Water.....

[bodywhomper]

Where are you getting your information from?

All I have seen is they released a draft SEIS, that has a number of alternatives (because it must), and the Secretary has not chosen a preferred alternative.

My guess is that California is going to “win.” This will put a monkey wrench is a bunch of other projects and existing water delivery commitments in other states. And that the FSEIS and identification of the preferred alternative will be stalled until after the 2024 election.

[KQ]

Had to pull my pump over the weekend so as to avoid another clusterfuck like last year. Man that was a mess. Fortunately the river only got a little uppity.

[TBS]

Article from NPR about southern AZ farmers coming to grips with lack of water.
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/11766...colorado-river

Most of these farmers are conservatives. Growing cotton and alfalfa in the fucking desert. Now their century of taxpayer-subsidized overuse of Colorado River water is coming home to roost. So being the conservationists they are, they are going to deplete their aquifers.

“Daddy’s cotton grows so high
Sucks the water table dry
His rollin’ sprinklers circle by
Bleeding’ it to the bone”
—James McMurtry, Levelland

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Alfalfa for Saudi Arabian race horses.

[muted reborn]

They seem reasonable to me. Sounds like they are hoping everyone agrees to a plan soon so they can themselves make a plan for their future. They are starting to drain aquifers because at the last minute they got river water cutoff - I'd do the same if I was just about to plant. The article is superficial and doesn't really dig deep enough to judge them, IMO.

[Danno]

I don't judge them, it's the classic tragedy of the commons. Collectively, their actions may have been hydrologically irresponsible, but it's been a very slow moving train wreck, and if any single one of them said "you know, I am just going to give up my business and my use of water, and I am not going to sell it either, because this water use isn't sustainable" what would have happened? They would take a massive financial hit, and there would be zero impact. Not just a small infinitesimal impact, but literally zero, because someone else, a junior water rights holder, would just use their water.

[bodywhomper]

AZ has a range of interesting water rights holders. My small experience is with AZ farmers that established their rights when AZ was part of MX and their Mormon ancestors were intentionally emigrating out of the US. Currently, they are likely taking tribal water where the tribal diversions are downstream. I once had a convo with a senior regulatory permitting lead at the USACE who told me that he’s had to write two letters in his career describing how a project did not need a USACE permit and they were both for that farmer irrigation district. Both times were related to a river diversion structure. The second time was to divert the entire river under a “normal” perennial flows into an irrigation canal, leaving the river downstream of the structure dry until below the canal tail gate.

[Danno]

AZ has a range of interesting water rights holders. My small experience is with AZ farmers that established their rights when AZ was part of MX and their Mormon ancestors were intentionally emigrating out of the US. Currently, they are likely taking tribal water where the tribal diversions are downstream. I once had a convo with a senior regulatory permitting lead at the USACE who told me that he’s had to write two letters in his career describing how a project did not need a USACE permit and they were both for that farmer irrigation district. Both times were related to a river diversion structure. The second time was to divert the entire river under a “normal” perennial flows into an irrigation canal, leaving the river downstream of the structure dry until below the canal tail gate.

If they were in "MX" prior to 1848, any property rights they had under MX law -- including water rights -- were required to be honored by the US under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. It can lead to some strange scenarios.

[TBS]

I don't judge them, it's the classic tragedy of the commons. Collectively, their actions may have been hydrologically irresponsible, but it's been a very slow moving train wreck, and if any single one of them said "you know, I am just going to give up my business and my use of water, and I am not going to sell it either, because this water use isn't sustainable" what would have happened? They would take a massive financial hit, and there would be zero impact. Not just a small infinitesimal impact, but literally zero, because someone else, a junior water rights holder, would just use their water.

It’s a tragedy of the commons engineered by federal politicians as quid pro quo for campaign funding by their rich farmer constituents.

Farmers would switch to less water intensive crops if the feds would charge market rates for the water.

But they won’t because they are so used to sucking the federal teat while telling themselves they are self-made.

And so that land will soon become useless for millennia.

[Danno]

Oh there's lots of blame to go around

[TBS]

Agreed.

[J. Barron DeJong]

Nice infographic of Colorado River water usage from NT Times:



Maybe livestock feed could be grown somewhere with water? Just spitballing the obvious solution.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Maybe Saudi Arabian livestock feed could be grown somewhere with water? Just spitballing the obvious solution.

FIFY

[TBS]

Nice infographic of Colorado River water usage from NT Times:



Maybe livestock feed could be grown somewhere with water? Just spitballing the obvious solution.

Same for cotton.

[neufox47]

Nice infographic of Colorado River water usage from NT Times:



Maybe livestock feed could be grown somewhere with water? Just spitballing the obvious solution.

Eliminate ethanol corn from the Midwest and replace with animal feed…

[J. Barron DeJong]

Eliminate ethanol corn from the Midwest and replace with animal feed…

Fuck ethanol corn.

[muted reborn]

Ideally most people in the west would cut wayyyyy back on red meat consumption which clogs their arteries and drains their water supply. A bit of a self destructive cycle going on.

[J. Barron DeJong]

Ideally most people in the west would cut wayyyyy back on red meat consumption which clogs their arteries and drains their water supply. A bit of a self destructive cycle going on.

I don’t think most of the meat from the west stays in the west (?).

Maybe east coaster’s need to raise more beef for themselves.

[m2711c]

Lots more beef raisin’going on in the upstates as dairy declines.

[neufox47]

No one’s talking about the historic water deal?

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...for-california


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[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Ideally most people in the west would cut wayyyyy back on red meat consumption which clogs their arteries and drains their water supply. A bit of a self destructive cycle going on.

LOL Americans are just so ignorant when it comes to where their food comes from and who produces it. Anytime Big Ag sees their gravy train being threatened all they have to do is make some more commercials recycling the well used trope of the ma and pa farm being killed by big city politicians and it's all over for any meaningful change whatsoever.

The irony of course is Big Ag has been slowly killing the family farmers and ranchers for generations but ma and pa don't have the $$$ for commercials and the paid for faux news hits.

[J. Barron DeJong]

Sorry New York and New Jersey, you’re cut off.

[muted reborn]

I don’t think most of the meat from the west stays in the west (?).

Maybe east coaster’s need to raise more beef for themselves.

Top 10 states for beef, none are from the Colorado Basin

1. Texas - 4,300,000
2. Oklahoma - 1,981,000
3. Missouri - 1,945,000
4. Nebraska - 1,703,000
5. South Dakota - 1,533,000
6. Kansas - 1,315,000
7. Montana - 1,270,000
8. Kentucky - 895,000
9. Florida - 888,000
10. North Dakota - 876,000

[muted reborn]

No one’s talking about the historic water deal?

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...for-california


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Land Desk summarized it this morning:

"Details so far are sketchy, but here’s what we know:The Agreement:

• The Lower Basin states together will cut consumption by 3 million acre-feet over the 2023-2026 period, with at least 1.5 million acre-feet in cuts coming by the end of 2024 (there is no indication of how these cuts will be distributed across the states, but the Washington Post reports California will bear about half the cuts);
  
• Up to 2.3 million acre-feet of those cuts will be federally compensated by about $1.2 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funds. Most likely this means that farmers will be paid not to irrigate their crops.
  
  

So what’s wrong with this deal? I’ll admit that when I first read the stories on this, I was pretty damned impressed: 3 million acre-feet is good! Thing is, all those cuts are spread out over three years, meaning it’s only about 1 million acre-feet per year. That’s only half the minimum amount of cuts the feds say are needed to shore up the river system and its reservoirs. It just won’t cut it, so to speak, if the drying trend continues.
Furthermore, the deal clearly is meant only to be temporary — a stopgap, a band-aid — that runs out in three years. What happens then? Even if the agreement were to be extended, where would the billions of dollars come from to keep paying the farmers not to irrigate? What if the Republicans’ obstructive ways nix the payments? And what about the additional 700,000 acre-feet of cuts promised? Where will they come from? Or will that require a whole new round of negotiations?
I don’t want to be a party pooper. It’s great that the states came to an agreement and, yes, it is a solution, of sorts. But it’s not the sustainable, permanent one that’s necessary.
But who knows? Maybe this past wet winter and huge runoff isn’t an anomaly. Maybe it’s the new normal and big rains and snows will come regularly over the next 20 years, filling up the reservoirs, saturating the soil, and swelling the Colorado River into the muddy monster of yore. Maybe we won’t need these cuts after all. But I sure as heck wouldn’t bank on it."

[J. Barron DeJong]

Top 10 states for beef, none are from the Colorado Basin

1. Texas - 4,300,000
2. Oklahoma - 1,981,000
3. Missouri - 1,945,000
4. Nebraska - 1,703,000
5. South Dakota - 1,533,000
6. Kansas - 1,315,000
7. Montana - 1,270,000
8. Kentucky - 895,000
9. Florida - 888,000
10. North Dakota - 876,000

But where are they getting their feed from? I assume Texas isn’t growing all they need for themselves.

Edit: I’m getting way out in the weeds here.

Honestly doesn’t matter where the feed is coming or going. Colorado basin should cut back in water usage for cattle feed, and then things will redistribute as necessary (with a lot of yelling and complaining).