News Roundup #5: Grounded
News Roundup #5: Grounded
Groundwater, surface water and everything in between.
Welcome to Western Water Notes, and a happy official start to the summer.
I’ve got a news roundup this week covering some major developments across the West.
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1/ “ATTENTION: THIS DIVERSION HAS BEEN CURTAILED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE BY ORDER OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE IDAHO DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES.” This is the direct message hundreds of Idaho groundwater irrigators have received in recent weeks, some with red tags zip-tied to pumps in the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer, according to images posted by the East Idaho News.
On May 30th, Idaho water regulators issued a curtailment order to shut off water to about 500,000 acres of agricultural land, if irrigators did not come into compliance with established mitigation plans in 15 days, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.
The curtailment order applied to groundwater users whose pumping was forecast to create a shortfall for surface water users in the eastern Snake River Basin with higher priorities under “first in time, first in right” rules. By Wednesday afternoon, groups representing groundwater users and surface water irrigators reached an agreement to keep 330,000 acres in production. But that does not mean the issue is going away.
Here’s a quote from the chairwoman of the Idaho Groundwater Users Association:
“Without meaningful change to how water resources are managed over the coming months, we will find ourselves right back in this same position and all of Idaho will end up paying the price. We look forward to working with state leaders to chart a path that is in the best interest of the state moving forward.”
The Bigger Picture:
In many places, states allocated rivers and aquifers as separate water sources, even though they were physically connected. Fixing this problem is no easy task: How do you manage surface water and groundwater conjunctively in the context of science, narrow statutory frameworks, legal property rights, real political pressures and social realities? States (like Nevada) are recognizing the connections between ground- and surface water. But creating durable policy to implement conjunctive management is hard. It’s a question that’s not going away in Idaho and elsewhere. So stay tuned. I’ve got some future reporting planned to look at what’s going on in Idaho in more depth.
2/ In a 5-4 decision this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a settlement in a dispute over the Rio Grande, E&E News’ Jennifer Yachnin reported. The court agreed with the Biden administration’s arguments that the settlement, which was approved by the states and despite concerns raised by the federal government. “Legal observers have suggested the court’s decision could potentially grant the federal government new power to control the flow of water in drought-stricken regions — including the Colorado River Basin — by requiring states to seek the agreement of federal water managers when settling intra-basin disputes,” Yachnin writes. The Associated Press’ Lindsay Whitehurst summed up how the justices viewed the dynamic at play:
“Having acknowledged those interests, and having allowed the United States to intervene to assert them, we cannot now allow Texas and New Mexico to leave the United States up the river without a paddle,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, reading the majority opinion, which crossed ideological lines as it was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts.
In a dissent, Justice Neil Gorsuch said the United States’ theory about how water should be distributed between the two states is “so aggressive that New Mexico fears it could devastate its economy.” Joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett, he wrote that the high court’s ruling “defies 100 years of this court’s water law jurisprudence.”
3/ Water use in the lower Colorado River has dropped to a 40-year low, according to a new demand study released by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Circle of Blue’s Brett Walton dug into the details, looking at the reasons for the demand decrease and what it means as Colorado River negotiators continue to work on a water sharing deal that addresses overuse and a drier future. In 2023, Arizona, California and Nevada — the lower basin Colorado River states that draw from Lake Mead — consumed only 5.8 million acre-feet. That’s the lowest amount since 1983, 13% less than the prior year.
About those negotiations, KUNC’s Alex Hager has an update.
The Water Knife, nine years later. A Q&A in the Salt Lake Tribune with its author.
4/ Earlier this week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom started the process of returning 2,800 acres of land to the Shasta Indian Nation, the Arizona Republic’s Debra Utacia Krol reported. The sacred and culturally significant lands were submerged by a dam on the Klamath River in the early 1900s. The return of these seized lands is part of the largest dam-removal project in the country. The transfer is expected to be finalized in the coming months with a series of legal agreements. Shasta Indian Nation Chairman Janice Crowe told the Republic: "Now we can return home, return to culture, return to ceremony and begin to weave a new story for the next generation of Shasta, who will get to call our ancestral lands home once again. This is justice for Shasta people."
5/ The California Fish and Game Commission approved white sturgeon, North America’s largest freshwater fish, as a candidate for protection under the state Endangered Species Act, CalMatters’ Rachel Becker reports. The commission’s decision kickstarts a review by the Department of Fish and Wildlife to make an assessment about whether it warrants threatened or endangered status. While the review is pending, regulators will manage the sturgeon as though it is protected.
6/ It’s said you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and it turns out only a very small number of California’s rivers are measured. “New research by UC Berkeley scientists has found that only 8% of the state’s rivers and streams are equipped with gauges — devices that measure the level and rate of movement of water.” the L.A. Times Ian James reported this week. The study was published in Nature Sustainability.
7/ Environmental regulators are pushing the U.S. Air Force and Arizona National Guard to cleanup “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, near Tucson. The Arizona Republic’s Sarah Lapidus has more in a story from last week: “To prevent the contaminations' further migration towards city wells, the agency gave the Air Force and the Air National Guard 60 days to develop a remediation plan. The Morris Air National Guard Base leading the remediation project did not respond to requests for comment.”
8/ Thousands of residents in California’s San Joaquin Valley could lose access to hauled water if state lawmakers cut emergency funding to fix a budget hole. SJV Water’s Lois Henry reports that “a local nonprofit that has been hauling water to those residents sent a letter recently to Governor Gavin Newsom and top leaders in the Legislature begging them to reinstate the money in the ongoing budget negotiations.”
Water is coming down
One last thing: A recent photo from Dry Pond Loop outside of Reno.
There was a lot of water in the creeks, and it was a beautiful time to be outside.
Until next time,
Daniel