Wall Street Eyes Billions in the Colorado's Water It would never reach the canal that supplies Imperial Valley. Andrew Leimgruber grows alfalfa and vegetables on his family's farm in the Imperial Valley. A resilient future on the Colorado must have tribal sovereignty at the forefront, said Daryl Vigil, Jicarilla Apache Nation water administrator and a staunch advocate for tribal inclusion in water management issues. The entire series, including Afterhours at the Radio Bookclub, is available as a podcast. The water fight over the shrinking Colorado River - BBC News Private investors would like to bring in or amplify existing elements of Wall Street for the water industry, such as futures markets and trading that occurs in milliseconds. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is pushing the . Instruct the economists to record They require an estimated 2,126 and 1,226 gallons of water respectively to produce a pound of food. Lake Powell in Big Water, Utah. In 1922, a landmark agreement called the Colorado River Compact divided the river among two groups of states: the upper basin and the lower basin. John Hernandez, a Mexican-American activist, says that there's also a question of fairness if most of the money that the irrigation district gets for using less water potentially hundreds of millions of dollars each year gets passed out to just a few hundred farms. Another dry year has left the watershed that supplies 40 million people in the Southwest parched. At which point, if private entities like WAM had stores of water in Lake Powell ready to sell, they would suddenly be worth quite a bit more. In theory, water saved by demand management could flow to the account, often called a pool within the pool, and be drawn upon if the current drought continues to realize worst-case scenarios. But Mr. Eklund would like it to be. "Something will have to give," said Sharon Megdal, director of the University of Arizona's Water Resources Research Center. as temperatures rise, mountain snows melt faster in spring, and the state lacks capacity to store the runoff. Hay, corn, wheat, sorghum, and millet are the top five. His great-grandfather came to the valley from Sweden in the 1920s. But over the last two decades, the actual flow has dwindled to 12.5 million acre-feet on average, leaving state water managers with more rights on paper than existing supply. New Mexico still uses only about half of its allotment under the compact each year. Imperial County is already one of the poorest in California. Agricultural interests got the biggest share. Most of the water in the 1,450-mile-long river comes from Colorado, and as that states top water official from 2013 to 2017, James Eklund directed the creation of a comprehensive long-term plan to address climate change, the first by a state in the West. At the edges of Lake Mead, the Nation's largest reservoir, a "bathtub ring" of mineral deposits approximately 100 ft. high shows the drop in water level after years of drought along the Colorado River. The water will flow down the Colorado River system and eventually hit Pearce Ferry by April 26, and more water will flow into Lake Mead from April 26 to April 30. Steve Benson returned to the family business, Benson Farms in Brawley, Calif., after a career in engineering and real estate. Dec. 13, 2022, at 6:19 a.m. Colorado River Water Users Convening Amid Crisis Concerns. hide caption. FILE - A buoy sits high and dry on cracked earth previously under the waters of Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Boulder City, Nev., on June 28, 2022. 24, 2023 at 11:45 PM PDT. Yeah. ", The All-American Canal carries water from the Imperial Dam, on the Colorado River near Yuma, Ariz., to a series of smaller distribution canals in the Imperial Valley. Another supporter is Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager portrayed by Christian Bale in The Big Short, who made more than $800 million shorting the subprime mortgage market in the mid-2000s. "There's been a bad crop in northern California. A wet winter is now prompting federal officials to release more water downstream into the reservoir. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Subsequently, the governments antitrust department started an inquiry. This area gets less attention than California's Central Valley, the nation's leading producer of produce and nuts, which draws its water from rain and snow in the Sierra Mountains, or pumps it from shrinking underground aquifers. The Upper Basin plan hinges on existing conservation programs. Tickets start at around $89 for the former and $149 for the latter. Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. The whole history of the American West is about moving water, Mr. Gammage of Greenstone said. Hamby says the district is looking to make a deal. PHOENIX (CN) On the heels of one of the wettest Arizona winters in history, federal, state, local and tribal leaders united Thursday to announce a total of $233 million in funding for water conservation agreements to aid the Gila River Indian Community and other Colorado River users. Clay Electric Cooperative. In theory, a market-based approach discourages wasteful low-value water uses, especially in agriculture, which consumes more than 70 percent of the water in the Southwest, and creates incentives for private enterprise to become involved. Theyd have to have a storage account of their own in a federal reservoir, and from my perspective thats a nonstarter, Mr. Mueller said. In a general, larger picture, its a national park, and the way the river was before the dam came in has changed a lot, Tusso said. But they will also be looking at rebalancing water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, two federally owned reservoirs that hold water to use in case of extreme drought. The way the markets were set up left them open to being gamed.. Dan Charles for NPR It may feel like California is flush with water at the moment, after a winter of historic storms that replenished drought-starved lakes and left the . A basinwide conservation plan had not materialized by the mid-August deadline. Australia has also seen the advent of a market in complex financial products, such as derivatives, based on water. Ultimately, we argued against it, he said. In 2021, water managers considered releasing even more water from Navajo Reservoir to help water levels in downstream reservoirs. Californias agricultural water markets a mosaic of online exchanges connecting farmers and water brokers are considered a potential model for the West: fast, flexible and responsive to extreme weather. Surge of Colorado River water reaches Lake Mead - ktla.com KGNU is made possible by listeners like you! Sarah Porter, who's director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, says the Imperial Irrigation District is now at the center of these negotiations. 'The brink of disaster': 2023 is a critical year for the Colorado River David Morris, the water utility spokesman for the city and county, said the Colorado River water has allowed the region to wean itself off of unsustainable groundwater pumping. "We have the laws in place, you know, when water comes anywhere west of the Mississippi, it's first-come, first-served, and that's how it's always been," he says. Since leaving government, Mr. Eklund has become WAMs legal counsel and public face. The idea is, if you pay the farmers enough, theyll go away, said Brad Udall, a water and climate researcher at Colorado State University whose family have been lawmakers in the region for 60 years. Thats not what water is meant to be.. List of United States electric companies - Wikipedia Arizona, California, and Nevada combined to consume just over 6.5 million acre-feet last year, according to an annual audit from the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that oversees the lower basin. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Light shines off the water flowing in a section of the Central Arizona Project on Oct . hide caption. But for more than a hundred years, millions of people have relied on the water that flows into the Colorado River from the Rocky Mountain snowpack. Built in the 1980s, Pueblo West was growing too fast to keep up with its water needs, so it bought the ranch and its rights. Last month, 30 agencies that supply water to homes and businesses throughout the region joined the Las Vegas area in restricting the planting of decorative lawns that no one walks on. Anyone can read what you share. The Colorado River basin has experienced three D4 droughts in the past 20 years, including the current one. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs. Escambia River Electric Cooperative. But those plans, say members of Colorado's outdoor recreation, real estate, and tourism industries, jeopardize a $9 billion dollar economy that hinges on healthy rivers - and supports more . The top 5 states are Mississippi, Missouri,. It sold those to owners unaware of their obligation to revegetate the land, now without access to water. And youre still seeing continued growth. The platform is designed to engage citizens and government leaders in a discussion about what needs improvement across the country. Mr. Catlin, the state representative, said: We need to think about the true value of water. Utilities, which in previous dry years bought water from farmers, found they could no longer afford it. Imperial Valley farmers like Andrew Leimgruber, for their part, argue that they have a legal right to all of this water. There is a myth about water in the Western United States, which is that there is not enough of it. Were not going to wreck our local economy so that they can continue to grow their urban economy.. Water Law in Colorado Often, the best land in the West is not along rivers, so you needed to move water.. The price had risen tenfold in a matter of months. But Mr. Eklund denies that the firm is flipping water rights. Former U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Scotland on Monday for a short trip to visit his golf courses in the country and in Ireland. In Era of Drought, Phoenix Prepares for a Future Without Colorado River As a result, water has turned into a financialized product like what happened to energy in the late 1990s, he said. Six of the seven Colorado River basin states sketched out a joint proposal for how they could meet the federal governments demand to make unprecedented cuts to water usage as more than two decades of drought in the West have pushed crucial reservoirs to dangerously low levels. Copyright 2023 KVVU. "Six of the seven basin states are playing catch-up to reduce water use from the Colorado River, which is absolutely critically needed after 20 years of drought and the impacts of climate change," Moran told Reuters. Cibola, Ariz., is one of the wrong places. If someone was there to short water, they wouldnt be there anymore, he said. The Imperial Irrigation District draws enough water from the river each year to cover 470,000 acres with 5 feet of water. That just simply cant be reality, he said.
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