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.
Colorado River tributaries in New Mexico bring water to the
alfalfa fields in the Four Corners and the forested hills of
the Gila wilderness in the southwestern part of the state. But
Colorado River and reservoir management was designed during a
much wetter period. And now, water officials are grappling with
how to make do with less. State Engineer Mike Hamman, New
Mexico’s top water manager, said the state “really feels the
shortages” because it doesn’t have the big reservoirs of other
states in the Colorado River Basin. … Nevada, Arizona
and Mexico will all receive less water from the Colorado River
next year because of rapidly-declining reservoirs, the Interior
Department announced on Aug. 16.
Large-scale modern desalination has been around for some 60
years, and huge factory-sized plants are turning seawater into
drinking water, from California (where there are a dozen
desalination facilities) to Spain (where a Barcelona plant,
Europe’s largest, supplies 20% of the metro drinking water) to
the Middle East (where Saudi Arabia produces a fifth of the
world’s desalinated water).
On an early August morning in California’s Imperial Valley,
tractors rumble across verdant fields of alfalfa, mowing down
the tall grass and leaving it to dry in shaggy heaps under the
hot sun. Here, in one of the oldest farming communities in the
Colorado River basin, the forage crop is king. One out of every
three farmed acres in the valley is dedicated to growing
alfalfa … Now, with the basin on the brink of the most
severe water cuts in history, the alfalfa industry has been
propelled to the center of longstanding debates over
sustainable water use and the future of farming in the west.
With much of California baking under a record-breaking
September heat wave, it seems hard to believe that the weather
could get any more unusual. However, as soon as Thursday,
Southern California and other parts of the Southwest may
contend with another extreme event. Remnants of Hurricane Kay —
the storm is currently about 200 miles southwest of Mexico’s
Baja California — are forecast to bring substantial rainfall
and possible flooding to the region Friday and Saturday. Some
areas, particularly in interior Southern California, could see
multiple inches of rain.
Tijuana is paying California for more water than it has in
recent years as the city faces a growing population coupled
with blistering drought that’s gripping the entire West.
Northern Baja is entitled by treaty to 1.5-million-acre feet of
Colorado River water per year, which is Tijuana’s primary water
source. But for years the amount that goes to Tijuana hasn’t
been enough to quench demand. That’s been the case since at
least 1972 when the U.S. and Mexico first let Tijuana pay for
water from California during a serious drought, before it had
an aqueduct to carry river water through the Mexicali Valley.
Major Colorado River cuts must be made, one way or another. The
only looming questions are when and on what terms, with
negotiators scheduled to resume interstate meetings this week.
The Colorado River remains in an unfolding and worsening
crisis. Demand far exceeds supply. Long-term drought, worsened
by climate change, has meant less water refilling the river’s
large reservoirs as water users have continued to overtap
them. … Although all seven states are expected to
be at the meeting, the focus is likely to zero in on reaching a
deal among the three states that comprise the Lower Colorado
River Basin: Arizona, California and Nevada.
A nearly half-billion-dollar investment in new sewage treatment
facilities in Tijuana could clean up perpetually polluted
beaches in San Diego, U.S. and Mexican officials say. Officials
from both countries signed a treaty through the International
Boundary and Water Commission that commits to funding new
sanitation projects during a ceremony at the Tijuana River
National Estuarine Research Reserve in Imperial Beach on
Thursday. The agreement pledges about $350 million in U.S.
spending and $144 million from the Mexican government to
replace failing sewage treatment facilities in Tijuana.
Tuesday’s announcement by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that
it would require Arizona and Nevada to reduce their annual
allocation of water from the Colorado River came as no surprise
to most water experts. … The Colorado
River supplies water to 40 million people in two
countries, seven states, 29 federally recognized
Indigenous tribes and 4 million acres of farmland. But its
ability to provide that water faces a serious challenge
following 22 years of drought and a drier climate that reduced
its annual flow from 16.4 million acre-feet to around 14.5
million acre-feet on average since 2000.
About 300 miles southwest of San Antonio, water taps have run
dry in a major Mexico city. Thousands of residents wake up
at dawn to check their taps and fill up containers. Others line
up with large jugs, bottles and buckets at cisterns around the
city, where fights have broken out when people try to jump the
line. This is the scene in the industrial hub of
Monterrey, Mexico—the nation’s third largest city and one of
its wealthiest. … But Monterrey isn’t alone in
its water crisis. Drought is sapping the water from huge
swaths of North America and making it increasingly hard for
humans to count on running water.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
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 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.
