March 31, 2006
Net Gain in Wetlands
A headline caught my eye today - Golf-Course Ponds Part of Net Gain in Wetlands. A brief quote from the article: "More people building ponds for golf courses and subdivisions or to retain storm water and wastewater helped create the nation's first net gain in wetlands in a half-century of government record keeping."
These kind of activities are going to put conservation hydrogeologists out of business!
Posted by: jlombard at 07:44 AM | link
Category: Hydrogeology
January 07, 2005
Arizona Water Poll Results
According to polling results, the Arizona Republic reported that nine out of ten Arizona residents favor giving rural leaders the power to stop new subdivisions if developers can't gaurantee a long-term water supply. These are interesting results that could indicate popular support for new laws to encourage careful balancing of water supply and demand in rural areas of the state.
Posted by: jlombard at 07:21 AM | link
Category: Policies
December 20, 2004
Gila River Agreement
The Arizona Water Settlements Act was signed by President Bush on December 10, 2004, and became Public Law 108-451. Senate Report 108-360 describes the Arizona Water Settlements Act, except that it does not contain the final language of several agreements that are specifically are authorized, ratified, and approved in the law. Among these are the Gila River Agreement and the UVD Agreement. To supplement the Senate report, here is the Gila River Agreement dated February 4, 2003, including the exhibits. Exhibit 26.2 is a draft of the UVD Agreement. This Adobe pdf file is about 95 MB, so it may take a long time to load or download.
Posted by: jlombard at 11:59 AM | link
Category: Policies
October 16, 2004
SPRNCA Federal Reserved Water Right
The Arizona Riparian Council held its fall meeting this weekend at the Gray Hawk Nature Center, along the San Pedro River, in Arizona. The center is within the boundaries of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, a 47-mile stretch of the San Pedro River in southern Arizona. SPRNCA was established by an act of Congress in 1988, and is now managed by the United States Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, specifically, by Bill Childress and his staff at the BLM. Bill spoke to the gathered Arizona Riparian Council members and guests, and had this to say about the future of the San Pedro River (the following four points are paraphrased from Bill's comments, and are taken from my notes made during the meeting):
1. 'The BLM will be seeking to perfect its Federal reserved water right for the SPRNCA later this year, and will ask for a volume of water, including groundwater, river flood-water, and river base-flow, that is sufficient to protect and enhance aquatic and riparian wildlife habitat within the reserve'.
2. 'Historically, the San Pedro River hosted 13 native fish species, of which only four remain extant today. The BLM is seeking to re-establish more species of native fish in the river'.
3. 'The volume of river base flow that BLM plans to request will be based on the volume of base flow available in the river in 1988, and is a larger amount than usually occurs now. The base flow in the San Pedro River generally becomes smaller each year due to deficit groundwater pumping in the valley aquifers that also supply the river'.
4. 'The BLM will continue to work within the framework of the Upper San Pedro Partenership to resolve water resources management conflicts between the Federal reserved water right in the SPRNCA and the groundwater uses by surrounding communities'.
Here is the link to Special Master Schade's order to the United States to submit a status report on technical studies that were prepared to substantiate the claimed flow for SPRNCA.
Posted by: jlombard at 11:11 PM | link | Comments (0)
Category: Policies
September 21, 2004
Virtual Water
This article in The Guardian explains the idea of "virtual water", or the idea that global trade in grains and food also trades the water used to irrigate or produce the crops. In essence, it makes sense to grow crops in regions of the globe where the climate is best suited for maximum productivity and then traded to water-scarce areas. An excerpt from the article:
Water is present in the food we produce, as well: not as an ingredient, but as an element in its production (remember, 90% of water consumption takes place during food production).
To understand the full implications of that, take the case of the desert regions of the Middle East and North Africa. Those areas entered a period of dangerous strategic water deficits in the early 1970s. If ever there was a good time to suffer a severe water shortage, that was it.
The early 1970s saw the farmers of North America and Europe putting staple grains on the world market at half their production cost. They are still doing that, aided by production and export subsidies that will be difficult to unpick within the next 20 years. It takes so much water to produce those vast mountains of grain that when they are exported they amount, in effect, to a global trade in water. That process can spectacularly fix water shortages. It takes 1,000 tonnes of water to produce a tonne of grain, so by importing grain, water-scarce economies can avoid the stress of trying to develop their own water sources for food production. And because 20% of the world's agricultural production is traded internationally, farmers and traders can move this "virtual water" in volumes and over distances beyond the wildest imaginings of engineers.
The trade in virtual water addresses the biggest water challenge for both individuals and nations facing water scarcity: how to use water to produce enough food. Virtual water also eases the pressure that irrigated agriculture places on water in the environment. It is true that large-scale irrigation is an inefficient use of water, but the trade in virtual water means those regions where irrigation is crucial can put water back into the environment.
Posted by: jlombard at 08:21 AM | link
Category: Policies
August 04, 2004
Arizona Stream Adjudication: Closer to Conjunctive Management
Special Master Schade's report to the Maricopa County Superior Court appears to nudge Arizona closer to a technical basis for conjunctive management of groundwater pumping and surface water flows. The report recommends:
"Using the cone of depression test adopted by the Superior Court, ADWR will analyze wells located outside the lateral limits of the subflow zone to determine if the well’s cone of depression reaches an adjacent subflow zone, and if continuing pumping will cause a loss of such subflow as to affect the quantity of the stream."
Fast forward some years into the future, after the Arizona Department of Water Resources is directed by changes to Arizona's water law, and we could start to see court orders that look like this example from Idaho:
A news article from The Times, in Twin Falls, Idaho, describes the reaction to this order:
"Roughly 350 groundwater users in the Big Lost River Basin have been given a choice: Join a mitigation plan aimed at providing water to senior users or face a water shutdown. Many of them don't like it much."
Posted by: jlombard at 01:05 PM | link | Comments (1)
Category: Policies
July 22, 2004
Benson Narrows Hydrogeology
I have completed a report that looks at groundwater chemistry in aquifers adjacent to the Benson Narrows, in Arizona. Here is a copy of the report. Some of the illustrations in the report are large so please be patient.
Posted by: jlombard at 06:16 PM | link | Comments (0)
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