Banking on the Colorado: Valley relies on fading river

Like the rest of the state, the Coachella Valley faces major water cutbacks in response to California's epic drought. But unlike most of the state, the valley has a water source that it's trying to use more of, not less of: the Colorado River.

The desert has long relied on the Colorado for its survival, and that reliance is only growing. In an effort to protect the valley's over-pumped groundwater aquifer, local water managers are working to bring more Colorado River water to golf courses, new developments, housing tracts and other large water users.

But banking on the Colorado is a dangerous long-term plan.

While the river is in better shape than the Coachella Valley's fragile aquifer, it faces a slow-burning crisis of its own. Demand for Colorado River water exceeds supply, and reservoir levels are falling dramatically as the Colorado River Basin suffers through a 16th year of drought. Human-caused climate change — which is expected to bring longer, more frequent and more severe droughts — will only make the problem worse.

"It's really not the best strategy to rely on Colorado River water, and to assume that Colorado River water will be there in perpetuity," said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist and senior scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "The Colorado River Basin is actively running out of water."

Officials at the Coachella Valley Water District say using more river water is vital to reducing the burden on the valley's groundwater aquifer. They've made it a priority to pipe more Colorado River water to golf courses, which have traditionally pumped huge amounts of groundwater.

They also point out that because the Coachella Valley Water District has "senior" rights to Colorado River water, the agency would be among the last water users to face cutbacks in an extreme shortage. Arizona and Nevada would lose much of their river water before the Coachella Valley loses a single drop.

"We don't feel under the existing scenario that we're at any immediate risk," said John Powell, Jr., president of the Coachella Valley Water District's board of directors. "I'm not saying that's a license to use more water than we need."

Critics fear that's exactly what the Coachella Valley will do. Because of Southern California's senior water rights, they say, local water agencies have less incentive than water agencies in other states to participate in forward-thinking conservation efforts.

And some experts — including California officials — say it's misguided to treat Colorado River water as fundamentally different from drinking water, as the Coachella Valley Water District does. The Colorado River, they note, provides drinking water for millions of people — including some in the Coachella Valley, where river water replenishes the valley's aquifer and eventually flows through our taps.

"We need to conserve all water," Famiglietti said. "The less Colorado River water we use to water a golf course, the more we have to do something else."

The Colorado River provides water for more than 35 million people across seven states, and it's been described as the "lifeline of the Southwest." But the right to use that water has a twisted, contentious history.

The Coachella Valley's growth in the late 1800s was fueled by the underground aquifer, with residents pumping more and more groundwater to meet rising agricultural demand. By the early 20th century, locals realized that groundwater levels were falling.

Fearing for the valley's water future, residents voted to form the Coachella Valley County Water District in 1918. The agency quickly started negotiating for the right to use Colorado River water, even though the river was nearly 100 miles from Indio.

"The early pioneers of the valley realized that you couldn't just put in a well and pump water forever," said Bob Keeran, a multimedia specialist for the Coachella Valley Water District. "You needed to do something as those well levels were dropping."

It took a few decades, but the valley eventually got its Colorado River water. In the 1930s, the federal Bureau of Reclamation built the All-American Canal, an 80-mile aqueduct that brings river water to Imperial Valley farms. In 1949, the bureau finished the Coachella branch of that canal, a 123-mile extension that runs north past the Salton Sea, through the farms of the eastern Coachella Valley.

Only the final section of the so-called Coachella Canal was originally lined with concrete. The rest of it was "just an unlined ditch out in the middle of the desert," Keeran said. That meant it lost a lot of water, but it was cheap enough to build that farmers could afford to buy the water.

"The Colorado River was more than an abundant resource for the people who were here at that time," Keeran said. "There was nobody here, the water supply was abundant, and so you did what you needed to do to get that water supply at a reasonable cost."

As water users across the Southwest made similar claims to the Colorado, policymakers realized they needed a plan. In 1922, representatives from seven states negotiated the Colorado River Compact, assigning 7.5 million acre-feet of water to the four "upper basin" states and 7.5 million acre-feet to the three "lower basin" states. California alone was given the right to 4.4 million acre-feet per year.

That compact became the cornerstone of "the Law of the River," a collection of rules governing the use of Colorado River water. A core principle of those rules is seniority: the older your claim to Colorado River water, the higher your priority to use the water. That means during an extreme shortage, Southern California would be the last area forced to cut back — at least in theory.

The 1922 agreement didn't end the debate over Colorado River water.

The seven states involved in the deal — California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming — spent the next 40 years arguing about the numbers. Finally, in 1963, the Supreme Court settled an outstanding argument between California and Arizona — but not before 16 hours of oral arguments, a Supreme Court record.

Since then, the allocations have sometimes been revisited. In 2003, a host of local water agencies signed the Quantification Settlement Agreement, a massive rural-to-urban water transfer that has major implications for farmers, cities and the Salton Sea.

But for the most part, the water allocations decided in the first half of the 20th century have stuck. And experts say that's a problem, because the allocations assume the Colorado River has much more water than it usually does.

Scientists didn't know it at the time, but 1922 was part of a historically wet period. Between 1905 and 1922, the river's annual flow — as measured at Lee's Ferry in Arizona — averaged more than 16 million acre-feet. But in recent years, three-year average flow has dipped as low as 5.4 million acre-feet.

"It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see what a crisis looks like," said Taylor Hawes, director of The Nature Conservancy's Colorado River Program. "We just have to look at the situation in California to see that it could be just as bad in the Colorado River Basin."

Several reservoirs are meant to protect against shortages of Colorado River water, but even those backstops are ailing.

Along the Utah-Arizona border, Lake Powell — America's second-largest reservoir — is at 45 percent of capacity. And just outside Las Vegas, Lake Mead — the country's largest reservoir — is at 37 percent of capacity, a record low. Federal officials predicted last month that Lake Mead will be so low by January 2017 that they'll be forced to reduce Arizona and Nevada's water supplies.

"Mead is going to continue to fall, and that's going to lead to increased likelihood of shortage for all the users on the river," said Michael Cohen, a senior research associate with the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based research group. "If the current drought in the Colorado River Basin continues, eventually California is going to face some shortages."

Even as the Colorado River has dwindled and reservoir levels have fallen, the Coachella Valley Water District has amped up efforts to send river water to golf courses, new developments and other large water users.

In 2009, the agency finished construction on the Mid-Valley Pipeline, a $75 million project that diverts Colorado River water from the Coachella Canal in Indio, carrying that water to a sewage treatment plant in Palm Desert. There, the river water is mixed with treated sewage, then pumped through "purple pipes" to golf courses and other large water users.

Of the valley's 122 golf courses, 52 now receive some amount of Colorado River water. Fifteen of those courses are served by the Mid-Valley Pipeline, and the Coachella Valley Water District hopes to connect another 31 golf courses to the pipeline by 2020.

District officials emphasize that the more river water we use, the less groundwater we pump from the aquifer — a strategy that's spelled out explicitly in the district's long-term water management plan. The extensive document, which was last updated in 2012, describes Colorado River water as the best way to take golf courses off groundwater, and to meet increased demand from growth in the east valley.

That influx of river water is made possible by the Quantification Settlement Agreement, which is already resulting is huge amounts of river water being diverted from farms to cities in the Coachella Valley and elsewhere.

"This water supply not only meets the existing needs, but it's going to be available for growth in a sustainable way that doesn't take water out of the aquifer without putting it back in," Powell said. "We need every drop to reverse the overdraft in our aquifer here and to support the local economy."

There's no question that groundwater levels in the Coachella Valley's aquifer are falling dangerously. In September 2013, a Desert Sun investigation found that water levels in valley wells had fallen an average of 55 feet since 1970. And groundwater pumping has stayed relatively steady since then.

"There's so much groundwater overdraft even now in the Coachella Valley that's causing real problems," Cohen said. "The land is subsiding. Lands crack, roads break, it causes immediate property damage."

Coachella Valley Water District officials say they're monitoring the situation on the Colorado River, and they'll change their long-term plans if they have to. But at least right now, they're betting that won't be necessary.

"The Colorado system has yet to go into shortfall, Keeran said. "Yes, the reservoirs are below 50 percent right now. But that's within the operational range of the Colorado."

Golf courses use about one-fourth of the water that's pumped from the valley's aquifer. Coachella Valley Water District officials have spent years convincing golf courses to switch to Colorado River water, telling them it's a more environmentally sustainable supply than the aquifer.

Colorado River water is especially important to the Golf Club at Terra Lago in Indio. It's one of just two golf courses in the valley that uses river water almost exclusively, because the Coachella Canal runs straight through the heart of the course.

"We basically irrigate the whole course with the canal water," said Neil Sauer, the club's assistant general manager.

Developers, too, have turned to Colorado River water.

The La Quinta City Council recently approved the 40-acre Estates at Griffin Lake, which would include a 4.7-acre lake. The lake, which will be used for irrigation and stormwater retention, will be filled with Colorado River water — a factor that "definitely" contributed to the city's support for the project, City Manager Frank Spevacek said.

But even though local water managers have promoted Colorado River water as a sustainable option for golf courses and new developments, some experts say that's far from the case.

Partly, that's because the Colorado River is nearing shortage levels. But it's also because there's less of a difference between groundwater and Colorado River water than local water managers often argue.

Legally, raw Colorado River water is classified as "non-potable" because it hasn't been treated to drinking water standards. But the reality is that tens of millions of people drink purified river water. That's true even in the Coachella Valley, where water managers allow large amounts of river water to sink into the ground in "percolation ponds," replenishing the aquifer.

From 2010 to 2012, more than 900,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water sank into the ground here, naturally purifying the water and replenishing the aquifer. Naturally purified river water, like all aquifer water, is pumped as drinking water to homes and businesses across the Coachella Valley.

"I do think of it as one water. I don't differentiate," Famiglietti said. "That's the way we have to be looking at water availability around the state."

Palm Desert resident Randy Roberts, a retired businessman, called the Coachella Valley Water District's plans to put more golf courses on "non-potable" drinking water a "shell game."

"They've said, if we give you that groundwater through the purple pipes ... you're not subject to any restrictions," Robert said. "That's the bait and switch. It's egregious, it's outrageous. It's the same freaking water. It's the water that everybody's drinking."

Water use on golf courses has become increasingly controversial in the Coachella Valley as the drought has deepened.

Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered California's cities and towns to cut water use by as much as 36 percent starting this month, but golf courses need only limit watering to two days per week. Alternately, they can reduce water use by 25 percent, although it's unclear how either of those options will be enforced.

Some golf insiders see turf reduction as critical, even as more Colorado River water becomes available. Among them is Rick Sall, the head superintendent at Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells.

Sall doesn't see much distinction between groundwater and Colorado River water, considering that river water is used to recharge the aquifer. A new golf course at Toscana will feature just 76 acres of irrigated grass — far below the average of 120-130 acres for a typical 18-hole course — and Sall expects to see more courses like that going forward.

"The fact that we have the incentives to take out grass, I think is a good thing," he said.

Craig Kessler, director of governmental affairs for the Southern California Golf Association, said courses across the region are working hard to cut back. In the Coachella Valley, he said, switching to Colorado River water is just one part of a strategy that also involves grass removal and more efficient irrigation.

"There are three or four prongs to the strategy, and the (Coachella) Canal is only one of them — and I think not the most dominant one," Kessler said. "If we have to shift a little bit less attention to that particular prong of our attack, so be it. Time will tell."

Many golf course managers aren't so motivated to conserve.

In an email to members last month, management at Indian Ridge Country Club in Palm Desert mentioned California's proposed drought restrictions, writing that "the Club will be OK."

"The Club does not anticipate any significant impact to the aesthetics of the golf courses ... due to the water restrictions," Indian Ridge management said in the email.

Indian Ridge General Manager Hall Wade told The Desert Sun the club plans to implement a more efficient irrigation system this summer, which will reduce water use between 5 and 8 percent. He also noted that 65 percent of the club's water supply comes from the Colorado River or sewage treatment plants.

While the club considered limited turf replacement, the costs didn't pencil out, Wade said. Even with a $15,000-per-acre subsidy from the Coachella Valley Water District, the club would have had to pay more than $100,000 to replace seven acres, the maximum amount that can be subsidized.

Famiglietti believes golf courses and other Colorado River water users shouldn't get "a free pass" from conservation.

"It's foolish to be looking at, the groundwater is different than the Colorado River water," he said. "We're running out of it in all of its forms, and we need to do what we can to conserve it."

Stricter conservation mandates could come sooner than the golf industry expects.

Brown's executive order mandating a statewide 25 water cutback, which took effect June 1, applies to "potable urban water usage." That would seem to exclude Colorado River water, which isn't legally "potable" because it can't be consumed without treatment.

But David Rose — an attorney for the State Water Resources Control Board — told The Desert Sun that state officials believe Colorado River water is covered by Brown's executive order. The new regulations, he noted, don't define "potable."

"We just don't think it is consistent with the regulation or the governor's executive order — or the board's intent at all — to be treating a source of supply like the Colorado River, that serves that many people for domestic supply, in a cavalier way," Rose said.

That means the Coachella Valley Water District might have to count river water toward its mandated 36 percent cutback, which could spell trouble for golf courses and other large water users. It could also mean that golf courses receiving river water have to scale back outdoor irrigation to two days per week, or reduce their consumption by 25 percent.

Those details have yet to be worked out. Even though mandatory cutbacks are now in effect, Rose said state officials are still working through questions and concerns from individual water districts.

Coachella Valley Water District officials believe Brown's executive order doesn't apply to Colorado River water, because it isn't treated to potable standards or used for domestic purposes in the Coachella Valley. They also believe it would be counterproductive to restrict the use of river water.

"If the state were to change their conservation mandates to include non-potable Colorado River water used for irrigation, it could prompt farms and golf courses to reject the Colorado River water in lieu of groundwater to avoid the conservation mandates," Jim Barrett, the water district's general manager, said in a statement. "This would increase local groundwater overdraft without any benefit to the State."

Across the Southwest, voluntary efforts to use less Colorado River water are underway. But some experts have questioned whether the Coachella Valley Water District and the Imperial Irrigation District, with their senior water rights, have much incentive to participate.

Two years ago, the Bureau of Reclamation launched "Moving Forward," an effort to study conservation opportunities throughout the Colorado River Basin. The agency issued its first report last month, featuring input and ideas from dozens of waters users across the region.

Several water agencies, meanwhile, have contributed $11 million to the System Conservation program, which will fund voluntary conservation projects. Water users across the Southwest can apply for funding.

"It's not a lot (of money). It isn't going to get us a lot of water, raise the reservoir levels significantly," Hawes said. "But it lets us test different ways of reducing demand."

While the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is participating in the System Conservation program, the Coachella Valley Water District and the Imperial Irrigation District are not.

Those agencies did participate in the "Moving Forward" report released last month — but at least in some parts of the report, the Coachella Valley Water District didn't have much to contribute. The section covering municipal and industrial water use featured 33 case studies of successful conservation efforts across the Southwest, but none of those case studies involved the water district.

The agency did lead a project to conserve water by lining 36.5 miles of the Coachella Canal, as detailed in the report's section on agricultural water. And the Imperial Irrigation District, which provides 97 percent of its water to farms, is involved in several efforts to induce farmers to conserve.

But overall, some experts say, the crisis facing the Colorado River seems less immediate in the California desert.

Hawes has worked with water managers across the Southwest on efforts to conserve Colorado River water. Water agencies in the Coachella and Imperial valleys, she said, are "not motivated in quite the same way that some of the other water districts are."

"If the crisis continues to deepen, they will be affected just like everybody else," Hawes said. "We all need, and we all benefit from, a more resilient river, and a more resilient system. I think at some point, there's a self-interest on their part to have them participate in these programs."

The "Moving Forward" report also shows that the Coachella and Imperial valleys use far more water than other areas in the Colorado River Basin. In central Arizona, average water use between 2008 and 2012 was 195 gallons per capita, per day. In Southern Nevada, water use was 228 gallons per capita, per day.

In the Coachella and Imperial valleys, it was 314 gallons per capita, per day. And the Coachella Valley Water District was one of the only major municipal water providers included in the report not to provide a concrete conservation target.

Coachella Valley water managers push back against the idea they're wasting Colorado River water.

"We make every effort to use it effectively, and we need every drop of that water and there's only so much of it," said Powell, the president of the Coachella Valley Water District's board of directors. "We recognize that the drought is not just in California — it's also throughout the West."

Marion Champion, a spokesperson for the Imperial Irrigation District, pointed out that rural-to-urban water transfers like the Quantification Settlement Agreement are already forcing Imperial Valley farmers to cut back.

Between more efficient farming techniques, fallowing and programs that pay farmers to conserve, Imperial Irrigation District customers should save 420,000 acre-feet of water this year alone, Champion said.

"It's not a very fair characterization to say we have no incentive to conserve, because we are conserving," she said.

And despite the region's senior water rights, some experts believe Southern California won't avoid immediate consequences if the Colorado River continues to dry up.

Even if the river reaches critical shortage levels, the federal government isn't likely to let major cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix run dry. What's more likely, some experts say, is that federal water managers will push conservation and broker new water deals, like the Quantification Settlement Agreement.

Cohen expects the Imperial Valley, where flood irrigation is still common, to be the focus of future rural-to-urban water transfers.

"Mead is going to continue to fall, and that's going to lead to increased likelihood of shortage for all the users on the river," Cohen said. "They're trying to avoid that by saying, let's get more efficient about use, in agriculture in particular. That seems to me to be the wave of the future."

Sammy Roth writes about energy and water for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at sammy.roth@desertsun.com, (760) 778-4622 and @Sammy_Roth.

In 1922, the seven states in the Colorado River Basin — California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — negotiated the Colorado River Compact, agreeing to divide 15 million acre-feet of river water between them. It took them more than 40 years to finalize the following annual water allocations, which are still in effect today:

California: 4.4 million acre-feet

Colorado: 3.86 million acre-feet

Arizona: 2.85 million acre-feet

Utah: 1.71 million acre-feet

Wyoming: 1.04 million acre-feet

New Mexico: 0.84 million acre-feet

Nevada: 0.3 million acre-feet

Source: Bureau of Reclamation

In its "Moving Forward" report on conservation opportunities, the federal Bureau of Reclamation compared water use in the Coachella and Imperial valleys (collectively referred to as the "Salton Sea Basin") with water use in other parts of the Southwest. Here's how we stack up, in average gallons per capita, per day:

Salton Sea Basin: 314

Southern Nevada: 228

Wasatch Front: 224

Central Arizona: 195

Front Range: 178

Coastal Southern California: 170

Middle Rio Grande: 152

Source: Bureau of Reclamation

In 2009, the Coachella Valley Water District finished construction of the Mid-Valley Pipeline, a $75 million project that diverts Colorado River water from the Coachella Canal in Indio, carrying that water to a sewage treatment plant in Palm Desert. There, the river water is mixed with treated sewage, then pumped through "purple pipes" to golf courses and other large water users.

Before the pipeline was built, many east valley golf courses already used river water from the Coachella Canal. But the canal only stretches as far as La Quinta and Indio because it was built to supply farms in the east valley. As a result, mid-valley golf courses didn't used to have easy access to Colorado River water — hence the need for the Mid-Valley Pipeline, according to the Coachella Valley Water District.

Even before the pipeline, mid-valley golf courses — and other large water users — had access to treated sewage from several wastewater treatment plants operated by the Coachella Valley Water District. But demand for that water is highest in the summer, when there are the fewest people living in the Coachella Valley (and, as a result, the least wastewater being produced). That's where the Mid-Valley Pipeline comes in, bringing Colorado River water to supplement the wastewater being treated in Palm Desert.

The Mid-Valley Pipeline was made possible by the Quantification Settlement Agreement. The controversial deal not only gives Coachella Valley cities the right to large amounts of river water that previously went to farms — it also allows valley officials to send that water to many customers outside the east valley, including mid-valley golf courses, for the first time.

Source: Desert Sun reporting