Water Scarcity [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520310926

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WATER SCARCITY Impacts on Western

Agriculture

WATER SCARCITY Impacts on Western Agriculture Edited by

ERNESTA. ENGELBERT with

ANN FOLEY SCHEURING

U N I V E R S I T Y OF C A L I F O R N I A P R E S S B E R K E L E Y , LOS ANGELES, LONDON

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 1984 by The Regents of the University of California ISBN: 0-520-05300-1 (cloth) 0-520-05313-3 (paper) Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 80-048702 Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

The Directorate on Arid Zone Ecosystems of the United States Man and the Biosphere Program Organizing Committee Robert M. Hag an • Chairman, Conference Organizing Committee Professor of Water Science and Extension Water Specialist Department of Land, Air and Water Resources University of California Davis, California 96616 Henry P. Caul field, Jr. Professor, Department of Political Science Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado John A. Dracup Professor, School of Engineering and Applied Science University of California Los Angeles, California Harold E. Dregne Director, International Center for Arid and Semi-Arid Land Studies and Horn Distinguished Professor of Soil Science Texas Technological University Lubbock, Texas Donald Hardesty Professor, Department of Anthropology University of Nevada Reno, Nevada Charles Hutchinson Director, Arizona Remote Sensing Center Office of Arid Lands Studies University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona Douglas L. Johnson Associate Professor, Graduate School of Geography Clark University Worcester, Massachusetts

Jack D. Johnson Director, Office of Arid Lands Studies and Adjunct Professor, Department of Soil, Water and Engineering University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona Michael E. Norvelle Project Director, Cooperative Arid Lands Agriculture Research Program San Diego State University Foundation San Diego, California Eleonora Sabadell Program Associate, Program of Policy Studies in Science and Technology The George Washington University Washington, D.C. Gary D. Weatherford Co-Director, Water Program Center for Natural Resource Studies John Muir Institute Berkeley, California, and Visiting Professor, School of Law University of Santa Clara Santa Clara, California Robert A. Young Professor, Department of Economics Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado

California Advisory Committee Raymond H. Coppock Communications Specialist Cooperative Extension University of California, Davis

J . Herbert Snyder Director, Water Resources Center and Professor of Agricultural Economics University of California, Davis

John Cummins Director, California Policy Seminar Institute of Governmental Studies University of California, Berkeley

L.T. Wallace Economist, Cooperative Extension University of California, Berkeley

Noreen G. Dowling Director, Public Service Research and Dissemination Program and Lecturer, Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences University of California, Davis Ernest A. Engelbert Professor of Public Administration University of California, Los Angeles

William W. Wood., Jr. Program Director, Agricultural Economics and Community Resource Development Cooperative Extension University of California, Riverside

SPONSORS Organized By: The Directorate on Arid Zone Ecosystems of The United States Man and the Biosphere Program Co-Sponsored By: University of California Cooperative Extension Institute of Governmental Studies Public Service Research and Dissemination Program Water Resources Center University of Arizona College of Agriculture University of Nevada University of Nevada at Reno Desert Research Institute Clark University Colorado State University John Muir Institute Center for Natural Resource Studies San Diego State University Foundation Texas Technological University International Center for Arid and Semi-Arid Land Studies With Funding By: U.S. Man and the Biosphere Program U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Water Resources Technology Bureau of Reclamation U.S. Department of Agriculture Science and Education Administration Soil Conservation Service U.S. Water Resources Council University of California Cooperative Extension BankAmerica Foundation Farm Foundation Farm and Industrial Equipment Institute First Interstate Bank of Arizona First Interstate Bank of California First Interstate Bank of Fort Collins The Ford Foundation Security Pacific Foundation

PREFACE This publication is the product of an interdisciplinary conference on water problems in the western United States held in Monterey, California, in September, 1982. The primary purpose of the conference and this volume has been to assess the impacts on local, state, national and international communities of limited water supplies for agriculture in the semiarid West. This vast area of the nation is faced with important decisions in the management of declining water supplies if a prosperous agricultural economy is to be sustained. Planning for the conference began in 1978 under the sponsorship of the Directorate on Arid Zone Ecosystems, a part of the United States Man and the Biosphere Program. The Man and the Biosphere Program is an international effort under the auspices of UNESCO to study the relationships of man to changing environments in various regions of the world. Because the future of western agriculture in the United States has significance for the economies and semiarid regions of other countries, the Organizing Committee of the conference concluded that a careful analysis of what was happening in the American West would have international interest and relevance. The conference and this volume represent an interdisciplinary effort to deal with the subject from both a natural and social science perspective. The Organizing Committee identified the topics and invited over seventy specialists from diverse disciplines representing the academic community, private industry, and the public sector to prepare papers and discussants' comments for the conference. Over two hundred persons participated in four intensive days of presentations and discussions of the papers. The participants represented a broad spectrum of experience, views and interests, including farmers, businessmen, bankers, planners, analysts, environmentalists, community leaders, elected officials, and representatives of other concerned organizations. They reviewed and critiqued the prepared presentations and made substantial contributions to the analyses. Following the conference the authors were given the opportunity to revise their papers and comments, and, in some cases, to include overlooked but relevant points. This volume is the combined product of the revised papers and conference input. To provide integration of subject matter, the papers have been organized under section and chapter headings and placed in appropriate sequence. vii

No one who participated in this educational undertaking would conclude that all topics involving water and agriculture in the semiarid West have been adequately covered. Indeed, as both the Introduction and the Summary show, many issues remain unresolved. However, the Organizing Committee believes that a searching focus has been given to this subject and public attention called to what is becoming an increasingly critical aspect of the nation's economy. Thus we hope that this volume will be informative and useful for everyone who is concerned with future water supplies for agriculture in the West. Robert M. Hagan Chairman, Organizing Committee

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many organizations and individuals contributed to the planning and organization of the conference and publication on Limited Water for Agriculture in the West: No Simple Solutions. Grateful appreciation for their assistance is made to the following groups and persons: • Sponsors who provided financial, facilitative and moral support which made this activity possible. • Members of the Organizing Committee who gave very generously of their time and services in defining the scope of the conference, in selecting the topics to be discussed and in designating the authors and conference participants. • The California Advisory Committee which assisted with the planning and implementation of conference logistics and arrangements. • The authors and discussants who accepted defined writing assignments and who cooperated in developing an integrated symposium. • Conference participants for their review of the essays and their useful critiques in the conference deliberations. • Jack D. Johnson, the initial chairman of the Directorate on Arid Zone Ecosystems, who continued to provide enthusiastic support for this venture as a member of the Organizing Committee. • Robert M. Hagan for his outstanding leadership and effort as chairman of the Directorate and of the conference Organizing Committee, and for continuously infusing all of his associates with the significance of this educational undertaking. • Marcia Kreith for exceptional service as administrative coordinator of the conference, a person who deserves high praise for seeing that all activities were implemented on schedule. • Raymond H. Coppock for providing expert informational services throughout the planning and implementation of the conference. ix

• Noreen Dowling whose administrative talents and communication skills were helpful in many ways. • The staff of the University of California, Davis, who provided invaluable assistance at various stages of this undertaking, notably Betty Esky of the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources for secretarial services, Marian Cain, Kelly Carner and Paula Sullivan of the Public Service Research and Dissemination Program for administrative and secretarial services, together with Patricia Farid of the Water Resources Center, for assistance in the preparation and publication of this volume. The Editors

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CONTENTS Preface

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction: No Simple Solutions Ann Foley Scheming, Ernest A. Engelbert and Robert M. Hagan

1

Part I. Water Availability for Agriculture in the Semiarid West 1.

Physical Limitations of Water Resources John Bredehoeft Discussants Harold C. Fritts and Parry D. Harrison

17

2.

Legal-Institutional Limitations on Water Use Gary D. Weatherford and Helen M. Ingram Discussants Jon L. Kyi and Frank J. Trelease

51

3.

Competition for Water Kenneth D. Frederick and Allen V. Kneese Discussants A.N. Halter and Robert R. Curry

81

Part II. Alternatives for Satisfying Agricultural Water Demands 4.

Developing New Water Supplies 109 Harvey O. Banks, Jean O. Williams, and Joe B. Harris Discussants Herman Bouwer and Marion E. Marts

5.

Increasing Efficiency of Nonagricultural Water Use J. Ernest Flack Discussants Richard C. Tucker and Dennis C. Williams

133

6.

Coping with Salinity Jan van Schilfgaarde and J.D. Rhoades Discussants James W. O'Leary and J. Eleonora Sabadell

157

XI

7.

Improving Crop Management Ronald O. Lacewell and Glenn S. Collins Discussants Donald J. Brosz and Zach Willey

180

8.

Improving Land and Water Use Practices Norman J. Rosenberg

204

9.

Improving Irrigation Systems Marvin E. Jensen

218

Discussants for Chapters 8 and 9 Marshall J. English and Wilford R. Gardner Part III. Impacts of Less Water for Irrigated Agriculture 10.

Local and Regional Economic Impacts Robert A. Young Discussants Charles V. Moore and Norman K. Whittlesey

11.

National and International Commodity Price Impacts 273 Earl O. Heady Discussants Kenneth R. Farrell and David L. Watt

12.

Impacts Upon Business Communities Vernon M. Crowder Discussant Dorsey R. Meyer, Sr.

299

13.

Social Impacts on Rural Communities Albert Schaffer and Ruth C. Schaffer Discussants Estevan T. Flores and William H. Friedland

309

14.

Social Impacts Upon Urban Communities Lay James Gibson Discussants Darrell K. Adams and Evan Vlachos

331

15.

Environmental Impacts B.A. Stewart and Wyatte L. Harman Discussants Thomas L. Kimball and George H. Wallen

354

xii

244

Part IV. Strategies for Maintaining Agricultural Viability with Limited Water Supplies 16.

What Farmers Can Do for Themselves Cecil H. Miller, Jr. and Bartley P. Cardon Discussants Russell Bean and Marc Faye

380

17.

What Financial and Business Interests Can Do A.L. Black Discussants Marvin Duncan and W.D. Farr

396

18.

Water Rights and Market Transfers F. Lee Brown and Charles T. DuMars Discussants Raymond L. Anderson, Dallin W. Jensen, and Ronald B. Robie

408

19.

One State's Strategy for Putting Water to Beneficial Use Ted Schwinden

437

20.

Federal Water Policies and Irrigated Agriculture Garrey E. Carruthers, Thomas G. Bahr, Herbert H. Fullerton, and Norman H. Starler

445

Discussants for Part IV Henry P. Caulfield, Carole R. Cristiano, W. Don Maughan Part V. Summary 21.

Problems, Findings, and Issues Gilbert F. White

Contributors

472 485

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Introduction NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS by Ann F. Scheming, Ernest A. Engelbert, and Robert M. Hagan We are approaching the end of an era in the West. As with most such transitions, it is a period of some confusion and conflict. The era in question is that of seemingly unlimited western water development. We have begun to realize that there are indeed limits to the water resource base, that we will have to learn to live within them, and that we must come to agreement on priorities for use of water supplies in the future. The subject of this book is whether and how irrigated agriculture in the West will be affected by these new perceptions and changing conditions in water management. Water is the lifeblood of the West as we know it today. Much of the semiarid western landscape has been altered over the past century by human manipulation of scattered natural water supplies. In many locations irrigated farming has replaced native vegetation and dryland ranching, bringing new productivity to the land and improving local economies. With increasingly uncertain outlook for water supplies in the future, however, new adjustments may have to be made within the agricultural sector. Plans for further expansion of irrigation may have to be cancelled and some land now under irrigation may revert to semiarid conditions, unless accommodations to the increasing constraints on water supply can be made. Both competition for limited resources and changing viewpoints on social utility challenge former assumptions about the "best use" for water. Depending on which groups of citizens stand to lose or gain from change, the viewpoints they express are varied and sometimes contradictory. Where life is comfortable, people are apt to rationalize and seek technical "fixes" in the attempt to maintain the status quo. Others struggle to achieve a greater share of resources and degree of equity by negotiation or legislation. Change is not easy, but in the period of adjustment in water policy which lies inevitably before us, special-interest clashes and philosophic disagreements must be tempered by hope for reasonable and far-sighted action. Water issues in the West encompass such large areas and affect so many millions of people, that

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programs and policies must be truly collaborative to be acceptable. "There are no simple solutions—only intelligent choices." WHAT IS THE WEST? As defined in this volume, the "West" consists of those 17 states west of the 98th meridian, from the Canadian to the Mexican borders. This is half of the United States in size, an immense and varied region, with its own geographic peculiarities, history, and ambiance. The West is no single place: it means different things to different people, depending on where they live—rolling plains; thundering rivers; rocky canyons; windswept salt flats; barren volcanic plateaus; marshy swamps; arid deserts; verdant valleys; forested mountains; ocean surf; shabby towns; comfortable cities; sophisticated metropolises. To describe the West in its physical entirety is difficult, but let us briefly try. The great green checkerboard of the agricultural Midwest gives way very gradually to the drier Great Plains. The Great Plains states include North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Relatively thinly populated, with much distance between towns, these states are largely agricultural and produce huge grain crops. The Great Plains states slope upward to the Rockies. The regular geometry of cultivated square and rectangular fields gradually becomes browner, larger in scale, and irregularly contoured in the transition into the Rocky Mountain states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. In these states the mountainous backbone of North America trends south-to-northwest from Mexico to Canada. Only a handful of cities appears in the immense mountainous landscape, and agriculture is limited to river valleys. Spurs and subranges of the Rockies continue west into the states of Idaho, Utah, and Arizona, merging gradually into the Great Western Desert—the high arid plateaus and salt flats of southwestern Idaho, western Utah, all of Nevada, and much of Arizona. In northwestern Arizona the Grand Canyon slashes through the high desert, cut by the Colorado River over eons of geologic time. Much of this four-state area is still relative wasteland, though scattered green settlements dot the occasional waterways.

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On their eastern borders the Pacific Coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California are also part of the semiarid western desert, but these states' climate is transformed by the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges, as well as by the Pacific Ocean. Western Washington and Oregon and northern California are moist, mountainous, and thickly forested; rainfall and snowpack can be heavy. South of the Cascades and west of the Sierra, the 400-mile-long Central Valley of California displays a rich and varied agriculture, while most of the state's famous cities cluster along the coast. Southern California is, again, mostly desert except for coastal basins and valleys. Thus the West consists of several distinct major climatic zones, with varied topography, soils, and precipitation. With the exception of relatively humid western Washington and Oregon and northwestern California, however, most of the West is arid or semiarid, registering on average less than 20 inches of rainfall per year. It is a region which characteristically depends on irrigation for its agricultural productivity or is dry-farmed—and where, to meet agriculture's needs, the most intensive water developments in the world have taken place. History: An Epoch of Development It was the fact of aridity, coupled with the immense distances and rough terrain, that discouraged early settlement of the region. Though Lewis and Clark explored the upper reaches of the West as early as 1805, only a relatively few hardy pioneers pushed through the trials and terrors of wagon train travel in the first half of the 19th century. The California Gold Rush in 1849, however, set off an explosion in population movement, and the following decades saw settlement throughout much of the West. The Homestead Act of 1862 was intended to aid settlement of the U.S. by offering chunks of the public domain nearly free to anyone who would make a serious effort to develop a farm or ranch. In the semiarid West, however, it was soon learned that 160 acres—the original amount of land allowed for individual homesteads—was hardly sufficient. Subsequently the law was amended; in certain areas a homestead claim could be up to 640 acres, or a square mile, because of the low grazing capacity and limited agricultural possibilities of water-short country. By 1900, aided by the expansion of railroads, most of the West was at least thinly populated. The image of the "Old West" changed as its economy developed from mining and early livestock-grain agriculture to a more diversified base. As mining

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became industrialized, prospectors became figures of the past. In such states as Wyoming, Oklahoma, and California, oil was discovered in huge deposits, bringing a new kind of wealth. Water development brought in irrigation, changing farming patterns. v The Depression impelled many dustbowl migrants to seek employment in the West. World War II also brought large numbers of people to the West for military reasons, and many of them remained or returned after the war to take advantage of the climate, the lifestyle, and the opportunities they saw. New industries began to populate the western states, particularly entertainment, communications, and aerospace in Southern California and high technology and electronics in other areas. More than a place, more than a history, the West also represents a mind-set. In comparison with the humid eastern seaboard and fertile Midwest, the early West was not an easy place to settle. Perhaps it took special kinds of people to move into a raw, often hostile wilderness. Western pioneers were sometimes dreamers, sometimes renegades from polite society; but they saw opportunities for enterprise in a landscape that offered wealth for those who could take advantage of it. Speculators and ambitious settlers recognized chances for development of natural resources through ingenuity and emerging technology. Gold miners in California extracted billions of dollars in gold using extensive flumes for sluicing and hydraulic hoses for blasting away earth from mineral deposits. The Mormons in Utah were among the first to build networks of canals for irrigating farms wrested from the desert. Public policy also encouraged settlement, development, and even exploitation. Where water was in short supply, private efforts at impoundments and canals were supplemented by public funding after the turn of the century. Local water districts brought water consumers together for development of resources through taxation. Sometimes decades in advance of their construction, grand plans were suggested for state and federal dams on the Missouri, Arkansas, and Pecos rivers of the Great Plains; for the Colorado of the Southwest; for the Columbia of the Northwest; and for the Sacramento and San Joaquin valley watersheds in California. Boulder Dam, later called Hoover, harnessed the Colorado River in 1936, and Bonneville Dam spanned the Columbia in 1937. In Montana, Fort Peck Dam controlled the upper Missouri River in 1940. California's Central Valley Project completed Shasta Dam in 1944; Garrison Dam in North

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5

Dakota was finished in 1960; and the California State Water Project brought additional irrigation and power to California starting with Oroville Dam on the Feather River in 1968. These gigantic dams and canals, pumps and pipelines to store and transfer water, are a symbol of today's West. They stand as monuments to human ambition, in a remarkable blending of engineering and socio-economic vision. Where cattle and sheep and dryland grain were once the agricultural mode, some western states have diversified into row and vegetable crops, orchards, vineyards, and a host of specialty crops. None of this would have been possible without irrigation. In 1977 the 17 western states had 49 million acres of irrigated land, or 85 percent of all irrigated land in the U.S., and accounted for 91 percent of all water used for irrigation in the nation. Massive interbasin water transfers are a way of life in parts of the West. Irrigated agriculture produces a great deal of income. California alone, for example, has led the nation in cash farm receipts for more than 30 consecutive years. The state earned about $14 billion in revenues from agriculture in 1981, or about 10 percent of national gross cash receipts from farming. California produces more than 200 different agricultural commodities, many of them grown nowhere else in the nation and in few other places in the world (almonds, artichokes, Brussels sprouts, nectarines, olives, prunes, walnuts, to name a few). Approximately 30 percent of California's total agricultural revenue is now earned in export markets, accounting for nearly 10 percent of total U.S. agricultural exports in dollar volume. And it is the 8.5 million acres of irrigated California farmland which produces the bulk of California's farm income. A New Era Why does it now appear that the West is approaching a new era? Resource development over the last century has resulted in a dynamic economy. What signs suggest that this era of development is ending? Western states are still very young historically—Arizona was the last continental state to be created, in 1914. With the vast open spaces and resources yet remaining in the West, one might think that there are potentially many years of development still ahead. There are, in fact, planned stages of such massive undertakings as the Missouri River Basin Project and California's State Water Project not yet under construction. The physical facts, however, are plain: almost all the potentially good agricultural land close to water supplies has already

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been developed. Moreover, most of the readily available water sources of the West have been accessed; certainly all of the relatively inexpensive sources have already been tapped. Few rivers are without dams, and most of the major rivers have whole series of them. Reservoirs, giant and small, dot the western states. In addition, groundwater supplies in some areas are being measurably depleted as ever deeper wells draw up water from aquifers. In some areas land subsidence signals serious sinking of the water table. In certain locales water quality has also become a problem, with increased salinity of supplies or deterioration through chemical and other pollution. Thus even the same quantity of water supply becomes less usable for former purposes. In some cases stream diversions or impoundments have destroyed or severely damaged formerly abundant natural wildlife habitat and fisheries. In addition, economic balances are changing. We have had clear warnings of coming energy shortages. Given our addiction to massive consumption of fossil fuels, energy equations for pumping water will change radically as such fuels begin to run out. Construction and development costs have soared over the decades, and it is likely that even where new dams and storage projects have been considered technically feasible, they may not be affordable. Social viewpoints are also changing. Agriculture may once have been the hub upon which western economies turned, but as areas diversify, competition between uses for water increases. Industry has need for water in manufacturing, for cleansing, and for power; commercial fisheries and forestry require water to sustain their natural base; cities demand water for residential and municipal purposes; and recreationists value such water-related amenities as boating, swimming, and sport fishing. Nor is economic competition the whole story. U.S. society has seen the rise of what is termed the conservation ethic, under which the natural environment is valued as much for itself as for its exploitable potential. Some citizens protest what they perceive as the narrow view that a resource has value only insofar as it can be made productive for human purposes. They argue that biologic diversity and aesthetic values must be safeguarded for future generations; that every stream need not be dammed, every acre planted, every drop of water "used." Thus we find ourselves at a turning point, and it is not clear how rapidly we will change course. We know, however, that our course will change. The question is, to what extent will we choose the direction?

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ISSUES AND CHOICES At issue in this book is whether irrigated agriculture in the West as we know it today is truly in jeopardy—and whether, after all, it matters. We know some things, and can guess at others: 1) In some areas of the West it has taken a massive public investment to bring surface water onto arid lands which could otherwise not support modern agriculture—and the subsidy continues in the form of reduced water prices for irrigation. 2) In several areas of the West groundwater supplies are being depleted, endangering the future viability of farming communities. 3) Agricultural irrigation now accounts for about 85 percent of developed water put to use in such states as California, but increasing demands for water for other purposes will in some regions of the West cut into agriculture's current supplies. 4) Water quality is deteriorating in some areas, soil quality in others. Salinization, for example, presently affects large acreages. One answer to salination is to build drains and use more water for flushing salts away, but this requires both sufficient water and adequate engineering, and is costly. Another reaction to the problem is simply to abandon the land because it is too expensive to reclaim. 5) The outlook for developing significant new surface water supplies to meet increasing demands is questionable, given limited sites for development, soaring construction costs, and voter skepticism. 6) Certain peripheral effects related to use of water for irrigation (including loss of fish and wildlife, increased erosion, pollution from agricultural chemicals in runoff, etc.) suggest that long-term adjustments in water use may be necessary. 7) Long-range data on climatic cycles indicate that recent decades may have been unusually moist in the West, and that extended periods of drought may lie ahead. Thus even our present estimate of water supplies may be more sanguine than history warrants. Such facts and reasonable guesses would indicate that western agriculture is, if not in jeopardy, slated for some considerable changes in future. It is clear that local circumstances vary considerably, and that different areas will have different problems

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and pressures. But overall it seems fair to say that irrigated agriculture in the West may not be totally sustainable under its present arrangements. We may indeed find that the "blooming of the desert" was, in some cases, an exciting but temporary phenomenon. Already in a few places abandoned cropland gives mute testimony to past doomed efforts at cultivation. Does this matter? Is it important that present-day irrigated agriculture in the West be "saved?" Are there, in fact, ways to moderate trends and stave off local crises ? The first and second questions are matters of economic and social judgment. Western agriculture contributes significantly to the nation's food and fiber supply, and to the U.S. balance of payments in world markets. Nevertheless, the West is only part of the larger nation; and if one production region should fail, another may take up the slack. According to some observers, the primary U.S. agricultural problem today is over-supply, not insufficiency. But today's balance of supply and demand is not necessarily that of the 21st century—and national and world populations are growing. Usually discussions of the importance of agriculture are couched in economic terms, but a sociological dimension also needs recognition. Part of the ambiance of the West is its farming and ranching base. Deterioration or destruction of that base might alter the very character of the region. Again, this is a matter of judgment: does it matter? Many civilizations as well as regional cultures have come and gone. Is the West in its present condition uniquely worth supporting ? Is the way of life in the West—which many have admired—one which ought to be preserved? The third question asks what options may be available to deal with pressures on agricultural water supplies. These options may be divided generally into four categories: technical and scientific innovations; management strategies; institutional arrangements; and modification of lifestyle. These are not mutually exclusive, and may in fact be used in many combinations, depending on water use situations. We rank them here in order from the local and specific (on-farm practices) to the very broad and general (societal change). These may include Technical and scientific innovations. improved irrigation technologies, better plant breeding for drought resistance, precise monitoring of water needs, systematic groundwater replenishment, and other kinds of water-using and water-conserving techniques. Advances in science and

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9

technology can be a major factor in ameliorating the consequences of water shortages throughout the West. Management strategies. Recent years have shown that agriculture can pursue a variety of management strategies to achieve more efficient water use. These strategies include appropriate use of crops, careful water scheduling and recycling, effective employment of machinery, good economic and financial determinations, and all other aspects of farm decision making involving land and water practices. Institutional arrangements. Realignment and reorganization of existing institutions dealing with water, both public and private, may be helpful in cutting waste and in encouraging collaborative overall efficiency. Building flexibility into institutional arrangements may also help them respond to local needs more effectively. Modification of lifestyle. Economic sustainability may ultimately have to be based on lower economic expectations, both among individuals and in society at large. If nonrenewable resources are being depleted and even renewable resources seem under great pressure, one logical answer to the problem may be for consumers to be satisfied with less consumption. An exploitative tendency can be replaced with a philosophy of stewardship, though this may take years of experience and education. Social equity also demands commitment to reasonable goals by all citizens, not just by some. Underlying any options for action to address water problems are certain basic philosophic principles, all of them related, which can be mentioned here only as questions for public debate in a democratic society: • What balance between economic laissez-faire and institutional regulation is desirable? • What balance between local control and centralized decision-making is best ? • Is incrementalism or long-range planning preferable? Decisions for action (or nonaction) will inevitably reflect answers to these central questions. AN OVERVIEW OF THIS VOLUME This book has been designed to discuss the western water situation from multiple perspectives. Water policy is by its nature complex and must be approached from several points of view. This book therefore attempts to review economic and social

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as well as scientific and technical information relevant to the assessment of desirable policy. Each main chapter is accompanied by commentaries which provide additional information or suggest other facets of the subject under discussion. Part I provides an overview of the facts and conditions of water availability in the semiarid West, first from the hydrological perspective and then from institutional and economic perspectives. Chapter 1 gives information on precipitation, streamflows, and important aquifers in the West, and identifies areas where water supplies appear critical. Chapter 2 describes water law and institutions which govern water allocation. This chapter suggests that many western states will have to make some changes in legal and institutional arrangements to achieve greater efficiency in water use and management. Chapter 3 reviews trends in competition for water among economic sectors. Many areas of the West face shifts in water use from one industrial sector to another; this will have significant impact upon local economies, particularly agricultural communities. Part II consists of six chapters describing possible alternatives for satisfying water demands by western agriculture. Chapter 4 explores the alternatives for developing new water supplies to meet increasing demands. It concludes that the opportunities for large scale augmentation of present supplies are limited and that no significant technological breakthroughs are in sight. Chapter 5 examines the possibilities for increasing the efficiency of nonagricultural water use. While some savings in urbanindustrial uses can be made, the gains will not be sufficient to cover the impending shortages in agricultural water needs. Chapter 6 describes research on management strategies to cope with increasing soil salinity in semiarid regions. This increasing salinity, the most extensive irrigation-caused problem faced by western agriculture, will call for a diversity of techniques and controls to improve the situation. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 review current on-farm methods for improving crop management, land use, and irrigation systems. Chapter 7 discusses crop shifts, use of drought-resistant crops, and improved production techniques. Indications are that in the future farmers will have to modify many present cropping patterns to maintain optimum production with declining water supplies. Chapter 8 reports on proven ways to sustain arid-land agriculture through water "harvesting," minimum tillage, snow management, and other practices. An expansion of dry-land agriculture appears inevitable for many areas of the semiarid West.

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Chapter 9 treats engineering improvements that can be made in irrigation systems. It concludes that massive changes in conveyance and application systems will provide only a modest increase in net water supply for agriculture. Part III encompasses six chapters that focus upon the economic, social, and environmental impacts of limited water supplies in the West. Chapter 10 looks at the impacts of less water upon regional and local economies. The evidence suggests that while irrigated agriculture will face some retrenchment, the overall regional economic impacts should be gradual and minor. Chapter 11 analyzes the impending decline of irrigated agriculture in the West from the standpoint of the national and international agricultural commodity systems. Using an econometric model, the chapter concludes that, depending upon economic and institutional variables, reduced water supplies will result in only slight food price increases in both the domestic and international markets. Chapter 12 examines the impact of limited water supplies upon business communities in the West. Increasing water prices will result in a more intensive agriculture, with consequent implications for land values, agribusiness enterprises, banking, and other economic sectors. Chapter 13 discusses what will happen to rural communities if irrigated agriculture declines. It predicts considerable unemployment and social suffering unless remedial actions are taken to diversify local economies. Chapter 14 looks at the impact of the changing agricultural base upon urban communities. Serious unemployment problems for cities arising from a rural-urban migration are not expected since the numbers of people affected by a declining western agriculture would be relatively small. Chapter 15 considers the environmental consequences of agricultural land going out of production. Reversion of land to dryland farming or to nonuse may, unless corrective actions are taken, result in wind erosion and damage to fish and wildlife habitats. Part IV outlines some strategies for maintaining agricultural viability in the West with limited water. Chapter 16 describes some specific technical and management solutions to water problems from the farmer's viewpoint. The chapter shows that farmers can be innovative in adjusting to declining and higher-priced water supplies. Chapter 17 examines how business and financial interests can respond. Emphasis is placed upon the need for more research and development, upon appropriate systems of financing, and upon better cooperation between the business and agricultural sectors. Chapter 18 discusses changes in the system

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for the allocation and transfer of water supplies. It calls for the evolution of an economic market system for water rights so that water may move to the geographical areas and sectors of most valued use. Two chapters, 19 and 20, address state and national water policies and practices. The state of Montana's efforts for water resources management are described in Chapter 19, while Chapter 20 chronicles the shift in federal policy to encourage state initiative and the deregulation of water markets. The complexities of government policies and programs for water resources are reflected in both chapters, and the need for intergovernmental cooperation is emphasized. Part V provides an integrative summary of the major problems and findings of the preceding chapters. Subjects are interrelated and placed in perspective. Issues which need to be resolved are identified. The challenges facing western water planners are highlighted. A number of views emerge from this book, although they are not held equally by all authors: 1) There is no immediate national crisis with respect to water for western agriculture. 2) Some regional impacts due to local decreasing water supplies are inevitable, and some local and individual situations could become traumatic. 3) It is difficult to predict when future adverse impacts will become evident because adjustments may still be made. 4) Impacts of declining water supplies may be partly offset by technical and institutional adjustments, some of which are already taking place. 5) Much uncertainty exists because of economic, political, climatic, demographic, and other variables. 6) Assessments of water supply and demand, to some extent circumstantial, may change in the future. 7) Lack of a present crisis does not preclude a future crisis caused by increasing population, growing world food and energy needs, and possible climatic changes. 8) Since the federal role in water policy appears to be decreasing, local and private sector initiative may have to fill in any gaps. 9) Several chapters suggest that allocation and transfer of water might be in some cases appropriately implemented through the marketplace.

NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS

13

These varied views emerging from the chapters suggest how complex and challenging is the subject of water in the West. Future studies and decisions, as our authors remind us, must truly be both interdisciplinary and collaborative.

THE FUTURE OF WATER IN THE WEST Why Planning Is Difficult The summary chapter of this volume suggests several factors which make rational overall water planning difficult: (1) territorialism and ownership disputes; (2) uncertainty about key facts; (3) political evolution; (4) an ongoing shift in ethos; and (5) a certain apathy, or at least a tendency toward inaction, without a crisis for motivation. All of these are significant constraints on our ability to plan for the future. Few of us would disagree, however, that some kind of planning for the future is prudent, if not without risks. It is clear that some areas of the West will inevitably experience problems as water supplies become increasingly strained to their limits. Several areas are already identified as being in "critical overdraft," i.e., the condition in which water supplies are being depleted faster than they can be replaced. There is not much doubt that these areas will likely experience serious economic discomfort as water becomes more scarce and dear. The rumblings of these dislocations are already being felt. We can make certain predictions on what may happen in farming communities where overdraft trends continue. There will be more financial risk and failure for farmers; there will be changes in crops and in irrigation methods; some acreage may be phased out of production. Land values may decline, the tax base may shrink, farm-related businesses may suffer, communities may decline as the economic base erodes. Water availability will certainly influence the distribution of income and wealth between areas. There will be transfer of wealth out of water-short areas into those with more abundant supplies; the decline of income in one area will be picked up elsewhere. Agriculture is nevertheless an adaptive system. It can adjust in a variety of ways to limited water; or water can be transferred among agricultural regions. Such adjustments need not be disastrous, and some of them are already currently taking place. To encourage rational conservation activities and to alleviate widespread impacts from water shortages, it behooves water planners on various levels of government to take as clear a look at water planning for the future as is possible.

14

WATER SCARCITY

Much of our uncertainty as to prediction stems from the nature of certain variables—climate, energy, population, and political events, to name only a few. In many ways our crystal ball is cloudy, and must remain so. With regard to climate, for example, the commentary to Chapter 1 suggests that the West may be experiencing an unusually moist few decades in the 20th century, compared to other eras recorded in existing western tree ring data. If climate altered substantially over a period of years—which is entirely possible—our current estimates of surface and groundwater supplies would have to be radically revised. Current international markets also figure prominently into the U.S. agricultural picture. Disruption of these markets through political events or economic upheavals could change supplydemand equations drastically, and thus incentives for agricultural production. Energy, as an essential component in the pumping of water, also remains an uncertain variable, with the only sure prediction being that prices for fossil fuels will go up. But how fast ? How far? Population trends are another question mark. U.S. and world population is sure to expand in the decades ahead, increasing food needs; but we don't know the magnitude of population expansion to expect, nor do we know how other world regions will deal with the needs of their peoples. Dire warnings have been made about world population trends and future food needs, but even the experts disagree. It is difficult to make long-range plans when there are so many admitted uncertainties, but we know that we should at least be prepared to cope rationally with emerging possibilities. Western water planners will deal best with an uncertain future if they are able to direct their activities along reasonably logical lines. Needs for Action Many of the chapters in this volume explicitly or implicitly recommend certain kinds of action to be taken on a number of fronts. Briefly, we condense and list these recommendations here: • Research and information gathering on consumptive and environmental water needs, including more agreement on methodologies of analysis to be employed. • Widespread adoption of efficient and cost-effective water management and conservation techniques, including conjunctive use of ground and surface waters in basins.

NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS

15

• Investigation of feasible new water developments in certain specific locations. • More availability of capital for long-range water management goals, at both local and regional levels. • Appropriate provision for environmental and social needs in water management and use. • More innovation in interorganizational planning, particularly at the local level. • Removal of institutional barriers to economic freedom in decision making. • More collaboration between federal government and states in management of projects and coordination of policies. • Better cooperation and more compromise among interest groups representing water users. These calls for action seem to fall into two general categories: the gathering of more information and knowledge on such matters as environmental interrelationships, technical and scientific innovations, management possibilities, and economic systems; and the building of more flexibility and cooperation into institutions and organizations concerned with water. Those who live in the western United States have both the opportunity and the challenge to show other water-deficient areas of the world how limited water resources can be managed not only for regional well being, but for the ultimate benefit of mankind. A New Stage of History Unlike any other era in human history, we of the later 20th century have the capacity to look at our globe as a whole. The astronauts who first looked back on the Earth from space were struck with both the beauty of the planet and its vulnerability. Suddenly we know that the Earth is fragile; we have begun to realize that there are limits to natural resources, and to our human activities. Our era is crucially different from those which have gone before. We have greater scientific and technological power—both constructive and destructive—to change our surroundings. We have more knowledge at our fingertips, more ability to gather new information, more power to integrate and transmit it. We realize, and can learn from, mistakes of the past. Our electorate is less likely to foot costly projects, more likely to question motives and intent, and more likely to recognize their own interests. As we grapple with the problems of the present, we have a sense for the complexities inherent in our choices. Perhaps it is that consciousness of complexity which will allow us to become a more mature society, no longer committed to simple

16

WATER SCARCITY

solutions, but able to take a wise and balanced view of the resources of our planet—of the West—not only as they will serve us in the short run, but as they will sustain us over time.

Chapter 1

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES by J o h n Bredehoeft

ABSTRACT In considering the concept of the hydrologic cycle today one must take into account man's influence as an integral part of the functioning of the cycle. Except for the mining of groundwater, the same quantity of water is, on the average, in transit in the hydrologic cycle. Groundwater mining is extensive, especially in Arizona and the High Plains of Texas and New Mexico. Groundwater, however, is a one-time supply; to the extent that we mine it, we are faced with a shortage in the future. Both urban movement to the Southwest and energy development compete with agriculture for the available supply, especially in the areas of critical water supply, southern California and Arizona. Competition is present throughout the semiarid West; anywhere water is fully appropriated, increased urban and industrial supplies must come from agriculture. There seems little doubt that as we approach the limits of available water supply there will be increasing competition for water. In a classic economic sense increased competition implies a shortage. The water supply of the West is nearly fully utilized. It is difficult to foresee major construction projects which will add significantly to the currently available supply. Several critical areas are now heavily dependent upon mining groundwater, a supply which will be depleted at some point in the future. Urban and energy developments, especially in the Southwest, are competing with agriculture for the available water. This competition will undoubtedly intensify, which poses two major issues for society: 1) How will society, at local, state, and regional levels, cope with the increased competition for water ? 2) To what extent can the nation forego irrigated agriculture in the West without significantly decreasing its agricultural output ?

18

WATER SCARCITY

It is not the intent of this chapter to address these issues; however, we will attempt to provide an overview of the current availability of water. THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE Traditionally, when considering the problems of water resources we hydrologists have been prone to think in terms of virgin or natural streamflow. However, it has become increasingly obvious that natural flow is a relict of the distant past. Man has impacted the water resources so dramatically, especially in the arid and semiarid West, that natural flow does not exist except perhaps in the most remote areas. We must recognize that man's activities are today an integral and inseparable part of the hydrologic cycle. Our current understanding of the hydrologic cycle can be described in a paradigm suggested by Matalas, Landwehr, and Wolman. The three tenets of the active paradigm are: i) human activity is inseparable from the natural system; ii) quality is no less a concern than quantity of the water mass as it is distributed and moves through the cycle; iii) the quantity of the water mass affects and is affected by the quality of the water. 1 If we accept the active paradigm as best characterizing our concept of the hydrologic cycle, then it is impossible to look at the physical and chemical limitations on water resources without looking at man's activities. Available Water Precipitation ultimately is the source of water resources. The average annual precipitation for the United States is depicted in Figure 1.1. That precipitation translates into runoff. West of the 100th meridian much of the land is characterized by less than one inch of runoff. The areas of abundant runoff in the West are easily identified in Figure 1.2. The relative magnitude of the average streamflow of the large rivers in the U.S. is shown in Figure 1.3. The major rivers of interest in the western states are the Columbia, the Colorado, the Sacramento, the Missouri, and

te

c c 3 OS 2

i

íf h

B < «

21

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

Figure 1.3 Average U.S. Streamflow, 1941-1970

Thousands ft®/ s

Source: U.S. Water Resources Council, Essentials of Ground Water Hydrology Pertinent to Water Resources Planning, Bulletin 16, revised 1979, p.48.

their tributaries. Future large-scale surface water diversions must almost certainly come from these river systems. Runoff comes largely from the mountains in the spring as snowmelt. The typical seasonal variation is illustrated by the long-term average monthly runoff for the d a r k s Fork of the Yellowstone River near Belfrey, Montana, Figure 1.4. Storage of water, either in surface reservoirs or in aquifers, improves the timing between supply and demand, especially the seasonal demand for agriculture.

22

WATER SCARCITY

Figure 1.4 Average Monthly Runoff, Clarks Fork of Yellowstone River

M

M

N

Source: Rickert et al.

Groundwater forms an additional resource. The important aquifers of the western United States are shown in Figure 1.5. Depletion of Water Given our picture of surface and groundwater, how much is utilized? Relative water depletion is depicted in Figure 1.6. Depletion is defined as "the total consumptive use plus any water exported from each basin, divided by the total supply". Groundwater mining has been excluded from the long-term supply. This is perhaps the most important single illustration in this paper. Several critical areas show up on the map of depletion: 1) Most of the lower Colorado River basin, southern California, and most of Nevada, where the depletion

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

25

exceeds 100 percent. The differences are made up from mining groundwater. 2) South-central California, including the San Joaquin and Owens Valleys, where the depletion exceeds 75 percent. 3) The High Plains of Colorado and west Texas, where the depletion exceeds 75 percent. 4) Much of New Mexico, where the depletion exceeds 75 percent. The depletion map is somewhat misleading, since instream flow requirements are not accounted for, and they are important constraints on water availability. Groundwater constitutes an important additional source of water. Groundwater withdrawals are shown in Figure 1.7. California and Texas are the two largest users of groundwater, accounting for 37 percent of the total withdrawn nationwide, closely followed by Nebraska, Idaho, Kansas, and Arizona, which together account for an additional 26 percent of the total. These six states account for almost two-thirds of the groundwater withdrawn in the United States. The relative importance of groundwater as a source of water in the semiarid West is depicted in Figure 1.8. Groundwater constitutes the major source of water, exceeding approximately 50 percent in much of the High Plains, a large portion of Arizona, and parts of California. Much of the groundwater withdrawn is being mined. The Second National Water Assessment of the U.S. Water Resources Council2 identified areas of groundwater overdraft—"mining" in my terminology—as shown in Figure 1.9. The principal areas of overdraft identified west of the 100th meridian are (1) the high plains of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas, and (2) large areas of Arizona. Moderate overdrafts occur over much of the area west of the 100th meridian. WATER USE How is the water used? Figure 1.10 is a graph of water withdrawals for the period 1950 through 1975 for the entire U.S. The

Figure 1.7

Source: U.S. Water Resources Council, 1979.

e o o o o oo

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

29

Figure 1.10 U.S. Water Withdrawals, by Use, 1950-1975

1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

Source: CEQ, 1981.

largest withdrawals are for power plant cooling and irrigation. Consumptive use, on the other hand, presents a very different picture. Figure 1.11 shows nationwide water consumption. Irrigation accounts for by far the largest fraction of consumption. In the western states irrigation accounts for more than 90 percent of the consumptive use. Groundwater use is also interesting; the growth in groundwater withdrawal over the last 25 years has been almost exclusively for irrigation, as is shown in Figure 1.12. In 1977 42 million acres were irrigated, for which the consumption was approximately 82 billion gallons a day (92 million acre-feet per year). Something approaching one third to one half of that water came from groundwater, much of which was mined, as Figure 1.9 indicates.

Figure 1.11 U.S. Water Consumption by Use, 1950-1975 100i— Irrigation

10 Public water supplies

>>

a •o

Industrial and miscellaneous -

w O) c o GO

Steam electric utilities

0.1

I

J_

1950

1955

1960

_L

±

1965

1970

Source: CEQ, 1981.

Figure 1.12 U.S. Groundwater Use, 1950-1975

1975

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

31

Eighty-four percent of the fresh water consumed in the coterminous United States is consumed in the 17 western states; most is utilized for agriculture. The acreages irrigated in the 17 western states are given in Table 1.1. California accounts for 23 percent of the total acreage; together, Texas and California account for 42 percent of the total.

Table 1.1 Irrigated Acreage in the 17 Western States, 1975 State

Acreage (millions)

California

8.7

Texas

6.9

Nebraska

3.3

Colorado

2.9

Idaho

2.9

Montana

1.9

Kansas

1.6

Oregon

1.6

Wyoming

1.5

Arizona

1.2

Washington

1.2

Utah

1.1

New Mexico

0.9

Nevada

0.8

Oklahoma

0.5

South Dakota

0.2

North Dakota

0.1

Total

37.3

Source: U.S. Soil Conservation Service, Crop Consumptive Irrigation Requirements and Irrigation Efficiency Coefficients for the United States, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1976, p. 24.

32

WATER SCARCITY

Looking at statistics for the nation as a whole may appear to be somewhat misleading. However, since the 17 western states dominate the consumptive use, consuming 84 percent, the statistics for the nation are strongly influenced by the West, where agriculture is the primary consumer of water. THE LOWER COLORADO BASIN

In any overview of the water resources of the semiarid West, the lower Colorado River basin and southern California stand out as the most critical areas for water. Another look at the depletion map, Figure 1.6, indicates that the water supply is more than 100 percent depleted in these areas. This is substantiated by the overdraft of groundwater shown in Figure 1.9. The Colorado River is the principal long-term source of water for much of this area. Stockton and Jacoby,3 utilizing tree-ring data, reconstructed Colorado River streamflow back to 1512. Using this record they estimated the mean annual flow at 13.5 million acre-feet. This is approximately 2 million acre-feet less than anticipated when the water rights were divided in the 1922 Colorado River Compact. Unfortunately, the 1922 Compact was based on records of flow during a series of unusually wet years from 1906 to 1920. The availability of water from the Colorado is further complicated by a number of Indian claims upon the river which are as yet unresolved. A synthesized record of the flow of the Colorado River below all major diversions, in Figure 1.13, portrays the outflow of the river into the Gulf of California. The downward trend of the residual flow, which is caused by an increasing use of water from the Colorado River, is evident. Usage by Mexico as well as by the United States is reflected in the residuals. (Under the terms of a treaty between the United States and Mexico in 1944, supplemented by various "minutes" and negotiations, Mexico is allotted an annual quantity of 1.5 million acre-feet.) Diversions from the Colorado began considerably before 1900. However, prior to that year, annual net diversions generally were less than 1.0 million acre-feet. The residual flows during 1935-39 were unusually low, largely because of the initial filling of Lake Mead. Low flows from 1960 to 1978 reflect nearly complete use of the river. In 1979 and 1980, major floods in the Lower Colorado River basin downstream from the principal reservoirs resulted in larger outflows.

33

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

Figure 1.13 Annual Flow of Colorado River Below All Major Diversions, 1910-1980

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

Clearly all the water in the Colorado is currently utilized. The consumptive use within the basin is compared with entitlements from the river in Figure 1.14. The large consumptive use in Arizona is made up in part by groundwater mining. The water in the Colorado is also plagued by an increasing load of dissolved salts. This load comes from a number of natural sources and from sources which are the result of man's actions. Approximately one third of the total salt load is the result of irrigation. Another 10 percent or so comes from Flaming Gorge Reservoir and from Lake Mead, where salts are being leached from geologic deposits inundated by the reservoirs. Figure 1.15 attempts to summarize both the concentration of dissolved solids as well as the total salt load.

34

WATER SCARCITY

Figure 1.14 Consumptive Uses and Losses of Water in the Colorado River System, 1971-1975 Averages

Wyo

Utah C o l o Upper

NM

basin

J Entitlement Use & loss H

Tributaries Mainstream

Water is in short supply in the Lower Colorado River basin. Population statistics indicate a growth in urbanization both in Arizona and southern California. If urban growth is to continue, there will undoubtedly be pressure to shift water away from agricultural use.

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

35

Figure 1.15 Salt Load in the Colorado River, 1941-1978 Averages

ALTERNATIVES FOR ADDITIONAL WATER S U P P L I E S A number of alternatives have been discussed for increasing the water supply. These are categorized for the purpose of discussion into: (1) increased surface storage; (2) increased groundwater development; (3) more efficiency of water utilization; and (4) large-scale interbasin transfers of water. INCREASED SURFACE STORAGE

Surface storage is the traditional method of providing additional available water. Additional reservoir sites exist in some parts of the western states. Langbein4 has reviewed historic trends in reservoir development in the U.S. Table 1.2, taken

36

WATER SCARCITY

Table 1.2 Reservoir Capacity in Some Major River Basins of the United States

Region or Basin

Date

Total Usable Capacity (existing plus potential, million acre-feet)

North Atlantic Region

1966

47.9

173

280

Potomac River

1963

3.9

14

275

Colorado River

1946

102

250

400

Missouri River

1969

137

500

270

Southeast Region

1963

26

88

300

Columbia River

1946

52

220

235

Drainage Area (1000 sq.mi.)

Unit Capacity (acre-feet per sq.mi.)

Source: W.B. Langbein, Dams, Reservoirs and Withdrawals for Water Supply—Historic Trends.

from Langbein, shows the reservoir capacity currently available in a number of the major river basins of the country. Langbein has suggested that a unit capacity of approximately 400 acre-feet of storage per square mile of drainage area represents a potential limit for reservoir development; the Colorado has a potential unit capacity of 400 acre-feet per square mile. Langbein also plotted the historic trend of reservoir capacity; this plot is shown in Figure 1.16. The growth in capacity for all purposes and for withdrawal has flattened out since 1960. The question is whether this reduction in reservoir construction will continue, or if it is simply an aberration in long-term growth curve.

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

37

Figure 1.16 Usable Major Reservoir Capacity in the U.S. since 1920 500i—

200 c

I 0 b o " «

100 50

20 10'

1900

±

1920

_L 1940

1960

1980

• USGS A C of E Source: Langbein, 1982.

Our assessment is that surface reservoirs will continue to be increasingly difficult to develop. Recent legislation such as the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) makes it easier for environmental groups to voice their interests. Every major new reservoir project seems likely to receive some resistance from opposing groups. Major conflicts will, in many instances, be settled politically. In arid regions such as the lower Colorado River basin, where water is particularly critical, additional reservoirs may evaporate as much or more water as is made available, thereby further concentrating the dissolved salts. Increasing surface storage in the lower Colorado is a losing proposition.

38

WATER SCARCITY

INCREASED GROUNDWATER DEVELOPMENT

Groundwater is already heavily utilized, as has been pointed out, much of its development resulting in mining of water. The increased costs of pumping imposed by increased energy costs have reduced groundwater pumping, especially in areas such as Arizona. The one area with apparent potential for a major increase in groundwater development is Nebraska. Table 1.3 is a compilation of the water in storage in t h e Ogallala Aquifer, t h e result of an ongoing U.S. Geological Survey study of t h e system. Approximately two thirds of the water in storage is in Nebraska, an enormous reserve of groundwater. Only in Texas and New Mexico has more than 10 percent of t h e water initially in storage been depleted. The depletion statistics may be somewhat misleading, since it is economically impractical to remove all t h e water initially in storage; perhaps 50 to 70 percent is a reasonable estimate of what might be removed under favorable economic conditions. These data indicate t h a t only a small percentage of t h e water in the Ogallala has been removed. Obviously an enormous quantity of groundwater is still present for development in Nebraska. MORE EFFECTIVE WATER UTILIZATION

A number of measures have been suggested to effect better utilization of water available. Among these, increased irrigation efficiency, weather modification, reuse of wastewater, conjunctive use of groundwater, desalination, and increased use of saline water have been considered. Increased efficiency of irrigation has obvious advantages. But a major nagging question is: what happens to the salts in t h e system when one increases t h e efficiency ? A study of a reach of the Arkansas 5 suggested t h a t following an initial two-to-threeyear period after increasing irrigation efficiency, groundwater in the shallow aquifer along t h e Arkansas River would become more saline. This increase in salinity of t h e groundwater would increase t h e salinity of t h e flow in t h e river. Pillsbury, 6 in an article in Scientific American entitled "The Salinity of Rivers", argues t h a t salt buildup is a major problem for all irrigation projects. His thesis is t h a t sufficient water must be applied to continually remove salt from t h e soils. Salt buildup seems to pose some limit on possibilities for increasing irrigation efficiency.

39

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

Table 1.3 Water Supplies and Depletion in the Ogallala Aquifer Water in Storage (1980) (acre-feet) Colorado Kansas Nebraska

112 (x 106)

Percent Depletion (pre-development to 1980) 5

300

8

2100

less than 1

New Mexico

48

16

Oklahoma

92

7

South Dakota

105

less than 1

Texas

375

23

Wyoming

138

less than 1

3270 (x 106) Source: Luckey, R.R., E.D. Gutentag, and J.B. Weeks, Water Level and Saturated-Thickness Changes, Predevelopment to 1980, in the High Plains Aquifer in Part of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming, Hydro. Invest. Atlas, U.S. Geological Survey, 1981.

In such systems as the South Platte, or the Arkansas in Colorado, or the lower Colorado, most of the water goes to support beneficial transpiration. It seems questionable that increased efficiency can materially add to the useful supply. Weather modification has received considerable attention. The data, although not totally conclusive, suggest that cloud seeding could increase precipitation locally, with a 10 percent increase in supply possible. The question remains as to what happens downwind—does cloud seeding reduce rainfall? This issue remains to be settled. However, it appears that some local increase in available supply is possible from weather modification.

40

WATER SCARCITY

Reuse of wastewater is another possible source of water. Reuse is already practiced in a number of places. In irrigation, reuse occurs through return flow, which replenishes the streamflow. Municipal wastes have been purchased in such areas as Phoenix, Arizona, for utilization in irrigation. The city of Irvine, California, reuses all of its wastewater, mostly for municipal irrigation. Major metropolitan areas along the coast continue to discharge some wastes to the sea. Some of this water could be reused beneficially. However, the costs of cleaning it up may be such as to preclude it for use in agricultural irrigation. The shallow aquifers in the earth provide an enormous fresh water reservoir. Many of these are already utilized extensively as active storage reservoirs. The conjunctive water use developments along the Platte, the Arkansas, the Rio Grande, and the Snake rivers are classic examples of utilization of the groundwater system as a storage reservoir. In certain areas such as the southern San Joaquin Valley in California, groundwater reservoirs can be utilized to store water in periods of abundance. Already a number of such developments are well established elsewhere in California, particularly in Orange County and the Santa Clara Valley. The groundwater aquifer has obvious advantages for storage as only small surface areas are affected, evapotranspiration is greatly reduced, and in many places the aquifer serves as an excellent filter for the water. On the other hand, aquifer storage has the disadvantage that it is sometimes expensive to recharge groundwater, especially if one has to utilize wells. How much impact conjunctive use will have in the overall water management in the West is difficult to forecast at this time. The cost of desalinating water makes it too expensive, in most instances, for agriculture. However, the use of desalination for municipal and industrial use may reduce the competition for water currently utilized in agriculture. Saline water can also be utilized for industrial purposes such as cooling, and for special purposes such as slurrying coal. There is abundant saline groundwater over much of the West, and use of these resources could reduce the competition for water. How effective more efficient water utilization measures will be in making water available is anyone's guess. If collectively they could make available 10 percent of the water currently used in agriculture, this would approximately equal all of the other consumptive uses. Ten percent may be an achievable goal.

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

41

LARGE-SCALE INTERBASIN TRANSFERS OF WATER

Large-scale interbasin transfers, particularly to the lower Colorado River basin, have been proposed as a source of water for some time. The major interbasin transfers are shown in Figure 1.17. The two really significant transfers occur in the Colorado basin and in California. By far the largest of these transfers occurs in California. Traditionally, the states have primacy with respect to utilization of water. Large-scale interbasin transfers cannot take place without a change in state primacy. As water is perceived to be a critical commodity, state primacy will be harder and harder to change. We are pessimistic that this policy can be changed significantly to allow further large interbasin transfers between states. In fact the magnitude of the transfers in California has only been possible, in our judgment, because they occurred within a single state. Interbasin transfer continues to be a sensitive issue even in California, as witnessed by the 1982 referendum over the Peripheral Canal. It seems problematical that major quantities of water are available for interbasin transfer. For example, Whittlesey and Gibbs,7 who reviewed the utilization of water in the Columbia for hydropower, concluded that water for irrigation in central Washington costs the general public $150 per acre per year in increased energy costs. This cost comes from lost hydropower downstream and from large quantities of energy to supply supplemental irrigation water which is provided irrigators at very low rates. Under such circumstances it seems highly unlikely that Washington would allow additional water to be diverted for irrigation within the state, and certainly it would fight a major interbasin transfer to another state. Similar situations exist in other western states which, at first glance, appear to have "surplus" fresh water. CONCLUSIONS It is increasingly difficult to effect major structural changes which would provide large quantities of water to those areas where water is in critical supply—southern California, Arizona, and the High Plains of Texas and New Mexico. Outside California, large interbasin transfers must face the issue of state primacy, a particularly difficult issue to overcome.

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

43

One must t u r n to other measures to utilize more effectively the water t h a t is currently available. Increased efficiency, weather modification, reuse, and conjunctive use, while perhaps not dramatic, have the potential to make better utilization of the available water supply. If collectively these measures could make available 10 percent of the water currently consumed by agriculture, that quantity would approximately equal t h e total of all other consumption in the West. On the average, t h e quantity of water in transport in t h e hydrologic cycle remains unchanged. Except for the fact that we are mining groundwater, no less water is available t h a n heretofore. The fact t h a t we are approaching t h e limit of t h e water which can be developed means that there is, and will continue to be, ever-increasing competition for that water. Increased competition implies a higher value for t h e commodity. While as a society we rarely make large-scale water decisions purely on economic grounds, higher, value also implies a higher price. Thus, in the context of increased competition, we have a shortage, at least of inexpensive water. A number of areas in t h e West depend heavily upon groundwater for their supply. The areas of largest overdraft of groundwater are Arizona and the High Plains of Texas and New Mexico. Much of this water is a one-time supply, obtained by a "mining" operation. Although t h a t is not necessarily bad, the supply is finite, and at some point, perhaps in t h e distant future, will be gone. Arizona has recently moved to strengthen its groundwater law to protect the resource. The drought of the mid-70s in California motivated farmers to drill many new wells to tide themselves through a period of shortage. Now t h a t t h e wells are drilled, they continue to be pumped, demonstrating that additional supplies of surface water do not always ease the overdraft of groundwater. In many instances, new supplies bring more land into production. To the extent that we are mining groundwater, we are running out of water. The one bright spot in t h e water picture in t h e West is Nebraska, where a huge supply of groundwater is present in t h e aquifer. The figures on the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska suggest that this is probably t h e largest virtually untapped supply of water present in t h e 17 western states. There can be little doubt that we are entering an era of continually increasing competition for water. In t h e Southwest, where water shortage threatens most critically, increasing urbanization and increasing energy development both compete

44

WATER SCARCITY

with agriculture, now t h e largest water consumer. Steve Reynolds, State Engineer of New Mexico, aptly states t h e current water situation when he says, "Water flows uphill toward money." To what extent agriculture in t h e West can accommodate t h e competition is t h e issue.

Notes and References 1. N.C. Matalas, J.M. Landwehr and M.G. Wolman, Prediction in Water Management, in Scientific Basis of Water-Resources Management: Studies in Geophysics, National Academy of Science, Washington, D.C., 1982, pp. 118-127. 2. U.S. Water Resources Council, The Nation's Water Resources, 1975-2000: The Second National Water Assessment, (Washington, D.C., GPO, 1978) Vol. 1, Summary, p. 86. 3. C.W. Stockton and G.C. Jacoby, Jr., Long-Term Surface-Water Supply and Streamflow Trends in the Upper Colorado River Basin based on Tree-Ring Analysis, Lake Powell Res. Project Bulletin, No. 18, 1976, p. 70. 4. W.B. Langbein, Dams, Reservoirs and Withdrawals for Water Supply—Historic Trends, Open-file Report 82-256, U.S. Geological Survey, 1982, p. 9. 5. L.F. Konikow and J.D. Bredehoeft, "A Water Quality Model to Evaluate Water Management Practices in an Irrigated Stream-Aquifer System," in Salinity in Water Resources, J.E. Flack and C.W. Howe, editors (Boulder, Colorado: Merriman, 1974), pp. 36-59. 6. A.F. Pillsbury, "The Salinity of Rivers," Scientific American, 1981, pp. 55-65. 7. N.K. Whittlesey and K.C. Gibbs, "Energy and Irrigation in Washington," Western Journal of Agricultural Economics, 3 (1978): 1, 1-9.

Discussion: Harold C. Fritts I see no significant weakness in Bredehoeft's lucid and concise discussion except t h a t his projections are based upon relatively short hydrologie records. More specifically, paleoclimatic data indicate t h a t worldwide climate changes occurred around t h e t u r n of t h e century—measurements such as Bredehoeft has used, which are confined to t h e 20th century, are likely to be biased by these changes. I have used tree-ring widths as proxy climate records (substit u t e s for instrumented data) to estimate t h e magnitude of this bias. The ring widths of approximately 1000 trees from sites throughout t h e West were calibrated with t h e 20th-century instrumented climatic record throughout t h e United States. The

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

45

calibration equation was then applied to past ring-width growth to estimate past variations in climate.1 The estimates of climate were then verified with independent instrumented data 1,2 available prior to the time period used for calibration. Finally, optimal reconstructions were selected based upon the best calibration and verification statistics. When these procedures are applied to California precipitation 3 (Figure 1.18), pre-20th century precipitation is reconstructed to be below the 20th century mean; when a line is drawn through the plot, long periods of extended drought are evident. Figure 1.19a shows another analysis 4 in which the means for 1901-1970 temperature and annual precipitation in 11 North American regions were compared to the reconstructed means for 1602-1900. The 20th century was slightly cooler than the 17th19th centuries for five regions in the West, and warmer for the remaining regions. It was 19 percent wetter in California (Region 2), above average in four additional southwestern regions, and dryer elsewhere. Thus one can see that when expectations for precipitation are based solely on this century they would overestimate the longterm expectations for moisture because of recent anomalous trends in precipitation, particularly in California. Similarly, temperature projections would underestimate conditions west of the Rockies and overestimate them east of the Rockies. Figure 1.19b shows the standard deviations of the reconstructions in the West for the 20th century, compared to the standard deviations for three prior centuries. They indicate a lower variability in 20th-century climate, especially in the amount of precipitation. In addition, reconstructions of surface pressure 4 suggest that coastal storms became more southerly displaced around the turn of the century, bringing higher moisture into California and the Southwest during winter. These storms appear to have traveled on the average in a northeast direction through the Great Lakes. The resulting southerly air flow brought less moisture and warmer temperatures to the eastern portions of the country. Prior to the 20th century storms apparently entered the country more often over the Pacific Northwest, passed over the Rockies, and traveled eastward or southeastward, bringing colder temperatures and more moisture to the East. However, this pattern was more variable, more severe storms were reported in the East, 6 and plains droughts occurred that were as severe, if not more severe, than those in the 1930s.6

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WATER SCARCITY

Stockton and Boggess7 point out that the consequences of a dry and warm climatic change would be greatest in many areas of the arid Southwest, especially in the Lower Colorado, Missouri Arkansas-White-Red, and Texas Gulf, where groundwater is already extensively used. Two primary future climatic projections have been made by climatologists today. 8 The most popular is that the climate is likely to warm, due to the burning of fossil fuel and an increase of atmospheric CO/d/s-22/s+2/u. The second is that the climate was anomalous for the first half of the 20th century and that it is now likely to revert to the state of prior centuries. In either projection, climate in the semiarid West is likely to be drier, perhaps warmer, and more variable. This would indicate that the existing projections of water resources for the West based on the 20th-century hydrologic record are in all likelihood overestimates of what the water resources may be in the future. Notes and References 1. H.C. Fritts, Tree Rings and Climate, London: Academic Press, 1976. 2. G.A. Gordon, "Verification of Dendroclimatic Reconstructions," in Climate from Tree Rings, M.K. Hughes, P.M. Kelly, J.R. Richer, and V.C. LaMarche Jr., eds., (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 58-61. 3. H.C. Fritts and G.A. Gordon, "Reconstructed Annual Precipitation for California," in Climate from Tree Rings, op. cit., pp. 185-91. 4. H.C. Fritts, Reconstructing North American Climate from Tree Rings: A Diagnostic Analysis (London: Academic Press, in preparation). 5. D.M. Ludlum, Early American Winters: Vol. 1, 1604-1820 and Vol. 2, 1821-1870. (Boston: AMS, 1966). 6. C.W. Stockton and D.M. Meko, "Drought Recurrence in the Great Plains as Reconstructed from Long-Term Tree-Ring Records," Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology, in press, 1983. 7. C.W. Stockton and W.R. Boggess, "Geohydrological Implications of Climate Change on Water Resource Development," prepared for the U.S. Army Coastal Engineering Research Center, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 1979. 8. National Defense University, "Climate Change to the Year 2000— A Survey of Expert Opinion," Defense Documentation Center, Alexandria, Virginia, 1978.

Acknowledgement The research reported here was supported in part by NSF Grant ATM75-22378 Climate Variability, Climate Dynamics Program and by the California Department of Water Resources, Agreement No. B53367.

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF WATER RESOURCES

49

Discussion: Parry D. Harrison Mr. Bredehoeft presents a rather gloomy picture of the water supplies in the West. Although much of what he says is correct, some of it tends to be a little misleading. I do not fully agree that the water supply of the West is nearly fully utilized. Some river basins like the Colorado could be said to be fully utilized. However, an example of underdeveloped water supply is the Columbia River at The Dalles, with an average flow of over 140 million acre-feet per year; and the Willamette River at Portland averages over 23 million acre-feet per year. I could name at least ten other rivers that discharge between 3 and 15 million acre-feet per year. While it is true that not all of these vast water supplies can be utilized and storage projects are very difficult to construct, many worthwhile storage projects have yet to be constructed. The problem with most of these rivers is that they are far from the heavy demand areas of California and the Southwest. Runoff Predictions. A most difficult problem, and yet a paramount need, is accurate prediction of streamflows for the next six months, year, two years, and five years. Much has been written about the hydrologie cycle, the correlation of precipitation and runoff with sunspots, wind patterns, volcanic activity, effect of air pollution on weather, and effect on weather of atomic explosions. Nevertheless, the ability to predict precipitation and hence runoff with any degree of accuracy has not been demonstrated. The theory has been that the key lies in history; hence, studies of tree ring data, runoff records, stochastic analysis with the aid of computers—and we are still a long way from an acceptable solution. Irrigation. Somewhere between 30 and 75 percent of water diverted for irrigation is a direct depletion and is consumed by évapotranspiration. The remainder either percolates into the ground and becomes part of the groundwater resource or returns to the stream and becomes available for reuse. Return flow usually is of poorer quality than the source. Many significant groundwater resources have been the result of or enhanced by irrigation. (Examples: Columbia basin in central Washington, Snake Plain aquifer in south-central Idaho, and the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys in California). Groundwater. Groundwater pumping from an aquifer that is being mined is a depletion of that resource, whatever its use. There may be some reuse or secondary use of the water pumped;

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WATER SCARCITY

but unless it is reinjected, groundwater that is being mined is not a renewable resource. When it is used up, it is gone. In contrast, streams provide a renewable supply which comes every year, with some fluctuations depending on the weather. Some things can be done to enhance or prolong the life of groundwater resources. These may include (1) artificial recharge: this may be feasible if there is an available resource; (2) limitation or restriction of groundwater pumping; and (3) efficient use of available supplies. Competition for Water. Severe competition for limited water supplies in some areas may make it necessary to choose between irrigation, streamflows for fish, or domestic needs. Abundant and cheap water supplies enhance the quality of life in the West, but in the future some locations may not be able to enjoy them. Most countries do not have the luxury of abundant, high quality water supplies to the extent that we do in the United States and Canada. In the past cities have had to restrict the watering of lawns or filling of swimming pools to ensure adequate supplies for drinking, washing, and fire protection. Many of those vying for control of water supplies have a single-track approach. Some typical comments have been: "My need is paramount." "Irrigation provides food; do you want to watch the fish swim upstream or would you rather eat ?" "Fish have been nearly eliminated by diversions and pollution for nearly 100 years; this has to be rectified now!" "Recreation needs are increasing by leaps and bounds; water-based recreation must be given a high priority." "Water is needed for power production. Power is the basis for our high standard of living. It means jobs!" Narrow, unyielding approaches make it all the more difficult to find solutions to water supply problems facing the West. The competition is becoming keener every year. Cool heads and clear vision are needed to make good decisions that will influence the quality of the western lifestyle for years to come.

Chapter 2

LEGAL-INSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS ON WATER USE by Gary Weatherford and Helen Ingram

ABSTRACT For irrigated agriculture, water must be available not only physically but institutionally. Laws, customs, politics, and groups determine whether irrigated agriculture is favored or disfavored in the competitive arena of water management. The fourfold thesis of this paper is: (1) water reallocation and management is gradually replacing water development in the western U.S.; (2) irrigated agriculture's favored legal-political position is declining, but only marginally; (3) change in the relative position of agriculture is likely to continue to be incremental, but more innovative change caused by unexpected events is possible; and (4) in the face of uncertainty, more flexible water management institutions to promote conservation and water transfers, while protecting equities, are advisable. '•Two institutions spurred the growth of irrigated agriculture by delivering cheap water: the prior appropriation doctrine of water law and the federal reclamation program of the Bureau of Reclamation. As the water available for agriculture declines, the prior appropriation system of water rights can be expected to (1) aid the farmer who desires to profit from the sale of his water rights to other users; (2) compensate the farmer whose land and water is condemned against his wishes; (3) require the farmer to waste less water; (4) allow the farmer with junior rights to be displaced by senior rights, such as Indian water rights; and (5) provide a cause of action for the farmer whose water rights are impaired by one or more late-comer appropriators. Irrigated acreage in the West has doubled since World War II, expanding increasingly away from the southern arid tier to the central and northern high plains states. The reclamation ethic appears to have crested, however, and the federal influence in water policy seems to be waning as the water management role of the states is waxing. Unexpected events, such as an unparalleled oil crisis or expanded famine, could alter current trends. Whatever the future holds, more flexible water management institutions are advisable for the welfare of all the water use sectors.

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FROM RECLAMATION TO REALLOCATION: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Agricultural growth in the West was spurred by legal-political institutions that delivered cheap water. Chief among those institutions were the prior appropriation doctrine and the federal reclamation program. Early settlers had little incentive to commit capital and labor to construct water diversion and distribution systems if there were any risk of other users moving in upstream and leaving them high and dry. Therefore, western states developed the doctrine of "first in time, first in right". This law of prior appropriation allowed the first user on a stream to obtain a priority over all other subsequent users, and so on down the line. Prior appropriation facilitated western expansion and agricultural development because water could be parcelled out to a large number of irrigators, and priority dates signalled the extent of risk in situations of drought. Even when existing streams were fully appropriated, agriculture continued to expand by augmenting supplies through the federal program to reclaim the arid and semiarid West. The 1902 National Reclamation Act codified the goal of making the deserts bloom, ushering in the developmental era of heavily subsidized, and increasingly centralized, large-scale irrigation projects.1 The Act, its amendments, and individual project authorizations provided the legal structure for long-term, interest-free financing based on "ability to pay", and further institutionalized the notion that unappropriated and undeveloped water was itself free, its only cost being the capital cost of constructing works and the subsequent operation and maintenance cost. The government's powers of eminent domain, navigation, and commerce were available for these projects constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation. The Bureau intercepted most major waterways in the West with a series of dams and diversions. Interbasin transfer projects were commonplace. The reclamation program spurred the creation of water districts (mostly public, special districts) as entities responsible for repayment, operation, and maintenance functions. Contract obligations were deferred in projects experiencing hardships. Areas with the most political power in Congress were generally benefitted first. In the post-World War I period, the public works ethos mitigated hard economic times and was further

LEGAL-INSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS ON WATER USE

53

institutionalized. Law was viewed as an instrument to harness the unruly forces of nature through public resolve, sweat, and engineering. Public hydroelectric power production was promoted as a major means of subsidizing irrigation water development. Indian tribes were largely neglected by this reclamation process. In 1908, the United States Supreme Court held that water rights had been reserved to Indian tribes for their future use incidental to the creation of reservations.2 These so-called reserved water rights, unlike state-created appropriation rights, are not dependent upon use, and thus may be claimed at any time and are not lost by nonuse. For the most part, Indian water rights remain unquantified, pending court determination and/or Congressional action. However, tribes are becoming increasingly assertive in claiming large quantities of water. Were such claims to be honored, some present irrigationists would be affected, especially along streams such as the San Juan in New Mexico, which may already be over-committed. With water demand pressing close upon water supply all over the West, and with few good prospects for increasing supply, there seems little alternative to a reallocation of existing supplies among new and established users. Since irrigated agriculture consumes between 80 and 90 percent of total water supplies in most western states, and since the value of water for crop production is ordinarily lower than for alternative uses such as energy, some agriculture is in the position of being bought out. The relative position of agriculture with respect to water supply will now be explored from the perspective of legal and institutional history. WATER LAW AND AGRICULTURAL WATER SCARCITY Layers of Law3 Water law in the West often comes in layers, ranging from the macro to the micro. If an international drainage is involved (like the Colorado, Rio Grande, and Columbia Rivers), a treaty normally governs the division of water between nations. If the water flows between states, an interstate compact (or possible litigation) apportions it. Within a particular state, the water laws (statutes, court rulings, and administrative decisions) define how individual property rights in water are created, exercised,

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and protected, except to the extent that superior federal or Indian rights are involved (e.g., navigation servitude, "reserved" water rights, and federal eminent domain). Generally speaking, the international, national, and interstate laws make the broad allocations which determine "state entitlements"—the amounts of water which, when added to the water local to a state, are available for use within that particular state. Agriculture can be affected by laws at all these levels, as a' few references to the Colorado River Basin will illustrate. The U.S.Mexican Water Treaty of 1944 contained no express provision for water quality. Highly saline irrigation drainage from the United States' side precipitated conflict in 1961, leading to U.S.-Mexican agreements and a United States salinity control program which together affect irrigation water management in the states of the Colorado River Basin. Two interstate compacts—the Colorado River Compact of 1922, and the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948—together control allocations between the upper and lower parts of the basin and between the seven states óf the basin, subject to unresolved claims relating to federal and Indian "reserved" water rights. Because the flow of the rivér Was overestimated in 1922, the upper basin's legal obligatfttt} to deliver water to the lower basin means that the upper basin has 1 to 2.25 MAF less each year than originally planned. That kind of shortfall raises the level of competition between agriculture and other uses. The 1922 Colorado River Compact contains a pro-agricuftural bias, declaring domestic and agricultural use to be superior to the generation of electricity. Both the 1922 and 1948 compacts preserve Indian water right claims which, when quantified, could displace or devalue the agricultural water rights of non-Indians. Federal authorization of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) conditions agricultural water delivery on reducing pumping, practicing conservation, and not irrigating new acreage. When the CAP comes on line several years from now, some California irrigation (which has been based on flow destined ultimately for Arizdna) could be cut back. With most of the federal reclamation projects in the western U.S. completed or authorized, state water laws provide the layer of legal rules that now most influence water availability for irrigation. Each state has its own water law system, although similarities exist across state lines. The state water law systems decide who gets how much for what uses. While mining predated irrigation in some of the western states, on the whole

LEGAL-INSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS ON WATER USE

55

irrigated agriculture has dominated the acquisition of water under the water right systems of the West since the early days of those systems. The water laws of the western states variously were initially designed or later shaped to promote, not limit, irrigation development. State Law of Surface Waters: Prior Appropriation Under the "riparian doctrine" which has prevailed from the outset in the humid eastern states, the right to use water from natural water courses is held by the owners of land adjacent to the water. The western states for the most part rejected the riparian approach, adopting the "prior appropriation doctrine" which allowed water to be diverted away from riparian land. (See map of surface water rights systems, Figure 2.1.) The appropriation doctrine rests on two fundamental principles: (1) priority in time, and (2) beneficial use. The priority principle—first in time, first in right—allocates available water in times of shortage to those who first began their use of water from the source. Persons with the earliest priority may have their rights completely satisfied, while persons with the latest rights may receive no water at all. This "first in time" rule is offset by three large exceptions. First, in most states, certain preferred users receive their full appropriation regardless of their priority. Preference is normally given to domestic and municipal uses and often to uses for agricultural purposes. Some states also provide a judicial mechanism through which preferred users may condemn the water rights of less preferred users. Second, appropriators may agree among themselves that during times of shortage the burden of the reduction in supply will be shared by a system of rotation or some other way. Third, sharing of shortage is often found in large projects where a number of irrigators share in the project's priority. The term "beneficial use" is not subject to precise definition, but it generally includes two related, but somewhat different, concepts: social utility and engineering efficiency. That is, a use is beneficial if it involves some socially accepted purpose and if it makes a reasonably efficient use of water. In the past most consumptive uses, particularly irrigation, have been considered beneficial. The types of uses socially accepted as beneficial uses have been increasing. Gradually, "instream" uses, such as the preservation of minimum flows to preserve fish, wildlife, and recreation values, which do not involve the "appropriation" of water, are becoming recognized as

F i g u r e 2.1 Surface Water Rights Systems

Appropriation / Permit Appropriation / Permit / Pre-existing Riparian Rights Confirmed Appropriation -Riparian (Reasonable use) Appropriation-Riparian (Reasonable use)/ Permit Some Riparian Rights Persist

• • E3 mn TÎT

Source: Gary Weatherford (ed.) et al, Acquiring Water for Energy (Littleton, Colorado: Water Resources Publications, 1/82), p.32. John Muir Institute

LEGAL-INSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS ON WATER USE

57

beneficial uses. New energy-related uses, such as dewatering mines and slurrying coals, are being regarded as beneficial by most affected states, increasing the basis for competition and the justification for public regulation involving the exercise of broad administrative discretion in assessing trade-offs and balancing interests. Thus, beneficial use is a dynamic, not static, principle. A person who wishes to divert water for a beneficial use must apply for a permit to a designated state agency. The typical scheme is generalized in Figure 2.2. Public notice is given and a hearing is offered to other right holders—sometimes to affected members of the public also—who object to the proposed diversion. The date of application usually determines the priority of the use. The state will generally issue the permit if it determines that the proposed use will not interfere with existing uses ("nonimpairment"), that unappropriated water is available, and that the project is not otherwise contrary to the public interest. Upon completion of the diversion and application of the water to a beneficial use, an appropriator must file proof of appropriation which, upon verification, is followed by the issuance of a certificate of a perfected right. This right extends only to the amount of water actually diverted and applied to a beneficial use, even if a larger quantity was originally intended. Under most irrigation uses of surface water, a significant portion of water applied returns to the watercourse as "return flow." A purchaser of appropriation rights who merely continues the same use as his predecessor need only comply with local recording laws to perfect the right. An application for a new permit must be filed, however, if either a purchaser or the same owner intend to change the nature of the use, which may mean a change in the point of diversion or in the purpose or place of use. State approval helps to guarantee that the proposed change will not interfere to a greater extent than did the prior use with the existing rights of others, and that the new use is in the public interest. The application process for proposed changes is similar to that followed for the initiation of new rights. Approval depends on a determination that other rights will not be impaired and that unappropriated water is available (in the event that the change of use is more consumptive than the prior use). Some states will not permit a transfer in the place of use if it involves the transport of water outside the watershed of origin or outside the state. And some states will not authorize a change in the type of

Figure 2.2 Permit Procedure: Prior Appropriation States

Source: Gary Weatherford (ed.) et al, Acquiring Water for Energy (Littleton, Colorado: Water Resources Publications, 1982), p.50. John Muir Institute

LEGAL-INSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS ON WATER USE

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use where the prior use is preferred over that use which is to replace it. With the prior appropriation doctrine thus described, the question arises: What relationship might exist between this prior appropriation system and diminished water for agriculture? The simple answer is that the system in most instances will (1) aid the farmer who desires to retire by selling his land and water profitably to nonfarmers; (2) compensate the farmer whose land and water is condemned against his wishes; (3) possibly reduce, under changing notions of conservation and "reasonableness," the amount of water the farmer has been diverting or consuming; (4) subordinate the farmer with junior rights to newly asserted senior rights, such as Indian water rights; and (5) provide a cause of action for the farmer whose water rights are impaired by one or more late-comer appropriators. These results will occur in the following ways. Appropriative rights are quantified and, in most areas, marketable. 5 (See Chapter 18.) Individual farmers and farming interests themselves will reduce the water available for agriculture by selling out at attractive prices to nonagricultural users, such as cities and energy companies. Appropriative rights are property rights; if they are condemned by a public agency or authorized utility, compensation must be paid. For the farmer who continues to exercise his appropriative right, he may find that changing legislative, judicial, or administrative notions of "reasonable use" and "public interest" require that he be more efficient in his water use, that is, use less water on the same acreage. In some cases, he may be allowed to use the water saved on expanded acreage, in which case no overall reduction in agricultural water occurs. If the farmer's priority date is later than that of an unexercised Indian water right, the initiation of the Indian water use can reduce or eliminate the farmer's supply. To the extent that he is the senior appropriator in time, however, competing junior uses cannot lawfully impair his right, although problems of proof and costs of enforcement place practical limits on this protection. Because irrigated agriculture enjoys 80 to 90 percent of the water consumption market in the West pursuant to these vested property rights, it is in a position generally superior to other water competitors. Agriculture acquired permanent rights in the water, with the aid of public subsidy, in the formative days of settlement and water rights administration. Within limits, those rights are subject selectively to superior claims and to

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redefinition in the public interest. For the most part, however, irrigated agriculture will bargain from a position of strength in the competitive arenas of water scarcity, even though not all individuals or interests in the agricultural community are benefitted or protected in the process.6 State Groundwater Laws 7 Present indicators are that much of the decline in agricultural water supply in the West will result from dwindling groundwater resources in such overdraft areas as the multistate Ogallala Aquifer, central Arizona, and the San Joaquin Valley of California. Overdraft conditions have been permitted or countenanced by the groundwater legal systems of the affected states. Most groundwater basins are hydrologically connected to surface flows and ought not, from a management perspective, to be regarded apart from surface flows. There are four principal legal systems governing groundwater acquisition in the western states: absolute ownership, reasonable use, correlative rights, and prior appropriation. We do not offer here exposition of the various state groundwater systems. (See Figure 2.3 for a map showing the diversity of approaches in the West.) Some states have drawn geographic lines between those areas which are critical and those which are not. The definition of a "critical area" or "capacity use area" is generally an area in which the annual rate of withdrawal exceeds the average annual recharge (the common definition of groundwater mining) or threatens to do so. The distinction between critical and noncritical areas may determine whether a proposed well is subject to regulation at all, or the degree of scrutiny the permit application will receive. In some cases, critical areas are subject to governance by local groundwater management districts. Also, critical areas may be controlled by express statutory prohibitions. Sometimes special protection or preference is given to groundwater service areas which are more expansive than just the land overlying the aquifer itself. Many of the observations made earlier about the role the prior appropriation doctrine plays under declining water conditions apply to groundwater systems as well. Groundwater rights likewise are property rights; generally they are transferable and enforceable against impairment. To the extent that groundwater becomes more regulated, with more controls on the depletion of critical aquifers, it is probable that less water will be available to

Figure 2.3 Groundwater Legal Systems

^MONTANA

WVOMING

NORTH DAKOTA SOUTH DAKOTA NEBRASKA

COLORADO KANSAS

OK LA ^§0NA

NEW MEXICO

ALASKA HAWAII

I I Appropriation/ Permit F^Tyj Correlative Rights/Appropriation/ Conjunctive Management H44-1 Absolute Ownership I I Reasonable Use/ Permit ITTrn Designated Area/Permit; Artesian; Correlative Rights/ Reasonable Use p=3 Highly Discretionary Permit System ^ ^ (percolating waters); Appropriation/ Permit (subterranean streams) Permit required for c r i t i c a l i large consumptive • uses in non-critical areas Permit required for critical & non-critical areas Source: Gary Weatherford (ed.) et al, Acquiring Water for Energy (Littleton, Colorado: Water Resources Publications, 1982), p. 100. John Muir Institute

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overlying agriculture. It is likely, however, that the decline in groundwater for agriculture will be more attributable to rising pumping costs than to legal regulation. 8 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND CHANGING PATTERNS OF INFLUENCE The reclamation era of large-scale water resource development was dominated by the federal government. The sources of federal influence were the geographic scope of its jurisdiction, its financial resources, and its technical expertise residing in federal agencies. The development of numerous water projects up and down whole river basins spilled across state lines. Control naturally gravitated towards the federal level because the geographical reach of state boundaries was too limited. Moreover, water resource development projects were expensive, and required access to the federal treasury which is much less restricted than the coffers of the states. In addition, the manpower and technical expertise requirements of major water projects led to federal responsibility for large-scale construction. Hie Bureau of Reclamation, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Soil Conservation Service had a continuing critical mass of engineers and water planners that no state could hope to maintain. In what observers have termed classic distributive politics, federal agencies orchestrated blends of local and state interests in providing basic support for individual projects.9 Different project features lured different interests. Farmers were attracted by irrigation water, urban interests were promised water supplies and flood control, recreation groups appreciated lakes created by impoundments, and businessmen and bankers desired water project-generated economic growth. Agriculture was important in this coalition of interests because its demands could justify the development of large quantities of water. The rewards for agriculture's backing were long-term contracts for federal water at very reasonable rates, and agencies were generous to farmers in matters of eligibility. For instance, the 160-acre limitation was loosely applied by the Bureau of Reclamation. The role of the states in water development policy was to deliver a unified state congressional delegation in support of projects within state boundaries and the favorable testimony of governors and state agency officials. Mainly the federal piper called the tune in the 1950s and 1960s.

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The 1970s witnessed the decline of federal construction agencies and the challenge to federal dominance of water policy. Because of the facts and forces already described, traditional water development patterns were severely disrupted. The number of new starts in water development projects declined, and the share of water agencies in the federal budget grew smaller. The Soil Conservation Service, the constituency of which was mainly agricultural, was brought to task for channelizations that destroyed fish and wildlife habitat. The Bureau of Reclamation, which once was the largest agency in the Department of the Interior, and in 1950 commanded 61 percent of the Department's budget, fell upon even more difficult times. 10 Plans for large-scale construction, such as the two dams proposed for the Grand Canyon, were repeatedly defeated on economic and environmental grounds. In a symbolic act, meant to signal the end of the Bureau's mission of large-scale construction, the Carter Administration stripped the Agency of its name, and for a period of three years it was called the Water and Power Resources Service. The failure of the Carter Administration to achieve its aims in water resources has been popularly recognized as a defeat for environmentalists, while the decline of the federal government's influence in water has received less notice. An important dimension of the water conflict lurked behind the headlines of the time—a struggle between the states and the federal government over their respective influence and roles in water allocation. Carter's "hit list," which zero-budgeted thirty-two projects, was a direct challenge to the states' growing determination to set their own priorities regarding water resources. The negative reaction from Congress and state houses was marked. The second line of attack for water reform was a federal agency review of water policy which involved little state and local participation. The Carter Administration's issue and options documents which resulted from the agency review were coldly received by the states, especially the option of federal intrusion into water rights granted by individual states. In the end, most of the projects on the original hit list went forward, and a considerably watered down version of the new national water policy was adopted and then was implemented only partially. 11 The new Secretary of Interior in the Reagan Administration dismantled the water policy machinery, including the Water Resources Council, and made it clear that he recognized water resources as primarily a matter of state rather than federal concern.

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The lesson from these events is clear. Since the federal government can no longer afford to award large numbers of federally funded and constructed water development projects as prizes, its influence over water management is considerably weakened. Increasing State Influence The events of the Carter years pointing toward an increase of state influence vis-a-vis the federal government have been reinforced by other forces. One such influence has come from the courts, which in the late 1970s landed some judicial blows on the notion of federal dominance. First the Court said that federal reserved water rights were more restricted than previously imagined. The attempt by the U.S. Department of Justice to expand the reserved water rights of national forests to protect instream water for fish and wildlife was rejected by the Supreme Court on the grounds that such federal claims infringed on the historic role of states in water allocation.12 Further, in a California case, the Supreme Court held that the federal government must follow the rules and regulations of the State in the operation of a project even though the project was federal.13 Considerable constitutional power to affect water management is still lodged in the federal government, however, as the U.S. Supreme Court reminded us on the last day of its term in 1982 in Sporhase v. Nebraska (No. 81-613; July 2, 1982). This case held that the interstate movement of groundwater, as an article of commerce, cannot be restricted by states engaged in economic protectionism. The decision buttresses the free market and federal regulation (those estranged bedfellows of old), and undercuts states' rights. It is not likely, however, that the equitable and distributional values asserted by states will evaporate simply because there has been a judicial pronouncement. It would not be surprising to find the western states seeking federal legislation (congressional exercise of the commerce power) legitimating to the degree possible the states' efforts to control and manage water resources. The capability of states to manage water resources has grown in the last couple of decades. The focus and reliance upon federal agencies during the reclamation era worked to stunt and distort the growth of state water planning agencies and policy-making structures. Up until the mid-1960s, the number of professional planners was quite small and there was little attempt at state water planning independent of federal plans. The picture is enormously changed in the 1980s. While legislative authorization for

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addressing water resource planning is far from sufficient evidence of state capability, the presence of such mandates facilitates forceful state action. As Figure 2.4 illustrates, the types of legislative mandates given to states vary enormously, yet the map shows that most states provide for comprehensive water quantity planning, and in many cases this is combined with management, and/or water quality planning and/or management. While undoubtedly these structures were developed partly in response to the availability of federal grants-in-aid, agencies now represent a considerable pool of expertise and influence that is likely to survive, at least in part, even if federal monies are withdrawn. 14 The independent actions of individual states in relation to water resources both contribute to and are evidence of growing state influence. These actions are sometimes not consistent, indicating considerable differences in the priorities of different states. For instance, in 1977 the Montana legislature declared "the use of water for slurry to export coal from Montana is not a beneficial use."16 On the other hand, South Dakota determined to sell a share of the state's Missouri River water out of Oahe reservoir to an interstate coal-slurry pipeline company on terms that provided low-cost water to several towns along the pipeline route. 16 Numbers of other states similarly are acting on the allocation, use, and preservation of state water resources. In 1982 the Governor of Wyoming proposed to the legislature that the state appropriate $100 million per year for six years to develop the state's water resources.17 In 1980 Arizona adopted a comprehensive new groundwater code aimed at bringing the state's depleted aquifers into a "safe-yield" situation by the year 2020.18

IMPLICATIONS FOR AGRICULTURE Land irrigated for agriculture in the West has roughly doubled since World War II, and the addition of 25 million acres in the West has contributed heavily to American agriculture's 70 percent increase in crop production during the post-war years. 19 A healthy chunk of this expansion has come from high production farming on arid lands, perhaps as much as 13 million acres, that are unsuitable for commercial agriculture without irrigation. The focus of growth in the initial phase, 1945-1954, was in the arid southern tier of states extending from Texas and Oklahoma

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to California. Subsequently, increases in irrigated acreage have come from central and northern high plains states. 20 Among the most important factors underlying this growth has been an abundance of relatively inexpensive water. While the accomplishments of the National Reclamation Act of 1902 that made the Great American Desert bloom have been striking, there are many signs, noted above, that the reclamation ethic has crested. The decline of federal influence in water allocation has a mixed bag of consequences for irrigated agriculture. Clearly the closing of the option of developing large-scale additional supplies at the same time as demands are growing generates pressures upon the largest of the users of existing supplies. At the same time it is possible to question the extent to which agriculture ever controlled the flow of benefits from federal water projects. In the interests of gaining broad support, federal agencies regularly served numbers of other interests including urban users, energy, industry, and fish and wildlife at the expense of agriculture. A retrospective study of the Central Arizona Project indicates that in the thirty-three year history of negotiations, farmers were forced to make a number of compromises to save the project. The current project design will afford farmers far fewer benefits and more costs than if they could have continued to pump groundwater. 21 The change of emphasis at the federal level in the management of existing projects has important implications for agriculture. While the Carter and Reagan Administrations have differed enormously in their approaches to water resources, both have emphasized the principle that users should pay more nearly full costs. Irrigation interests are likely to be charged considerably more for water when long-term contracts for water at existing federal installations fall due. Whether or not the federal government will use the leverage it has for other purposes remains to be seen. With the support of the Reagan Administration, Congress has modified the 160 acre limitation to the point where it poses little or no problem to most agriculturalists. In the case of the Central Arizona Project the federal government appears to be making good on its trust obligations by influencing allocations to benefit Indian tribes. The future of federal support of Indian water rights is not at all clear, however. The Reagan Administration has favored negotiation rather than litigation in securing Indian water rights. The reserved water rights position of many tribes is legally very strong, and even without active federal government backing may fare well in the courts. Indian

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victories in water allocation mean all junior users, including irrigated agriculture, stand to lose. The shift of influence in water allocation towards the states raises the issue of the relative influence of agriculture in federal and state arenas. On the face of it, the structure of Congress would appear more favorable to agriculture than state legislatures. Rural farming states have the same number of votes in the Senate as do more urban and more populous states, while both bodies at the state level are apportioned on the principle of one man-one vote. Further, the influx of people into urban areas in many agricultural states, and the depopulation of the hinterlands, especially in the West, has resulted largely in urban populations. In Arizona, for instance, seventy-five percent of the population lives either in Phoenix or Tucson. Yet the preferences of legislative bodies are often different from what one might expect. In practice, the U.S. Senate has been more oriented toward urban interests than the House, because practically every Senator has at least one large urban area in his or her state. Further, the court ruling requiring apportionment of state legislatures on the basis of population has had less impact on the traditional rural bias of state legislatures than one might suppose. In many state legislatures agriculture has had influence far in excess of what the number of rural districts would suggest because urban areas lack cohesion and rural legislators often have skill, seniority, and command of formal positions. The attitudes of state voters is likely to be important in determining how state governments will treat agriculture. While public opinion surveys on questions of water allocation are infrequent, those that have been reported should be reassuring to agricultural interests. A survey of voters in the four corners states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado found more than 90 percent of respondents in favor of allocating more or the same amount of water to irrigated agriculture in the future. This support was strong even among urban residents. 22 Customers in the Salt River Project area were asked in another survey if as a conservation measure they favored or opposed raising the cost of water to farmers growing food and fiber. Eighty-three percent of respondents opposed such action, compared with 64 percent opposition to similar price increases for residential users and 54 percent opposition for business and industrial users. 23 While such data cannot be construed as a reliable indicator of what urban users would do if they really had to choose between their own interests and those of agriculture in

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water matters, those surveyed do testify to the reservoir of positive attitudes toward agriculture. The policies pursued by some states in water allocation evidence similar basic concern for the welfare of agriculture. Henry Caulfield has written of the predilection of Colorado water leaders toward the development by the state and private entities of unappropriated water and surplus water from wet years to serve the energy industry and growing populations. This is viewed as much preferable to cutting back agriculture's share. 24 The Arizona groundwater reform act does envision the reduction of agricultural consumption of water to a level of "conservation use" to be set by the State Department of Water Resources. At the same time, "grandfathered water rights" favor all existing water users at the expense of future users who are likely to be residential and industrial. 25 To summarize, the rise of states in the changing pattern of political influences is affecting irrigated agriculture, but there is much to suggest that the position of agriculture remains strong. State houses are likely to be as sympathetic to agriculturalists as were federal agencies that dominated water politics in the reclamation era. Particular pressures will be brought to bear upon agriculture because it historically has used large amounts of water and paid little, and demands of new water users must somehow be satisfied. At the same time it is reasonable to expect that state governments will do what they can to cushion the impact of water reallocation upon agriculture in the name of perpetuating the agricultural economy and preserving the rural lifestyle. UNEXPECTED EVENTS AND UNANTICIPATED CONSEQUENCES The discussion up to this point has assumed an incremental future. In a world where dominant events are often unforeseen, however, it is risky not to consider the unexpected. It is possible to imagine in passing a number of events that would thrust water once more into the national arena commanding federal attention. It is also possible to imagine that the devolution of power over water allocation from the federal government to the states might be more rapid than we anticipate. Because water is so crucial an element in energy, agriculture, and economic productivity, it may be that a crisis in any of those

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sectors would quickly put water on the national agenda. If our oil supplies were threatened again, more seriously than the Iranian oil embargo, as by a revolution in Saudi Arabia, unparalleled pressures would be brought to make the U.S. energyindependent. The federal government undoubtedly would have to take the lead in directing such domestic energy development. The record of private enterprise on synfuels in the past, even with healthy subsidies, does not warrant the expectation that the response of the private sector alone would be adequate. The energy industry by now is clearly skeptical of risking capital in synfuels development, as Exxon did in the oil shale boom. The federal government might well react to an energy crisis by causing large amounts of water to be shifted from agriculture to energy. It might be that states could bargain to protect agriculture, and the time necessary to get energy projects under way could be long enough that agriculture could outlast the crisis. Nonetheless, rapid federal energy development in a crisis situation bodes ill for farmers' retention of water. On the other hand, an enlarged famine caused by crop failures abroad, in conjunction with the growing importance of agriculture in U.S. balance of payments, could help U.S. farmers. Expanding food crises could boost federal assistance to farms and raise farm prices. The already favorable public attitude toward irrigated agriculture in the West could be amplified. New federal projects that benefit agriculture might be authorized and funded. The authorization and funding of a large number of new projects, for agriculture as well as other purposes, could be spurred by an economic crisis prompting a New Deal type of public works response employing lots of people. Other changes could be ushered in by a rapid rise in the interstate movement of water. 26 As water comes to be treated more like any other commodity, and becomes more overtly commercialized, many private water rights could become transferable to the highest bidder across state lines, and interstate water compacts could be undercut. It is even possible that agribusinesses engaged in high-value production might be buyers in an interstate water market, although farmers as a whole more often would be sellers. Could equity considerations be protected in such a "free market" environment? Possibly, through either: (1) an Act of Congress and/or (2) state ownership (purchase/condemnation) of water rights to prevent uncontrolled operation of the private market. Would this not pose an identity crisis of significant proportions in the irrigated West? In order

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to protect lower-value uses and the natural resource base of each state, a movement could arise to either "federalize" or "socialize" more of the water—alternatives foreign to the current political imagery of western states (although western settlement was partially subsidized by free land and water in the past). Agriculture's historical water rights granted by state governments could be profoundly altered by the emergence of an interstate water market. Two scenarios in which states become more powerful more quickly than we envision here have been offered in a paper by Henry Caulfield.27 In the first, power and money is transferred from the federal government via "new" federalism. In the second, states seize the initiative on their own. The second scenario assumes states can determine their own values concerning water, and that they have or can develop the financial and technical capability. Under such conditions we would expect agriculture to fare reasonably well, as we have predicted, although we would not expect states to be equally favorable to farmers. CONCLUSIONS The support for continued agricultural use of large amounts of cheap water is high among state residents, even those in urban areas. Further, irrigated agriculture bargains in state arenas from a position of strength. State water law grants vested property rights to users with long-term, established records. Agriculture acquired permanent rights in water in the formative days of settlement, and those rights are subject to only limited redefinition in the public interest. It is in the long-term interests of agriculture as well as other sectors to develop more flexible water institutions that facilitate conservation and water transfers. The lesson to be learned from the decline in supply solutions for water shortage is that water must be managed for reallocation to higher-value uses and waste needs to be reduced. Barring unexpected events, this will mean some reduction in irrigated agriculture in the arid regions. To a large extent this shift will probably be accomplished through the sale of water rights in the market. Transactions that move water out of irrigated agriculture will cause some negative externalities, such as social and environmental disruption. There may be ways to soften such impacts, however. Rural people may band together through water districts, corporations, or other

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arrangements to direct the flow of water to purposes consistent with rural values and the need for rural employment. State governments may decide to enter markets themselves, buying water rights for equity, aesthetic, or fish and wildlife purposes. The use of water that remains to agriculture, that is not sold or leased, will become more regulated. The Arizona Groundwater Act of 1980 devised a flexible groundwater right that is to diminish in quantity over time as conservation technology develops and conservation requirements under the law tighten. The concept of beneficial use, as we have indicated, can be used flexibly, and it is likely that in some states water uses tolerated in the past will be disallowed in the future as not in the public interest. The lesson to be learned from the marginal decline in the influence of agriculture vis-a-vis other water users is that accommodation rather than outright opposition to modifications in water institutions is advisable for agriculture. Because irrigated agriculture is the largest water user, it is the obvious focus of policies aimed at stretching supplies. While agriculture's legal and political position remains strong, it nonetheless represents only a small percentage of the population in most states. In the final analysis, irrigated agriculture is likely to fare better if it is not perceived to be in direct conflict with other users. Notes and References 1. For a history of U.S. irrigation, see Lawrence B. Lee, Reclaiming the American West (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio Press, 1980). 2. See, generally, Michael C. Nelson, The Winters Doctrine: Seventy Years of Application of 'Reserved' Water Rights to Indian Reservations (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona, Office of Arid Lands Studies, 1977). 3. A fuller discussion of the material in this section can be found in Gary D. Weatherford and Gordon Jacoby, "Impact of Energy Development on the Law of the Colorado River," 15 Natural Resources Journal 171, 174-81 (January 1975). 4. The material in this section is drawn selectively from Gary Weatherford (ed.) et al., Acquiring Water for Energy: Institutional Aspects (Littleton, CO: Water Resources Publications, 1982), pp. 29-42. 5. The emergence of water markets in western irrigation states is analyzed by Lee Brown et al., "Water Reallocation, Market Proficiency, and Conflicting Social Values," in Gary Weatherford (ed.) et al., Water and Agriculture in the Western U.S.: Conservation, Reallocation and Markets (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982), pp. 191-265. 6. Persons whose income depends on a continuance of agricultural production—such as farm implement dealers, feed and fertilizer suppliers and farm laborers—normally have no involvement in a farmer's decision to sell his water rights and quit farming. Water markets therefore pose equity issues. See, generally, ibid.

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7. Some of the material in this section is drawn from Gary Weatherford (ed.) et al., Acquiring Water for Energy: Institutional Aspects (Littleton, CO: Water Resources Publications, 1982), pp. 97-113. 8. For an interesting preview of rising pumping costs, see R. Schafer, "San Joaquin Valley Groundwater Pumping Costs," paper for conference of Association of California Water Agencies, November 1981, Pacific Grove, CA. 9. Dean E. Mann, "Political Incentives in U.S. Water Policy: Relationships between Distributive and Regulatory Politics," in What Government Does, eds. Matthew Holden, Jr. and Dennis L. Dresang, Volume I, Sage Yearbooks in Politics and Public Policy (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1975). 10. Owen Stratton and Phillip Sirotkin, The Echo Park Controversy (University of Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1959). 11. Dean Schooler and Helen Ingram, "Water Resource Management," in Public Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Center for Public Affairs, November 1981). 12. U.S. v. New Mexico, 438 U.S. 699 (1978). 13. California v. U.S., 438 U.S. 645 (1978). 14. Kenneth Rubin, "The Capacity of States to Manage Water Resources Given a Decreased Federal Role," prepared for the Symposium on Unified River Basin Management, Stage II, October 6, 1981. 15. Mont. Code Ann., Sec. 51-4-5, Suppl, 1978. 16. Henry P. Caulfield, Jr., "U.S. Water Resources Policy: Past, Present and Future," prepared for the Western Political Science Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, California, March 25, 1982. 17. Ibid. 18. Ariz. Rev. Stat., Sec. 45-513 (1980). 19. Kenneth D. Frederick, "The Future Role of Western Irrigation," in The Southwestern Rev. of Management and Economics 19 (Spring 1981). 20. Ibid. 21. Helen Ingram, William E. Martin, and Nancy K. Laney, "A Willingness to Play: Analysis of Water Resources Development in Arizona," in Gary D. Weatherford (ed.) et al., Water and Agriculture in the Western US.: Conservation, Reallocation, and Markets (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982). 22. Helen Ingram, Nancy Laney, and John R. McCain, A Policy Approach to Political Representation: Lessons from the Four-Corners States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press for Resources for the Future, 1980). 23. Behavior Research Center, Consumer Division, Salt River Project Customer Attitude Survey (Report to Management), June 1977. 24. Henry P. Caulfield, Jr., supra, note 16. 25. Dale E. Pontius, "Groundwater Management in Arizona: A New Set of Rules," Arizona Bar Journal October 1980, pp. 28-52. 26. See Sporhase v. State of Nebraska, No. 81-613, U.S. Supreme Court, decided July 2, 1982 (October Term, 1981); also, City of El Paso v. Reynolds, Civil No. 80-730-HB, U.S. Dist. Court, Dist. of New Mexico, pending. 27. Henry P. Caulfield, supra, note 16.

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Discussion: Jon Kyi There can be little disagreement with the fourfold thesis of this paper. (1) Even as one of the largest reclamation projects ever developed, the Central Arizona Project, nears completion, western water development inexorably is being replaced by water reallocation and management. (2) The relative position of agriculture is declining, though in different degrees among the western states. (3) In an overall sense, this change is gradual; but in specific areas it is and will be traumatic. (4) Depending upon how one defines the term, flexible water management to promote conservation and water transfer is, indeed, advisable. Whether it must be effected through "institutions," as opposed to incentives, legal requirements, or the free market, will be subject to debate. Laws and public policy respond to the times. As more people compete for scarce resources, one of two things happens. If the free market is allowed to operate, the price of the commodity goes up, resulting in some measure of conservation. Alternatively, if the price goes too high, or if the owners of the resource are too politically weak, or if, for other reasons, policy makers deem it necessary or expedient to regulate the resource by exercise of police power, a nonmarket political redistribution of the resource may result. Such a result is inevitable if the regulation is stringent and pervasive enough to amount to a "taking" of the resource. Reallocation of the scarce water resources in the West is occurring through both operation of the market and newlyimposed regulation and management schemes. What may most influence the allocation of our scarce water resource is the Indian water claim. This emerging problem calls for more discussion, because it could dwarf the difficulties heretofore encountered by competing non-Indian claims. In Arizona, for example, application of the "practicable irrigable" acreage test of Arizona v. California, 373 U.S. 546, 600 (1963), would result in allocation of the entire dependable water supply of the State to just one-third of the Indian tribes, leaving two-thirds of the tribes and all non-Indian Arizonans with nothing. 1 No solution to this problem is yet evident. Congress has been unwilling to initiate any process for quantification of Indian claims, and the Tribes have been unwilling to cooperate in such quantification through the courts—especially in state-court McCarren Act proceedings. With the stakes as high as they are, it is quite possible that changes brought about by resolution of

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Indian water claims will not be incremental and could be traumatic. Even if it is assumed that Indian tribes which cannot use the large amounts of water claimed can and will sell part of their entitlement to non-Indians, recent expansion of Tribal "sovereignty" by the Supreme Court2 casts doubt on the extent to which non-Indians will do business with the Tribes. Since there is no practical way of resolving legal disputes with Indians (because of Tribal immunity in state and federal courts), it is doubtful that many entrepreneurs will place their operations and fortunes at risk on agreements to use Indian water. Indian reserved water claims are, in short, much more significant than suggested in this paper. In the section on state groundwater laws, several statements deserve comment. First, it is not necessarily true that most groundwater basins are hydrologically connected to surface flows. In Arizona, for example, most groundwater aquifers have no hydrological connection to surface flows. It is likewise incorrect to assume that, from a management perspective, surface flows ought to be treated with "flows" of groundwater. Second, at least according to a recent pronouncement of the Arizona Supreme Court, it is not necessarily true, as the authors state, that "groundwater rights likewise are property rights ... transferable and enforceable against impairment." Both the State Supreme Court and the Federal District Court in Arizona have now held that there is no constitutionally-protected property right in groundwater iii one's land—that the doctrine of reasonable and beneficial use gives the landowner only a right to use, which can be regulated and taken by the state. 3 This recent interpretation and the Supreme Court's validation of the comprehensive 1980 Groundwater Management Act also cast doubt on the authors' prediction that, in Arizona at least, " ...the decline in groundwater for agriculture will be more attributable to rising pumping costs than to legal regulation." These corrections are not meant to take issue with the validity of the paper's observations, only to point out that recent legislative and court actions in Arizona have changed the facts. Even though the doctrine of reasonable and beneficial use gives a landowner only the right to use, the authors are correct that that right has been characterized as a constitutionally protected property right. 4 As to the statement that reductions would occur through increased pumping costs, the minority report to the State Commission which developed the Arizona law agreed with

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the authors—that the natural market forces of price and increased pumping costs (due to lower water depths and higher gas and electric charges) had in fact reduced and would continue to reduce agricultural pumping without the necessity of a regulatory law designed to accomplish the same objective. Two additions to the short discussion of the Arizona Groundwater Act are suggested. First, though "grandfathered rights" favor existing water users, the transformation of a prior common law right into a new state-regulated statutory right has diminished the value of the "right" considerably. Second, after 2006, the Act authorizes the State to purchase and retire agricultural lands if, in addition to other conservation measures, that action is necessary to achieve a balance between water consumption and supply in management areas. Finally,6 it is difficult to argue with the last paragraph of the paper. However, that conclusion also reveals the difficulty of the challenge to agriculture. When "vested property rights" were, in the view of many in agriculture, eliminated by competitors in the State of Arizona,6 it is a significant challenge indeed for agriculture to portray its uses of water as not being in conflict with other users. In conclusion, the paper substantially contributes to an understanding of the water problems facing agriculture. Its value would be enhanced by more discussion of two points. First, the changes already brought about and those predicted may pale in comparison to the accommodations which would be necessitated by full-scale application of the "practicable irrigable" test for federal reserved water claims on Indian reservations. Second, competition for water among non-Indians has already resulted in at least one state redefining the legal status of a right to use groundwater, with the result that agriculture's "vested property right" became a noncompensable state-regulated ability to use. Depending on how Indian claims are resolved, and on political conditions in other states, future changes in western agricultural water rights and uses could be dramatic. Notes and References 1. Testimony of Wesley Steiner, Director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, before the Special Master in Arizona v. California, September 19, 1980. 2. Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U.S. 130, 102 S.Ct. 894 (1982).

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3. Town of Chino Valley v. City of Prescott, 131 Ariz. 78, 638 P.2d 1324 (1981); Cherry v. Steiner, CIV-81-719, July 21, 1982. 4. Howard v. Perrin, 8 Ariz. 347, 76 P.460 (1904); Maricopa County Mun. Water Conservation Dist. No. 1 v. Southwest Cotton Co., 39 Ariz. 65, 4 P.2d 369 (1931), a f f d on rehearing, 39 Ariz. 367, 7 P.2d 254 (1932); Bristor v. Cheatham, 75 Ariz. 227, 255 P.2d 173 (1953); Jarvis v. State Land Dep't., 104 Ariz. 527, 456 P.2d 385 (1969); Jarvis v. State Land Dep't., 106 Ariz. 506, 479 P.2d 169 (1970); Neal v. Hunt, 11 Ariz. 307, 541 P.2d 559 (1975); Jarvis v. State Land Dep't., 113 Ariz. 230, 550 P.2d 227 (1976); Farmers Inv. Co. v. Bettwy, 133 Ariz. 520, 558 P.2d 14 (1976); Town of Chino Valley v. State Land Dep't., 119 Ariz. 243, 580 P.2d 704 (1978). 5. Four minor corrections to specific statements of the paper are suggested. First, when the Central Arizona Project begins delivering water in three or four years, most of the use reductions in California will be municipal (estimated reduction in Metropolitan Water District diversions of Colorado River water is 55 percent), not irrigation. Second, though state water laws provide the fabric for allocation of most water, they do not, of course, affect allocation of water such as the Colorado River Lower Basin rights, which, under the Boulder Canyon Project Act, 43 U.S.C. §§ 617-617t (1928) and Arizona v. California, 373 U.S. 546, 575-90 (1963), are determined by the Secretary of Interior. Third, this writer disputes the historical accuracy of the statement that two dams on the Colorado River were defeated on both economic and environmental grounds—they were defeated on environmental grounds. Finally, in the section on State Laws of Surface Water, it might be useful to note the extent to which "instream uses" have been recognized. The concept was dealt a significant set-back in U.S. v. New Mexico, 438 U.S. 696, 98 S.Ct. 3012 (1978). 6. For a discussion of the political forces that shaped the Arizona Act, Ariz. Rev. State. Ann. §§ 45-401 to 636 (Supp. 1981-82), see Kyi, "The 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act: From Inception to Current Constitutional Challenge," 53 Colorado Law Review, 471 (1982).

Discussion: Frank J. Trelease Ordinarily t h e job of a discussant is an easy one, but this assignment has suddenly turned into a difficult task. Usually t h e discussant's plan of action is to challenge t h e premises of t h e paper, meet them head on, and engage in close combat. In this instance the search for t h e fatal flaw failed. The first reading disclosed only tiny chinks in the opponent's armor, and hope failed as t h e conclusion finally revealed t h e awful truth: I agree with practically everything said by the authors.

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The authors end with predictions and forecasts, and even the unexpected and unanticipated is explored. Any prediction can be attacked as unrealistic. Yet my crystal ball seems no more free from cloudy spots, cracks, and distortions than theirs, and since I have lived long enough to see many of my own doom-sayings exposed as wrong, naive, and even foolish, I hesitate to claim any superiority as a seer. The most I will attempt is to throw a few more straws into the wind and see which direction they point— always remembering that a straw has two ends. Some seem to fall crosswise. The paper identifies reserved Indian water rights as threats to present agriculture, but the sad fact is that while Indians have the best water rights in the West, they have the least water. On most reservations, substantial projects would be needed to translate the dry paper water rights into wet water in the ditches, and in my opinion there is small chance of obtaining federal funding for works that would take water from present users. The best hopes seem to be for joint on-and-off reservation benefits similar to the on-going Central Utah Project, the proposed Yakima scheme, and the still viable Papago settlement. It is also possible that the era of federal agricultural subsidy may not be entirely over. Ogalalla aquifer underlying parts of seven high plains states has been overdrawn in Texas since the 1940s. Only two states on the fringes of the aquifer have recognized that irrigation use of this water is a mining process, and that when the water is exhausted (or fallen too deep) the overlying farmland must revert from irrigated crops back to dryland wheat or cattle grazing. Colorado and New Mexico have at least restricted pumping to ensure that farms could be amortized and that too-quick exhaustion would not bring bankruptcy before payout. Yet now that the "water mines" are nearing exhaustion, cries of help are heard, and the United States is investigating the possibilities of a massive rescue attempt by bringing water from the Missouri River and possibly the Sabine River. Initial guesses as to costs are tremendous, but so also can be the pressures from seven Congressional delegations. The authors see possibilities of another energy crisis that might lead to quick conversion of water from farms to fuel. A third crisis, however, may convince us that we have a long-term energy problem that requires a long-term solution. In that case, urban and rural support for the notion that new energy demands must be satisfied by finding new supplies of water can probably be counted on to continue. "Let them find their own water, not

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take ours" could lead to more federal dams to store and make available the small amounts of unappropriated water left in many areas. Even in Montana, where unappropriated water still flows in the Missouri River and its principal tributary, the Yellowstone, the state's water reservation process sets aside all free flows and on-stream dam sites for future agriculture, leaving only expensive off-stream storage for energy. Future federal rescue and energy projects would be enormously expensive subsidies to agriculture. Recognition of this has led to some tension in the states between throwing roadblocks in the path of energy and improving procedures for orderly market transactions. If states are to react responsibly to the need for an efficient economic transition from agricultural use to energy, they must enact better laws. The present systems designed to protect agriculture and prevent transfers still allow cash to talk and spotty unplanned transfers to appear. Current procedures protect priorities of other water users, but not farming neighborhoods and lifestyles. Wyoming made a start with a requirement for something like an economic impact statement to support a petition to approve a transfer, and still better devices could be employed. The states should find ways to internalize the effects of large transfers of farm water on local communities, districts, and economics. There is a need to institutionalize the water right, to make it more easily transferable. The states should find ways to encourage marginal water to move to industrial and municipal use; currently these users seek the earliest and best water rights. Another need is to find ways to encourage conservation to cut back present agricultural demand. Most discussion of water management is either on a high moral plane or calls for tough regulation and imposition of expensive practices. There should be better incentives; the water user should reap where he has sowed, and he should not be asked or forced to spend his time and money for his neighbor's benefit. The authors pose a possible interstate market in water rights, inspired by the recent Sporhase case that struck down Nebraska's curbs on the export of water from the state. Yet Sporhase itself called attention to another recent case, New England Power Company v. New Hampshire, which opens the door to Congressional reversal of Supreme Court decisions that prevent state interference with interstate commerce. Currently the Senate is struggling with a coal slurry pipeline bill (S.1844) that would do just that: permit states to impose conditions on energy companies exporting water as a transportation medium. Yet this brings in

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another countervailing consideration. Midwestern Congressmen see the slurry pipeline (which would take water from the Missouri River) as the tip of an iceberg that threatens to sink navigation. An Iowa Congressman has introduced a bill (H.R.5278) that would prohibit a state from diverting water from an interstate basin unless all states in the basin agree—a move applauded by some from the Great Lakes states who fear an only slightly more remote threat. Since such legislation would undoubtedly mean the death of any more upstream interbasin diversions, the western states would be solid against it. A fair prediction on the outcome is that things will remain the same. As the authors try to foresee the unforeseeable, they instance two scenarios by Henry Cauliield for state development of water. One is the "New Federalism" approach that would divide federal water development money among the states. The other is state capability to do a large part of it alone. As for the latter, California (with its rejection of the "Peripheral Canal") may have run out of patience with rescue projects, Arizona may have run out of water, Nevada out of land, and most of the others out of money. Perhaps the federal block grant is a possibility. If the states do go for a supply-side solution that creates a bigger pie for all, rather than cutting a slice for energy out of agriculture's share, will the problem and the conflict merely be escalated to a new level ? If agricultural interests are as strong in the states as the authors suggest, it should be interesting to watch how big a slice of the new "energy water" they will try to take for themselves.

Chapter 3 COMPETITION FOR WATER by Kenneth D. Frederick and Allen V. Kneese

ABSTRACT The growing scarcity of water in the West already has curbed the expansion of irrigated agriculture and promises to impose further constraints in the coming decades. Nevertheless, declines in irrigated acreage will be limited to the most water-scarce areas and will tend to be modest in scale. Since irrigation now accounts for about nine out of every ten gallons of water consumed in the West, large percentage increases in consumption for other uses can be accommodated with small relative reductions in agricultural uses. Opportunities for conserving water and increasing output per unit of water will further limit the negative impacts on irrigated agriculture. There are areas where water supplies are sufficient to support an expansion of irrigation. For the West as a whole, the Second National Water Assessment projects increases of 10 percent in irrigated acreage and 6 percent in water consumed for irrigation from 1975-2000. Some of the adjustments which have only marginal impacts on overall western water use and development may have major impacts within specific locations. The point is illustrated by examining the potential impacts of energy development on the character and beauty of the Yampa River. Full appropriation of water supplies presents a major challenge to the institutions allocating western water. If these institutions permit flexibility of use in response to changing demand and supply conditions, water will not be a barrier to either agricultural or nonagricultural development in the West. The West is undergoing a major transformation with respect to water. In the past, increasing water demands stemming from the rapid growth of population and economic and recreational activities within the region have been met largely through development of new supplies. This strategy is becoming increasingly costly. Projects under consideration in California, for

82

WATER SCARCITY

example, suggest it will cost several hundred dollars per acre-foot to increase water supplies for offstream use, and implementation of these projects would require diverting water from valuable instream uses. Groundwater also has become increasingly expensive due to rising pumping distances and energy prices. Furthermore, the opportunities for expanding groundwater use are limited, especially in the areas with the best agricultural potential; current use already results in the mining of more than 22 million acre-feet per year from western aquifers. 1 The transition to conditions of water scarcity has been under way for several decades in some areas of the West. In the 1950s western water supplies were sufficient to support a rapid growth of use. Total water withdrawals for all but hydroelectric generation rose 56 percent or 4.6 percent per annum from 1950-60. In contrast, withdrawals rose only 15 percent or 1.4 percent per annum from 1970-80. Much of this recent growth occurred in the northern plains states of Kansas, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota, where withdrawals nearly doubled over the last decade. In the rest of the West water withdrawals rose only 0.9 percent per annum in this period.2 Irrigation, spurred by the availability of inexpensive water and energy was the dominant factor in the expansion of western water use. Currently about five of every six gallons withdrawn and nine of every ten gallons consumed go for the irrigation of nearly 50 million acres in the seventeen western states. 3 But as both the largest and a relative low-value user, irrigation is the sector most directly affected by the changing water situation. Some of the impacts of the transition already are becoming evident. Nonagricultural water consumption in the West grew twice as fast as irrigation use from 1960-80. In areas where water has become particularly scarce and expensive, water for irrigation has started to level off or even decline. In Arizona, for example, total water consumption declined by about 6 percent from 1970-80, even though consumption for nonagricultural uses rose by 67 percent. Only in the northern plains did the growth of water consumption for irrigation exceed the growth for other uses during the last decade.4 The early expansion of irrigation relied almost exclusively on diverting surface waters. Since the mid-1950s, however, groundwater has accounted for virtually all of the net increase in irrigation water withdrawals. Total surface water withdrawals for irrigation have not increased significantly from the level of 88 million acre-feet (maf) reached in 1955. Groundwater

COMPETITION FOR WATER

83

withdrawals, on the other hand, rose from 11 maf in 1945, to 31 in 1955, and to 56 in 1975.5 Nearly 40 percent of total irrigation withdrawals now come from groundwater. As a result the aquifers in some of the principal irrigated areas are being depleted, and millions of acres now depend on a diminishing supply of water. The overall growth of groundwater use already has slowed markedly, and in some areas has become negative.

FUTURE CHANGES IN WATER USE Demand for western water continues to grow as new investment and people are attracted by the region's mineral, energy and amenity resources. But as supplies fail to grow apace, the competition for water intensifies. In areas of scarcity, irrigated agriculture will increasingly be the sector that others look to for water to meet their growing demands. Water is transportable, but the costs are high in relation to its value in agriculture. Consequently, irrigators in a given area must rely largely on water currently available either naturally or through water importation structures already in place. And as water demands in other sectors grow, irrigators will be confronted with increasingly attractive opportunities for transferring their water to other uses.

Assumptions and Projections of the Second National Water Assessment The Second National Water Assessment provides a useful starting point for examining the implications of future development forces on the allocation of western waters. The Assessment provides water use estimates under average and dry year conditions for a base year 1975 and projections for 1985 and 2000 based on a consistent set of assumptions regarding national growth and change. Principal assumptions underlying the Assessment's National Future projections include: 6 • National population will grow at slightly less than 1 percent per year and will reach zero growth early in the next century. There will be 268 million people by the year 2000. • Gross National Product will increase at about 4 percent per year.

84

WATER SCARCITY

• Attainment of water quality goals and higher water costs will improve water use efficiency. • Agricultural production and marketing will reflect 1971-73 trends in per capita consumption and export levels. • Fish and wildlife and recreation needs will continue as they have in the past 10 years. Table 3.1 indicates projected changes in population, employment, cropland harvested, and irrigated farmland from 1975-2000 for each of the seventeen western states. 7 These numbers, which have been converted from subregional data in the Assessment to state boundaries, contain some real surprises. In contrast to recent experience, western population and employment are projected to lag behind national growth. Higher than average population growth is projected for the southwestern states of Arizona, California, and Nevada, but population is projected to actually decline over the rest of the century in five northern states. In Wyoming, one of the fastest growing states in the 1970s, both population and employment are projected to decline by more than 10 percent. It is hard to imagine what might cause such a drastic change in regional growth trends (perhaps a complete collapse of energy markets); as noted below, some of these assumptions raise questions about the usefulness of the Assessment's water use projections. The projected changes in western irrigation are more in line with past trends and expectations even though, as discussed later, the Assessment likely understates the level of irrigated acreage. The 10 percent increase in irrigated acreage from 1975-2000 suggests a continuation of the decline in the rate of growth of western irrigation that has been under way for several decades. Irrigated acreage is projected to decline in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas, all of which are faced with major problems of groundwater depletion. Table 3.2 presents the projections (derived by converting the Assessment data to a state basis) of water consumption for irrigation and other uses. Western water consumption from 19752000 is projected to increase only 6 percent for irrigation, compared to 88 percent growth for all other uses. In view of irrigation's dominance as a user of western water, total consumption increases only 13 percent in the West, less than half of the national average.

Table 3.1 Projected Percentage Changes in Selected Socioeconomic Factors Affecting Water Use, 1975-2000 State and Region Arizona

Population

Employment

36

42

Cropland Harvested

Irrigated Farmland

2

-12

California

26

36

-1

16

Colorado

21

27

39

2

Idaho

-9

-2

15

14

0

0

34

38

Montana

-13

-14

12

44

Nebraska

3

4

-2

19

47

48

52

-7

2

12

8

-15

Kansas

Nevada New Mexico North Dakota

-16

-16

28

145

Oklahoma

14

22

28

4

Oregon

16

20

24

20

South Dakota

-8

-12

10

74

Texas

18

24

25

-17

Utah

16

25

20

1

Washington

10

22

-4

42

Wyoming

-13

-11

22

8

Western States Total

18

29

18

10

National Total

22

33

19

15

Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, State Water Use and Socioeconomic Data Related to the Second National Water Assessment, prepared for the U.S. Water Resources Council (Oak Ridge, Tenn., 1980).

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Table 3.3 Sectoral Water Consumption Estimates for 1975 and Projections for 1985 and 2000

Water Use (thousand acre-feet per year) 20 Water-scarce subregions1 Irrigation Livestock Steam electric Manufacturing Domestic Minerals Other Total 33 Other Irrigation Livestock Steam electric Manufacturing Domestic Minerals Other Total

1975

1985

2000

53,553 559 234 372 1,792 974 926

51,953 629 606 486 2,009 1,163 1,015

50,539 730 1,294 775 2,284 1,332 1,144

58,410

57,861

58,098

35,246 769 233 1,365 1,525 562 997

43,129 974 785 2,112 1,695 652 1,202

43,466 1,077 2,075 3,733 1,929 790 1,567

40,697

50,549

54,637

88,793 1,328 467 1,737 3,317 1,537 1,923

95,082 1,604 1,391 2,598 3,704 1,814 2,216

94,005 1,808 3,369 4,508 4,212 2,121 2,710

99,102

108,409

112,733

subregions2

Totals for water resource regions 9-18 Irrigation Livestock Steam electric Manufacturing Domestic Minerals Other Total

Note: National future data for average water supply conditions. Source: U.S. Water Resources Council, The Nation's Water Resources, The Second National Assessment, vol. 3, app. II (Washington, D.C., GPO, 1978), table II-4. 'This water-scarce area includes the following water resource subregions: 1007, 1010, 1102, 1103, 1105, 1106, 1203, 1204, 1302, 1303, 1304, 1305, 1502, 1503, 1602, 1603, 1604, 1803, 1806, and 1807. 2 The

33 other subregions are calculated as the sum of water resource regions 9 to 18 minus the 20 water-scarce subregions.

90

WATER SCARCITY

On the other hand, provision of many instream benefits need not be competitive with offstream uses. For example, the better recreational areas in the West often are in the upper reaches of the streams. Streamflows can be maintained in these areas for withdrawal downstream where the better agricultural lands are often located. Thus, adding instream uses measured at the outflow point of a subregion and offstream consumption may overstate a region's water use. Nevertheless, even when instream uses are ignored—which few people would advocatewater problems remain. Offstream consumption alone is equal to, or greater than, average streamflow in seven of the water-scarce subregions. And 1975 water consumption exceeded dry year streamflow (the natural flow that will be equaled or exceeded 80 percent of the time) in all the water-scarce subregions identified in Figure 3.1. Projections from the Second National Water Assessment suggest that while total water consumption will be essentially constant within the water-scarce region over the last quarter of the century, the allocation of water among types of users will shift. According to the projections, a decline of nearly 6 percent in consumption for irrigation is expected to slightly more than offset the 56 percent increase in consumption for all other uses (see Table 3.3). But even after this reallocation of supplies, irrigation will remain the dominant water user, accounting for 87 percent of consumption in the year 2000. In contrast to the outlook in the twenty water-scarce subregions, there are opportunities for expanding both total and irrigation water consumption in the rest of the West for at least another decade. Indeed, the Second National Water Assessment projects that water consumption in the remaining thirty-three subregions will increase 22 percent for irrigation and 36 percent for other purposes between 1975 and 1985. Only a very minor further expansion of water consumption for irrigation is projected for after 1985, but consumption for all other uses is projected to increase 50 percent over the last fifteen years of the century. The twenty-five year projections for these thirty-three subregions suggest total water consumption will rise by one-third and consumption for purposes other than irrigation will more than double.

Limitations of the Projections in the Assessment The Second National Water Assessment is the only recent attempt to systematically examine the nation's water use and supplies. But, as alluded to above and as considered in some

COMPETITION FOR WATER

91

detail below, there are good reasons for questioning some aspects of these projections. WATER FOR ENERGY

Although nonagricultural demands on western waters have been relatively minor in the past, development of the West's vast energy resources, especially coal and oil shale, may alter that. While water consumption projections of the Second National Water Assessment include an allowance for steam electric production, petroleum refining, and fuels mining, there was concern that the Assessment had not taken adequate account of all likely energy developments and associated water requirements. This concern led to a supplementary study by Aerospace Corporation, which accepts all the Assessment's water supply data and all the demand projections except those relating to energy. 8 From four federally generated energy development scenarios, the maximum feasible limits for energy development are determined along with associated water requirements, assuming standard size plants and no special provisions to adopt water-conserving technologies. Although these estimates are higher than any likely levels, they provide an upper bound to the demands energy development is likely to place on western waters. In comparison to the Assessment projections presented in Table 3.3, the high projections of water for energy development in the Aerospace report increase nonirrigation water consumption levels by 7 percent as of 1985 and 39 percent as of 2000. These estimates represent a 1 percent increase in total western water use by 1985 and a 6 percent increase by 2000. Although the percentage changes for the West are modest, the impacts would be localized, and within the affected regions major new demands on water supplies are implied. Where demand already exceeds renewable supplies, any increase requires either compensating reductions among other users or additional groundwater mining. The twenty water-scarce subregions account for about 47 percent of the consumption of water for energy projected for the turn of the century in the Aerospace report. In the absence of compensating adjustments by other users, this would increase energy uses to about 8 percent of this area's total water consumption. Water for energy would become particularly important in seven of these subregions, where energy uses would account for an average of 19 percent of total projected water consumption. 9 If these energy projections are realized, irrigation

92

WATER SCARCITY

certainly would be adversely affected. The Second Assessment had already projected that irrigated acreage in these seven subregions would decline from 16 percent of the West's total as of 1975 to 10 percent in 2000.10 The percentage might drop further if the higher energy water use levels are realized. The Aerospace projections suggest that energy uses could become an even more important component of water consumption in some of the subregions where water currently does not pose such constraints to development. In nine of the other thirtythree western subregions, the combined energy uses of water account for an average of 35 percent of total projected offstream water use in 2000.11 In general, however, these nine subregions do not rank among the more important irrigated areas; they are projected to account for only 6 percent of the water consumption and 4 percent of the land for irrigation in the West by 2000. ALTERNATIVE POPULATION AND WATER USE PROJECTIONS

The data and projections presented above as the Assessment view are the product of the federal attempt to develop nationally consistent information on current and projected water use. They are known as the National Future (NF) estimates. But for some of the regions and some of the socioeconomic and water use variables, an alternate set of information is also presented in the Assessment. A study team representing state and regional perspectives was formed for each of the 21 water resources regions, and these teams developed State-Regional Future (SRF) estimates for their respective regions. The SRF projections are not comprehensive, nor are they based on a consistent set of assumptions as to the national growth. Yet, as the Assessment points out, they do reflect a more localized and perhaps more accurate view of regional and subregional conditions.12 There are some striking differences between some of the NF and SRF projections of population growth and water use that raise questions about the accuracy of the National Future estimates. The SRF projections suggest a national population (including the Caribbean area) of nearly 284 million by 2000, nearly 6 percent more than the NF projection. While the NF figure is closer to and actually slightly above the Census Bureau's mean estimates of total population in 2000, the regional distribution of the NF projection is questionable. Virtually the entire difference between the alternative population projections in the Assessment is attributable to the lower NF projections for the western water resource regions. Despite the fact that

COMPETITION FOR WATER

93

population in the seventeen western states grew at more than twice the national average from 1974-79,13 the NF data project lower than average population growth for the West as a whole from 1975-2000 (see Table 3.1). This inexplicable result suggests that the NF data may understate the future demands for western water. The NF estimates of irrigated acreage in the West are also much lower than the SRF estimates in both the 1975 base year (40.6 versus 46.2 million acres) and in 2000 (44.9 versus 61.3 million acres). While there is considerable uncertainty as to the amount of land under irrigation, it is likely that the NF data grossly understate irrigated acreage in the base as well as in future years.14 For instance, the National Resources Inventory estimate of 50.2 million acres irrigated in the West in 1977 is 24 percent above the 1975 NF estimate and 9 percent above the 2000 NF estimate. 15 The impact on water use estimates of understating irrigation levels is unknown. But again there is a possibility that the NF projections understate the competition for western water resources. In view of the differences noted above between the base year levels of irrigation and the projected changes in western population and irrigation, it is not surprising that the NF and SRF estimates of water use also differ. The SRF estimates of total water consumption in water resource regions 9-18 are lower in the base year (84.7 versus 88.5 billion gallons per day) but considerably higher by the year 2000 (120.7 versus 100.7 billion gallons per day) than the NF projections. In both years, water consumed in irrigation accounts for more than 90 percent of the differences between the two sets of data. A CASE STUDY: THE YAMPA RIVER Despite the reservations about thè projections of the Second National Water Assessment, these data do indicate the broad changes in water scarcity likely to emerge from the increasing competition for western water and the implications of these changes on major categories of water users. These data, however, are not sufficiently detailed to provide much insight into local water problems or the nature of the competition for water. Indeed, there may be serious conflicts over the use of a region's or subregion's waters not revealed by the Assessment's aggregate supply and consumption data. Changes which have only

94

WATER SCARCITY

marginal impacts on the overall level of western irrigation may have dramatic impacts on local areas, even within regions and subregions where water does not appear in the Assessment as being particularly scarce. These points are illustrated in the following discussion of the Yampa River, a tributary of the Green River which in turn is a tributary of the Colorado River.16 The Yampa River is celebrated for its beauty and is a prime sports fishery. It also contains abundant resources of coal and is being considered for possible energy development. To assess the effect of energy and fuel production on the Yampa River flows at Maybell, Colorado (USGS gauging station 2510), scenarios were assumed for 1990. A. 2,000 Mw thermal electric power plant using 6.7 million tons of coal per year; the remainder of the 24 million tons per year of coal mined shipped out of the basin by unit train. B. 2,000 Mw thermal electric power plant; 250 million standard cubic feet per day coal (SCFD) gasification plant using 6.94 million tons of coal per year; the remainder of the 24 million tons per year of coal mined is shipped out of the basin by unit train.

Details of these two energy development scenarios are presented in Table 3.4. For assessing the water consumed in these two scenarios, a "base case" plant and a "complete" plant are considered for both the power plant and the coal gasification plant. The "base case" represents a situation in which no restrictions are placed on waste discharges to the environment; the "complete" plant, a situation where zero wastewater discharges are allowed. As shown in Table 3.4, the two energy development scenarios, plus the "base" and "complete" plant options for both the thermal power plant and the gasification plant, result in six possible combinations of water consumption. For these six combinations, the water consumption rates for the year 1990 range from a low of 59.4 cubic feet per second (cfs) (43 thousand acrefeet per year) to a high of 101.3 cfs (73.3 thousand acre-feet per year). The effect of this consumptive use of water on the flow of the Yampa River at Maybell is depicted in Table 3.5. For comparison, energy scenario B with "complete" plants for both the thermal power and coal gasification facilities was assumed (scenario B4 in Table 3.4). This consumptive use of water is compared with the mean annual flow, the mean monthly flows, and various measures of the low flow in the Yampa River at Maybell, Colorado. It is clear from Table 3.5 that energy development

Table 3.4 Consumptive Use of Water in the Yampa River Basin Under Energy Development Assumptions

Energy Development Assumptions Development projection: 1990 Surface mining of coal: 24 million tons/year Thermal electric power plant: 2,000 megawatts Coal gasification plant: 250 million standard cubic feet/day Coal input: Power plant: 6.70 million tons/year Gasification plant: 6.94 million tons/year Excess coal: 10.36 million tons/year (shipped by unit train out of the Yampa River Basin) Water Consumption Scenarios (cubic feet per second) Scenarios Al Power plant**—base case 0 complete plant Gasification plant—base case complete plant

A2

54.8

B1

B2

54.8

54.8

49.4 c

Mining and land reclamation Total water consumption

36.5 27.9

B3

B4

49.4

49.4

36.5

27.9

10.0

10.0

10.0

10.0

10.0

10.0

64.8

59.4

101.3

92.7

95.9

87.3

Source: Nicholas C. Matalas and Richard Smith, "Yampa River Case Study," paper presented at the Resources for the Future Forum on the Impact of Energy Development on the Waters, Fish and Wildlife in the Upper Colorado River Basin, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, October 1976. * Scenario A—power plant only; scenario B—power plant plus gasification plant. Mechanical draft-cooling towers. ® No restrictions on waste dischargers. Zero waste discharges (except for condensate).

Table 3.5 Comparison of Streamflows and Consumptive Use of Water for Energy Development in the Yampa River Basin (USGS gauging station 2510 at Maybell, Colorado)

Streamflows (cubic feet per second)

Streamflow at USGS Station 2510

Water Consumption Net Flow in the Yampa Caused by at Maybell, Energy Development Colorado

Mean annual

1,560

87

1,473

Mean monthly October November December January February March April May June July August September

343 345 298 272 320 671 2,620 6,280 5,540 1,360 380 241

87 87 87 87 87 87 87 87 87 87 87 87

256 258 211 185 233 584 2,533 6,193 5,453 1,273 293 154

Low flows (10-year) 1-day 3-day 7-day 30-day 365-day

41 41 45 62 1,060

87 87 87 87 87

b b b b 973

a

Water consumption scenario B4, Table 3.4.

''Storage will be required for the low flow periods.

COMPETITION FOR WATER

97

could not occur in the Yampa River Basin without surface or groundwater storage, or supplemental supplies from another subbasin. There simply is not enough water for energy and fuel production purposes during the low flow periods. Moreover, tradeoffs with other uses of river waters might have to be made during parts of the year, especially the seven-month period from August through February. Apparently, from this rough analysis of streamflows in the Yampa, the fisheries might be in serious jeopardy if energy development occurs, or hydraulic works might have to be undertaken that many think would adversely alter the character of the basin. The only way to understand the full implications of energy development is to look at the details of specific situations. Unfortunately, such analyses are seldom part of studies assessing the energy potential of a region. Such studies should have high priority. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR WATER MANAGEMENT17 While the West is not running out of water, it is running out of readily available, inexpensive water. Although some additions to the usable water supplies of the region may be developed either through streamflow augmentation or exploration and development of groundwater, the end may be coming of any large-scale schemes for further diversions of water into the region, or even any sizable shifts of water from one basin to another within the region. Thus, for practical purposes it would seem that the region must accept the limited nature of its water supplies and should move strongly to adapt itself to that condition. The limited nature of water supplies, however, does not absolutely preclude development within the region. Barriers to urban residential or other development are more a matter of social than of physical limitations. Such barriers may be the institutions that prevent the transfer of water from agricultural uses into other, more highly valued, uses; or they may be social insistence on artificially low prices for municipal water. Instead of promoting rigid constraints on water use patterns, political effort within the region should be directed toward increasing the flexibility of current water use practices among all users. Generally speaking, there is considerable opportunity for modification if regional institutions permit and encourage it.

98

WATER SCARCITY

For example, in planning new electrical generation facilities in the San Juan portion of the Colorado River that lies in New Mexico, utilities have available several options regarding the use of cooling water, even though the New Mexico State Engineer has projected a fully appropriated condition for the San Juan Basin without the addition of any new generating facilities. First, technological adjustments could be made in the cooling water required. Second, existing privately held water rights in the basin could be purchased, and with approval of existing authorities this water could be transferred into industrial use from its current predominant use in agriculture. Third, cooling water might be drawn from deep groundwater stocks rather than from currently used surface water supplies. These and other options illustrate the range of possibilities for flexible water use within the region. One general institution that contributes to flexibility is the existence, where permitted, of an economic market for water rights. Such a market, if it works properly, signals all water users, in the form of the price that a water right may command, that (a) water is available, and (b) that competing demands for its use can be measured. With the information provided by the price signal, current and prospective water users can make informed decisions on water use options. In addition, as the price of water rights increases, there is a strong incentive to conserve water. The economic returns to water used in irrigation tend to be lower than in most other uses. Accordingly, where demand exceeds supply, and institutions permit water to be transferred among sectors, water tends to be bid away from irrigation. Nonetheless, these forces will not necessarily result in large transfers of water out of irrigation. Since irrigation is the dominant offstream use of western water, large percentage increases in other water consumption can be accommodated with relatively small percentage reductions in irrigation use. Furthermore, many new demands can be met without transferring water away from agriculture. Deep or brackish groundwaters generally considered unsuitable for irrigation are available in some areas, and some primary sites for energy development still have untapped surface waters. Thus, even if the Assessment has understated nonirrigation water demands, water transfers among sectors will have only marginal effects on the total quantity of water consumed for irrigation.

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Regional irrigation trends initiated several decades ago in response to competition for water will continue. Some decline in irrigated acreage within the area from the southern High Plains to Arizona and Nevada is likely, as nonagricultural users bid water away from irrigation and farmers reduce pumping in response to declining groundwater tables and high energy costs. These declines will be more than offset by continued expansion of irrigation in areas where relatively low cost water is still available. The Nebraska Sandhills area will be one of the few areas in the West that will experience a significant further expansion of irrigated acreage. The overall rate of growth of irrigated acreage in the West will continue to fall over the next several decades, but is not likely to turn negative during this century. Net expansion will depend in large part on agricultural prices. A modest 5 to 6 percent expansion (roughly 3 million acres) of irrigated acreage seems likely if real crop prices remain at roughly their 1975-80 average. A 25 percent increase in real crop prices might stimulate a net expansion of about 15 percent (nearly 8 million acres). In either case, however, the competition for increasingly scarce water supplies should bring the expansion of irrigated land to a halt early in the next century. Principal changes in irrigation will be qualitative rather than quantitative in the coming decades. The quantity of water consumed for agriculture is likely to peak before irrigated acreage peaks. No peak in irrigated production is likely for the foreseeable future, however. As water costs rise, technologies and management practices that conserve water become more profitable. Since much of the irrigation in the West developed under and continues to be based on very low-cost water, the opportunities for substituting capital, labor, and management skills for water are great, and will be utilized with increasing frequency as water becomes scarce. The potential for such substitutions is illustrated in the High Plains Development Study which concluded that high energy costs would encourage a rapid improvement in irrigation efficiency. Average water use in the Texas High Plains is projected to decline from 1.38 acre-feet per acre in 1977 to 0.68 in 1990. Crop yields, however, are expected to continue to rise throughout the period and beyond. 18 Major constraints on western development over the rest of this century are likely to stem from institutional factors affecting water supply. As noted above, nonirrigation demands for water can be accommodated with only marginal effects on the overall

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level of irrigation. But it is by no means certain that water will be transferred to higher value uses on a timely basis, or that farmers will have incentives to make the investments and management changes required for more efficient water use. The institutions, including the legal system, affecting water use were developed when water was plentiful in relation to demand. Often these institutions, which vary widely among states, restrict transfers to alternative uses and discourage conservation measures. To the extent that the competition for water is relegated to the courts and state regulatory agencies rather than the market place, overall western development is likely to suffer. Although such restrictions tend to favor agriculture since irrigators commonly own the most senior water rights, continued development of western irrigation depends on incentives for improving water use efficiency, not on locking water into low-value uses. Notes and References 1. U.S. Water Resources Council, The Nation's Water Resources, 1975-2000: The Second National Water Assessment (Washington, D.C., GPO, 1978), Vol. 1, Summary, p. 18. 2. Calculated from data in the following U.S. Geological Survey circulars: 1950 data—Kenneth A. MacKichan, Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1950, Circular 115 (Washington, D.C., May 1951); 1960 data—Kenneth A. MacKichan and J.C. Kammerer, Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1960, Circular 456 (Washington, D.C., 1961); 1970 data—C. Richard Murray and E. Bodette Reeves, Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1970, Circular 676 (Washington, D.C., 1974). The 1980 data are based on preliminary copies (provided by Ken Reid, U.S.G.S. hydrologist) of Tables 7 and 10 of the forthcoming U.S. Geological Survey Circular on "Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1980." The references are to water withdrawals (the amount of water taken from a surface or groundwater source for offstream use) rather than consumption (the portion of the water withdrawn which is not returned to a surface or groundwater source) since consumption data are not available for 1950. Subsequent references to water use will be limited to periods since 1960 and will focus on water consumption. 3. The range of estimates of irrigated acreage is wide. The data are examined critically in Kenneth D. Frederick, Water for Western Agriculture (Washington, D.C., Resources for the Future, 1982), Appendix II-A. Fifty million acres is a reasonable estimate of irrigated acreage in the seventeen western states in the late 1970s. 4. Calculated from data in the U.S. Geological Survey circulars on the estimated use of water in the United States. 5. Kenneth D. Frederick, Water for Western Agriculture (Washington, D.C., Resources for the Future, 1982), pp. 71-72.

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6. U.S. Water Resources Council, The Nation's Water Resources 1975-2000, Vol. 3, Appendix I, p. 8. 7. The Assessment data are for water resource regions and subregions. The data relating to water use and the underlying socioeconomic factors have been converted to state boundaries in Oak Ridge National Laboratory, State Water Use and, Socioeconomic Data Related to the Second National Water Assessment, prepared for the U.S. Water Resources Council (Oak Ridge, Tenn., 1980). 8. Aerospace Corporation, Water Related Constraints on Energy Production, Aerospace Report No. ATR-78(9409)-l (Germantown, Md., Aerospace Corporation, June 1978). 9. The seven subregions are Lahontan-South (1807) and Southern California (1806) in the California Region, Humboldt-Tonopah Desert (1603) and Central Lahontan (1604) in the Great Basin Region, Middle Rio Grande (1302) in the Rio Grande Region, and Brazos (1203) and Colorado (1204) in the Texas Gulf Region. 10. U.S. Water Resources Council, The Nation's Water Resources: The Second National Water Assessment, Vol. 3, Appendix 1, Tables 1-4. 11. The nine subregions are Western Dakotas (1005), Middle Missouri (1009), and Lower Missouri (1011) of the Missouri Region, Upper White (1101), Yellowstone (1004), North and South Platte (1007) of the Arkansas-White-Red Region, Sabine-Neches (1201) and Nueces-Texas Coastal (1205) of the Texas-Gulf Region, and Green-White-Yampa (1401) of the Upper Colorado Region. 12. U.S. Water Resources Council, The Nation's Water Resources 1975-2000, Vol. 3, Appendix 1, p. 1. 13. U.S. Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C., GPO, 1980). 14. For a detailed examination of the irrigation data problems, see Frederick, Water for Western Agriculture, Appendix 2-A. 15. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, "Basic Statistics—1977 National Resources Inventory (NRI)," revised February 1980, in mimeograph. 16. This material is adapted from Allen V. Kneese and F. Lee Brown, The Southwest Region Under Stress: National Resource Development Issues in a Regional Setting (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press for Resources for the Future, 1981). The original paper reporting the analysis is Thomas Maddock III and N. C. Matalas, "The Potential Impacts of Energy Development on Water Resources in the Yampa River Basin" in Walter O. Spofford, Jr., Alfred L. Parker, and Allen V. Kneese, eds., Energy Development in the Southwest: Problems of Water, Fish, and Wildlife in the Upper Colorado River Basin (Washington, D.C., Resources for the Future, 1980). 17. These conclusions draw on research by the authors reported in ibid., and Frederick, Water for Western Agriculture, as well as the analysis in this paper. 18. High Plains Associates, Six-State High Plains Ogallala Aquifer Regional Resources Study (a report to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the High Plains Study Council, March 1982), pp. A-17-24.

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Discussion: A.N. Halter The views expressed in this paper reflect the opinions of the author and not the opinions of the Electric Power Research Institute or its members.

In this discussion, my comments are divided into two sections. The first follows the outline of the Frederick-Kneese paper from the perspective of the adequacy of the methodologies used, with particular emphasis on water and energy. The second section discusses some of the implications of how pricing structures of electricity affect water use. Review of Frederick-Kneese Paper In their "Overview" and "Past Changes in Water Use", past trends in water use are shown to be the history of the expansion of irrigation. Growth in irrigation relied on surface water until the mid-1950s, when groundwater took over as the major source of supply. The authors should have pointed out that it was lowcost energy that made it possible to lift groundwater inexpensively. In the authors' description of the projections of the Second National Water Assessment study, the following points should be noted: 1) Although assumptions of population growth are questioned and superficially related to the collapse of energy markets, other than referring to higher water costs and improved efficiency of uses, there apparently is no underlying pricing structure used to make the projections. 2) Frederick and Kneese relate water scarcity to the Assessment's projections of water availability, and projections of population, employment, and total earnings. Negative and positive correlations respectively suggest a methodology was used to make Assessment projections that is naive and devoid of economic dynamics and price structures. 3) Limitations of the Assessment are reviewed by the authors, and the supplemental study by Aerospace Corporation to cover the energy use of water is recounted. Though the authors point out that no special provision is made for including the possible effects of adopting water-conserving technologies,

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they do little to convince the reader that a better methodology was used by the Aerospace Corporation than by the Assessment study. They also point out that National Future estimates likely understate the competition for water resources, and are different from those made by the State-Regional Future study. Under the heading of "Conclusions", the authors say that expansion in irrigated acreage in the West will depend in large part on agricultural prices, but do not relate it to energy prices in any general way. Institutional factors are given the major credit for limiting the use of water. This is the usual conclusion from resource studies in which the dynamics of supply-demand interaction are ignored. The current situation in energy speaks loudly for further demand constraint as pricing structures change. The remainder of the Frederick-Kneese paper presents a case study of the Upper Colorado River Basin and its tributaries, a case that has been over-studied with little variation in the conclusions drawn. The Southwest Region Under Stress Project conducted by the authors' employer, Resources for the Future (RFF), justifies the use of the Colorado River as a case study as the authors are knowledgeable about the region. The RFF study uses a scenario approach to project energy development. The "speculative nature" of this approach is emphasized in that it ignores the price of electricity. The only factors said to affect water consumption in generating stations are the technology, quality of coal, and utilization rate; these in turn are said to be dependent on cost of water and other inputs. Pricing structures on the output or demand side are assumed away by the usual implicit assumption of the fundamental right to electricity and food. Again, institutional changes are emphasized as necessary in the concluding section of the paper. One such change recommended by the authors is an "economic market" for water rights. Supply and demand for water rights would set their price and exchange among users. But the authors do not indicate how such a market would adjust for the inevitable uncertainty in streamflows and consequent shortages of electricity. The cost of electricity outages to the society and the economy are not considered in a water rights market. The lack of a holistic approach to institutional development can be just as detrimental to water

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allocation as the partial analyses used for making forecasts of water consumption. One must question the methodologies being used for planning water resource use. In most cases the methods are so unclear that one must ask: what is the methodology for long-range forecasting for water and/or energy? Do forecasts reflect only conventional wisdom and the subjective preferences of the experts and institutions doing the planning, rather than the dynamics of interactive components in society and the economy? Does longrange planning for water, rooted in long-range forecasting of energy demand, rest on shaky ground? Under foreseeable conditions, especially changing costs, associated prices, and rate structures, demands are very likely to depart from patterns of the past. Impacts of Electricity Price Structures on Water Use Since I have emphasized that resource studies and long-range planning studies for water must be necessarily rooted in some expected schedule of prices for outputs and inputs, it is only appropriate that I also point out the impacts on water use of different pricing structures for electricity. Prices for electricity are influenced not only by prices of petroleum, but also by utility regulation and rate structures. The unfortunate aspect of average-cost pricing, imposed by a 100-year-old regulatory environment, is that consumers do not experience the full cost of new sources of energy and hence of electricity. At a later time when prices must inevitably rise, many users of electricity are stuck with equipment and facilities required on the basis of former conditions. This can only lead to even more inefficient use of water. The water resource planner can no longer ignore the consequences of faulty regulation of the electric utility business. Clearly, electricity conservation and peak-load pricing affect the amount of water and its pattern of use in irrigation. Declining block-pricing structures for electricity formerly created an incentive for groundwater overdrafting, because it was cheaper per unit to lift larger quantities of water. New inverted blockrate structures will remove that incentive, and should help to reduce the problem of overdraft. Another innovative pricing structure being studied by energy economists and likely to be adopted by the electric utility industry is "responsive" pricing. As the term implies, electricity is priced essentially instantaneously as it is produced at its marginal cost. The communication and computer technology is already

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available to implement this for large users such as water districts, industrial firms, and municipal institutions. This time-ofuse pricing structure would have a profound impact on water use in agriculture, as well as in industry and public institutions. The proper pricing of electricity for the major share of users would allow the simplest of rates to be used for residential customers. The confusion being caused by the proliferation of rates for residential customers is unfortunate and unnecessary, leading to further mistrust of electric utilities and the misallocation of energy and water. The uncertainties of supply of electricity, given any pricing structure, must still be dealt with. The institution of a simple buy-back scheme could eliminate the consequences of shortage in an economic manner. The buy-back scheme could be similar to the one used by airlines to buy back seating when there is overbooking of a flight. A similar institution in the water area would complement the Frederick-Kneese suggestion of a water rights market.

Discussion: Robert R. Curry This paper does a good job of assessing the inadequacies of the U.S. Water Resources Council's report, The Nation's Water Resources 1975-2000: The Second National Water Assessment. However, many factors of supply and competition are not considered in either this paper or the Second National Assessment. Some of these are reviewed briefly here. Groundwater availability is a serious problem, and groundwater quality is fast becoming equally serious. Technologic solutions are adequate for the short run, but when considered in a 25-50 year time frame, are probably worse than no solutions. As Frederick and Kneese point out, about 40 percent of western irrigation water is presently derived from groundwater, and five out of every six gallons withdrawn from the ground is used for irrigation. Further, of 56 million acre-feet withdrawn (estimated) in 1975, 22 million are overdrafted in excess of safe yield (mined). The authors further point out that, in half of the western watershed subregions, fully 50 percent or more of the consumption is derived from overdrafted groundwater. Groundwater law and the public institutional framework are archaic throughout the West, and in many cases are based upon wholly faulty assumptions and models of groundwater dynamics.

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Thus, even in the most progressive states, water developers are encouraged to recover water with high energy costs from deep aquifers with poor water quality that will ultimately damage both surface soils and aquifers. In most cases the damage is irreparable. Particularly damaging is saline seep, which is an agricultural artifact of dryland farming techniques used in northern plains states. It renders unproductive tens of thousands of acres of agricultural land annually, at a rate far exceeding strip-mining, highway construction, and urban sprawl combined in those areas. Salt loading and destruction of soil structure and ultimate productivity is a concomitant of use of sodic saline water for agriculture. We are often told of the great advantages to be gained by development of salt-tolerant food crops and forage. While it is certainly possible to increase productivity even while utilizing water of declining quality, such technology has a very discrete and finite limit, beyond which sodic loading will render the site essentially nonproductive. The progressive character of such actions means that we must ultimately pay the cost for myopia. Groundwater pollution is another area of grave concern. Many of our assumptions about future groundwater supplies for all uses assume that known high-quality groundwater reservoirs will remain usable. We are learning, however, that the publicized horrors of Love Canal are but a small localized example of a much more pervasive nationwide problem.1 As cataloged by the Environmental Protection Agency, landfill and other sources of contamination have set serious limits on the period of time for which we may reasonably expect to recover groundwater from many significant and important local aquifers. Thus, even though we may not exceed safe yield pumping, we may have a limited lifetime for aquifers before we begin recycling our own wastes into domestic supplies or agricultural soils. Our projections of water supplies assume that supplies presently potable will remain so, despite saline intrusion, aquifer mixing, contamination through mineral extraction, industrial surface and groundwater pollution, and leachate contamination. The nonreversibility of such contamination seems to have escaped most analysts. Groundwater overdraft is also a serious problem not clearly addressed. While we may estimate safe yield and overdraft rather precisely, in fact we know very little about site details. It is actually very difficult to estimate overdraft. Since agriculture itself, particularly salt-tolerant agriculture, and other land uses

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all tend to impede surface water infiltration through the root zone into the groundwater reservoirs, most observed overdraft is not a linear function of rate of withdrawal. Other things being constant, overdraft tends to increase with a fixed withdrawal rate, particularly where new lands are being brought into production and being urbanized. Thus, linear projections probably underestimate the true situation for the year 2000. Energy costs are an increasingly important factor in water costs. Analysis of competition for western water requires careful attention to the economic pricing and institutional factors governing costs of water and electricity. As more and more water is delivered at costs of several hundred dollars per acrefoot, as in the California Water Project, many forms of agriculture are unable to afford additional water. What this has meant in California is that only large-scale corporate farms occupying large acreages of previously marginal land of questionable longterm productivity, and growing specialized high cash-yield crops, can afford to compete with urban and industrial water needs in a quasi-open market. As Frederick and Kneese point out rather inadequately, the cost of electricity is an increasingly important factor in groundwater costs. But several other energy cost factors are equally important. The cost of energy is increasingly important in all water supply systems, particularly those utilizing offstream storage, large storage reservoirs of any sort, or extensive conveyance structures. There is also feedback between the rising cost of electricity and cost of water for irrigation. As irrigation costs increase and food costs follow, it becomes economically feasible and desirable to store and transport higher cost food commodities. This means that an increasing fuel resource is utilized in food production and distribution, thus increasing competition for fuels for electricity production. Finally, there is critical social disruption caused by increasing supplies of high-cost agricultural water. This is well illustrated in the San Joaquin Valley of California, where high-cost federal and state projects deliver water to new sites for large, highly capitalized and mechanized farms. These large-scale operations, using expensive water on sites with drainage problems, salt loading, or poor soils, can temporarily compete with small family farms that have long-established food production systems often using gravity-feed streamflow irrigation sources or other low-cost riparian rights. The economic competition damages a diverse, efficient, longproductive food growing system in favor of a short-lived, high energy-dependent, unstable system. Thus pricing and delivery

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institutions destroy a long-term resource base for short-term production gains. Regional autonomy also declines as large-scale water delivery systems increase. Ultimately, rising energy costs will preclude continued production on the energy-dependent sites, but the low-energy-demand sites will meanwhile have been lost to urbanization, or their gravity water rights sold for other purposes. Long term climatic change is a final factor that must be considered in a thorough evaluation of water resource demands. As pointed out by Harold Fritts in Chapter 1, the "historic" record of climate, including runoff and precipitation, leads to considerable overestimation of future resources. Study of tree-ring or other paleoclimatic records suggests that our concepts of drought used in present planning are rather naive. The unusual 20th century moderate climate cannot be expected to persist. Notes and References 1. David E. Burmaster, "The New Pollution—Groundwater Contamination," Environment, Vol. 24, March 1982, pp. 6-36.

Chapter 4

DEVELOPING NEW WATER SUPPLIES by Harvey O. Banks, J e a n O. Williams, and Joe B. Harris

ABSTRACT The inadequacy or maldistribution of water supplies for agricultural and other water users throughout most of the western U.S. has historically been a focus of attention for the local citizenry, for water planners and developers, engineers, conservationists, economists, promoters and others concerned with the future of the region. This paper looks at the potential for developing alternative water supplies for the region, with special emphasis on meeting the future water needs of the agricultural sector. Prospects for importing excess surface waters into the region, either from international or domestic sources, are examined along with several local water enhancement or augmentation potentials. Weather modification, water harvesting/water banking techniques, desalination and/or use of saline water supplies, water reclamation and reuse, surface/groundwater management, improvements in operation of existing projects to increase yields, and other prospects for local water supply enhancement are discussed. General conclusions are that the probabilities for large-scale new water supplies or developments for the region in the foreseeable future are not great. The potentials for significant breakthroughs in local water supply enhancement or any large-scale water importation for the semiarid West are limited. Development of irrigated agriculture in the semiarid to arid regions of the Great Plains, the Southwest, and the far western states was an inevitable step in the westward growth in the United States. Given the physical conditions of the availability of land, deep, productive soils, advantageous terrain, and climate that appeared to be suited to large-scale dryland farming, the agriculturally oriented culture of the western expansion quickly established an economy of boom-and-bust dryland farming. Early reclamation programs demonstrated the potential for irrigation in these vast western lands. When, in the 1930s, deep

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wells became more feasible and economic, extensive drilling tapped what were apparently unlimited groundwater resources, and irrigation spread rapidly throughout the Plains states, the Southwest, and wherever the combination of good land, favorable climate and cheap, plentiful water supplies could be found. Irrigation expanded even more rapidly after World War II. By the 1960s, it had become apparent that groundwater resources were being depleted. Commitments of surface water to irrigation through reclamation projects came under increasingly heavy fire from existing or potential competing water users. More sensitive environmental concerns were also expressed. Throughout the West, a critical water supply crisis was developing. Thus, water planners and developers, economists, politicians, and citizens concerned with the future have turned their attention to the potential for developing new water supplies. Simultaneously, the options for improving the efficiency of use of existing supplies have been subjected to intense study, as is reflected in other chapters of this volume. This chapter deals with the prospects for developing new or augmented water supplies. There are relatively few new water resources in the West remaining to be developed. The prospects of developing those are slight and the costs would be very high. There are, however, opportunities for better allocation of supplies from existing projects, for improvement in management of such projects, for intervention in the hydrologie cycle to modify precipitation events on a basis more nearly related to man's needs than nature provides, and for application of some of the newer technologies. With that understanding, we will look briefly at the potential for new or augmented water supplies for irrigation in the West. IMPORTS FROM OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES Both Canada and Mexico share borders with the United States, and across those borders occur common problems of matching water needs with available supply. Yet within the continent of North America vast quantities of surface water occur, and the developable yield of all of those resources could meet the needs of all three nations for the foreseeable future, if it were possible to develop, allocate, manage, and use the water in the common interest. Realistically, the difficulty of this coordination, while

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not insurmountable, is awesome, particularly as regards the political/legal/institutional/financial aspects. Within our own United States, discussions of interbasin transfers of water within a state or between and among states are generally conducted with a great deal more heat than light, and often with extraordinarily slow results. While international development and allocation of available water resources may be difficult and very long-term in prospect, they are not impossible, and in most cases could be shown to be mutually advantageous for each nation and regional (or basin) participant. One of the axioms of any water transfer proposal is that there must be demonstrable benefits for all parties—both importers and exporters. But let us look at some of the international potentials that have been examined. These international water transfer schemes are highly conceptual and typically have been investigated at only reconnaissance levels of feasibility. Water development sites and facilities have not been identified specifically, nor have meaningful cost projections been prepared. Projected future costs in excess of $100 billion for complete system installation could be anticipated. Looking first to the case of Canada, we here give brief discussions of four proposals for moving water from Canada to the United States. The Rocky Mountain Plan 1 The Rocky Mountain Plan, conceived by William G. Dunn, Consulting Engineer, is a potential massive, international water and power development project that would distribute water and power throughout the West from Canada to the Mexican border. Principal sources of water are the Peace, Athabasca, and Smoky rivers in northern Alberta (Canada), and upper tributaries of the Mackenzie River in northern British Columbia, which flows into the Arctic Ocean. Additional sources of water are the Kootenai and Flathead rivers and Clark Fork in western Montana, which are upper tributaries of the Columbia River. Water would be diverted for use within the Yellowstone, Missouri, and the Snake rivers in the northwestern United States, and upper tributaries of the North and South Saskatchewan rivers in Alberta. The water distribution system would include several large reservoirs with a total storage capacity of nearly 100 million acre-feet. Project yield would range from 12 to 25 million acrefeet per year, depending on aqueduct and reservoir sizing. This water would be distributed through more than 5,850 miles of

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aqueduct for use in southern Alberta, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, all of the western states on both sides of the Rocky Mountains including west Texas and California, and northern New Mexico in the Colorado River and Rio Grande valleys. New energy developed under the Rocky Mountain Plan would come from a huge hydroelectric project called the WhitehorseSkagway Division, collecting water from the upper tributaries of the Yukon River and releasing it through a 2,200-foot power drop into an interior inlet of the Pacific Ocean near Skagway, Alaska. The 33 billion kilowatt hours of power produced by this system would be conveyed in a 2,000-mile transmission line to Alberta, British Columbia, and the Pacific Northwest for general use in the power market, and for project purposes. Three large storage reservoirs with a total storage potential of 60 million acre-feet are proposed within the Columbia River Basin. These reservoirs would include large pumped storage facilities that would reregulate the power developed in the Columbia River plants and in the project power plants, and that also would produce some new power. The entire Rocky Mountain Plan, including power facilities, was estimated to cost between $40 and $50 billion in 1977 dollars. One of the significant advantages of the Rocky Mountain Plan is that it could be staged to provide significant water and power benefits during early development. Canadian Proposal Three Canadians (Knut Magnusson, Edward Kuiper, and Roy E. Tinney) have proposed concepts for diverting waters from the Athabasca, Peace, and Laird rivers to be conveyed across the plains of northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba to the United States border in North Dakota. A full report on this conceptual plan was not available to the authors, but it is of interest, showing as it does the international concern with such possibilities. North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) 2 NAWAPA is a master plan concept that proposes taking advantage of the geographical and climatological factors of the North American continent in contrast to the single river basin plan. It would utilize the excess water of Alaska, the Northwest Territories, and the Rocky Mountain regions of Canada, and distribute it to the water-deficient areas of Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico.

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NAWAPA, conceived by the Ralph M.Parsons Company, includes a possible Transcontinental Canal for Canada—a navigable waterway from Alberta to Lake Superior. The canal system, plus the development of rivers in north central Canada, would distribute irrigation water across the plains and increase the flow through the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence System to alleviate water pollution and lowering water levels of that area. The NAWAPA plan is projected to generate 60 to 180 million kilowatts of electric power (net after meeting its own needs), and to supply more than 75 million acre-feet of water annually. The cost to implement the entire NAWAPA concept is estimated at several hundred billion in current (1982) dollars, with spending spread over a 30 to 50-year period.

Western States Water Augmentation Concept3

This plan, proposed by Lewis Gordy Smith, is for a new water system that would permit any available surplus waters from the Fraser River near Hope, British Columbia, and from the Coastal Range in British Columbia to be passed into the Columbia River, and from there conducted within a distribution system both east and west of the Continental Divide. This system would supply water to the Upper Snake, the Humboldt River system of Nevada, the Salt Lake area, the Missouri River system, the Green River and the lower Colorado, the Rio Grande below Albuquerque, and the entire High Plains extending from Nebraska to western Texas. The plan would also look to the ultimate possibility of extending to the far north, to sources of British Columbia, Yukon, and Northwest Territories of Canada, and of later placing this water in the initial water conveyance system within the United States. For the entire collection system from the Dean River to the Columbia, Smith projected a total of 26 dams, ranging in height from 200 to 1,200 feet, costing some $6.3 billion (1967 dollars). Approximately 26 power and pump plants would be required, with total pumping load and power generation potential about balanced. Almost 55 miles of open canal and five main tunnels totaling 56.5 miles, with capacities ranging from 5,500 to 49,000 cubic feet per second would be needed. The above features, along with transmission system, some railway relocation, and miscellaneous structures, would call for a total expenditure of about $11.5 billion in 1967 dollars. In addition to these proposals for moving Canadian water across international boundaries, some planners have discussed the potential of moving water from northern Mexico into the

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United States. These proposals have included capture and transfer of flood waters from the Rio Conchos ill northwest Mexico and other potentials along the Mexican eastern coastal area. None of the discussions have been formally considered or presented. INTERSTATE DIVERSIONS OF WATER Interbasin diversions of water have been in place in many parts of the United States for many years. Rarely have they been carried out without controversy. Where such diversions are contemplated across state lines, the opportunities for conflict and the complexities of law and equity, increase exponentially. Certainly the major western intrastate, interbasin transfer project is the State Water Project in California, planned to have an ultimate firm yield of 4.3 million acre-feet per year and moving water from the north to the south through 715 miles of aqueduct serving municipal, industrial, and agricultural users en route. 4 A careful study of the history of that project—its conception, design, and probably most importantly the ongoing intrastate controversies, conflicts, and regional bitterness generated in its implementation process—should be required reading for water planners and decision makers concerned with acquiring new water supplies. The Federal Central Valley Project in California, also wholly intrastate, has been and still is subject to many of the same problems. Diversions from the Lower Colorado River to California and in the near future to Arizona through the Central Arizona Project are other examples. Major potential sources of water for interbasin diversion to arid western lands include the following. The Columbia River Basin This potential source of new water supply in the West has been considered from a conceptual standpoint, but federal legislation, sponsored by Senator Henry Jackson of Washington, has since 1968 precluded detailed studies by federal agencies of the potential for diversion into the Colorado River System or into northern California. Legislation has been introduced in the current session of Congress to extend a similar prohibition to all interstate waters.

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Central to much of the development of the Midwest, the Missouri remains the object of interests in adjacent states as a potential export basin. Intrabasin states understandably object to any out-of-basin commitments of water from the Missouri in the absence of any institutional mechanism protecting long-term in-basin water needs. The Missouri River main stem is already extensively controlled under the Pick-Sloan Plan (Flood Control Act of 1944) by the six main stem dams and reservoirs—Fort Peck, Sakakawea, Oahe, Sharpe, Francis Case and Lewis and Clark—for navigation, flood control, hydropower, and in-basin irrigation, municipal, and industrial uses. Any large exportation would involve trade-offs with these presently authorized commitments for in-basin uses. In the recently (March 1982) completed report on the Six-State High Plains Ogallala Aquifer Regional Resources Study, conducted under the auspices of the Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) examined the potential of the Missouri as a new water source for irrigation in the six states of Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. 5 The legislation authorizing the Corps study explicitly limited the source basins for analysis to areas "adjacent" to the six-state region to be served. This eliminated the Columbia River from possible consideration. The Mississippi was also ruled out, and thus the Missouri was selected by the Corps as a potential source basin for its work. Several diversion points and transfer routes were studied. Reconnaissance level design and cost estimates were made for ranges of transfer quantities. The Corps did not make a determination of the amounts of water that might be "surplus" to inbasin needs and thus available for diversion. Transfer quantities of less than two million acre-feet annually to 3.4 million acre-feet were investigated for alternative routings and sizes of facilities. Resulting cost estimates (total investment costs in 1977 dollars) ranged from $2.9 billion to $7.4 billion for a 10-year construction period, and from $4.4 billion to $11.2 billion for a 20-year period for delivery to terminal reservoirs. Unit costs (per acre-foot) of water delivered to terminal storage reservoirs under the alternative routes projected by the Corps from Missouri River sources ranged from $227 to $335. These costs are significantly in excess of the ability to pay for imported water by irrigation agriculture, in the time frame of

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the High Plains Study to year 2020. They also do not include the additional water distribution costs from terminal storage to farm headgates. Western Arkansas Basins In addition to the potential diversions to the High Plains region from the Missouri River basin, the Corps also assessed the feasibility of interstate, interbasin transfers into the region from several streams in western Arkansas and northeastern Texas. The Arkansas, Ouachita, Red, and White rivers of western Arkansas, and the Sulfur and Sabine rivers in Texas were considered as possible sources. Water transfer quantities for the southern alternative routes ranged from 1.26 maf per year to almost 8.7 maf annual diversion. Unit costs per acre-foot of water delivered to terminal storage sites by the two alternative southern routes of importation to the High Plains region ranged from $430 to $569, considerably more costly than the projected northern routes. The Mississippi River System The large flood flows of the Mississippi have long been studied as a potential source for water export. Key questions raised by in-basin interests are the long-term water needs of in-basin users, high minimum flow requirements to repel intrusion of salt water up-river from the Gulf and for sediment transport, and the need for maintenance of fresh water inflows into coastal bays and estuaries of Louisiana. The extremely limited availability of storage for intermittent diversions of flood flows when they occur is a major roadblock to export from the Mississippi. A feasibility study by the Mississippi River Commission in 1973 of diverting water from the Lower Mississippi River Basin to West Texas and eastern New Mexico exemplifies previous studies of the Mississippi as a potential source basin. 6 The study indicates a technical feasibility for such diversions, but a high cost of delivered water, at about $330 per acre-foot. Total capital costs for the system were estimated at $19.5 billion in 1972 dollars. WEATHER MODIFICATION Weather modification projects throughout the West have shown variable results to date. While some statistically significant precipitation enhancement results can be documented, they are not consistent and dependable, particularly for the

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convective (summertime) cloud systems of the Great Plains area. Wintertime and high altitude (orographic) cloud seeding programs have been relatively more effective than the summertime experiments, particularly for increasing snowpacks, but significant operational and institutional problems confront all weather modification projects. A related area of water supply augmentation is found in the treatment and management of snow accumulations in those regions or altitudes where significant snowpacks occur. Ongoing research and trials of methods and materials for improving water yields, decreasing evaporative losses, and managing the rate and timing of runoff from snow fields show promise of more dependable water supply management from this source. By the late 70s, the scientific community (cf. U.S. Interdepartmental Committee on Atmospheric Sciences or ICAS)7 generally accepted the operational capability for seeding wintertime (orographic) clouds to increase precipitation by a factor of 10 to 20 percent. On the basis of a 15 percent increase in snowpack due to seeding, it has been projected that an additional 2+ million acre-feet of water per year, average, could be produced in the Colorado River Basin, at a (1977) cost of about $1.50 per acrefoot. In agricultural use, irrigation benefits are estimated at about $50 per acre-foot of available water. Most other uses have higher per acre-foot values than agriculture. Such large-scale precipitation enhancement would require much larger federal/state cooperative projects than have been attempted to date. A largely unresolved question is, who owns the additional water produced? WATER HARVESTING-WATER BANKING A local water supply enhancement method that has seen extensive development and use in the Mid-East, Africa, and other parts of the world, but limited application in the U.S., is the socalled "water harvesting" technique. This consists essentially of intensive watershed and vegetative management on nearby noncultivated lands, in order to capture or "harvest" the water for use on cultivated areas. There are extensive areas throughout the West where this technique could be applied. "Water banking" is a technique for capturing available surface water in excess of immediate needs and overwatering areas with favorable infiltration rates. Excess waters are "banked" in groundwater storage through deep percolation for later recapture.

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Such projects would necessarily be extensive in nature and involve many landholders. Where state laws direct the acquisition of groundwater rights, many questions of law as well as equity arise with respect to ownership of the banked water supply.

CONJUNCTIVE USE The coordinated management of groundwater and usable underground storage capacity with surface water resources and surface storage as an integrated system can often increase available water supplies and reduce costs. The techniques for achieving conjunctive use vary with the specific situation involved. For example, where surface storage is limited or there is none, surface runoff that would otherwise be lost can be stored underground by artificial recharge for later extraction and use. Available surface storage can be used to regulate variable runoff to increase artificial recharge capability. Groundwater can be used to meet peak demands with resultant savings in transmission costs in some cases. Water storage underground minimizes evaporation losses. A degree of natural treatment results from passage of surface water through the soil column in transit to the water table. This is particularly important where polluted surface water or treatment and reclamation of wastewaters are involved. It is emphasized, however, that to achieve full benefits of the conjunctive use potential, the management plan must be based upon thorough considerations of hydrology, geology, and man-induced influences. A carefully planned program of groundwater extractions with respect to areal pattern, amounts, and timing is required in order to maximize the potential for use of underground storage. The possibility of interference with vested groundwater rights must be recognized and any necessary arrangements made for compensation, either in-kind or monetary. Conjunctive use has been extensively practiced in parts of Southern California in a variety of ways for many years with a high degree of success. Here, runoff is highly variable, available surface storage is very limited and costly, and groundwater basins are extensive, although the availability of land for artificial recharge operations is now limited. Artificial recharge and underground storage are used for conservation of local

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runoff, for storage and distribution of imported water, and for treatment and storage of reclaimed water. Groundwater rights in several basins have been abjudicated. In at least one other basin, adjudication has not been necessary through acquiescence of the water users who have been more interested in assurance of an adequate water supply of good quality than in legal protection of water rights. Equitable physical solutions have been provided in all cases. The State of California and local agencies are now developing plans to conjunctively use underground storage capacity in Southern California for long-term carryover storage of surplus water from Northern California imported by the State Water Project. DESALTING/USE OF BRACKISH WATER There are modest success stories to relate in agricultural water supply enhancement for the semiarid West. The U.S. Salinity Laboratory and brackish water use programs in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and other western states have shown significant progress in water management, crop adaptations, soil treatments, and other agricultural techniques for the use of brackish and moderately saline waters. Most western states have sources of largely unused brackish water, both ground and surface, that could be developed for agricultural purposes. The State of New Mexico is estimated to have about 15 billion acre-feet of saline groundwaters (salinity ranges of 1,500 to 15,000 mg/L TDS). The economic and operational feasibility of using typical saline waters representative of New Mexico groundwaters has been investigated for several years. A variety of crops and cropping systems have been demonstrated to have suitable tolerance for such saline irrigation. Many of the more common field crops grown in the West—small grains, cotton, alfalfa, grain sorghums and others—demonstrate this adaptation. The processes of desalting have yet to be established as a large-scale solution to the problem of providing new agricultural water supplies. The increasing costs of the very large amounts of energy required for desalting have made this potential less and less attractive. Continued advances in geothermal or solar energy generation processes may provide in the future a way to treat the available brackish to saline waters on a large scale.

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WATER RECLAMATION AND REUSE The potential for reusing water, and the requirements for reclaiming it, restoring it to a quality suitable for reuse, and redistributing it among users, is a cycle of legal, engineering, esthetic, and environmental complexity. Yet, since water is not destroyed by use, it is a cycle nature has always provided. The problems are twofold: separation of use and reuse over time and geography, and the persistent pollutants which our civilization manages to insert into the cycle. The technology for treating wastewater to the point of making it suitable for reuse for irrigation is available, although public health questions about direct reuse for human consumption remain. Certainly the reallocation of reclaimed water to industrial and agricultural users is well within existing technology. However, irrigated areas where significant volumes of reclaimed water could be used are generally at considerable distances, often with ranges of intervening hills or mountains, from the urban areas where large amounts of wastewater are generated, thus adding significantly to the cost. An example is irrigation in the San Joaquin Valley of California, many miles from the metropolitan areas of the San Francisco Bay region and Southern California. In irrigated agriculture, the increased efficiencies of present practices generally result in full use of applied water, with tailwater recovery and reuse a common practice. Opportunities for improved reuse of agricultural waters still exist on a limited basis, but do not represent significant potentials. Continued research into reuse, and its systematic inclusion in the water resource allocation planning process, are necessary steps in achieving the full potential of this measure. IMPROVING EXISTING PROJECT OPERATIONS Many projects, in fact most existing projects for surface water development, were planned and authorized under planning concepts, standards and criteria, economic conditions, projected downstream needs, projected upstream depletions, operational criteria, contractual requirements, and political attitudes that differed significantly from those prevailing today. This is true of the main stem developments on the Missouri River, the Federal

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Central Valley Project in California, and the California State Water Project, to mention but three examples. At the times these projects were originally planned and authorized, little if any thought was given to the potential for increased yield through conjunctive use with groundwater resources, to the potential benefits which could result from integrated operation with other projects on a "systems" basis, to requiring efficient use of water by water service contractors, or to operating the projects on benefit/risk basis, among other potentials for increasing yields. As stated above, the Missouri River was studied by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a potential source of water for exportation for irrigation in the High Plains area of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, under the recently completed federally funded High Plains-Ogallala Aquifer Regional Resources Study. The Missouri is now controlled by six main stem dams and reservoirs—Fort Peck, completed in 1935, and the other five authorized under the Pick-Sloan Plan by the Flood Control Act of 1944. By the authorizing legislation, these projects are committed to navigation, flood control, hydropower, and irrigation, municipal, and industrial uses in the basin states. The Corps studies indicated that, under the present authorizations and commitments, little if any surplus water would be available for exportation without encroachment on navigation, hydropower generation, and future in-basin uses. However, more recent projections of in-basin uses and depletions are significantly lower, and questions have been raised as to the justification under present conditions for the present allocation of storage and water for the limited navigational use of the Missouri River to Sioux City. More water might be available for both in-basin use and exportation were the allocation and the operational criteria to be changed to accord with today's projected conditions and needs. Were the Federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project, both of which divert from the Sacramento River and tributaries and from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, to be operated as an integrated system with proper regard for hydrologic diversity, there could be a potential increase in yield of 500,000 to 1,000,000 acre-feet per year. Hydroenergy production might also be increased. Conjunctive use with groundwater resources would provide additional benefits. Any proposal to improve the efficiency of operation of existing projects would require Congressional and state approval. No

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doubt there would be strong opposition from some present project beneficiaries. The potential for increased water supply and other benefits seems to warrant the attempt. BETTER ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES The discussion above of improved management and operation of existing projects implies reallocations of current supplies and allocation of augmented supplies in accordance with today's needs and conditions. There are also situations where undeveloped resources could be allocated and developed to sustain current uses. Only one example will be discussed here, that of the undeveloped groundwater resources of the High PlainsOgallala Aquifer region of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. In 1980, of the total of 140.8 million acres in the High Plains area, over 15 million acres were irrigated with groundwater extracted from the Ogallala and associated aquifers. It is projected that 5.4 million acres will revert to dryland farming or be abandoned by 2020 because of physical or economic exhaustion of the underlying groundwater resources if no new remedial actions are taken. The rate of reversion will accelerate thereafter. Of the more than 125 million acres of nonirrigated land in the region, another 17 million acres were in dry cropland. Of the total area, almost 30 million acres are classified as marginal for irrigation, but are suitable for some types of dryland production such as grazing. These nonirrigated areas are underlain with groundwater resources in amounts that vary with location. It is suggested that the groundwater resources underlying the marginal lands, and some of the other lands not especially well suited for irrigation, might be developed and conveyed over time to the presently irrigated lands and the nonirrigated prime lands that may go under irrigation. Of course, it would be necessary to obtain, by direct purchase or by condemnation, the water rights or surface development rights of those lands and owners from which the underlying waters would be purchased. Some changes in state laws would be necessary. There would be some legal/institutional difficulties to be overcome. This concept would have several advantages: • The lands from which the water would be taken could remain in their present uses or other dryland uses.

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• There would be a number of relatively small projects which could be implemented at the appropriate times with respect to the declining availability of underlying water for the recipient lands, as contrasted to one or two very large importation projects. Implementation could be accomplished in stages. • The investments required at any one time would be relatively small. • Implementation could be accomplished by local public agencies rather than the master regional agency required for a large importation project. • The elevation differences are relatively small and pumping costs would be much less than for importation. • Surface storage reservoirs would not be required, thus minimizing evaporation losses. • Total costs should be significantly lower. • At least some of the owners no doubt would welcome the money derived from sale of their groundwater rights, which they might not ever exercise on their own behalf.

GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT/RECHARGE Artificial recharge is frequently touted as a principal technique to be applied for alleviation of the present water supply deficiencies in the West. Artificial recharge is already being widely applied throughout the West. However, application of this technique to new situations will depend on the availability of water for increased recharge that would otherwise be lost for beneficial use. There is now little surface water wasted in the West on a regional or river basin basis; most surface water is already being used for one or more beneficial purposes. The feasibility of artificial recharge also depends on the availability of sufficient usable underground storage and transmission

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capacities. Effective artificial recharge requires land and physical facilities. The investment and operation and maintenance costs may be substantial. In some states, there are legal questions as to the ownership of and control over the recharged water, i.e., the right to recapture. There are opportunities for further augmentation of usable supplies in the West through artificial recharge, but they are not widespread. Artificial recharge will be particularly valuable for the underground storage of imported and reclaimed waters. OTHER POSSIBILITIES AND RESEARCH NEEDS One very new technology may have potential application in areas throughout the West that have already seriously depleted available groundwaters. Methods are undergoing testing in the south area of the Texas High Plains for the secondary recovery of additional groundwater supplies from the unsaturated zones of an aquifer. The concept is that in many aquifers, as much or more water remains in the formations after depletion by usual extraction methods, due to molecular or capillary attraction, as was removed by normal gravitational (pumping) forces. This could represent a very significant supplemental water supply if this ongoing research demonstrates both a technical and costeffective capability. A variety of techniques for reducing nonproductive losses of water by evaporation, transpiration, and/or by losses to runoff or deep percolation to nonrecoverable areas such as saline sinks or aquifers are being investigated. Methods to improve infiltration and deep percolation on-site, and to reduce losses to nonproductive deep rooted vegetation like phreatophytes and noxious brush species, hold out strong prospects for local water enhancement in the West, but more research is needed. CONCLUSIONS Certainly there are no "quick fixes" for new water supplies for the semiarid West. Nor, to continue in the vernacular, are there any "free lunches". With complete rational planning and management, and no objections from the source areas, interbasin diversions of water could be achieved to the probable benefit of all concerned. The reality is that even on a small scale, the

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probabilities are not great. Fear of exploitation on the part of export areas, and an appearance of greedy provincialism in some areas seeking imports, combine to create almost impenetrable barriers to the successful implementation of any diversion scheme. Lack of available funding now precludes large-scale structural solutions to problems of water supplies for irrigation. Other processes show promise, but the potential for a significant breakthrough in local water supply or large-scale water supply augmentation for the West in the foreseeable future is limited. A state-of-the-art evaluation of a large set of emerging technologies for enhancing local water supplies, while not consistently discouraging or pessimistic, nevertheless offers small relief for the major irrigated agricultural production areas of the West, which are presently dependent on seriously overdrafted groundwater sources or very limited surface water supplies. Significant projects are still underway for agricultural water supply enhancement. Examples are the extensive weather modification and precipitation management research programs; the adaptation and use of brackish and saline waters for certain crops; and the secondary recovery of additional waters from aquifers where gravitational waters have already been depleted due to overdraft. These and other methods may provide some temporary and partial water supply sources for western agriculture, but none provide long-term solutions to the water crisis. These are nonetheless the only solutions, limited as they are, that appear to be implementable for many years. Notes and References 1. William G. Dunn, "Summary of Reports on Possible Water Import Plans from Canada," Woodside, California, June 1980 (unpublished paper). Also, "The Rocky Mountain Plan," ASCE National Convention, Dallas, Texas, April 27, 1977. 2. Roland P. Kelly, NAWAPA Plan Can Work, Energy Report, National Energy Research and Information Institute, La Verne, California, June/July 1982. 3. Lewis Gordy Smith, Western States Water Augmentation Concept, Federation of Rocky Mountain States, Inc., Denver, Colorado, Monograph, 1967. 4. Joel Schwarz, "California Lifeline - A History of the State Water Project," Aqueduct, Vol. 48:2, Sacramento, California, 1982. 5. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Water Transfer Elements of High Plains • Ogallala Aquifer Study, Dallas, Texas, January 1982. 6. Mississippi River Commission, West Texas and Eastern New Mexico Water Impact Study, Vicksburg, Miss., October 1973.

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7. Homer E. Newell, A Recommended National Program in Weather Modification, Federal Council for Science and Technology, Interdepartmental Committee for Atmospheric Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1976.

Discussion: Herman Bouwer New water supplies or water importation schemes usually mean transferring water from places where the supply exceeds the demand to places where the demand exceeds the supply, or from places where the economic returns from the water use are low to where they are high, all in accordance with the second fundamental law in hydraulics: water runs uphill—to money! This does not bode well for agriculture, which traditionally is accustomed to inexpensive water for irrigation. Rather than for irrigated agriculture to acquire additional water supplies, current trends seem to be more in the opposite direction, i.e., sales of irrigation water rights for municipal and industrial uses. The authors have done an excellent job in summarizing the various large water-transfer schemes that have been proposed over the years, and other possibilities for augmenting local water supplies. One source not mentioned is icebergs that would be towed from the Antarctic. Is this no longer a viable concept? Accurate cost figures for large water transfer schemes are difficult to obtain. Preliminary estimates all indicate, however, that costs are high: capital costs of several thousand dollars per acre-foot per year capacity, and total costs of several hundred dollars per acre-foot at the aqueduct or reservoir. To this must be added the cost of further distribution of the water to the points of use. For a simple project like the Central Arizona Project where water will be pumped from the Colorado River and transported a few hundred miles into south central Arizona, construction costs are already about 2.4 billion dollars for a capacity of 1.2 million acre-feet per year (or about $2,000 per acre-foot per year), and this does not include the cost of getting the water from the main aqueducts and reservoirs to the points of use. The cost of the water to consumers is projected at $52 per acre-foot for agricultural users and $82.50 for municipal and industrial users, again at the main aqueduct. These figures will soon be revised, probably upward. The cost of water in southern California from the California Aqueduct is about $100 per acre-foot. This figure could double in 1983, as new contracts for electric

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power will be negotiated. New projects can be expected to be a lot more expensive. Man-made obstacles (legal, social, environmental, etc.) to large transfer projects seem more difficult to overcome than the technical problems, which can be solved by good engineering. It should be possible, however, to develop long-range projections of water needs for selected basins, to identify basins of water surplus and water deficit, to design water transfer projects, and, if economically and environmentally attractive, to build them. The Sporhase decision (Sporhase v. Nebraska, U.S. Supreme Court, 2 July 1982), which declared groundwater an article of interstate commerce subject to congressional regulation, may help overcome political opposition from water surplus states against export of water to deficient areas. Long-term economic and social values for the life of the project should be considered rather than payout period economic aspects which, because of present cost levels for water, are almost always unfavorable. To translate from the Dutch, "A nation that lives builds for its future"! If we leave out the element of moving water over great distances, development of new water supplies simply means transferring water from a use with a low economic return to one with a higher economic return. This, of course, includes water conservation, where losses and wastes of water are reduced and put to more beneficial use. In view of the costs and the many difficulties of water transfer schemes, water conservation is increasingly considered as the best and most immediate solution to problems of water shortage. The authors allude to water conservation and increased irrigation efficiency, as do other chapters in this volume. However, further discussion of some opportunities for water conservation seems warranted. One such opportunity is to reduce water use by agriculturally nonbeneficial vegetation such as phreatophytes in floodplains. Phreatophytes have been estimated to cover about 15 million acres in the western states and to consume about 25 million acre-feet of water per year. This is the equivalent of 20 Central Arizona Projects! Complete eradication of the phreatophytes, as advocated a few decades ago, is not compatible with wildlife and scenic considerations. Thus, selective removal will be more acceptable. Proper control can be achieved by keeping the phreatophytes away from the water (by selective cutting and floodplain management), or by keeping the water away from the phreatophytes (by lowering groundwater levels or reducing seepage from stream channels). Care should be taken that

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replacement vegetation does not use appreciable amounts of water. With the high cost of imported water, saving water by phreatophyte control may become attractive. Runoff farming offers great potential for the millions of acres of marginal lands with insufficient rainfall or irrigation water for normal crop production. Crops can then be grown in widelyspaced rows at the base of contour strips that have been treated chemically or mechanically to increase runoff from rainfall, thus concentrating the rain on the crops. The systems can be designed to yield more runoff than can be used by the crops for evapotranspiration, thus increasing deep percolation from the crop rows and producing more groundwater recharge. Runoff farming and replenishment irrigation have great potential for the management of abandoned irrigated land, which otherwise could develop problems of dust and tumbleweeds. The crops should be deep-rooted or drought-tolerant to survive long periods of no rain. Supplemental irrigation may be desirable. Reuse of wastewater, particularly municipal wastewater, requires considerable advanced planning to ensure that the treatment plants and the irrigated fields are not too far apart, and that land treatment or groundwater recharge opportunities can be utilized. If partially treated wastewater can be put underground with infiltration basins and pumped from wells after it has moved through the vadose zone and aquifer to become "renovated water", the cost of treating the wastewater to meet the public health, agronomic, and aesthetic requirements for unrestricted irrigation can be greatly reduced. There are also increasing trends toward local or on-site reuse of municipal wastewater for landscape irrigation, golf courses, cemeteries, etc. Last but not least, there is irrigation efficiency, which often is the center of attention because irrigation uses so much water (almost 90 percent of all water in Arizona, 85 percent in California) and field irrigation efficiencies are low. Many people have the misconception that a field irrigation efficiency of 60 percent means that only 60 percent of the irrigation water is effectively used, and 40 percent is wasted. Of course this is not true. The forty percent of the water not used by the crop in this case is in the form of runoff at the lower end of the field and/or of deep percolation from the root zone. Both types of water can be recovered and reused again. For this reason, the irrigation efficiency of entire irrigation districts or irrigated valleys is much higher than the efficiencies of individual fields. As the saying goes, "the upper basin's inefficiency is the lower basin's water resource."

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The real loss of water is the consumptive use or évapotranspiration, and that does not change much with irrigation efficiency. However, if the irrigation efficiency is increased, for example from 65 to 85 percent, less energy is needed for pumping, and higher yields are generally obtained, because of better water management and reduced leaching of fertilizer. This is really the main purpose of increasing irrigation efficiency: to increase crop yield per unit of water consumptively used. It is, of course, also possible to reduce évapotranspiration by not growing crops in the hottest part of the year (late season cotton, winter vegetables instead of summer crops, etc.) and increase water use efficiency that way. However, the main prospects for water saving in irrigation lie in increasing crop yields. Average crop yields typically are only about 20 percent of record values, so there is still room for improvement in crop management. Also, research should be greatly stepped up to create new, highyielding varieties, using new developments in genetic engineering. New approaches such as the use of growth hormones and biostimulators should be investigated with vigor. If we can double the yield per acre, the same crop can be produced with half the land, essentially half the water, and essentially half the salt load on the underlying groundwater due to deep percolation. Thus, growing the proverbial two blades of grass where only one would grow before is still the name of the game.

Discussion: Marion Marts The chapter by Banks, Williams, and Harris is a realistic and comprehensive assessment of the prospects for developing largescale new agricultural water supplies in the semiarid West. The authors conclude that the prospects are poor in the foreseeable future. This discussant shares this conclusion, and indeed with respect to large-scale importation would argue that the prospects approach zero. Let me elaborate on this latter point a bit, and then proceed to speculation on some broader issues. Large interregional transfer of water is an idea that won't go away, but whose time refuses to come. As the authors point out, the inhibiting factors have always been strong; my thesis is that they are growing stronger over time, so that whatever prospects once existed are fading. The Columbia River illustrates the point nicely.

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Then Assistant Secretary of the Interior William Warne's famous "climb the ladder of rivers to the north" speech stimulated the first major review of large-scale interstate water transfer: the Bureau of Reclamation's United Western Investigation, which in 1950 and 1951 reported on a reconnaissance of a variety of possibilities for transferring "surplus" Pacific Northwest water to the Southwest, but concluded that tapping anything north of the Klamath River was economically infeasible. It is interesting that even in that heyday of water project development, economic feasibility was a constraining criterion. Also interesting was the fact that certain northwest waters—the Rogue River and Flathead, Pend Oreille, and Coeur d'Alene Lakes—were declared sacred and off-limits. The investigation was quickly and quietly terminated when Northwest congressmen discovered what was going on. A blizzard of proposals followed the 1963 Arizona v. California decision. Anyone with a roadmap and pencil could play the game. By 1969, Bingham inventoried 14 interregional and 10 international proposals, and there were many variants of these. Banks and colleagues describe four of the major proposals as illustrations. Senator Jackson of Washington saw fit to take the Columbia out of the game by imposing a congressional moratorium, which effectively stopped federal agencies from planning to rearrange the Columbia. While high cost can be cured by massive subsidy, and political clout can erode over time, a new and very fundamental element has been added. This element is, surprisingly, shortage. Competition within the Columbia River Basin for water for hydropower, for anadromous fish, and for additional irrigation has become fierce—reinforced by two drought years in the 1970s. The Northwest Regional Power Council, for example, has accepted a calculation that provision of adequate spring flows for the juvenile salmon migrating to sea will cost in the order of 500 to 550 megawatts of firm power. In the same vein, irrigation expansion will impose annual power costs on the region amounting to more than $100 per acre irrigated—in some cases more than $200—from a combination of lost generation and consumption of electricity for pumping. Hydropower operation is now a claimant for water that once was surplus during the high flow season (late spring and early summer) as a result of upstream storage, the ability to sell electricity to the Southwest via the Intertie, and the gradual transition to peaking mode for the hydropower plants. Indian claims to water and fish are far from quieted, and will complicate the planning picture for years.

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All of these factors mean that there are substantial opportunity costs of diverting Columbia River water which must be included in any responsible benefit-cost analysis. The days when outflow to the seas could be considered surplus are gone. By extension, the principle of opportunity cost applies to all available rivers, although the details and values will vary. This is a powerful inhibition on any river pooling scheme. The authors illustrate this principle in the case of the Missouri River by pointing to the trade-off between navigation and out-of-basin diversion. Banks and his colleagues proceed from the impracticality of large water transfers to an excellent review of the possibilities of improving the efficiency with which available water supplies are used, and point out institutional factors—water laws, property rights, custom, etc.—which inhibit increased efficiency. I applaud this discussion and can only add, let's get on with it. But all of this suggests some interesting speculation. If my thesis that large water transfers have been priced out of the market is correct, does this mean that federal intervention and federal subsidy have lost their efficacy? What potential irrigation projects remain if we can't afford to augment? Does southern Idaho claim more Snake River water for irrigation regardless of the downstream costs in lost hydropower and fish? And into what maze does enhanced efficiency lead us? Will Wyoming surrender its rights to irrigate pastures in high mountain valleys to expand the intensive agriculture of the Imperial Valley? The social cost of interregional efficiency, like the cost of augmentation, may be excessive. The sobering fact is that state boundaries and state water codes constrain both efficiency and interstate transfer. If big augmentation and big efficiency are beyond us, what then ? Perhaps the time has come to accept the proposition that there is an inevitable equilibrium between availability and use of western water resources. There will no doubt be some modest additions here and there using locally available supplies, and some abandonment here and there as water tables drop or salinity rises, but these are just perturbations on the way to equilibrium. We may have seen the last of the large new irrigation projects in the West. The next ones may be in the Mississippi Valley, as we proceed to emulate the Italian experience in the Po river basin.

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A final comment about long distance transfer. We are habituated to think of interstate and international water transfers only in terms of large scale, and chiefly for irrigation. This creates the twin problems of large cost and low repayment capacity, compounded by the perception of unfair interregional competition. If we have long distance transfers in the foreseeable future, they will more likely be of modest volumes for specific and high-value uses, such as coal gasification or transport, or municipal use, analogous to oil and gas pipelines and perhaps even sharing the latters' rights-of-way. Such systems would have much greater social and economic acceptability than would canals built to move the equivalent of the Colorado River, and might help retard the transfer of irrigation water to industrial and urban areas in water-short areas. Macro-think has brought no large interstate water transfers in the three decades since the United Western Investigation, and may actually have impeded the search for more efficient allocation and use of available water. It may be time to try microthink.

Chapter 5

INCREASING EFFICIENCY OF NONAGRICULTURAL WATER USE

by J. Ernest Flack

ABSTRACT Increased efficiency in use of nonagricultural water can have a small but significantly important impact on water availability for irrigated agriculture in the West. Water withdrawal to meet commercial, industrial, and residential water demands is less than 5 percent of the withdrawal for agriculture, but meeting these demands ties up some of the most valued storage sites and earliest priority water rights. Conservation programs, if carefully designed, properly implemented, and fostered over the long term, can alleviate some of the adverse consequences that growing municipal and industrial water demands have on irrigation. Compared with flatrate, nonmetered water usage, savings of as much as one-third can be realized. Conservation can, however, have adverse effects on return flows to receiving streams and groundwater aquifers. The arid and semiarid West is the scene of important economic growth and opportunity, much of which is dependent on water resources development. While there are some disadvantages associated with this land of sharp contrasts, its attributes are attracting people and industry at rates well above the nation as a whole. A number of trends seriously impact the water resources of the area and its irrigation-based agricultural economy. These include rapidly increasing population concentrated in urban centers, industrialization, heavy recreational use of the natural environment, and energy resource development. The role of water is pivotal because there is not much undeveloped, unappropriated water remaining. Although all the water allocated or available to the various states is not now being used, virtually all of it is "spoken for" through various reservations, by conditional water rights, or preliminary permits to acquire appropriations. The result is sharp competition for water, especially in places and times of scarcity.

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Users can follow three possible strategies in meeting their projected demands for water withdrawals. These are to (a) develop new water supplies, (b) reduce the demand, and (c) transfer water from lower economic uses. In this paper, we focus on reducing the demand for water by nonagricultural water users. Since the municipal-industrial sector has the highest valuein-use of water, conservation is important because it affects transfers from lower economic uses, particularly irrigated agriculture. Agriculture uses by far the largest percentage of western water—90 to 95 percent in terms of both withdrawal and consumptive use. It must be emphasized, however, that just because one economic sector has a higher value-in-use than another, it will not necessarily "buy out" the entire lower valued use. For example, assume water is being transferred from a lower to a higher value-in-use. As the demand is met in the higher valued use, the marginal value per unit of water will fall until the incremental value-in-use of the two uses are the same and transfers cease. In plain language this means that municipal and industrial water users can, generally, purchase sufficient water from agriculture to meet their demands, but still leave large quantities in agriculture. A related but crucial issue is that the water rights acquired from agriculture, in order to be most useful to municipal and industrial interests, are the most senior rights that exhibit the greatest hydrologic and legal certainty. CHANGES IN URBAN RUNOFF The development and control of urban runoff can, to a degree, both reduce the demand for urban water and add to the supply. Stored runoff can be utilized to meet landscaping irrigation requirements of both public and private property. For instance, impervious areas such as tennis courts, streets, and parking lots can be constructed so that the runoff is stored for use in forming blueways and maintaining greenways. At the least, this source can be used to water public parks, commons, golf courses, planted medians, etc. Judicious use of stormwater could possibly supply one-fourth to one-half of the public water demands of a city in the West.

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Reuse of Municipal Wastewater Water utilities have always sought to alleviate supply problems by developing new sources. Traditionally, water has been supplied to municipal residents, used, treated, and then discharged as wastewater effluent. The reuse of wastewater can reduce the demand for new water supplies. Recycling Recycling of water has been practiced since the beginnings of civilization. The unplanned successive use of the wastewater of one settlement by downstream communities has increased with rising populations. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that during low flow periods the proportion of wastewater in some surface water supplies may exceed eighteen percent, with an average of about three and one-half percent. 1 The planned reuse of water for some uses, generally nonpotable, has been recognized by many as a viable alternative to new water supplies. 2 The advantages are obvious: water withdrawals and wastewater discharge are reduced in magnitude. A new level of interest in water recycling has been generated as the result of research in advanced wastewater treatment. The costs of advanced treatment have been reduced and approach more closely the costs for raw water supply treatment. 3 Recycling systems can be divided into two general categories, indirect reuse and direct reuse. Indirect reuse involves the discharge of a wastewater into a surface or groundwater supply and then subsequent reuse of the water in a diluted form. Wastewater can be used directly in irrigation, by industry, and for some nonpotable residential applications. A 1975 survey indicated that 358 municipalities, located primarily in the Southwest, reuse wastewater for such purposes.4 Groundwater recharge using sewage effluent is presently practiced in many locations in the United States. The primary reuse is for irrigation with a small percentage being allocated for recreation, fire protection, and other municipal purposes. Endorsement of wastewater reuse has not been universal. Some authorities view it as a major solution to water supply problems, while others have voiced considerable concern. 5 The American Water Works Association and the Water Pollution Control Federation have issued a joint resolution recognizing the potential of wastewater recycling, but cautioning that further research is needed on the possible health hazards involved. Surveys of health officials have expressed similar concerns. The possible long-term effects of ingestion of low levels of viruses,

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organics and heavy metals that may be present in treated wastewater have not been determined. Questions relate to the frequency and the amount of recycled water ingested. Before recycled water can be used as a drinking water supply, most authorities agree that there is much more to be learned. 6 The acceptance of recycled water is of considerable importance in planning for wastewater reuse. Pagorski found that 81 percent of a sample survey population were willing to use recycled water if it was guaranteed to be safe. 7 Bruvold and Ongerth found that the degree of acceptance decreases with higher body contact. 8 A survey in the Denver area showed that half the sample population would accept purified wastewater for drinking. 9 On the other hand, Gallup reported that 54 percent of those surveyed opposed drinking recycled sewage. 10 Studies by Sims and Baumann 11 and by Greenberg 12 correlated higher reuse acceptance with higher levels of education. It appears that public attitudes currently oppose using recycled water for drinking, cooking, bathing, laundry, and swimming, but do not oppose its use for waste disposal and irrigation purposes. Methods of direct recycling range from those instituted on an individual basis to system-wide operations. The most costeffective means of recycling water is to reduce or minimize the treatment required. To better understand how recycling of water in the home can be accomplished and what type of treatment is needed, several authors have looked at the quality of each use effluent. 1314 A number of recommendations have resulted from these findings;15 see Table 5.1. Individual Home Recycling The waste stream from the various domestic water uses can be categorized as grey water or black water. Those flows containing high concentrations of organic matter are termed "black water", while flows polluted primarily with soap and detergent wastes are termed "grey water". Currently these two wastewaters are combined and discharged into the sewer system. McLaughlin found that a system separating the two wastewater streams and reusing the grey water for toilet flushing saved approximately 23 percent of normal water usage. 16 In 1969 Bailey and others made cost estimates on a number of types of individual home treatment systems for in-home water recycling. 17 Their general findings indicated that treatment costs were too high to make recycling cost-effective. A follow-up study by Cohen and Wallman indicated that average savings of between 23 and 26 percent of total water use could be obtained

Table 5.1 Potential for Residential Water Reuse Reuse M 00 çq

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