Cutting Back

By

The Nevada Independent

-

December 2, 2020

Articles in this series

Part III:
Cutting Back

*Mark Moyle, a Diamond Valley farmer advocating for a groundwater management plan, stands in front of a field on Aug. 25, 2020. (Daniel Rothberg/The Nevada Independent)*

By Daniel Rothberg, The Nevada Independent

Originally published October 28, 2020

EUREKA, Nev. — Diamond Valley starts at the edge of Eureka, a small town in one of the most rural areas of the state. The valley stretches on for miles, and so does the aquifer beneath it, a reserve of underground water that farmers have used at unsustainable rates, year after year.

Springs started to dry decades ago. There were reports of fissures in the ground. Groundwater levels in some areas fell by more than 100 feet. The underground reservoir continues to decline by as much as two feet every year in certain areas, and that means wells could one day go dry.

Mark Moyle, who grows alfalfa in Diamond Valley, speaks in careful measures. Livelihoods are at stake. Moyle recognizes the problem. Everyone does. And he knows that cuts are coming. In recent years, Diamond Valley farmers have faced increasing pressure from the state and local ranchers to reduce use. But the state’s main tool for fixing the issue are immediate cuts that are blind to local concerns (a Diamond Valley farmer likens them to using a chainsaw for a surgery).

So Moyle and most of his neighbors started looking for alternatives.

They wanted precision and local control. Taking advantage of a new state law passed in 2011, officials gave them a green light to come up with another option. But the clock was now ticking: If the farmers failed to have a plan in effect by 2025, state regulators would be forced to slam the brakes on their overuse, an action that could shutdown most of the operations in the valley.

In recent years, Diamond Valley farmers have faced increasing pressure from the state and local ranchers to reduce use. But the state’s main tool for fixing the issue are immediate cuts that are blind to local concerns (a Diamond Valley farmer likens them to using a chainsaw for a surgery).

“We’re done,” Moyle said, describing what would happen if state regulators curtailed use. “And not only that, our life’s investment is done. You can’t re-market something that has no water.”

In 2018, after years of negotiations and discussions, the majority of Diamond Valley irrigators voted for a market-based system, governed by a local advisory board, that dictates the terms of the reductions, spreading out the water cutbacks over time and applying them across the board.

“How many people would sign up to take a financial hit?” Moyle asked during an interview earlier in August. “Well we all did, because in the long run, it’s going to be better for all of us.”

Depending on whom you talk to, the plan is an experiment in conservation — an equitable way to reduce water use — or a seismic crack in the foundation of Western water law. By forcing all irrigators to make a sacrifice and cut back, the plan deviates from a primary principle of Western water law: that those with the oldest claims to water are protected from cuts in times of scarcity.

Across the West, groundwater basins and watersheds face a similar dynamic: State regulators issued more rights to water than there is water to go around. In Nevada, water users are closely watching Diamond Valley to understand the limits of the law and the potential paths forward.

For many, the question is not whether cuts are coming but who gets cut and when? Some see the 2011 statute, the legal basis for the Diamond Valley plan, as a tool for coming up with local solutions that avoid heavy-handed regulation from the state. They say such plans mirror other efforts across the West. But how far can the local plans go? And what are the legal guardrails?

Today, the Diamond Valley plan is on hold, and its future rests on whether the Nevada Supreme Court rules it is allowed under the 2011 statute. In April, a District Court judge in Eureka agreed with a group of local ranchers who said the plan conflicts with fundamental aspects of water law.

Moyle disagrees. He said that the plan is the type of solution that the Legislature intended.

“This didn’t just happen by accident,” he said. “This was deliberate.”

*The southern side of Diamond Valley on Aug. 26, 2020. Irrigators have used more water than there is water available. (Daniel Rothberg/The Nevada Independent)*

Decades in the making

When Reinhold Sadler, a German immigrant and the state’s ninth governor, set foot in Diamond Valley more than a century ago, the area looked noticeably different. The value of the land was less about the water beneath the ground than the water at the surface. Sadler, a businessman turned politician, established a ranch that relied on natural springs to irrigate crops and pasture.

Sadler Ranch, under different ownership, is still operating today. Yet those springs, and many others across the valley, have dried up or are under threat of drying up. As more groundwater was used to irrigate alfalfa fields over the past four decades, less water flowed into the springs.

The issue has been well-documented since the 1960s, but the state has taken little action to fix the valley’s overuse. In 2012, Sadler Ranch was purchased by new owners from San Francisco. Since then, its owners have pressured the state in court and in hearings to address the problem.

A curtailment is an extreme measure. It would require the state to turn off the wells based on when water rights were issued. In Diamond Valley, it could mean cutting off more than half of the groundwater used each year, a move that would devastate the farming community all at once.

The issue has been well-documented since the 1960s, but the state has taken little action to fix the valley’s overuse. In 2012, Sadler Ranch was purchased by new owners from San Francisco. Since then, its owners have pressured the state in court and in hearings to address the problem.

In 2014, Sadler Ranch filed a petition to initiate proceedings for a curtailment, a state-action to impose harsh water cuts on irrigators across the valley. It created an uproar. Levi Shoda, who manages the day-to-day operations at the ranch, framed it as a necessary wake-up call for state regulators. He said they were moving too slowly to curb the valley’s overuse of its limited water.

“What good is all this water that we’re fighting for gonna be when the water is all gone?” he asked.

A curtailment is an extreme measure. It would require the state to turn off the wells based on when water rights were issued. In Diamond Valley, it could mean cutting off more than half of the groundwater used each year, a move that would devastate the farming community all at once.

By the state’s own description, curtailment by priority can be “dire” and “sudden.” Marty Plaskett, a Diamond Valley farmer, likens curtailment to giving the state a “chainsaw to do surgery with,” blind to realities on the ground, leaving irrigators without water that they used for half a century.

“If this was a problem that could have been solved easily,” he said, “it would have been done.”

For decades, curtailment has loomed over the valley, yet state regulators failed to impose cuts, allowing the problem to become progressively worse and making it harder to rip off the bandaid.

*Marty Plaskett stands in front of one of his irrigation pivots in Diamond Valley on Aug. 25, 2020. (Daniel Rothberg/The Nevada Independent)*

Water issues in Diamond Valley have been well-documented since the 1960s, amid a rush for land and water in the southern side of the valley. Here, where Moyle and his neighbors farm in close proximity to each other, irrigation pivots turn the valley into bright green crop circles.

Many irrigators in this area came about land and water through federal legislation known as the Desert Land Entry Act of 1887. The congressional legislation encouraged the settlement of the West with cheap public land if buyers were willing to irrigate it. Homesteading in the arid West posed challenges and, in many places, attempts often ended in failure. In Diamond Valley, the success rate was high — and so was the volume of water rights that state officials handed out.

Federal land managers and state officials knew that a water issue was brewing, and around 1962, Diamond Valley was closed off to new homesteading. But pressure, including from Sen. Alan Bible, re-opened the valley to more development, High Country News reported in 1993.

As electricity came to the valley, farmers invested heavily in infrastructure to pump water from the ground. Drillers punched wells, and the area grew into an agricultural hub in northeastern Nevada. Plaskett’s father was one of the well-drillers who made it feasible to tap into the aquifer.

“My dad drilled most of the wells here,” he said. “So I’m very in tune to the aquifer.”

In time, the valley became part of Eureka County’s social and economic fabric. Farmers sent their kids to schools in Eureka, a small town with a population of about 480 residents. Increased agricultural production also helped stabilize the county’s economy, which largely depends on mining activities that cycle in booms and busts. In 2013, Diamond Valley produced an estimated 110,000 tons of hay and alfalfa and generated about $22.4 million in farming income.

Diamond Valley is remote. It sits adjacent to a section of U.S. 50 known as the “loneliest road in America.” The highway cuts through the Great Basin, one of the least populated areas of the country. At the same time, Plaskett noted, Diamond Valley hay has been shipped all over the world. He lists the markets farmers have sold into: Kentucky, Florida, California, Saudi Arabia.

Diamond Valley hay, he said, is high-quality. Whether it’s the high elevation (the valley is at about 5,800 feet above sea level) or farming practices, “it brings buyers back every year.”

Yet the state allowed the valley to flourish on an unsustainable use of water, despite warnings that farmers were being allowed to withdraw more water than the aquifer could sustain. By the early 1980s, the effects of overuse had become so visible that the state took action — almost.

In 1982, the Nevada Division of Water Resources held at least two hearings on curtailment. At the time, a rancher, Milt Thompson, testified that groundwater use was irreparably harming his springs. Yet Diamond Valley farmers disagreed on whether a problem even existed, according to hearing transcripts. And the state opted against curtailment, allowing the problem to persist.

According to one hearing transcript, Pete Morros, then-Nevada’s top water regulator, noted in testimony that “everybody seems to be quite content and happy with the situation in Diamond Valley, with the exception of Mr. Thompson whose spring has diminished considerably.”

In 2015, state officials found themselves in a similar position. Sadler Ranch was asking the state to curtail water use in a manner that would put multiple farmers out of business. Facing legal pressure to curtail and political pressure to avoid curtailment, the state took another course.

They dusted off a 2011 law passed by the Legislature. Before 2015, it had never been used. But it was meant to give the state some breathing room in this type of predicament. The law allowed state water regulators to designate groundwater basins as a “Critical Management Area.” Once a Critical Management Area was designated, regulators were required to curtail water use after 10 years unless a majority of water users approved a localized groundwater management plan.

Diamond Valley fit the criteria for a designation.

Testing the newly-passed statute, the state gave the farmers an ultimatum: Irrigators now had until 2025 to develop a localized management plan, or they would face state-imposed cuts.

Curtailment

In Nevada and in many states across the West, water use is curtailed by priority — in the order of when the water was first put to use. Those with the oldest water rights are the last to get cut.

Here’s how “curtailment by priority” would work in Diamond Valley:

The cutoff: For most aquifers, state officials set a cutoff for the total amount of water use that is sustainable. In Diamond Valley, that cutoff is 30,000 acre-feet (an acre-foot is the amount of water that can fill an acre of land to a depth of one foot). Recent water use has hovered near 70,000 acre-feet, more than two times the current sustainable use.

The priority date: Every water right has a “priority date” that is generally tied to when the water was put to use. In a curtailment action, water rights with a priority date above the cutoff are shut off. In Diamond Valley, if the state were to “curtail by priority,” irrigators with rights that have a priority date after May 12, 1960 could be barred from using water.

The water divide: Those with water rights that have a priority date before May 12, 1960 are considered to have “senior rights.” Those with a priority date after May 12, 1960 are said to have “junior rights.” A majority of water rights in Diamond Valley are junior rights. “Seniors” are entitled to receive their whole allocation before “juniors” get a single drop. In Diamond Valley, the difference between “junior” and “senior” can be a matter of days.

‘Controlled curtailment’

Sitting at a conference table on a morning in late August, Moyle said that the farmers saw the ultimatum as an opportunity to develop a local plan to fit the needs of a majority of irrigators.

This, he said, was no easy feat. There were contentious meetings and fierce arguments among neighbors. But by the time the process started in 2014, there was also broad recognition of the problem and the need for cutbacks. The challenge — and conflicts — were in how to get there.

“There were a lot of difficult meetings,” Moyle said. “And difficult soul-searching. We tried to find the best remedy that would be best for everybody and still allow most everybody to survive.”

In 2018, a majority of water users, with a mix of senior and junior rights, ultimately voted to try a novel approach that departed from a strict application of Nevada water law. Rather than sudden curtailment, it spread out cuts over time. And in 2019, Nevada’s top water regulator signed off.

*Low-elevation sprinklers hang over a field of alfalfa in Diamond Valley on Aug. 25, 2020. The sprinklers are meant to reduce water use. (Daniel Rothberg/The Nevada Independent)*

The plan went into effect in 2019 after Jason King, then Nevada’s top water regulator, approved it. Following that, “most everyone did something to their sprinkler packages,” Plaskett said.

But conservation alone was not going to be enough. Some land was going to have to lie fallow. Some producers and companies started to consider alternative land uses, including solar fields.

Jake Tibbitts, Eureka County’s natural resource manager, helped facilitate the crafting of the groundwater plan, and the county supported the groundwater plan. Tibbitts often refers to the valley as the county’s “social glue.” Alternative land uses, he said, must be part of the equation.

When solar developers map out areas with good potential for solar development, Tibbitts said that Diamond Valley continually pops up. As NV Energy builds out more transmission across the state, using retired farmland for solar projects, amid water cuts, could become a viable option.

“There’s two companies already looking at Diamond Valley,” Tibbitts said.

Over the next three decades, as farmers looked to cut more than half of their current water use, more producers would be pressed to find ways to use land with less water, proponents of the plan have argued. The plan provided the incentive, and it also laid out certain cuts on a certain date, making it easier for farmers to work with lenders and evaluate the value of their property.

“All we have to do is have the cuts laid out, and people can do what they want,” Moyle said. “They’re gonna get pretty creative pretty fast. We don’t need to write a prescription for them.”

In addition to spacing out the cuts over time, the plan was notable for another reason: It required all irrigators to make a sacrifice. Where Nevada water law protects irrigators with senior rights, the plan departed from that model. It applied cuts to junior and senior rights across the valley.

Some believed this amounted to Diamond Valley writing a new water law. But Moyle argued that nothing in the 2011 statute prevented a local plan from reducing allocations for all water users. After all, he noted that a majority or irrigators, including those with senior rights, voted for it.

“From a water aspect, they had a lot to lose by signing on,” he noted.

Even though the plan distributed more shares to those with senior rights, everyone would see a substantial reduction in their allocations over the next three decades, despite the fact that the state’s water law would typically not require water users with senior rights to give up anything.

For this reason, and several others, District Court Judge Gary D. Fairman struck down the plan in April, concluding that it was “contrary to Nevada water law, laws this court will not change.”

Moyle and Plaskett, along with the state’s top water regulator, are fighting the decision in court.

Moyle serves as the president of the Diamond Natural Resources Protection and Conservation Association (DNRPCA) and Plaskett is its vice president. The group, comprising irrigators who support the groundwater plan, filed an appeal with the Nevada Supreme Court this summer.

With the lower court ruling, the plan is no longer in effect. But the clock continues ticking on the state’s ultimatum to come up with a plan or face curtailment by priority. Without a plan in place, Moyle and Plaskett said that it has fueled uncertainty. Farmers are not sure whether they should invest in conservation — new sprinklers can cost $7,500 a pivot — if state regulators might cut them off soon anyway. Lenders have also been hesitant to issue loans to farmers in the valley.

“They don’t want to get way out on their lending,” Plaskett said.

*Levi Shoda, who manages Sadler Ranch, stands in front of a field on Aug. 26, 2020. Sadler Ranch is challenging the Diamond Valley plan. (Daniel Rothberg/The Nevada Independent)*

Departing from the rulebook

Sadler Ranch is tucked away on the northern side of the valley, at least a 30-minute drive from most of the center pivots. Shoda, who manages the ranch, understands water law. He grew up in Carson Valley, where he owned a hay company before moving to Eureka. On a windy August afternoon, Shoda sat on a porch, looking out at cattle grazing in front of a long, empty playa.

He does not have anything against a groundwater management plan, he said. His issue is with any plan that departs from a fundamental tenet of Western water law: first in time, first in right.

Depriving senior water users of their full allocation, he said, amounts to a “taking” of their water.

“That’s my biggest problem,” he said.

The springs at Sadler Ranch, the same ones used when the ranch was developed in the late 1800s by former Gov. Sadler, give Shoda and the owners of the ranch standing to make that argument. Because the springs were developed so long ago — even before Nevada water law was written — Sadler Ranch has claims to some of the oldest water rights in Diamond Valley.

Since the plan was approved, Sadler Ranch has challenged it in court. They say the local plan allowed continued overuse for 35 years, by taking a gradual approach to solving an issue that developed over decades. State officials have awarded Sadler Ranch additional water rights to offset their loss. Still, Shoda said the springs cannot be made whole if overpumping continues.

“However this deal works out, in the end, it’s not going to be great for a lot of people,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be great for anybody. But again, what do you put on the flip side of that?”

“If we allow everyone to continue pumping, and then the entire basin dries up,” he said.

*Springs at Sadler Ranch on Aug. 26, 2020. The state allowed the ranch to pump water to offset losses to the spring’s natural flow. (Daniel Rothberg/The Nevada Independent)*

For Sadler Ranch and two other petitioners who challenged the groundwater plan, the localized solution does too little, too late. In a brief filed in District Court last year, attorneys argued that the plan “authorizes persistent, non-stop groundwater mining” from the aquifer.

Proponents of the plan view the gradual cuts as a way to reduce water use over three decades. Yet others see that as a death by a thousand cuts, prolonging the problem for decades and allowing for continued overuse when the law calls on the state to take more immediate action.

Sadler Ranch is not the only rancher pushing back. The owners of another property, also with depleted springs, joined Sadler Ranch in appealing the plan. The owners of both ranches are newcomers to Diamond Valley, having purchased the ranches only recently. It’s a fact that has raised the eyebrows of some local farmers. Why do they want all of this water — and why now?

One longtime Diamond Valley ranching family also challenged the plan in District Court. The family holds five irrigation groundwater rights with senior priority dates. A court brief filed by their attorneys said the plan would ultimately leave them with about 29 percent of their allocations, despite having senior water rights and having lived in the valley since the 1860s.

Despite the plan’s approval by a vote of irrigators, “popularity of a plan does not overrule priority of right,” attorneys for the family told the District Court. The plan, they wrote, should have considered other options, not only a market whereby water rights are turned into shares.

The brief argued that there were other options to create a management plan while protecting the rights of senior water users. For instance, a groundwater plan could have created a basin-wide fee to raise funds that would have compensated senior water users if they reduced their use. Or water users could create a similar market for junior water users that senior users could sell into.

Moyle said that irrigators looked at other options, but he strongly believes that the groundwater plan, as written, is the one that works best for the valley. He said that even gradual reductions would improve the water situation. The plan got community buy-in, even from senior water right users with the most to lose. And it gave the water users “local control” over the valley’s fate.

Other options, he said, were “discussed millions of times in millions of ways.”

The issues in Diamond Valley persist in other parts of the West. Many states rely on the “first in time, first in right” doctrine to settle disputes over water. Other parts of the West have dealt with issues around groundwater in a variety of ways. Courts and legislatures in different states have interpreted the doctrine in different ways, but exceptions to the doctrine are not unprecedented.

In Kansas, for instance, the state has allowed groundwater users to develop local plans to solve overuse, and in some cases, the plans have departed from a strict adherence to “first in time, first in right” rules. Still, in Nevada, courts have been strict about not deviating from the doctrine, and Fairman, the District Court judge, said the Legislature did not intend to make an exception.

*Eureka County, with a population of about 2,030 residents, on Aug. 25, 2020. The county has defended the groundwater plan. (Daniel Rothberg/The Nevada Independent)*

Waiting for the courts

Two-hundred-and-fifty miles away from Carson City, Moyle shuffled through a pile of papers and fished out a copy of Nevada’s water statutes. Moyle, a farmer in Diamond Valley, pointed to one line that he had underlined in blue ink. The interpretation of this line, Moyle said, could dictate his community’s future and whether he can continue farming in the valley. He disagreed with Fairman’s ruling, and he believes this line validates the groundwater plan. The line says that the state must curtail by priority unless local water users come up with an alternative method.

“There were hours spent on this sentence at that time,” Moyle said.

The plan now hinges on the Nevada Supreme Court’s interpretation of the language. But the state is backing Moyle’s interpretation of the law — that a statute passed by the Legislature in 2011 lets local communities develop plans that depart from a strict application of water law.

In a brief filed with the Supreme Court, Deputy Attorney General James Bolotin argued that the Legislature, by allowing local plans, intended to provide an alternative to curtailment by priority.

“The purpose of the [groundwater management plan] statute is to provide a last resort for those basins in the most dire of straits to work together as a community to create a plan that reduces groundwater pumping to levels acceptable to the state engineer to avoid curtailment,” he wrote.

The state engineer serves as Nevada’s top water regulator. For state regulators, a court ruling that strikes down the plan could leave one less option on the table for managing water. Diamond Valley, in many ways, is a test case. It is the first time the state has allowed irrigators to develop a local groundwater plan under the 2011 statute, which did not offer many specific guidelines.

*Mark Moyle points to a circled word in Nevada’s water statutes on Aug. 25, 2020. (Daniel Rothberg/The Nevada Independent)*

Without a valid plan, curtailment could be coming for Diamond Valley. Whether the Supreme Court approves the plan or not, the valley’s irrigators still face a 2025 deadline for curtailment.

This fact could eventually send the irrigators back to the drawing board.

Throughout the last six years, Tibbitts, Eureka County’s natural resources manager, has helped guide the creation of the plan, keeping irrigators informed of developments through an email list. As the plan has made its way through the courts, Tibbitts has continued to keep them apprised.

“It’s kind of on them to decide what to do,” he said during an interview in August. “And so far, there really hasn’t been any movement by the farmers to come back to the drawing board.”

If no plan is in place by 2025, Tibbitts said there are still “unanswered questions” about how a curtailment would work. From Tibbitts’ perspective, the dividing line between junior and senior rights in Diamond Valley is not all that useful in reality. Because of the rush to develop water in the 1960s, the majority of irrigators have an assortment of junior and senior water rights. His question is this: “Is there something we can do as a community that everyone can live with?”

But there is no doubt that the situation is tense.

“It’s tense for me, and I come to work every day and I get a paycheck every two weeks,” Tibbitts said. “These guys, their livelihoods are on the line. A lot of them invested everything here with their families. They have nothing else other than their farm in Diamond Valley.”

This story was supported by a grant from The Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative based at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.

Articles in this series

Part I:
The Connection

Part II:
New Rules

Part III:
Cutting Back

As pandemic hammers its finances, Vail pulls out of state cloud seeding program

By

Fresh Water News

-

December 1, 2020

By Jerd Smith

Vail Resorts Inc., one of the largest financial contributors to Colorado’s cloud seeding program, has dropped out this year, leaving a major hole in the program’s budget.

Cloud seeding is a practice in which silver iodide pellets are sprayed into storm clouds in an effort to trigger more snowfall and ultimately, in the spring, more snowmelt to feed the state’s streams.

Vail has been participating in the program for more than 40 years, state officials said.

Hard-hit by the pandemic, the ski resort company had planned to contribute $300,000 to this year’s effort, roughly 20 percent of the nearly $1.5 million the state spends annually, according to the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), which oversees the program.

Vail officials did not respond to a request for comment, but their most recent financial statements indicate that the company’s revenues dropped nearly 70 percent for its latest fiscal year as the Covid-19 pandemic forced it to close its resorts early last spring.

According to its financials, revenues for its 2020 fiscal year ending July 31 came in at $503.3 million, down from $706.7 million for the prior year.

“We’re all hoping this is just a temporary suspension in funding from Vail,” said Andrew Rickert, who oversees the cloud seeding program for the CWCB. “Vail is the oldest partner we have in Colorado. They are very serious about the program, but no one is immune to these economic hardships.”

In addition to Vail, the cloud seeding program receives cash from several Lower Colorado River Basin states, who are interested in helping do anything they can to boost water supplies in the Upper Colorado River Basin, on whose flows they rely.

The state and several Front Range water utilities, including Denver Water, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District and Colorado Springs Utilities, also help pay for the work.

This year the CWCB will oversee six permitted cloud seeding operations that span the state, from Durango to Winter Park and beyond. The operations are sited in areas most likely to produce snow and aid rivers.

Among the largest of these is a permit operated by the Colorado River District, which includes Grand, Summit, Eagle and Pitkin counties, according to Dave Kanzer, deputy district engineer for the Glenwood Springs-based water agency.

Vail’s cloud seeding program is nested within that area and its annual $300,000 contribution represents more than half the money typically spent in that four-county region, Kanzer said. If additional funding isn’t found, fewer cloud seeding generators will operate there this season.

“It’s a challenging time with respect to Covid-impacted budgets,” Kanzer said. “The overall program is alive and well, but it is a topic of concern.”

Kanzer and CWCB Director Becky Mitchell said the state is actively reaching out to other entities for additional funding for this year’s work, including states in the Lower Colorado River Basin and Front Range utilities.

As the current drought continues, forecasts for the winter indicate that the southern part of Colorado is likely to see light winter snows, while the northern part of the state is likely to see heavier accumulations. Overall, the state has a long way to go to make up for the dry summer and fall.

How much new snow and water seeding clouds actually produces has been difficult to detect, although scientists recently have produced studies indicating it can create new snow.

“Our scientists indicate we can increase water supplies by about 5 percent on an annual basis, with increased snowfall of 5 to 10 percent, although it’s highly variable,” Kanzer said.

Colorado and other Upper Colorado River Basin states have long used cloud seeding as a way to boost water supplies, and with this year’s drought it’s more important than ever that additional water be generated if possible.

“It’s especially acute coming after a pretty dry 2020,” Kanzer said.

“But we’re cautiously optimistic. As the year plays out we will try to carefully manage the resources that we have. I’m not optimistic that we will be able to fill the entire gap. But if we came up with a third [of the money lost], that will be a success in my mind.”

Jerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.

This story originally appeared on Fresh Water News, an independent, non-partisan news initiative of Water Education Colorado. WEco is funded by multiple donors. Its editorial policy and donor list can be viewed at wateredco.org.

Vail Resorts’ cancellation of cloud seeding this winter could mean less water in streams

By

Aspen Journalism

-

December 1, 2020

Scenes from the Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime Clouds: The Idaho Experiment (SNOWIE) project, which was undertaken in Idaho’s Payette Basin in winter 2017. (Credit: Joshua Aikins)

By Heather Sackett

Due to budget shortfalls, Vail Resorts has pulled this winter’s funding for its cloud seeding program — the longest-running in the state at 44 years — potentially reducing the amount of water flowing down the Colorado River this spring.

According to a November report from Colorado Water Conservation Board Director Rebecca Mitchell, due to economic challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, Vail Resorts was forced to suspend all funding for cloud seeding for the 2020-21 season. This has resulted in a $300,000 loss of funding for cloud seeding activities over the central Rocky Mountains.

While this is bad news for skiers, it also means a challenge for western water managers who count on cloud seeding to increase water supplies by increasing snowfall in the mountainous headwaters of the Colorado River and its tributaries. While ski resorts tend to focus their cloud seeding on increasing early-season snow, water managers tend to choose the best storms throughout the season and boost those.

According to Mitchell’s report, the loss of Vail’s cloud seeding program severely reduces the ability to augment and increase water supplies.

“This recent decision has put managers of the CCMRB in a very difficult position as they endeavor to meet the needs of drought recovery,” Mitchell’s report reads.

Vail Resorts did not respond to requests for comment.

Colorado water managers and ski resorts use remote cloud seeding generators like this one to boost a storm’s snowfall. This year Vail Resorts cut its $300,000 program, leaving some water managers worried it could result in decreased snowpack and streamflows.

‘A significant loss’

Cloud seeding uses a network of ground-based generators throughout the permit area to disperse silver iodide particles into clouds, where ice crystals form on them and fall to the ground as snow. Colorado ski areas and water managers on both the Western Slope and Front Range have been using cloud seeding for decades to enhance snowpack and streamflows. The cloud seed generators in the CCMRB area are operated by Durango-based Western Weather Consultants.

Water managers see cloud seeding as an important tool for increasing water supply in times of drought. A study released earlier this year proved that cloud seeding can boost snowfall across a wide area under the right conditions. Weather modification programs were one of the elements included in the Drought Contingency Plan, signed by the Colorado River basin states in 2018.

“It’s one of the few ways to physically increase water supplies,” said Dave Kanzer, deputy chief engineer for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. “This is one of the legs of the stool. When we are looking at supply and demand, this is the supply side.”

Kanzer said that a statistical comparison over 15 years shows a 2-5% annual increase in snowfall in basins that use cloud seeding over those that don’t. Although it’s difficult to determine the exact amount of extra snow that cloud seeding generates, it could equal up to 80,000 acre-feet of water within the CCMRB permit area, Kanzer said.

Since Vail’s program represents about half of this, one could expect any snow and water generated to also decrease by half this year.

“We have lost about half of our effectiveness,” Kanzer said. “It’s a significant loss to cloud seeding within our permit area.”

The CCMRB program has an annual budget of about $220,000 to $250,000, Kanzer said, with contributions from the River District, the CWCB, the Front Range Water Council and districts in the lower basin that supply water.

CWCB officials say they are still trying to find replacement funding and have been talking with Front Range water providers, including Denver Water. Spokesperson Todd Hartman said Denver Water currently provides $12,400 as part of the Front Range Water Council’s $70,000 contribution.

“The FRWC and Denver Water are aware of the reduction from Vail and members are discussing how and whether to address that,” Hartman said in an email.

Three water providers in the lower basin states — Central Arizona Water Conservation District, Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — contributed $438,000 this year to cloud seeding programs across the upper basin, which also includes Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.

CWCB Weather Modification Program Manager Andrew Rickert said it’s still too early in the season to know how Vail’s move might affect snowpack and streamflows.

“We just have no idea what kind of season we could have in front of us,” Rickert said. “We could have storms that are efficient enough not to need cloud seeding. It’s really just up in the air as to how this is going to affect water supplies for next year.”

Aspen Journalism is a local, nonprofit, investigative news organization covering water and rivers in collaboration with The Vail Daily and other Swift Communications newspapers. This story ran in the Nov. 28 edition of The Vail Daily and the Nov. 30 edition of The Aspen Times.

The promises and pitfalls of mapping small streams

By

Jenna Sampson

-

December 1, 2020

Small streams like this one in northern Colorado are notoriously difficult to map using older methods because they come and go with the weather. Now crowdsourcing apps are asking hikers to record small stream data. This photo was taken for the Stream Tracker project, which collects imagery of intermittent streams. (Photo: Kevin Teiken/Stream Tracker Project).

By Jenna Sampson

As seasonal streams around the Colorado high-country dry up before winter, Stephanie Kampf rallies volunteers, a keen mix of retired scientists and college students, to help her map these waterways using a mobile app. Kampf, a professor of watershed science at Colorado State University, runs a crowdsourcing project called Stream Tracker to map and monitor small seasonal streams.

The official hydrography data used by water regulators, scientists and land managers—called the National Hydrography Dataset, or NHD—often misclassifies, misplaces or completely leaves out seasonal streams.

The project, launched in 2017, is one of several crowdsourcing programs that have emerged to improve data on small streams. Those waterways, termed ephemeral or intermittent depending on how often they flow, are dry much of the year and then activate during rain events or from seasonal snowmelt. They make up over 80% of all streams in the arid West, carrying snowmelt through a seasonal network that supplies the Colorado River and its tributaries, which provide water to 40 million people.

The central problem that inspired Stream Tracker is that the official hydrography data used by water regulators, scientists and land managers—called the National Hydrography Dataset, or NHD—often misclassifies, misplaces or completely leaves out seasonal streams. One study by the conservation group Trout Unlimited suggests that for every mile of mapped stream there’s about one more that’s unaccounted for in the NHD.

“We’d try to identify streams and go into the field and see that there was no stream there,” said Kampf of her attempts to use the NHD. “There was just not a good record of where the streams actually are.”

**Puzzling data**. Zoomed into the southern Front Range of Colorado, ephemeral stream data from the NHD (in red) is dense in some areas and stops along clearly defined perimeters.

More accurate mapping of these water bodies could not only help researchers like Kampf but also give landowners and developers more clarity on whether a stream on their land is federally regulated.

On the federal level, the U.S. Forest Service needs to abide by environmental rules, such as riparian buffer zones, for conservation planning. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs to assess its oversight responsibility to permit new developments near regulated water. Emergency-response organizations need to predict and plan for flooding, particularly as landscapes are charred by wildfires.

“NHD is relied on so readily across the board by so many different people for their broader scale research,” said Helen Neville, senior scientist at Trout Unlimited. “It’s what everybody uses as the base layer for anything they’re doing having to do with aquatics.”

But after nearly 136years of work, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the nation’s official mapmaker and the agency managing the NHD, is still trying to solve the problem of bad data.

By pushing to collaborate with states and making tweaks as new technology becomes available, the agency has been doubling down on its effort to improve the NHD in recent years. Now, as the agency dips its toes into crowdsourcing stream data, regular citizens can help speed up progress.

Several promising efforts are underway to improve and update the data both within the USGS and beyond, using everything from satellites to hikers armed with mobile phones. Even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year signaled that it wants to improve on stream data for its own regulatory reasons by creating a stream-mapping group that will work with, and help enhance, the NHD.

It remains unclear what, beyond initial talks, has materialized from the group. It also remains unclear how the Biden administration will handle this.

Mapping watersheds, and politics

In January 2020 the Trump administration enacted a change to the landmark Clean Water Act, effectively removing federal oversight of ephemeral streams. The water-rule change, called the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, was criticized by many scientists and environmental organizations as a brazen rollback of the Clean Water Act. (See this Water Desk article for more information.)

A study from the conservation group Trout Unlimited determined that a significant portion of the smallest streams are unmapped.

In designing the rule change, the EPA disregarded its own research on ephemeral and intermittent streams, arguing that the issue should be left to the states. It also brushed offattempts by conservationists to analyze the rule’s impact because they used data from the NHD.

“That to us seemed like a copout,” said Kurt Fesenmyer, GIS & Conservation Planning Director at Trout Unlimited.

Many researchers see the NHD as the best available resource for this type of high-level analysis, so dismissing them altogether, to Fesenmyer, was like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

After that pushback, the EPA summarized why the agency felt the NHD was not worthy of use in regulatory planning. Simultaneously, it announced the mapping group.

Formally called the Aquatic Resources Mapping Group, it will pursue “federal, state, and tribal partnerships.” According to Matthew Wilson, the Army Corps regulatory programs manager and a representative in the group, they will use the NHD and other datasets to create a new visual tool showing which water bodies are federally regulated across the country.

This will require accurately defining ephemeral and intermittent streams in order to be useful since different stream types have different rules, but it’s unclear how that will happen.

“The Aquatic Resource Mapping effort will strive to improve mapping of the nation’s aquatic resources, including streams and wetlands, by enhancing existing national products as well as methodologies for mapping and modeling aquatic resources,” said Wilson.

The Army Corps is one agency that could benefit from improved mapping, according to Wilson, given that it is responsible for doling out CWA permits for development on regulated water. The group’s leader, Dwane Young, chief of water data integration at the EPA, declined to comment on specific activities and future targets.

An EPA fact sheet from January on the issue of NHD deficiencies and the launch of a mapping group, says that developing maps of CWA jurisdiction “will promote greater regulatory certainty, relieve some of the regulatory burden associated with determining the need for a permit, and play an important part in helping to attain the goals of the CWA.”

Piecemeal improvement

If Wilson is correct, then the mapping group will attempt to enhance the national mapping effort, thus overlapping with the work of USGS.

Over the last two decades, the USGS has been digitizing stream data into the NHD and improving its models using a grab bag of different techniques. But the USGS knows there is still much to improve upon, especially in the way data is collected. Currently, states are responsible for their own data collection, and mapping priorities differ from place to place. This means you can see distinct grids in the NHD that create a patchwork of unmapped landscapes, mapped areas with old data and, more recently, updated areas with the finest detail.

CO NHD ephemeral data — **Officially patchy.** Ephemeral stream data from the official National Hydrography Dataset is incomplete. Above, the red shows ephemeral streams in Colorado that seem to come to an abrupt end. This is due to the fact that data collection was mainly done on Forest Service land. An effort to update the data is in the works, but it will take time and computing power to incorporate it.

One of those finer details is what’s known as flow regime, or the seasonality of a stream: is it always flowing (perennial) or only temporarily after rain or snow (ephemeral)? This is where, according to Matthews, the EPA mapping group will need to focus some effort since he says the NHD doesn’t currently provide this information, or at least not uniformly.

The group is looking into using crowdsourced data from efforts like Stream Tracker to help define flow regime, since seasonality is one of the elements being tracked by the project. Wilson said this information would help the Army Corps more efficiently respond to Clean Water Act permit requests, which require determining if a stream is ephemeral, and thus unregulated.

Cue the lasers

Beyond making regulatory processes more transparent and streamlined, improving the NHD broadly benefits scientists and land managers around the country. Fesenmyer’s work at Trout Unlimited is part of a growing body of science that relies on the NHD, including 25 research papers so far in 2020.

One example is a five-year study, funded by NASA, that Neville co-authored in 2018. The study analyzed the extinction risk facing Lahontan cutthroat trout populations in Nevada, California and Oregon. The NHD was the basis for the team’s modeling work in that study.

“Fundamentally, it’s the first piece of information we need to know—where trout populations live and how big of a habitat they have,” she said.

In order to ensure their model was accurate, Neville’s research team had to use a satellite remote sensing technology to improve the accuracy of the data.

More and more, researchers are making use of another important advancement in order to acquire more accurate data. Using laser imaging, called lidar, scientists can remap study areas to achieve much finer detail. Many see this as the most promising advancement in data collection for hydrography mapping.

**Lasers in the forests**. A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) produced from lidar data for the U.S. Forest Service, which is investing heavily in the high-resolution data collection for myriad applications, including stream mapping. “With these very high resolution DEMs, we can also model the flow of water across landscapes with an unparalleled level of precision. We can then integrate the resulting data with the National Hydrography Dataset, providing vastly superior hydrography data than what was previously available.” — USFS text alongside image from its lidar project website.

Lidar is a high-resolution aerial-imaging process that uses a laser to measure the distance to the ground from either an aircraft or satellite to create three-dimensional elevation models. Since scientists know the approximate topography on which ephemeral streams can run, identifying those spots on the three-dimensional map is a good way to increase the accuracy of the NHD, according to Fesenmyer.

“Typically right now lidar is collected from a plane, and that’s an expensive high-effort deal,” he said, adding that it would be more desirable to have a space-based lidar sensor that uses satellites to collect data universally and at a more regular interval.

A satellite making regular laps around the Earth to capture new data for the NHD will be a huge upgrade, but crowdsourcing projects like Stream Tracker will still be needed to verify what’s seen on the ground. As of late 2020, 70 percent of the country had been mapped using lidar, including 73 percent of National Forest System land in the Southwest, 55 percent in the Rockies. The NHD won’t be able to use that upgraded data for some time due in part to the need for more computing power, according to Fesenmyer.

“Personally, I’d like to see this ephemeral data revised on a statewide level using lidar to better identify potential ephemerals,” said Chris Brown, GIS mapping coordinator for the Colorado Division of Water Resources.

Toward that end, the USGS has developed a program designed to help fund state lidar programs. The goal is to acquire high resolution data across the country by 2023, according to the website.

Crowdsourcing efforts are a promising complement to technical advancements like lidar—so much so that in August, the USGS launched its own version of Stream Tracker, called FLOwPER (for “flow permanence”), to gather data and incorporate it into the NHD. Along with the EPA’s aquatic mapping group and technological upgrades, crowdsourcing could add value by helping verify that the maps are still accurate since, according to Neville, climate change is altering the aquatic landscape.

“Efforts like Stream Tracker and others can be used to help improve the NHD, in terms of overall improving accuracy of a streamflow classification as well as working towards a more dynamic NHD,” said Kristin Jaeger, research hydrologist at USGS.

Trust but verify

Brown of the Colorado Division of Water Resources helps verify new data for the NHD. That data, he said, typically comes from the Forest Service and other government employees who are regularly out in the field. He hasn’t seen any Stream Tracker data come through his desk in Colorado, but he said that in order to incorporate such data, an extra filter would need to be applied “to confirm its trustworthiness.”

Nonetheless, crowdsourcing hydrography data is gaining traction.

Kampf and her team of budding and seasoned scientists will continue to collect stream data for partners at the Forest Service, EPA and others to explore.

Kevin Teiken, known as “Water Otter” on his Stream Tracker profile, is a natural resources management major at Colorado State University, and one of Kampf’s students. He joined the project as a volunteer in September and has already contributed nearly 20 observations. He said the area around his house in Fort Collins hadn’t previously been mapped, according to the mobile app.

Teiken began participating in the mapping project for a class, but has continued because he said it’s a good motivator to explore new areas on foot.

“I’ve found four or five irrigation or drainage ditches that only fill with rain that were completely new observations,” he said.

This story was supported by The Water Desk.

A Colorado River leader who brokered key pacts to aid West’s vital water artery assesses his legacy and the river’s future

By

Western Water

-

November 24, 2020

Terry Fulp served 31 years with the Bureau of Reclamation, including eight years as director of the Lower Colorado Basin Region. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation)

By Gary Pitzer

Managing water resources in the Colorado River Basin is not for the timid or those unaccustomed to big challenges. Careers are devoted to responding to all the demands put upon the river: water supply, hydropower, recreation and environmental protection.

All of this while the Basin endures a seemingly endless drought and forecasts of increasing dryness in the future.

For more than 30 years, Terry Fulp, director of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Basin Region, has been in the thick of it, applying his knowledge, expertise and calm demeanor to inform and broker key decisions that have helped stabilize the Southwest’s major water artery. The centerpiece of that effort was the landmark 2007 Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and Coordinated Operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the river’s two major reservoirs. Fulp was instrumental in developing the modeling tool called RiverWare in the 1990s that has been used to build the data foundation for most of the key operational decisions on the river during the past 20 years.

“What really is the key to success are relationships. You can’t really work closely with folks and on very complex and contentious issues if you don’t know about each other and respect each other.”
~Terry Fulp, director of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Basin Region

Even with the 2007 agreement, worsening drought and declining reservoir levels pushed the seven Basin states — Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — into urgent but protracted negotiations. The result was unprecedented Drought Contingency Plans last year for the Upper and Lower Basins that included participation by Mexico, a development founded on Mexico’s recent ability to store some of its water in Lake Mead.

Fulp has played an integral part in all of these decisions. As 2020 nears completion, so does Fulp’s career with Reclamation. He’s retiring after 31 years with the agency’s Boulder City, Nevada, office, which oversees the last 688 miles of the river’s path in the United States, including Hoover Dam to the Mexican Border. In an interview with Western Water, he talked about his accomplishments in a leadership role and the challenges that await the many Colorado River water users as they begin the arduous task of negotiating a new operating agreement for the Colorado River to replace the current one that expires in 2026.

WW: What’s been your proudest accomplishment as Regional Director?

FULP: The biggest one probably is our leadership in the collaborative approach that we have shown works so well in the Basin over the last 20 years, starting with the Interim Surplus Guidelines all the way through the Drought Contingency Plans, and Mexico’s big part of that. Forging a really close relationship with our colleagues in Mexico has been key to that program’s success. I think we’ve been able to accomplish some really important things.

Sustaining Lake Mead for the benefit of downstream water users in the Lower Colorado River Basin has been a key objective of agreements reached in 2007 and 2019. (Source: Lighthawk via The Water Desk)

WW: Are there examples that come to mind where people made a breakthrough in their relationships?

FULP: Definitely. Starting all the way back to what was called the California 4.4 Plan in 2003, that was huge. The Multi-Species Conservation Program also comes to mind. It’s still very unique and very successful in all of the environmental type of programs within this country and even within the world… And then of course the Interim Guidelines in 2007, the flagship agreement between the Upper and Lower Basin on the coordinated operation of the two big reservoirs. And, if I can add one more, our relationship with our Mexican partners was unforeseen 15 to 20 years ago.

These agreements are still working well but there have been hiccups and the main hiccup is the drought. It became more severe and drove the need for the Drought Contingency Plans that were signed on May 20th of last year. We worked over five years on that. These things are complex and sometimes they take a really long time. Living in it felt like it was long to me for sure and probably everybody else who was so involved in it. It just shows the complexity with all the different interests and that the way you get through that is really being collaborative – building relationships amongst all of us and then being able to really talk about the serious issues and find compromises.

WW: This is an important time, as the renegotiations of the 2007 Interim Operating Guidelines will soon begin in earnest. What are some of the major challenges that all the parties will have to overcome?

The Upper and Lower Basin Regions of the Colorado River Basin. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation)

FULP: The foremost one in my mind is the changing hydroclimate. Certainly, we know from the very solid research that is now almost 10 years old, just the warming of the planet… explains 8 percent to 10 percent of the decline in water flow due to increased evaporation and evapotranspiration. So that’s paramount in terms of what we’ve got to deal with. … It brings up issues between the Upper and Lower Basin, primarily that the Lower Basin is at full development and has been for the better part of 20 years and the Upper Basin isn’t. With decreasing water supply, that’s going to be a really thorny issue to figure out.

What we know from other river basins and even this one, is the last place you want to be is in a courtroom letting a court decide the best way to operate. That belief is still consistent throughout the Basin. We don’t want to end up there.

WW: As water users, including tribes, seek to fully develop their water right allocations in a tightening system, how can the spirit of collaboration and cooperation be maintained?

FULP: You brought up the tribal issue and I really view them as an integral part of the Basin family. And so, when I talk about the Lower Basin that I’m in and the people that need to be involved in this collaborative effort, obviously the tribes are key in that. And they also haven’t grown into their full potential in terms of water use.

If I could relive this, I would have had a stronger focus on not just relationships with the tribal community, but also helping them build the capacity within their individual tribes to more effectively participate in these complex discussions. We are well on that path now and lots of folks are working hard and I feel very optimistic that we are not just on the right path, but we’ve made significant accomplishments in that area and it will just continue to improve.

What really is the key to success are relationships. You can’t really work closely with folks and on very complex and contentious issues if you don’t know about each other and respect each other.

I know it sounds simple. Of course, it’s not, in fact. It takes a lot of work just like the technical work is really important and the policy work, but [relationships] are equally as important, maybe more important.

WW: A host of experts have outlined scenarios of drying Basin conditions fueled by climate change. What has to be done now to get ahead of this?

FULP: We’ll know more in 10 years than we do today, more about what’s really going on with Mother Nature. We won’t have all the answers on how to deal with that and there still will be great uncertainty to our future. I think in 10 years we will have put other mechanisms in place to mitigate those impacts, but I don’t think we’ll have it all solved by any means. We don’t even fully understand yet what we’re facing.

A persistent drought in the Colorado River Basin has dropped water levels in Lake Mead, as evidenced by the bathtub ring around the lake. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation)

WW: Is there room for getting even more innovative with the U.S.-Mexico relationship as far as how water is shared?

FULP: I think so. We do these things in increments. I love the term ‘pilot.’ I think the best way to get your experience initially and prove a concept is to do a program that is of finite duration with very specific, agreed-to goals and accomplishments. That’s the way you prove success and then you’re able to go forward to that next step.

Our agreement originally with Mexico to store water in U.S. reservoirs, because of that earthquake damage [in 2010] where they could not use their water during that period of time, was a huge breakthrough. It did have a finite term but because of that success we were able to build that concept into Minute 319 and expand upon it. And then Minute 323 went another step and extended those concepts and even included a drought plan. The door was then opened to much bigger projects to be co-funded by Mexico and the U.S. As an example, we have a work group looking at big picture desalination that the countries could share both the costs and benefits of that.

WW: You once told the story of how you were asked early in your career what the bumper sticker message would be for Colorado River Basin hydrology, and your answer was “Lake Mead Will Go Down.” Looking at the challenges ahead in the Basin, what would that bumper sticker message be today?

FULP: It probably isn’t that succinct or prophetic. But I would say the problems are only going to get harder. And the way to solve them is to communicate and collaborate. That’s the only way we will be successful.

Terry Fulp

Education: Bachelor’s degree, University of Tulsa; master’s degrees, University of Colorado and Stanford University; doctorate, Colorado School of Mines
Previous jobs: Deputy Regional Director, Lower Colorado Region; Area Manager, Boulder Canyon Operations Office; Manager, River Operations, Boulder Canyon Operations Office; Principal Investigator, Department of the Interior Watershed and River Systems Management Research Program; Manager, Geophysical Operations, Senior Geophysicist, Arco Oil and Gas Company (formerly Atlantic Richfield Company)
Fun fact: “When I first went to college and graduate school, I had no idea at all that I would end up in water. Through a bit of serendipity, I’d say, I just fell in love with it and have loved it for the 31 years or so.”

This story originally appeared on Western Water on November 6, 2020.

Reach Gary Pitzer: gpitzer@watereducation.org, Twitter: @GaryPitzer
Know someone else who wants to stay connected with water in the West? Encourage them to sign up for Western Water, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Using drone and aerial imagery – Water Buffs Podcast ep. 6 – Mitch Tobin

By

The Water Buffs Podcast

-

November 18, 2020

Expand video >

Aerial imagery captured with planes and drones can help illustrate the lay of the land and explain both natural and manmade water systems. The Water Desk’s open-source multimedia library offers both still imagery and video footage from a bird’s-eye view. In this episode, Water Desk Director Mitch Tobin explains the initiative’s partnership with LightHawk and his own work filming water-related locations with a drone.

NOTE: This episode was recorded before the pandemic forced LightHawk to shift to pilot-only flights, but we are now using mounted GoPros to capture imagery.

Episode highlights

	Mitch Tobin, Director of the Water Desk Mitch is a licensed drone pilot with extensive experience taking aerial stills and video. He talks about the journalistic uses of aerials and the Water Desk’s resources for reporters. Related links: Water Desk free imagery library. Starts at 1:31
	How are aerials useful for water journalism? (2:15)
	Partnership with Lighthawk.org for aerial video The Water Desk partners with Lighthawk to get journalists up in the air to gain a different perspective and integrate aerial reporting and images into their work. Lighthawk conservation flying Starts at 3:37
	Aerial shoots: know before you go (8:43)
	Water Words: ”Headwaters” The term “headwaters” refers to the area where a stream or river begins. Starts at 12:18
	Be aware of no-fly zones (13:25)
	Dealing with motion sickness on the plane (13:36)
	How the Water Desk uses drone footage Browse the Water Desk’s drone and aerial footage, collected in an interactive map. Interactive map: browse drone and aerial footage. Starts at 14:44
	Commercial drone use requires certification (20:55)
	How to use drone imagery in stories (22:42)
	Value in crisis journalism – but mind the risks (25:28)
	Controlling a drone (28:36)
	Avoiding #dronefails (30:12)
	Drones-eye-view with VR controller (32:01)
	Differences between aerial and drone footage (36:52)
	Using automated features to pilot safely (39:20)
	How journalists can work with Lighthawk and the Water Desk (40:42)
Show more episode detail

You’re welcome to watch the video version of Water Buffs here on our website or subscribe to it on our YouTube and Vimeo Channels. If you prefer your podcasts on audio or on a portable device, subscribe using one of the services below or grab the feed url for your own service.

Share your thoughts – and consider joining us

If you’re interested in appearing on the show, please contact Water Desk Director Mitch Tobin at mitchtobin@colorado.edu. If you’d like to share your comments and questions, you can reach us at waterdesk@colorado.edu, or on Twitter and Facebook.

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Colorado eyes foreclosure against troubled Pueblo water company with $1.4 million in delinquencies

By

Fresh Water News

-

November 16, 2020

By Jerd Smith

An Arkansas Valley water and land company has left the State of Colorado on the hook for nearly $1.4 million in delinquent loan payments and emergency dam repair bills, and may face a rare foreclosure proceeding by the Colorado Water Conservation Board as a result.

At issue are two state deals, including a loan from the CWCB that has a remaining balance of $622,000 and an unpaid bill involving the Division of Water Resources and the CWCB’s emergency dam repair fund that has a remaining balance of nearly $750,000, according to the state.

Two Rivers Water & Farming Company, which has a history of chronic late payments, this year failed to make any payments on the $622,000 loan and has missed several payments on the emergency dam repair bill, according to the CWCB.

Greg Harrington, Two River’s chief executive officer, did not respond to requests for comment.

In a letter to shareholders late last summer Harrington indicated that the company’s problems were linked to a prior ownership team and the pandemic.

The CWCB’s revolving loan program has 335 active loans worth $400 million. The Two Rivers’ loan would be the first foreclosure the CWCB has pursued in more than 20 years, according to Kirk Russell, who oversees the CWCB’s lending program.

The CWCB loan dates back to 2012, when Two Rivers approached the state with a plan to rehabilitate a reservoir and restore dormant farmland to production, goals that are key to the CWCB’s mission, according to Russell.

“A storage project is right in our wheel house,” Russell said. “And they were interested in returning ag land into production and we are in full support of that.”

The CWCB typically lends to water utilities, cities and towns, and irrigation companies. But because Two Rivers presented valuable water rights and farm land as collateral, the state agreed to the loan.

“We felt that they were a risky borrower, because it was a private company, but we thought that with the collateral we would be protected and we would be able to recover the state’s revolving loan money if we had to foreclose,” said Russell.

Two Rivers is publicly traded on the federal Over The Counter stock exchange (OTC) under the stock symbol TURV. It describes itself as a company that develops “high yield irrigated farm land and the associated water rights in the Western U.S.”

It also has multiple subsidiaries, including two that are linked to the hemp and marijuana industries. One, GrowCo LLC, has filed for bankruptcy in U.S. District Court in Denver.

Whether Two Rivers can repay the state loans isn’t clear. It faces a shareholder lawsuit, and it has failed to file current financial statements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as required by law, despite at least one extension.

The last financials were filed Nov. 18, 2019 and cover the first nine months of 2019. They indicate that Two Rivers had $401,000 in cash on hand, long-term assets of $44.5 million, including its water rights, and liabilities of $22.5 million, according to the SEC.

The CWCB has given the company until Dec. 1 to make a $76,000 payment plus late fees to the revolving loan fund. If that doesn’t occur, the agency said it will begin foreclosure proceedings. The CWCB’s board is scheduled to take up the matter at its meeting Nov. 18.

Russell, chair of the CWCB’s finance section, said his agency would seek to take control of the company’s assets, including water rights and farm land, should the board opt to proceed with foreclosure.

Two Rivers has valued its water rights at $25 million, according to filings at the SEC.

How the state plans to address Two River’s other unpaid bills isn’t clear yet.

“I am planning for the worst and hoping for the best,” Russell said. “Our board is interested in recovering the principal and interest lost. I hope they can do that.”

Jerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.

This story originally appeared on Fresh Water News, an independent, non-partisan news initiative of Water Education Colorado. WEco is funded by multiple donors. Its editorial policy and donor list can be viewed at wateredco.org.

Overlooked Army Corps rulemaking would shrink federal stream protections

By

Circle of Blue

-

November 16, 2020

A stream in the Rocky Mountains. Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

By Brett Walton

Earlier this year, the Trump administration secured one of its signature environmental legacies when it completed a rule that reduced federal protections for wetlands as well as for streams that flow only following rainfall.

Environmental policy experts concluded that the administration’s narrow definition of the scope of the Clean Water Act was its most damaging decision for waterways. The rollback of the Obama-era ruling was a campaign promise of President Trump and a rallying cry for industrial lobby groups that supported him.

Now, the Army Corps of Engineers, with much less fanfare and in the final months of the Trump administration, is considering another rule change that would also shrink federal protection of small streams, ecologists and lawyers say. The Corps said in its proposal that it is acting in response to the president’s order to review regulations that burden energy development.

Some of the proposed changes will have essentially the same consequence as the Trump administration’s contraction of the Clean Water Act, according to Laura Ziemer, the senior counsel and water policy adviser for Trout Unlimited. The proposed changes to the Army Corps’ nationwide permit will reduce stream protections and expose longer sections of streams to damage, she said.

“It’s death by a thousand cuts,” Ziemer told Circle of Blue about the program that permits construction in wetlands and streams. “It’s another way to pave over with impunity the hydrologic function of our high-order Western watersheds.”

And not only in the states west of the Mississippi. According to Adam Williams, president of Brushy Fork Environmental Consulting, which restores ecosystems in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, the changes will harm streams in the mountainous Appalachian region in which he works.

The proposal “can be devastating to clean water in this country,” Williams wrote in a comment to the Army Corps.

A change in criteria exposes waterways to more damage

Section 404 of the Clean Water Act authorizes the Army Corps to oversee permitting for actions that fill or dredge waterways. Nationwide permits, intended for “minor” actions, are issued for projects that are expected to do minimal environmental damage to streams and wetlands. Individual permits are used when a project could cause significant environmental damage and requires a deeper analysis plus more public consultation.

From 2013 to 2018, the Corps issued about 20 times more nationwide permits than individual permits.

Currently, nationwide permits apply to 52 categories of activity, including pipelines, boat ramps, cranberry growing, mining, and dredging. Big projects use nationwide permits, too: the developer of the Keystone XL oil pipeline did so for hundreds of water crossings, as did the backers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a proposed natural gas pipeline in West Virginia and Virginia. Once a nationwide permit is granted, no additional public input or environmental review is required.

What constitutes “minimal” damage is determined by conditions set out in the nationwide permit.

The Corps is proposing extensive revisions, including adding five new categories while developing a separate category for oil and gas pipelines, which are now lumped with electric power lines.

One change above all has raised serious concerns from ecologists and conservation groups as well as state regulators.

For 10 of the permit categories, the Army Corps wants to shift from linear measurements to area measurements. Instead of limiting damage to 300 linear feet of stream bed, the Corps proposes that the standard be 0.5 acres, which is also the standard for wetlands. Disturbing less than that is assumed to have a negligible environmental impact.

The Corps did the math to make its case: Disturbing 300 linear feet of stream bed in a stream that is 6 feet across results in a loss of 0.04 acres. For a stream 25 feet across, the loss is 0.17 acres. Because the area of disturbance varies based on the length of the stream, the Corps wants to keep the area constant.

“This move seems fairly innocuous,” Ziemer said. But on closer examination this subtle change could have far-reaching effects.

The problem is with small streams, those that a person could jump across. Because these streams are narrow, a damage limit based on area would extend much farther upstream or downstream than the previous limit that was based on length.

The proposed change would greatly expand the length of stream that could be damaged in construction, according to calculations from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources that were submitted to the Corps.

The department’s calculations are this: Damaging 0.5 acres of stream bed for a stream that is 6 feet across means allowing nearly 3,500 linear feet of the stream to be damaged — more than 10 times the previous limit and roughly two-thirds of a mile in length.

The suggestion to remove the 300-foot standard was included in a internal review of the Corps’ regulations. Completed in 2017, the review argued that replacing the linear standard with an area standard would streamline the permitting process, reduce costs for regulated entities, and reduce processing time. That review was completed in response to President Trump’s order that agencies minimize regulatory requirements for energy development.

When asked about its justification for the changes, a Corps spokesperson referred to the reasons given in the Federal Register notice.

Ziemer said that these headwaters, both small streams and wetlands, are worth protecting because their value ripples outward. By keeping them intact it preserves their ability to store water, like a natural sponge. Having the land hold onto the water that falls on it yields benefits during droughts and floods. Disconnecting those waterways by paving, dredging, or filling them in “can really set back the climate resilience of the Western landscape,” she said.

The public comment period for the proposal extends through November 16. Many comments submitted so far object to the removal of the 300-foot standard.

The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources wrote that the Corps’ use of acreage instead of linear feet is a false argument that ignores the way that rivers function. The department asserted that the 300-foot standard needs to be retained to “ensure continued protection of streams.”

Wendy Weaver, executive director of Montana Aquatic Resources Services, asked whether different metrics ought to be used. Shouldn’t the Corps consider a hybrid approach, she asked? In other words, comparing the length of the stream to the width. A stream 10 feet across could be allowed 50 feet of stream bed damage, but a 100-foot-wide stream could be allowed 500 feet.

Norma Kline, a former ecologist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 3 and a former biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, claimed that the Corps fails to account for the full environmental impacts of its proposed changes and that they should not be approved.

Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters is a hunting and fishing group that aims to protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. Spencer Shaver, the group’s conservation director, argued that the proposal would be worse than the current rules. He wrote that it would result in more degradation of streams and more damage to fish, wildlife, and aquatic plants like wild rice, which have cultural and ecological significance to tribes in the region.

Shaver asked the Corps to do an environmental evaluation of its proposal and consider the effects in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, where there are mining projects that would be using the nationwide permit.

The lack of environmental review for its current nationwide permit, which took effect in 2017, has already led to legal trouble for the Corps.

Environmental groups sued the agency over its use of Nationwide Permit 12 for the Keystone XL pipeline’s water crossings. The groups argued that the Corps failed to assess the impacts to endangered species of its current nationwide permit. That lawsuit resulted in the Supreme Court upholding a lower court’s ruling that suspended the pipeline’s permits.

Is the Corps taking the lessons of that lawsuit into account in this revision of the nationwide permit by doing a more thorough environmental analysis? No, according to Doug Hayes, a Sierra Club lawyer involved in the Keystone XL lawsuit.

“They refuse to do it,” Hayes told Circle of Blue.

This story originally appeared on Circle of Blue and was published through the Institute for Nonprofit News network.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism. The Water Desk is seeking additional funding to build and sustain the initiative. Click here to donate.

The surprising connection between West Coast fires and the volatile chemicals tainting America’s drinking water

By

Ensia

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November 11, 2020

Source: National Interagency Fire Center

By Lynne Peeples, Ensia

November 11, 2020 — Editor’s note: This story is part of a nine-month investigation of drinking water contamination across the U.S. The series is supported by funding from the Park Foundation and Water Foundation. View related stories here.

From his back deck, Bogdan Marian can see the scars running down into the San Lorenzo Valley: the pad of a destroyed home, the scorched brown trees at the ridge line.

Marian is grateful to have a standing home. Yet his family and many others in the area still face another worry: the safety of their tap water. After fires marred the valley near Santa Cruz, California, in August, the local water district issued a “Do Not Drink Do Not Boil” notice to residents.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including benzene, residents were warned, could be seeping into the water system — just as the toxic chemicals did in Santa Rosa and Paradise, California, in the wake of wildfires in 2017 and 2018.

“I have an 18-month-old,” adds Marian. “I don’t want to expose him to anything questionable. So, we went several weeks after that using bottled water for basically everything including showering, cleaning, watering plants.”

Pervasive Chemicals

VOCs are a large group of chemicals that share an ability to vaporize in air and dissolve in water. Since the 1940s, they have been widely used in industry, agriculture and homes. They are components of gasoline, glues, degreasers, dry cleaning fluids, pesticides plastics and more. In addition to the notorious threat they pose to indoor air quality — off-gassing is common from new cabinets or laminate flooring, for example — VOCs can also find their way into the environment, tainting soil and water.

While VOCs that migrate into surface waters tend to evaporate, VOCs that travel through the soil and into groundwater can stick around and, ultimately, contaminate drinking water supplies. Most community water systems and private wells in the U.S. use groundwater. And given the scale of VOC use and frequent large releases into the environment, as well as their persistence and potential to harm human health, these chemicals remain a serious threat to America’s drinking water.

An assessment published by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2006 detected VOCs at the 0.2 microgram-per-liter level in nearly one-fifth of aquifers tested. The chemicals commonly seep into systems via spills and improper disposals. Benzene, for example, can enter groundwater from a gasoline or oil spill on the surface or from leaking underground fuel tanks. Similarly, many VOCs, including perchloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE), have been known to leach into groundwater from dry cleaners, as well as electronics and aircraft manufacturing or maintenance.

However VOCs get into drinking water, it can be bad news. “If you’re talking about something like lead in the water, you want to avoid drinking it. If you’re talking about VOCs, then you really don’t want to get those on your skin. Even a dishwasher creates vapor that could be inhaled,” says Gina Solomon, a program director with the Public Health Institute in Oakland, California.

Research has linked exposure to VOCs with increased risks of health effects including anemia, leukemia, kidney cancer, reproductive problems, birth defects and nervous system damage.

In general, children are at greatest risk from exposure to VOCs, explains Solomon. They take in a greater amount of fluid proportional to their body weight, compared with adults. And they have a lot more relative skin surface for their small size, resulting in a higher dose if bathed in the water.

“Benzene is also notorious for delayed health effects,” says Solomon. “The younger you are the more likely you are to live long enough to encounter those health effects.”

Wildfire Connection

Wildfires as a source of VOCs in drinking water had not really been on the radar until the Tubbs Fire burned through large swaths of Santa Rosa, California, in 2017. After the blaze, drinking water samples from municipal supplies had levels of several VOCs, including benzene, above state and federal exposure limits.

The next year, the Camp Fire devastated the town of Paradise, California. Benzene and other VOCs popped up in drinking water teststhere, too.

What tests uncovered after wildfires scorched the San Lorenzo Valley in late August, including one water sample with benzene levels at more than 40 times the state water board’s drinking water standard, “reinforced what we had found previously,” says Daniel Newton, an assistant deputy director with the California Environmental Protection Agency’s State Water Resources Control Board. “As the magnitude of fires is increasing and causing larger impacts to communities and water systems concurrently, we’re seeing more and more of these VOC detections. This year is setting a new pace for us.”

Solomon notes that benzene is known to cause cancer in humans. “It’s an alarming thing to find,” she says.

And benzene was just one of several VOCs detected in various water samples collected after the fire.

Marian recently learned about the drinking water contamination resulting from the earlier fires. And he laments that there still doesn’t appear to be a “playbook” for protecting water resources from wildfires. “I don’t think we’ve caught up to the things we’re learning from the 2017 and 2018 fires,” he says. “And we still don’t really understand how contamination happens. We just know it’s related to fire.”

Melting Plastics, Losing Pressure

No one knows for sure why VOCs are showing up in drinking water in the aftermath of fires. But a few ideas have emerged.

Plastic pipes and other plastics in the water system can melt or burn during a fire, releasing VOCs that could directly dissolve into the drinking water. In Paradise, scientists found globs of melted plastics in portions of the water service line. Chemicals from plastics may also absorb into pipes as they pass through, and then leach back into the water over time. “But I haven’t seen evidence yet that plastics are solely responsible for contamination after wildfires,” says Andrew Whelton, an associate professor of civil engineering and environmental and ecological engineering at Purdue University.

Another hypothesis is that when a water system loses pressure due to fire damage, then smoke, ash and gases can get sucked into underground pipes and circulated throughout a water distribution system. Even without a fire, depressurization can cause bacteria and other contaminants to get into the water, notes Stefan Cajina, the north coastal section chief of the California water board’s Division of Drinking Water.

It’s possible that the presence of plastics and a loss of pressure may both be to blame. Whelton says he is doing tests to find the cause of the contamination.

Damaged water meters like this one photographed in Paradise, California, after a wildfire swept through 2019, can release volatile organic compounds, potentially contaminating drinking water. Photo courtesy of Gina Solomon

Historical Threats

Victims of California wildfires are not the first in the U.S. to be threatened by VOC-contaminated drinking water.

Military bases have been one notorious source, says Richard Luthy, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University.

Take, for example, Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Between the late 1950s and the mid-1980s, the drinking water on the marine base was tainted with toxic industrial chemicals including benzene, TCE and PCE, from waste disposal practices at an off-base dry cleaner as well as leaking underground storage tanks and industrial spills. Military veterans who served at the base during this time and developed certain diseases, such as kidney cancer or Parkinson’s disease, may now qualify for disability benefits through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

VOCs were also the suspected villains in an unusual number of childhood leukemia cases in Woburn, Massachusetts, between 1969 and 1986. Well water had been contaminated with TCE and PCE, likely from industrial waste. A landmark lawsuit resulted in the responsible corporations contributing to the costs of remediation.

Still today, VOCs find their way into drinking water systems around the country. In Paden City, West Virginia, PCE levels in drinking water reportedly registered at almost three times the federal limit in January 2020. In August, officials detected 1,4-dioxane in a community water system in Springfield, Illinois.

Regulatory Lessons

The EPA regulates 21 VOCs under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Community water systems are required to monitor for these chemicals and, if their tests detect levels greater than the maximum contaminant level set by the EPA, they must inform their customers of the violation and take steps to remedy the situation. Still, Solomon and Whelton suggest the EPA’s regulations may not go far enough to protect the public from VOC contamination.

Methylene chloride, a VOC that appeared at levels above EPA limits in both Santa Rosa and Paradise, illustrates one potential reason. Federal and global health agencies consider it a probable human carcinogen. But standard drinking water testing might very well miss it. That’s because EPA requires that water systems test at the tap for lead and copper, but other tests for contaminants are done at the water treatment plant, explains Solomon. She notes a hypothesis that methylene chloride can form from a reaction among water pipes, disinfection byproducts and chlorine — contaminating water after it leaves the plant.

Other chemicals might be contaminating water systems after a fire, too. “We look for benzene, styrene, naphthalene. But we don’t actually know what chemicals we should be looking for,” says Whelton. He suggests that water testing using current EPA methods is not capable of detecting all of the chemicals found after the recent California wildfires.

Whelton further notes that government regulations for VOCs are based on long-term exposures and, therefore, generally don’t account for short-term, high-level exposures that can occur during a disaster such as a wildfire. And even when federal and state governments respond to a chemical disaster, they may fail to consider all of the potential routes of exposure. After a major industrial chemical spill in West Virginia in 2014, for example, efforts to protect residents from contaminated tap water relied on a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention screening level for the main compound of interest, a VOC called MCHM, based on ingestion alone. Inhalation of vapors and skin absorption are also critical potential routes of VOC exposure, argues Whelton.

“This is why we have a ‘Do Not Boil’ advisory,” he adds, noting that boiling water can send VOCs into the air. Based on evidence from the Tubbs and Camp fires, he recommends that water systems issue a “Do Not Use” order for their customers that allows use of the water solely “for firefighting purposes and toilet flushing.”

“We have lots of regulations on drinking water, but they are designed for conditions in which the source of the water is considered pretty clean and you haven’t had an immediate natural disaster.” – Richard Luthy

His other advice: Begin widespread sampling after a fire and rush those samples to be tested within 24 hours. Until tests confirm what chemicals are in the water system, don’t allow people to be exposed to that water. And then flush the water distribution system to make sure soot and other debris don’t sit around furthering VOC contamination.

Luthy also recommends that the government provide guidance to help utilities — particularly small ones — “get back in business” after a wildfire, hurricane or the like.

“We have lots of regulations on drinking water, but they are designed for conditions in which the source of the water is considered pretty clean and you haven’t had an immediate natural disaster,” he adds. “Do we need to have some other ways to address the safety of water after a natural disaster? I say, ‘Yes.’”

Cleaning Up

Increases in testing, largely resulting from recent awareness of their potential presence after wildires, along with improved treatment technologies in recent years means VOCs are less likely to reach the tap. Among the popular treatment tools are activated carbon filters that can absorb the chemicals and a process called air stripping, which can remove or “strip” benzene and other VOCs by contacting clean air with the contaminated water. The air movement causes the chemicals to evaporate at a faster rate. Such a system was installed to clean up industrial contaminants in California’s San Fernando Valley. Luthy notes that air stripping is the go-to method for cleaning up groundwater polluted by gasoline stations.

That said, both testing and effective treatment technologies come at a cost. “As soon as we start talking about private wells and small water systems, all bets are off,” says Solomon, referring to the tight budgets and limited staff generally available in these situations to invest in testing and treatment. “The dollar signs start piling up when you start testing that well. And in order to ensure your well is safe you really have to test periodically. If there are no contaminants today, that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be no contaminants a year from now.”

She notes that many homeowners and very small water systems simply skip the testing, especially with limited regulations holding them to do it.

A lot of homes so far affected by 2020 wildfires have been in areas with private wells or small to very small systems. “Those systems are getting some help from the state,” says Solomon, noting that residents in Paradise and surrounding areas also benefited from an emergency federal grant for free testing. “But that’s not typical.”

Of course, prevention is a more effective tool than any testing or treatment. Whelton suggests that communities adopt building codes that require the installation of fire-resistant water meter boxes placed a safe distance from vegetation, for example. Water meters with minimal plastic components would be less likely to ignite. Whelton also recommends water main shutoff valves and sampling taps at every water meter box, which could help responders quickly determine water safety. And to block contamination from flowing from a damaged building into a larger pipe network, he advises the use of one-way valves, also known as back flow prevention devices.

The San Lorenzo Valley Water District took many preemptive steps to mitigate the potential threat to the region’s drinking water. It shut down part of its system before the wildfire’s arrival. A one-way valve also separates the neighborhood of Riverside Grove, one of the communities in which benzene was found, from the rest of the water system.

The “Do Not Drink Do Not Boil” notice has now been lifted for Marian’s neighborhood. But Marian remains cautious until more tests are done. “I’m comfortable enough to use tap water for laundry and cleaning the house,” he says. “But out of an abundance of caution, we’re still using bottled water for drinking and cooking.”

This story originally appeared on Ensia on November 11, 2020.

Degrees of warming: How a hotter, thirstier atmosphere wreaks havoc on water supplies in Pitkin County

By

Aspen Journalism

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November 11, 2020

The Crystal River runs low outside of Carbondale on Sept. 1. With average temperatures warming in summer months by as much as 3.5 degrees since the 1950s in Garfield County, streamflows are trending down as peak runoff comes earlier and more water is sucked up by evaporation and dry soils, stressing available water supplies in late summer and fall. (Dan Bayer/Aspen Journalism)

By Catherine Lutz

In November 2018, Marble Town Manager Ron Leach received a letter that he said was a wake-up call.

The letter was a notice from the Colorado Division of Water Resources that the town’s water rights had been “out of priority” for four weeks the previous August and September because of a call placed by a senior water-rights holder downstream on the Crystal River.

During drought years — and 2018 was an extreme one, with the Crystal running at less than 5% of average after peaking in May, several weeks earlier than usual — junior water-rights holders may have to curtail their water usage until the senior call is satisfied.

“Drought and water supply have been on people’s minds for a long time around here, but we’ve never gotten a letter like that,” Leach said.

The letter urged the Marble Water Company — the private nonprofit entity that delivers water to the town’s approximately 150 residents and a handful of businesses — to create a plan of augmentation, which is an alternate source of water such as a storage pond. Without augmentation, the letter warned, a call could subject Marble to a cease-and-desist order on its municipal water wells.

Several other neighborhoods that get their water from the Crystal also narrowly dodged a bullet that August. The same call put more than 40 homes in Carbondale at risk of not having water, according to Town Manger Jay Harrington.

“Firefighting capability was an issue, too,” Harrington said. “That’s where we had to scramble.”

Carbondale officials were able to make an emergency arrangement with another senior water-rights holder on the Crystal to temporarily borrow water to supply the homes. And they quickly set in motion plans to avoid the situation in the future. In essence, the town is shifting the supply for some of its water needs from the heavily irrigated Crystal to the more reliable Roaring Fork, as the town has three wells that draw from the Roaring Fork aquifer, and has the option to develop more wells. The town also owns 500 acre-feet of water in Ruedi Reservoir it can use to offset its well depletions from the Roaring Fork aquifer.

Up in Marble, Leach doesn’t have multiple, redundant water supplies to serve his constituents. Noting that Marble’s water supply barely exceeds peak summer demand, an engineering firm’s preliminary recommendation was for an 11-acre-foot reservoir, which would require 3 to 4 acres of flat ground.

“The town of Marble doesn’t have cash to do anything like that,” said Leach, who added that space in the constrained mountain valley might also be a hurdle. “There’s no easy solution.”

Still, Leach is confident something will get figured out — a state-funded water study of the Crystal was recently approved, he said — but a very dry 2020 has underscored that the water issue is not going away anytime soon. During what’s now widely accepted as a two-decade-long drought in the Colorado River basin, temperatures have risen, summer rains can’t be relied on and streamflows have dropped, with earlier peak flows sometimes leaving little water in streams by late summer. The state’s letter to Marble noted that “it is reasonable to assume that this administration scenario could happen more frequently in the future.”

To those who deal with water day to day, there’s no question climate change is here and its impacts are being increasingly felt in the summer.

“It all starts with climate change — that’s the big picture,” said Leach. “What’s happening in Marble, this is the micro-example.”

Other Roaring Fork municipalities are also grappling with climate-caused water supply issues. The city of Aspen, which provides municipal water from free-flowing Maroon and Castle creeks and has seen Stage 2 water restrictions enacted two of the past three summers, is creating a 50-year water plan — driven in part by climate-change impacts — that may include expanded water storage. In Basalt, the 2018 Lake Christine Fire came close to cutting power supplies, which could have caused the failure of pump stations that deliver water to users. And after one of Glenwood Springs’ water sources was temporarily shut down during this summer’s Grizzly Creek Fire, debris, ash, mudslides and fire retardant pose lingering hazards.

“We need to continually work on our water systems as we continue to adapt to climate change,” said Harrington. “We are going to have to figure out how to slow it down, but in the meantime, we need to take climate change into our planning.”

Marble Town Manager Ron Leach is looking for ways to augment the town’s water supply, which comes from the Crystal River aquifer. In 2018, that supply was threatened when the river was running too low to satisfy all water-rights holders. (Catherine Lutz/Aspen Journalism)

The heat is on

Warming temperatures, linked to increased global greenhouse-gas emissions, are the catalyst that impacts other key conditions in the mountains, including lower snowpacks and streamflows; earlier snowmelt and runoff peaks; more precipitation in the form of rain than snow; more frost-free days; and lower soil moisture.

As average temperatures rise in all seasons, heat waves like the one that gripped Colorado during the summer of 2020 are becoming more common. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, average temperatures from May to October in Pitkin and Garfield counties have risen more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1950s. Some months are warming faster than others. In Pitkin County, June, July and September have warmed by nearly 3 degrees since 1950, while in Garfield County, June and September are 3.5 degrees warmer.

A 2019 report prepared for the town of Carbondale hints that warming has accelerated in the 21st century, with three of the five warmest years on record over the past decade. Also, this past August was the hottest on record for Colorado. In Aspen, the average temperature of 66.9 degrees in August was 5.6 degrees above normal.

The Roaring Fork Valley sits on the eastern edge of the largest hot spot in the Lower 48, according to a Washington Post project that analyzed data to identify areas that have warmed by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) — double the global average — since the industrial revolution.

Garfield County’s average June temperature has been increasing 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade and is roughly 3.5 degrees higher now than in the 1950s. (Courtesy NOAA)

Noting that 12 of the hottest 14 years in western Colorado have occurred in the past 18 years, Colorado River Water Conservation District general manager Andy Mueller said at a recent conference that “the biggest change in temperatures has been occurring within our district and eastern Utah, which is a real problem when you look at the fact that we’re the area that produces the most-significant amount of water in the entire rivershed.”

Scientists are in broad agreement that as long as greenhouse-gas emissions continue to rise — or even level off — temperatures will follow suit.

Projections for the region range depending on emissions scenarios, but nearly all of them forecast at least another rise of average temperatures of 3 degrees Fahrenheit by mid-century and a rise of approximately another 10 degrees by the end of the 21st century. To put this into perspective, a warming Aspen could have the climate of Carbondale or Glenwood Springs, while Glenwood would look and feel like Grand Junction in a few decades.

This graph shows the range of average maximum temperature increases projected for Carbondale under both and high and low emissions scenario. (Courtesy The Climate Explorer/NOAA)

The atmosphere taketh away

Local summer precipitation trends are less clear. Monsoon rains — or the lack thereof — drive great swings year to year in summer precipitation, which is usually dwarfed, in terms of volume, by winter precipitation in the form of snow. Historical data shows no clear trends. A report prepared for the town of Carbondale says that average precipitation in the 20th century and since 2000 are about the same.

Still, the summer of 2020 capped a decade of multiple dry summers. Colorado this year saw its third-driest April-July period, according to the National Weather Service, and the 2.5 inches of precipitation Aspen had from June through August was nearly 2 inches below normal. It was the fourth summer in a row with below-average precipitation and the driest in that stretch — even the summer of 2018 saw more rain.

Precipitation projections are also not very clear — although some experts suggest that precipitation could decrease in the summer and increase in the winter. But whether there’s a little more or a little less rain and snow in the future — and the latest models show a long-term decline in the Colorado River Basin — scientists say it doesn’t matter.

“There’s more uncertainty in how much precipitation is going to change and less uncertainty about how much temperature is going to change,” said hydrology expert Julie Vano, who is research director at Aspen Global Change Institute. “And the effect of just having warmer temperatures means more water is leaving the system.”

Jeff Lukas, a researcher on NOAA’s Western Water Assessment team, put it this way: “A warming atmosphere is a thirstier atmosphere.” In the Roaring Fork Valley, he said, only about a third of all precipitation makes it into streams and rivers; the other two-thirds is reclaimed by evapotranspiration, which is the combination of evaporation from surfaces and what plants absorb then release. Since evapotranspiration is driven in large part by temperature, as temperatures rise, the amount of water in rivers declines.

“The atmosphere giveth and the atmosphere taketh most of it away,” said Lukas. “Warming is the factor — across all seasons and all water-cycle processes — that draws moisture away from the land surface before becoming runoff.”

A table showing hydroclimate trends from Western Water Assessment’s “Colorado River Basin Climate and Hydrology State of the Science” report. (Courtesy Western Water Assessment/“Colorado River Basin Climate and Hydrology State of the Science” report)

The flow is low

After more than a century of diversions, dams, storage projects and other stream manipulations, it’s complicated to calculate trends in natural streamflow, the term for the amount of water in a river. But streamflow, also called runoff, has perhaps the most direct effect on water availability. And trends are not looking good.

Since 2000, according to a recent report, the average annual volume of water in the upper Colorado River basin, from its headwaters to Lees Ferry (just below Lake Powell in Arizona), has dropped 15% below the long-term average from 1906 to 2019. Published last April, the Western Water Assessment’s “Colorado River Basin Climate and Hydrology State of the Science” report synthesizes all of the recent studies and data on this massive topic. The report’s authors compiled ever-increasing evidence about how rising temperatures are contributing to less water in the Colorado River, which supplies the needs of 40 million people. Although precipitation is still an important factor, some research shows that warming accounts for up to half of the water loss. One study calculated that every 1 degree Fahrenheit of warming decreases runoff by 7.5%.

Jeff Lukas, a researcher on NOAA’s Western Water Assessment team, has calculated that between 2000 and 2018, the Roaring Fork River at Glenwood Springs had 13% less water than the 20th century average, which in large part is attributable to declining peak flows, shown here in this graph. (Laurine Lassalle/Aspen Journalism)

Declining streamflows are also found up the Colorado’s tributaries. Taking into account water that would’ve been in the stream if it weren’t for diversions and ditches, Lukas calculated that between 2000 and 2018, the Roaring Fork River at Glenwood Springs had 13% less water than the 20th-century average. Analyzing data on the Crystal River near Redstone, he calculated a 5% drop in annual mean streamflow since 2000, compared with the latter half of the 20th century, but a 10% decline during drier years.

In that same analysis of the Crystal, Lukas found that the date of peak streamflow had shifted one week earlier since 2000: from reliably arriving in June to sometimes coming in May. Multiple studies across the Colorado basin have similarly calculated a one- to four-week earlier runoff — which means that high-country snowpacks are melting earlier, so that the highest volume of snowmelt rushing down those streams is coming earlier in the spring.

But an above-average snowpack doesn’t mean an equivalent runoff, as this past year has shown. After a good winter followed by a warm, dry spring and summer, just 55% of the upper Colorado’s runoff made it into Lake Powell.

“The expectation that this amount of snow leads to this amount of runoff — we’re just not seeing as much as we did in the past,” said Vano, the hydrology expert.

Projections on how runoff will change in the coming decades from Western Water Assessment’s “Colorado River Basin Climate and Hydrology State of the Science” report. (Courtesy Western Water Assessment/“Colorado River Basin Climate and Hydrology State of the Science” report)

Earlier peak runoff and lower flows mean less water (especially in drought years) in late summer and early fall, a critical time for irrigation, recreation and natural systems. From late July through October, the Crystal River upstream from Carbondale has been flowing below half of average, lower than the instream flow water right held by the state for that stretch of river — but since irrigation rights are senior to the conservation right, there’s often no recourse. For example, that is what happened in August on another tributary of the Roaring Fork, when the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which holds 1,700 instream-flow rights throughout the state, requested administration of its instream rights on Hunter Creek, acknowledging that it would likely be “a futile call.”

“A river is not a river without water in it,” said Heather Tattersall Lewin, science and policy director for the Roaring Fork Conservancy.

As with higher temperatures, declining streamflows and earlier runoff are certain into the future, but how much will depend on emissions. A 2006 report by the Aspen Global Change Institute calculated that by 2030, peak runoff for the Roaring Fork River at Woody Creek will occur in May rather than June. And by 2100, the lingering snowpack we see on the high peaks in June will no longer exist, which means less water in the stream all summer. Add in increased demand from growth and diversions, and future Roaring Fork River flows through Aspen could go below required instream-flow levels for nine months of the year.

Downstream in Glenwood Springs, the Roaring Fork’s late summer flows could decline by 30% to 50% by 2070, according to a 2018 analysis by Lukas.

“Changes to water will touch nearly everything,” he said. “All the risk is on the dry side.”

The Crystal River showing a fraction of its normal summer volume in September. Water supply challenges related to climate change have been evident along the waterway as warmer summer temperatures stress streamflows. (Dan Bayer/Aspen Journalism)

The underlying factor

Another important factor to consider is one we don’t really see: soil moisture.

One of the metrics used to calculate drought severity, soil moisture has been studied locally by the Aspen Global Change Institute since 2013. This short period of record may preclude discerning any trends about whether local soils are getting drier, but the data does show how moisture levels can have a domino effect season to season.

Elise Osenga, community science manager for the institute, likens the soil to a sponge. A dry sponge, like dry soil, absorbs more water than when it’s wet, while a wet sponge, like saturated soil, lets the excess run off. The water that the soil doesn’t absorb goes into streams.

“Climate change is more likely to dry soils in the spring,” said Osenga, who explained that peak snowmelt and peak soil saturation happen around the same time in the mountains. “When that happens, we’ll see soils dry earlier in the summer and become more dependent on summer rain — which is problematic when we don’t get those rains.”

The Aspen Global Change Institute has been tracking local soil moisture since 2013. In each of the past three years, soil moisture has dipped well under the 2013-2017 average for most of the summer. (Elise Osenga/Aspen Global Change Institute)

Each of the past three years, soil moisture in Pitkin County has dipped well under the 2013-2017 average for most of the summer. The drought year of 2018 saw an early snowmelt and soil drying, but fall rains helped soils recover, auguring well for the next year. Most remember the record snows of late winter and spring of 2019, but the lack of rain that summer dried things up. And 2020 largely mirrored 2018, although 2020 saw slightly better soil moisture until late summer.

This year, things may have cooled off since August, but drought conditions have worsened, with all of Colorado, as of Oct. 22, in some form of drought and 78% of the state in extreme or exceptional drought. This doesn’t bode well for spring.

With soil moisture, said Osenga, “what happens in September and October is actually really interesting, because it plays a big role in determining whether we start the next spring already at risk of a drought versus in better shape.”

With multiple dry years over the past two decades, some scientists are wondering if we’re entering a period of megadrought, which hasn’t been seen in several hundred years.

“It might be a combination of natural variability plus climate change — a double whammy,” said Vano.

No single drought is evidence of climate change, Lukas said, but “what we’re seeing since 2000 is that climate change is stacking the deck. We’re more prone to the deep droughts, the ones that sneak out of left field like in 2020.”

And even with good planning, that’s sure to make water managers in Marble and Carbondale and throughout the Colorado River basin nervous.

“We do see changing conditions, whether attributable to increased demand/development by water users, drought or long-term climate change,” wrote Colorado water commissioner Jake DeWolfe in an email. “Any of them leads to the same problem: a shortage of water. We are involved in planning for the future likelihood that we will need to limit, if not curtail, uses in Colorado to meet the needs of downstream states.”

An abridged version of this story ran in The Aspen Times on Oct. 30.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism. The Water Desk is seeking additional funding to build and sustain the initiative. Click here to donate.

Water DeskFollow the water

Water DeskFollow the water

Water DeskFollow the water

Water DeskFollow the water

Part I:The Connection

Part II:New Rules

Part III:Cutting Back

Water Desk Grantee Publication

Decades in the making

‘Controlled curtailment’

Departing from the rulebook

Waiting for the courts

Part I:The Connection

Part II:New Rules

Part III:Cutting Back

‘A significant loss’

Mapping watersheds, and politics

Piecemeal improvement

Cue the lasers

Trust but verify

WW: What’s been your proudest accomplishment as Regional Director?

WW: Are there examples that come to mind where people made a breakthrough in their relationships?

WW: This is an important time, as the renegotiations of the 2007 Interim Operating Guidelines will soon begin in earnest. What are some of the major challenges that all the parties will have to overcome?

WW: As water users, including tribes, seek to fully develop their water right allocations in a tightening system, how can the spirit of collaboration and cooperation be maintained?

WW: A host of experts have outlined scenarios of drying Basin conditions fueled by climate change. What has to be done now to get ahead of this?

WW: Is there room for getting even more innovative with the U.S.-Mexico relationship as far as how water is shared?

WW: You once told the story of how you were asked early in your career what the bumper sticker message would be for Colorado River Basin hydrology, and your answer was “Lake Mead Will Go Down.” Looking at the challenges ahead in the Basin, what would that bumper sticker message be today?

Episode highlights

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A change in criteria exposes waterways to more damage

Pervasive Chemicals

Wildfire Connection

Melting Plastics, Losing Pressure

Historical Threats

Regulatory Lessons

Cleaning Up

The heat is on

The atmosphere taketh away

The flow is low

The underlying factor

Recent stories

Part I:
The Connection

Part II:
New Rules

Part III:
Cutting Back

Part I:
The Connection

Part II:
New Rules

Part III:
Cutting Back