Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series on the impacts of the West’s shrinking water supply and the costly battle to find solutions.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The West is running out of water.

Its lifeblood, the Colorado River, is being hemorrhaged by cities, by farms and ranches, by power plants and by the more than 30 million people who depend on its water in the United States and another 6 million people in Mexico.

This year’s flows are near historic lows with runoff about a third of average, pushing the seven states that share the river toward another year of drought. But those stresses are trumped by dire predictions from the agency managing the Colorado River system, forecasting demand far outstripping supply during the next 50 years, reaching crisis levels within two decades.

It reveals a coming tug-of-war over water resources that may pit Utah against other states in the fight for new development, jobs, housing and force an answer to one of the West’s most enduring questions: Who is entitled to the water?

The answer will determine just how much it will cost you to turn on your tap at home or what type of lawn or garden you can have. And the answer is hidden within an expansive, multibillion-dollar effort being waged to keep the river flowing.

“There are no innocent parties,” said Nevada’s Pat Mulroy, who manages a water-delivery system for more than two thirds of her state’s residents. “No one on the river has the luxury of doing nothing.”

The reason? Colorado River flows are shrinking.

Dealing with drought

Even before drought gripped the river system beginning in 2000, a nearly three-decade look at data shows the combination of water use and loss in the Colorado River increased 23 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Think of it as a 23 percent increase in stress on the river system.

The bureau is shepherding a supply-demand study to be released in July that says residents of Utah and the other six basin states should expect droughts lasting five years or more 40 percent of the time over the next 50 years.

A warmer, more volatile climate will mean a drier Colorado River basin overall, with more water lost from the ground through evaporation and transpiration by plants; less snowfall; but more rainfall, which behaves differently in terms of shaping water supply.

Read more:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865555684/The-fight-for-water-Heres-why-the-Wests-oldest-battle-could-hit-you-at-the-tap.html

Looming drought has prompted a new push to prevent harm to streams and rivers: temporarily leasing water normally diverted to household taps, farms and ranchland and letting the water flow.

State water authorities and private conservation groups say deals to ensure sufficient water in streams and rivers will mean the difference between life and death for fish, bugs, wild animals and riparian vegetation.

But Colorado agricultural leaders this week warned that — with mountain snowpack 39 percent of average — spare water for environmental purposes will be hard to find.

Drought worries have intensified. Denver Water on Wednesday issued “Stage 1 drought” measures, asking 1.3 million customers to voluntarily limit watering on lawns.

While reservoirs are at normal levels, “the conditions we’re seeing are similar to those in the 2002 drought. Reservoir levels can drop very quickly without much rain and snow,” utility spokeswoman Stacy Chesney said.

The Colorado Water Trust this week issued a notice seeking people interested in the voluntary leases. Trust leaders have been working on protecting tributaries to the Colorado, Eagle, Fraser and Gunnison rivers and may be able to devote as much as $400,000 to fund leases. The Nature Conservancy also is exploring possibilities on the Cache la Poudre River through Fort Collins and the Dolores River down from McPhee Reservoir in western Colorado.

“This is not about taking water away from people. This is about keeping our rivers whole — and sharing water between people and the environment,” said Nature Conservancy state director Tim Sullivan.

“There are values associated with the flows in rivers — recreation, riparian benefits, water quality” — not fully captured in Colorado’s prior appropriation use-it-or-lose-it system of allocating water, Sullivan said. “Drying up rivers is not a good way for us to manage our water in the West.”

During the severe 2002 drought, some streams and rivers were so warm and depleted that state wildlife crews trudged with buckets to rescue fish from isolated pools.

State agencies have been working since 1973 to ensure minimum “in-stream flows” to prevent irreversible environmental degradation. The Colorado Water Conservation Board, working through state water courts, has established minimum flows — from half a cubic foot per second to 300 cfs — on 1,581 segments of rivers and streams covering 9,120 miles.

Private-sector funding could boost the government efforts.

“We appreciate the help for our partners and think this can result in additional protection this year,” said Linda Bassi, the CWCB’s chief for in-stream flow. “This is something that potentially could do a lot.”

The new approach relies on a 2003 law that lets water-rights holders loan water temporarily — without going through court. The law hasn’t been tapped until now.

Lease deals to prevent dry-ups this summer would pay people entitled to water from rivers not to use it for up to 120 days.

“We’re asking them to just grow a different crop this year — a crop of water for fish and habitat for fish,” said Amy Beatie, director of the Colorado Trust. “Rivers benefit. And they get cash.”

Trust officials calculate that $400,000 in donations could fund leases to guarantee flows of 41 cfs around the state, Beatie said.

But commodity prices — for corn, wheat and cattle — remain relatively robust, with development devouring more Colorado farmland and pastures. That means excess water may be scarce.

“Hopefully, we’d have enough people wanting to do this to make it worthwhile. We have to think about food production as well,” Colorado Farm Bureau vice president Troy Bredenkamp said. “It’s going to be a challenge with commodity prices where they are and the lack of water.”

Winter Park Ranch homeowners along the Fraser River have expressed interest. Their 1,500-home subdivision has surplus water currently used to flood a field where horses and cows sometimes graze, said Kirk Klancke, manager of the development’s sewage and sanitation operations.

Closing headgates to keep water in the Fraser River would help dilute sewage to meet state discharge standards, Klancke said.

“We want to do an in-stream flow lease so we can leave those headgates closed, leave that water in the Fraser River. We’re talking a couple cfs,” he said.

Along the Colorado River at Dotsero, “we actually have more than we use. That’s why we still flood some of our property,” said Karl Berger, 55, who grows alfalfa and responded to the Colorado Trust initiative.

“I don’t think I’d recapture all my income. I need to figure labor costs from flooding — guys moving the ditches. Then I have to weigh the benefits of returning that water to the river,” said Berger, an avid fisherman who hosts an annual tournament. “I’d rather put it in the river.”

Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700, bfinley@denverpost.com or twitter.com/finleybruce

Image Lake Mead bathtub ring 2010. (Credit: commons.wikimedia.org)

What, you ask, does Nevada and Las Vegas have to do with California water?  Well, water wars aren’t just fought within states. They are also fought between states. Southern Nevada gets almost 90% of its water from the Colorado River. Southern California also gets substantial water from the Colorado, most of which goes to agriculture in the Imperial Valley. The Colorado River has the unenviable status of being the most litigated river in the world. The problem for Nevada is that it agreed to a small apportionment of Colorado River water back when their population was tiny. Southern Nevada gets 0.3 Million Acre Feet a Year (MAFY) while California gets a princely 4.4 MAFY.

But then gambling came to Las Vegas in a big way. The population soared. They now have persistent water problems, made worse by a decade of drought. Thus, the Southern Nevada Water Authority is on a mission to find water anywhere it can.

Nevada’s crown jewel is the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River at Lake Mead. They get one-third of the power generated by it. But water levels at Lake Mead have dropped so precipitously that a “third straw” is needed to insure that water will be available. It will cost $800 million and no one is quite sure where the money will come from. In addition, SNWA has floated plans to build pipelines from northern Nevada and Utah, something which has met with vociferous opposition. They’ve also discussed building desalination plants in California or Mexico and swapping that for more water from the Colorado River.

Under The Law of The River which governs the Colorado, California, Nevada, and Arizona are allowed to use any Colorado River water not used by another state. But given the drought and growing populations, all three states are using their full allotments. This means no excess water for the other states.

SNWA is not currently a direct competitor with California for water due to the ancient agreement apportioning Colorado River water. Should that agreement ever change – and everyone know it is archaic – then SNWA could directly compete for more Colorado River water. However, SNWA is relentless in seeking more water and through swaps, desalination, and other agreements and is always looking to get more water from the Colorado. If they get more, someone else gets less. That is the real Law of The River.

Gov. John Hickenlooper (Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post file photo)

COLORADO SPRINGS — Gov. John Hickenlooper dived into an intensifying debate over the imperiled Colorado River on Tuesday with a call for radically increased water conservation and an assertion that some new dams will be needed.

“We have lessons around the world that we can do more with less,” Hickenlooper said at a Colorado College conference, referring to Australian cities where residents cut average per capita consumption to 36 gallons a day and to Israel’s highly efficient use of water in agriculture.

Denver’s done better than most U.S. cities, with residents reducing use by 20 percent since 2002 to 160 gallons a day, but “we can make dramatic additional efforts,” Hickenlooper said.

“Our self-discipline in the amount of water we use is going to be the foundation of everything we will do,” he said.

Yet further drawdown of the over-subscribed Colorado River is continuing as state officials support two major projects that would divert more river water across the Continental Divide to sustain Front Range urban communities.

The Colorado River provides water for 30 million people in seven states and Mexico. However, the latest federal data show that current withdrawals exceed the annual supply. Climate change, drought and population growth in the West are worsening the situation as users try to share the river and still support farming, hydropower, tourism and ecosystems.

Beyond conservation, “we’re going to need some more dams, ways to manage water,” Hickenlooper said.

Two rival pipeline projects would divert an additional 100,000 acre-feet or more of water from the upper Colorado River basin in Wyoming to the Front Range.

A state-backed task force is exploring the idea. State planners calculate that Colorado could be entitled to as much as 900,000 acre-feet of unallocated river water under the 1922 interstate compact that governs use of the river.

Hickenlooper declined in an interview

Boaters blend in with the spectacular scenery below the thunderous whitewater of Cataract Canyon as the Colorado River flows through Canyonlands National Park toward Lake Powell in southeastern Utah. (Scott Willoughby, The Denver Post)

to rule out a Wyoming diversion, saying that “we have to let that process run its course.”Hickenlooper and a team of state planners participated in the “State of the Rockies” forum at Colorado College that was launched by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Students issued a report that included recommendations to recognize limits, change laws to favor cooperation and refine “adaptive management” to deal with climate change.

Two recent graduates paddled kayaks the length of the river until they found it too depleted and had to slog on foot through mud.