WaterWired

FLOW: For Love Of Water

Last month I posted an item about the film Flow (For Love Of Water) that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Here is the film's WWW site, and the following is from the site.

Water is the essence of life, sustaining every being on this planet. Without water, there would simply be no plants, no animals, and no people. But the global water supply isn't just at risk, it's already in crisis.

FLOW: For Love Of Water, a new film by Irena Salina, highlights the local intimacies of an emerging global catastrophe: African plumbers reconnect shantytown water pipes under cover of darkness to ensure a community's survival; a Californian scientist forces awareness of shockingly toxic public water sources; a ‘Big Water’ CEO argues privatization is the wave of the future; a “Water Guru” in India sparks new community water initiatives in hundreds of villages; a Canadian author uncovers the corporate profiteering that drives global water business.

With an unflinching focus on politics, pollution and human rights, FLOW: For Love of Water ensures that the precarious relationship between humanity and water can no longer be ignored. While specifics of locality and issue may differ, the message is the same; water, and our future as a species, is quickly drying up. Armed with a thirst for survival, people around the world are fighting for their birthright; unless we instigate change, we face a world in which only those that can pay for their water will survive. FLOW: For Love of Water, is a catalyst for people everywhere: the time has come to turn the tide and we can't wait any longer.

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." -- John Muir

Indian Water Rights: What Goes Around Comes Around

USA Today had an interesting article about Indian tribes exercising their Federal reserved water rights that the Supreme Court guaranteed in a 1908 court case, Winters vs. United States. These rights are sometimes known as Winters rights.

Here is a little document describing these reserved rights, which have been applied to Federal lands other than Indian reservations:

Download FedResWaterRights.pdf

Here are the first few paragraphs of the story:

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — For decades, ranchers and farmers across the West have tapped into rivers and streams on or near Indian reservations. Now, as drought conditions plague big parts of the region, they're concerned their access to those sources could dry up.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court gave tribes the primary rights to streams on their reservations in 1908, until recently, 19 tribes in the West had not exercised those rights. This year, tribes in Montana, New Mexico, Idaho, Nevada and California are on the verge of securing their claims.

That could result in less water, or higher water prices, for non-Indian agricultural producers and communities downstream, according to Victor Marshall, an attorney who represents irrigators in New Mexico's San Juan Valley.

Marshall acknowledges that Indian tribes have more water coming to them. But he argues the amounts they are seeking are more than they can realistically use on the reservation.

One serious problem is that not all these "Winters rights" have been quantified, so state water officials are concerned because they don't yet know how these claims will impact their state water budgets. In deciding Indian water allotments, courts have usually used a concept called "practicable irrigable acreage" (PIA). The tribes are entitled to the amount of water needed to irrigate these PIAs. But how do you define PIA?

The article continues:

States and tribes must negotiate how much the tribes have coming before the federal rights are exercised, said Craig Bell, executive director of the Western States Water Council in Salt Lake City. He expects Congress to consider seven or eight settlements in 2008. Congress has ratified 21 Indian water rights deals in the past 25 years, Bell said.

After reaching an agreement with the states, tribes ask Congress for millions of dollars to build reservoirs and pipelines.

Give and take produced satisfactory results to both sides in the largest Indian water rights settlement in history in 2004 in Arizona, according to John Hestand, senior water counsel for the Gila River Indian Community, and John Sullivan of the Salt River Project, which delivers water to the Phoenix area.

The 40-year, $2.4 billion deal involved the Pima, Maricopa and Tohono O'odham tribes and non-Indian users.

The largest bill before Congress this year is the Navajo's claim to the New Mexico portion of the San Juan River, which would authorize $800 million over 20 years. Votes could come this spring in Senate and House committees.

New Mexico state engineer John D'Antonio said concerns being raised in some quarters about the Navajo bill are overblown. He said the deal would benefit non-Indians, too. "We've got to reconcile the sovereignty issue with the state-based rights," D'Antonio said. The Blackfeet Tribe in Montana, which reached a settlement with Montana in January, will ask Congress for more than $200 million, said Don Wilson, the tribe's water rights director.

In other pending cases:

•A bill giving Shoshone and Paiute —who share the Duck Valley Reservation straddling the Idaho-Nevada border — $60 million passed the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in July 2007. It awaits action by the full Senate.

•A $21 million bill quantifying the water rights of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians in Riverside County, Calif., was introduced in the House in December. A hearing before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Natural Resources is scheduled March 13.

If you look at yesterday's post, you'll see that the Western governors listed Indian water rights as a major issue. This has long been of concern to the governors, but with climate change potentially diminishing water supplies and the prolonged drought in the Southwest, it looms larger than ever.

We live in interesting times, with the "best" yet to come.

'"Jackson Hole: where California plays and Mexico works." -- "suggested" new slogan for Jackson Hole, WY, Jackson Hole News & Guide, as reported in the High Country News, 18 February 2008

DC Report 3: Rep. David Price; Western States Water Council; FY2009 Budget

Yesterday morning at our NIWR meeting we heard from Rep. David Price (D-NC), a PhD political scientist and former Duke University professor who represents the Raleigh-Durham area.

Price contrasted the "old" water issues the East and Southeast formerly confronted: water pollution, flood control, and hydroelectric power generation. But things have changed, because now, the Southeast is experiencing serious water supplu problems. The Atlanta situation is well-known; I have even blogged about it. Memphis and Mississipi are squabbling over the city's pumping of ground water - 60 million gallons per day (mgd) - from beneath its southern neighbor. North Carolina is fighting the city of Virginia Beach's (VA) attempt to import 60 mgd from the Roanoke River via an 85-mile pipeline. And South Carolina is upset over North Carolina's diversions from the Catawba River.   

Price's own district has serious problem: Raleigh's supply is down to 119 days and Durham's is down to 243 days. In fact, 55% of North Carolina's population is under some kind of water conservation mandate.

If you are interested in learning more about the Southeast's water woes, check out Robert Osborne's excellent Watercrunch blog. He even recently "identified" an I-85 drought, that seems to be follow Interstate 85. Robert, you may have uncovered something of hydroclimatic significance!

What a change - sounds like good old fashioned Western wars!

Price noted that the Southeast, like the West, is growing rapidly. His own state faces high growth but has a limited water supply - no large rivers. Ground water is available in the state's coastal plain. He speculated about sustainable growth under such conditions, and called for sound water research to:

• improve infrastructure;
• identify efficient conservation measures;
• resolve interstate and intrastate conflicts; and
• forecast accurately.

*****************

Last night we heard from Tony Willardson, Deputy Director of the Western States Water Council (WSWC), which is part of the Western Governors' Association (WGA). Tony mentioned that the WGA visualizes six water or water-related issues:

• growth;
• data;
• infrastructure;
• climate change;
• Indian water rights; and
• endangered species

*****************

Several people told us that this will be a contentious year for the budget process, with the Democrats perhaps trying to hold out for a Democratic president who won't veto their budget. President Bush will not want to appear to be "caving in" to Congress during his final year. The word is that the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security will get their money, supplemental funding will be appropriated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but everything else might have to wait until the 111th Congress.

Could be a wild ride this year.

"The difference between an economist and a political scientist is that the economist believes people are rational." -- Unknown, courtesy of Tony Willardson

DC Report 2: Bob Hirsch Returns

At my NIWR Annual Meeting my state water institute colleagues and I once again were pleased to have Dr. Robert Hirsch, Associate Director for Water of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), address us as he did last year.

In fact, last year I based a post on Bob's "Four Big Water Issues" and it turned into one of my most popular posts. As I said last year, Bob is a very astute observer of the water resources landscape. I would urge you to reread last year's post; the words ring true today.

For today's post I'll once again summarize his comments, which he made mostly in the form of "strategic challenges". I found them just as provocative as last year's.

"Stationarity is Dead" - Hirsch, a co-author on Chris Milly's Science paper, discussed the legendary, now-defunct Harvard Water Program, which began in the late 1950s, and sought to integrate water science, engineering, economics, and policy. He did this to illustrate that the HWP really established the intellectual underpinnings of current water resources planning, management, and engineering - based on stationarity. Hirsch stated that we need to rethink these HWP-produced intellectual underpinnings in terns of nonstationary hydrologic processes.   

SECURE Water Act - Hirsch called this a "signifcant piece of legislation", and said it was the first he's seen that deals with water science and data with national scope - it's not some parochial, "my watershed" act.It discusses climate change and water resources, and provides R&D funding for instrumentation. He paid tribute  to its creator, Mike Connor of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Connor really did his homework, and "absorbed" a lot from a variety of sources. So there is such a thing as a "good law" at the Federal level [my comment].

Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) - the future of water storage, and it is here now. The recent NRC Report on managed underground storage of recoverable water is significant, as it describes the challenges facing ASR and artificial recharge (AR): geochemical/water compatibility issues; recoverability of stored water; ownership of the water; injection of chlorinated water (disinfection by-products - trihalomethanes, etc.); subsidence; pathogens.

Geologic sequestration of CO2 - hydraulic and geochemical questions remain. Not a "silver bullet".

Non-point source pollution - Are we making any progress reducing non-point source pollution? Are best management practices (BMPs) effective? There is lots of "noise" in the system - can we "tease out" the "human signal"? With respect to biofuels producton - what are the implications of increased corn production?

Climate change - Hirsch said he hears a lot about how climate change will make hydrologic extremes "more extreme" - for example, floods will get a lot worse. He rightly asked, "Where is the evidence for all this?"

Water for America Initiative - Hirsch concluded by discussing this, particularly from the USGS vantage point.

All in all, another very good afternoon with Dr. Hirsch.

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell

DC Report 1: Interior's Water for America Initiative; USGS NAWQA Budget

I have been in our Nation's capital for the past few days and will be here through tomorrow. I am attending "fly-ins" for a couple of organizations - the National Ground Water Association (NGWA) and the National Institutes for Water Resources (NIWR) [Disclosure notice: I head Oregon's institute and get about $100K from the USGS each year]. I will also have the usual Congressional meetings and will report on what's happening.

Yesterday I learned of the Department of Interior's (DoI) Water for America initiative. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was supposedly inspired to propose the W for A initiatve after a trip to Australia where he observed that country's water woes.

Download water_for_america_initiative_pr.mht

This initiative partners Interior's two big water agencies, the U.S Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), which operates only in the 17 Western states, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

From the press release:

Because chronic water shortages, dramatic population growth, and aging water facilities are increasing the potential for conflict over water resources around the nation, the President's FY 2009 budget for the Department of the Interior includes a $21.3 million initiative to help state, tribal and local governments better conserve, manage and develop their vital water resources.

The multi-agency Water for America initiative would help communities meet increasing demands on limited water supplies through collaborative projects, water conservation technologies and expanded information sharing.  In 2009, the Bureau of Reclamation will partner with the United States Geological Survey, States and local water users to begin this initiative to conserve and expand existing water supplies; develop new sources; and protect endangered species in major river systems. The U.S. Geological Survey will also carry out the first national water census in 30 years; modernize stream gages; and plan for the nation’s future water use in partnership with state and local governments.

“In 2006, the National Science and Technology Council reported that abundant supplies of clean, fresh water can no longer be taken for granted,” Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said in announcing the initiative today. “Water wars have spread to the Midwest, East, and South. Competition for water is increasing because of rapid population growth and burgeoning environmental and energy needs,” said Kempthorne, whose responsibilities include overseeing major Interior water storage and distribution projects in the West and serving as Water Master for the Lower Colorado River.

The Water for America Initiative responds to the nation’s water realities by merging three existing Bureau of Reclamation water supply management programs (Water 2025, Water Conservation Field Services, and Investigations) and by using the scientific expertise of the U.S. Geological Survey in monitoring water quality, quantity and flows in U.S. rivers and streams as well as the conditions of the nation’s major aquifers. Under the initiative, Interior partnerships with state, local and tribal governments will use the latest technologies in water planning and management to help these communities respond to their changing water needs.  At the watershed level, Interior agencies will work with urban, rural, and agricultural water users to stretch existing water supplies and carry out measures to protect endangered species at high-risk watersheds, thereby averting water crises. 

“The initiative also will begin a nationwide assessment of water availability, water quality, and human and environmental water use to be completed by 2019,” said Kempthorne.  The initiative will measure groundwater storage, develop models to determine nonpoint sources of water pollution, use remote sensing, and improve predictions of hydrologic effects of climate change. 

“We will conduct the long-overdue inventory of our nation’s water resources so that we have the information we need to plan for the nation’s water future, working with states and others to manage water sustainably,” Kempthorne said.

Reclamation’s budget includes an increase of $13.1 million for this initiative.  The 2009 program including this increase will fund basin watershed planning and smaller-scale geographical studies, and challenge grants, to support partnering with urban, rural, and agricultural water users to stretch existing water supplies through such things as real time monitoring, measurement, and control; new technologies to reduce the cost of desalination of sea and brackish water; and canal lining or piping to reduce water seepage.  As part of the initiative, Reclamation plans to manage and protect endangered species in major water river systems.

As a part of the initiative, Reclamation is also examining how climate change information can be considered in the bureau’s water and power operations and planning through several project-specific studies.  Through collaborative efforts with the U.S. Geological Survey and other Federal and non-Federal agencies that have complementary expertise and a common stake in Western water, Reclamation is well positioned to use the most relevant climate information and manage its water resources under changing conditions.

For its role in the initiative, the U.S. Geological Survey will use increased funding of $8.2 million to initiate work on a national water census, the first in 30 years. This funding also includes upgrades and additions to the nation’s network of 7,000 streamgages, as well as increases for research related to groundwater resources. These improvements will provide water managers with critical data for future decision making.

So the W for A initiative combines the old Water 2025 initiative, adds in some new stuff - the national water census, etc.

One of my NGWA colleagues told me that a Reclmation official, who was describing the new initiative, said (in response to a question) that Reclamation itself was not considering aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) as a water-management tool. He was still talking about dam-building as a means to store water. He proffered that ASR is the domain of the USGS, but of course, the USGS, unlike Reclamation, is not a water-management agency.

So it appears Reclamation is still heavily committed to 19th-century technology for water storage: dams [see today's quote]. Never mind that building dams is an increasingly difficult thing to do, and that underground water storage  and recovery (which is not perfect, by the way) is becoming increasingly viable. ASR is a good way to save water, too, since evaporation is not an issue. 

But climate change is being factored into water management, always a good sign.

In a related issue, the USGS reported that the President's budget calls for a 15% cut ($9.8 M) in the excellent National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program. The proposed budget cut "would cease long-term data collection for ground water, sources of drinking water, and priority national topics."

Sources tell me that the USGS cut this program because it knows Congress will restore it. This is a common agency ploy in Washington. The USGS does this every year to its National Institutes  for Water Resources program (all of about $6M), because it knows that we institute directors will engage our Congressional delegation and get the cut restored.

I wonder if the Bureau would be interested in funding a study on the ramifications of the Southwest's desiccation?

"When all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail." -- Unknown