As officers from the Colorado River Basin States (AZ, CA, CO, NM, NV, UT and WY) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) struggle to reach consensus on how one can handle the declining river after 2026 when present agreements expire, some issues stay clear.
First, Colorado River water utilization exceeds provide, evident within the continued decline of the Colorado River’s reservoirs that have been full 25 years in the past. At present, they sit two-thirds empty.
Second, options are urgently wanted. Almost 40 million folks depend upon the Colorado River water provide, and 400 fowl species depend upon the Colorado River’s habitats. Water wants throughout the basin should be met with out harming the final remaining Colorado River-dependent habitats, together with the Ciénega de Santa Clara in Sonora, Mexico.
Sadly, some water customers are reviving curiosity in restarting the Yuma Desalting Plant, an antiquated U.S. facility in southwestern Arizona that, if operated, would negatively influence important fowl habitat.
Earlier this month, the board of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (the company that manages the Central Arizona Challenge, the 336-mile lengthy canal that delivers Colorado River water to central and southern Arizona) proposed a measure to assist operation of the Yuma Desalting Plant, particularly calling on the federal authorities to prioritize decreasing “the influence of the bypass flows on the Colorado River system.” This obscure point out of “bypass flows” is a direct reference to the water that provides the Ciénega de Santa Clara, the biggest remaining wetland within the long-desiccated Colorado River Delta. Extracting water from this ecosystem may have devastating impacts on the pure heritage and wildlife of the Colorado River Basin and will lengthen to the migrating birds of the Pacific Flyway.
As Audubon implements Flight Plan—our technique to preserve 300 million acres of high quality, related, and climate-resilient habitat—defending and restoring fowl habitats whereas bettering the well being and reliability of our water provides for communities is a precedence for our Colorado River program.
Origins of the Ciénega de Santa Clara
The Ciénega gives essential habitat, meals, and shelter for a whole lot of 1000’s of birds who migrate north and south alongside the Pacific Flyway, together with the Western Sandpiper, American Avocet, and Snowy Plover. It additionally helps the world’s largest remaining inhabitants of the endangered Yuma Ridgway’s Rail, a reclusive fowl residing within the marshes.
In 1972, within the wake of adopting water high quality requirements for Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico, the US labored with Mexico to construct a canal (referred to as the Important Outlet Drain Extension, or “MODE”) to divert salty agricultural drainage water from the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District in southern Arizona away from the Colorado River. This canal diverted the water provides away from the river as a result of farms downriver in Mexico’s Mexicali Valley had been experiencing harm to their salt-sensitive crops. The salty water within the MODE canal is named the “bypass move” as a result of it bypasses the Colorado River.
For greater than 40 years, the “bypass move” of roughly 100,000 acre-feet of salty water has flowed within the MODE canal, emptying east of the Colorado River into the mudflats of the previous Colorado River Delta and creating the Ciénega de Santa Clara. Within the context of the Colorado River Delta, the place practically 2 million acres of wetland habitat disappeared because the Colorado River was dammed and diverted during the last century, the Ciénega is the biggest remaining wetland.
At greater than 44,500 acres, this important wetland contains:
- Cattail marshes that filter water, stabilize sediments, and supply cowl for wildlife
- Open water areas that nourish fish populations, present resting areas for waterfowl, and preserve hydrological connections
- Mud flats that function necessary feeding grounds for shorebirds and wading birds, supporting wealthy invertebrate prey
Mexico acknowledges the Ciénega de Santa Clara’s significance, and in 1993, together with the United Nations Instructional, Scientific, and Cultural Group (UNESCO) designated the Ciénega as a Biosphere Reserve. In 1997, the Ciénega was designated a Ramsar Conference Wetland of Worldwide Significance.
Audubon’s own science repeatedly paperwork the outsized significance of the Colorado River Delta—significantly the Ciénega—for birds.
Issues with the Yuma Desalting Plant
The Yuma Desalting Plant, an antiquated facility in southwestern Arizona, was constructed between 1975 and 1992 to deal with the salty “bypass move” so it might be returned to the Colorado River and despatched to Mexico. The plant operated solely briefly in 1993 earlier than it was broken by floods and since then has largely sat dormant. Restarting the plant would have important impacts.
Operation at simply one-third of the Yuma Desalting Plant’s capability would divert roughly 25 p.c of the bypass move at present sustaining the Ciénega, whereas disposing high-salinity brine focus into the MODE canal, considerably diminishing each the amount and high quality of water flowing to the Cienega threatening the ecosystem with collapse and placing a whole lot of 1000’s of birds in danger.
Bringing the Yuma Desalting Plant again into common operation at simply one-third of its full capability for 20 years would require not less than $670-704 million, in addition to further unknown prices to deal with environmental harm.
Past ecological impacts, operation of the Yuma Desalting Plant may jeopardize many years of binational collaboration between the US and Mexico. The wetland stands as each a significant ecosystem and an emblem of shared stewardship between the US and Mexico. Undermining it may erode the diplomatic basis of the binational Colorado River partnership, complicating future negotiations and diminishing Arizona’s skill to pursue cooperative options—similar to binational desalination research—that promise mutual profit on either side of the border.
In the end, it’s not clear that operation of the Yuma Desalting Plant would enhance the Central Arizona Water Conservation District’s Colorado River provide. The 1974 Colorado River Basin Salinity Management Act stipulates that “substitute of the reject stream from the desalting plant and of any Wellton-Mohawk drainage water bypassed to the Santa Clara Slough (the bypass move) […] is acknowledged as a nationwide obligation.” This provision has ensured that the “bypass move” has not counted in the direction of Arizona’s use of Colorado River water. If the Yuma Desalting Plant have been to function and the bypass flows lowered, the Central Arizona Water Conservation District may have to scale back its Colorado River diversion by that very same quantity of water.
Options for a Shrinking Colorado River
Luckily, there are answers that we will pursue with out sacrificing birds and different wildlife that already wrestle within the Colorado River Basin the place greater than a century of dams and water growth eradicated many of the wetlands and riverside forests they should survive.
The USBR has proposed and applied initiatives and applications to extend Colorado River water availability. These embody: 1) enlargement of water regulating storage in current reservoirs on the Decrease Colorado River to seize flows from native rainstorms and assist ship water extra exactly downstream; 2) improved administration of salty agricultural return flows in Arizona’s Gila Valley; and three) system conservation agreements that present compensation to water customers who voluntarily and quickly preserve water in Lake Mead.
Underneath the frameworks of Minutes 323 and 330—the U.S.-Mexico Colorado River collaborative agreements—Mexico is creating advantages for water customers in each nations by implementing water effectivity initiatives within the Mexicali Valley, similar to canal lining and set up of automated water management constructions, in addition to water conservation with applications that present compensation to water customers who voluntarily and quickly preserve water. America and Mexico studied the potential for big ocean desalination amenities that might function with the very best accessible know-how to keep away from environmental impacts and will present new water provides for Colorado River water customers in each nations.
Moreover, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the biggest city provider counting on Colorado River water, teed up an intensive city potable reuse challenge and is inviting city water suppliers from Arizona and Nevada to share within the challenge’s prices and advantages.
The problem of shrinking Colorado River provides is daunting, however alternatives to satisfy that problem with out harming the final remaining Colorado River-dependent habitats abound. The Ciénega de Santa Clara is an irreplaceable ecological asset and any resolution to function the Yuma Desalting Plant should account for each ecological safety, financial practicalities, and binational water administration aims. Conservation and reuse usually supply more cost effective and fewer dangerous approaches to water safety than operation of the Yuma Desalting Plant. Audubon hopes the board of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District will rethink.
