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 State Water Resources Control Board will spend $34 million
for six projects to improve the water quality of the New River
and the Tijuana River along the U.S.-Mexico border. The New
River starts south of the city of Mexicali, and runs through
Calexico on the U.S. side of the border and through Imperial
County to the Salton Sea. The Tijuana River runs from Baja
California into San Diego. Both rivers are heavily polluted by
sewage, trash, industrial and agricultural waste, and other
sediment and pollutants.
More than a century ago, the [Colorado] river’s delta spread
across 1.9 million acres of wetlands and forests. The
conservationist Aldo Leopold, who canoed through the delta in
1922, described it as “a hundred green lagoons” and said he
paddled through waters “of a deep emerald hue.” He described it
as an oasis that teemed with fish, birds, beavers, deer and
jaguars. In the years after his visit, the river was
dammed and its waters were sent flowing in canals to farms and
cities. For decades, so much water has been diverted that
the river seldom meets the sea. Much of the delta has shriveled
to stretches of dry riverbed, with only small remnants of its
wetlands surviving. Restauremos El Colorado manages one of
three habitat restoration areas in the delta, where native
trees that were planted six years ago have grown into a forest
that drapes the wetland in shade. Last spring, a stream of
water was released from a canal and flowed into the
wetland, restoring a stretch of river where
previously there had been miles of desert sand.
As of Friday morning, more than 600 colonias were without
running water in Tijuana and Rosarito, where residents say
service has been spotty since last year. Facing the possibility
of running out of water, Tijuana’s State Commission for Public
Services, CESPT, turned to the San Diego County Water Authority
for help. Agreements in place between Mexico and the United
States allow for water deliveries in times of emergency or
severe drought. So last week, the San Diego-based agency began
sending water to Tijuana. Compounding the problem is the
deterioration of Tijuana’s main aqueduct that delivers water
from the Colorado River, the city’s main source of water. So
far, repairs are taking longer than expected.
There’s a problem with Tijuana’s lifeline to its single water
source – the Colorado River– which forced it make more, costly
emergency water purchases from California. The San Diego County
Water Authority recently learned that problems emerged with
Tijuana’s aqueduct in December, according to a press release
this week. Tijuana requested emergency water from San Diego on
Jan. 2, which the Water Authority expedited through a typical
months-long approval process involving water agencies that also
have to sign-off on emergency orders from Mexico.
Emergency water deliveries started last week after a
coordinated effort between the Water Authority, Otay Water
District, and Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California (MWD). The typical multi-month approval process was
compressed into a few days to avoid additional water supply
shortages in Tijuana. … Cross-border emergency deliveries
started more than 50 years ago and are governed by an agreement
between the United States and Mexico to provide Tijuana with a
portion of Mexico’s Colorado River supply. The Water Authority
provides emergency water deliveries to Mexico through a
cross-border connection in Otay Mesa.
Tucson Assistant City Manager Tim Thomure joined a unanimous
vote last month by a state water board that will allow for
state-run discussions with an Israeli firm over its proposal
for a $5.5 billion desalination plant in Puerto Peñasco on the
Gulf of California. The Water Infrastructure Authority of
Arizona voted 9-0 on Dec. 20, following a fierce,
afternoon-long debate, to authorize its staff to prepare an
analysis of the project. If the analysis finds the proposal
meets state requirements, the board chairman can negotiate an
agreement with the company to deliver desalted water to Arizona
at agreed upon terms including costs.
The U.S. and Mexico share underground water basins that span
more than 121,500 square miles of the Borderlands. But the two
countries have no regulations for managing those common
aquifers, in part, because historically very little was known
about them. That’s changing. On Dec. 28,
researchers released the first complete map of the
groundwater basins that span the U.S.-Mexico
boundary…. With water becoming an increasingly precious
resource in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico, the
researchers hope the new map will provide a basis for
developing a binational legal framework to regulate the
underground waters’ management…. It shows five shared
aquifers between Baja California and California, 26 between
Sonora and Arizona, and 33 between Texas and the Mexican states
of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas.
Just days after rain left the city with flooding waters and
streets covered in debris, runoff is also leading to unsafe
swimming conditions along our coast. Right now, there are
currently four beach closures in our region: Imperial Beach
Shoreline, Tijuana Slough Shoreline, Silver Strand Shoreline,
and Coronado Shoreline. The San Diego Department of
Environmental Health and Quality warning beachgoers to stay
away until further testing. Along the Coronado shoreline
water contact warning signs line the sand, alerting beachgoers
to steer clear. … Ringing in the new year with moderate rain
and gusty winds has led to these south swell conditions and
urban runoff across the U.S. Mexico border raising bacteria
levels in ocean and bay water here at home.
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.
