The Mexican Water Treaty of 1944 committed the U.S. to deliver
1.5 million acre-feet of water to Mexico on an annual basis, plus
an additional 200,000 acre-feet under surplus conditions. The
treaty is overseen by the International Boundary and Water
Commission.
Colorado River water is delivered to Mexico at Morelos Dam,
located 1.1 miles downstream from where the California-Baja
California land boundary intersects the river. The river’s
natural terminus is the Gulf of California in Mexico, but because
of the dams and diversion facilities throughout the Colorado
River Basin, natural flow rarely reaches the Gulf. Water diverted
at Morelos Dam is primarily used to irrigate Mexicali Valley
farmland, and also supplies the cities of Mexicali, Tecate and
Tijuana.
The U.S. EPA is pledging $630 million to help clean up and
prevent raw sewage from flowing into the U.S. from Mexico
between San Diego and Tijuana. EPA Assistant Administrator for
Water Radhika Fox announced the decision to move forward with
an environmental review of a suite of water infrastructure
projects that would address this transborder water pollution.
… Raw sewage usually pours into the valley and out to
the ocean in Imperial Beach, California, which most of it is
from Tijuana’s outdated sewage and storm water infrastructure.
The U.S. and Mexican governments met today in Tijuana to
discuss transboundary water pollution challenges along the
shared border. … Recognizing the critical importance of
addressing water pollution for the benefit of citizens on both
sides of the border, the U.S. and Mexican delegations reviewed
the important progress made toward reducing pollution
levels. Mexico highlighted their $46 million dollars of
investment by local, state, and federal authorities completed
between 2019 to 2021 in water sanitation projects for the
Tijuana River …
Approximately 40 million people rely on the Colorado River for
water, 5% of them, or 2 million are in Nevada. However, the
state gets only 1.8% of the river’s water. How did this happen?
In 1922, Nevada signed onto the Colorado River Compact. It
divided the river between the upper basin (part of Arizona,
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) and the lower basin
(the rest of Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico).
… Nevada getting the least, while more than half of the
water goes to two states: California and Colorado.
An estimated 40 million people rely on water that originates in
the Colorado River Basin, but the river can no longer keep up
with demand, and it’s raising serious questions about the
future of water in the west. Surrounded by bright orange
pumpkins and empty shanks of corn outside his store east of
Pueblo, Shane Milberger surveys his field.
Top federal environmental regulators in California laid out
a $630-million plan on Monday to capture and treat
sewage-tainted water that routinely flows over the border from
Tijuana into Imperial Beach and up the
coast. The blueprint focuses largely on
installing a pumping system in the Tijuana River north of the
U.S.-Mexico border to suck polluted flows out of the channel
before they can foul shorelines in San Diego. Trash booms would
be installed directly upstream of the intake.
As world leaders meet in Scotland this week to discuss efforts
to address the climate crisis, experts are urging greater focus
on adapting to fundamental shifts in the planet’s water
supplies — and they’re pointing to the Colorado River as a
prime example. The river, a vital water source for about 40
million people from Denver to Los Angeles, has continued to
shrink and send reservoirs declining toward critically low
levels after years of extremely dry conditions compounded by
hotter temperatures. … [T]he river’s plight stands out as one
of the world’s starkest cases of a major water source that is
being ravaged by the altered climate…
It rained so hard in California in 1862 that a 300-mile-long
lake was created in the Central Valley, stretching from
Bakersfield to Red Bluff. … Yes, climate change is
distressingly real. The melting Arctic ice cap and rising seas
are evidence enough. So are higher average summer temperatures.
The warming is exacerbated by humans burning fossil
fuels. That doesn’t mean global warming is the mother of
every freak of nature. Not all major events are caused by
climate change, regardless of what Gov. Gavin Newsom repeatedly
asserts about the extremes of wetter and windier storms, dryer
droughts and hotter wildfires. -Written by LA Times columnist George Skelton.
This past week, California declared a statewide drought
emergency. It follows the first-ever federal shortage
declaration on the Colorado River, triggering cuts to water
supplies in the Southwest. The Colorado is the lifeblood of the
region. It waters some of the country’s fastest-growing cities,
nourishes some of our most fertile fields and powers $1.4
trillion in annual economic activity.
Water is flowing once again
to the Colorado River’s delta in Mexico, a vast region that
was once a natural splendor before the iconic Western river was
dammed and diverted at the turn of the last century, essentially
turning the delta into a desert.
In 2012, the idea emerged that water could be intentionally sent
down the river to inundate the delta floodplain and regenerate
native cottonwood and willow trees, even in an overallocated
river system. Ultimately, dedicated flows of river water were
brokered under cooperative
efforts by the U.S. and Mexican governments.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
Nowhere is the domino effect in
Western water policy played out more than on the Colorado River,
and specifically when it involves the Lower Basin states of
California, Nevada and Arizona. We are seeing that play out now
as the three states strive to forge a Drought Contingency Plan.
Yet that plan can’t be finalized until Arizona finds a unifying
voice between its major water players, an effort you can read
more about in the latest in-depth article of Western Water.
Even then, there are some issues to resolve just within
California.
It’s high-stakes time in Arizona. The state that depends on the
Colorado River to help supply its cities and farms — and is
first in line to absorb a shortage — is seeking a unified plan
for water supply management to join its Lower Basin neighbors,
California and Nevada, in a coordinated plan to preserve water
levels in Lake Mead before
they run too low.
If the lake’s elevation falls below 1,075 feet above sea level,
the secretary of the Interior would declare a shortage and
Arizona’s deliveries of Colorado River water would be reduced by
320,000 acre-feet. Arizona says that’s enough to serve about 1
million households in one year.
The Colorado River Delta once spanned nearly 2 million acres and
stretched from the northern tip of the Gulf of California in
Mexico to Southern California’s Salton Sea. Today it’s one-tenth
that size, yet still an important estuary, wildlife habitat and
farming region even though Colorado River flows rarely reach the
sea.
This issue of Western Water examines the ongoing effort
between the United States and Mexico to develop a
new agreement to the 1944 Treaty that will continue the
binational cooperation on constructing Colorado River
infrastructure, storing water in Lake Mead and providing instream
flows for the Colorado River Delta.
As vital as the Colorado River is to the United States and
Mexico, so is the ongoing process by which the two countries
develop unique agreements to better manage the river and balance
future competing needs.
The prospect is challenging. The river is over allocated as urban
areas and farmers seek to stretch every drop of their respective
supplies. Since a historic treaty between the two countries was
signed in 1944, the United States and Mexico have periodically
added a series of arrangements to the treaty called minutes that
aim to strengthen the binational ties while addressing important
water supply, water quality and environmental concerns.
California’s little-known New River has been called one of North
America’s most polluted. A closer look reveals the New River is
full of ironic twists: its pollution has long defied cleanup, yet
even in its degraded condition, the river is important to the
border economies of Mexicali and the Imperial Valley and a
lifeline that helps sustain the fragile Salton Sea ecosystem.
Now, after decades of inertia on its pollution problems, the New
River has emerged as an important test of binational cooperation
on border water issues. These issues were profiled in the 2004
PBS documentary Two Sides of a River.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and the country of Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch
map, which is suitable for framing, explains the river’s
apportionment, history and the need to adapt its management for
urban growth and expected climate change impacts.
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people and 4
million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some 246,000
square miles in the southwestern United States. The 32-page
Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River covers the history of the
river’s development; negotiations over division of its water; the
items that comprise the Law of the River; and a chronology of
significant Colorado River events.
As part of the historic Colorado River Delta, the Salton Sea
regularly filled and dried for thousands of years due to its
elevation of 237 feet below sea level.
The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when
the Colorado River broke
through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years,
creating California’s largest inland body of water. The
Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130
miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
The Mexican Water Treaty of 1944 committed the U.S. to deliver
1.5 million acre-feet of water to Mexico on an annual basis, plus
an additional 200,000 acre-feet under surplus conditions. The
treaty is overseen by the International Boundary and Water
Commission.
Colorado River water is delivered to Mexico at Morelos Dam,
located 1.1 miles downstream from where the California-Baja
California land boundary intersects the river between the town of
Los Algodones in northwestern Mexico and Yuma County, Ariz.
The Colorado River Delta is located
at the natural terminus of the Colorado River at the Gulf of
California, just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. The desert
ecosystem was formed by silt flushed downstream from the Colorado
and fresh and brackish water mixing at the Gulf.
The Colorado River Delta once covered 9,650 square miles but has
shrunk to less than 1 percent of its original size due to
human-made water diversions.
This printed issue of Western Water examines how the various
stakeholders have begun working together to meet the planning
challenges for the Colorado River Basin, including agreements
with Mexico, increased use of conservation and water marketing,
and the goal of accomplishing binational environmental
restoration and water-sharing programs.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study and what its
finding might mean for the future of the lifeblood of the
Southwest.
This printed issue of Western Water explores some of the major
challenges facing Colorado River stakeholders: preparing for
climate change, forging U.S.-Mexico water supply solutions and
dealing with continued growth in the basins states. Much of the
content for this issue of Western Water came from the in-depth
panel discussions at the September 2009 Colorado River Symposium.
This printed copy of Western Water examines the Colorado River
Delta, its ecological significance and the lengths to which
international, state and local efforts are targeted and achieving
environmental restoration while recognizing the needs of the
entire river’s many users.
