The Shoshone hydro plant in Glenwood Canyon, captured here in June 2018, uses water diverted from the Colorado River to make power, and it controls a key water right on the Western Slope and that right is in the process of being acquired by the Colorado River Water Conservation District. Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
In their board meetings this month, the Clifton Water District and Grand Valley Water Users Association kicked in $250,000 and $100,000, respectively, toward the Colorado River District’s proposed purchase of the rights. The Orchard Mesa Irrigation District and Grand Valley Irrigation Co. have also informally agreed to financially support the effort and are awaiting final action in upcoming board meetings, according to a new release from the river district…
Clifton Water serves nearly 13,000 domestic taps. On the Western Slope De Beque, Silt, Parachute, Battlement Mesa and Rifle also rely on the river as their primary supply of drinking water. Grand Valley Water Users Association delivers irrigation water to more than 22,000 acres within its boundaries and more than 42,000 acres in the Grand Valley…
The river district also hopes to secure about half of the money for the purchase from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the form of Inflation Reduction Act funds. Sealing the deal also is contingent on negotiating an instream flow agreement between the Xcel, the river district and the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and Xcel receiving approval from the state Public Utilities Commission for the dispersal of profits from the sale.
The Blanca massif, located just south of Great Sand Dunes, has been been a landmark for people for thousands of years. The #SnowMoon rising behind it is the full moon that occurs each February.
Arkansas Valley Conduit map via the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District (Chris Woodka) June 2021.
Click the link to read the release on the Reclamation website (Anna Perea and Darryl Asher):
Feb 29, 2024
LOVELAND, Colo. — The Bureau of Reclamation has awarded a contract for the construction of water treatment and connection facilities for the Arkansas Valley Conduit Project to Thalle Construction for $28,710,676. This contract, partially funded by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, funds construction of a backflow preventor connecting the main trunkline to Pueblo Water’s system, and a treatment facility to address specific water treatment needs for the Project.
The backflow preventer will be constructed at 36th Lane and U.S. Highway 50, east of Pueblo. The treatment facility will be located along the AVC pipeline route about 4 miles east of 36th Lane. The treatment process will prepare the water for conveyance through the trunkline to Project communities and ensure compatibility of the water with the AVC participants’ water systems.
“We’re extremely pleased to be able to move forward with multiple features of the Arkansas Valley Conduit,” said Jeff Rieker, Eastern Colorado Area Office Manager. “The momentum of making this connection to the eastern end of Pueblo’s water system while downstream pipes are being placed and additional designs are being developed really speaks to the collaborative efforts of all those involved.”
A 2022 three-party contract between Reclamation, Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District Board and the Pueblo Board of Water Works (Pueblo Water), eliminates the need for over 24 miles of pipeline by utilizing Pueblo Water’s existing infrastructure. The water will be either Fryingpan-Arkansas Project water or from participants’ water portfolios, not from Pueblo Water’s resources.
“This is another important step forward for the Arkansas Valley Conduit, and vital to begin providing high-quality drinking water to the people of the Lower Arkansas Valley. The Southeastern District has tremendous appreciation for the work that Reclamation and our congressional delegation have done to keep this project moving forward,” said Bill Long, President, Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District.
In addition to the contract for these facilities, in January, Reclamation awarded a $4.6 million contract to Central Geotechnical Services, LLC to locate and complete subsurface utility engineering surveys for underground utilities along a 34-mile stretch of the Arkansas Valley Conduit. Colorado legislation, SB 18-167, enacted in 2018, set new standards for entities conducting underground excavation.
Arkansas River Basin via The Encyclopedia of Earth
Oak Flat, Arizona features groves of Emory oak trees, canyons, and springs. This is sacred land for the San Carlos Apache tribe. Resolution Copper (Rio Tinto subsidiary) lobbied politicians to deliver this National Forest land to the company with the intent to build a destructive copper mine. By SinaguaWiki – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98967960
“This is our land,” said [Verlon] Jose, whose tribe [Tohono O’odham Nation] includesroughly 38,000 members across southern Arizona and northern Mexico. “It should all be protected.”
[…]
Jose is one of several tribal leaders nationwide who are growing frustrated with the Biden administration and its ambitious plans for clean-energy projects that could affect their ancestral lands. While the White House has worked to repair the federal government’s relationships with Indigenous peoples, that effort is conflicting with another Biden priority: expediting projects essential for the energy transition…The SunZia transmission line is one of those projects. Once complete, the power line would carry clean electricity from massive wind farms in New Mexico to more-populated areas as far away as California. The Biden administration has championed SunZia as a key pillar of its plans for fighting climate change and boosting green energy, and has defended its engagement with area tribes…
“We do not disagree with renewable energy,” Jose said. “We are for renewable energy. You know what the fix to this issue is? They could have rerouted it. But they didn’t listen.”
[…]
About 70 miles east of Phoenix, one of the tribes fighting SunZia — the San Carlos Apache — is also working to stop a proposed copper mine on land that it considers sacred. In Nevada, some tribal activists are opposing one of the world’s largest mines for lithium, a mineral crucial to the development of batteries for electric vehicles.And in Oklahoma, a federal judge recently took the rare step of ordering the removal of a wind farm on Osage Nation land.
There’s a flaw in the plan. It’s not a small one: it is an Earth-sized hole in our calculations. To keep pace with the global demand for food, crop production needs to grow by at least 50% by 2050. In principle, if nothing else changes, this is feasible, thanks mostly to improvements in crop breeding and farming techniques. But everything else is going to change.
Even if we set aside all other issues – heat impacts, soil degradation, epidemic plant diseases accelerated by the loss of genetic diversity – there is one which, without help from any other cause, could prevent the world’s people from being fed. Water.
A paper published in 2017 estimated that to match crop production to expected demand, water use for irrigation would have to increase by 146% by the middle of this century. One minor problem. Water is already maxed out.
In general, the dry parts of the world are becoming drier, partly through reduced rainfall; partly through declining river flow as mountain ice and snow retreats; and partly through rising temperatures causing increased evaporation and increased transpiration by plants. Many of the world’s major growing regions are now threatened by “flash droughts”, in which hot and dry weather sucks moisture from the soil at frightening speed. Some places, such as the southwest of the US, now in its 24th year of drought, may have switched permanently to a drier state. Rivers fail to reach the sea, lakes and aquifers are shrinking, species living in freshwater are becoming extinct at roughly five times the rate of species that live on land and major cities are threatened by extreme water stress.
Already, agriculture accounts for 90% of the world’s freshwater use. We have pumped so much out of the ground that we’ve changed the Earth’s spin. The water required to meet growing food demand simply does not exist.
That 2017 paper should have sent everyone scrambling. But as usual, it was ignored by policymakers and the media. Only when the problem arrives in Europe do we acknowledge that there’s a crisis. But while there is understandable panic about the drought in Catalonia and Andalusia, there’s an almost total failure among powerful interests to acknowledge that this is just one instance of a global problem, a problem that should feature at the top of the political agenda.
Though drought measures have triggered protests in Spain, this is far from the most dangerous flashpoint. The catchment of the Indus river is shared by three nuclear powers – India, Pakistan and China – and several highly unstable and divided regions already afflicted by hunger and extreme poverty. Today, 95% of the river’s dry season flow is extracted, mostly for irrigation. But water demand in both Pakistan and India is growing rapidly. Supply – temporarily boosted by the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush – will, before long, peak and then go into decline.
Uprooted almond trees, destroyed for lack of water, lie in a field in Huron, California, in July 2021. Credit: Phys.org
Even under the most optimistic climate scenario, runoff from Asian glaciers is expected to peak before mid-century, and glacier mass will shrink by about 46% by 2100. Some analysts see water competition between India and Pakistan as a major cause of the repeated conflicts in Kashmir. But unless a new Indus waters treaty is struck, taking falling supplies into account, this fighting could be a mere prelude for something much worse.
There’s a widespread belief that these problems can be solved simply by enhancing the efficiency of irrigation: huge amounts of water are wasted in agriculture. So let me introduce you to the irrigation efficiency paradox. As better techniques ensure that less water is required to grow a given volume of crops, irrigation becomes cheaper. As a result, it attracts more investment, encourages farmers to grow thirstier, more profitable plants, and expands across a wider area. This is what happened, for instance, in the Guadiana river basin in Spain, where a €600m investment to reduce water use by improving the efficiency of irrigation has instead increased it.
A center pivot irrigates a field in the San Luis Valley, where the state is warming farmers that a well shut-down could come much sooner than expected. Credit: Jerd Smith via Water Education Colorado
You can overcome the paradox through regulation: laws to limit both total and individual water consumption. But governments prefer to rely on technology alone. Without political and economic measures, it doesn’t work.
Kansas Aqueduct route via Circle of Blue
Nor are other technofixes likely to solve the problem. Governments are planning massive engineering schemes to pipe water from one place to another. But climate breakdown and rising demand ensure that many of the donor regions are also likely to run dry. Water from desalination plants typically costs five or 10 times as much as water from the ground or the sky, while the process requires masses of energy and generates great volumes of toxic brine.
Much of the agricultural production in the Republican River Basin supports livestock sectors, including this dairy near Holyoke. Photo/Allen Best
Above all, we need to change our diets. Those of us with dietary choice (in other words, the richer half of the world’s population) should seek to minimise the water footprint of our food. With apologies for harping on about it, this is yet another reason to switch to an animal-free diet, which reduces both total crop demand and, in most cases, water use. The water demand of certain plant products, especially almonds and pistachios in California, has become a major theme in the culture wars, as rightwing influencers attack plant-based diets. But, excessive as the watering of these crops is, more than twice as much irrigation water is used in California to grow forage plants to feed livestock, especially dairy cows. Dairy milk has much higher water demand even than the worst alternative (almond milk), and is astronomically higher than the best alternatives, such as oat or soya milk.
This is not to give all plant products a free pass: horticulture can make massive demands on water supplies. Even within a plant-based diet, we should be switching from some grains, vegetables and fruit to others. Governments and retailers should help us through a combination of stronger rules and informative labelling.
Instead, they do the opposite. Last month, at the behest of the EU’s agricultural commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, the European Commission deleted from its new climate plan the call to incentivise “diversified” (animal-free) protein sources. Regulatory capture is never stronger than in the food and farming sector.
I hate to pile yet more on to you, but some of us have to try to counter the endless bias against relevance in politics and most of the media. This is yet another of those massive neglected issues, any one of which could be fatal to peace and prosperity on a habitable planet. Somehow, we need to recover our focus.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Join George Monbiot for a Guardian Live online event on Wednesday 8 May 2024 at 8pm BST. He will be talking about his new book, The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism. Book tickets here
The 2023-24 El Niño has peaked as one of the five strongest on record. It is now gradually weakening but it will continue to impact the global climate in the coming months, fuelling the heat trapped by greenhouse gases from human activities. Above normal temperatures are predicted over almost all land areas between March and May.
Key messages
El Niño peaked in December as one of five strongest on record
El Niño and climate change fuel record temperatures and extreme events
Global ocean temperatures are record high
Early warnings and climate services save lives and livelihoods
Photo credit: World Meteorological Organization
A new Update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says there is about a 60% chance of El Niño persisting during March-May and a 80% chance of neutral conditions (neither El Niño or La Niña) in April to June. There is a chance of La Niña developing later in the year, but the odds are currently uncertain.
El Niño occurs on average every two to seven years, and typically last nine to 12 months. It is a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with warming of the ocean surface in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It influences weather and storm patterns in different parts of the world. But it takes place in the context of a climate being changed by human activities.
“Every month since June 2023 has set a new monthly temperature record – and 2023 was by far the warmest year on record. El Niño has contributed to these record temperatures, but heat-trapping greenhouse gases are unequivocally the main culprit,” says WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
“Ocean surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific clearly reflect El Niño. But sea surface temperatures in other parts of the globe have been persistently and unusually high for the past 10 months. The January 2024 sea-surface temperature was by far the highest on record for January. This is worrying and can not be explained by El Niño alone,” says Celeste Saulo.
El Niño typically has the greatest impact on the global climate in the second year of its development – in this instance 2024.
The continuing, albeit weaker, El Niño and predicted above-normal sea-surface temperatures over much of the global oceans are expected to lead to above-normal temperatures over almost all land areas in the next three months, and influence regional rainfall patterns, according to a Global Seasonal Climate Update issued by WMO to accompany its El Niño/La Niña Update.
Early warnings save lives
The current El Niño event, which developed in June 2023, was at its strongest between November and January. It displayed a peak value of about 2.0 °C above the 1991 to 2020 average sea surface temperature for the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean. This made it one of the five strongest El Nino events ever, though it was weaker than the 1997/98 and 2015/2016 events.
El Niño is mainly a seasonal climate phenomenon with climate impacts on seasonal climate averages but can make extreme weather and climate-events more likely in certain regions. Furthermore, the seasonal forecasts are found to be more accurate during El Niño and La Niña events, particularly in the tropics, and this emphasizes the pivotal role of early warnings to support decision-making and enhance preparedness and anticipatory action.
El Niño is associated with increased rainfall triggering flooding in the Horn of Africa and the southern United States of America, and unusually dry and warm conditions in South East Asia, Australia and southern Africa. It has exacerbated drought in northern South America and has also contributed to drier and warmer conditions in parts of southern Africa.
“El Niño events have a major impact on societies and economies. Accurate seasonal forecasts from the WMO community helped countries prepare in advance to try to limit the damage in climate sensitive sectors like agriculture, water resources and health. Early warnings of weather and climate extremes associated with El Niño have saved countless lives,” said Celeste Saulo.
Credit: World Meteorological Organization
Global Seasonal Climate Update
El Niño and La Niña are major – but not the only – drivers of the Earth’s climate system.
In addition to the long-established ENSO Update, WMO now also issues regular Global Seasonal Climate Updates (GSCU), which incorporate influences of other climate phenomenon such as the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Arctic Oscillation and the Indian Ocean Dipole.
The Global Seasonal Climate Update says that Positive temperature anomalies are expected over almost the entire Northern Hemisphere except in the far south-eastern part of North America, as well as over most of the land areas in the Southern Hemisphere.
Predictions for rainfall in the forthcoming three months (March to May) are similar to some of the canonical rainfall patterns associated with El Niño.
The WMO El Niño/La NIña and Global Seasonal Climate Updates as part of the Early Warnings for All initiative are based on forecasts from WMO Global Producing Centres of Long-Range Forecasts and are available to support governments, the United Nations, humanitarian agencies and decision-makers to mobilize preparations and protect lives and livelihoods.
National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) will closely monitor the situation in the months to come and provide updated outlooks on the dissipation of El Niño and the possible development of La Niña. Uncertainty is typically greater in long-lead forecasts made during the boreal spring and early summer.
How is snow made? – Tenley, age 7, Rockford, Michigan
The thought of snow can conjure up images of powdery slopes, days out of school or hours of shoveling. For millions of people, it’s an inevitable part of life – but you may rarely stop to think about what made the snow.
Clouds form when air near the Earth’s surface rises. This happens when sunlight warms the ground and the air closest to it, just like the Sun can warm your face on a cold winter day.
When temperatures are well below freezing on the ground, the clouds are primarily made of water in the form of ice. Under 32 degrees Fahrenheit – that’s zero degrees Celsius – the frozen water molecules arrange themselves into a hexagonal, or six-sided, crystalline shape. As ice crystals grow and clump together, they become too heavy to stay aloft. With the help of gravity, they begin to fall back down through and eventually out of the cloud.
What these ice crystals look like once they reach land depends on the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere. As the humidity – or the amount of water vapor in the cloud – increases, some of the ice crystals will grow intricate arms at their six corners. That branching process creates what we think of as the characteristic shapes of snowflakes.
No two ice crystals take the same path through a cloud. Instead, every ice crystal experiences different temperatures and humidities as it travels through the cloud, whether going up or down. The ever-changing conditions, combined with the infinite number of paths the crystals could take, result in a unique growth history and crystalline shape for each and every snowflake. This is why you’ve likely heard the saying, “No two snowflakes are exactly alike.”
Many times, these differences are visible to the naked eye; sometimes a microscope is required to tell them apart. Either way, scientists who study clouds and snow can examine a snowflake and ultimately understand the path it took through the cloud to land on your hand.
When snow falls from the sky, you don’t usually see individual ice crystals, but rather clumps of crystals stuck together. One way ice crystals aggregate is through what’s called mechanical interlocking. When ice crystals bump into each other, crystals with intricate branches and arms intertwine and stick to others.
This mechanism is the main sticking process in cooler, drier conditions – what people call a “dry snow.” The result is a snow perfect for skiing, and easily picked up by the wind, but that won’t hold together when formed into a snowball.
The second way to stick ice crystals together is to warm them up a bit. When ice crystals fall through a region of cloud or atmosphere where the temperature is slightly above freezing, the edges of the crystals start to melt. Just a tiny bit of liquid water allows ice crystals that bump into each other to stick together very efficiently, almost like glue.
The result? Large clumps of ice crystals falling from the sky, what we call a “wet snow” – less than ideal for hitting the slopes but perfect for building a snowman.
Snow formed in clouds typically reaches the ground only in winter. But almost all clouds, no matter the time of year or location, contain some ice. This is true even for clouds in warm tropical regions, because the atmosphere above us is much colder and can reach temperatures below freezing even on the warmest of days. In fact, scientists who study weather discovered that clouds containing ice produce more rain than those that don’t contain any ice at all.
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