Water in the Desert

Drying of the West

Every utility in the Southwest now preaches conservation and sustainability, sometimes very forcefully. Las Vegas has prohibited new front lawns, limited the size of back ones, and offers people two dollars a square foot to tear existing ones up and replace them with desert plants. Between 2002 and 2006, the Vegas metro area actually managed to reduce its total consumption of water by around 20 percent, even though its population had increased substantially. Albuquerque too has cut its water use. But every water manager also knows that, as one puts it, "at some point, growth is going to catch up to you."

Looking for new long-term sources of supply, many water managers turn their lonely eyes to the Pacific, or to deep, briny aquifers that had always seemed unusable. Last August, El Paso inaugurated a new desalination plant that will allow the city to tap one such aquifer. The same month, the Bureau of Reclamation opened a new research center devoted to desalination in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The cost of desalination has dropped dramatically—it's now around four dollars per thousand gallons, or as little as $1,200 per acre-foot—but that is still considerably more than the 50 cents per acre-foot that the Bureau of Reclamation charges municipal utilities for water from Lake Mead, or the zero dollars it charges irrigation districts. The environmental impacts of desalination are also uncertain—there is always a concentrated brine to be disposed of. Nevertheless, a large desalination plant is being planned in San Diego County. In Las Vegas, Mulroy envisions one day paying for such a plant on the coast of California or Mexico, in exchange for a portion of either's share of the water in Lake Mead. "The problem is, if there's nothing in Lake Mead, there's nothing to exchange," she says.

A more obvious solution for cities facing shortages is to buy irrigation water from farmers. In 2003 the Imperial Irrigation District was pressured into selling 200,000 of its three million acre-feet of Colorado water to San Diego, as part of an overall deal to get California to stop exceeding its allotment. San Diego paid nearly $300 per acre-foot for water that the farmers in the Imperial Valley get virtually for free. The government favors such market mechanisms, says the Bureau of Reclamation's Terry Fulp, "so people who really want the water get it." At that price, the irrigation water in the Imperial Valley is worth nearly as much as its entire agricultural revenue, which is around a billion dollars a year. But not everyone favors drying up farms so that more water will be available for subdivisions. The valley is one of the poorest regions in California, yet the richest farmers stand to benefit most from the sale. Many more people fear the loss of jobs and, ultimately, of a whole way of life.

Clock is Ticking on Las Vegas' Water Supply

"...Even if all of the water projects are finished and everything starts
working on time, the Southern Nevada Water Authority still predicts a
shortage.

That means by 2010, the valley will be short 64-million gallons of water a
day."

Las Vegas Water Supply Needs Alternative

"The news gets worse though. If nothing changes with the drought, Mulroy
says without a pipeline bringing drinking water from sources other than
Lake Mead, the equivalent of 256,000 people would not have water when
doing this in 2010.

By 2011, the gap in water use and water supply would affect 404,000
people. The problem rises to half a million people by 2012.

"Understand that we cannot conserve our way out of a drought -- totally,"
said Shari Buck, a Water Authority board member."

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Meanwhile:

Calif. Farmers Want to Sell Water

With water becoming increasingly precious in California, a rising number of farmers figure they can make more money by selling their water than by actually growing something.

Because farmers get their water at subsidized rates, some of them see financial opportunity this year in selling their allotments to Los Angeles and other desperately thirsty cities across Southern California, as well as to other farms.

"It just makes dollars and sense right now," said Bruce Rolen, a third-generation farmer who grows rice, wheat and other crops in Northern California's lush Sacramento Valley.

Instead of sowing in April, Rolen plans to let 100 of his 250 acres of white rice lie fallow and sell his irrigation water on the open market, where it could fetch up to three times the normal price...

The farmers looking to buy water are generally farther south in the San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles area and grow such crops as pistachios, almonds and grapes. Because of the heavy capital investment they made in their trees and vines, these farmers cannot afford to stop irrigating their crops and let them die. In contrast, rice, melons and tomatoes are planted anew each year.

Individual farmers don't actually sell their water themselves. Instead, their local water districts represent them in negotiations with other water agencies...

Water from Northern California rivers irrigates central California's farm fields and keeps faucets flowing in the Los Angeles area. But it must be shipped south through a network of pumps, pipes and aqueducts, and that system recently developed a kink when a federal judge ordered new restrictions on pumping to save threatened fish.

At the same time, Southern California's other main source of water, the Colorado River, is in its eighth year of drought...

Water on California's open market typically sells for $50 per acre-foot in wet years. But now it is expected to go for as much as $200. Farmers, however, pay $30 to $60, rates that are set under state and federal policy. (An acre-foot is enough water to cover an acre to a depth of one foot.)

Because of rising costs, the huge water agency for the Los Angeles metropolitan recently proposed a rate increase for next year of 10 to 20 percent on the water it sells to cities.

Some environmentalists are troubled by farmers' efforts to sell their water, and warn that such deals don't begin to address the long-term problem.

"Essentially these farmers are getting water for a subsidized price and selling it to taxpayers at an elevated rate," said Renee Sharp of the Environmental Working Group.