Based on two weeks of research into the probable future of water supplies in the American West, it’s pretty clear that no water expert or journalist truly believes Colorado is likely to become a lifeless, waterless desert, within the lifetime of anyone currently alive.
On the other hand, almost everyone seems to believe that the western US will indeed experience ‘water shortages’ during the coming decades, if you define a ‘water shortage’ as ‘less water, per person, than we were accessing in the 1990s.’ If, and when, the water shortages arrive, we can all decide to share the pain. Or alternatively, people with money and power can seize control of our water, and thereby acquire additional money and power.
On its surface, the Colorado Water Plan appears to be a 567-page proposal that we all share the pain. But the devil is in the details, as always. Some commentators have suggested that, in the case of the Colorado Water Plan, the details are sorely lacking.
…And the people with the money and power might not even live in Colorado.
Today, we’ll be discussing briefly the Salton Sea, a shallow, salty irrigation accident in Southern California that might play a significant role in how Colorado uses water in the near future.
Geologists and historians tell us that, once upon a time, the Colorado River occasionally flowed through what is now California’s Imperial Valley, and whenever the river decided to use that route, it created a large lake where the Salton Sea currently sits. At other times, the Colorado River took a different route to the Sea of Cortez — such as the route the river had chosen in the 20th century and the route it currently travels, now in the 21st century. But during previous centuries, the Colorado River left rich, somewhat saline soil deposits in the Imperial Valley, suitable for farming by Native Americans, and later by Spanish and then American immigrants.
In 1900, the Salton Sea did not exist. In its place was a shallow desert valley, the Salton Sink, about 280 feet below sea level. That year, the California Development Company began building irrigation canals to divert water from the Colorado River to the Salton Sink, and farmers soon began raising crops in the fertile, irrigated soil.
But by 1902, the Imperial Canal had become filled with silt from the Colorado River. Engineers failed to alleviate the blockages… and then, in 1905, heavy rainfall and snowmelt caused the Colorado River to swell, overflowing the Alamo Canal headgates. The resulting flood poured down the canal, breached an Imperial Valley dike, and ran down two former dry arroyos: the New River in the west, and the Alamo River in the east. For two years, these two newly created rivers sporadically carried the entire volume of the Colorado River into the Salton Sink.
As the basin filled, the town of Salton, a Southern Pacific Railroad siding, and Torres-Martinez Native American land were submerged. The sudden influx of water and the lack of any drainage from the basin resulted in the formation of the Salton Sea…
…The Salton Sea had some success as a resort area, with Salton City, Salton Sea Beach, and Desert Shores, on the western shore and Desert Beach, North Shore, and Bombay Beach, built on the eastern shore in the 1950s.
However, many of the settlements substantially shrank in size, or have been abandoned, mostly due to the increasing salinity and pollution of the lake over the years from agricultural runoff and other sources. Many of the species of fish that lived in the sea have been killed off by the combination of pollutants, salt levels, and algal blooms. Dead fish have been known to wash up in mass quantities on the beaches. The smell of the lake, combined with the stench of the decaying fish, also contributed to the decline of the tourist industry around the Salton Sea… The US Geological Survey describes the smell as “objectionable”, “noxious”, “unique”, and “pervasive”.
But that’s only a small part of the story. It gets a lot more interesting. As Daily Post readers are probably aware, the seven states in the American Southwest have spent the past six years developing a collaborative ‘Drought Contingency Plan’ to keep water levels in Lake Mead from dropping below the level needed to produce hydropower. The plan has a lot of moving parts and is seen only as a temporary fix for what might be a continuing crisis. The plan was designed, in part, to prevent the federal government from assuming control of the Colorado River, and it was signed by President Trump on April 16, 2019.
But the largest single user of Colorado River water — the Imperial Irrigation District — is not playing nice. The IID was once known as the Colorado Development Company, the folks who accidentally created the Salton Sea, and who subsequently turned the Imperial Valley into a highly-irrigated, 500,000-acre agricultural paradise. The farms in the Imperial Valley reportedly produce about one-third of the winter vegetables in the US. And to that end, the IID oversees a Colorado River water allocation of 3.1 million acre-feet per year.
3.1 million acre-feet equals the entire water allocation granted to the states of Nevada and Arizona put together, as established by a 1928 multi-state agreement. The state of Colorado’s entire Colorado River allocation, from a separate 1948 agreement, is 3.9 million acre feet.
The Imperial Irrigation District wants to make doggone sure they don’t lose access to all that water, just because we happen to have a drought in the American West.
From the IID website:
On the same day President Trump signed the Drought Contingency Plan into law, Imperial Irrigation District (IID) filed a petition in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging violations of the California Environmental Quality Act by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The petition calls on the court to suspend approvals and actions related to the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan until such time that an appropriate analysis and process has been completed.
“The logic in going forward without IID was that the DCP couldn’t wait for the Salton Sea,” said Henry Martinez, IID general manager. “This legal challenge is going to put that logic to the test and the focus will now be where it should have been all along – at the Salton Sea.”
In August 2018, a reporter for the Palm Springs Desert Sun — Sammy Roth — wrote a fascinating story about an Imperial Valley land baron named Mike Abatti… that might help explain what, exactly, is going on here.
Enjoy the Fourth of July, while we still have plenty of water in Colorado.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.