colo. (CN) – For many farmers who draw water from the Imperial Irrigation District in southern California, the practice of intentionally leaving farmland fallow, or “fallowing,” is a dirty “f” word they don’t want to think about.
“Fallowing is an ‘f’ word, we believe the land should grow,” Tina Shields, manager of the district’s water department, told attendees at the 46th Annual Colorado Law Conference on Natural Resources at the Wolf School of Law at the University of Colorado Boulder on Thursday.
Shields said farmers don’t want to call their water conservation program worthless. Instead, the district calls it “deficit irrigation,” a program that won the support of more than 200 farmers by offering fair compensation for the temporary sacrifice.
Established in 1911, the Imperial Irrigation District has senior water rights and access to 3.1 million acre-feet of the Colorado River each year. With great water use comes great water savings. Last year, Shields said the Imperial Irrigation District conserved 725,000 acre-feet of water through the mini-fallowing program**** along with other efficiency improvements. Some of that water helped quench thirst in San Diego and San Francisco, while the rest remained in the river to replenish depleted supplies in Lake Mead.
Forty million people living in the southwestern United States and Mexico depend on the Colorado River, including 30 Native American tribes. In addition to generating power for 2.5 million people, more than half of the river’s water feeds 5.7 million hectares of crops – about a tenth of which is fed by the Imperial Irrigation District.
But as more people depend on Colorado River water for survival, drought, climate change and overuse threaten to provide a sustainable supply.
Earlier this year, state negotiators failed to reach new operational guidelines to share the Colorado River’s dwindling supply by a February deadline. Among the ongoing conversations In regards to the upcoming river compact and the US Department of the Interior developing its own solution, Colorado conference organizers directed speakers to focus on “finding solutions in the face of uncertainty” along the Colorado River.
The request prompted several speakers to highlight innovative ways they’ve helped their watersheds use less water — a topic as perennial as snow.
Located south of Phoenix, the Gila River Community estimates it cuts water loss in half by enclosing irrigation channels in concrete and upgrading aging infrastructure with modern water pumps that actually reclaim and recycle water back into the system.
Although the Gila River Indian Community has irrigated the region for more than 4,000 years producing the “breadbasket of the west,” overuse upstream has shrunk the amount of water reaching the tribe.
In fact, the tribal canals are currently dry.
“We lost all of our Gila water last Saturday for the fifth time,” said David DeJong, director for the Gila River Indian Community’s natural resources department.
The most innovative addition to the system has been the construction of two sets of solar panels built over irrigation canals, generating energy from above and protecting the water below from evaporation.
“It’s hard to be river people, where the river is central to life, when you don’t have a flowing river,” DeJong said. “The vision of the community is to restore Keli Akimel, the river.”
Although countless engineering firms market irrigation solutions that promise more efficient use of water, Scott Campbell, senior strategic consultant for the Freshwater Trust, said the real problem is finding the most efficient use of funds.
Using the Uncompahgre River in southwestern Colorado as an example, Campbell demonstrated how modeling can help managers decide which channels to line and where to build new water pumps.
In lieu of a $1 billion overhaul, Campbell said the $185 million allows the district to line 40 miles of canal with concrete — cutting 50% of water loss — along with implementing infrastructure improvements on 6,000 acres of farmland and a five-year conservation project support.
“There is a viable path to preserve hundreds of thousands of acre feet,” Campbell said. “We’re not saying we’re going to solve all of our problems for $150,000, but we can solve a lot of them. You can work with less and get higher results.”
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