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.
Valle de Guadalupe is a semi-arid wine-making subregion in Baja
California, which is a desert where the land is freckled with
agave, cactus and chaparral alongside grapevines and olive
trees. It lies a two-hour drive south of San Diego.
… Water woes are another looming factor. Rain has always
been scarce here, and signs are growing that the valley’s
demand for water is overwhelming its
infrastructure. Unlike many wine regions in California
that are able to rely on varying sources of water, Valle de
Guadalupe has the Guadalupe Aquifer, a body of porous
ground or sediment that holds groundwater, as its only source
of water. Depending on the rainfall each year, the water table
rises and falls. But since 1995, the general trend has
been more water being sucked out of the aquifer than going in
…
“If I had a chance to tell Gov. (Gavin) Newsom something about
the pollution in the Tijuana River Valley, I would tell him to
get it fixed as soon as possible because the odor is horrible,
and I don’t know what else it’s doing to our health. Like my
partner says, if this was happening to rich people in La Jolla,
this would have been taken care of a long time ago.” That’s
what Analisa Corrales, a nine-year resident of the Nestor
neighborhood in San Diego, told me when I asked how she felt
about the pollution from the Tijuana River Valley and how
aerosolized contaminants might be affecting the health of her
and her three children. They are 12 years old, 7 years old
and 6 months old, and they live less than 2 miles from the
sewage-choked river. -Written by Pedro Rios, director of the American
Friends Service Committee’s U.S./Mexico Border program and a
longtime human rights advocate.
Sewage overflows from Tijuana have been contaminating Imperial
Beach for many decades. The problem recently reached crisis
levels, with city leaders calling on the state and federal
governments for more funds to fix the aging sewage
infrastructure on both sides of the border. By causing sea
levels to rise, climate change also plays a role in
compromising the sewage infrastructure of Imperial Beach,
according to a new study in the
journal Sustainable Cities and Society. [Researchers]
examine how rising sea levels impact sewer pipes in the city
and what this means for the future.
As you walk along the Tijuana River Valley, it’s hard not to
smell the pungent smell of sewage, effluent flowing its way
down the valley toward the Pacific Ocean. It’s been a problem
for decades as Tijuana’s sewage infrastructure has failed to
keep up with a city that seemingly grew to two million
residents overnight. The system constantly spews untreated raw
sewage that eventually makes its way north of the border. In
1999, the International Wastewater Treatment plant was built in
the valley just north of the border to help control the
problem.
During the more than 40 years I have resided in San Diego
County, trash and sediment accumulation, along with toxic and
wastewater contamination of the Tijuana River and our
binational coastal waters, have been a persistent health
concern for South San Diego and Tijuana residents. I have been
actively involved in trying to bring attention to and address
these issues since the 1990s, when I first represented the area
in the state Legislature. As a full-time Imperial Beach
resident since 2009, I long to see skilled surfers and
frolicking families enjoy our beach waters again. -Written by Denise Ducheny, a former California state
senator. She lives in Imperial Beach.
Water quality data shows bacteria levels in the ocean along
South Bay beaches have been hundreds of times over what’s
considered safe for human health this past week. The
culprit, per usual, is sewage flowing from Mexico into the
Tijuana River which empties into the Pacific Ocean just south
of San Diego’s southernmost cities. But the people who manage
wastewater infrastructure in the U.S.-Mexico border say respite
is nigh. Next month, Tijuana’s wastewater agency is set to
restore a ruptured sewage main that snapped in half last
August. When that happens, sewage has only two places to go:
The Tijuana River or an overworked treatment plant on the U.S.
side of the border.
An Arizona state water agency has dropped a controversial
arrangement it made with an Israeli firm to negotiate terms for
building a $5.5 billion water desalination plant in Mexico.
Instead, the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona
will seek competitive bids for a company or other entity to
build a water importation project — which may or may not be a
desalination plant. … The authority, commonly known as
WIFA, changed its stance in the face of stinging criticism of
its board’s December vote from a wide variety of people and
interest groups. Legislators of both parties,
environmentalists, Sonoran officials and other “public
interest” organizations had decried they felt was a rush to
judgment on the IDE proposal.
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.
