How can Holy Cross possibly leap this high? — @BigPivots #ActOnClimate #KeepItInTheGround

Mountain of the Holy Cross Creator: Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942. View of Mount of the Holy Cross in the Sawatch Range, Eagle County, Colorado. Shows snow on a mountain peak, rocky ridges and talus. Date: 1892? Credit: Denver Public Library Digital Collections

Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):

Glenwood Springs-based cooperative says it can leap from 50% emission-free energy to 92% by next year—despite owning a coal plant. Exactly how do this work? Is it a model for others?

Let’s start with the obvious. The sun doesn’t always shine and, except for springtime in Colorado, the wind doesn’t always blow.

So how can Holy Cross Energy, which serves the Vail, Aspen, and Rifle areas, achieve 92% emission-free energy in 2024? Last year it was 50%.

And if Holy Cross can do it, what is possible for utilities serving Crested Butte and Steamboat Springs, Holyoke and Crestone, Sterling and Pueblo?

By the way, Holy Cross still owns 8% of Colorado’s newest coal plant, Comanche 3.

Directors of Holy Cross several years ago adopted what seemed like the audacious goal of achieving 100% emissions-free power by 2030. Municipal utilities serving Aspen and Glenwood springs already have 100% renewables, but do not own their own generation.

I expected small steps. Wind and solar have become far less expensive than coal or gas. But what windless, sunless days?

Resource adequacy has become a major question in this energy transition. Coal plants, if sometimes down, are far more reliable than wind and sunshine. Now we’re hurriedly closing those high-priced and polluting plants. Natural gas can respond quickly to demand. However, those plants are costly and pollute, too.

Do we need more natural gas plants?

Colorado’s two largest electrical providers, Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission, both say they can reduce carbon emissions 80% carbon by 2030 as compared to 2005 levels. But both have refrained from embracing higher, short-term goals.

Tri-State, which delivers power to 17 of the state’s 22 electrical cooperatives, warns of ambitions outpacing realities. Duane Highley, the chief executive, likens resource adequacy to a “big bad wolf.” The Western Energy Coordinating Council in December warned that Western states risked having insufficient resources by 2025 to meet electric demand on the grid they share.

Storage will be crucial. Lithium-ion batteries, if increasingly more affordable, can store electricity for just a few hours. We need technologies that can store energy for days if not weeks. Xcel Energy will be testing one such long-term technology, called iron-air, at Pueblo. Colorado wants to be part of the elusive answer to hydrogen, perhaps using existing electricity infrastructure at Brush or Craig. And transmission and other new infrastructure, such that could allow Colorado to exploit the winds of Kansas or the sunshine of Arizona, can help—but remains unbuilt.

Holy Cross actually has the second lowest electrical rates among Colorado’s 22 electrical cooperatives. And its rates are 5% less than those of Xcel. This is not Gucci electricity, a Tesla Model X Plaid. The Aspen Skiing Co. and Vail Resorts make snow with some of Colorado’s lowest electricity rates.

Holy Cross Energy owned 8% of Comanche 3 when the coal-burning unit at Pueblo began operations in 2010, when this photo was taken, and it still does. It has assigned output of the power to Guzman Energy. Photo/Allen Best

Bryan Hannegan, the chief executive and head wizard at Holy Cross, laid out his utility’s broad strategy in recent presentations to both state legislators and the Avon Town Council. Holy Cross, he explained, will add new wind from eastern Colorado and several new solar-plus-storage projects within its service territory.

The cooperative also intends to integrate new storage in homes and businesses. It incentivizes home batteries that can be tapped as needed to meet demand from neighborhoods. Holy Cross also wants to integrate vehicle batteries, such as from electric school buses, in its efforts to match demands with supplies. Time-of-use rates will be crucial. This market mechanism aims to shift demands to when renewable electricity is most readily available — and cheapest.

Importantly, Holy Cross expects to achieve this high mark without need of new natural gas capacity. Many environmentalists loathe the idea of new and rarely used – but always expensive – natural gas plants. Most utilities see even more gas generation as necessary.

Speaking to the Avon council, Hannegan expressed confidence Holy Cross can meet growing demand from electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other uses. He called it “smart electrification.”

Holy Cross’s journey from 92% to 100%, though, will “be a bit of a doozie,” he said. He likened it to the climb from Camp 4 on Everest to the peak.

“We have to think about how we balance (supply and demand) at every location on our grid at every moment of every day,” he said. That “fine-grained balancing” will be “quite an engineering challenge. There is reason we have given ourselves six years” to figure this out.

What about that coal plant that Holy Cross still owns? Does that muck up the math? Can Holy Cross truly claim 92% ? And what prevents other utilities from following in its footsteps? These are questions I will ask Holy Cross and others in coming weeks.

Before Western States Suck the #ColoradoRiver Dry, We Have One Last Chance to Act — Bruce Babbit in The New York Times #COriver #aridification

Lake Mead, December 2022. It’s not about the bike. Photo credit: John Fleck/Inkstain

Click the link to read the article on The New York Times website (Bruce Babbit). Here’s an excerpt:

Instead of taking the lead, [the Interior Deparment] urged the seven states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — to figure out how to make the cuts themselves. Since then the states have engaged in futile discussions about how much water each must forgo. Tensions have been most acute among Arizona, California and Nevada, the three states that get their water primarily from large reservoirs instead of stream flow and therefore are the only ones who can be ordered to make reductions. Arizona and California, whose allotments are much larger than Nevada’s, should make the biggest cuts, but they have been sharply divided over how to carry them out.

This week, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland at last entered the negotiations over how the cuts — revised down to two million acre-feet — should be allocated. Her agency released a draft with three options, but it clearly favors one in which the water delivered to Arizona, California and Nevada is reduced by the same percentage for each state…

Coming to agreement will not be easy. To date, California has offered insufficient reductions in its water use, claiming that a federal law enacted more than 50 years ago — before climate change reared its head — places much of the burden of cutting back on Arizona. Arizona has responded that California’s proposal would effectively shut down water deliveries to Phoenix, Tucson and other cities, devastating Arizona’s economy…

Interior has some firepower to pressure the parties toward agreement. All water users, cities and farmers alike, that take water from Lake Mead must have a contract with the department detailing the terms and conditions on which water is delivered from the reservoir. A regulation known as Section 417 empowers the department to periodically review those contracts to assure that water is being delivered and used with maximum efficiency; contracts can be adjusted to reduce water use that is not absolutely necessary.

Nature is in crisis. Here are 10 easy ways you can make a difference

Australia’s rarest butterfly, the Australian fritillary. Garry Sankowsky, Author provided

Matthew Selinske, RMIT University; Georgia Garrard, The University of Melbourne; Jaana Dielenberg, Charles Darwin University, and Sarah Bekessy, RMIT University

Last month, Sir David Attenborough called on United Kingdom residents to “go wild once per week”. By this, he meant taking actions which help rather than harm the natural world, such as planting wildflowers for bees and eating more plant-based foods.

Australia should follow suit. We love our natural environment. But we have almost 10 times more species threatened with extinction than the UK. How we act can accelerate these declines – or help stop them.

We worked with 22 conservation experts to identify 10 actions which actually do help nature.

Why do we need to act for nature?

If you go for a bushwalk, you might wonder what the problem is. Gums, wattles, cockatoos, honeyeaters, possums – everything is normal, right? Alas, we don’t notice what’s no longer there. Many areas have only a few of the native species once present in large numbers.

We are losing nature, nation-wide. Our threatened birds are declining very rapidly. On average, there are now less than half (48%) as many of each threatened bird species than in 1985. Threatened plants have fared even worse, with average declines of over three quarters (77%).

Biodiversity loss will have far-reaching consequences and is one of the greatest risks to human societies, according to the OECD.

The small choices we all make accumulate to either help or harm nature.

Seeing common birds like rainbow lorikeets can make us think everything is fine in the natural world. John Morton/Flickr, CC BY

Our top ten actions to help biodiversity

1. Choose ASC and MSC certified seafood products

Two labels from the Marine Stewardship Council that tell consumers the seafood is a sustainable choice. — These labels tell you the seafood is a sustainable choice. Image: MSC/ASC, Author provided

Why? Why? Overfishing is devastating for fish species. By-catch means even non-food species can die in the process. Good wild fishery and aquaculture practices minimise impacts to biodiversity.

Where to start: Look for certification labels from the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) on seafood products where you shop. Certified products are caught or farmed sustainably.

2. Keep your dog on a leash in natural areas – including beaches

Why? Off-leash dogs scare and can attack native wildlife. When animals and birds have to spend time and energy fleeing, they miss out on time to eat, rest and feed their young.

Where to start: Look for local off-leash areas and keep your dog leashed everywhere else.

Walk your dog on a leash in natural areas so it can’t chase and scare native wildlife. Jaana Dielenberg

3. Cut back on beef and lamb

Why? Producing beef and lamb often involves destroying or overgrazing natural habitat, as well as culling native predators like dingoes.

Where to start: Eat red meat less often and eat smaller portions when you do. Switch to poultry, sustainable seafood and more plant-based foods like beans and nuts. Suggest a meatless Monday campaign in your friend and family group chat to help wildlife – and your own health.

What a delicious looking veggie burger! Reducing beef and lamb consumption is a relatively easy way to reduce your impact on nature, given the wide range of vegetable, poultry and sustainable fish alternatives. Theo Crazzolara/Flickr

4. Donate to land protection organisations.

Why? These organisations protect land in perpetuity. Donations help them expand and do important on-ground biodiversity management.

Where to start: Check out organisations such as the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, Bush Heritage Australia, Trust for Nature, and Tasmanian Land Conservancy.

You can help threatened species like this critically endangered mala by donating to private land conservations organisations that do on-ground biodiversity management. Wayne Lawler/Australian Wildlife Conservancy.

5. Make your investments biodiversity-friendly

Why? Many funds include companies whose business model relies on exploiting the natural environment. Your money could be contributing. Looking for biodiversity-positive investments can nudge funds and companies to do better.

Where to start: Look at the approach your superannuation fund takes to sustainability and consider switching if you aren’t impressed. You could also explore the growing range of biodiversity-friendly investment funds.

6. Donate to threatened species and ecosystem advocacy organisations

Why? These groups rely on donations to fund biodiversity advocacy, helping to create better planning and policy outcomes for our species.

Where to start: Look into advocacy groups like WWF Australia, Birdlife Australia, Biodiversity Council, Environment Centre NT, and the Environmental Defenders Office.

7. Plant and maintain a wildlife garden wherever you have space

Why? Our cities aren’t just concrete jungles – they’re important habitat for many threatened species. Gardening with wildlife in mind increases habitat and connections between green space in suburbs.

Where to start: Your council or native nursery is often a great source of resources and advice. Find out if you have a threatened local species such as a butterfly or possum you could help by growing plants, but remember that non-threatened species also need help.

Gardens can provide valuable habitat for native animals in urban areas and help them to move between larger habitat patches. Jaana Dielenberg

8. Vote for political candidates with strong environmental policies

Why? Electing pro-environment candidates changes the game. Once inside the tent, environmental candidates can shape public investment, planning, policy and programs.

Where to start: Look into local candidate and party policies at every election. Consider talking to your current MP about environmental issues.

9. Desex your cat and keep it inside or in a cat run

Why? Research shows every pet cat kept inside saves the lives of 110 native animals every year, on average. Desexing cats avoids unexpected litters and helps to keep the feral cat population down.

Where to start: Keep your cat inside, or set up a secure cat run to protect wildlife from your cute but lethal pet. It’s entirely possible to have happy and healthy indoor cats. Indoor cats also live longer and healthier lives.

cat hunting night — Cats are excellent pets – and excellent killers of wildlife if let loose. Shutterstock

10. Push for better control of pest animals

Why? Pest species like feral horses, pigs, cats, foxes and rabbits are hugely destructive. Even native species can become destructive, such as when wallaby populations balloon when dingoes are killed off.

Where to start: Look into the damage these species do and tell your friends. Public support for better control is essential, as these issues often fly under the radar.

Making a difference

Conservation efforts may seem far away. In fact, our daily choices and actions have a considerable effect.

Talking openly about issues and actions can help these behaviours and habits spread. If we all do a small part of the work and support others to do the same, we will see an enormous effect.

Matthew Selinske, Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University; Georgia Garrard, Senior Lecturer, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne; Jaana Dielenberg, University Fellow, Charles Darwin University, and Sarah Bekessy, Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning, Leader, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science), RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Climate Change Threatens Insects — And Us: Researchers warn we risk losing a sustainable future if we don’t take action to conserve insects and address #ClimateChange. They also offer solutions — The Revelator

The autumn darter is endangered in Japan. Photo: coniferconifer, (CC BY 2.0

Click the link to read the article on The Revelator website (Tara Lohan):

Maybe you’ve noticed summer night skies dimmed by the loss of fireflies, or a lack of bug splatter on your windshield. Or perhaps you’ve been urged to plant milkweed to help monarch butterflies recover. Those are just small glimpses at the insect declines happening globally.

In the United States research has documented American bumblebees down 90% since 2000. Moth populations have fallen 33% since 1968; the western population of migratory monarch butterflies has plummeted by 90% in the past 50 years. In Germany researchers measured a 76% reduction in the biomass of flying insects, and research in East Asia showed the summertime number of predator insects had fallen by 20%.

A look at the bigger picture isn’t much better: A 2019 study concluded that we could lose 40% of the world’s insect species to extinction in the next few decades.

This mounting body of scientific evidence prompted a 2018 New York Times story, “The Insect Apocalypse Is Here,” which caused a storm of media attention.

New research since then only adds to the concern. It also hones in on the additional pressure of climate change, which amplifies other threats already facing many insect species.

“We have enough data to know we are in a critical moment because many of the insects we know are declining, and Earth is experiencing transformations that will make it even more inhospitable to insects as we know them,” says Mariana Abarca, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Smith College. She’s the coauthor of a paper published in November in Ecological Monographs called, “Scientists’ Warning on Climate Change and Insects,” which summarizes the effects of gradual global surface temperature increases on insects, as well as the effects of increased extreme events.

“We warn that, if no action is taken to better understand and reduce the action of climate change on insects, we will drastically reduce our ability to build a sustainable future based on healthy, functional ecosystems,” the authors of the study concluded.

That’s bad news not just for insects but for all wildlife — and for us.

Life as we know it relies on insects doing what they do: pollinating plants, including three-quarters of the crops we eat and 80% of wild plants; controlling pests; breaking down organic matter and recycling the nutrients; and being eaten. Insects make up the base of the aquatic and terrestrial food webs. Salmon, birds, people — and countless other animals — would all go hungry without them.

How Bad Is It?

Are concerns of an “apocalypse” justified? The answer may be somewhere between “not sure” and “not yet.”

To be certain, we’d need more information.

“In order to know what proportion of insect populations are declining and how geographically widespread these declines are, we would need long-term monitoring data from multiple locations in the globe,” says Abarca. “Only a subset of insects in a restricted geographic range have been properly monitored, so of those, we know many are experiencing serious declines and that is concerning.”

But signs are strong that we’re headed into dangerous territory.

A butterfly on a butterfly bush. Photo: Michele Dorsey Walfred (CC BY 2.0)

“If we don’t change what we’re doing, the areas and groups that are declining will spread,” says Carol Boggs, a professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina, and another coauthor of the study.

The Threats

Climate change will hurry that process along.

Some of the biggest threats to insects are habitat loss and fragmentation, pollution, invasive species and land-use changes like deforestation, urbanization and industrial agriculture. Climate change adds another compounding layer.

Warming temperatures will force some species to migrate, but that’s a prospect that gets harder as we convert natural areas — and potential climate refugia — into roads, housing developments and chemical-intensive farms.

Most insects are ectothermic, making them unable to control their own body heat and therefore vulnerable to changing temperatures or moisture levels.

When temperatures get too high insects can suffer a range of injuries, including development failures and negative effects on longevity, dispersal and fecundity. “All of which can reduce their resilience in the face of climate change and in the worst-case scenarios lead to population crashes,” the researchers wrote.

Many insects also rely on temperature signals to initiate stages of life, including diapause, a necessary period when development is suspended in winter. More summer heatwaves or warmer winter spells could trigger mistimed biological cues, resulting in “trophic mismatch” where a lack of synchronous resource availability affects organisms’ survival.

“I’ve collaborated with Dr. David Inouye to show that early snowmelt in montane regions can lead to flowering plants starting to grow earlier; those plants’ flower buds can then get aborted due to late spring freezes,” says Boggs. “A lack of flowers leads to reduced egg laying by the Mormon fritillary butterfly, which leads to decreases in population. This phenomenon likely applies to other butterflies as well.”

Extreme Weather

It’s not just long-term warming trends. More climatic extremes can be dangerous for insects, too.

Climatic extremes pose “a short-term threat to insects, with long-term consequences for ecosystems,” the researchers write.

Heat waves can impair reproduction and fertility. Extreme rainfall and floods can dislodge insects from plants, change soil properties, and force those who live underground to come to the surface, increasing the risk of predation.

Drought also threatens insects and the plants they rely on. For example, the study found “a recent mega-drought in western North America had negative and long-lasting effects on montane butterfly communities that were comparable in magnitude to the combined effects of decades of habitat loss and degradation at lower elevations.”

Black-backed woodpeckers eat beetles on fire-burned trees. Photo: budgora, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

One exception may be wildfires, the aftereffects of which are a boon for wood-boring beetles (and the birds who eat them). Emergent vegetation after a fire can boost the understory and bugs attracted to that new growth — though even for these species, researchers warn, big changes to fire regimes can still be problematic.

But smoke from wildfires can also negatively affect some insects, a recent study found, including blocking antennal receptors in bees and decreasing flying abilities of painted lady butterflies.

Winners and Losers

That’s an important reminder that climate change won’t affect all species the same way — insects included.

Tropical insect species have been found to be at a greater risk than those in temperate areas, who are more adapted to a greater range in temperature. But insects in the coldest places, like areas in front of receding glaciers, also face habitat change.

Some insects could benefit — in some cases the ones we least want to see proliferate. Warming winter temperatures are leading to more forest and crop pests that were previously held in check by cold weather. In Hawai‘i native birds like the ‘akikiki, a kind of honeycreeper, are endangered by the avian malaria spread by invasive mosquitoes that are now increasing their range to higher elevations with warming temperatures.

“Winners tended to be generalist/invasive species, good dispersers, generally colonizing from downstream or downslope, such as grasshoppers,” they write. “Conversely, the losers are often specialist species, adapted to cold habitats, among which some were restricted to isolated glacier-influenced ecosystems.”

Taking Action

Despite a lot of concerning findings, there’s also some good news if we act quickly. “Most insects have short generations and lay hundreds of eggs, so they have a better chance of bouncing back than other imperiled animals, such as rhinos or tigers,” says Abarca. “I’m optimistic about the success of insect conservation programs — we just have to start them.”

Some of that can be small, like “microclimatic refugia.” This includes flower strips, hedgerows, woodlots, and diverse agricultural areas and cover cropping.

Wheat fields bordered with flowers to attract pollinating insects. Photo: Paul van de Velde (CC BY 2.0)

Insect needs also vary at different times of the year.

“Overwintering insects need the protection that leaf litter and organic debris provide,” she says. “It’s important to not only provide native flowers for pollen and nectar during the growing season, but also to let caterpillars and other larvae to eat the foliage of trees and to leave the leaves where they fall in autumn, so they host pupae until the following spring.”

People can help this process in their own yards by using a diverse mix of native plants, forgoing pesticides, sowing native wildflowers, limiting mowing and leaving plant debris on the ground.

“I would like to change the image of a neat, tidy yard as something desirable and replace it with the image of a rich, messy, biodiverse yard,” says Abarca.

We also need actions on a much larger scale.

“It’s vitally important that factors such as habitat loss and fragmentation, invasive species, intensive agricultural practices, various forms of pollution, and other stresses are fully integrated into conservation management approaches,” the researchers write. “Only in this way will declines in insects be stabilized or reversed.”

Curbing climate change will be needed to help insects, too. The study highlights a range of actions along those lines, including reducing and eliminating the use of fossil fuels, curbing short-lived pollutants like methane, restoring and permanently protecting ecosystems to safeguard biodiversity and store carbon, embracing a circular economy and growth within ecological limits, and stabilizing human population levels.

“Scientific progress alone is unlikely to result in desirable outcomes and needs to be paired with enabling policies, broad awareness-raising, and stakeholder education,” it reads. “The evidence is clear and the onus is on governing bodies to act now. With species and habitats being lost every day, a refusal or delay to act is not a wise choice.”

There’s also one more way we can all help: Tell stories about insects. “Insects are so different from mammals that we don’t typically connect with them,” says Abarca. “But once people learn more about their ways of life and their ecological importance, they change their minds.”

Biden Administration Considers Unprecedented Solution to #ColoradoRiver Crisis — EOS #COriver #aridification

The Colorado River flows from its headwaters region, near Parshall, Colo. Credit: Mitch Tobin, The Water Desk, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Click the link to read the article on the EOS website (Jane Palmer). Here’s an excerpt:

As Colorado River Basin states prove unable to reach a consensus in reducing their water consumption, the U.S. Department of the Interior is investigating an option that defies the Law of the River...

Consequently, as the states have been unable to reach a consensus, on 11 April the Bureau of Reclamation stepped in with a draft analysis weighing options for water use reduction. One option, which is aligned with the current Law of the River, considers making reductions based on the seniority of water rights. This strategy means that some users in Arizona would face drastic reductions, and the water allocations to the cities of Tucson and Phoenix could be slashed. California, however, would not have to make cuts.

“This business-as-usual approach means the lowest-priority users take the biggest cut, and that is surely not going to work,” said Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.

An alternative, unprecedented approach outlined in the analysis would be to divvy the cuts up evenly among the lower basin states, reducing the water allocated to California, Arizona, and Nevada. Everybody taking the same proportional cuts might be okay in the near term, but sustainability in the long term requires more targeted and thoughtful analysis, Schmidt said. “But if it’s an incremental step towards people saying that we have to move beyond the limits of the Law of the River, then it’s a first step,” Schmidt said. “And we have to start somewhere.”

Schmidt pointed out that the Law of the River has always progressively changed in increments, and the current situation, exacerbated by a warming climate, would call for further changes. “That said, it is important for the federal government to exert its leadership because the states have recently not been able to reach an agreement,” Schmidt said…

“It is time for a fundamental restructuring of how we think about water allocation in the Colorado River system,” Schmidt said.

Water levels at Lake Powell have plummeted to lows not seen since the days when the reservoir was filling for the first time. Credit: Alexander Heilner, The Water Desk with aerial support from LightHawk, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Melting snows make rushing rivers — The #Montrose Daily Press #runoff #snowpack (April 15, 2023)

Click the link to read the article on The Montrose Daily Press website (John T. Unger). Here’s an excerpt:

The graphs this week from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that the Gunnison Basin is at 161% of its normal snow-water-equivalent (S.W.E.). Interestingly, the Upper Colorado Headwaters zone is at 132% of its normal S.W.E. These “normals” are based on just the previous thirty years, twenty of which have been drought years here in the western U.S. But there is some elation in seeing the moisture now residing in the soils within our valleys, though it is said to be too wet to plant onions just yet. Of course, the soils in the backyards of towns such as Crested Butte are still hidden from sight, beneath five feet of settled snow still on the level…

How much of this melting snowpack can we capture and store this year? As reported by Katharhynn Heidelberg in Tuesday’s Montrose Press, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation states that Blue Mesa Reservoir’s actual live storage capacity is projected to be at just 71% by the end of the water year in September. That beats last year, anyway.

Closed Basin issues rise at #RioGrande Water Conservation District board meeting — @AlamosaCitizen #SanLuisValley

Sunrise March 10, 2023 Alamosa Colorado with the Rio Grande in the foreground. Photo credit: Chris Lopez/Alamosa Citizen

Click the link to read the article on the Alamosa Citizen website (Chris Lopez):

THE federal government’s Closed Basin Project reared its head at Thursday’s special meeting of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District board.

In question was whether Closed Basin water could be included in annual replacement plans as a potential resource for subdistricts to help offset winter depletions to the Rio Grande and Conejos River basins.

The majority of the board answered in the affirmative, with some dissent, and approved resolutions to that effect and then separately approved the respective annual replacement plans of the six subdistricts. Those now get filed with the state Division of Water Resources for review and sign-off and are key plans to show the state how Valley irrigators are replacing the water they pump out in efforts to bring sustainability to the Upper Rio Grande aquifers.

The meeting drew a crowd of water users along the Rio Grande and Conejos River basins, who had heard the subdistrict annual replacement plans were in jeopardy of not being approved because the plans included potential use of Closed Basin water. Without a board-approved annual replacement plan in place, irrigators wouldn’t be able to begin groundwater pumping, hence the turnout and pleas to the board to vote for the plans.

No annual replacement plan, no groundwater pumping, no Valley ag economy was the message the Rio Grande Water Conservation District board members heard.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation-managed Closed Basin Project, positioned in the northern end of the Valley, pools surface water and groundwater and pumps the water into a canal to meet Rio Grande Compact and Treaty of Mexico requirements.

In rulings from the Colorado Supreme Court, the water also can be prioritized for private use if there’s water left after meeting annual downstream obligations to New Mexico, Texas and Mexico, and delivering water to the Valley’s wetlands and wildlife refuges.

But rarely is that the case.

With the persistent drought conditions, the Closed Basin Project has reduced its pumping to about 12,500 acre-feet of water a year, said Amber Pacheco, acting general manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. Of that, about 4,000 acre-feet is used to protect the wetlands areas and the rest of the water, or around 8,000 acre-feet, heads downstream.

The Closed Basin has an absolute water right of 42,000 acre-feet annually if conditions allow for it, and pumping is constantly monitored because under federal statute the Closed Basin Project cannot withdraw water to a level two feet below the area being pumped.

“They can’t pump it dry,” Pacheco said. “The Closed Basin Project can’t operate that way.”

Pacheco said the Rio Grande Water Conservation District cannot use Closed Basin water for anything other than wintertime depletions. “We pay all our irrigation-season depletions by other means. We don’t use the Closed Basin for that.”

And despite there being plenty of water users who would like to see the Closed Basin Project shut down and the water kept in the San Luis Valley, including some members of Rio Grande Water Conservation District board, a vote to shut it down isn’t within the boards power.

“This board can’t shut down the Closed Basin. It’s a federal project. They can ask and make comments, but they can’t vote to shut it down.”

But the Rio Grande Water Conservation District can approve an annual replacement plan for a subdistrict that includes the option of using Closed Basin water to offset winter depletions. The meeting at least made that clear.

SLV WATER

Find more coverage of the RWR plan and other Valley water issues HERE

The headwaters of the Rio Grande River in Colorado. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

June 22 is the 2023 Watershed Summit. Mark your calendars for a fun filled day of water education and community. Registration will open May 1st — @OWOW_MSUDenver @DenverBotanic @msudenver

Big flows on #NewMexico’s #RioJemez — John Fleck (InkStain) #RioGrande #runoff

The Jemez River — downstream from Jemez Pueblo, in Sandoval County, central New Mexico. By Sharon Phelan Evans – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18260044

Click the link to read the article on the InkStain websire (John Fleck):

Ryan Boetel at the Albuquerque Journal has the latest in the morning paper on the big flows on the Rio Jemez, a Rio Grande tributary north of Albuquerque.

For non-Albuquerque readers, the Jemez flows through the Jemez Mountains northwest of Albuquerque. Its confluence with the Rio Grande is ~25 miles (~40km) river miles upstream from Albuquerque.

Measurements here are in cubic feet per second (cfs).

Flood stage measurements in feet are important for assessing flood impact, while cfs measurements are useful for water volume analysis, which is what I’m most interested in.

The highest flow since a specific date depends on the measurement used – flood stage in feet versus cfs – as the channel changes. So flood stage “highest since” will differ from cfs flow “highest since”

The red line on the chart represents daily flow in cfs. Yesterday’s the highest April 13 volume of water since the gage was installed in the 1930s.

Huge caveat: There are significant gaps in the dataset from spring 1941 to spring 1953. 1942? We’ll never know. So really the best way to characterize this is “a dataset that goes back to the 1950s”.

Yesterday’s average daily flow was 1,130 cfs, the highest daily flow since 1987, when the flow peaked at 1,440 cfs on April 19 and 20.

The all-time peak flow on record occurred on April 21, 1958, at 3,160 cfs. Yowza.

April 2023 #ENSO update: #ElNiño Watch — NOAA

Click the link to read the article on the NOAA website (Emily Becker):

Well, that was quick! Just two months ago I was writing about La Niña for what seemed like the 97^th month in a row, and then by March La Niña had departed. Today we’re hoisting an El Niño Watch, meaning that conditions are favorable for the development of El Niño conditions within the next 6 months. In fact, there’s a 62% chance of El Niño conditions for the May–July period. Read on for the reasoning behind the outlook, thoughts about the potential strength of El Niño, and implications for global weather and climate.

Let’s run some numbers

The March average sea surface temperature in the Niño-3.4 region, our primary monitoring region for ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation, the whole El Niño-La Niña system), was 0.2° Celsius (~0.4˚Fahrenheit) below the long-term average, according to ERSSTv5. This is solidly in the ENSO-neutral range, that is, between -0.5 and 0.5 °C difference from average.

Three-year history of sea surface temperatures in the Niño-3.4 region of the tropical Pacific for the 8 existing multi-year La Niña events (gray lines) and the current event (purple line). Of all the previous 7 events, 2 went on to La Niña in their third year (below the blue dashed line), 2 went on to be at or near El Niño levels (above the red dashed line) and three were neutral. Graph by Emily Becker based on monthly Niño-3.4 index data from CPC using ERSSTv5.

The atmosphere is also looking quite neutral, overall. In March, both the Southern Oscillation Index and the Equatorial Southern Oscillation Index were close to zero. Both of these indexes measure the strength of the atmospheric component of ENSO, via the relative surface pressures in the western and central-eastern Pacific. Negative index values indicate the Walker circulation is weaker than average, an El Niño response, while positive values tells us the west-east pressure difference is greater than average, indicating a strengthened Walker circulation—a La Niña response. Near-zero, like the current values, tells us that the atmospheric patterns are near average over the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Onward!

That’s where we are… but where are we going?? There’s a 62% chance that El Niño will develop during the May–July period, and more than 80% chance of El Niño by the fall.

NOAA Climate Prediction Center forecast for each of the three possible ENSO categories for the next 8 overlapping 3-month seasons. Blue bars show the chances of La Niña, gray bars the chances for neutral, and red bars the chances for El Niño. Graph by Michelle L’Heureux.

We spend a lot of time and effort monitoring and predicting ENSO because it can give us an idea about upcoming potential weather and climate conditions (and because it is a fascinating natural system!). When El Niño or La Niña are holding court in the tropical Pacific, they can affect global temperature and rain/snow patterns in specific ways, with the strongest impacts during the winter. Since ENSO can be predicted months in advance, we can start playing the odds on what sort of climate patterns can be expected. There is a lot of variety, and no prediction is ever perfect! But it’s currently the best tool we have to anticipate upcoming seasonal conditions.

I’ll get back to the potential impacts of El Niño in a minute—first, let’s discuss this confident forecast. Forecasts made during the spring are often less accurate than those made other times of the year. ENSO tends to change phase during the spring, and the tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere system can be more susceptible to smaller pushes like short-term weather variations, contributing to the “spring predictability barrier.” So it seems the forecasters are really feeling their oats this month, to be giving El Niño such relatively high odds. What’s behind this?

First, the latest runs from our computer climate models are providing very high probabilities that El Niño will develop this year. When there is a lot of agreement among the models, we tend to give more credence to their predictions. For some examples, here’re Niño-3.4 forecasts from the European multi-model ensemble, Australia’s ACCESS-S2, and the North American Multi-Model Ensemble.

But it’s not just model advice supporting the forecast. We always keep an eye on the temperature of the water under the surface of the tropical Pacific. After many months cooler than average, the amount of warmer subsurface water has increased over the past month as a downwelling Kelvin wave—an area of warmer water that sloshes from the west to the east beneath the surface—traverses the tropical Pacific.

Water temperatures in the top 300 meters (1,000 feet) of the tropical Pacific Ocean compared to the 1991–2020 average in February–April 2023. NOAA Climate.gov animation, based on data from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

This warm subsurface will provide a source of warmer water to the surface over the next couple of months and helps provide confidence in the forecast.

Further bolstering the chance for El Niño is a short-term forecast for the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). The MJO is an area of storminess that travels west-to-east along the equator. It’s flanked by wind anomalies, as surface level winds rush toward the area of storminess. The MJO is predicted to be in a phase that will weaken the trade winds (the consistent east-to-west winds near the equator) over the next couple of weeks. Weaker trade winds allow the surface to warm and can contribute to the growth or propagation of downwelling Kelvin waves.

One more observation supporting the potential development of El Niño is the currently very warm far-eastern Pacific. The Niño-1+2 index, which measures the sea surface temperature off the coast of Peru, was near-record warm in March. A coastal El Niño like this can precede a larger El Niño event, although not always.

To summarize, there are several signs pointing to the development of El Niño, including model predictions and the current state of the ocean and atmosphere. It’s still possible that a developing El Niño will sputter out, and the forecast includes around a 1-in-8 chance of neutral conditions in the late fall. However, from our current vantage point, there is enough evidence to support a confident forecast for El Niño.

How strong of an El Niño are we talking?

That’s a lot of support for El Niño developing, but how strong it will get if it forms is a different question. Some of the models are predicting pretty extraordinary Niño-3.4 values, but we put a lot less trust in those predictions—models tend to overestimate, especially in the spring. The ENSO team has a method of predicting the strength of an El Niño or La Niña event that combines human forecasts and model predictions. This method has shown promise so far, although we’ve only been using it for a couple of years. (Lots more detail in Tom’s post on the topic.) By that method, the current chance for a strong El Niño (Niño-3.4 greater than 1.5 °C) is about 4 in 10; a clearer picture of the potential strength of El Niño will develop as we emerge from the spring barrier.

What would an El Niño mean for global climate?

Right, I promised to get back to impacts! El Niño influences the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons, usually leading to fewer tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic and more than average in the Pacific. In the case of the Atlantic, El Niño increases vertical wind shear—the change in wind direction and strength from the surface to higher in the atmosphere—which can impede a hurricane’s growth. NOAA’s hurricane outlook comes out next month, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

You can check out some of the El Niño-related expected temperature and precipitation patterns during June–August and December–February here. We’ll get into more detail about these potential patterns in coming months.

One last comment! ENSO has a strong relationship with the global average temperature: in general, the warmest year of any decade will be an El Niño year, and the coolest a La Niña one. Global warming means that we can’t just say “El Niño years are warmer than La Niña,” since recent La Niña years (we’re looking at you, past 3 years!) have featured much higher global averages than El Niño years from the 1990s and earlier. 2022 was the 6^th warmest year since records began in 1880, and that was with a non-stop La Niña. If El Niño develops this year, it increases the odds of record-warm global temperature.

Map showing the March 2023 sea surface temperature difference from the long-term average. Figure by climate.gov from NOAA Coral Reef Watch data.

@Northern_Water increases #Colorado-Big Thompson quota to 70 percent #SouthPlatteRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver

Water from the Colorado-Big Thompson Project is delivered to water users north of Horsetooth Reservoir in this photo from summer 2018. Photo credit: Northern Water

Here’s the release from Northern Water (Jeff Stahla):

The Northern Water Board of Directors voted Thursday to increase its 2023 quota allocation for the Colorado-Big Thompson Project to 70 percent. Members voted 8-4 to increase the allocation from the 40 percent initial quota set in October.

Board members discussed the combination of this year’s above-average snowpack and streamflow projections contrasted against the lowest East Slope non-C-BT reservoir levels since 2013 and below-average soil moisture readings throughout much of the district.

Luke Shawcross, manager of the Water Resources Department at Northern Water, outlined water modeling showing the predicted storage levels in the project through the end of 2023 and into 2024, and he also discussed the available water supplies in regional reservoirs. Water Resources Specialist Emily Carbone and Water Scheduling Department Assistant Manager Sarah Smith also provided Board members with current water supply and availability data.

Public input was also considered in the Board’s decision.

While current soil moisture conditions on Northeastern Colorado farmland prompted several Board members to ask for consideration of a higher quota, others cited the uncertainty of future hydrology to support their approach this year.

The Board has been setting C-BT quota since 1957 and 70 percent is the most common quota declared. It was also the quota set for the 2021 water delivery season. In 2022, the final quota was 80 percent. Quotas are expressed as a percentage of 310,000 acre-feet, the amount of water the C-BT Project was initially envisioned to deliver to project allottees each year. A 70 percent quota means that the Board is making 0.70 acre-feet of water available for each C-BT Project unit, or collectively, 217,000 acre-feet.

The quota increases available C-BT Project water supplies by 93,000 acre-feet from the initial 40 percent quota made available in November 2022. Water from the C-BT Project supplements other sources for 33 cities and towns, 120 agricultural irrigation companies, various industries and other water users within Northern Water’s 1.6 million-acre service area. According to recent census figures, more than 1 million residents now live inside Northern Water’s boundary. To learn more about Northern Water and the C-BT quota, visit www.northernwater.org.

Screenshot of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project boundaries via Northern Water’s interactive mapping tool , June 5, 2019.

#Hayden sees worst flash flooding in many residents’ memory, and it likely isn’t over yet — Steamboat Pilot & Today #DryCreek #YampaRiver #GreenRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver

Click the link to read the article on the Steamboat Pilot & Today website (Dylan Anderson, Tom Skulski and John F. Russell). Here’s an excerpt:

Hayden’s Dry Creek certainly didn’t live up to its name Thursday, as flash flooding from melting snow crested its banks around midnight. The floodwaters closed streets, Hayden Valley Schools, the town’s parks and a 38-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 40 to start the day…Many Hayden residents — whether they are new to town or have spent decades in the Yampa Valley — said they had never seen flooding like this before. While for part of the morning there was a true sense of panic in town, many residents were quick to pump water out of their houses, and their neighbors were ready to help…

While Thursday’s flooding was significant, officials expect flooding to continue as snow keeps melting. Water in Dry Creek was starting to rise again Thursday evening…Hayden officials closed several streets on Thursday as well, with Third, Fourth and Poplar streets all seeing significant flooding. The water submerged roads, flooded garages and made its way into some people’s homes…U.S. 40 was closed to through traffic between Steamboat and Craig until after 1 p.m. Thursday, though the road was largely free of the flooding. Rather, CDOT officials were concerned about a key bridge just west of Hayden, and waited for an engineer to inspect it before reopening the highway. The bridge may eventually close the highway again if floodwaters rise overnight after a day of melting, DeMorat wrote in his update.

Fast-melting snow in #Colorado mountains sends #water to downriver reservoirs — with flooding along the way — The #Denver Post #runoff #snowpack #MancosRiver #YampaRiver #GreenRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Bruce Finley). Here’s an excerpt:

Mountain snow-melting intensified this week with an unusually abrupt “flick of the switch” from cold to hot, leading to flooding that on Thursday cut off northwestern Colorado’s main transportation route and forced a shutdown of schools. The statewide heat that brought Denver temperatures to 85 degrees, breaking two records, combined with mountain snowpack more than a third above the norm, also has boosted the potential for early replenishment of water supply reservoirs, including those along the Colorado River…

But rapid melting here and around the Southwest this week has brought higher-than-expected flows in rivers, such as the Mancos River in southwestern Colorado, along U.S. 160, and in the Yampa River in northwestern Colorado, along U.S. 40…Water in the Yampa and tributaries on Thursday gushed over banks and submerged a bridge near Hayden, forcing state transportation officials to close U.S. 40, the main transportation route in northwestern Colorado, between Steamboat Springs and Craig…

As the Mancos River swelled near Cortez, Montezuma County officials who had anticipated possible flooding in May or June suddenly faced those perils a month early.

The latest El Niño/Southern Oscillation (#ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion is hot off the presses from the #Climate Prediction Center

Click the link to read the discussion on the Climate Prediction Center website:

ENSO Alert System Status: El Niño Watch

Synopsis: ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere spring, followed by a 62% chance of El Niño developing during May-July 2023.

During the last month, above-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) became more prominent in the western and far eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. The latest weekly Niño-3.4 index value was 0.0ºC, but the Niño1+2 index value was +2.7ºC, indicating significant warming along the South American coast. Area-averaged subsurface temperatures also increased over the past month, reflecting the dominance of above-average subsurface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. For the monthly average, upper-level and low-level winds were near normal across most of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. However, low-level westerly wind anomalies were evident in the first half of March associated with subseasonal activity. Suppressed convection was evident over the central tropical Pacific and over parts of Indonesia. While the warming near coastal South America was striking, the basin-wide coupled ocean-atmosphere system was consistent with ENSO-neutral.

The most recent IRI plume favors a transition to El Niño, beginning June-August 2023 and persisting into the winter. While the lower accuracy of forecasts during the spring can result in surprises, the recent oceanic Kelvin wave plus recurring westerly wind anomalies are anticipated to further warm the tropical Pacific Ocean. The coastal warming in the eastern Pacific may foreshadow changes across the Pacific basin. Therefore, an El Niño Watch has been issued, and the range of possibilities toward the end of the year includes a strong El Niño (4 in 10 chance of Niño-3.4 1.5C) to no El Niño (1 in 10 chance). In summary, ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere spring, followed by a 62% chance of El Niño developing during May-July 2023.

#Drought news April 13, 2023: Record-breaking #snowpack conditions were observed in the Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, ranges of the #Colorado Plateau in #Utah and northern #Arizona, and in the central and southern Rockies of western Colorado, northern Utah, and southeastern #Idaho

Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Monitor website.

Click the link to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

This Week’s Drought Summary

This U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) week saw continued improvements on the map across areas of the West including California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and Utah. In the Plains states, drought-related conditions degraded in the southern Plains in Kansas and Oklahoma. In Kansas, the past 9-month period (July 2022-March 2023) has been the 4th driest on record, according to the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). In the northern Plains, the conditions on the map improved in response to recent significant winter storm events that helped to boost snowpack conditions in North Dakota where numerous weather stations broke all-time snow depth records for April, according to the North Dakota State Climate Office. In the South, a mix of improvements and degradation characterized the region’s drought status this week. Significant improvements were observed in South Texas, parts of the Hill Country, and the Gulf Coast regions where locally heavy rainfall accumulations (2 to 8+ inches) were logged. Conversely, areas of western Texas and the Panhandle saw continued degradations in response to short and longer-term precipitation shortfalls. In the Southeast, above-normal temperatures (4 to 8 deg. F) and generally dry conditions persisted across drought-affected areas of Florida. Further to the north in the Carolinas and areas of southern Virginia, improvements were made related to widespread shower activity, including some locally heavy accumulations (2 to 5+ inches), observed this past week. In the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, short-term dry conditions and widespread low streamflow activity led to areas of degradation in Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Looking at the latest climatological data released by NOAA NCEI, March precipitation across the contiguous U.S. ranked in the wettest third of the historical record (129 years) with well above-normal precipitation (falling in the top 10th percentile) observed regionally across much of the western U.S. including in California (7th wettest), Nevada (6th wettest), and Utah (3rd wettest). Meanwhile, drier-than-normal conditions for March were observed across much of the Eastern Seaboard including in Virginia, which saw its 8th driest on record. In terms of average temperatures, temperatures were above normal for March across all of the Eastern Seaboard as well as across the southern Gulf Coast states where Florida observed its 8th warmest on record. In the northern Plains and across the West, cooler-than-normal temperatures prevailed with notable anomalies observed in California (5th coldest), Nevada (5th coldest), Oregon (3rd coldest), and Utah (7th coldest). Looking at snowpack conditions across the West, record-breaking snowpack conditions were observed in the Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, ranges of the Colorado Plateau in Utah and northern Arizona, and in the central and southern Rockies of western Colorado, northern Utah, and southeastern Idaho…

West Drought Monitor basin-filled map April 12, 2023 via the NRCS.

High Plains

On this week’s map, deterioration occurred in the southern extent of the region in Kansas where both short and long-term precipitation deficits exist (ranging from 4 to 16 inches during the past 12-month period). Moreover, other drought-related indicators, such as surface and root zone soil moisture, are showing very low moisture levels (ranging from the 2nd to the 20th percentile) across Kansas as well as much of Nebraska, according to NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition Center (NASA SPoRT). In the Dakotas, deep snowpack conditions were observed this month as well as recent rapid melting which has boosted soil moisture levels significantly (leading to improvement on the map) as well as concerns over major flooding. Flood warnings have been issued for numerous rivers across the Dakotas as temperatures are expected to soar into the low 90s today (April 12) in southeastern South Dakota. According to NOAA NCEI, North Dakota logged its 32nd wettest March on record while Nebraska observed its 28th driest and Kansas its 14th driest. In terms of average temperatures, North Dakota observed its 5th coldest March and South Dakota its 16th coldest on record, For the 12-month period (April 2022-March 2023), Nebraska experienced its 11th driest on record while Kansas its 17th driest…

Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 11, 2023.

West

On the map, another round of improvements was made in drought-affected areas of California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and Utah this week. Looking at the October through March period, NOAA NCEI’s latest climatological rankings are showing above-normal precipitation in the West Climate Region (California, Nevada) as well as in the Southwest Climate Region (Four Corners states) coming in at 9th wettest (+6.31-inch anomaly) and 18th wettest (+1.83-inch anomaly), respectively. At a statewide level for the contemporaneous period, California ranked 10th wettest (+8.6 inch-anomaly), Nevada 5th wettest (+3.03-inch anomaly), and Utah 4th wettest (+3.71-inch anomaly). Looking at the latest region-level (2-digit HUC) snowpack data across the West, the NRCS SNOTEL network (April 11) was reporting the following median snow water equivalent (SWE) levels: Pacific Northwest 126%, Missouri 114%, Souris-Red-Rainy 84%, California 258%, Great Basin 246%, Upper Colorado 157%, Arkansas-White-Red 98%, Lower Colorado 417%, and Rio Grande 143%. In the Colorado River Basin, Lake Powell was at 23% of capacity and Lake Mead at 28% of capacity on April 11, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. In Arizona, the Salt and Verde River system reservoirs were 98% full as compared to 72% full a year ago, according to the Salt River Project. In California, the state’s two largest reservoirs, Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville, are 110% and 117% of their historic averages for the date, respectively. Overall, drought coverage (D1-D4 categories) in California on the map dropped to 8.79% this week as compared to 99.77% at the beginning of the Water Year (October 1, 2022). Likewise, drought coverage on the map in Utah went from 100% (October 1) to 35% this week, and in Nevada from 100% (October 1) to 23%…

South

In the South, drought-related conditions improved in areas of southern Texas in association with some locally heavy rainfall accumulations (up to 8 inches) during the past week. In other areas of the region, drought-related conditions deteriorated in isolated areas of western Oklahoma and Texas in response to precipitation shortfalls at various time scales, low streamflows (<10th percentile), poor groundwater conditions, and impacts within the agricultural sector. For the week, average temperatures across the region were below normal across Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas (2 to 10+ degrees F) while Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee were 1 to 5 degrees F above normal. According to NOAA NCEI, the past 12-month period (April 2022-March 2023) was the 5th warmest and 33rd driest on record in the South Climate Region. For March 2023, the region saw its 35th warmest on record with a +3.0-degree F anomaly and its 51st driest on record…

Looking Ahead

The NWS WPC 7-Day Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF) calls for moderate-to-heavy liquid (liquid = rain + SWE) precipitation accumulations ranging from 2 to 5+ inches across western portions of Oregon and Washington while lighter accumulations (< 1 inch) are forecasted for areas of the northern and central Rockies. The remainder of the West is expected to be generally dry during the next 7-day period. In areas of the Upper Midwest and Northeast, light accumulations (< 1 inch) are expected, while light to moderate accumulations (1 to 4+ inches) are forecasted for areas of the Gulf Coast states with the heaviest accumulations expected in southern portions of Louisiana and Mississippi. The CPC 6-10-day Outlooks calls for a moderate-to-high probability of above-normal temperatures across the southern and central Plains, South, Southeast, and the Northeast, while below-normal temperatures are expected across areas west of the Rockies and across areas of the northern Plains and Upper Midwest. In terms of precipitation, below-normal precipitation is expected across the far eastern extent of the Midwest and the southwestern portion of the Northeast region, while above-normal precipitation is forecasted for Plains states, Texas, and the northern two-thirds of the western U.S.

US Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 11, 2023.

Deadpool Diaries: tapping the brakes on #ColoradoRiver cuts — John Fleck (InkStain) #COriver

Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck):

I’ll need a few more days to digest all 476 pages of the Department of Interior’s Colorado River Draft Supplemental Environmental Environmental Impact Statement, but the top line numbers are worth sharing right away. The DEIS includes a couple of action alternatives, which I’ll briefly describe below, but what’s immediately striking to me is that Interior’s cuts are significantly less ambitious than the states’. Here’s a quick update of the table I built back in January comparing the proposal submitted by Arizona/Nevada/Utah/Colorado/New Mexico/Wyoming, and the California plan.

As you can see, the states were far more willing to cut more quickly, and more deeply, than the federal alternatives. The numbers are cuts, in thousands of acre feet, from the old pre-chaos baselines of 4.4 maf for California, 2.8 maf for Arizona, 300kaf for Nevada.

Tier	Elevation	6-state	California	DEIS 2024	DEIS 2025-26
Tier 0	1090	1,784	1,241	400	400
Tier 1	1075	2,156	1,613	1,066	1,066
Tier 2a	1,050	2,918	1,721	1,234	1,234
Tier 2b	1045	2,918	2,013	1,734	1,734
Tier 2c	1040	2,918	2,071	2,083	2,083
Tier 2d	1035	2,918	2,129	2,083	2,250
Tier 2e	1030	3,168	2,188	2,083	2,500
Tier 3a	1025	3,168	2,525	2,083	3,000
Tier 3b	1020	3,368	2,675	2,083	3,333
Tier 3c	1015	3,368	2,875	2,083	3,333
	1,010	3,368	3,125	2,083	3,333
	1,005	3,368	3,325	2,083	3,333

In addition to the, “whatever, let’s just crash the system”, the DEIS includes two alternatives….

PRIORITY ADMINISTRATION

Alternative one would allow the cuts in my “DEIS” column based on the priority system. This plan is similar to California’s, in that the brunt of deep cuts falls on others. At current reservoir levels, Arizona would be required to cut 1.2 million acre feet, while California cuts nothing.

SHARING THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Alternative two would spread additional needed cuts based on a pro-rata share of 2021 water use among all the users. At current levels, Arizona would cut 1.025 million acre feet, California would cut 1.067.

HOW IT PLAYS OUT

Contrary to that crazy New York Times headline (click soon, it’ll certainly change!) Interior isn’t picking a preferred alternative. These are really just starting points for a push toward a seven-state negotiation between now and summer.

Here’s how it plays out in 2024:

FUTURE YEARS:

In subsequent years, the cuts go deeper:

Roundup of news about the #ColoradoRiver SEIS from Interior #COriver #aridification

Colorado River “Beginnings”. Of the states that rely on the Colorado River, California receives the largest share of water. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

Click the link to read “Federal government considers major water cuts to protect Colorado River” on The Los Angeles Times website (Ian James). Here’s an excerpt:

The stakes in the decision are high for California, which receives the largest share of water from the Colorado River, as well as for Arizona and Nevada. Imposing an equal across-the-board cut would hit California harder, particularly in agricultural regions, while strict adherence to the water-rights priority system would bring larger reductions for cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation presented its alternatives as an initial step in a review aimed at revising the rules for dealing with shortages through 2026. Federal officials said that the proposals still could change and that a solution somewhere between the two options could emerge as representatives of states, water agencies and tribes continue negotiations on how to address the chronic water shortages.

“The prolonged drought afflicting the American West is one of the most significant challenges facing our country today,” Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said. “We’re in the third decade of a historic drought that has caused conditions that the people who built this system would not have imagined.”

[…]

The Bureau of Reclamation said it released its initial review of alternatives, called a draft supplemental environmental impact statement, to “address the continued potential for low run-off conditions and unprecedented water shortages” in the Colorado River Basin. Officials said they need plans in place to protect critical levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell and prevent them from dropping so low that the dams would stop generating power and water deliveries would be at risk…

The agency is revising the 2007 guidelines for its operations of Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam, which include measures for dealing with shortages through 2026 — but which federal officials say would no longer be sufficient if reservoirs continue to decline. The Biden administration released its options more than two months after officials from California and six other states presented two conflicting proposals for water reductions. Closed-door talks among state officials and managers of water agencies are set to continue while the federal government receives input on the proposals. And representatives of California, Arizona and other states pledged to continue working toward a seven-state consensus…

The Salton Sea (pictured above ) straddles the Imperial and Coachella valleys and has long been a sticking point in Colorado River deals. The Imperial Irrigation District holds the single largest water right on the Colorado River. (Source: Water Education Foundation)

Under one of the options, the federal government would consider making water reductions based predominantly on the existing priority system for water rights. That would mean smaller cuts or no cuts for agencies and entities that hold older senior rights, including agricultural suppliers such as California’s Imperial Irrigation District, which uses the single largest share of Colorado River water to supply about 500,000 acres of farmland in the Imperial Valley. Strict adherence to the water-rights priority system would also mean large cuts for junior water rights holders that started taking water from the river later, such as the Central Arizona Project, which supplies Phoenix, Tucson and other cities.

Under a second alternative, the Bureau of Reclamation would analyze the effects of reductions “distributed in the same percentage” for all water users in the three Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada. This approach would mean across-the-board cuts for all water users in the region, including senior water rights holders, amounting to a reduction of about 13% on top of cuts that were already agreed to under a 2019 deal. Agricultural irrigation districts, cities and tribes would all need to participate based on a schedule of reductions tied to the levels of Lake Mead. Beaudreau said this second alternative reflects the Interior secretary’s authority to “provide for human health and safety” and manage supplies under emergency conditions. If reservoir levels drop further and additional cuts are triggered, this approach would shore up the allocations of agencies with more junior water rights, such as cities in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California.

Both of these alternatives call for progressively larger reductions as the level of Lake Mead declines. The total amount of potential cuts in 2024, including reductions under existing agreements, could reach slightly more than 2 million acre-feet — a major reduction from the three states’ total apportionment of 7.5 million acre-feet.

Updated Colorado River 4-Panel plot thru Water Year 2022 showing reservoirs, flows, temperatures and precipitation. All trends are in the wrong direction. Since original 2017 plot, conditions have deteriorated significantly. Brad Udall via Twitter: https://twitter.com/bradudall/status/1593316262041436160

Click the link to read “Biden Administration Proposes Evenly Cutting Water Allotments From Colorado River” on The New York Times website (Christopher Flavelle). Here’s an excerpt:

After months of fruitless negotiations between the states that depend on the shrinking Colorado River, the Biden administration on Tuesday proposed to put aside legal precedent and save what’s left of the river by evenly cutting water allotments, reducing the water delivered to California, Arizona and Nevada by as much as one-quarter. The size of those reductions and the prospect of the federal government unilaterally imposing them on states have never occurred in American history…

The Biden administration is desperately trying to prevent that situation, known as deadpool. But it faces a political and ethical dilemma: How to divvy up the cuts required.

The Interior Department, which manages the river, released a draft analysis Tuesday that considered three options. The first alternative was taking no action — a path that would risk deadpool. The other two options are making reductions based on the most senior water rights, or evenly distributing them across Arizona, California and Nevada, by reducing water deliveries by as much as 13 percent beyond what each state has already agreed to…

Aerial photo – Central Arizona Project. The Central Arizona Project is a massive infrastructural project that conveys water from the Colorado River to central and southern Arizona, and is central to many of the innovative partnerships and exchanges that the Gila River Indian Community has set up. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=326265

If changes were based on seniority of water rights, California, which among the seven states is the largest and oldest user of Colorado River water, would mostly be spared. But that would greatly harm Nevada and force disastrous reductions on Arizona: the aqueduct that carries drinking water to Phoenix and Tucson would be reduced almost to zero.

“Those are consequences that we would not allow to happen,” Tommy Beaudreau, the deputy secretary for the Interior Department, said in an interview on Monday…

From the 2018 Tribal Water Study, this graphic shows the location of the 29 federally-recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin. Map credit: USBR

Another challenge with letting the cuts fall disproportionately on Arizona: Doing so would hurt the Native American tribes that rely on that water, and whose rights to it are guaranteed by treaty. Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community, which is entitled to a significant share of Colorado River water, said the goal should be “a consensual approach that we can all live with.” Spreading the reductions evenly would reduce the impact on tribes in Arizona, and also help protect the state’s fast-growing cities. But it would hurt Southern California’s agriculture industry, which helps feed the nation, as well as invite lawsuits. The longstanding legal precedent, often called the law of the river, has been to allocate water based on seniority of water rights…

The draft analysis did not formally endorse any option; a final analysis is expected this summer, and it could include still other approaches. But Mr. Beaudreau said he was “pretty comfortable” that allocating cuts evenly would let the department meet its goals — preventing water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell from falling below critical levels, protecting health and safety, and not exceeding the department’s legal authority. He defended the government’s willingness to depart from longstanding seniority rules about water rights, arguing that the shocks of climate change couldn’t have been predicted when those rights were agreed to decades ago. The proposal marks a new and painful phase in America’s efforts to adapt to the decades-long drought in the West. Until now, the federal government has responded to drought primarily by paying farmers, cities and Native tribes to voluntarily use less water.

The Colorado River from Navajo Bridge below Lee’s Ferry and Glen Canyon Dam. The proposed Marble Canyon Dam would have been just downstream from here. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

Click the link to read “Colorado River cities and farms face dire trade-offs with new federal review” on The Washington Post website (Joshua Partlow). Here’s an excerpt:

Interior officials also defended Secretary Deb Haaland’s right to make cuts in a proportional way in times of emergency even if that goes against water rights held by farming communities from more than a century ago…

the Lower Basin “structural deficit”, reified. Photo credit: John Fleck

Through the windows behind [Deb Haaland], the bleached “bathtub ring” on the hillside above Lake Mead was clearly visible — a reminder of how far the reservoir, now about a quarter full, has fallen over the past two decades of drought.

“Some may believe that this winter’s snow and rain has saved the river, but that is not the case,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. “We have a lot of hard work and difficult decisions ahead of us in this basin.”

State officials expressed the desire for all seven Colorado River basin states to reach an agreement over the next few months and avoid the need for the federal government to impose cuts unilaterally. Federal officials described the two alternatives they laid out — strictly following water rights, or making cuts of the same percentage across California, Arizona and Nevada — as “bookends” on a spectrum, giving state officials direction to seek compromise in between…

“It gives us the framework … on which we can build and perhaps find something that is partway between those two bookends,” said Estevan Lopez, New Mexico’s representative on the Upper Colorado River Commission. “I think that’s our challenge right now.”

The goal of the document is to assess potential rule changes for how water is released from Lake Powell and Lake Mead to protect these reservoirs from falling below what is known as “minimum power pool.” That’s the point at which the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams can no longer produce hydropower because there is not enough water to flow through the turbines safely. These reservoir elevations — about 3,500 feet above sea level at Lake Powell and 950 feet at Lake Mead — will be the thresholds that the federal government is working to avoid. Lake Powell stands just 20 feet above that level and is less than a quarter full…

In January, six of the states — Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming — agreed on an approach that would make major cuts in a proportional way among states. That would hit California farmers in places such as the Imperial Valley — who suck up a lot of the river and have rights to it that predate some cities — particularly hard. California, the largest user of Colorado River water, rejected that approach, and called for cuts that adhered to water rights priority. The plan would be devastating to Arizona, state officials there say…

But Tuesday’s environmental review also establishes a different way to justify the reductions. The six-state plan rationalized departing from a strict adherence to water rights by attributing some 1.5 million acre-feet of cuts to evaporation and other losses as water travels down the canals from the major reservoirs. But the federal government’s second alternative — the one for proportional cuts — is based not on evaporation but on Haaland’s legal authority to protect the river.

“In our mind, the appropriate presentation is grounded in the secretary’s authorities to provide for human health and safety, manage the system under emergency conditions, and provide for beneficial use,” Beaudreau said. “It is the secretary’s responsibility, and she has the authority, to protect the system.”

Hoover Dam’s intake towers protrude from the surface of Lake Mead near Las Vegas, where water levels have dropped to record lows amid a 22-year drought. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation)

Click the link to read “Without agreement among states, federal officials say Colorado River cuts are coming” on the KUNC website (Luke Runyon). Here’s an excerpt:

Federal officials made clear they hope not to have to use the plan at all, whether that’s because the region experiences a string of wet winters or the states come up with commitments to reduce their reliance on the river without federal intervention.

“We’re looking to develop a true seven-state consensus in the coming months, ideally in this next 45-day period, if possible,” said J.B. Hamby, California’s top Colorado River negotiator.

If the federal government moves ahead and turns its draft plan into a final form, it could increase the likelihood of interstate lawsuits over state water rights.

“We do see that litigation could be possible,” said Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s top water official. “We are committed to avoiding that litigation outcome as best we can by coming up with a collaborative solution.”

Public comment is open on the draft plan until the end of May, with a final plan expected this summer.

Lake Powell boat ramp at Page, Arizona, December 17, 2021. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots

Click the link to read “Federal officials propose reducing Colorado River water to lower-basin states in “shot across the bow” on The Denver Post website (Conrad Swanson). Here’s an excerpt:

The move strengthens the federal agency’s resolve to conserve water from the Colorado River as the seven states within its basin repeatedly fail to find common ground, said Rhett Larson, a water law professor at Arizona State University.

“I am reading this as a shot across the bow,” Larson said. “The federal government is saying, ‘Brace yourselves, because if you don’t come up with something, we will.’”

West snowpack April 11, 2023 via the NRCS.

The cuts are needed because, despite a massive snowpack in the Rocky Mountains this winter, water levels at lakes Powell and Mead — the country’s two largest reservoirs — are still projected to diminish as they face historically dry conditions exacerbated by climate change.

“We’re thankful for this winter’s snow and rain,” Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said at a news conference Tuesday. But, he added, “One good year will not save us from more than two decades of drought.”

[…]

While federal officials consider their options, each of the seven states in the Colorado River Basin will continue to negotiate water use for the long term. At risk is the water supply for cities, towns, farms and industries across the West. And if any of the states or Native American tribes in the basin sour on the plan they could sue, which would plunge the entire scheme into an expensive and time-consuming legal tangle…

“So we can do nothing, do what California wants or do what everybody else wants and have cuts across the board,” [Rhett] Larson said.

Doing nothing isn’t an option, Larson said. Doing what California wants could devastate several major cities and cutting water use equally could be illegal and result in major lawsuits.

Larson said he feels as though federal officials, particularly President Joe Biden, might ultimately lean further toward cutting water use across the board.

“Realistically, there isn’t a solution to this that doesn’t require California to take some cuts,” Larson said…

Lake Powell key elevations. Credit: Reclamation

Still, the idea, Beaudreau said, would be to keep water at Powell and Mead high enough so that their dams could still generate electricity and pass water downstream. As of Monday, Lake Powell sat at 22% full while Lake Mead was 29% full.

That 2 million acre-feet also is the minimum amount of water federal officials set out to save when they announced impending action last summer. Some water experts have wondered whether the basin must actually save three times that much.

Getches-Wilkinson Center 43rd Annual #Colorado Law Conference on Natural Resources June 8-9, 2023

Click the link to go to the conference website to register and for all the inside skinny:

Crisis on the Colorado River: From Short-Term Solutions to Long-Term Sustainability

The Colorado River is in crisis. Rapid declines in reservoir storage now threaten many longstanding agreements and operational norms, triggering curtailments in water deliveries and prompting emergency interstate and federal/interstate negotiations.

The challenge is two-fold: adopting rules to equitably “share the pain” in the short-term, while transitioning to a management framework to support long-term sustainability in what will likely be an increasingly arid future. It is both a water and a “people” problem, requiring innovations for stretching limited supplies through processes emphasizing equity and inclusion across all values, stakeholders, and sovereigns, including the United States, Mexico, Tribes, and the seven basin states.

Interior Department Announces Next Steps to Protect the Stability and Sustainability of #ColoradoRiver Basin #COriver #aridification

Colorado River “Beginnings”. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

Here’s the release from the Bureau of Reclamation:

Outlines alternatives and tools needed to manage drought in the Basin and strengthen water security in the West

BOULDER CITY, Nev. — To address the continued potential for low run-off conditions and unprecedented water shortages in the Colorado River Basin, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) today released a draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) to potentially revise the current interim operating guidelines for the near-term operation of Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams. Today’s release comes on the heels of historic investments the Biden-Harris administration announced last week as part of an all-of-government effort to make the Colorado River Basin and all the communities that rely on it more resilient to climate change and the ongoing drought in the West.

The draft SEIS released today analyzes alternatives and measures to address potential shortages in the event that such measures are required to protect Glen Canyon and Hoover Dam operations, system integrity, and public health and safety in 2024 through 2026, after which the current operating guidelines expire. It also ensures Reclamation has the tools to protect continued water deliveries and hydropower production for the 40 million Americans who rely on the Colorado River.

“The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million Americans. It fuels hydropower resources in eight states, supports agriculture and agricultural communities across the West, and is a crucial resource for 30 Tribal Nations. Failure is not an option,” said Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau. “Recognizing the severity of the worsening drought, the Biden-Harris administration is bringing every tool and every resource to bear through the President’s Investing in America agenda to protect the stability and sustainability of the Colorado River System now and into the future.”

“Drought conditions in the Colorado River Basin have been two decades in the making. To meet this moment, we must continue to work together, through a commitment to protecting the river, leading with science and a shared understanding that unprecedented conditions require new solutions,” said Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton. “The draft released today is the product of ongoing engagement with the Basin states and water commissioners, the 30 Basin Tribes, water managers, farmers and irrigators, municipalities and other stakeholders. We look forward to continued work with our partners in this critical moment.”

The SEIS process was initiated in October 2022. The release of the draft follows months of intensive discussions and collaborative work with the Basin states and water commissioners, the 30 Basin Tribes, water managers, farmers and irrigators, municipalities, and other stakeholders. The draft alternatives in the SEIS incorporate concepts from many models and proposals received during the scoping period, including from all seven Basin states.

The alternatives presented in the draft SEIS analyze measures that may be taken under Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland’s authorities to protect system operations in the face of unprecedented hydrologic conditions, while providing equitable water allocations to Lower Basin communities that rely on the Colorado River System.

The draft SEIS includes proposed alternatives to revise the December 2007 Record of Decision associated with the Colorado River Interim Guidelines. The 2007 Interim Guidelines provide operating criteria for Lake Powell and Lake Mead. These include provisions designed to provide a greater degree of certainty to water users about timing and volumes of potential water delivery reductions for the Lower Basin States, as well as additional operating flexibility to conserve and store water in the system.

The draft SEIS will be available for public comment for 45 calendar days and the final SEIS is anticipated to be available with a Record of Decision in Summer 2023. This document will inform the August 2023 decisions that will affect 2024 operations for Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams.

This proposal to address immediate water supply challenges complements Reclamation’s ongoing process to develop new guidelines for Colorado River Operations when the current interim guidelines expire at the end of 2026.

Draft SEIS Alternatives

The draft SEIS analyzes three alternatives, which reflect input from the Basin states, cooperating agencies, Tribes and other interested parties, including comments submitted during the SEIS public scoping period, including two written proposals from the Basin states that informed the following alternatives considered in this draft SEIS:

No Action Alternative: The No Action Alternative describes the consequences of continued implementation of existing agreements that control operations of Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam, including under further deteriorating hydrologic conditions and reservoir elevations.

Action Alternative 1: Action Alternative 1 models potential operational changes to both Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam. Action Alternative 1 includes modeling for reduced releases from Glen Canyon Dam, as well as an analysis of the effects of additional Lower Colorado River Basin shortages based predominately on the priority of water rights. Action Alternative 1 models progressively larger additional shortages as Lake Mead’s elevation declines, and larger additional shortages in 2025 and 2026, as compared with 2024. The total shortage contributions in 2024, including those under existing agreements, are limited to 2.083 million-acre-feet because this is the maximum volume analyzed in the 2007 Interim Guidelines final environmental impact statement.

Action Alternative 2: Action Alternative 2 is similar to Action Alternative 1 in how it models potential operational changes to both Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam. Action Alternative 2 includes modeling for reduced releases from Glen Canyon Dam, as well as an analysis of the effects of additional Lower Colorado River Basin reductions that are distributed in the same percentage across all Lower Basin water users under shortage conditions. While both the 2007 Interim Guidelines and the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan encompass shortages and contributions that reflect the priority system, the incremental, additional shortages identified in Action Alternative 2 for the remainder of the interim period would be distributed in the same percentage across all Lower Basin water users. Action Alternative 2 models progressively larger additional shortages as Lake Mead’s elevation declines and models larger Lower Basin shortages in 2025 and 2026 as compared with 2024. The total shortage contributions in 2024, including those under existing agreements, are limited to 2.083 million-are-feet because this is the maximum volume analyzed in the 2007 Interim Guidelines FEIS.

Members of the public interested in providing input on the SEIS can do so through May 30, 2023, per instructions in the Federal Register that will be published on April 14, 2023. Additional information about virtual public meetings can be found at Reclamation’s website.

Historic Investments to Address the Drought Crisis

President Biden’s Investing in America agenda represents the largest investment in climate resilience in the nation’s history and is providing much-needed resources to enhance the resilience of the West to drought and climate change, including to protect the short- and long-term sustainability of the Colorado River System. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Reclamation is investing $8.3 billion over five years for water infrastructure projects, including water purification and reuse, water storage and conveyance, desalination and dam safety. The Inflation Reduction Act is investing an additional $4.6 billion to address the historic drought.

To date, the Interior Department has announced the following investments for Colorado River Basin states, which will yield hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water savings each year once these projects are complete:

$281 million for 21 water recycling projects that are expected to increase annual water capacity by 127,000 acre-feet annually

Up to $233 million in water conservation funding for the Gila River Indian Community, including $83 million for a water pipeline project and an additional $50 million from the Inflation Reduction Act through the Lower Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency Program, which will also provide similar investments in 2024 and 2025

Over $73 million for infrastructure repairs on water delivery systems, $19.3 million in fiscal year 2022 and another $54 million announced last week.

$71 million for 32 drought resiliency projects to expand access to water through groundwater storage, rainwater harvesting, aquifer recharge and water treatment

$10 million in new water storage investments

From the Supplemental EIS:

In the absence of consensus among all entities affected by changed operations, the Department must consider the overall conditions in the Basin in order to make the most prudent operational decisions. The overall sound and prudent operation of the major reservoirs on the Colorado River system during a period of declining inflows and historically low reservoirs will almost certainly lead to objection by specific entities to the impacts of one or more aspects of water management decisions. The Department will follow applicable federal law and prudent reservoir operations with respect to any modified operating guidelines, recognizing that with current reservoir elevations at historic lows, even one additional low-runoff winter season could have unprecedented adverse consequences across the Basin. In short, every potential option involves difficult water management impacts and unprecedented reductions for entities in the Basin.

The latest briefing (April 7, 2023) is hot off the presses from Western #Water Assessment

Click the link to read the briefing on the Western Water Assessment website (scroll down):

April 7, 2023 – CO, UT, WY

Record snowfall continued across many portions of the region during March. Record-high April 1st snow-water equivalent values were observed in Utah and western Colorado and the 2023 Utah statewide average surpassed the previous record set in 1983. Streamflow volume forecasts are above to much-above average for the Upper Colorado River and Great Basins and the inflow forecast for Lake Powell is 177% of average, providing much-needed water after record-low water levels. Regional drought conditions improved during March, especially in Utah, and 45% of the region is currently in drought. There is an increased probability of below average regional temperatures during April which would contribute to flooding risk in portions of the region with very large snowpacks.

March precipitation was much-above normal in Utah and western Colorado, above normal in western Wyoming, and generally below normal in eastern Colorado and eastern Wyoming. In Utah and western Colorado, precipitation was 150-400% of normal during March; half of Utah observed 200-400% of normal March precipitation. March precipitation was 25-75% of normal for most of Colorado and Wyoming east of the Continental Divide, except for the Bighorn Mountains in northern Wyoming where March precipitation was near-normal.

Regional temperatures were below normal during March. The coldest conditions were observed in western Wyoming where temperatures were 9-15 degrees below normal; temperatures in parts of southwestern Wyoming were the coldest on record. In Utah and northwestern Colorado, March temperatures were generally 6-12 degrees below normal and March temperatures were among the 12 coldest on record. Southeastern Colorado was the regional hot spot where temperatures were 3-6 degrees below normal.

Regional snowpack is above average for the entire region except for the South Platte and Arkansas River Basins where April 1 snow-water equivalent (SWE) is near-average. For much of Utah and western Colorado, record-high SWE conditions exist. On April 1st, statewide average SWE in Utah was 197% of normal and average SWE was 28.4”, shattering the previous statewide SWE record of 26” set in 1983. In Colorado, April 1st statewide SWE was 140% of average. Snowpack in Colorado was generally near-normal east of the Continental Divide and much-above normal west of the Divide, including the Dolores River Basin which is at a record-high 165% of average. Wyoming snowpack is above normal statewide (117% average) with near-normal April 1st SWE in the Bighorn, Upper Green, Shone [ed. Shoshone?], and Yellowstone River Basins and above average SWE conditions across the remainder of Wyoming.

West snowpack basin-filled map April 9, 2023 via the NRCS.

Seasonal streamflow volume forecasts are above average to much-above average for most regional river basins. Streamflow forecasts are highest for the Great Basin where forecasted volumes are 115-450% of average. Below normal (60-90%) to near-normal (90-110%) seasonal streamflow volumes are forecasted for the Arkansas, South Platte, Shoshone, Tongue, and Yellowstone Rivers. Above normal seasonal streamflow (110-130%) is forecasted for the Bighorn, Laramie, Powder, and Wind Rivers. Much-above normal seasonal streamflow (>130%) is forecasted for the remaining regional river basins, with streamflow forecasts above 300% for the Lower Green, Provo/Utah Lake, Sevier, Six Creeks, Virgin, and Weber Rivers. Seasonal streamflow forecasts for most large Upper Colorado River Basin reservoirs are much-above normal with only near-to-above normal forecasts for Green Mountain, Fontenelle, and Flaming Gorge Reservoirs. The inflow forecast for Lake Powell is 177% of normal.

Regional drought conditions improved during March due to above to much-above average precipitation and cool temperatures. At the end of March drought covered 45% of the Intermountain West, down from 55% at the end of February. The most significant improvement in drought conditions occurred in Utah where drought conditions were entirely removed from the eastern, northern, and western portions of the state. Moderate and severe drought conditions remain present in the central portion of Utah. Drought conditions in Colorado and Wyoming changed little during March with drought conditions in the eastern portions of both states and wetter conditions in western Colorado and central Wyoming.

Eastern Pacific Ocean temperatures were slightly below to slightly above average during March leading to neutral ENSO conditions. There is a 60-70% probability of El Niño conditions developing during late summer and persisting through the end of the forecast period in early winter. NOAA seasonal forecasts for April suggest an increased probability of below average temperatures for most of the region and an increased probability of above average precipitation for northwestern Utah. The April-June NOAA seasonal forecast predicts an increased probability for below average precipitation in southern Colorado and southern Utah, an increased probability of below average temperatures for northern Utah, and above average temperatures for southeastern Colorado.

Significant March weather event: Record Utah snowpack. As a scientist, skier, and general lover of snow, I’ve simply run out of superlatives to describe the 2023 winter in Utah. Snowfall and SWE records around Utah are falling, especially in northern Utah. As of April 5th, statewide average SWE is 29.5” and at 209% of normal. The early 1980s, particularly 1983, were the winters of record in Utah, and 2023 has eclipsed nearly all snowfall and SWE records from those years. As of April 4th, of SNOTEL sites with at least 20 years of data, 36 sites were reporting record-high daily SWE totals, and 17 sites reported second-highest daily SWE totals. Twenty SNOTEL sites were reporting all-time record high SWE including Ben Lomond Peak, a site in northern Utah with an astounding 81.8” of SWE and a snow depth of 186”. While I don’t typically report snowfall from ski areas, the snowfall totals in the Wasatch Mountains, particularly the Cottonwood Canyons, are absurdly high. Ski areas in northern Utah have relatively long snowfall records, as long or longer than the SNOTEL network and all have broken all-time snowfall records; current (4/5/23) 2023 record snowfall totals in the Cottonwood Canyons include 874” at Alta, 850” at Brighton, 805” at Snowbird, and 779” at Solitude. Maximum snow depths in the Wasatch Mountains range from 150-250”. Many high elevation sites in Utah have likely not yet reached peak SWE and high elevation snowpack may continue to build. The 2023 winter has also been remarkable due to cold temperatures and very deep snowpacks at low elevations, which the SNOTEL network does not effectively capture. In Salt Lake City, winter 2022-2023 was the 6th snowiest on record (through 4/4) and the snowiest since 1993 with 87” of snowfall since October 1, 2022.

2023 #COleg: Bill aims to address #water quality at mobile home parks: HB 1257 supported by Latino advocacy organizations — @AspenJournalism

Brighton Village mobile home park next to a river. Multiple trailers are intersperses with bare deciduous trees on a riverbank. Photo credit: Aqua Talk

Click the link to read the article on the Aspen Journalism website (Heather Sackett):

State legislators have introduced a bill that would create a water-testing program at mobile home parks, addressing residents’ long-standing concerns about water quality.

House Bill 1257, which is sponsored by District 57 Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, D-Garfield County, would require the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to create a water-testing program that covers all mobile home parks in the state by 2028. If the testing finds a water-quality issue, the park owner must come up with a remediation plan and not pass the cost of fixing the problem on to the residents.

The testing results would be made available to park residents and the public in English, Spanish and other languages. The bill would also require park owners to identify the water source and establish a grant program to help park owners pay for remediation options such as infrastructure upgrades.

The bill was introduced March 26, and its other sponsors are Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, D- Larimer County, and Sen. Lisa Cutter, D-Jefferson County.

Velasco, who said she lived in mobile home parks growing up, said she has heard complaints from residents about discolored water that stains clothes, smells and tastes bad, causes skin rashes, and breaks appliances. But often, those complaints go unaddressed because the water may still meet the standards of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Act.

“The odor, the taste, the color, those are secondary traits of the water, according to these regulations,” Velasco said. “These issues are in low-income communities, majority people of color. These issues are not happening to wealthy families.”

Environmental justice issue

Water quality in mobile home parks is an environmental-justice issue for the Latino community. According to the Colorado Latino Climate Justice Policy Handbook, nearly 20% of Latino households live in mobile homes. And according to survey results in the 2022 Colorado Latino Policy Agenda, 41% of mobile home residents said they do not trust or drink the water in their homes. Eighty percent of survey respondents said they support new regulations requiring that mobile home parks provide their residents with clean drinking water.

Beatriz Soto is executive director of Protegete, a Latino-led environmental initiative of Conservation Colorado that developed the climate justice handbook. Conservation Colorado supports the bill. Soto, who also lived in mobile home parks in the Roaring Fork valley, said for years she has heard the same complaints Velasco did about water quality, so she knew it was a top priority for the Latino community. The survey results confirmed the anecdotes.

“This is not just little things we are hearing here and there in the community; this is a bigger issue,” Soto said. “When you work two jobs and you have to drive two hours to work and you come home and have to go to a laundromat because you can’t wash your clothes at your residence, there’s a real cumulative impact of living under those conditions.”

The Aspen-to-Parachute region has 55 parks, which combined have about 3,000 homes and 15,000 to 20,000 residents. Mobile home parks are some of the last neighborhoods of nonsubsidized affordable housing left in the state and provide crucial worker housing, especially in rural and resort areas.

Residents have complained about the water quality in some parks for years, but agencies have lacked the regulatory authority to enforce improvements. Recently, residents in parks near Durango and in Summit County have lacked running water for weeks at a time.

Voces Unidas de las Montanas, a Latino-led advocacy nonprofit that is based in Colorado’s central mountains and works in the Roaring Fork Valley, is one of the organizations leading Clean Water for All Colorado, a committee that helped to craft the legislation.

“Many of us who grew up in mobile home parks, myself included, have always known and normalized buying bottled water from the store, and it’s because we don’t trust our water,” said Alex Sanchez, president and CEO of Voces Unidas. “Many residents have been complaining and calling for action for decades, and no one has answered their call.”

Sanchez said the bill is his organization’s No. 1 legislative priority this session.

Rocky Mountain Home Association and Colorado Manufactured Housing Coalition oppose the bill. Tawny Peyton, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Home Association, said the mobile home park industry has been bombarded with sweeping law changes in recent years, causing confusion and additional operation and legal costs. Laws enacted in 2019, 2020 and 2022 granted extra protections to mobile home park residents.

“The Rocky Mountain Home Association is concerned with the entire bill,” Peyton said in an email. “Why is the mobile home park industry being singly targeted with this legislation? Industry was not made aware that mobile home park water quality was such an issue that a 23-page bill was warranted.”

Bill proponents acknowledge that the issue may take years to get resolved and that new regulations would be just the first step toward gathering data and assessing the problem.

“This is just a first stab at trying to resolve this issue,” Soto said. “This is establishing a framework to start testing and get all the information and documenting all the water sources for mobile home parks to determine what is the problem.”

House Bill 1257 is scheduled for a hearing by the Transportation, Housing and Local Government Committee on Wednesday [April 12, 2023].

This story ran in the April 8 edition of The Aspen Times, the Vail Daily, the April 9 edition of Summit Daily and the April 10 edition of the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent.

Did you know that #water rights in #Colorado are treated like private property? — @ColoradoWaterWise

#ArkansasRiver Basin #Water Forum, April 25-26, 2023, features top water experts

Just another day on the job in 1890 – Measuring the velocity of streams in a cable-suspended, stream-gaging car on the Arkansas River in Colorado. Photo credit: USGS

Here’s the releasee from the Arkansas River Basin Water Forum (Joe Stone):

The premier water event in Colorado’s largest river basin happens Tuesday and Wednesday, April 25-26, in Colorado Springs. The 27^th Arkansas River Basin Water Forum will feature discussions and presentations on “Facing the Future Together” delivered by top water experts in Colorado and the Ark Basin.

Tuesday’s keynote speaker will be Kelly Romero-Heaney, assistant director of water policy for Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources. Kelly has over 20 years of diverse experience in natural resource issues, having worked as a consultant, hydrologist, environmental specialist and wildland firefighter. In her current position she advises top executives at DNR, the Division of Water Resources and the Colorado Water Conservation Board about water policy issues and legislation.

Rachel Zancanella will deliver Wednesday’s keynote address. Rachel was promoted to Division 2 (Arkansas River Basin) engineer in December 2022 following Bill Tyner’s retirement. She has held multiple positions with DWR, ranging from deputy water commissioner to water resources engineer and lead assistant division engineer. Prior to joining DWR, Rachel worked as a water resources engineer in the private sector.

Mornings at the Water Forum will feature presentations on topics like projects in El Paso County to meet future demand for water, technological advances in snow measurement, transforming landscapes to conserve water, and PFAS mitigation in drinking water supplies.

After lunch, attendees can choose from several tours and field trips. Tuesday afternoon will feature:

A field trip to explore aquifer recharge and water reuse in El Paso County.

A tour of the Mesa Garden, a demonstration garden for water-wise landscapes.

A tour of Fountain Creek that will highlight the importance of Plains fish conservation and visit streamgages managed by DWR and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Wednesday afternoon opportunities include:

A tour highlighting pioneering work in PFAS mitigation using strong base anion ion exchange resin.

A filed trip to Colorado Springs Utilities to see how non-potable water is being reused.

An Art and Ale tour that will feature murals created through the Storm Drain Art Project followed by a visit to a Fountain Creek Watershed District Brewshed Alliance brewery.

Since 1995, the Ark River Basin Water Forum has served the basin by encouraging education and dialogue about water, the state’s most valuable resource, and this year’s Forum will take place at the Doubletree by Hilton.

The Forum remains a very good value:

Two-day full registration, including lunches – $300.

One-day registration, either Tuesday or Wednesday, including lunch – $150.

Percolation and Runoff networking dinner – $20 (all proceeds support the ARBWF Scholarship Fund).

The real fun begins at 5 p.m. Tuesday with Percolation and Runoff, a casual networking event that raises money for the Forum’s college scholarship fund. The $20 cost includes dinner, drinks and entertaining conversation.

To register for the Forum, go to arbwf.org. For more information, contact Jean Van Pelt, Forum manager, at arbwf1994@gmail.com.

A #Colorado reservoir gets ready for an epic snowmelt — Writers on the Range #snowpack #runoff (April 11, 2023)

*Ken Beck at the Pine River Irrigation headquarters*

Click the link to read the article on the Writers on the Range website (David Marston):

Reservoir manager Ken Beck says wryly that he has lots of water coming his way, “and I need a hole to put it in.”

In southern Colorado, Beck is the superintendent of Pine River Irrigation District and Vallecito Reservoir, which catches water from the 13,000 and 14,000-foot-high peaks of the Weminuche Wilderness. It’s a place so wild and beautiful that Teddy Roosevelt protected it in 1905 by creating the 1.8-million-acre San Juan National Forest.

The name Vallecito means “little valley” in Spanish, and the reservoir stores water for the town of Bayfield, population 2,838, as well as providing supplemental irrigation for 65,000 acres of Tribal and non-tribal land to the south.

This winter, Beck has been faced with a near-record snowpack, now expected to turn into some 320,000 acre-feet of water. His 82-year-old reservoir, however, can only hold 125,000 acre-feet. What’s more, snow was still falling in early April.

In late March, Beck saw moisture going up dramatically. Any reservoir manager has to deal with uncertainty, but Beck’s job, which he has held for seven years, has an Achilles heel.

“I was told by the Bureau (of Reclamation) to manage my reservoir so I don’t use my spillway,” he says. “We’re restricted because of the needed repairs.”

Spillways are critical elements of any dam. When oncoming water overwhelms the intakes for hydroelectric and outlet works, excess water flows into the river below. Beck has few options without the safety valve of a dependable spillway, yet he may be forced to use it.

Beck is well aware that dams can fail. Six major dams have failed in Colorado since 1950, with the biggest disaster occurring in Larimer County, in 1981. When its Lawn Lake Dam failed, three people died and property damage amounted to $31 million.

Beck says Vallecito’s management challenges came to the fore after “the big wakeup call of 2017, when Lake Oroville fell apart in California.” California’s tallest dam, Oroville, resembles Vallecito in being earthen built. It nearly failed when its spillways began eroding during high runoff.

Soon after, Vallecito’s dam was closely inspected, revealing leaks and erosion in its spillway. The Bureau of Reclamation, which built the dam, patched up the spillway but also put the dam “under review.”

By the end of March, Beck had released 15 times more water daily than during the previous month. By late April, Beck estimates, the formerly half-empty Vallecito Reservoir be just 20% full, better prepared for what could be an epic snowmelt.

In the arid West, this makes Beck a reservoir apostate. Spring is when reservoir managers follow a creed that’s been honed during periodic drought: Store as much water as possible as early as possible.

For Beck, that’s not wise. “But don’t mistake my being meek as weak,” he says. “I’ve got an Abe Lincoln style: Wrap good people around you and encourage them to say things you might not want to hear.”

Beck has surrounded himself with a team of straight shooters, though he relies most on Susan Behery, a Bureau of Reclamation hydrologic engineer, based in Durango. With Behery’s advice, Beck decided that Vallecito’s reservoir needed to be dramatically drawn down.

Evidence for doing that was obvious this winter as roofs sagged, driveways became mini-canyons, and snow at the nearby Purgatory ski area outside Durango reached 20 feet high in places. USDA SNOTEL sites above Vallecito Reservoir measured snowpacks at 170% and 180% of normal.

With so much big water ready to head their way, a reservoir manager might have decided to operate quietly and hope for the best. Instead, Behery says, Beck has been transparent with the public and collaborative. She admires Beck for it.

“I’m an engineer and nobody gets into engineering because they’re super good with people. I don’t do the fluffy stuff.”

Beck makes a lot of information available. He holds open meetings and emails a weekly newsletter to anyone interested. “A lot of people are asking why we’re turning out more water,” he says, “but I just met with farmers that say I haven’t brought it down enough.”

What does Beck predict will happen to his reservoir as snowmelt barrels toward Vallecito Reservoir?

“If spring rains come it will add to the pucker factor. But the spillway will hold.” Meanwhile, he’s a little bit on edge.

Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He lives in Durango, Colorado.

Navajo Unit Coordination Meeting April 18, 2023 #SanJuanRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

The Navajo Dam on the San Juan River.Photo credit Mike Robinson via the University of Washington.

From email from Reclamation (Susan Novak Behery):

BUREAU OF RECLAMATION NAVAJO UNIT COORDINATION MEETING

Sent via Email on April 10th, 2023

The next coordination meeting for the operation of the Navajo Unit is scheduled for Tuesday, April 18th, 2023, at 1:00 pm. This meeting is open to the public and will be held in an in-person/virtual hybrid format.

*Please note that due to the rapid increase in snowpack this spring, Reclamation projects it is likely that sufficient water will be available to conduct a spring release to 5,000 cfs. The current forecast and plans will be discussed at this meeting. Updates will be sent to this email list as the plan evolves. *

The following attendance options are available:

• In-Person: The physical location of the meeting will be at the Farmington Civic Center, 200 W. Arrington, Farmington, New Mexico.

• Virtual Video attendance: Microsoft Teams video option at this link. This link should open in any smartphone, tablet, or computer browser, and does not require a Microsoft account. You will be able to view and hear the presentation as it is presented, ask questions and have your comments heard by the group.

• Phone line: Alternatively, you can call-in from any phone using the following information: (202) 640-1187, Phone Conference ID 125 691 028#. You will not be able to see the presentation with this option. A copy of the presentation will be distributed to this email list and posted to our website prior to the meeting for those who wish to listen by phone. You will be able to ask questions and have your comments heard by the group.

We hope the options provided make it possible for all interested parties to participate as they are able and comfortable. Please try to log on at least 10 minutes before the meeting start time to address any technical issues. Feel free to call or email me with any questions regarding attendance, or to test your connection prior to the meeting (contact information below).

A copy of the presentation and meeting summary will be distributed to this email list and posted to our website following the meeting. If you are unable to connect to the meeting, feel free to contact me following the meeting for any comments or questions.

The meeting agenda will include a review of operations and hydrology since January, current soil and snowpack conditions, a discussion of hydrologic forecasts and planned operations for remainder of this water year, updates on maintenance activities, drought operations, and the Recovery Program on the San Juan River.

If you have any suggestions for the agenda or have questions about the meeting, please call Susan Behery at 970-385-6560, or email sbehery@usbr.gov. Visit the Navajo Dam website at https://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/nvd.html for operational updates.

Aspinall unit operations update April 7, 2023 #GunnisonRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

#Snowpack news April 10, 2023

Colorado snowpack basin-filled map April 9, 2023 via the NRCS.

The #Colorado #Drought Summit will be a 2-day event on May 31 & June 1, 2023 — Colorado Water Conservation Board

Click the link for all the inside skinny from the Colorado Water Conservation Board:

Register for the Colorado Drought Summit today!(External link)

The Colorado Drought Summit will be a 2-day event on May 31 & June 1, 2023. Space is limited – Register here(External link). The full draft agenda can be accessed in the sidebar to the right and a snapshot of the draft agenda is below.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) is hosting the Drought Summit to evaluate lessons-learned and adaptive solutions for addressing drought concerns. In January 2023, Governor Polis directed the CWCB to hold this event. The two-day summit will make good on that directive and demonstrate CWCB’s commitment to advancing the conversation around drought resilience in the 2023 Colorado Water Plan.

CWCB is grateful to Brown & Caldwell for being the lead sponsor and for helping to plan and staff the event.

#FortCollins OKs new oil and gas regulations, places near ban on new wells in city limits — The Fort Collins Coloradoan #ActOnClimate #KeepItInTheGround

Mammatus clouds, associated with strong convection, grace a sunset over Fort Collins, Colorado, home of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University. Photo credit: Steve Miller/CIRA

Click the link to read the article on the Fort Collins Coloradoan website (Molly Bohannon). Here’s an excerpt:

In a 6-1 vote Tuesday [April 4, 2023] night, Fort Collins City Council approved the addition of new oil and gas regulations to the city’s land use code that effectively ban new oil facilities from being built in city limits. The code changes came as part of a state bill that allows municipalities to have stricter requirements than the state with regard to where oil and gas facilities can go. If a municipality doesn’t have its own restrictions, applicants for facilities follow the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission rules.

The approved changes to the land use code include:

Adding zone restrictions to oil and gas facilities.

Adding development plan review procedures.

Requiring a 2,000-foot setback from occupiable building, and an additional 1,000-foot buffer from Natural habitat features.

Adding a list of prohibited facilities to development standards, including injection wells.

Not allowing a modification of the setback standards.

Adding basic development review procedures for plugging and abandoning.

[…]

When discussing the decision, council members felt it was better to adopt the proposed changes and add operational standards at a later date so that at least in the meantime there were some tighter regulations in place than the state’s. Operational standards would provide local enforcement and compliance criteria in addition to what the state has in place, which many have said is not sufficient or is poorly enforced. Previously, city staff told the Coloradoan they expected the creation of operational standards to take a couple of city employees working on that for an estimated six months, along with an additional council work session on the topic.

‘Headed off the charts’: world’s ocean surface temperature hits record high — The Guardian #ActOnClimate #KeepItInTheGround

A global map using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing areas in orange and red where temperatures have been above the long-term average. Credi: University Of Maine

Click the link to read the article on The Guardian website (Graham Readfearn). Here’s an excerpt:

Climate scientists said preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) showed the average temperature at the ocean’s surface has been at 21.1C since the start of April – beating the previous high of 21C set in 2016.

“The current trajectory looks like it’s headed off the charts, smashing previous records,” said Prof Matthew England, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales…

According to the Noaa data, the second-hottest globally averaged ocean temperatures coincided with El Niño that ran from 2014 to 2016.

The data is driven mostly by satellite observations but also verified with measurements from ships and buoys. The data does not include the polar regions. More than 90% of the extra heat caused by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and deforestation has been taken up by the ocean. A study last year said the amount of heat accumulating in the ocean was accelerating and penetrating deeper, providing fuel for extreme weather.

England, a co-author of that study, said: “What we are seeing now [with the record sea surface temperatures] is the emergence of a warming signal that more clearly reveals the footprint of our increased interference with the climate system.”

#Drought-ravaged #ColoradoRiver gets relief from #snowpack. But long-term #water crisis remains — The Los Angeles Times

West snowpack April 8, 2023 via the NRCS.

Click the link to read the article on The Los Angeles Times websilte (Ian James). Here’s an excerpt:

Four months ago, the outlook for the Colorado River was so dire that federal projections showed imminent risks of reservoirs dropping to dangerously low levels. But after this winter’s major storms, the river’s depleted reservoirs are set to rise substantially with runoff from the largest snowpack in the watershed since 1997. The heavy snow blanketing the Rocky Mountains offers some limited relief as water managers representing seven states and the federal government continue to weigh options for cutting water use…

“It’s a great snowpack,” said Bill Hasencamp, manager of Colorado River resources for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. “It gives us breathing room. It gives us a little bit of space to negotiate.”

Hasencamp said the runoff should eventually raise Lake Mead’s level by 20 to 30 feet, which might return it toward an “equilibrium level,” though both major reservoirs are still expected to remain well below half-full…The historic snow and rain in California this winter has also allowed the district to “back off on the Colorado River supplies,” which will in turn help boost water levels at Lake Mead, Hasencamp said.

Coalition launches push to save 3.3 million acres of #Colorado private property from development: “These lands offer widespread benefits to the public” — The Denver Post #conservation

Pond on the Garcia Ranch via Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust

Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Bruce Finley). Here’s an excerpt:

A state-backed coalition of conservation groups is launching an unprecedented push that would pay private landowners to save 3.3 million acres of natural terrain from development. That’s a small portion of Colorado’s total 66 million acres, which include nearly 40 million acres of private property. Robust real estate activity and new construction, bringing high-end houses and commercial buildings to once-pristine mountain valleys, has added urgency to the effort…

Saving 3.3 million acres of private land within ten years — the goal Keep It Colorado announced Wednesday at the Denver Botanic Gardens — would match the amount of private land protected against development since 1965, according to data in a “Conserving Colorado” strategy unveiled after a $300,000, 18-month planning effort. Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Colorado Water Conservation Board and Great Outdoors Colorado provided funding. Private land conservation increasingly is seen as essential for enduring multiple threats: cascading impacts of climate warming, including droughts, heat waves, wildfires, erosion, extreme storms; degradation of ecologically sensitive areas; water scarcity; and economic challenges that threaten to drive ranchers and farmers out of agriculture.

A Nature Conservancy analysis recently identified 16 million acres of “climate-resilient” private property in Colorado that is critical for wildlife survival under harsher climate conditions. Keep It Colorado members planned to prioritize land in river valleys that benefits existing human communities as well as wildlife.

Protecting natural terrain depends on landowners who prioritize the ecological health of their property and agree to conservation easements — agreements that block future development. Ownership stays private. Landowners receive compensation for the value of development rights they give up through state-level property tax breaks, which Keep It Colorado leaders propose to increase, along with creating new federal tax incentives and future payments to landowners for “ecosystem services.”

#ColoradoRiver Carbon Bomb: #Utah’s Uinta Railway Project — Natural Resources Defense Council #ActOnClimate #KeepItInTheGround

Oil production on federal public lands in the Uinta Basin.Credit:WildEarth Guardians.

Click the link to read the article on the NRDC website (Josh Axelrod):

Utah’s Uinta Basin has been a center of oil production in the U.S. for nearly 80 years. But, given the type of crude oil found there and its remote location, oil production had historically remained a marginal business. Now, new drilling technology, availability of new refining abilities, and demand from Gulf Coast refineries is driving a production boom in this remote corner of Utah.

Historically, production from the Uinta Basin was capped by the capacity of nearby refineries who refined the yellow and black waxy crude oil that comes out of the ground there. That meant production couldn’t exceed around 85,000 barrels per day (bpd). However, with the ability to now load that crude onto Union Pacific Railway trains headed to the Gulf Coast, production has surged as high as 135,000 bpd. Because of the unique geography of the area, all that oil is currently moved out by tanker trucks.

Enter the Uinta Basin Railway project, a proposed, brand new, 85-mile rail line that would connect the Uinta Basin’s oil fields to the Union Pacific system. According to the project’s proponents, it isn’t designed to take tanker trucks off local roads. Instead, the project is all about future growth. Proponents—a coalition of seven Utah counties—envision unlocking 130,000-350,000 bpd of new crude production.

Uinta Basin Railway project proposed routes. Credit: Surface Transportation Board

A Carbon Bomb in Disguise

That’s a shocking amount of growth for an oil field that produces a highly unusual form of crude oil—a hard, waxy crude that solidifies at temperatures below 110 degrees. Because of its unique chemistry, it cannot be transported via pipeline. Rather, it must be shipped either by truck or rail inside specially heated tanks, all of which has meant that Unita crude has been economically marginal for most of its history.

But access to a larger market could change all of that. And what makes it truly shocking is its cumulative greenhouse gas emissions, which could surpass the globally controversial Willow Project. That’s because at Willow’s peak, daily production is estimated at 180,000 bpd, while the Uinta Basin Railway proponents see their fields adding up to 350,000 bpd of new production.

According to the Surface Transportation Board’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project, the high-end production scenario unlocked by this rail line could lead to more than 53 million metric tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of this oil. Given the International Energy Agency’s admonition that no new crude oil supply projects should be brought online to keep global temperature rise in check, the Uinta Basin Railway provides a textbook example of a project with no future in a climate-constrained world. Any federal decisions that could lead to the project’s construction–be they permits or financial assurances–are equivalent to the green lighting of a significant, long-term increase in unneeded and risky oil production.

A Threat to Precious Western Water Supplies

If you read the EIS for the Uinta Basin Railway project, you’d be deceived into believing it’s just about moving crude oil 85 miles closer to the Salt Lake City area and that its impacts are limited in scope. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The surge in growth this project would unlock is all about connecting the Uinta Basin to Gulf Coast refineries, which have bought increasing volumes of this oil in recent years and have the specialized refining equipment necessary to turn this oil into usable products.

What that means on the ground is that this project is about tying into the rail systems that can be used to get the oil all the way to the Gulf Coast. That means primarily using Union Pacific’s rail line, which runs through the Rocky Mountains alongside the headwaters of the Colorado River.

Union Pacific’s rail lines (left) hug the Glenwood Canyon walls beside the muddy Colorado River. Credit: djvass, Flickr

According to the project’s EIS, the extraordinary increase in crude-by-rail traffic facilitated by the project could lead to a derailment every year. Should that derailment be significant, there is a high probability that ruptured tank cars would leak oil into nearby waterways. In a letter from Colorado’s U.S. Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper, joined by Colorado Representative Neguse, this risk is called out specifically given how difficult a major response effort would be in the route’s rugged and remote terrain.

Equally concerning are the properties of the oil itself and what might happen should a spill take place in rapidly moving water without a near-immediate response effort. Though project proponents claim that the Uinta’s waxy crudes are “clean up friendly,” their unique qualities should raise serious concerns. For crude oils that quickly solidify when spilled into water, long term contamination is always a serious risk should the oil adhere to the river bottom as it biodegrades. The extraordinary lack of scientific basis for concluding minimal spill risks within the EIS should raise alarm bells for anyone looking at this project. Given that this oil would move alongside one of the West’s most critical water bodies, robust consideration of spill risks and response limitations should have been paramount to the environmental analysis that was conducted.

Instead, the Surface Transportation Board has accepted the Uinta Railway Project’s voluntary commitment to prepare an emergency response plan applicable only to the 85 miles of new rail line encompassing this project. The increased risks and emergency response capacities beyond that short distance are simply ignored, as if the thousands of miles left for the oil to travel simply do not exist.

A Project with Ballooning Costs Requests Taxpayer Support

When the Uinta Basin Railway project was first proposed, its proponents assured regulators and the public that the entire thing would be funded by private interests. In the intervening years, as the project’s costs have ballooned from $1.2 billion to $2.9 billion, things have changed. Now, project proponents are seeking what are known as “private activity bonds,” which are low-interest, taxpayer funded bonds issued by the Department of Transportation (DOT). DOT has a pot of $30 billion available for issuing these bonds, with nearly $17 billion already out the door.

Project proponents now hope to access 15% of that remaining pot, even though DOT’s bonds to date have supported highway and rail transit projects.

Indeed, the Uinta Basin Railway is a decidedly poor fit for these financial supports. Its sole purpose is moving crude oil out of the Uinta Basin. Few other commodities come from the area and project proponents have made no attempt to play up the rail line’s potential for diversifying markets for local commodities. Instead, they’ve doubled down on the assertion that the rail line will be about oil, oil, oil. Given the congressional desire that private activity bonds “increase private sector investment in U.S. transportation infrastructure,” using these bonds for a project with almost no meaningful utility aside from expanding oil production represents a gross misuse of limited federal funds.

A Project with Unacceptable Risks to the Climate and Fresh Water

In the aftermath of the Willow Project’s approval, the federal government must take greater care in its management of projects designed to lock in massive quantities of future greenhouse gas emissions. The Uinta Basin Railway project is one of these. Its approval and financial support would represent an extraordinary misuse of federal funds at a time when so much federal investment and effort is going to decarbonizing the U.S. economy. Instead, the federal government should be partnering with state and local governments to diversify the economy of this region instead of locking it into another century of dependence on oil.

Colorado River Basin in Colorado via the Colorado Geological Survey

March Brought Record #Snowpack Accumulation to Many #Colorado Basins — Colorado Snow Survey

Click the link to read the article on the NRCS website:

Link to Colorado April 1st Water Supply Outlook Report

Link to all Colorado Water Supply Outlook Reports

Link to all Colorado news releases

Denver, CO – April 7^th, 2023 – The basins of Western Colorado continued to benefit from a series of storms throughout the month of March. During this time 34 SNOTEL sites in the state received the highest or second highest March snowpack accumulation amounts on record. NRCS Hydrologist Karl Wetlaufer notes “The record high monthly snowpack accumulation fell on top of an already plentiful snowpack at many sites. This brought about 25 percent of SNOTEL sites in the state to their record or second highest values for April 1^st.” The spatial pattern of snowpack accumulation and streamflow forecasts this winter has been a shift from the previous three years where Western Colorado has experienced well below normal snowmelt runoff volumes and basins that flow east observed more plentiful runoff. “This year should provide a welcome reprieve for water supply and depleted reservoir storage across Western Colorado after several years of low streamflow” Wetlaufer continued. While forecasts are for the most plentiful volumes in the western half of the state the average of forecasts in the Arkansas and South Platte are for near normal volumes, albeit with a lot of variability point to point.

Reservoir storage across most major basins is near to slightly below normal except for the Gunnison and the combined San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan River basins of Southwest Colorado which are currently at 71 and 69 percent of normal, respectively. While several years of low streamflow have contributed to these deficits, current streamflow forecasts indicate that those values will likely be rapidly rising over the coming months. Given the plentiful snowpack and streamflow forecasts, in many areas reservoir management plans will also likely be taking flood prevention into consideration over the coming months as well.

After three years of below normal streamflow runoff across the state, 2023 is bringing a welcome change from a water supply standpoint to most major basins of Colorado, and arguably to some that needed it most. Hydrologist Wetlaufer notes “Overall, the water supply outlook for Colorado is looking quite positive for the upcoming runoff season.” While plentiful water is certainly good news in many respects, and it is worth keeping in mind that it can also come with an increased flood risk and a friendly reminder that one wet year doesn’t immediately cancel out several dry years.” Wetlaufer summarizes “With forecasts far above normal streamflow in much of the state residents should also be mindful of increased flood risk during peak flow. Additionally, it is important to bear in mind that in some basins, with the Colorado River being the prime example, one year of plentiful streamflow will not be enough to solve bigger picture water supply challenges in the long run.”

For more details see the April 1^st Water Supply Outlook Report.

West snowpack basin-filled map April 7, 2023 via the NRCS.

The April 1, 2023 #Colorado #Water Supply Outlook Report is hot off the presses from the NRCS

Click the link to read the report on the NRCS website. Here’s an excerpt:

Biden-Harris Administration Announces Up to $233 Million in #Water #Conservation Funding for #GilaRiver Indian Community #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Gila River watershed. Graphic credit: Wikimedia

Click the link to read the release on the Department of Interior website:

Following a visit to the Gila River Indian Community, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau, Senior Advisor to the President and White House Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator Mitch Landrieu, and Deputy Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner David Palumbo announced up to $233 million in historic funding and conservation agreements to help the Gila River Indian Community and water users across the Colorado River Basin protect the stability and sustainability of the Colorado River System. They were joined by federal, state, local and Tribal leaders.

The visit is part of the Biden-Harris administration’s Investing in America tour to highlight the opportunities that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are creating. Combined, these laws represent the largest investments in climate resilience in the nation’s history and provide unprecedented resources to support the Administration’s comprehensive, government-wide approach to make Western communities more resilient to drought and climate change.

“Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, we have historic, once-in-a-generation investments to expand access to clean drinking water for families, farmers and Tribes,” said Deputy Secretary Beaudreau. “In the wake of record drought throughout the West, safeguarding Tribal access to water resources could not be more critical. These types of agreements will support Tribal communities through essential water infrastructure projects and support water conservation in the Colorado River System.”

“Water is a sacred resource and crucial to ensuring the health, safety and empowerment of Tribal communities,” said Deputy Commissioner Palumbo. “The Bureau of Reclamation is hard at work to support projects that have long awaited this kind of funding — projects that are integral to protecting the Colorado River System and the communities that rely on it. By working together, we can ensure the longevity of the basin.”

The Gila River Indian Community will receive $50 million in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act via the Lower Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency Program, which will help finance a system conservation agreement to protect Colorado River reservoir storage volumes amid persistent climate change-driven drought conditions. This conservation initiative will result in nearly 2 feet of elevation in Lake Mead for the benefit of the Colorado River System. The agreement also includes the creation of up to 125,000 acre-feet of system conservation water in both 2024 and 2025, with an investment of an additional $50 million for each additional year. This is among the first allocations for a system conservation agreement from the Lower Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency Program.

In October 2022, the Department announced the creation of the Lower Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency Program to help increase water conservation, improve water efficiency, and prevent the System’s reservoirs from falling to critically low elevations that would threaten water deliveries and power production.

In addition, the Department announced $83 million for the Gila River Indian Community’s Reclaimed Water Pipeline Project to expand water reuse and increase Colorado River water conservation. The project will provide a physical connection of reclaimed water to Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project facilities. When completed, the project will provide up to 20,000 acre-feet annually for system conservation with a minimum of 78,000 acre-feet committed to remain Lake Mead. Funding for the pipeline project comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and annual appropriations.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law including $8.3 billion for Reclamation water infrastructure projects over five years to advance drought resilience and expand access to clean water for families, farmers and wildlife. The investment will repair aging water delivery systems, secure dams, complete rural water projects, and protect aquatic ecosystems. The Inflation Reduction Act is investing another $4.6 billion to address Western drought.

More information on the Administration’s all-of-government effort to support the Colorado River Basin is available via a White House fact sheet.

Gila River. Photo credit: Dennis O’Keefe via American Rivers

Click the link to read “Arizona tribe will receive millions in federal payouts for water conservation” on the KUNC website (Alex Hager). Here’s an excerpt:

The Gila River Indian Community will conserve 125,000 acre-feet of water and receive $50 million from the Inflation Reduction Act in exchange. The tribe has the option to do so again in 2024 and 2025, receiving another $50 million in each additional year. That water will stay in Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, where historically-low water levels threaten hydropower production within the Hoover Dam, and have raised concerns about the reservoir’s long-term ability to provide water to millions of people in cities such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Those payments would break down to $400 per acre-foot of water…

The tribe will also receive $83 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand water reuse efforts. It will fund a reclaimed water pipeline that, when completed, will add up to 20,000 acre-feet annually for system conservation with a minimum of 78,000 acre-feet committed to remain Lake Mead…Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, cautioned that funding sent to the Gila River Indian Community is not necessarily indicative that the federal water conservation program is working at a broader level.

“It doesn’t say as much as we might hope,” Porter said, “Because this program is competing with current commodity prices. I have asked a few growers who have the opportunity to participate if they will, and it’s clear that the high price of different agricultural commodities is getting in the way. The Gila River Indian community is in a unique position to participate.”

[…]

Current guidelines for the Colorado River are set to expire in 2026, and states are expected to negotiate a new set of rules for how it’s shared. As climate change shrinks supplies, state and federal governments have assembled a patchwork of short-term conservation agreements to chip away at demand and prevent catastrophe before then.

Biden-Harris Administration Announces Nearly $585 Million from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to Repair Aging #Water Infrastructure, Advance #Drought Resilience

Imperial Dam. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=542847

Click the link to read the release on the Department of Interior website:

Today during a visit to the Imperial Dam, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau, Senior Advisor to the President and White House Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator Mitch Landrieu, and Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton announced a nearly $585 million investment from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for infrastructure repairs on water delivery systems throughout the West. Funding will go to 83 projects in 11 states to improve water conveyance and storage, increase safety, improve hydro power generation and provide water treatment.

The visit to the Colorado River Basin’s Imperial Dam – which is receiving $8.24 million in fiscal year 2023 – is part of the Biden-Harris administration’s Investing in America tour to highlight the opportunities that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are creating.

“President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is making a historic investment to provide clean, reliable water to families, farmers and Tribes,” said Deputy Secretary Beaudreau. “As we work to address record drought and changing climate conditions throughout the West, these investments in our aging water infrastructure will conserve community water supplies and revitalize water delivery systems.”

“President Biden is investing in America, and today’s announcement delivering much needed repairs to aging dams and other water infrastructure is part of our whole-of-government approach to making communities more resilient to drought,” said Senior Advisor Landrieu.

“These projects have been identified through a rigorous process and is a testament to the Bureau of Reclamation’s commitment to deliver water to future generations,” said Commissioner Touton. “As we manage through changing climate, we must look to the safety of our projects to ensure that we can continue to provide clean, reliable water to communities, irrigators, and ecosystems across the west.”

The projects selected for funding today are found in all the major river basins and regions where Reclamation operates. Among the 83 projects selected for funding are efforts to increase canal capacity, provide water treatment for Tribes, replace equipment for hydropower production and provide necessary maintenance to aging project buildings. Projects will be funded in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington.

President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is delivering historic resources to communities to help advance drought resilience and strengthen local economies. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes $8.3 billion for Reclamation water infrastructure projects over five years to advance drought resilience and expand access to clean water for families, farmers and wildlife. The investment will repair aging water delivery systems, secure dams, complete rural water projects, and protect aquatic ecosystems. The Inflation Reduction Act is investing another $4.6 billion to address the worsening crisis. Combined these two initiatives represent the largest investments in climate resilience in the nation’s history and provide a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the work of the Interior Department.

Today’s announcement builds on $240 million allocated through the Law in fiscal year 2022. The next application period for extraordinary maintenance funds is expected in October 2023.

Detailed information on Reclamation programs and funding provided in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is available on Reclamation’s website.

Southwestern Water Conservation District’s 2023 annual seminar recap — The #Durango Herald #snowpack #runoff

Click the link to read the article on The Durango Herald website (Reuben Schafir). Here’s an excerpt:

The Southwestern Water Conservation District held its 39th annual seminar Friday [March 31, 2023] in Ignacio to address the topic of “seeking common ground in crisis.”

About 300 people were in attendance, including both chairmen of the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Indian tribes, ranchers, farmers and officials from agencies involved in water conservation at the federal level all the way down to local districts. U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert was a surprise guest…The event’s schedule included panels on reusing treated wastewater, seeking common ground in the distribution of the river’s resources, and the connection been food and water for agricultural producers on the Western Slope, Front Range, and the upper and lower Colorado River Basin…From the Front Range farmers, like panelist Robert Sakata, the owner of a 2,400-acre farm nestled in the expanding urban boundaries of Brighton, to lower basin users such as panelist Bart Fisher, a farmer and former chairman of the Colorado River Board of California, the impacts of the historic drought are top of mind. The need to reduce water use has affected what they grow as well as the quantity…

“Buy-and-dry” programs have become a tense topic of conversation among farmers. The concept is to reduce water consumption by paying farmers annually for water to which they have a right but do not use. Although this can be done in any number of ways, the program’s epithet refers to the common method of fallowing – or intentionally not cultivating – land. Despite protections that ensure unused water rights will not be forfeited, as is historically the case, farmers are skeptical. From a financial perspective, the incentive is small. The upper basin program offers only $150 to farmers per acre-foot of water saved (an acre-foot is the amount needed to submerge an acre of land in 1 foot of water), while farmers can typically harness far more in profits from that water if they use it for irrigation.

“When you diminish agriculture significantly by fallowing, you diminish the economic engine of the community that supports agriculture,” Fisher said…

Harvesting a Thinopyrum intermedium (Kernza) breeding nursery at The Land Institute By Dehaan – Scott Bontz, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5181663

Simon Martinez, the general manager of Ute Mountain Ute Farm and Ranch, said he is more interested in testing out water-efficient crops…Like many farmers looking to save water, the Ute Mountain Ute Farm and Ranch is experimenting with Kernza. The wheatgrass variant can significantly reduce water consumption compared to a crop such as alfalfa…Martinez hopes to test the new grain as potential cattle feed and intends on sowing 46 acres with the seed, likely this spring. Although the concept is experimental – Martinez said the crop has not been grown in the region and its exact efficacy as a cattle feed is unclear – success could mean a significant water savings for the farm. In addition to reducing the amount of water needed to irrigate, which Martinez estimated could near 50% compared to alfalfa, grazing the farm’s herd on Kernza would increase profits by enabling the farm to sell more of the alfalfa that it does produce. The perennial grain has grown in popularity as its viability as an alternative crop becomes increasingly intriguing to farmers. The outdoor brand Patagonia adopted it into the company’s line of sustainable foods and now produces pasta and beer with the grain. Martinez said he is unsure of how the experiment will go. But to test out the grain on 46 acres of the 7,700-acre farm is a small sacrifice…

West snowpack basin-filled map April 6, 2023 via the NRCS.

With future weather predictions becoming increasingly unpredictable, farmers are endorsing an array of solutions. Although this year’s ample snowfall does little to reverse the long-term impacts of the historic drought, water aficionados in the Four Corners are nonetheless grateful for the supply.

Once-in-a-century #runoff predicted for #ColoradoRiver as officials warn, “Don’t squander it” — @WaterEdCO

Wahweap Marina on Lake Powell at low water. Lake Powell will recover some storage thanks to the spectacular runoff predicted for this year. Jonathan P. Thompson photo

Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):

Calling this year’s forecasted Colorado River streamflows a “a once-in-a-century” event, water officials are warning decision makers not to squander the river’s surprising 2023 bounty.

The drought-strapped Lake Powell could see new supplies of more than 10 million acre-feet this year, 2 million more than had been forecast just one month ago, according to the Colorado River Basin Forecast Center.

Due to drought, and climate-driven reductions in mountain snows, Lake Powell hasn’t been full in 20 years and plummeted to just 23% full last year. It holds roughly 26 million acre-feet when it reaches maximum storage capacity. One acre-foot equals 326,000 gallons.

“It’s a tremendous gift. Our challenge is to not squander it,” said Chuck Cullom, director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, which represents the four Upper Colorado River Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Arizona, California and Nevada comprise the Lower Basin.

Cullom’s comments came March 31 at a seminar by Colorado’s Southwestern Water Conservation District in Ignacio, Colorado.

Screenshot of the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center streamflow forecast April 7, 2023.

With the new streamflow forecasts, reservoirs are expected to recover dramatically. Upper Colorado River water officials say the water needs to be held in the Upper Basin to improve the health of the system and to help cope with future drought years and reduced mountain snowpacks.

Even with the unexpected surge in new water supplies, Powell is only expected to recover slightly this year. Another bad year could throw the river back into crisis, officials said.

The seven-state Colorado River basin has been mired in a drought for more than 22 years, a dry spell widely believed to be the worst in more than 1,200 years. Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the largest reservoirs in the nation, have dropped to record lows, threatening water supplies to millions of people and jeopardizing the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s ability to generate low-cost, renewable hydropower for thousands of electric utilities across the West.

In 2019, in response to the ongoing drought and an alarming drop in storage levels at Powell and Mead, all seven states agreed to an historic set of drought contingency plans, which include cutbacks in use in the Lower Basin, as well as emergency releases from Utah’s Flaming Gorge Reservoir and Colorado’s Blue Mesa in the Upper Basin, to bolster Powell.

Those emergency plans were activated in the summer of 2021. Since then roughly 600,000 acre-feet of water has been released from Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa, with the majority coming from Flaming Gorge.

Just a few weeks ago it wasn’t clear that any of the actions taken would be enough to keep Powell and Mead from dropping into crisis territory, where power generation would stop and deliveries out of Lake Mead to Lower Basin states would not be enough to satisfy demand.

But now, because of the surprising depth of mountain snows, suddenly there will be water and Reclamation has pledged to hold as much of it as it can in the Upper Basin to restore levels in Flaming Gorge and elsewhere, Cullom said.

In the coming weeks, the seven states have critical decisions to make about how the system will operate for the rest of this year, including how much water will be released from Powell and from Mead.

Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River District, which oversees the river across a 15 county region in western Colorado, said he is grateful for the watery surge, but he said the Upper Basin states will push hard to limit releases from Powell and Mead this year and in years to come.

Climate stripes through 2022. Credit: Ed Hawkins

“We have to recognize that the water supply has changed underneath our feet. Yes, this year is a good year, and we appreciate that. What we have to remember is that one good year means the weather was good. It doesn’t mean the climate is going to go back to what we experienced in the 1970s or before,” Mueller said.

“The current guidelines have been focused on crisis management … We can’t continue to do that if we are going to get out of this problem,” he said, referring to the drought contingency plans and current guidelines for reservoir operations.

Manuel Heart is chairman of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in southwestern Colorado. The tribe is a major agricultural producer in the region. In 2021, the tribe received just 10% of its Colorado River water allocation due to the drought. Fields went dry and workers were laid off.

Now, along with other Colorado River farmers and ranchers, the tribe is looking for ways to adapt to a drier climate.

But this year, Heart said he is enjoying this remarkable wet season.

“Our prayers got answered this year,” he said. “It’s good to see the mountains the way they are supposed to look. I like to see the rivers flow and our lands green.”

Jerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.

Navajo Mountain March 2023. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

#Drought news April 6, 2023: #Snowpack SWE percentages = Lower Green 202%, Upper Colorado-Dolores 207%, and Upper Colorado-Dirty Devil 219%

Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Monitor website.

Click the link to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

This Week’s Drought Summary

This U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) week saw continued widespread improvements on the map across areas of the western U.S. including in California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah. Overall, the areal extent of drought in the West dipped to 31% this week as compared to 73% at the beginning of the Water Year in early October. This week’s improvements reflected the impact of the recent storm events which continued to boost mountain snowpack levels to record, or near-record levels as observed at numerous Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) SNOTEL monitoring stations across the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascades, eastern Great Basin, Wasatch, Uintas, and the southern and central Rockies. In California, the statewide snowpack was 243% of normal (April 5), with the Northern Sierra at 198%, Central Sierra at 242%, and Southern Sierra at 302%. Elsewhere in the region, the state of Utah is observing historic snowpack levels with the statewide snow water equivalent (SWE) at its highest level on record (April 5) at 211% of median, according to NRCS SNOTEL. In other regions, areas of the South (Texas) and the Southern Plains (Kansas, Oklahoma) saw further degradations on the map in response to a combination of short and long-term dry conditions, very low streamflow and reservoir levels, and reported impacts in the agricultural sector. In the High Plains, blizzard-like conditions and moderate to heavy snowfall accumulations were observed in the Dakotas during the past week as well as in areas of the Upper Midwest including northwestern Minnesota. In the Southeast, dry conditions and reports of deteriorating pasture conditions led to the expansion of severe drought areas in central Florida. Likewise, short-term precipitation deficits and increasing fire danger in areas of the Coastal Plain of North Carolina led to the expansion of areas of drought…

West snowpack basin-filled map April 5, 2023 via the NRCS.

High Plains

On this week’s map, changes were made including a slight expansion of an area of Exceptional Drought (D4) in central Kansas as well as one-category improvements in areas of Moderate Drought (D1) and Severe Drought (D2) in South Dakota in response to improving soil moisture conditions, snow cover, and above-normal precipitation during the past 30-90-day period in some areas. Currently, 50% of Kansas is depicted in the D3-D4 drought categories with 12-month precipitation deficits ranging from 4 to 16 inches. According to the latest USDA Kansas Crop Progress and Condition report (April 3), winter wheat conditions were rated 31% very poor, 26% poor, 27% fair, 14% good, and 2% excellent. In terms of topsoil moisture conditions (April 2, USDA), the percentage of topsoil moisture rated short to very short was 73% in Kansas and 56% in Nebraska. In the Northern Plains, blizzard-like conditions were observed during the past week bringing heavy snowfall to eastern Wyoming, northwestern Nebraska, and the Dakotas. According to NOAA NOHRSC, 72-hour snowfall accumulations as of April 5 ranged from 6 to 24 inches. For the week, average temperatures were well below normal with departures ranging from 5 to 25 deg. F below normal with the largest departures observed in North Dakota…

Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 4, 2023.

West

Out West, widespread improvements were made on the map including areas of California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico in response to excellent snowpack conditions across many of the drainage basins in the region. In California, the statewide snowpack (April 5) was 243% of normal, with the Northern Sierra at 198%, Central Sierra at 242%, and Southern Sierra at 302%. The California Department of Water Resources reported that the 2022-23 season will go down as one of the largest snowpacks on record in California. In Nevada and Utah, current SWE percentages of median for select basins are as follows: Central Lahontan 273%, Central Nevada Desert Basins 267%, Great Salt Lake 224%, Lower Green 202%, Upper Colorado-Dolores 207%, and Upper Colorado-Dirty Devil 219%, according to the NRCS SNOTEL network. In Arizona and New Mexico, snowpack levels are above normal, especially in the ranges of northern and central Arizona. In Arizona, the total reservoir system (Salt and Verde River system) is currently 100% full as compared to 72% full at the same time last year, according to the Salt River Project. For the Colorado River system, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is reporting (April 4) Lake Mead at 28% full and Lake Powell at 23% full…

South

In the South, a major outbreak of severe weather impacted portions of the region, including in the Mississippi and Tennessee valleys where numerous tornadoes touched down. The severe weather outbreak included strong thunderstorms with excessive rainfall, large hail, damaging winds, and violent tornadoes which impacted areas of Arkansas and Tennessee, leading to loss of lives and the destruction of homes and businesses. On the map, areas of drought intensified and expanded across areas of Texas and Oklahoma where precipitation deficits during the past 12-month period ranged from 8 to 20 inches in the most severely affected areas. According to the USDA (April 2), the percentage of topsoil moisture in Texas and Oklahoma that was rated short to very short was 72% and 63%, respectively. Moreover, numerous reservoirs in the western half of Texas were below normal levels, including the San Antonio River Basin reservoirs which are currently 5.3% full, according to Water Data for Texas. In terms of streamflow levels, areas of Oklahoma (northern and western) and Texas (Hill Country and South Texas Plains regions) observed 7-day streamflows in the <10th percentile range, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. For the week, average temperatures were above normal (1 to 8 deg. F) across the region with the greatest departures observed along the Gulf Coast and South Texas Plains…

Looking Ahead

The NWS WPC 7-Day Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF) calls for moderate-to-heavy precipitation accumulations (including heavy snowfall accumulations) ranging from 2 to 7+ inches (liquid) across the Cascades of Oregon and Washington, Klamath Mountains, and Coast Ranges of northwestern California. Meanwhile, light accumulations are expected in the mountain ranges of eastern Oregon and Washington, central and northern Idaho, and across areas of the northern Rockies. Elsewhere in the conterminous U.S., heavy precipitation accumulations (2 to 5+ inches) are expected in the Gulf Coast region of Texas and the South, while the Southeast (excluding Florida) is forecasted to have light-to-moderate precipitation accumulations (2 to 4 inches). In isolated areas of the Upper Midwest and Northeast, light precipitation (<1 inch) is forecasted. The CPC 6-10-day Outlooks call for a moderate-to-high probability of above-normal temperatures across much of the conterminous U.S. with exception of areas to the west of the Continental Divide where cooler than normal temperatures are expected. Precipitation is forecasted to be above normal across Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, Intermountain West, the Plains states, and in Florida. Below-normal precipitation is forecasted across the South, Eastern Tier, and portions of the Midwest.

US Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 4, 2023.

Just for grins here’s a slideshow of US Drought Monitor maps for early April for the past few years.

US Drought Monitor map April 4, 2023.
US Drought Monitor map April 5, 2022.
US Drought Monitor April 6, 2021.
US Drought Monitor April 7, 2020.
US Drought Monitor April 2, 2019.
US Drought Monitor April 3, 2018.
US Drought Monitor April 11, 2017.
US Drought Monitor April 5, 2016.
US Drought Monitor April 7, 2015
US Drought Monitor April 1, 2014

Topsoil moisture percent short to very short and percent surplus for the week ending April 2, 2023 — @DroughtDenise #drought

The 2023 Secretarial #Drought Designations includes 455 primary counties and 244 contiguous counties as of March 29 — @DroughtDenise

For more info, please see the Emergency Disaster Designation and Declaration Process fact sheet at https://fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USDA-FSA-Public/usdafiles/FactSheets/emergency_disaster_designation_declaration_process-factsheet.pdf

Romancing the River: Tragicomedies of the Commons — Sibley’s Rivers #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Industrial pollution is one of the consequences of operators ignoring their effect on the shared environment. By Frank J. (Frank John) Aleksandrowicz, 1921-, Photographer (NARA record: 8452210) – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17100801

Click the link to read the article on the Sibley’s Rivers website (George Sibley):

In my last post, I was questioning the process of allowing the privatization of the commons through individual appropriations – in our specific instance here, privatization of the ‘water commons,’ but also of the land, and all of its living systems and the raw resources that must feed, water, shelter not just us but all life on the planet.

Every living thing that requires food, water, air or virtually anything at all ‘appropriates it from the commons,’ and probably in the strictest sense we all ‘create a property’ in the apples we pick to eat, the water we dip out of the stream to drink, the oxygen in the air we suck into our lungs. But we have not always gone on to claim personal ownership of the tree that produced the apple, or the land the tree grows on, the stream that waters the tree. That is a relatively recent invention of modern cultures – the agricultural and the industrial societies that we created when there came to be too many of us to support ourselves as hunter-gatherers living off the scattered abundance of the commons.

A contemporary writer-thinker who has considered our conduct in the commons is Garret Hardin, a 20^th century American ecologist whose main concern as a scientist was the threat of overpopulation: a species (us) in swarming mode, but clever enough to stay a step ahead of the usual ‘natural’ controls – famine, plague, social breakdown and the Hobbesian ‘war of each against all.’ Hardin is best known, however, for a short excerpt, often found in high school and college texts, from a 1968 essay, ‘The Tragedy of the Commons.’

In the popular excerpt from ‘Tragedy,’ Hardin posed a grazing commons, used by a number of herdsmen. Being rational, Enlightenment individuals with a ‘natural’ desire to maximize their own self-interest through their labors, each herdsman desires to add another animal to his herd on the commons, even though he is aware that it might have a negative impact on the commons. The rational individual calculates, however, that he would get all the profit from his extra animal, while the cost to the commons would be spread among all the grazers. But with every user of the commons adding extra animals through that rational logic, the commons is over-grazed and destroyed.

One leader of the Scottish Enlightenment was Adam Smith, the father of modern economic science. By Etching created by Cadell and Davies (1811), John Horsburgh (1828) or R.C. Bell (1872).

This is the dark side of Enlightenment economist Adam Smith’s theory that economic individuals are driven by rational self-interest to engage in useful pursuits that will benefit their society as well as themselves, by meeting some societal need – a thesis embraced by most economists since Smith’s time (The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776).

The challenge of course is how to prevent the Enlightenment’s pursuit of individual self-interest from leading inexorably to Hardin’s ‘tragedy of the commons.’ Hardin saw the only alternatives to ecological catastrophe being either a) administration of the commons by the state or b) privatization of the commons according to the conventional wisdom of Aristotle: ‘Men pay most attention to what is their own; they care less for what is common.’ The choice between state management of what’s left of the commons, and further privatization by individuals, remains an area of open public conflict in the American West, with at least two bills before the current Congress proposing more creation from the commons.

But other modern thinkers have thought it through further – with work grounded in research, evidence collection, and other methods of the Scientific Revolution that preceded the Enlightenment. They discovered that there were (still are) many commons that have been used consistently without the users marching inexorably into Hardin’s tragedy – in some cases, in use for hundreds of years. They studied grazing commons, timber commons, fishing commons, water commons, and less tangible ‘commons’ like the air we breathe.

Foremost among these scientists is the late Elinor Ostrom, an American political scientist whose work in the study of commons was acknowledged in 2009 with a Nobel Prize in Economics. Her study of commons globally led her to observations about why some commons endured, even when used by individuals trying to maximize their own profit from their use, while individuals with the same motive degraded other commons.

Commons that succeeded over time, she found, were consciously managed locally by the users themselves, according to a set of rules generated, monitored and enforced uniformly bythe users. She did not find individual self-interest incompatible with successful commons management; it was only necessary for the individuals operating on a fragile commons to be able to persuade themselves and each other that even their short-term interests required the development of rules for avoiding the over-use of their commons. And if they kept the rule-making process close to home, they would be be able to build in elements of flexibility and local control sufficient to maintain the commons without losing their own sovereignty to external forces.

It became evident, to Ostrom and to other students of the commons, that this kind of commons management had to be locally generated rather than top-down from some external authority, and among people who had similar goals in living off the commons; a community with multi-generational stability, and a ‘belief commons’ as well would be more likely to succeed in conserving its physical commons if it chose to. Equally evident was the fact that it could never be a simple one-size-fits-all process; each commons and each community would have unique features.

The ‘water commons’ – the sum of our precipitation, surface waters, and groundwater – is our interest here, and the last two years bear mute testimony to its lack of predictability, which makes management of the commons difficult, no matter what system is employed.

San Luis People’s Ditch March 17, 2018. Photo credit: Greg Hobbs

The acequia system of land settlement, practiced by both the indigenous Mexican cultures and the Spanish invaders, only permitted settlement by communities of people, rather than by individuals under the ‘enlightened’ Euro-American model. Acequia systems essentially have ‘commons management’ by its users built into it. Everyone works to build and maintain the irrigation system, and the watered land under the ditch is divided as equitably as possible among parciantes, with the land above the ditch being mostly an undivided commons for grazing, ‘energy production’ (wood-gathering) and timber. The system is run by its users, with both surpluses and shortages shared evenly.

The ‘enlightened’ western American water appropriation system, on the other hand, is fundamentally antithetical to even the existence, let alone the intelligent management of a water commons. The Colorado Constitution, for example, seems to establish a public ‘commons’ in first declaring the ‘water of the streams public property’ – but then immediately stating that this public property is only the water ‘not heretofore appropriated’ – and the rest of the public property is ‘dedicated to the use of the people of the state, subject to appropriation… (and) the right to divert the unappropriated waters of any natural stream to beneficial uses shall never be denied.’

Once the right to use the water has been appropriated, there is not only no encouragement to share the burden of bad years, it is actually operating outside the law to do so; the law enforces the right of the senior appropriators in a system to get all of their water, even if it dries up junior appropriators to do so. This institutes a ‘first come, first served’ system that is more competitive than cooperative.

Theoretically, the users are only appropriating the right to use the water, not the water itself, and only for so long as they actually puts the water to use. But somehow that ‘right to use’ has become a property that can be sold or bought just like any more tangible personal property. And a new owner of the ‘right to use’ can file for a change of use, then move the right to use the water and the water anywhere he or she wants along with the seniority of the right.

Delph Carpenter’s 1922 Colorado River Basin map with Lake Mead and Lake Powell shown. The two giant reservoirs have always been part of the governance of the river.

All western states in the arid region have basically the same appropriation system, with variations mostly in administration. Thus, throughout the Colorado River region, water that was appropriated and privatized for agricultural use in one place can (after a change of use) water suburban growth a couple hundred miles away in the same state – a situation facilitated by the fact that the state boundaries bear no relation to any geographic realities like watersheds. Up to five million acre-feet of water leave the Colorado River’s natural basin every year for agricultural and municipal uses outside the basin – 40 percent of the river’s water. This ‘flexibility’ of ownership, on top of its ‘first come, first served’ energy, makes the appropriation process a powerful engine for growth, but with not much of a sense of a water commons.

Which brings us more or less back to the present, where we are at something of an impasse over what passes for our water commons. The seven Colorado River Basin states are confronted with the need for a huge ‘reality adjustment’ in the way the river has been operated over the past century: essentially we must – beginning this year – abandon the magical thinking of the Early Anthropocene and cut the overall consumptive use of the river by at least two million acre-feet.

Six of the seven states have constructed a draft plan that would apportion cuts close to two million acre-feet to meet this emergency equitably among all the states – not ‘equally,’ but equitably, cleaning up some mistakes from the past, like the Lower River states ignoring a million and a half acre-feet of annual evaporation. But the seventh state, California, is holding out for strict administration of the appropriation law, which would mean they would get most of their usual allotment, 4.4 million acre-feet (minus 400,000 they are willing to put into the kitty), and Arizona, Nevada and the four Upper River states, all with water rights mostly junior to California’s, would bear the rest of the burden.

Arguments can be made both ways: the importance of the primacy of the rule of law, versus an emergency situation that the law as (mis)administered cannot resolve. I am personally of the latter persuasion (in case you hadn’t noticed), and believe the appropriation laws for water, as they have evolved, might be more part of the problem than part of the solution at this point.

There is a little-discussed fact about appropriation law and seniority rights as it is actually practiced in bad years down on the ground, at least here in the headwaters of the Upper River. That is the fact that agricultural users, at the local level, don’t like to place ‘calls’ on their neighbors in hard times – a ‘call’ being a demand by a senior user that upstream juniors let the water go by until his right is completely fulfilled.

Downstream senior users will place a call when an upstream junior is being blatant in his or her disregard for priority in a time of relatively normal flows, to bring the offender in line. But in a dry year, which is no one’s fault, farmers and ranchers who have drawn water from the same stream for years – sometimes for generations – tend to not insist on rigorous apportionment of water according to seniority, but instead sit down together and figure out how to move whatever water is available around so that everyone gets enough to avoid dead perennials and maybe get a partial crop on their best land.

The ranchers here call these ‘gentlemen’s agreements’: ad hoc measures in which humans respond to nature’s random assaults the way anthropologists show us we did for our first million or so formative years, fragile bands wandering the generally unaccommodating steppes of the Pleistocene ice ages: working it out together. Self-interest served rationally through cooperative action.

These informal agreements beyond the law seem to fit with Elinor Ostrom’s observed ‘rules’ for the long-term management of commons; ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ only seem to work at the local level where users know each other, have transcended the abstract fear that he-she-they want my water, and know that rational self-interest in living a reasonably peaceful and productive life requires some neighborly accommodation to each other’s needs, whether one loves the neighbors or not (although serious neighborhood feuds can preclude a gentlemen’s agreement).

Herbert Hoover presides over the signing of the Colorado River Compact in November 1922. Members of the Colorado River Commission stood together at the signing of the Colorado River Compact on November 24, 1922. The signing took place at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover presiding (seated). (Courtesy U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation)

‘Gentlemen’s agreements’ have not, however, worked when ‘upscaled’ to the state or regional level. Consider the Colorado River Compact: the seven states gathered in 1922 for the expressed purpose of dividing the consumptive use of the river’s water seven ways beyond the appropriation laws. Each state would continue to observe appropriation laws intrastate, but not interstate; they wanted a gentlemen’s agreement that fast-growing California would not be allowed to appropriate most of the river before slower-growing states really got started, and California wanted the other states to support a big-dam project on the mainstem. But either despite their rational self-interest, or on account of it, they were unable to develop that equitable apportionment. The reason they couldn’t is obvious enough from looking at the Compact meeting transcripts: the Compact commissioners were arguing from fantasies about their future development, and they would neither accept each others’ fantasies nor downsize their own, and they would have needed half again more water than even the Bureau of Reclamation’s optimistic fantasies about the river’s actual flow.

But are we now at a sufficiently different place so that the river’s reality might prevail over magical thinking? We now know how much water there actually is in the river, and approximately how much less there will be as the temperatures continue to rise; we can see that the growth energy inspired by ‘first come, first served’ is the last thing we need in the Southwest today; we are aware what a general tangle the fantasies, omissions, ambiguous language and contradictions of the Compact and the subsequent ramshackle Law of the River have created – and we know we are only a couple really bad snow years from a ‘dead pool’ status where no one below Hoover Dam gets any water at all. We know we have to come up with some kind of consensual agreement now, not after another decade in court.

Can the seven states come to the table, leaving all our fantasies of the future behind, face these realities, and come to a gentlemen’s agreement that will get us at least through the next several years with the requisite major cuts in use? While we are trying to forge some new compact that does what the last one failed to do?

The Tomichi Water Conservation Program involves regional coordination between six water users on lower Tomichi Creek to reduce consumptive use on irrigated meadows as a watershed drought management tool. The project will use water supply as a trigger for water conservation measures during one year in the three-year period. During implementation, participating water users would cease irrigation during dry months. Water not diverted will improve environmental and recreational flows through the Tomichi State Wildlife Area and be available to water users below the project area. Photo credit: Business for Water.

If the ranchers on Tomichi Creek can do it up here in the headwaters….

‘The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness.
It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.’

– Alfred North Whitehead

Continued below-average precipitation reduces #groundwater levels, report shows — University of #Nebraska-Lincoln

Researchers with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln take groundwater samples from the Loup River in the Sandhills of Nebraska in September 2018. By sampling groundwater and determining its age, they hope to determine whether predictions for groundwater discharge rates and contamination removal in watersheds are accurate. Photo credit: Troy Gilmore

Click the link to read the article on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln website (Aaron Young):

Groundwater levels have declined in most of Nebraska following multiple years of below-average precipitation, University of Nebraska–Lincoln scientists found in a new statewide analysis. About three-quarters of the 4,787 observation wells across the state experienced groundwater level declines during 2021-22.

The Conservation and Survey Division, the natural resource survey component of the School of Natural Resources, compiled the findings in its latest groundwater level report.

For most of the observation wells, the net change in groundwater level was less than 20 feet since predevelopment times — before the widespread use of groundwater for irrigation.

Nebraska still retains a relatively abundant share of the High Plains aquifer system, in contrast to the situation in areas such as western Kansas and northern Texas, where the depletion of the aquifer has been severe, with major negative consequences for local agriculture.

But the survey’s findings highlight the direct negative effects that prolonged below-average precipitation can have on groundwater levels. During the 2020-21 period, 96% of weather reporting stations in Nebraska (166 out of 172) reported below-average precipitation. During the 2021-22 period, 68% of the stations (122 of 179) reported precipitation levels below the 30-year average.

The below-average precipitation values, combined with increased need for irrigation water to maintain crop yields, resulted in groundwater-level declines of more than 10 feet in some parts of the state, university scientists found.

“Changes in groundwater levels in Nebraska are largely dependent on annual fluctuations in precipitation,” said Aaron Young, survey geologist with the School of Natural Resources. “The hotter and drier a growing season is, the less water is available for aquifer recharge, and more water is required for supplemental irrigation of crops, resulting in groundwater-level declines.”

In contrast, wetter years mean that less supplemental irrigation water is required and more water is available for aquifer recharge.

Nebraska’s recent groundwater-level declines are concerning, Young said, in that some wells may need to be drilled deeper if drought conditions persist.

Although Nebraska has, on average, not seen declines in groundwater levels like those seen in Kansas or Texas, the degree of groundwater level change in Nebraska since predevelopment has varied greatly among individual areas, ranging from increases of more than 120 feet to declines of about 130 feet. For most of the state, the net change in groundwater level since predevelopment times has been less than 20 feet.

Parts of Chase, Perkins, Dundy and Box Butte counties, in contrast, have experienced major, sustained declines in groundwater levels due to a combination of factors. Irrigation wells are notably dense in these counties, annual precipitation is comparatively low, and there is little or no surface-water recharge to groundwater there.

The Conservation and Survey Division report was authored by Young and University of Nebraska–Lincoln colleagues Mark Burbach, Susan Lackey, Matt Joeckel and Jeffrey Westrop.

A free PDF of the report can be downloaded here. Print copies can be purchased for $7 at the Nebraska Maps and More Store, 3310 Holdrege St. Phone orders are accepted at 402-472-3471.

Nebraska Rivers Shown on the Map: Beaver Creek, Big Blue River, Calamus River, Dismal River, Elkhorn River, Frenchman Creek, Little Blue River, Lodgepole Creek, Logan Creek, Loup River, Medicine Creek, Middle Loup River, Missouri River, Niobrara River, North Fork Big Nemaha River, North Loup River, North Platte River, Platte River, Republican River, Shell Creek, South Loup River, South Platte River, White River and Wood River. Nebraska Lakes Shown on the Map: Harlan County Lake, Hugh Butler Lake, Lake McConaughy, Lewis and Clark Lake and Merritt Reservoir. Map credit: Geology.com

PacifiCorp plans to accelerate shift from coal to renewable energy — @WyoFile #KeepItInTheGround

A substation collects power from the Jim Bridger plant to connect to the electrical grid Jan. 19, 2022. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile)

Click the link to read the article on the WyoFile website (Dustin Bleizeffer):

Wyoming’s largest utility will either retire or convert #coal-fired units to natural (#methane) gas, sparing only two coal-burning units in the state beyond 2030

Wyoming coal will play a shrinking role in PacifiCorp’s energy supply portfolio as the utility adds more wind and solar power and either retires or converts its coal-fired power units in the state to natural gas.

Only two of the utility’s 11 coal-fired power units currently operating in the state will continue burning coal beyond 2030 — Wyodak near Gillette and Unit 4 at the Dave Johnston plant in Glenrock — according to the utility’s biennial Integrated Resource Plan filed on Friday. Several coal units will be spared from earlier decommissioning plans and instead be converted to natural gas — Jim Bridger units 3 and 4 in 2030 and Naughton units 1 and 2 in 2026.

Dave Johnston Unit 3 will be retired in 2027, and units 1 and 2 will be retired in 2028 rather than 2027.

All told, PacifiCorp will cut its coal-fired power generation capacity across its six-state operating region by 1,153 megawatts by 2026 and 3,000 megawatts by 2032, and replace it with wind and solar energy, battery storage, nuclear power, wholesale power purchases and energy efficiencies, according to the company, which operates as Rocky Mountain Power in Wyoming.

PacifiCorp plans a major shift from coal to solar, wind, nuclear and battery storage. (PacifiCorp)

“Our Integrated Resource Plan is designed to determine the lowest-cost options for customers, adjusting for risks, future customer needs, system reliability, market projections and changing technology,” said Rick Link, who serves as PacifiCorp senior vice president of resource planning, procurement and optimization.

No carbon capture for coal

One option that doesn’t fit those parameters is retrofitting decades-old coal-fired power units with carbon capture, use and sequestration technologies. PacifiCorp also filed a mandatory report to the Wyoming Public Service Commission Friday to update officials on its call for bidders to possibly install CCUS facilities at its coal units in the state — an action mandated by Wyoming law.

“Through 2042, the [analysis] for all CCUS variants result in higher costs than the preferred portfolio,” PacifiCorp said in its 48-page report. The summary suggests it will cost Wyoming ratepayers “$514 million [to retrofit] Dave Johnston Unit 2, $857 million for Dave Johnston Unit 4, and $1.3 billion for Jim Bridger units 3 and 4.”

Of the 54 companies that PacifiCorp sought bids from, only 21 qualified and only three participated in mandatory site visits, PacifiCorp said. The bidding and analysis also confirmed that adding CCUS to an existing coal-fired power unit drastically reduces a facility’s generation capacity, which would require replacing that lost capacity.

PacifiCorp is still working with vendors to explore the potential for taking on CCUS retrofits, however.

Three of four coal-burning units at PacifiCorp’s Dave Johnston coal-fired power plant near Glenrock will be decommissioned by 2028, according to the utility’s 2023 Integrated Resource Plan. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile)

“The company has determined that Dave Johnston Unit 4 and Jim Bridger units 3 and 4 remain potentially suitable candidates for CCUS and are being further analyzed under the company’s RFP process approved by the [Wyoming Public Service Commission] in the initial application,” PacifiCorp said in its report.

CCUS retrofits remain a significant cost and power-delivery-reliability risk for Wyoming ratepayers, Powder River Basin Resource Council Chairman David Romtvedt said.

“Ratepayers should not be asked to cover the costs of uneconomical energy projects,” Romtvedt said in a prepared statement. “Instead, we support the addition of cost effective and environmentally responsible renewable energy sources to the company’s overall energy profile.”

Renewable shift and potential nuclear

PacifiCorp’s updated Integrated Resource Plan, which looks ahead 20 years, includes quadrupling its wind and solar resources to 20,000 megawatts by 2032, backed with an additional 7,400 megawatts of energy storage.

The utility still envisions taking ownership of TerraPower’s Natrium nuclear energy facility at Kemmerer — which is expected to begin operating in 2030 — and possibly taking on two more small modular reactors co-located at coal plants in Utah.

Utility giant PacifiCorp hopes to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. (PacifiCorp)

The expansion of renewable and low-carbon electric generation facilities is accompanied by approximately 2,500 miles of new transmission lines, many of which will connect Wyoming renewable sources to PacifiCorp service territories in the West. All told, the power shift and transmission buildout should result “in a system-wide 70% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030, an 87% reduction by 2035 and a 100% reduction by 2050,” PacifiCorp reported.

Paramount to those greenhouse gas emission savings is curbing the utility’s reliance on coal.

“Driven in part by ongoing cost pressures on existing coal-fired facilities and dropping costs for new resource alternatives, of the 22 coal units currently serving PacifiCorp customers, the preferred portfolio includes retirement or gas conversion of 13 units by 2030 and 20 units by year-end 2032,” PacifiCorp said.

Though it remains to be seen how PacifiCorp’s shift away from coal and toward a lower-carbon energy portfolio will affect jobs and revenue in the state, the company’s plan acknowledges a larger energy industry shift and opportunities for the state, according to Romtvedt.

“Greater use of renewable energy will help us to ease the dislocation caused by the transition away from extractive resources while developing a more sustainable energy future that can support stable economies in our communities,” he said.

Deadpool Diaries: In March 2023, the #RioGrande/#ColoradoRiver #snowpack went bonkers — John Fleck (InkStain) #COriver #aridification

An urban river. Arenal Canal in Albuquerque’s South Valley. Photo credit: John Fleck/InkStain

Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck):

The ditches were flowing across Albuquerque’s valley floor yesterday [April 2, 2023] as I criss-crossed them on a long, aimless bike ride, the first day it really felt like spring. The cycling challenge at this winter<->spring pivot point is clothing – layers for a morning start hovering just above freezing, with a pannier stuffed with the layers by the time I was down to shirtsleeves for my taco brunch.

My favorite gage at this time of year is Embudo Creek, just above its confluence with the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico. You can see the diurnal cycle of day-night melting, and the rising as the temperature warms. With the big snowpack, flows right now are well above the median. (Prof. Fleck note: The skewed nature of the data, with flows a lot higher on the high side than the lows on the low side, makes the mean – typically what we mean by “average” – less meaningful for a data like this. Hence median.)

The West Gulf River Forecast Center is forecasting Embudo Creek runoff at more than double the median this year.

The Embudo is just one little creek, but people live on it and built their lives around it. Of such creeks is the entire West built. Good to pay attention to one.

COLORADO RIVER AT THE START OF APRIL

The whole deadpool/wrecked speedboats emerging from the Lake Mead mud thing seems a bit of a quaint echo from a stranded past, as the Colorado River discourse shifts from how to protect the infrastructure from a dark cascade toward deadpool to “Which reservoirs should we refill, and by how much?”

The official CBRFC April 1 forecast hasn’t dropped yet, but the preliminary modeled numbers are up 3.6 million acre feet from March 1.

3.6 million acre feet.

That seems like a lot, but it is worth remembering that we’ve been overusing the river by about 1.5 million acre feet per year since the turn of the century.

This likely means a release from Glen Canyon Dam to the Lower Basin of 9 million acre feet (or more?) in 2023, which might be enough to re-submerge some of the wrecked speedboats. That would be nice, but I hope we don’t forget the visceral message they’ve been sending us.

Interior’s draft modeling results should emerge next week (perhaps April 10-11-12?), but the specific near term crisis they were meant to help us through – the possibility of a Glen Canyon Dam release of less than 7 million acre feet this year – is gone.

Yay.

Instead, the Basin community is wrestling with a “what shall we do with the extra water” question: refilling Flaming Gorge and the other Upper Basin reservoirs drawn down by DROA, erasing “operational neutrality” by solving the confusing mess of the relationship between how much water was held back in Powell to keep the dam from breaking, and how that affects Lower Basin shortage tier accounting. (Don’t ask me hard questions, it’s super confusing.)

In a really important way, the discussion has shifted from short term crisis management to long term, umm, I guess “crisis management” remains the right description? Raise your hand if you disagree.

RIO GRANDE AT THE START OF APRIL

The Rio Grande, which is getting my most focused thinking right now on account of the new book (see bike ride picture above), is in good shape. Usually at this time of year I shift from watching the snowpack to worrying about dry wind events, but this year there’s so gosh-darned much snow up there that I’m, like, “Meh, whatever, bring it on, spring!”

Otowi runoff via WGRFC – a very good year on the Rio Grande

A lot depends on spring winds now, and the rate of warming and meltoff. But that will just be the difference between a big year and a very big year.

My great hope is for overbank flows in the Middle Rio Grande, like we had in 2019. Those were super fun.

A wet winter won’t stave off the #ColoradoRiver’s #water cuts — The Washington Post #COriver #aridification

Lake Powell has been about a quarter-full. The snowpack looks strong now, but it’s anybody’s guess whether there will be enough runoff come April and May to substantially augment the reservoir. May 2022 photo/Allen Best

Click the link to read the article on The Washington Post website (Joshua Partlow). Here’s an excerpt:

The abundant snow in the Rocky Mountains this year has been a welcome relief but is not enough to overcome two decades of drought that has pushed major reservoirs along the Colorado River down to dangerous levels, Camille Calimlim Touton, the commissioner for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said on Monday at the outset of a three-day trip along the river with a bipartisan delegation of senators to push for an agreement on how to conserve an unprecedented amount of water.

SNOTEL stations Colorado River Basin via the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center

The snowpack that feeds the Colorado River — which 40 million people rely on in the West — is currently at 154 percent of average for this time of year, Touton said…

The trip comes as negotiations between the seven states of the Colorado River basin have stalled, with California proposing one plan for cuts and the other six states — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah — offering another. The Interior Department is expected to publish an environmental review later this month intended to clarify its authority to make unilateral cuts to water usage and how those could be distributed if the states don’t reach an agreement…Colorado Democratic Sens. Michael F. Bennet and John Hickenlooper joined Wyoming Sen. Cynthia M. Lummis (R) for the trip, which is expected to include visits to Arizona, Nevada, and California — the Lower Basin states where the most contentious decisions will need to be made to reach the scale of cuts that the federal government is calling for.

“The future of the American West is at stake,” Bennet told reporters…

the states have yet to resolve their differences. In January, the six states agreed to an approach that would cut 1.5 million acre-feet by attributing losses mostly to evaporation of the water as the river travels through a network of reservoirs and canals in the southern states on its way to Mexico. That method would translate to particularly large cuts for California, which uses the biggest share of the river. California has rejected that approach and said that it goes against the long-standing system of water rights that has been established over more than a century. Under laws and court rulings dating back decades, in times of shortage, Arizona would lose its right to its water before California. California’s plan calls for more gradual initial reductions that intensify as reservoirs fall further, hitting Arizona particularly hard. Arizona water authorities view the California plan as impossible for their state to stomach.

Registration open for #ArkansasRiver Basin #Water Forum

Photo shows Tennessee Creek near the confluence of the East Fork Arkansas River in winter with snow on the Continental Divide of the Americas. Photo: Reclamation

Here’s the release from the Arkansas Rover Basin Water Forum (Joe Stone):

Registration is now open for the 2023 Arkansas River Basin Water Forum, slated for Tuesday and Wednesday, April 25-26 at the Doubletree by Hilton in Colorado Springs. Since 1995, the Forum has served Colorado’s Arkansas River Basin by encouraging education and dialogue about the state’s most precious resource – water.

The 27^th Forum will feature top water experts in Colorado and the Arkansas River Basin discussing issues critical for all water users, from everyday citizens and entrepreneurs to the water managers, attorneys and engineers who work to ensure a reliable water supply for Basin cities, farms and businesses.

Speakers, presentations, panel discussions and field trips will engage attendees in seeking solutions to the many challenges that must be met in planning for a secure water future for the largest of Colorado’s river basins.

Tuesday’s plenary session will provide an Arkansas Basin perspective on Colorado’s 2023 Water Plan. Upper Ark Water Conservancy District General Manager Terry Scanga will moderate a panel discussion featuring:

Russ Sands, Colorado Water Conservation Board water supply planning section chief.

Mark Shea, Arkansas Basin Roundtable chair.

Anna Mauss, Colorado Water Conservation Board chief operating officer.

Wednesday’s plenary session will examine strategies for preserving agriculture and urban landscapes in a climate of increasing water scarcity. Matt Heimerich, Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District board member, will moderate the session. Panel members are:

Kelly Roesch, Colorado Springs Utilities project manager.

Dillon O’Hare, Palmer Land Conservancy community conservation manager.

Catherine Moravec, Colorado Springs Utilities senior water conservation specialist.

In addition to expert presentations and panel discussions, a variety of tours and field trips will be offered on the afternoons of both days of the Forum. More information about registering for the Forum, including afternoon field trips, is available at arbwf.org.

Registration costs for the Forum remain a very good value:

Two-day full registration, including lunches – $300.

One-day registration, either Tuesday or Wednesday, including lunch – $150.

Percolation and Runoff networking dinner – $20 (all proceeds support the ARBWF Scholarship Fund).

Tuesday evening features the funnest part of the Forum, the Percolation and Runoff social networking event, which raises money for the college scholarship fund. The $20 cost includes dinner, drinks and lively conversation. All proceeds from this event support the scholarship fund, enabling the Forum to help students and working professionals in their education and research in water resources, watershed studies, hydrology, natural resources management and other water-related fields.

For more information, contact Jean Van Pelt, Forum Coordinator, at arbwf1994@gmail.com.

Arkansas River Basin via The Encyclopedia of Earth

Nature’s Supermarket: How Beavers Help Birds — And Other Species: New research shows that these ecosystem engineers can be an “ally in stopping the decline of biodiversity” — The Revelator

A chickadee feeding in the beaver pond. Photo: Putneypics (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Click the link to read the article on The Revelator website (Tara Lohan):

Researchers in Poland have found another reason to love beavers: They benefit wintering birds.

The rodents, once maligned as destructive pests, have been getting a lot of positive press lately. And for good reason. Beavers are ecosystem engineers. As they gather trees and dam waterways, they create wetlands, increase soil moisture, and allow more light to reach the ground. That drives the growth of herbaceous and shrubby vegetation, which benefits numerous animals.

Bats, who enjoy the buffet of insects found along beaver ponds, are among the beneficiaries. So too are butterflies who come for the diversity of flowering plants in the meadows beavers create.

Some previous research has found that this helping hand also extends to birds. For example, a 2008 study in the western United States showed that the vegetation that grows along beaver-influenced streams provided needed habitat for migratory songbirds, many of whom are in decline.

A beaver dam in Bierbza Marshes, Poland. Photo: Francesco Veronesi (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The new study published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management found further evidence by focusing on birds in winter. The researchers looked at assemblages of wintering birds on 65 beaver sites and 65 reference sites in a range of temperate forest habitat across Poland. Winter can be a challenging time for birds in that environment, as they need to reduce energy expenditures in the cold weather and find habitat that has high-quality food and roosting sites.

Wintering birds, it turns out, find those qualities near beaver habitat.

The researchers found a greater abundance of birds and more species richness near areas where beavers had modified waterways. Both were highest closest to the shores of beaver ponds.

One of the reasons that birds are attracted to these areas in winter has to do with warmth: The open tree canopy caused by flooding and tree diebacks lets in more sun, and ice-free beaver ponds can release heat, previous research has found.

The changes beavers make to the landscape also provide for different kinds of birds. Standing dead wood caused by flooding is sought after by woodpeckers, and then by secondary cavity nesters that follow. The diversity of plants that grow in beaver areas produce fruits and attract insects — and therefore frugivorous and insectivorous birds.

“All beaver-induced modifications of the existing habitat may have influence on bird assemblage,” says Michal Ciach, a study co-author and a professor in the department of Forest Biodiversity at the University of Agriculture in Krakow, Poland. “But different bird species may rely on different habitat traits that emerge due to beaver activity. It’s like a supermarket.”

Just how far into the forest do beavers’ benefits extend?

While the study found that the number of bird species and the number of individuals were significantly higher in the study areas closest to beaver ponds, “for some species this tendency also held in forests growing at some distance from beaver wetlands,” the researchers wrote.

The Eurasian beaver. Photo: Per Harald Olsen/NTNU (CC BY 2.0)

Those instances, though, weren’t statistically significant. But Ciach says beaver effects can be far-reaching in other cases. He’s the coauthor of a study published last year that found a greater number of wintering mammal species near beaver ponds, which extended nearly 200 feet from the edges of ponds.

And it’s likely that what’s good for birds may be good for many other species, too.

“Birds are commonly considered a good indicator of biodiversity,” he says. [ed emphasis mine] “If they positively respond to beaver presence, one may expect that such patterns will be followed by other groups of organisms. At this moment we are sure it works for wintering mammals. Other groups of organisms need investigation, but I’m quite sure many other organisms will do the same.”

The growing research about beavers suggests a greater need to protect their habitat and understand their important role in the ecosystem.

“Beaver sites should be treated as small nature reserves,” says Ciach. “The beaver, like no other species, is our ally in stopping the decline of biodiversity.”

A beaver dam on the Gunnison River. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

California’s #snowpack is among the deepest ever. Now get ready for the perilous ‘big melt’ — The Los Angeles Times #runoff (April 4, 2023)

West snowpack April 3, 2023 via the NRCS.

Click the link to read the article on The Los Angeles Times website (Sean Greene and Hayley Smith). Here’s an excerpt:

The snowpack is so deep that it currently contains roughly 30 million acre-feet of water — or more water than Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, according to a Times analysis of snow sensor data. But though the bounty has eased drought conditions, experts warn that the dense Sierra Nevada snowpack will soon melt, potentially unleashing torrents of water and creating considerable concern about spring flooding in valleys, foothills and communities below…

State officials announced the record snowpack Monday at their fourth snow survey of the season at Phillips Station near South Lake Tahoe. The surveys are conducted monthly, with April 1 serving as the benchmark date when the snowpack is typically deepest. The statewide snowpack on Monday was 237% of normal for the date — the deepest on record since the state’s network of snow sensors was established in the mid-1980s. The snow water equivalent — or the amount of water contained in the snow — was 61.1 inches. It is also deeper than previous records of 227% set in 1983 and 224% set in 1969, and tied with the record of 237% set in 1952, measured using earlier tools and baselines. Those were the only other years with April snowpack above 200%, said Sean de Guzman, manager of snow surveys for the Department of Water Resources…

Snowpack in the southern Sierra was even deeper, measuring a record 306% of normal for the date…The abundance of water allowed state and federal agencies to drastically increase allocations for water providers across the state and also prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to roll back some of his drought emergency restrictions, which were issued in 2021 amid the state’s driest three years on record.

West Drought Monitor map March 28, 2023.

But though the U.S. Drought Monitor and other indicators of dryness are significantly improved, it is possible to have too much of a good thing, experts said.

In the Southern Sierra, the snowpack's water equivalent is more than triple the normal depth. pic.twitter.com/NDZ5mM0QrS
— Sean Greene (@seangreene89) April 3, 2023

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Why do we need to act for nature?

Our top ten actions to help biodiversity

Making a difference

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How Bad Is It?

The Threats

Extreme Weather

Winners and Losers

Taking Action

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SLV WATER

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Let’s run some numbers

Onward!

How strong of an El Niño are we talking?

What would an El Niño mean for global climate?

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This Week’s Drought Summary

Looking Ahead

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PRIORITY ADMINISTRATION

SHARING THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

HOW IT PLAYS OUT

FUTURE YEARS:

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April 7, 2023 – CO, UT, WY

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Environmental justice issue

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