Water management

[oren]

Such an idiotic race to the bottom, with the end result clear and obvious. The fossil aquifer will eventually go bust, and California with it.

[Bruce Steele]

There is still a lot of deep water that can be drilled into in the Central Valley of Calif.  The energy costs of producing deep water is going up however so in the end I think the water will still be there but it will not be water anyone can afford.
 The reason so much land has gone into almonds and pistachios is they can be produced with very little human labor.  Labor at this point is more expensive than the electricity it takes to pump water.
Where I live horses still get irrigated pasture from well water. For riparian water users like me the cost of water is very low $14 acre foot. That cost is the same whether the well supplies residential, agriculture or industry. Food security just isn’t anything anyone seems to prioritize. Profit is king!

[kassy]

Researchers find that pumping draws young groundwater to new depths, potentially with contaminants in tow

...

Scientists at UC Santa Barbara discovered that relatively young groundwater tends to reach deeper depths in heavily pumped aquifer systems, potentially bringing surface-borne pollutants with it. The study, led by recent postdoctoral fellow Melissa Thaw, appears in Nature Communications.

"We usually think deep groundwater is safe from the contaminants found closer to the Earth's surface," said Thaw. "However, intensive groundwater pumping is pulling recently replenished groundwater to deeper depths, potentially pulling contaminants down, too."

Groundwater takes time to move about the subterranean world, flowing between soil particles and through crevices in the rock. Today's raindrops might not be tomorrow's well water; in fact, they might not even be next decade's well water. "Half or more of all the groundwater stored on the planet is rain and snow that fell more than 12,000 years ago,"

for details see:
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-young-groundwater-depths-potentially-contaminants.html

[Sigmetnow]

Maryland city’s $1.3M flood plan won’t stop stormwater damage, critics say

Byrne Kelly, a landscape architect, lives in a suburban Maryland neighborhood called Hell’s Bottom.
To the casual visitor, there’s not much hellish about it. Kelly lives near $1 million homes in shady Takoma Park, a Maryland city on the D.C. border that is less known for its demons than for its grocery co-ops, bluegrass aficionados and Little Free Libraries.

Elevation-wise, however, the land on which Kelly’s studio sits can’t get much lower. Hell’s Bottom is at the convergence of three Sligo Creek tributaries, making it prone to heavy flooding. Since he moved into the neighborhood in 1987, Kelly said, he’s had to bail out his basement three times and has suffered more than $40,000 of losses.

Now, as a member of the neighborhood group Takoma Stormwater Solutions, Kelly is persuading neighbors to plant rain gardens and koi ponds — even as authorities, in his view, shirk their responsibility to stop the waters.

“I don’t have a choice,” he said. “I care about my city and my neighbors.”


As communities around the world shore up their defenses against worsening floods, Takoma Park planned to spend more than a million dollars last fiscal year on storm water management. Yet, Kelly and fellow activists say their city is blowing cash on expensive plans that won’t prevent untold volumes of filthy runoff from pouring into their yards and homes.

Takoma Park public works director Daryl Braithwaite said the city regularly inspects its drainage system and is doing all it can to protect residents’ property. But, she said, the city can do only so much.

“I absolutely agree that climate change is going to wreak havoc on cities like ours that are fully developed,” Braithwaite said. “We’re really limited in terms of areas where we can provide additional storm water management.”

Although it is not on the coast, the D.C. area is being forced to confront climate change. The region can be inundated with water coming up from Chesapeake Bay in tidal flooding, by river water coming down the Potomac, and by storm water generated by rain.

Storm water can be a major problem for low-lying parts of the city that may not even be near major bodies of water. Gerald E. Galloway, an emeritus professor of engineering at the University of Maryland, calls them “pockmarks” — depressions in the landscape waiting to be filled up by a warming planet’s angry rain clouds.

“There’s nowhere for the water to go,” Galloway said. “What used to be bad is now worse.”

As cities including Miami — population 460,000 — spend millions fighting climate change, smaller places are digging into their treasuries as well. With a population of about 18,000, Takoma Park budgeted $1.3 million for storm water management in the past fiscal year alone.

It is how this money is being spent that troubles Kelly. On a windy circumambulation of Hell’s Bottom, he runs through the arcane vocabulary of storm water management.

Takoma Park is building boxed culverts (concrete storage tanks) to hold inflow (of storm water) that becomes outfall (outgoing storm water), meant to flow through 24-inch pipes over riprap (rocky outcroppings) and, eventually, back into the watershed (an area that includes the Anacostia River and Chesapeake Bay). This complicated system is meant to prevent scour (erosion) of the landscape and flooding that can endanger homes.

The problem: As amazing as this storm water collection system might sound, it’s all uphill from Hell’s Bottom. And, when the system fails — as it inevitably will, according to Kelly — gravity will do its work, turning Hell’s Bottom into a watery underworld where soggy basements and ruined carpets abound.

 
Kelly has technical gripes with the system. But what he mostly wants is more.

More storage such as bioretention ponds to hold more floodwater. More money for putting in native plants that will suck water out of the ground. A more comprehensive plan that envisages bolder infrastructure improvements. And for officials to collaborate more with owners of private property to prevent an inevitable, climate change-fueled catastrophe.

 
In a report this year, Takoma Stormwater Solutions, the community activist group, of which Kelly is a part, faulted the city on its response to the storm water problem and for diverting water downhill without protecting low-lying homes.

In an interview, Braithwaite, Takoma Park’s public works director, defended the city, which she said maintains a nearly 19-mile underground drainage system with less than one full-time employee.

Takoma Park inspects one-fifth of this extensive system every year, Braithwaite said, ensuring that it is fully reviewed on a five-year cycle. She said the city responded swiftly after severe flooding in 2020 to protect property owners from future rainstorms. And, among the improvements undertaken, the city recently completed a $7 million project to turn Flower Avenue into a “green street,” with tree plantings and storm water retention. ….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/23/takoma-park-floods-storm-water/

[vox_mundi]

U.S. Warns Western States It May Impose Colorado River Water Cuts
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-warns-western-states-it-may-impose-colorado-river-water-cuts-2022-10-28/

Oct 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. government warned on Friday that it may impose water supply cuts on California, Arizona and Nevada to protect the Colorado River and its two main reservoirs from overuse, drought and climate change.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation unveiled three possible action plans: one to impose cutbacks, another to allow western states to work out a reduction plan on their own, or a third and least likely option of taking no action.

https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/news-release/4362

The bureau, part of the Department of Interior, had previously set a mid-August deadline for seven western states to negotiate their own reductions or possibly face mandatory cutbacks.

When the deadline passed, federal officials gave the states more time to reach a deal affecting the water supply of 40 million people. While federal officials still prefer a negotiated settlement, that time appears to be running out, as the bureau said it would stop hearing public comments on the proposals on Dec. 20.

The seven states operate under a 100-year-old compact distributing Colorado River water, but that agreement has come under increasing strain from the worst drought in 1,200 years, which has been exacerbated by climate change.

A century ago, the compact assumed the river could provide 20 million acre-feet of water each year. The river's actual flow the past two decades has averaged 12.5 million acre-feet, leaving state water managers with more rights on paper than water that exists in the river.

Friday's notice said that among the cutback options being considered was decreasing the amount of water set aside for consumption in the 2023/24 water year by the three states of the so-called Lower Basin: California, Arizona and Nevada.

The Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming would be spared for now, but are still being asked to participate in negotiations to cut usage by an unprecedented 15% to 30%.

Other possible measures include modifying operations at Hoover Dam, which forms the country's largest reservoir of Lake Mead, and reducing the amount of water released from Glen Canyon Dam, which forms Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir.

Lake Mead was at 29% of capacity on Friday and Lake Powell 24%. If they fall much lower, they will be unable to generate hydroelectric power for millions in the west.

... The Bureau wanted a total reduction of between 2 and 4 million acre-feet — roughly a third of all water usage on the river.

The states have not even come close to meeting that goal. Major water users in California, which is the thirstiest of the seven states by far, agreed last month to cut water withdrawals by about 400,000 acre-feet, a decision that will have major implications for the agriculture-heavy Imperial Valley as well as the Los Angeles metro area.

https://phys.org/news/2022-10-shore-colorado-river-states.html

[kassy]

That states working out their own plan part has not really worked so far. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

[oren]

Even more interesting that they have barely cut 400,000, the plan calls for cutting 2-4 million, and really the need is to cut 6-8 million (all in acre-feet).
Lake Mead currently contains 8.4 million a-f, and Lake Powell 6 million, so not much slack in the system. Good luck.

[vox_mundi]

Drought In China Could Devastate Global Supply Chains, Energy Transition Efforts, Experts Warn
https://news.rice.edu/news/2022/drought-china-could-devastate-global-supply-chains-energy-transition-efforts-experts-warn

Following a record-breaking drought over the summer, China is on the brink of a water catastrophe that could have devastating consequences for global food security, energy markets and supply chains, according to a report from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

The world is not prepared for the potential disruptions to grain trade patterns and key industrial materials production that water shortages could cause, argue authors Gabe Collins, the Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental Affairs at the Baker Institute, and Gopal Reddy, founder of Ready for Climate and Chakra Capital Partners. They say the U.S. must take urgent action to decouple its most critical supply chains from China as quickly and comprehensively as possible.

"Policy discussions of China-driven risks so far have mostly centered on the nation's slowing growth, real estate bubbles, high debt and potential military conflict over Taiwan," Collins and Reddy wrote. "These factors are significant, but China's incipient water crisis, which receives far less attention from policymakers, could plausibly overwhelm such issues. An unsettling question emerges: What happens if China suffers a multiyear water crisis that significantly reduces its grain production and electricity supplies?"

Agriculture accounts for approximately 65% of China’s water consumption with power generation and manufacturing consuming another 22%; household consumption accounts for most of the remainder.

Despite the Chinese government's efforts to increase water availability, the country still faces a supply gap that some scholars estimate could reach 25% by 2030. Billions of people worldwide would be affected in ways worse and potentially longer-lasting than the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, according to the report.

Water is critical not only for human consumption, but also for agricultural irrigation and electricity generation—especially that derived from coal, which accounts for about 60% of China's output. As the "factory floor of the world," any disruptions would impact global supply chains, the authors argue.



"Other countries have proven it is possible to manage demand and incentivize efficiency by raising the cost of water," they wrote. "But this will be a tough sell in China given that the global competitiveness of so much of its industrial model is predicated upon purposely depressed input costs, including both energy (coal) and water."

A water crisis that curtailed activity in China’s real economy would rapidly morph from a domestic issue to a global macroeconomic crisis. Given the world’s high reliance on China for a wide array of economically critical goods, forced production shutdowns due to water shortages would cripple supply chains across the globe. Further, the disruption to agricultural markets would place enormous stress on countries that rely on large quantities of imported food — many of which already suffer from political instability.

Additionally, many of the same energy technologies the world relies on to manage climate change and shift to less water-intensive electricity production come from supply chains originating in China. Polysilicon for solar cells and rare earth metals for wind turbines are just two industries that would likely be disrupted, according to the report. The same is true for electric vehicle batteries; China dominates raw material refining and cell production.



NCP = North China Plain Change in Water Equivalent Thickness, Centimeters. 0=Neutral

Data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that between 1985 and 2019, China’s stock of farmable land actually shrank slightly, while the portion of those lands equipped for irrigation rose from 41% to 63%. Other grain superpowers such as Brazil, Canada, Russia and the U.S. are far less dependent on irrigation (with 17% of farmable land equipped for irrigation in the U.S., 15% in Canada, and far less in Brazil and Russia). These nations expanded production by both boosting the cultivable land base and better applying inputs. By contrast, China’s calculus made the water variable disproportionally important — evidenced by the fact that much of the growth in land equipped for irrigation took place in the last 20 years. Indeed, China’s overall freshwater withdrawals rose by 28% between 1982 and 2017, according to the FAO. Groundwater use in particular has increased rapidly, growing by 66% during that time.

... Much of China’s water problem arises from the spatial distribution of its water resources and that its meteorology poorly matches the locations of agricultural activity and population. Many areas south of the Yangtze River receive annual precipitation substantially greater than Munich or New York City. Meanwhile, in a good year, much of the California-sized North China Plain gets only about as much rain as Sacramento or San Francisco — yet it serves as China’s breadbasket and is one of the most densely-populated regions on Earth.

The millions of wells now draining the North China Plain Aquifer and other subsurface water-bearing strata are proving unsustainable. Across the North China Plain, the water table now declines approximately a meter per year as farms and cities compete to pump water far faster than nature can replenish it. Data from NASA satellites that measure anomalies in Earth’s gravity field suggest that between 2003 and 2010, North China lost an amount of groundwater equal to about 143 million barrels per day each year — 10 times China’s present daily oil demand.

Once groundwater resources are sufficiently overdrawn, water can become economically inaccessible to agricultural users if the cost of obtaining it through larger, deeper wells exceeds the market value of crops produced. The transition to economic inaccessibility can happen far before reservoirs are physically “pumped out.” In practice, this means the transition from “stressed but sufficient” water supplies to an acute lack of supply can happen very quickly, particularly for the critical agricultural sector.

-------------------------------------------------------------

How China’s Water Challenges Could Lead to a Global Food and Supply Chain Crisis, (2022)
https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/how-chinas-water-challenges-could-lead-global-food-and-supply-chain-crisis

... The scale of human water consumption is massive compared to all other commodities. For reference, China’s economy consumes 14 million barrels per day of crude oil, while its daily average water consumption is 10 billion barrels, a quantity 700 times larger. Unlike many energy commodities, water also does not have viable substitutes. It is especially critical for growing food and generating energy, two of humanity’s most life-critical activities yet its ubiquity and underpricing often cause consumers and policymakers to overlook its importance.

[vox_mundi]

Facing Colorado River Shortage, 30 Urban Suppliers Pledge to Target Decorative Grass
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-colorado-river-shortage-urban-suppliers.html

The water agencies, which supply Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Santa Monica, Burbank, San Diego and other cities, have committed to a nonbinding list of actions, including creating a program to remove 30% of "nonfunctional" grass and replace it with "drought- and climate-resilient landscaping, while maintaining vital urban landscapes and tree canopies."

The pledge could strengthen efforts across the Southwest to remove grass along roadsides and medians, and at homeowners associations, apartment complexes, businesses and other properties.

... One of the prime areas where water managers see big potential to downsize are the sprinklers spraying unused strips of grass that line streets and the entrances of businesses and public properties, where no one walks except to mow. By converting those grassy patches that serve no recreational or community purpose to other types of plants that require less water, cities can substantially shrink their water footprint.

[Bruce Steele]

Voxmundi Kinda like skidding through a red light with a semi about to T-bone you and worrying about what song is on the radio while you spin the tuner knob.

[vox_mundi]

Exactly

[Tor Bejnar]

Yeah, but there are some songs I’d rather go out on than others…
 

[Sigmetnow]

Amid drought, Arizona contemplates a fraught idea: Piping in water from Mexico
Proposal by a private consortium to build Mexican desalination plant comes as surprise to some on state’s water authority
 
December 23, 2022

Arizona’s newly expanded water finance board had met only three times. The state authority had no director. Nor had it made a public call for water projects to boost Arizona’s dwindling water supplies from the Colorado River.

But earlier this week the board was suddenly facing a vote on whether to support a $5 billion project led by an Israeli company to build a plant to desalinate ocean water in Mexico and pump it 200 miles across the border — and through a national monument — to ease the state’s water crisis. Arizona and Mexico have been talking for years about removing salt from water in the Sea of Cortez, but this plan was new to many, and the rush for the state’s blessing in the waning days of Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s administration worried some in the state.

“I’m sorry but this reeks of backroom deals,” State Sen. Lisa Otondo (D) told the board during its meeting on Tuesday.

The accelerated debate also reflected the urgency of the water crisis facing the American Southwest. With water levels in key reservoirs approaching dangerously low thresholds — as a historic drought extends into its third decade — many officials want to import water into the Colorado River basin from elsewhere.

“The risk here clearly, in this case, outweighs the rush,” Andy Tobin, a member of the water finance board and a former speaker in the Arizona House of Representatives said during Tuesday’s meeting. “We’ve got folks who are running out of water.”

IDE Technologies, an Israel-based company that has built desalination plants around the world, claims it can deliver an oasis of up to 1 million acre-feet of water to the drought-parched state — an amount roughly equal to what central and southern Arizona took from the Colorado River this year.

During its presentation to the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona, two representatives from the developer, plus a Goldman Sachs official involved in financing for the project, presented their vision for the largest desalination plant in the world. The representatives said the project would be entirely financed by private money but they want Arizona to pledge to buy the water at an unspecified future price.

“We need a long-term commitment that when we deliver water to you, you will buy it,” said Erez Hoter-Ishay, manager of the Arizona Water Project Solution Team, as the IDE-led consortium is called. “Simple as that.”

On Tuesday, the water finance board voted unanimously approve a nonbinding resolution to continue to study the project.

IDE said the plant would be built near Puerto Peñasco, along the Sea of Cortez in the Mexican state of Sonora. The roughly $5 billion first phase would involve building a plant that sucks in seawater and filters it through membranes to remove the salt.

Then it would be pumped through a 200-mile pipeline north, crossing into the United States at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, an international biosphere reserve, before following a highway toward Maricopa County, where it could join canals that serve Phoenix and Tucson. The first phase, a single pipeline, could carry about 300,000 acre feet of water to Arizona and could be operational by 2027, with future pipes supplying up to 1 million acre-feet, the IDE representatives said. An acre-foot equals 326,000 gallons, or enough to cover an acre of land in a foot of water.

Environmental groups have raised concerns that the plant, which would pump brine back into the Sea of Cortez, could damage marine habitat, and the pipeline could disrupt the sensitive desert in the national monument.

Jennifer Martin, a program manager with the Sierra Club in Arizona, told the board that the state should be focused on conserving water, moving away from water-intensive crops such as alfalfa, and reining in rapid growth, rather than shifting the environmental burden onto Mexico and future generations.

“Sierra Club urges you to put the breaks on this expensive, energy-intensive and environmentally-harmful proposal now and not to rush it through in the waning days of 2022 and the Ducey administration,” she said. …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/23/arizona-mexico-water-pipeline-project/

[oren]

Desalination will be a way out for many regions and locations that have exceeded their carrying capacity in regards to water.
The problem of course is that water provided by nature, whether renewable from rain and rivers or single-use from fossil water aquifers, is much cheaper than desalinated water. This changes water economics and eventually drives up the overall cost of water, which is probably a good outcome in the grand scheme of things as current water price is in typically below its true cost.
Desalination should come after or hand in hand with other measures to save water, and with reclamation measures such as producing irrigation water from sewage in water treatment plants.
As for financing such deals, the state is usually better off putting down the money itself, rather than signing off on a high transfer price of the water, but this depends on the specific conditions. Another issue with such contracts is the quality guarantee of the supplied water, and who monitors such guarantees in reality.

[vox_mundi]

Depletion of Groundwater Is Accelerating In California's Central Valley, Study Finds
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-depletion-groundwater-california-central-valley.html



Scientists have discovered that the pace of groundwater depletion in California's Central Valley has accelerated dramatically during the drought as heavy agricultural pumping has drawn down aquifer levels to new lows and now threatens to devastate the underground water reserves.

The research shows that chronic declines in groundwater levels, which have plagued the Central Valley for decades, have worsened significantly in recent years, with particularly rapid declines occurring since 2019.

"We have a full-on crisis," said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrology professor and executive director of the University of Saskatchewan's Global Institute for Water Security. "California's groundwater, and groundwater across the southwestern U.S., is disappearing much faster than most people realize."

Famiglietti and other scientists found in their study, which was published this month in the journal Nature Communications, that since 2019, the rate of groundwater depletion has been 31% greater than during the last two droughts.

They also found that groundwater losses in the Central Valley since 2003 have totaled approximately 36 million acre-feet, or about 1.3 times the full water-storing capacity of Lake Mead near Las Vegas, the country's largest reservoir.



"The trajectory we're on right now is one for 100% disappearance," Famiglietti said. "This is the water for the future generations. And it's disappearing."

California's historic Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was passed in 2014 with the intent of curbing overpumping and stabilizing aquifer levels. But the law, known as SGMA, gives many local agencies until 2040 to achieve sustainability goals.

Famiglietti said the findings indicate that timeline may be far too long, pointing to a need to speed up implementation of regulation under the law. The current pace of groundwater losses is now nearly five times faster than the long-term average since the 1960s.

"We are seeing what appears to be a rush to pump as much groundwater as possible before new restrictions take hold," Famiglietti said. "My fear is that by the time SGMA is fully implemented, it will be too late. There will be nothing left to manage."



The rush on groundwater comes amid the driest three-year period ever recorded in California, as well as a larger megadrought worsened by global warming that has blanketed the American Southwest for 23 years.

The research included analyzing nearly two decades of data from two NASA satellite missions, the latest of which is called GRACE Follow-On. The pair of satellites, which launched into orbit in 2018, track changes in Earth's gravity field to measure shifts in the total amounts of water, above and below ground.

The scientists examined other data on soil moisture, surface water and snowpack to estimate groundwater losses, and compared their findings with estimates from a computer model developed by the U.S. Geological Survey. They compared the current drought, from September 2019 through December 2021, with earlier largely dry periods from 2006-2011 and 2011-2017.

Data for the last two decades reveal successive drops in average water levels in a stairstep-like pattern, with brief wet periods that only temporarily slowed the declines.



"The water stress level in California is getting higher," said Pang-Wei Liu, a NASA scientist and the study's lead author. "The groundwater depletion rate is getting faster, especially in these five, 10 years."

The Central Valley is one of the world's major farming regions, producing almonds, pistachios, grapes, walnuts, tangerines, rice and other crops, as well as cattle and dairy products.

The quickening pace of groundwater declines has coincided with shifts in crops. The state's harvested acreage of almond orchards, according to federal data, has grown from 760,000 acres in 2011 to 1.3 million acres in 2021. Farmers have also planted more pistachio orchards.

Famiglietti said he thinks the recent acceleration in water-level declines is probably driven, at least in part, by farmers planting lucrative orchard crops and drilling deeper wells "before the hammer comes down" with restrictions under the groundwater law. Since SGMA was passed, thousands of new agricultural wells have been drilled in the valley.

The push to drill more irrigation wells and rely more heavily on groundwater has caused problems for shallower domestic wells. This year, more than 1,400 dry wells have been reported to the state, the highest number since officials began tracking reports of dry wells in 2013.

In the meantime, people in the Central Valley's rural communities continue to suffer the consequences as more wells sputter and dry up. Many residents who are living with dry taps have been relying on bottled water, household tanks and truck-delivered water while they wait for solutions.

The draining of the aquifer is causing portions of the valley floor to sink. As falling water levels leave underground spaces in layers of gravel, sand and clay, the ground collapses and permanently reduces the aquifer's water-storing capacity. In parts of the valley, the land has been sinking about 1 foot each year, a problem that has damaged canals and wells.

The researchers found that the losses of groundwater far exceed reductions in surface water, snow and soil moisture.

"California has been losing water, and groundwater is the reason," Famiglietti said. "It's really the tragedy of the commons."

The scientists analyzed trends in three areas of the Central Valley—the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Tulare basins—and found that the northern Sacramento basin, which has previously fared better than the southern areas, is also undergoing groundwater depletion.



"The vast majority of California's water is groundwater. The fact that it is disappearing at rates that are nearly 5 times faster than historical rates is the equivalent of unconstrained withdrawals from a bank account," Famiglietti said.

Famiglietti, the lead researcher on the study, was formerly senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In past research, he and other scientists have used NASA satellite measurements to assess how rapidly groundwater is being extracted in California and across the Colorado River Basin. He has studied groundwater depletion in food-growing regions around the world, from South Asia to the Middle East to the Ogallala Aquifer beneath the Great Plains.

In many parts of the U.S. and other countries, groundwater remains poorly managed or entirely unmanaged. As wells continue to draw down water levels, the declines in water levels remain largely unseen and underappreciated. Using satellite measurements to track groundwater, Famiglietti and other researchers have found widespread and worsening problems of depletion in many of the world's major food-producing regions.

Famiglietti said a guiding purpose of the research is to "to make the invisible visible."

The data reveal a dire picture, he said, in California and throughout the Southwest.

"The pace and scale of its disappearance vastly exceed what can be replaced by any management scheme," Famiglietti said. "If that groundwater disappears, so too does the food production. That means less produce, food shortages, higher food prices."

Famiglietti said many more people are also at risk of losing access to drinking water as falling water levels continue to leave more wells dry.

Pang-Wei Liu et al, Groundwater depletion in California's Central Valley accelerates during megadrought, Nature Communications (2022)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35582-x

[Bruce Steele]

Vox, Several large groundwater basins are currently in adjudication . GMA ( groundwater management act ) is being undercut by lawsuits designed to allocate future water extraction to largest current users so there is a huge incentive to pump as much as you can to lock in your future share.
 GMA is supposed to force water districts to balance water withdrawal with recharge rates but everything about adjudication and lawyers and appeals just benefits maximum use and pumping till you run out of appeals. And you will likely be rewarded for over pumping. When and if actual restrictions finally go into effect ( 2040? ) you will lose some percentage of former use but people who reduce pumping now due to concerns re. drought overdraft will receive less in the future and maybe not enough to plant anything.

https://www.omm.com/resources/alerts-and-publications/alerts/cuyama-valley-groundwater-basin-joins-growing-list-of-postsgma-groundwater-adjudications/

[gerontocrat]

Groundwater depletion in California's Central Valley

What a depressing couple of posts.
And when there is a year of a decent snow pack and some good rains the can will be kicked even further down the road.

It is hard not to conclude that the Central valley is certain to end up as no longer an agricultural powerhouse.

ps With a few exceptions are there any farmers left, or are they all AgroIndustry Executives?

[Sigmetnow]

Southern California
Nation's largest water supplier declares drought emergency
December 14, 2022

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The nation's largest water supplier has declared a drought emergency for all of Southern California, clearing the way for potential mandatory water restrictions early next year that could impact 19 million people.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California provides water to 26 different agencies that supply major population centers like Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

It doesn't rain much in Southern California, so the district imports about half of its water from the Colorado River and the northern Sierra Nevada via the State Water Project — a complex system of dams, canals and reservoirs that provides drinking water for much of the state.

It's been so dry the past three years that those water deliveries have hit record lows. Earlier this year, the district declared a drought emergency for the agencies that mostly depend on the State Water Project, which covers about 7 million people.

On Tuesday, the board voted to extended that declaration to cover all Southern California water agencies. They called on agencies to immediately reduce how much water they import. By April, the board will decide whether to make those cuts mandatory if the drought continues.

“Some Southern Californians may have felt somewhat protected from these extreme conditions over the past few years. They shouldn't anymore. We are all affected,” said Gloria D. Gray, chair of the Metropolitan Water District's Board.

State officials recently announced that water agencies like Metropolitan will only get 5% of their requested supplies for the start of 2023 due to lower reservoir levels. Some agencies may get a little bit more if its necessary for drinking, sanitation or other health and safety concerns.
…

Up to 75% of all water used in Southern California is for irrigating yards and gardens. Water agencies dependent upon imported water from the state have had restrictions for much of the year, including limiting outdoor watering to just one day per week.

Last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for residents and businesses to cut their water use by 15%. But since then, residents have reduced water use by just 5.2%, according to the State Water Resources Control Board.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Water District is investing in what could become the world's largest water recycling system. Known as Pure Water, the initiative would recycle wastewater instead of sending it out into the ocean.

https://news.yahoo.com/nations-largest-water-supplier-declares-004555122.html

[vox_mundi]

In Arizona, Colorado River Crisis Stokes Worry Over Growth and Groundwater Depletion
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-arizona-colorado-river-crisis-stokes.html

For decades, Arizona's cities and suburbs have been among the fastest growing in the country. In most areas, water scarcity has yet to substantially slow the march of development.

But as drought, climate change and the chronic overuse of water drain the Colorado River's reservoirs, federal authorities are demanding the largest reduction ever in water diversions in an effort to avoid "dead pool"—the point at which reservoir levels fall so low that water stops flowing downriver.

Already, Arizona is being forced to take 21% less water from the Colorado River, and larger cuts will be needed as the crisis deepens.

... One of the fastest-growing cities in the Phoenix area is Buckeye, which has plans to nearly triple its population by 2030. According to its 2020 water resources plan, 27 master-planned communities are proposed in Buckeye, which depends primarily on groundwater. If all the proposed developments are fully built, the city's population, now 110,000, would skyrocket to about 872,000.

In the area Ferris visited, construction has begun on the giant development called Teravalis, where the developers plan to build the equivalent of a new city, complete with more than 1,200 acres of commercial development.

State water regulators have granted approvals to allow an initial portion of the project to move forward. But in other nearby areas of Buckeye, state officials have sent letters to builders putting some approvals on hold while they study whether there is enough groundwater for all the long-term demands.

"It's hard for me to imagine wall-to-wall homes out here," Ferris said, standing on the gravel shoulder of the Sun Valley Parkway, which runs across miles of undeveloped land. "This is the epitome of irresponsible growth. It is growing on desert lands, raw desert lands, where there's no other water supply except groundwater."

... The state requires that new developments around Phoenix and other urban areas have a 100-year "assured water supply," based on a calculation that allows for groundwater to be pumped down to a level 1,000 feet underground. Changes by the Legislature and regulators in the 1990s cleared the way for subdivisions to rely on groundwater as an assured water supply.

The problem with this system, Ferris said, is that groundwater has been overallocated, allowing for excessive pumping in some areas. The desert aquifers contain "fossil" water that has been underground for thousands of years. "That water is not replenished. And so once it's pumped, it's pretty much gone," Ferris said.

Ferris said Arizona now needs to plan for years with little or no Colorado River water. She said she feels sad and angry that federal and state water managers, despite warnings by scientists, failed to act sooner to address the shortage.

"The Colorado River is dying," Ferris said. "It is dying from overallocation, overuse, aridification, mismanagement."

In the same way that tough decisions about the Colorado River were neglected for years, she said, "we're not managing our groundwater well."

"Either we do something about this now or we pay the consequences later. And we're paying the consequences now with the Colorado River, because we didn't deal with those problems soon enough," Ferris said. "If we fail to plan for the idea that our groundwater will no longer be sufficient, then ..."

... Alongside the Colorado river's decline, the Southwest is undergoing a parallel crisis of groundwater depletion. Scientists found in a 2014 study, using measurements from NASA satellites, that pumping depleted more than 40 million acre-feet of groundwater in the Colorado River Basin over nine years, about 1.5 times the maximum capacity of Lake Mead.

"Our research has shown that the groundwater in the lower basin has been disappearing nearly seven times faster than the combined water losses from Lakes Powell and Mead," said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrology professor and executive director of the University of Saskatchewan's Global Institute for Water Security. "Groundwater losses of that magnitude are literally an existential threat to desert cities like Phoenix and Tucson."

Next year, Arizona's allocation of Colorado River water delivered through the CAP Canal will be cut by more than a third. Some Arizona farmers are losing their CAP supplies, while irrigation districts are drilling new state-funded wells.

... "It's a hot market, the Phoenix metro area in general, and we've got to be able to have that water to meet that demand," Lowe said. "And so we're looking at working with others outside to find sources."

Arizona's cities have yet to see major reductions. But that could soon change.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources announced in 2019 that projections showed insufficient groundwater available for all the planned developments in Pinal County, between Phoenix and Tucson.

... Meanwhile, groundwater remains unregulated in most rural areas of Arizona, and large farming operations have been pumping heavily, drawing down water levels and leaving homeowners with dry wells.

... "Every drill rig that my company has is spoken for until May or June of next year," said Ralph Anderson, the owner of Arizona Beeman Drilling. "The business in the next 3 to 5 years is going to just go through the roof."

... Ferris said she feels more pessimistic.

Visiting a new development in Buckeye, Ferris drove past an entrance with flowing fountains. She watched workers building homes beside a golf course with ponds.

"We have to stop growing these giant developments on groundwater. It is unsustainable," Ferris said. "We need to limit the growth."

[Sigmetnow]

EPA broadens protections for U.S. waterways
The decision — a setback for various industries — broadens which wetlands, streams and rivers can be regulated under the Clean Water Act but stops short of a controversial Obama-era rule
December 30, 2022

The Biden administration on Friday imposed a rule expanding the definition of waterways that the government has authority to regulate, reversing a Trump-era change and replacing it with language the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said should prevent the need for future revisions — including any that a pending Supreme Court case might require.

The EPA said it would return the Waters of the United States regulatory framework to something resembling its pre-2015 state — before the Obama administration significantly and controversially widened the scope of the Clean Water Act to include even ephemeral streams and ponds.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the agency aimed “to deliver a durable definition of WOTUS that safeguards our nation’s waters, strengthens economic opportunity, and protects people’s health while providing greater certainty for farmers, ranchers, and landowners.”
…

The Supreme Court heard a case in October challenging the reach of the Clean Water Act, the landmark 1972 legislation that aimed to restore the health of polluted and degraded rivers and lakes. Members of the court’s conservative majority raised concerns about the law’s broad reach.

The Biden administration said its rule would define the law’s oversight as covering what it called “traditional navigable waters,” including interstate waterways and upstream water sources that influence the health and quality of those waterways. The definition is based on the legal framework established before 2015, with adjustments based on court rulings and newer science, EPA said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/30/biden-epa-wetlands-regulation/

[Sigmetnow]

US Southwest
Arizona city cuts off a neighborhood’s water supply amid drought
January 16, 2023

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The survival — or at least the basic sustenance — of hundreds in a desert community amid the horse ranches and golf courses outside Phoenix now rests on a 54-year-old man with a plastic bucket of quarters.

About a quarter of the homes in Rio Verde Foothills, a checkerboard of one-acre lots linked by dirt roads in an unincorporated part of Maricopa County, rely on water from a municipal pipe hauled by trucks. Since the cutoff, their water prices have nearly tripled. The others have wells, though many of these have gone dry as the water table has fallen by hundreds of feet in some places after years of drought.
…

The prolonged drought and shrinking reservoirs have already led to unprecedented restrictions in usage of the Colorado River, and the federal government is now pressing seven states to cut 2 to 4 million acre feet more, up to 30 percent of the river’s annual average flow. The heavy rain and snow pummeling California have not had much impact on the Colorado River Basin and major reservoirs Lake Powell and Lake Mead have fallen to dangerous levels.

This grim forecast prompted Scottsdale to warn Rio Verde Foothills more than a year ago that their water supply would be cut off. City officials stressed their priority was to their own residents and cast Rio Verde Foothills as a boomtown of irresponsible development, fed by noisy water trucks rumbling over city streets. “The city cannot be responsible for the water needs of a separate community especially given its unlimited and unregulated growth,” the city manager’s office wrote in December.

Scottsdale Mayor David Ortega was unmoved when his Rio Verde Foothills neighbors cried foul.
“There is no Santa Claus,” he said in a statement last month. “The megadrought tells us all — water is not a compassion game.”

With growing urgency, Rio Verde Foothills residents have pursued two main alternatives to find a new source of water, although bitter disagreements over the best solution have divided the community and pitted neighbors against each other.

For the past several years, some residents have sought to form their own water district that would allow the community to buy water from elsewhere in the state and import what they need, more than 100 acre-feet of water per year. Another group prefers enlisting a Canadian private utility company, Epcor, to supply the community, as it does with neighboring areas. But political disputes have so far foiled both approaches.

The water district plan — which supporters say would give them long-term access to a reliable source of water — was rejected in August by the Maricopa County supervisors. The supervisor for the area, Thomas Galvin, said he opposed adding a new layer of government to a community that prizes its freedom, particularly one run by neighbors with the authority to condemn property to build infrastructure.

Galvin preferred Epcor, a utility that, if approved, would be regulated by the Arizona Corporation Commission.

The water district “would be subject to the whims of five local lay people serving on its board. Whereas Epcor cannot assess anything on these folks unless the corporation commission approves it,” Galvin said in an interview. “To me, it was just a sensible plan all around.”

Scottsdale officials didn’t see it that way. To avoid an interruption of service to Rio Verde Foothills, Epcor needed Scottsdale to agree to treat the water it would provide — but the city has not agreed to do so.
…

Two days before the cut off, Stephen Coniaris, a retired emergency room physician, had his 5,000 gallon underground storage tank topped off. His solar-powered home overlooking the McDowell Mountains was already well-equipped to conserve through the worst drought in a millennium. He had a low-volume dishwasher; a toilet that consumed just 0.9 gallons per flush.
But this new dilemma has pushed Coniaris and his wife, Donna Rice, into more extreme territory. They joined a gym in Scottsdale to take showers. They haul dirty clothes to friends’ homes or a laundromat. Plastic buckets in the backyard collect the rainwater, however rare, that falls from spouts off the roof. This goes into 3.5 gallon plastic jugs stationed in the bathroom to flush the toilet — although they now usually make other arrangements.

“We pee outside,” Coniaris mentioned, as he ate his lunch of barbecued chicken off paper plates, to avoid doing dishes.
These measures have dropped the couple’s average water consumption from 200 gallons per day last year to 30 gallons per day in the first week of January, as they anxiously await a solution for their community. As the cutoff deadline approached last year, some neighbors sold their homes, and others have watched property values decline.
Rice said they are not planning to sell, but she couldn’t imagine much demand in any case.
“It would be crazy to buy our house at this point,” she said.
…
The help, for now, is Hornewer, and the other water haulers who service Rio Verde Foothills.
Until this year, the six trucks in his family-run business, relied on the nearby Scottsdale filling station. It would take about 15 minutes, he said, to fill his 6,000 gallon tank, quickly punching a code into the automated system and receiving his torrent of water.

On Saturday, he spent an hour driving 45 miles to Apache Junction, one of the few towns in the vicinity with an available filling station, a small cinder block house with a single hose. It now takes 85 quarters — and nearly three hours — to fill up.

John Hornewer sets alarms on his phone in two minute intervals, after which he puts a quarter in the fill station, as he fills up his 6,000-gallon tanker to haul water from Apache Junction.

“I’ll do what I have to do for my people,” he said. “But wow, this is getting stupid.”
…
The tedious process has reduced the number of possible water loads Hornewer’s company can make by 75 percent. Driving this far in a truck that consumes a gallon of diesel every 3.5 miles, has dramatically increased his costs. During hot summer months, when water usage spikes, the math on how he might satisfy the Rio Verde Foothills water demand simply does not add up, he said.

“We’ve got two months. And then we’re done,” he said. “In two months, it’s not going to matter how much money you have. In two months, it’s going to be: You’re going to get your allocation, your ration of water: use it wisely.”

Some of Hornewer’s customers require a large supply. The Miller Ranch, which attracts visitors from around the world to ride their collection of Missouri Fox Trotter horses, uses about 24,000 gallons a month to sustain some 40 horses and the people who visit and live on the 20-acre ranch.

“It’s certainly a problem,” said Sharon Yeagle, the ranch manager.
There is little alternative, however, if they want to keep their animals.
“It’s not like we can go buy bottled water for them,” she said. …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/16/rio-verde-foothills-water-scottsdale-arizona/

[vox_mundi]

As the Colorado River Shrinks, Washington Prepares to Spread the Pain
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/27/climate/colorado-river-biden-cuts.html

The seven states that rely on the river for water are not expected to reach a deal on cuts. It appears the Biden administration will have to impose reductions.



WASHINGTON — The seven states that rely on water from the shrinking Colorado River are unlikely to agree to voluntarily make deep reductions in their water use, negotiators say, which would force the federal government to impose cuts for the first time in the water supply for 40 million Americans.

The Interior Department had asked the states to voluntarily come up with a plan by Jan. 31 to collectively cut the amount of water they draw from the Colorado. The demand for those cuts, on a scale without parallel in American history, was prompted by precipitous declines in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which provide water and electricity for Arizona, Nevada and Southern California. Drought, climate change and population growth have caused water levels in the lakes to plummet.

“Think of the Colorado River Basin as a slow-motion disaster,” said Kevin Moran, who directs state and federal water policy advocacy at the Environmental Defense Fund. “We’re really at a moment of reckoning.”

... Without a deal, the Interior Department, which manages flows on the river, must impose the cuts. That would break from the century-long tradition of states determining how to share the river’s water. And it would all but ensure that the administration’s increasingly urgent efforts to save the Colorado get caught up in lengthy legal challenges.

The crisis over the Colorado River is the latest example of how climate change is overwhelming the foundations of American life — not only physical infrastructure, like dams and reservoirs, but also the legal underpinnings that have made those systems work.

A century’s worth of laws, which assign different priorities to Colorado River users based on how long they’ve used the water, is facing off against a competing philosophy that says, as the climate changes, water cuts should be apportioned based on what’s practical.

The outcome of that dispute will shape the future of the southwestern United States.

“We’re using more water than nature is going to provide,” said Eric Kuhn, who worked on previous water agreements as general manager for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. “Someone is going to have to cut back very significantly.”

... The premise of the Colorado River Compact assumed that the river’s flow would average 17.5 million. Over the past century, the river’s actual flow has averaged less than 15 million acre-feet each year. ... But, from 2000 through 2022, the river’s annual flow averaged just over 12 million acre-feet; in each of the past three years, the total flow was less than 10 million.

... Last summer, the water level in Lake Mead sank to 1,040 feet above sea level, its lowest ever.

If the water level falls below 950 feet, the Hoover Dam will no longer be able to generate hydroelectric power. At 895 feet, no water would be able to pass the dam at all — a condition called “deadpool.”

... In California, the largest user of Colorado River water is the Imperial Irrigation District, which has rights to 3.1 million acre-feet — as much as Arizona and Nevada put together. That water lets farmers grow alfalfa, lettuce and broccoli on about 800 square miles of the Imperial Valley, in the southeast corner of California.

California has senior water rights to Arizona, which means that Arizona’s supply should be cut before California is forced to take reductions, according to JB Hamby, vice president of the Imperial Irrigation District and chairman of the Colorado River Board of California, which is negotiating for the state.

Tina Shields, Imperial’s water department manager, put the argument more bluntly. It would be hard to tell the California farmers who rely on the Colorado River to stop growing crops, she said, “so that other folks continue to build subdivisions.”

... If the administration wants to impose deeper cuts on California, he said, it’s welcome to try.

“Reclamation can do whatever Reclamation wants,” Mr. Hamby said. “The question is, will it withstand legal challenge?”



... There are other arguments in Arizona’s favor. About half of the water delivered through the Central Arizona Project goes to Native American tribes — including those in the Gila River Indian Community, which is entitled to 311,800 acre-feet per year.

The United States can’t cut off that water, said Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community. “That would be a rejection of the trust obligation that the federal government has for our water.”

[kassy]

A century’s worth of laws, which assign different priorities to Colorado River users based on how long they’ve used the water, is facing off against a competing philosophy that says, as the climate changes, water cuts should be apportioned based on what’s practical.

Practical should be the way to go but i guess it will be lawsuits first.

[oren]

“Think of the Colorado River Basin as a slow-motion disaster,”

It appears the whole of modern civilization is a slow-motion disaster, always kicking the can down the road, prioritizing short term over long term, delaying maintenance, ignoring problems that are too big to handle.
Sapiens??

[Rodius]

A century’s worth of laws, which assign different priorities to Colorado River users based on how long they’ve used the water, is facing off against a competing philosophy that says, as the climate changes, water cuts should be apportioned based on what’s practical.

Practical should be the way to go but i guess it will be lawsuits first.

You are right.

Practically speaking, they should stop growing crops that need a lot of water... farmers will have to do it regardless. It is just a matter of if it is voluntary and controlled or involuntary and uncontrolled.

Either way, lawsuits come first.

[interstitial]

Part of the problem is money is given priority over practical.

[The Walrus]

A century’s worth of laws, which assign different priorities to Colorado River users based on how long they’ve used the water, is facing off against a competing philosophy that says, as the climate changes, water cuts should be apportioned based on what’s practical.

Practical should be the way to go but i guess it will be lawsuits first.

You are right.

Practically speaking, they should stop growing crops that need a lot of water... farmers will have to do it regardless. It is just a matter of if it is voluntary and controlled or involuntary and uncontrolled.

Either way, lawsuits come first.

Or at least stop growing them in places that do not receive enough rainfall to support them.  There is a pecan farm south of Tucson, that is the only patch of green in the entire county.  Why would someone want to grow these water intensive nuts in a desert?

[Sigmetnow]

NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite launched December 16, 2022 to monitor Earth’s water.
 

A new Earth science mission, led by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), will help communities plan for a better future by surveying the planet’s salt and freshwater bodies. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission will measure the height of water in lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and the oceans. As climate change accelerates the water cycle, more communities around the world will be inundated with water while others won’t have enough. SWOT data will be used to improve flood forecasts and monitor drought conditions, providing essential information to water management agencies, civil engineers, universities, the U.S. Department of Defense, disaster preparedness agencies, and others who need to track water in their local areas.

SWOT Earth Science Satellite Will Help Communities Plan for a Better Future - YouTube
4 min


Article (with videos):
NASA Mission Takes a Deep Dive Into Earth's Surface Water
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2022/12/8/nasa-mission-takes-a-deep-dive-into-earths-surface-water/

Watch a replay of the informational launch broadcast here:
Launch of the International SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) Mission (NASA Broadcast) - YouTube
2.5 hrs
➡️ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=maI09QHicTg&feature=youtu.be

[Sigmetnow]

“The bureau is admitting that the dam is a liability,” Roerink said. “From my perspective, that's a good first step.”
 
As the Colorado River shrinks, federal officials consider overhauling Glen Canyon Dam
Feb. 18, 2023

“There is now an acknowledgment, unlike any other time ever before, that the dam is not going to be suited to 21st century hydrology,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the environmental group Great Basin Water Network, who listened to the meeting. “They’re not sugarcoating that things have to change there, and they have to change pretty quickly.”

Those who participated in the Feb. 7 meeting included dozens of water mangers, representatives of electric utilities, state officials and others. They discussed proposals such as penetrating through the dam’s concrete to make new lower-level intakes, installing a new or reconfigured power plant, and tunneling a shaft around either side of the dam to a power plant, among other options.

The Interior Department declined a request for an interview, but spokesperson Tyler Cherry said in email that the briefing was part of broader conversations with state officials, tribal leaders, water managers and others “to inform our work to improve and protect the short-term sustainability of the Colorado River System and the resilience of the American West to a changing climate.”

Roerink and two other people who listened to the webinar told The Times that cost estimates for several alternatives ranged from $500 million to $3 billion. The agency will need congressional approval and will have to conduct an environmental review to analyze options.

The Bureau of Reclamation’s presentation, given by regional power manager Nick Williams, included some additional alternatives that wouldn’t require major structural modifications of the dam. Those options included adjusting operations to maximize power generation at low reservoir levels, studying ways of using the existing intakes at lower water levels, and making up for the loss of hydroelectric power by investing in solar or wind energy.
…

One of the possible fixes includes installing a new power plant that would generate electricity with water flowing from the bypass tubes, or taking a similar approach using existing infrastructure. Another would involve excavating a tunnel to the left or right side of the dam, and installing a power plant underground or in the riverbed.
…

Environmental activists have for years urged the federal government to consider draining Lake Powell, decommissioning the dam and storing the water downstream in Lake Mead.
…

Weisheit said he favors the option of investing in solar and wind energy. Instead of spending up to $3 billion trying to squeeze a shrinking amount of power from the dam, he said, “you can build a lot of solar cells and turbines,” including nearby on the Navajo Nation, which needs electricity.

Weisheit said he thinks the situation shows Glen Canyon Dam isn’t needed.

“Take the dam out,” he said, “because it’s not the right dam for climate change.”
…

Overall, the modifications to the dam that the federal government is considering would be “too much investment for very little return,” Weisheit said. “And it’s going to take a long, long time.”

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-02-18/federal-officials-consider-overhauling-glen-canyon-dam

[Sigmetnow]

Gavin Newsom waives permits to put California flood water underground
Fri, March 10, 2023

California’s severely depleted groundwater basins could get a boost this spring, after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order waiving permits to recharge them.

State water leaders hope to encourage local agencies and agricultural districts to capture water from newly engorged rivers and spread it onto fields, letting it seep into aquifers after decades of heavy agricultural pumping.

“We have been hearing for some weeks now about the need for clarity around when flows can be captured for recharge. And we certainly want to make sure that we’re capitalizing on the opportunities that are provided to us this year” said Karla Nemeth, director of the Department of Water Resources. “We are really at the at the start of what will be a significant flood season.”

To pull water from the state’s network of rivers and canals for groundwater recharge, state law requires a permit from the State Water Resources Control Board and Department of Fish and Wildlife. Many local agencies lacked the permitting during January storms, but this month’s atmospheric rivers and near record snowpack promises new opportunities to put water underground.

Newsom’s executive order eliminated the need for a water rights permit for groundwater recharge if the land meets specific environmental conditions between March 10 and June 1. It also waives the need for a permit from the Department of Fish and Wildlife to alter a lake or stream bed.

A local or regional flood control agency has to delineate an area at risk of flooding. Certain land is ineligible, including farmland used for dairy production, fields where pesticide or fertilizer has been recently applied, areas that could cause damage to critical drinking water if flooded.

Land that has been out of agricultural use for three years is also disqualified to protect wildife habitat. Agencies or landowners must report where they diverted water and an estimate of the amount of flow they used for recharge to the water board.

Groundwater makes up just under half of California’s water supply on average, but as much as 58% in dry years. Aquifers up and down the state can hold more than 850 million acre-feet of water, but years of heavy agricultural pumping have severely drawn down aquifer levels.

Researchers at University of Saskatchewan’s Global Institute for Water Security recently found that groundwater losses in the Central Valley since 2003 have totaled about 36 million acre-feet. For comparison, less than 150,000 acre feet is needed to supply the city of Sacramento for a year.

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was passed in 2014 with the intent of curbing overpumping and stabilizing aquifer levels. But the law, known as SGMA, gives many local agencies until 2040 to achieve their sustainability goals. …

https://news.yahoo.com/newsom-waves-permits-put-california-022112918.html

[Sigmetnow]

Flooding vulnerabilities of L.A. River's Glendale Narrows spark concern amid record rain
Sat, March 18, 2023

Heavy rain this week turned the Los Angeles River flood-control channel into a raging torrent, and with new storms expected on Monday, emergency officials are keeping a wary eye on a well-known stretch that has long been vulnerable to flooding.

Glendale Narrows is a lush seven-mile section of rumbling runoff between Griffith Park and downtown that attracts numerous sightseers and bicyclists. But despite its Instagram appeal, the narrows is a flood manager's nightmare.  It remains one of the few areas along the World War II-era channel that has a soft bottom due to its high water table. As a result, it is prone to erosion and buildups of sediment, vegetation and debris that could back up flows dumped by major storms.

It is also the only major segment of the 51-mile-long L.A. River flood-control system that was not designed to contain a 100-year flood, or a major deluge that has a 1% chance of occurring in any given year.

To make matters worse, this stretch of river is frequently crowded with weeds and trees.

“Glendale Narrows is a choke point that we watch closely,” said Mark Pestrella, director and chief engineer of the Los Angeles County Flood Control District. “The big problem is that it is under the control of Army Corps [of Engineers}, which is not adequately funded to clean out the area on a regular basis.”
…

Frequent catastrophic floods prompted civic leaders in the 1930s to transform the L.A. River into a complex flood-control channel and levee system to protect the burgeoning flatlands.

But new research suggests that the system’s channels and levees were based on 20th century assumptions that did not take into account recent “whiplashing shifts” in extreme weather caused by global warming.

In the last decade alone, California has been hit with back-to-back cycles of historic drought followed by historic rain, snow and flooding. …

https://news.yahoo.com/storms-continue-strike-concern-grows-120036544.html

[Sigmetnow]

Amid Continuing Drought, Arizona Is Coming up With New Sources of Water—if Cities Can Afford Them
From Buckeye to Mesa, Phoenix-area communities plan to spend millions to find new water supplies to help the region continue to grow.
May 6, 2023

BUCKEYE, Ariz.—Sixty miles west of Phoenix along the I-10 freeway to the California border lies what many Valley cities with limited water supplies and investment companies see as an answer to helping solve Arizona’s water woes: the Harquahala Basin.

It’s one of three basins in the state where groundwater can be pumped out and sent elsewhere—if cities are willing to pay the price. In January, Buckeye, one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities, with plans to triple its population in the coming decades, agreed to pay $80 million for one acre of land in the Harquahala Basin to acquire the water rights attached to it. Queen Creek, a fast-growing town east of Phoenix in Maricopa and Pinal counties, struck a similar deal with the same company last year for $30 million.

Buckeye’s purchase, which allows it to pump 5,926 acre-feet of water per year for the next 100 years, came weeks after Arizona’s new governor released a report saying the basin the city sits on didn’t have enough water for all its planned growth. It would need to find another source before the Arizona Department of Water Resources would issue certificates allowing developers to continue building, the report said. The water from the Harquahala will supply about 20,000 homes planned for development in the city 35 miles west of Phoenix—just a small fraction of the more than 100,000 homes developers plan to build there—and its price doesn’t include what it will cost to treat the water to be drinkable or get it to homes in Buckeye.

… Communities are preparing to spend billions of dollars to find new sources of water and build the infrastructure needed to deliver it to users. Some experts have cautioned that cities like Buckeye need to reevaluate plans for growth as Arizona continues to deal with the challenges of drought and climate change in the Southwest. But for now, some cities and the state have a different plan: spend what it takes to find the water to continue growing.

“We’re going to have to find other water supplies in order to grow and that’s tricky because there’s only so much water, and new water supplies—especially imported water supplies—are very expensive,” said Kathleen Ferris, a senior research fellow at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy. “Not only that, many areas do not have the infrastructure needed to get the water, even if you can bring it into the state.”

Arizona water laws limit how much groundwater can be pumped out of aquifers below the biggest and fastest-growing parts of the state, known as Active Management Areas, where developers must acquire a 100-year certification from the water department before being allowed to build—which is where Buckeye ran into trouble.

An acre-foot of water can supply about 3.5 homes with water for a year, according to the state water department. Teravalis, one of the major development projects in Buckeye, is expected to add 100,000 homes and 300,000 new residents across 37,000 acres of land. Most of those homes haven’t yet had their water secured.
…

The connection between water usage and growth in Southwestern cities’ continued sprawl is coming under continued scrutiny, with some states proposing steps to reign in suburban-style development in favor of denser housing options with more public transportation. Such legislation in Arizona failed to pass in the state Senate.
…

Phoenix itself is looking to build a multibillion-dollar water purification facility by 2030 that would recycle enough water for 200,000 households a year. The city is also looking to partner with nearby cities on the plant project to provide recycled water throughout the region and help cover its costs, the Arizona Republic reported.
…

“I do think we will continue growing,” said Haley Paul, Arizona policy director for the National Audubon Society. “It’s where and how we grow. Buckeye has got big dreams. But maybe it’s not a million people. There are limits.” …

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06052023/arizona-water-sources-drought/

[vox_mundi]

Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy. Drained dry. I'm so sorry.



There Will Be Blood - (2007)

[gerontocrat]

UK Water & Sewage Industry continue to screw the Public - except in Scotland.

The UK Water Industry is owned by private equity companies - (except in Scotland, where it is a Government parastatal. Perhaps thaat is why moving to Scotland has halved my water nad sewage bill.)

The industry, overseen(?) by a laissez-faire Government and a supine regulator continues to screw the public. Just another example of how giving away a natural monopoly on an essential to life, especially to offshore private equity, is a license to exploit.    Their latest shenanigans is reported below.

‘The whole thing stinks’: UK water firms to pay £15bn to shareholders as customers foot sewage bill

With cost of cleanup to be passed on to bill payers, analysis shows they will also pay £624 more by 2030 to fund investor payouts

Water companies will pay an estimated £14.7bn in dividends by the end of this decade, while making customers pay for new investment to stem the tide of sewage pollution in seas and rivers, analysis for the Observer has revealed.

Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron denounced the billions going to shareholders as “absolutely scandalous” while families struggling with the cost of living would be facing increases in bills to pay for the sewage cleanup.

“The whole thing stinks,” said Farron, Lib Dem spokesperson on the environment. “This is their mess, they should be the ones to clean it up – not hard-working families.

“The Conservative government needs to stop sitting on their hands and force water companies to use their unearned and unjustified profits to fix the sewage crisis.”

According to analysis by David Hall, visiting professor at the public services international research unit at Greenwich University, dividend payments by the nine English water and sewerage companies, based on 2022 prices, will cost customers £624 each by 2030.

Hall examined annual dividends paid by companies between 2010 and 2022, which average £1.83bn a year. He said all companies have stated policies to reassure investors that they would get good dividends every year. “That implies a total of £14.67bn would be taken in dividends between 2023 and 2030.”

After intense criticism of water companies from campaigners and politicians over the routine dumping of raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters over many years, the industry body, Water UK, last week made a public apology on behalf of the privatised water industry.

“We have listened and have an unprecedented plan to start to put it right,” said Ruth Kelly, the new chair of Water UK. “This problem cannot be fixed overnight, but we are determined to do everything we can to transform our rivers and seas in the way we all want to see.”

Companies promised a tripling of investment this decade to £10bn to cut sewage spills, upgrade treatment plants and build new storage facilities. But the plan was criticised by campaigners after Water UK admitted the entire cost of the project would ultimately be borne by customers.

Kelly defended what she said would be modest bill increases as the companies looked to recover the costs of the investment over time. She said the money had to come from somewhere.

Hall’s analysis shows that, on average, 23.5 million householders will pay £425 more to 2030 to pay for the investment to fix the sewerage system. This is on top of an increase of £624 to fund dividend payments in the same period.

Ash Smith, of the campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, said: “The captive customers of the monopoly companies appear to be the only true investors and are simultaneously used as a donor to shareholders who treat them as cash machines.

“Privatisation has just been a scam that successive governments have failed to stop, possibly because bills were relatively low set against the other rip-off industries, like power.”

The industry regulator, Ofwat, has to approve bill increases to cover the new investment to the end of the decade. Ofwat said: “Water companies must explain how their proposals will be funded, the proposed impact this will have on bills and their expected return to shareholders and lenders. It is important that companies continue to engage clearly with the public on how this proposed investment will benefit communities and improve quality of life.”

Alastair Chisholm, director of policy at the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management, said the high-profile announcement of massive investment in pipes, treatment works and water storage was a lot of spin. It had been forced on to water companies as a result of public outrage, which has driven the government and the regulator to take tougher action.

“The scale of this investment was known about, water companies know they have to vastly increase investment in storm overflows and treatment works to stay legally compliant because of the regulatory response to the public outcry,” said Chisholm.

“And it is the bill payers who are going to pay this huge amount.”

A spokesperson for Water UK said dividends acted as a return on overall investment into things like leaks and new supplies of water. They said the dividend yield in 2021-22 was 3.8%, below Ofwat’s assumption of 4%.

“If dividends weren’t paid then there would be no return and so no investment across all those things.

“Most companies have been paying significantly lower dividends than expected – many are paying no dividend at all at the moment, and net cash injections into companies equals more than returns over the last two years.

“We know how tough things are for many people at the moment, so whatever the bill impact, water companies will continue supporting more households with paying their bill than ever before – over a million households are already receiving support.”

Environment Agency figures earlier this year showed there were a total of 301,091 raw sewage discharges from storm overflows into rivers and seas in 2022, an average of 825 a day. Overflows are meant to be used only in exceptional weather, but have become a routine part of how water companies manage their network.

Sewage and debris on the Jubilee River in Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire, a popular spot for wild swimmers. Photograph: Maureen McLean/Shutterstock

[Sigmetnow]

Colorado River states reach deal with Biden to protect drought-stricken river

The states along the Colorado River — a vital source of water and electricity for the American West — reached an agreement with the Biden administration to conserve an unprecedented amount of their water supply in exchange for $1.2 billion in federal funding, state and federal officials said on Monday.

After nearly a year of negotiations and multiple missed deadlines, the deal amounts to a temporary solution intended to protect the country’s largest reservoirs — Lake Powell and Lake Mead — from dropping to critical levels over the next three years. These reservoirs have fallen dramatically as the warming climate and the past two decades of drought have pared down the river’s natural flow by some 20 percent.

To stabilize the river, the three states that comprise the Lower Basin — California, Arizona, and Nevada — have agreed to voluntarily conserve 3 million acre-feet of water over the next three years, which amounts to 13 percent of these states’ total allocation from the river. The Biden administration has committed to compensating the states for three quarters of the water savings — or 2.3 million acre-feet — which would amount to some $1.2 billion in federal funds, the people familiar with the talks said. The money from the Inflation Reduction Act would pay farmers, Native American tribes, cities and others who voluntarily forego their supplies.

“There are 40 million people, seven states, and 30 Tribal Nations who rely on the Colorado River Basin for basic services such as drinking water and electricity,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement on Monday. “Today’s announcement is a testament to the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to working with states, Tribes and communities throughout the West to find consensus solutions in the face of climate change and sustained drought.”

The Colorado River drought, explained

The deal, which was first reported Monday by the New York Times but whose outlines The Washington Post detailed last week, came together over the past month in a series of conference calls among state and federal officials and meetings in cities such as Las Vegas and Phoenix. It was pushed along by the publication last month of the Interior Department’s environmental review of reservoir operations — which outlined two alternatives for how to distribute cuts in water usage among the Lower Basin states.

Neither of those alternatives were particularly palatable to the states and pushed them toward a compromise. The timing of that federal process also forced the issue, as the states had until May 30 to issue formal comments on the Interior Department’s alternatives. As part of the new deal, Interior plans to suspend the comment period and instead analyze the new proposal in the federal environmental review process. The goal is to ultimately sign a record of decision that revises the 2007 rules that govern operations at Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s commissioner to the Colorado River talks, stressed on Monday that the deal did not represent a final outcome and the parties have agreed to a new proposal to be analyzed by the Interior Department in the months ahead.

“It is important to note that this is not an agreement, this is an agreement to submit a proposal and an agreement to the terms of that proposal to be analyzed by the federal government,” Buschatzke told reporters. “That is a really critical point for everyone to understand.”
…

The deal comes with emergency provisions if the reservoirs fall farther than expected in the next three years. The states would take additional action to protect reservoir elevations of 1,000 feet above sea level at Lake Mead and 3,500 feet at Lake Powell.

The heavy rain and snow that battered Western states this winter helped ease the crisis on the Colorado River and provided time and space for negotiators to reach a deal. As spring runoff begins, the reservoirs have started rising and the dire predictions about reaching critical thresholds have receded, for now.

The 3 million acre-feet in reductions over three years is less than some of the more dire scenarios that were laid out in the federal government’s environmental review. But state and federal officials have said they are comfortable that these reductions will be enough to protect the reservoirs until 2026, when the states and the federal government have been planning a major renegotiation of how the Colorado River gets divvied up.

As part of this week’s agreement, the parties now expect to formally begin the 2026 process soon. …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/05/22/colorado-river-water-conservation-deal-states/

[vox_mundi]

California to Trigger Rarely Used Relief Valve On Kern River, Diverting Flows to State Aqueduct
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-california-trigger-rarely-relief-valve.html

The Kern River is swollen with so much runoff from the epic Sierra Nevada snowpack that state water officials have decided to open a rarely used relief valve, diverting floodwaters into the California Aqueduct to be used as drinking water in Southern California.

Opening this flow relief valve, known as the Kern River Intertie, is intended to prevent floodwaters from reaching Tulare Lake, which in recent weeks has reemerged, replenished by powerful winter storms and now heavy spring runoff. In the early 20th century, the lake was systematically drained and channeled, allowing farmers to transform this arid swath of the San Joaquin Valley into a center of industrial agriculture.

Now, the phantom lake's reappearance has swallowed thousands of acres of farmland and is encroaching on low-lying towns such as Corcoran.

It marks the first time since 2006 that the intertie, which connects the Kern to the aqueduct west of Bakersfield, has been activated. The gates of the 320-foot-long channel were to be opened Saturday to begin taking in floodwater.

... The overall goal, she said, is to "do what we can to limit the amount of water that ends up in the lakebed." ... "The less water up against the Corcoran levee, the better," she said.

Over two months, state officials said, about 75,000 acre-feet of Kern River water will pass into the aqueduct, enough to supply approximately 225,000 homes for a year.

... The only place left to send the water safely is via the aqueduct to the cities of Southern California, where the Metropolitan Water District will mix it with other flows from Northern California, treat the water and send it to taps.

[Sigmetnow]

Taliban bringing water to Afghanistan’s parched plains via massive canal
August 20, 2023

… Two years after its takeover of Afghanistan, the Taliban is overseeing its first major infrastructure project, the 115-mile Qosh Tepa canal, designed to divert 20 percent of the water from the Amu Darya river across the parched plains of northern Afghanistan.
 
The canal promises to be a game changer for villages like Ishfaq’s in Jowzjan province. Like elsewhere in the country, residents here are suffering from a confluence of worsening food shortages, four decades of war, three consecutive seasons of severe drought and a changing climate that has wreaked havoc on rainfall patterns. Average temperatures across Afghanistan have risen by 1.8 degrees Celsius in the past 70 years (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit), or twice the global average.
…
Once the canal is completed — provisionally, two years from now — it could irrigate 550,000 hectares (more than 2,100 square miles) of desert, effectively increasing Afghanistan’s arable land by a third and even making the country self-sufficient in food production for the first time since the 1980s, according to Afghan officials and researchers. “It could impact every household in the country,” said Zabibullah Miri, the project’s head engineer at the state-owned National Development Corporation (NDC).
 
But for the internationally isolated Taliban, the canal represents a crucial test of its ability to govern.
…
Then there is the question of how much water Afghanistan will draw from the Amu Darya. Already, neighboring Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have signaled their concerns that the reduced flow from the Amu Darya would affect their lucrative cotton fields.
…
To save costs, the canal bed has not been sealed with cement, and along some stretches, briny groundwater has already seeped into the canal, tainting freshwater meant for irrigation.
…
In a statement, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesman at the Afghan Foreign Ministry, acknowledged there were “questions” about the Taliban’s ability to manage the canal and contain water disputes, but said they would be solved.
…
Today, construction has progressed about 100 miles, reaching deep into a part of Afghanistan that researchers say has become increasingly desertified over the past century. …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/20/afghanistan-taliban-canal-amu-darya/
 
Or, for a limited time:  https://wapo.st/3quJs9S

[neal]

China's ancient water pipe networks show they were a communal effort with no evidence of a centralized state authority

A system of ancient ceramic water pipes, the oldest ever unearthed in China, shows that neolithic people were capable of complex engineering feats without the need for a centralized state authority, finds a new study by University College London researchers.

In a study published in Nature Water, the archaeological team describe a network of ceramic water pipes and drainage ditches at the Chinese walled site of Pingliangtai dating back 4,000 years to a time known as the Longshan period. The network shows cooperation among the community to build and maintain the drainage system, though no evidence of a centralized power or authority.

Dr. Yijie Zhuang (UCL Institute of Archaeology), senior and corresponding author on the paper, said, "The discovery of this ceramic water pipe network is remarkable because the people of Pingliangtai were able to build and maintain this advanced water management system with stone age tools and without the organization of a central power structure. This system would have required a significant level of community-wide planning and coordination, and it was all done communally."

The ceramic water pipes make up a drainage system which is the oldest complete system ever discovered in China. Made by interconnecting individual segments, the water pipes run along roads and walls to divert rainwater and show an advanced level of central planning at the neolithic site.

Closeup photo of water pipe segments fitted together in situ at Pingliangtai. Credit: Yanpeng Cao
What's surprising to researchers is that the settlement of Pingliangtai shows little evidence of social hierarchy. Its houses were uniformly small and show no signs of social stratification or significant inequality among the population. Excavations at the town's cemetery likewise found no evidence of a social hierarchy in burials, a marked difference from excavations at other nearby towns of the same era.

But, despite the apparent lack of a centralized authority, the town's population came together and undertook the careful coordination needed to produce the ceramic pipes, plan their layout, install and maintain them, a project which likely took a great deal of effort from much of the community.

The level of complexity associated with these pipes refutes an earlier understanding in archaeological fields that holds that only a centralized state power with governing elites would be able to muster the organization and resources to build a complex water management system. While other ancient societies with advanced water systems tended to have a stronger, more centralized governance, or even despotism, Pingliangtai demonstrates that was not always needed, and more egalitarian and communal societies were capable of these kinds of engineering feats as well.

Segment of ceramic water pipe excavated from Pingliangtai, now at Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in Huaiyang. Credit: Yanpeng Cao

Co-author Dr. Hai Zhang of Peking University said, "Pingliangtai is an extraordinary site. The network of water pipes shows an advanced understanding of engineering and hydrology that was previously only thought possible in more hierarchical societies."

Pingliangtai is located in what is now the Huaiyang District of Zhoukou City in central China. During neolithic times, the town was home to about 500 people with protective earthen walls and a surrounding moat. Situated on the Upper Huai River Plain on the vast Huanghuaihai Plain, the area's climate 4,000 years ago was marked by big seasonal climate shifts, where summer monsoons would commonly dump half a meter of rain on the region monthly.

Managing these deluges was important to prevent floodwaters from overwhelming the region's communities. To help mitigate the excessive rainwater during the rainy seasons, the people of Pingliangtai built and operated a two-tier drainage system that was unlike any other seen at the time. They built simple but coordinated lines of drainage ditches that ran parallel to their rows of houses in order to divert water from the residential area to a series of ceramic water pipes that carried the water into the surrounding moat, and away from the village.

Segment of ceramic water pipe excavated from Pingliangtai, now at Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in Huaiyang. Credit: Yanpeng Cao
These ceramic water pipes represented an advanced level of technology for the time. While there was some variety in decoration and styles, each pipe segment was about 20 to 30 centimeters in diameter and about 30 to 40 centimeters long. Numerous segments were slotted into each other to transport water over long distances.

Researchers cannot say specifically how the people of Pingliangtai organized and divided the labor among themselves to build and maintain this type of infrastructure. This kind of communal coordination would also have been necessary to build the earthen walls and moat surrounding the village as well.

The Pingliangtai drainage system is unique from water systems elsewhere in the world at the time. Its purpose to drain rain and flood water from monsoons differs from other neolithic systems in the world, many of which were used for sewerage water drainage or other purposes.



https://phys.org/news/2023-08-china-ancient-pipe-networks-communal.html

[kassy]

That´s probably better suited here:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2470.0.html

[Sigmetnow]

Can golf cure its water addiction?
Drought is making it harder for golf lovers to justify the game’s copious use of water
September 10, 2023

LOS ANGELES —

Out of all the water soaked up by golf courses in 2020, 21 percent was recycled, according to a 2022 report by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, a group of golf course managers.

It’s no problem on the East Coast, where water is plentiful. But in drought-parched areas like Southern California and Arizona, it’s becoming harder for golf lovers to justify the game’s copious use of water and the stress it places on natural resources.

“You’re seeing full-on country clubs, with 36 holes of golf, slowly starting to die off because the kids don’t want to play because it just doesn’t seem right,” Bjorkman said. “It doesn’t feel right.”


Golf was first played in Scotland in the late Middle Ages on rolling grassy hills that were far from the highly manicured greens of today. The game had virtually no carbon footprint and required no specialized irrigation.
 
Some innovators want to go back to that. Courses across the country have created wildlife corridors for salamanders, butterflies and woodpeckers. Some have even switched to artificial turf.
 

The course at The Ranch was recently renovated, pared down from 18 holes to nine. Water-sucking Bermuda turf grass was ripped out, replaced with drought-resistant Kikuyu and Poa blends. The sand in the course’s sand traps is made on-site from recycled glass. Single-use plastics are banned, and the kitchen uses ingredients from an on-site organic farm and composts its food waste.

Bjorkman takes most pride, however, in using entirely reclaimed water. It buys all its water from a treatment facility just behind the greens, which turns sewer waste and other wastewater into water fit to irrigate the course’s 2,200 yards of grass.

“It’s hard for us to stomach using 20 million gallons of fresh water for a golf course that is a luxury,” Bjorkman said.


Some 70 miles away, near Los Angeles, La Cañada Flintridge Country Club, like The Ranch, pulls most of its water from a reclamation plant, behind the 14th green. The course still relies on municipal water for irrigation on hot days, but its annual water bill is around $200,000, about one-fifth of a typical California golf course water bill, said Pamela Dreyfuss, the sustainability director at La Cañada Flintridge Country Club.

Dreyfuss and Bjorkman say golf courses can provide greater environmental benefits than alternatives such as freeways, shopping centers and housing developments.

But these projects are still the exception. In Phoenix’s wealthy desert suburbs, golf courses regularly flout water limits, according to an Arizona Republic investigation last year. Many golf courses use drought-intolerant blends of Bermuda grass because of a popular perception that golfers would rather play on it — or, at least, that its bright green color is more attractive to nearby homeowners, industry experts say. Ground crews frequently paint grass with environmentally destructive nitrogen-based sprays to make it greener. …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/09/10/golf-sustainability-recycled-water/
 
Alternate link, good for a limited time: https://wapo.st/3qZBAgN

[morganism]

Extreme salt-resisting multistage solar distillation with thermohaline convection

Highlights

    •
    Thermohaline convection is initiated in confined-saline-layer evaporation
    •
    Record-high efficiencies are achieved in the salinity range of 0–20 wt %
    •
    180-h continuous distillation of 20 wt % concentrated seawater is realized

Summary
Recent advances in multistage solar distillation are promising for the sustainable supply of freshwater. However, significant performance degradation due to salt accumulation has posed a challenge for both long-term reliability of solar desalination and efficient treatment of hypersaline discharge. Here, inspired by a natural phenomenon, thermohaline convection, we demonstrate a solar-powered multistage membrane distillation with extreme salt-resisting performance. Using a confined saline layer as an evaporator, we initiate strong thermohaline convection to mitigate salt accumulation and enhance heat transfer. With a ten-stage device, we achieve record-high solar-to-water efficiencies of 322%–121% in the salinity range of 0–20 wt % under one-sun illumination. More importantly, we demonstrate an extreme resistance to salt accumulation with 180-h continuous desalination of 20 wt % concentrated seawater. With high freshwater production and extreme salt endurance, our device significantly reduces the water production cost, paving a pathway toward the practical adoption of passive solar desalination for sustainable water economy.

https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00360-4

and also:


Desalination system could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water
MIT engineers and collaborators developed a solar-powered device that avoids salt-clogging issues of other designs.

https://news.mit.edu/2023/desalination-system-could-produce-freshwater-cheaper-0927

( I also seem to recall that just putting microflakes of gold in the water will cause it to heat up enough to drive it to boiling in regular sunlight)

[Sigmetnow]

Arizona governor moves to end Saudi-owned farm’s controversial leases
State land planners, concerned about dwindling groundwater, had raised alarms about the deal since its start in 2015.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said Monday that her administration would effectively kick a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm off a critical stretch of state land, a forceful step that speaks to the firestorm of controversy over foreign extraction of natural resources as well as deepening dilemmas over water scarcity as climate change dries out the West.

The move will prevent the Saudi-owned company, Fondomonte Arizona, from pumping groundwater that could one day serve as backup for booming urban areas. Currently, the company uses the water to grow alfalfa to feed the kingdom’s dairy cows.
…

A Washington Post investigation in July found that state land planners have been raising alarms about Fondomonte’s presence in the Butler Valley since its arrival in 2015 under then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican. At the time, planners warned that the water there might one day have a better use, and that the state was not charging sufficiently for access to the land, given the value of the dwindling natural resource underneath it. Experts within the state land department also raised concerns in subsequent years about upgrades and other changes made by Fondomonte to the land, according to emails released in response to a public records request.
…

How a Saudi firm tapped a gusher of water in drought-stricken Arizona
Hobbs said Monday the state was moving immediately to terminate the one lease, covering about 640 acres, after finding that Fondomonte had failed to rectify problems previously brought to the company’s attention, including a lack of fuel containment equipment. An inspection in mid-August found that the problems had persisted for nearly seven years, according to the statement from the governor’s office.
…

Fondomonte fired back against Hobbs, disputing that it had breached the terms of its lease and warning that booting the company from state land “would set a dangerous precedent for all farmers on state land leases.” A spokesman, Barrett Marson, said the company was reviewing the state action and “will explore all avenues to ensure there is no discrimination or unfair treatment.”

The decision will not end Fondomonte’s presence in the state. The company owns about 10,000 acres of land in nearby Vicksburg, and it has a separate lease of state-owned land in that area as well. A letter sent Monday from the state land department to Fondomonte indicates that the company can appeal the lease cancellation, which is effective in 30 days.

Fondomonte is a wholly owned subsidiary of Riyadh-based food and beverage giant Almarai, which grows water-intensive crops in other regions of the world to avoid depleting the kingdom’s limited supply of the natural resource. Since 2015, one of those regions was the Butler Valley. Agriculture is possible in the valley, smack in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, thanks only to the water drawn through wells like soda through straws. Because of minimal natural recharge and scarce rainfall, water pumped from the basin is essentially mined, with no replacement.

The Butler Valley is especially critical because it is one of just several so-called transport basins, where state law allows transfer of water to cities. But Fondomonte’s leases, which it secured for below-market rates, gave it the ability to pump unlimited supplies of the scarce resources. …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/10/02/saudi-arizona-water-contracts-canceled/

[gerontocrat]

Arizona governor moves to end Saudi-owned farm’s controversial leases
State land planners, concerned about dwindling groundwater, had raised alarms about the deal since its start in 2015.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said Monday that her administration would effectively kick a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm off a critical stretch of state land, a forceful step that speaks to the firestorm of controversy over foreign extraction of natural resources as well as deepening dilemmas over water scarcity as climate change dries out the West.

The move will prevent the Saudi-owned company, Fondomonte Arizona, from pumping groundwater that could one day serve as backup for booming urban areas. Currently, the company uses the water to grow alfalfa to feed the kingdom’s dairy cows.

A Washington Post investigation in July found that state land planners have been raising alarms about Fondomonte’s presence in the Butler Valley since its arrival in 2015 under then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican. At the time, planners warned that the water there might one day have a better use, and that the state was not charging sufficiently for access to the land, given the value of the dwindling natural resource underneath it.

Apart from ex-Governor Ducey, I wonder if anyone will name the US lobbyists for and the perpetrators of this obviously shameful deal, and have a look at their current lifestyles.

[kassy]

not sure if this is the right place  ..... anyway....

https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-stop-sea-level-rise

Moved posts to the Geoengineering thread.

[kassy]

Dust Is Melting Snow—And Current Models Can’t Keep Up

In the drought-plagued western United States, mountain snowpack is a vital source of water.

Spring melting replenishes downslope rivers as temperatures slowly rise. But as climate change makes such variables as precipitation and temperature less predictable, managing this vital source of water has become a challenge. Scientists have warned that current snowmelt models remain stuck in the past.

“The current models are based upon statistical relationships that assume the future is going to be like the past. And I think we know now that we can’t rely on that assumption,” said McKenzie Skiles, a snow researcher at the University of Utah.

Skiles led a study published in Environmental Research Letters that highlights a particularly critical variable needed for snow forecasting models to adapt to a fast changing world: dust.

Cycles of Dusty Snow
Dust, being darker than the underlying snow, absorbs more energy from the Sun and speeds up snowmelt. Fast-melting snow is a problem because mountain snowpack shelters soil from the heat of the Sun, Skiles explained. When snow melts quickly, soil loses that protective blanket and dries out earlier in the season.

Researchers tracked the phenomenon in Utah in 2021 and 2022, when water levels in the Great Salt Lake hit a record low, driven by increased consumption and prolonged drought. Dust from the exposed lake bed blew onto snow in the adjacent Wasatch Mountains.

Great Salt Lake dust accelerated Wasatch snowmelt by 17 days during the 2022 snowmelt season, according to data Skiles and her colleagues published in June 2023.

“The landscape is drier, so any additional moisture that comes after is basically soaked up by the landscape instead of making its way back down to the Great Salt Lake,” Skiles explained.

The phenomenon is a feedback loop: With less water flowing into the lake, the dry lake bed expands, and more dust is blown onto the Wasatch snowpack. The cycle then repeats.

These findings back up numerous studies conducted from 2010 to 2018 in the Colorado Rockies, Skiles said. In the San Juan Mountains, dusty gusts from the Colorado Plateau accelerated snowmelt by 3–5 weeks and were correlated with snowmelt forecasting errors.

more:
https://eos.org/articles/dust-is-melting-snow-and-current-models-cant-keep-up

[morganism]

 Priorities for California’s Water    Stewarding the Wet Years

(...)
 Storing Water in 2023

In 2019, all of California’s major water supply reservoirs were mostly full by early summer. Yet less than two years later, the state declared a drought emergency, with some reservoirs at near-record lows and groundwater levels once again in sharp decline. The memory of this rapid change in fortunes loomed large in 2023.

Efforts to fill reservoirs dominated early-season operations in 2023. But by March, as the storms kept coming, reservoir operators—knowing there would be abundant snowmelt runoff—were balancing their efforts to store more water against leaving room in reservoirs to manage downstream flood risk. By late spring, almost all major reservoirs were full. A surge in runoff also increased storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead in the Colorado River basin—giving a temporary reprieve to a system that supplies water to much of the West and parts of Mexico.
“We’re really the squirrels of the water system, trying to sock away water to prepare for the future.” – Deven Upadhyay, Assistant General Manager and Executive Officer, Metropolitan Water District

After several years of drought, 2023 offered a welcome opportunity to recharge groundwater basins depleted by historic overuse. Many overdrafted basins face the prospect of significant pumping cutbacks to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), and expanding recharge can lessen these pressures. The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) estimates that recharge projects were able to capture and store approximately 3.8 million acre-feet of water by mid-summer, principally in the heavily overdrafted San Joaquin Valley. For perspective, that is roughly the volume of water stored in Lake Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir. Managed recharge efforts also occurred throughout Southern California, which has invested heavily in underground storage.

In early March of 2023, Governor Newsom issued the first of several executive orders (EO) that allowed managers to divert water for recharge without a permit, if there was an imminent threat of flooding and they took measures to protect water quality. By fall, the EOs enabled recharge of nearly 400,000 acre-feet—and they represented a novel attempt to pair groundwater recharge with flood-risk reduction in both the San Joaquin Valley and the Eastern Sierra.
(much more)

https://www.ppic.org/publication/priorities-for-californias-water/

and; from earlier postings

The Future of the Colorado River Hinges on One Young Negotiator    (Propublica story)

(...)
Hamby — who goes by J.B. — is the youngest of the Colorado River’s “water buffaloes,” as the water managers who set policy are known.

While his counterparts from the other basin states — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — worked their way through water agencies or weathered the shifting politics of various governors, Hamby’s ascent was swift. In a three-year span, he rose from a recent Stanford University graduate, with a resume that touted little beyond a history degree and internships with Uber and a senator, to vice president of the Imperial Irrigation District board and chair of the Colorado River Board of California. The former post gave him sway over the single largest user of Colorado River water, and the latter made him California’s interstate negotiator for issues affecting the river basin.

Combined, these roles position Hamby as arguably the most powerful person involved in talks on the future of the Colorado River, a waterway that is relied upon by an estimated 35 million people and supports about $1.4 trillion worth of commerce.

They also place him at the center of the river’s most consequential moment since midcentury, when Arizona and California went to the Supreme Court to fight over the amount of water they were allocated. Now the river’s users must agree to dramatic cuts, as the river has been diminished by climate change and drought. It’s a task that demands Hamby both protect California’s long-standing water rights and lead all seven basin states to collaborate on a resolution, even though they’ll all have to give ground.

Hamby holds the trump card. The Law of the River — the compacts, laws and court rulings that govern how the river is allocated — reflects a time when water use was encouraged to bring settlers west. And court decisions have favored users with senior priority rights, meaning those who were first to plant stakes along the river, file claims in county recorders’ offices and prove their claims by taking water before federal and state water laws were codified. Those with such rights are legally entitled to receive their share of the river before the next person or agency in line receives any. The Imperial Irrigation District holds some of the basin’s oldest rights, dating back to 1901.
(more)
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/24/2207514/-The-Future-of-the-Colorado-River-Hinges-on-One-Young-Negotiator

and

How powerful land barons shaped the epic floods in California’s heartland

(...)
At one point in the hearing, brothers Phil and Erik Hansen, fifth-generation farmers in Kings County, voiced a brewing suspicion: J.G. Boswell Co., the tomato- and cotton-growing giant whose namesake family had wielded outsized power in the region for nearly a century, was brazenly rigging conditions to spare its own property in the lowest reaches of the lakebed.

It was a sentiment several local officials and landowners had expressed only in private, for fear of drawing the company’s wrath: that instead of letting the floodwaters take their natural course onto Boswell acreage in the lowest areas of the old Tulare lakebed, the company had raised levees and engineered irrigation canals to send the water surging onto farms and ranches on higher ground.

Cotton fields and homes the Hansens owned on the southeast side of the lakebed that had never flooded were now submerged — devastation they claimed occurred because Boswell had sent water rushing onto their land.

“It was premeditated,” Erik Hansen told the crowd. “They knew it would break on us.”

Boswell representatives acknowledged at the hearing that they had an interest in protecting the company’s crops and infrastructure. But they maintained their top priority was protecting Corcoran and said they were managing the floodwaters on their land to that end. Others in the room pushed back, saying Corcoran remained at grave risk.

At the end of the contentious hearing, Kings County supervisors took an action never before taken in county history. They voted to cut a levee on farmland owned by Boswell to buy time for Corcoran, home to 20,000 people and one of California’s largest maximum security prisons, as the town scrambled to raise earthen defenses against the encroaching floodwaters.

The decision was met with incredulity and fury by the powerhouse farming company.

“Boswell has been farming in the Corcoran area since 1925. Ninety-eight years,” George Wurzel, Boswell’s president and chief operating officer, told the supervisors. “And in 98 years, the county supervisors have never gotten involved in telling us where to put floodwater.”

In most parts of California, and indeed the United States, the idea that the government would largely cede to private companies management of a natural disaster that could decimate multiple towns, displace thousands of farmworkers and wreak destruction across hundreds of square miles would be unfathomable.

But that has long been how things operate in the Tulare Lake Basin. Land barons, chief among them J.G. Boswell’s founder, seized control of the basin and its water generations ago and have since managed it with minimal government interference.

In recent months, a team from The Times interviewed dozens of farmers, residents, government officials and policy experts; reviewed property records, court filings, water district records and historical documents; and spent hours driving around and flying over the lakebed.

The picture that emerged is one of a region that operates more like a secretive fiefdom ruled by a handful of legacy farming clans than a publicly governed jurisdiction where decisions affecting the well-being of residents are made on a foundation of transparency and accountability.

Among The Times’ findings:

The flood-prone Tulare Lake Basin is the one part of the Central Valley that has a special exemption from state-required flood control plans, leaving the area without a clear public strategy for managing floodwaters. State and federal flood maps offer scant information about the location or condition of the hundreds of miles of levees and canals in the basin — which spans portions of Kings and Tulare counties — because no one has ever reported it in detail.

And because the landscape is constantly in flux — as levees, berms and ditches are built, cut and rerouted as private landowners see fit — residents, lawmakers and water managers were unable to plan for and mitigate the damage as the floodwaters poured in.

The situation has been compounded by the unrestrained pumping of groundwater in recent decades. This is causing large swaths of the valley floor to sink, further changing the path water takes in the basin.

Local flood control and water conveyance districts, made up of powerful farming interests, make decisions about water infrastructure. Some refer to themselves as government entities; others receive tax-exempt status to store, divert and channel water.
(much more)

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-09-28/central-valley-land-barons-tulare-lake-basin-kings-county-flooding-water-farms-boswell

[kassy]

with a resume that touted little beyond a history degree and internships with Uber and a senator

I bet it is the latter that landed him there...

[morganism]

Tensions are bubbling up at thirsty Arizona alfalfa farms as foreign firms exploit unregulated water


WENDEN, Ariz. (AP) — A blanket of bright green alfalfa spreads across western Arizona’s McMullen Valley, ringed by rolling mountains and warmed by the hot desert sun.

Matthew Hancock’s family has used groundwater to grow forage crops here for more than six decades. They’re long accustomed to caprices of Mother Nature that can spoil an entire alfalfa cutting with a downpour or generate an especially big yield with a string of blistering days.

But concerns about future water supplies from the valley’s ancient aquifers, which hold groundwater supplies, are bubbling up in Wenden, a town of around 700 people where the Hancock family farms.

Some neighbors complain their backyard wells have dried up since the Emirati agribusiness Al Dahra began farming alfalfa here on about 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares) several years ago.
Bales of hay are stored under shelters at Al Dahra Farms, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in the McMullen Valley in Wenden, Ariz. Worries about future water supplies from ancient aquifers are bubbling up in western rural Arizona. Some neighbors complain that their backyard wells have dried up since the Emirati agribusiness began farming alfalfa nearby.

It is unknown how much water the Al Dahra operation uses, but Hancock estimates it needs 15,000 to 16,000 acre feet a year based on what his own alfalfa farm needs. He says he gets all the water he needs by drilling down hundreds of feet. An acre-foot of water is roughly enough to serve two to three U.S. households annually.

Hancock said he and neighbors with larger farms worry more that in the future state officials could take control of the groundwater they now use for agriculture and transfer it to Phoenix and other urban areas amid the worst Western drought in centuries.

“I worry about the local community farming in Arizona,” Hancock said, standing outside an open-sided barn stacked with hay bales.
Farmer Matthew Hancock poses for a picture while sitting on bales of alfalfa hay at his farm Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in the McMullen Valley in Wenden, Ariz. Hancock is concerned that state officials could be eyeing groundwater from the McMullen Valley for Phoenix's future needs amid shortages in Colorado River water.

Concerns about the Earth’s groundwater supplies are front of mind in the lead-up to COP28, the annual United Nations climate summit opening this week in the Emirati city of Dubai. Gulf countries like the UAE are especially vulnerable to global warming, with high temperatures, arid climates, water scarcity and rising sea levels.

“Water shortages have driven companies to go where the water is,” said Robert Glennon, a water policy and law expert and professor emeritus at the University of Arizona.

Experts say tensions are inevitable as companies in climate-challenged countries like the United Arab Emirates increasingly look to faraway places like Arizona for the water and land to grow forage for livestock and commodities such as wheat for domestic use and export.

“As the impacts of climate change increase, we expect to see more droughts,” said Karim Elgendy, a climate change and sustainability specialist at Chatham House think tank in London. “This means more countries would look for alternative locations for food production.”

Without groundwater pumping regulations, rural Arizona is especially attractive, said Elgendy, who focuses on the Middle East and North Africa. International corporations have also turned to Ethiopia and other parts of Africa to develop enormous farming operations criticized as “land grabbing.”
La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin speaks with The Associated Press, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Wenden, Ariz. Irwin welcomes a recent crackdown by Arizona officials on unfettered groundwater pumping long allowed in rural areas, noting local concerns about dried up wells and subsidence that's created ground fissures and flooding during heavy rains.

La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin welcomes a recent crackdown by Arizona officials on unfettered groundwater pumping long allowed in rural areas, noting local concerns about dried up wells and subsidence that’s created ground fissures and flooding during heavy rains.

“You’re starting to see the effects of lack of regulation,” she said. “Number one, we don’t know how much water we have in these aquifers, and we don’t know how much is being pumped out.”

Irwin laments that foreign firms are “mining our natural resource to grow crops such as alfalfa ... and they’re shipping it overseas back to their country where they’ve depleted their water source.”
Gary Saiter, chairman of the board and general manager of the Wenden Domestic Water Improvement District, walks by a water tank at the district's well Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Wenden, Ariz. According to Saiter, records indicate the water table at the utility's well have dropped several hundred feet since the 1940s. He believes the state needs to implement controls to help preserve the aquifer. 

Gary Saiter, board chairman and general manager of the Wenden Domestic Water Improvement District, said utility records showed the surface-to-water depth at its headquarters was a little over 100 feet (30 meters) in the 1950s, but it’s now now about 540 feet (160 meters).

Saiter said that over those years, food crops like cantaloupe have been replaced with forage like alfalfa, which is water intensive.

“I believe that the legislature in the state needs to step up and actually put some control, start measuring the water that the farms use,” Saiter said.

Gov. Katie Hobbs in October yanked the state’s land lease on another La Paz County alfalfa farm, one operated by Fondomonte Arizona, a subsidiary of Saudi dairy giant Almarai Co. The Democrat said the state would not renew three other Fondomonte leases next year, saying the company violated some lease terms.

Fondomonte denied that, and said it will appeal the decision to terminate its 640-acre (259-hectare) lease in Butler Valley. Arizona has less control over Al Dahra, which farms on land leased from a private North Carolina-based corporation.

Glennon, the Arizona water policy expert, said he worked with a consulting group that advised Saudi Arabia more than a decade ago to import hay and other crops rather than drain its aquifers. He said Arizona also must protect its groundwater.

“I do think we need sensible regulation,” said Glennon. “I don’t want farms to go out of business, but I don’t want them to drain the aquifers, either.”

Seeking crops for domestic use and export, Al Dahra farms wheat and barley in Romania, operates a flour mill in Bulgaria, and owns milking cows in Serbia. It runs a rice mill in Pakistan and grows grapes in Namibia and citrus in Egypt. It serves markets worldwide.

The company is controlled by the state-owned firm ADQ, an Abu Dhabi-based investment and holding company. Its chairman is the country’s powerful, behind-the-scenes national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a brother of ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The company did not respond to numerous emails and voicemails sent to its UAE offices and its subsidiary Al Dahra ACX in the U.S. seeking comment about its Arizona operation.

But on its website, Al Dahra acknowledges the challenges of climate change, noting “the continuing decrease in cultivable land and diminishing water resources available for farming.” The firm says it considers water and food security at ”the core of its strategy” and uses drip irrigation to optimize water use.

Foreign and out-of-state U.S. farms are not banned from farming in Arizona, nor from selling their goods worldwide. U.S. farmers commonly export hay and other forage crops to countries including Saudi Arabia and China.

In Arizona’s Cochise County that relies on groundwater, residents worry that the mega-dairy operated there by Riverview LLP of Minnesota could deplete their water supplies. The company did not respond to a request for comment about its water use.

“The problem is not who is doing it, but that we are allowing it to be done,” said Kathleen Ferris, a senior research fellow at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “We need to pass laws giving more control over groundwater uses in these unregulated areas.”

A former director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, Ferris helped draw up the state’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act that protects aquifers in urban areas like Phoenix but not in rural agricultural areas.

Many people mistakenly believe groundwater is a personal property right, Ferris said, noting that the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled there’s only a property right to water once it has been pumped.

In Arizona, rural resistance to limits on pumping remains strong and efforts to create rules have gone nowhere in the Legislature. The Arizona Farm Bureau has pushed back at narratives that portray foreign agribusiness firms like Al Dahra as groundwater pirates.

The state is “the wild West” when it comes to groundwater, said Kathryn Sorensen, research director at the Kyl Center. “Whoever has the biggest well and pumps the most groundwater wins.”

“Arizona is blessed to have a very large and productive groundwater,” she added. “But just like an oil field, if you pump it out at a significant rate, then you deplete the water and it’s gone.”

https://apnews.com/article/climate-uae-alfalfa-water-arizona-drought-d911d5219c8f41dc44d65fb2af6b04df