David S. “Sid” Wilson, Jr.
General Manager, Central Arizona Project
The real question is not whether or not the Colorado River will continue to meet the water needs of the West, but how can we make the Colorado River meet the water needs of the West.
We’ve suspected for some time that the Colorado River was over-allocated and that suspicion has been confirmed by recent studies that confirm flows average considerably less than what was assumed when the states approved the Colorado River Compact.
The solution is to implement better management of available water supplies and increase the amount of Colorado River water available by implementing augmentation measures. The Basin States plan to increase the snow pack and runoff through a cloud seeding program, and we also are exploring ways to replace the high-water-use, non-native tamarisk or salt cedar trees with lower-water-use native trees such as cottonwood.
Currently, over-deliveries occur when water ordered is not taken and flows into Mexico because there is insufficient regulatory storage near the border. The plan to build a Drop Two structure to increase temporary storage capacity will help reduce the amount of this source of “lost” water.
Water also enters Mexico because the Bureau of Reclamation is not operating the Yuma Desalting Plant, which necessitates diverting about 100,000 acre-feet of water per year to comply with water quality provisions of the Mexican Water Treaty. This water is not counted against the Mexican allocation and the flows have created an artificial but important wetland habitat. The congressionally approved solution is to operate the YDP. Central Arizona Project has spearheaded a study that shows we can operate the YDP and not harm the environmentally sensitive Ciénega de Santa Clara which has depended upon the excess water flowing into Mexico. A test of that plan was recently carried out. The results were promising. We believe this is an important first step in full operation of the plant and curtailment of water lost to U.S. users.
