Here’s the release from Denver Water (Stacy Chesney):
Officials from several of the West’s largest municipal water agencies today joined forces with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) to find a long-term, systematic solution to the potential long-term imbalance between the Colorado River’s future supply and projected demands.
In the Colorado River Basin Water Supply & Demand Study released last December, Reclamation demonstrated through modeling efforts a possible long-term resource imbalance that could seriously affect both the region’s economy and the more than 30 million people who rely upon the Colorado River. Reclamation’s latest effort outlined three major areas — agricultural conservation and transfers, municipal/industrial conservation and reuse, and environmental flows — that will be the subjects of immediate focus. Municipal agencies throughout the Colorado River system have already taken steps in that direction, collaborating on several water efficiency and conservation projects to increase the river’s reliability both now and into the future, but have vowed to do more.
“The study underscores the importance of working together to meet our collective future water supply needs,” said Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) General Manager Patricia Mulroy. “While the solutions won’t be easy for anyone involved, the consequences of failure are too dire to ignore. All of us who depend upon the Colorado River — from the suburbs of Denver to the California coast — need to step up and meet this challenge.”
Denver Water CEO/Manager Jim Lochhead stressed that while cities alone cannot alleviate the river’s projected shortfall — municipal use of the Colorado River accounts for less than 15 percent of its depletions, while agriculture uses more than 75 percent — they must be involved in helping find solutions. As the study shows, the biggest driver of the potential imbalance is not increased use but rather reduced Colorado River inflows due to a warmer, drier climate.
“While everybody knows that this problem can’t be solved solely by the cities because we use a relatively small percentage of Colorado River water, that fact does not absolve us from our duty to use this resource responsibly and do our part,” Lochhead said. “We have already made great strides in water efficiency, and our work will continue. We want the agricultural and environmental interests to know that we’re in this with them, and we’re going to hold up our end.”
During the past decade, major cities throughout the Colorado River Basin have slashed their water use and found creative ways to extend their supplies through reuse and augmentation projects. Denver, for instance, decreased its consumption by 20 percent. In Las Vegas, virtually all indoor water is captured and directly or indirectly recycled, while community-wide conservation efforts have included the removal of more than 150 million square feet of grass. These efforts, combined with strict water use policies, reduced the desert city’s annual water consumption by 29 billion gallons during the past decade despite the addition of 400,000 new residents during that span.
All Central Arizona Project (CAP)-supplied municipal customers, including Phoenix and Tucson, have been successful in reducing per capita consumption by making significant investments in conservation, reuse and infrastructure. For example, average residential water use in the City of Phoenix has dropped by more than 26 percent over the past 15 years, while approximately 97 percent of Scottsdale’s reclaimed water is reused for turf irrigation or recharge efforts. At the same time, CAP, along with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan) and SNWA, has invested extensively in large-scale water efficiency projects such as the Brock (Drop 2) Reservoir, which has already saved more than 250,000 acre-feet of water.
In California, urban agencies have funded agricultural conservation measures to reduce the state’s use of Colorado River water by 20 percent over the last decade. In addition, through investments in water conservation and local supply management, including recycling, urban Southern California imports less water today than it did 20 years ago, despite the region having added more than 4 million people.
“Southern California has long been a leader in water conservation, having invested more than $300 million on water-saving projects and programs over the past two decades,” said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of Metropolitan. “Water-use efficiency remains a core element of our long-term water management strategy, placing equal weight on local and imported resource development.”
While conservation measures and investments have been effective, urban agencies acknowledge more must be done to reduce the anticipated Colorado River imbalance, which is largely driven by a decrease in Colorado River flows rather than increased demand but is projected to dwarf the total combined consumption of all of these cities. Still, CAP General Manager David Modeer said a continued commitment to conservation and coordination between the water agencies is critical to a cohesive basin-wide demand management strategy.
Solutions that offer the greatest potential to yield additional water supplies are also important.
“Augmentation projects and water conservation can restore the reliability and sustainability of the Colorado River to meet current and future water needs,” said Modeer. “These efforts are needed immediately and include feasibility studies and, potentially, legislation and policy development.”
The economic stakes involved are difficult to overstate. According to data compiled by the United States Conference of Mayors, the combined metropolitan areas utilizing Colorado River represent the world’s 12th largest economy, generating more than $1.7 trillion in Gross Metropolitan Product a year and supporting millions of jobs. [ed. emphasis mine]
“While people east of the Mississippi might look at this as a Western problem, the reality is that our national economy is integrated,” said Mulroy. “If these cities’ economies are curtailed by water shortages, the shockwave is going to be felt throughout the country.”