Whose Water Is It?
- 1/7/2004
by Barbara Fairchild
In Georgia, Marty McLendon auctioned off surface water rights to more than 100
acres to help maintain water levels in the Flint River during a recent
drought. In Oregon, farmer Marshall Staunton doesn’t know from one growing
season to another if he or the fish will have rights to the water in the
Klamath Basin.
Rapid population growth in parts of the U.S. is drinking up water resources
faster than they can be refreshed. As a result, farmers and aquatic species
are getting squeezed. As the competition increases, it begs the question:
Whose water is it?
The basis of Marty McLendon’s water problems started more than a decade ago,
when Florida sued Georgia for restricting water flow in the Apalachicola,
Chattahoochee, Flint river basin. The basin feeds Florida’s Apalachicola
Bay, home to an active fin-fish industry and 90% of the state’s oyster
harvest.
Controversy over proposed upstream diversion of fresh water—primarily for
thirsty Atlanta—resulted in a flood of lawsuits, environmental impact
studies and piecemeal fixes.
One fix is the Flint River Drought Protection Act that pays farmers to not use
water by bidding surface water rights into the program. McLendon, one of 250
participating farmers, put marginal ground up for auction. “It’s hard to
justify taking the best land out of production. Asking bids ranged from $190
to $600 an acre,” McLendon says. He let more than 100 acres go for $190
each.
Even though a small percentage of eligible farmers participated, Rob McDowell
of Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division estimates the auction saved
61 million gallons of water per day during a time when water resources were
extremely limited. Other fixes include building new storage reservoirs,
promoting conservation tillage and improving irrigation efficiencies.
“There’s a moratorium on new irrigation permits in the Flint River Basin,
and irrigation growth will continue to be held back if we [farmers] don’t
become more efficient,” McLendon says.
A flowmeter law enacted by the 2003 Georgia legislature will help farmers know
how much water they pump. The Georgia Soil and Water Conservation Commission
will place measuring devices on 21,000 sites at no cost to pump owners.
Metering and auctions are a start to protecting future agricultural use of
Georgia’s water, but it may not be enough. “There are strong forces at
work to get more water for Atlanta,” says Woody Hicks, Joseph W. Jones
Ecological Research Center.
Meanwhile, a tri-state (Alabama, Florida, Georgia) compact to soothe the
troubled waters in Apalachicola Bay has dissolved. Florida governor Jeb Bush
refused to sign the agreement, saying the compact didn’t provide adequate
water for the Florida bay. The issue is in federal court.
Miles away, on the opposite side of the country, farmers in Oregon’s Klamath
Basin testify to the insensitivity of federal officials. In 2001, federal
agencies abruptly turned off the spigot that irrigates 200,000 acres in the
Klamath Basin Reclamation Project (one of many Bureau of Reclamation projects
designed to promote agriculture in the arid West) to protect the suckerfish,
an endangered species.
The battle between fish and farmer continues. “That year, farmers knew
before they planted a crop there would be no water,” says Dan Keppen,
executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA). “In 2003,
water was promised, so they planted accordingly. In mid-June, they were
notified water would be turned off for a week at the end of the month.”
By playing every political chip they had, the KWUA managed to keep water
flowing. Marshall Staunton, who farms land his grandfather homesteaded in
1927, says the biological opinion that triggered the near shutdown is too
restrictive.
“We were within an eyelash of a five-day shut-off when 98% of our expenses
were in the ground, and it was because of lowering the water level of a
25-mile-long lake a tenth of an inch,” Staunton says.
In the last two years, KWUA has fended off two congressional attempts to limit
their access to water and several other litigations. “We’ve won most of
the battles but feel like we’re losing the war,” Keppen says. “It’s
tough for project farmers to get operating loans when there’s no guarantee
they’ll have adequate water.”
A National Academy of Sciences committee report offers some hope. It absolves
Klamath project irrigators from endangering suckers and says the decision to
shut off the water in 2001 was unjustified. It also concludes the Klamath
project did not cause a 2002 downstream fish kill. Most importantly, it says
recovery of suckers and coho salmon cannot be achieved by actions that are
exclusively or primarily focused on operation of the Klamath Basin Reclamation
Project. Keppen points out that the project is only 200,000 acres in a 10.5
million acre watershed.
Like their brethren in Georgia, Klamath Basin farmers shoulder the burden of
conserving water. Some use precision land leveling to let water flow without
pooling. Others are shifting from flood irrigation to sprinklers. A federally
funded water bank encourages farmers to idle cropland at a rate of $187.50 per
acre.
But, as in Georgia, these are short-term fixes. “We need leadership to get
everybody to the same table. Then, perhaps, we’ll see progress toward
solving our water issues,” Keppen says.
Other Hot Spots
The war for water is not isolated to a few places. Agricultural water issues
are nationwide.
• Arkansas. A shallow alluvial aquifer is declining so rapidly that by 2015,
it will not sustain the 1,000 farms that cover about 250,000 acres in
Arkansas’ Grand Prairie region. Rice growers are looking for alternate water
sources. One plan calls for a $200,000 federal project to divert water from
the White River—a plan that invokes the ire of environmentalists concerned
for the habitat of black bears.
• Colorado. Rapid population growth pits cities against agriculture for
water resources. Thornton, a Denver suburb, purchased more than 120
farms—not for agricultural use but for their water rights. But because it is
too costly to transfer the water to the suburb, none of the water has been
used. Now Fort Collins may rent the water from Thornton. Ownership of water
from the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District has changed dramatically
since 1957, when the Colorado–Big Thompson Project came online. In its first
year of operation, 85% of its water was used by agriculture and 15% by
municipalities and industry. Today, agriculture uses only 39%, while municipal
and industrial use climbed to 61%.
• New Mexico. Farmers, municipalities and environmentalists disagree as to
how much water the silvery minnow, an endangered species, needs in the Middle
Rio Grande. • Arizona. Since 1992, suburban sprawl in Maricopa County,
Ariz., has eaten up 53% of the farmland, dropping total acres from 1.5 million
to fewer than 700,000. Subdivisions and shopping centers compete not only for
land but also for water.
Action plan. The Department of Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation
are addressing water allocation challenges like these in a program called
Water 2025: Preventing Crises and Conflict in the West. It focuses attention
on the explosive population growth in Western urban areas, the emerging need
for water for environmental and recreational uses and the importance of farm
production. A report prepared by the two agencies points out that in some
areas, the existing water supplies will be inadequate to satisfy the demands
of cities, farms and the environment even under normal water supply
conditions.
To prevent conflicts, the report calls for conservation, collaboration and
improved technology. Some possibilities include:
• Canal modernization. Bureau of Reclamation research shows that every
dollar spent returns $3 to $5 in conserved water.
• Water banks and markets. Water banks in Idaho already allow users to
transfer storage entitlements to other uses. The banks provide in-stream flows
for salmon on the Endangered Species Act list.
• Purification. Water 2025 looks to technology to purify and desalinate
water, making currently unusable sources available for human use.