Title: FW: [globalnews] Sunday Denver Post, From panic to denial on water
From panic to denial on water:
Reactions to crisis disparate in Four Corners states' plans
By Michael Booth
Denver Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 16, 2003 - The multiyear drought in the Four Corners
states has brought sacrifice to some cities and recreation areas, and a
mere shrug of the shoulders from others.
Post / Shaun Stanley
This buoy's warning goes for naught near Hite Marina, in the parched
northern section of Lake Powell in southern Utah. Cities' disjointed
responses to the region's drought have drawn criticism from some
environmentalists.
From Salt Lake City to Aurora, and Albuquerque to Phoenix, water managers
and their constituencies react to the absence of snow with the full range
from panic to denial. Some scramble to prop up reservoir levels at all
costs; others argue the definition of "reservoir" is a bank of water that
gets drawn to zero in dry times.
Phoenix will exhaust its local reserves this summer.
Yet Rocky Mountain snowmelt coming down the Colorado River means the
largest city in the Southwest has no lawn-watering curbs. Well-soaked
residents even plant a winter variety of seed over their dormant summer
bluegrass to ensure green color all year.
At half-full Lake Powell, the water playground for millions of Westerners,
boaters this summer might want a taxi to get from the marina to the
fast-receding Colorado River water. But the lucrative tourist season looms,
and National Park Service officials contemplate blowing up a rock formation
uncovered by the drought at the Arizona end so this summer's demanding boat
traffic can avoid a 7-mile detour.
The Southwestern approach to drought is "definitely head-in-the-sand," said
Owen Lammers of Utah-based environmental group Living Rivers, which is
sharply critical of how federal dams and what it calls greedy cities
rearrange Western water flows. "We're characterizing this as the Enron of
water management. The government keeps saying lake levels will get better,
and the reality is that things are going down, down, down."
The wide variance in public water restrictions can deflate conservation
efforts by prompting complaints of unfair treatment and downstream waste,
water experts said. And even if downstream draws from the Colorado River
are legal, they may injure streams or lakes in a way that everybody has to
pay for in the future.
"The river that many of these states depend on is being overtaxed, so
despite what your rights are, there are reasons here to be concerned," said
Bart Miller, water projects director for Land and Water Fund of the
Rockies. "It strikes the average citizen as unfair or strange when others
are using much, much more water."
Cities with looser water policies defend the lack of rules as a benefit of
well-secured supplies.
"All these decades of planning for water resources and storage have paid
off," said Ken Kroski, spokesman for the Phoenix water supply, where the
main reservoir for the perpetual boom city is down to 14 percent of
capacity. As Aurora tells people they can't plant a single flower this
spring, and Denver ponders a year-round shut-off of lawn sprinkling,
Phoenix is still in Stage 1 of its drought plan, asking for voluntary 5
percent cutbacks in home water use with no rules for what days to water.
Knowing there will be no water available from Arizona snowmelt or rain this
summer, Phoenix is confident its share of Colorado River water coming down
the cement channels of the Central Arizona Project will be more than enough
for city lawns in 2003.
Checking in with other cities shows just how disjointed Western water
policy can be - while Denver, Phoenix and Salt Lake City watch their
reservoirs drain, Albuquerque will switch from more predictable well water
to a new reservoir system over the next three years.
Santa Fe drivers can't drive through a car wash more than once a month.
Tourists to the high- desert jewel won't get their hotel sheets changed
until their fourth day.
Currently in Albuquerque, "when it's dry, we just pump more from the
aquifer," Mayor Marty Chavez said. "But we're depleting the aquifer. We can
get away with it for a summer or two, but not in the long term."
Realizing the underground supply may be used far faster than it is
recharged by runoff, Albuquerque sought voluntary water savings last summer
- of only 3 percent to 5 percent, a far cry from Denver's goal of cutting
use from a normal year by 30 percent.
Around the Four Corners, these cities and recreation areas hope for snow
with varying degrees of fervency:
Phoenix: Open taps in the desert
Phoenix has some of the lowest water rates in the West, and the only
mandatory cut in effect right now is a 5 percent slice from government use.
"A lot of people automatically and incorrectly associate the desert with no
water," Kroski said.
But the free-flow philosophy permeating Arizona does frustrate some water
officials, including Phoenix's conservation coordinator, Tom Babcock.
"There really hasn't been a debate on more restrictions," he said. "It's
ludicrous when you consider we're in the Sonoran Desert."
Phoenix did try a stair-stepped system for water rates, raising the fee per
1,000 gallons every time homeowners reached certain benchmarks. (Denver
operates under that system, with drought surcharges added on top.) It
didn't work for Phoenix, Babcock said, putting a disproportionate burden of
the rates on lower-income residents with large families "and the crummiest
plumbing."
The city is now back to a seasonal rate, charging more in summer for water
than the winter base rate.
Even without water dribbling down from Arizona sources, Phoenix claims it
has plenty of supply in the next few years because it draws a major
allocation from Colorado River dams under federal interstate compacts.
Siphoned off from Lake Havasu at the Central Arizona aqueduct project, most
of the water for Phoenix this year will be Colorado snowmelt.
Salt Lake City: Bracing for the worst
Salt Lake City ends up with some water from the Colorado River basin,
pumped across the Wasatch mountain range, but relies most heavily on
snowfall in its famous ski areas to melt and flow down Deer Creek. Until
late last year, Salt Lake had avoided the more severe droughts seen in
neighboring states.
Now the city is preparing for the worst, water spokeswoman Stephanie Doerr
said. Last year, it made up for shortfalls in its own basin through water
purchases from the Central Utah Project, which brings Colorado River basin
water under the Wasatch mountains. "That water just isn't available this
year, because no one else has water, either," Doerr said.
Preparing for a hot summer, Salt Lake expanded the months for its higher
summer water rates, recognizing what Denver saw last year in people
watering heavily from May through October. The city also wants a stepped
rate structure this summer, charging more for higher use, and will also
start water meters "from the first gallon" rather than allowing a free
minimum on each bill.
"We're nowhere near cracking this drought," Doerr said. "There is no
winter. It's just not happening."
Lake Powell: Scrambling to stay afloat
Lake Powell has fallen to levels the massive Utah and Arizona reservoir
hasn't seen since it was still filling up in May 1973. Last year, for the
first time, Lake Powell did not rise at all in the spring: Because the
reservoir had to keep releasing water downstream to satisfy calls in
California and Arizona, snowmelt running in added nothing to the pool. The
same is likely to happen this spring, meaning the recreation pool starts
low and will get lower.
Lake Powell is shutting some boat launch ramps and extending others with
gravel, while considering what to do with entire marinas left too high and
dry. At the southern end, the Castle Rock cut allowing boaters from the
Wahweep marina to save 7 miles of travel now juts up above water, and the
Park Service is debating whether earthmovers or explosives should be used
to reopen the channel.
Environmentalists heckle the idea of going hard-rock mining to find more
water, calling it typical of the way governments have deformed Western
waterways in catering to jet skis and lawn sprinklers.
"In the name of emergencies, they'll do that kind of thing and ask
questions later," said Lammers of Living Rivers. "Given the climatic
conditions, we're going to be looking at a major crisis very soon."
Other cities need to think twice, though, before pointing fingers at
Phoenix or Lake Powell management, said Barry Worth of the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation's Glen Canyon Dam office. If it weren't for water-banking
systems such as Powell and Mead, upper Colorado River states such as
Colorado and Utah would have to let far more river water go by their land
this summer to satisfy compacts guaranteeing flows to California, Arizona
and Mexico.
"Sometimes people will say, why does somebody in Colorado or Wyoming care
about Lake Powell, because it's long gone from our state," Worth said. "It
just happens to be where their insurance account resides."
Santa Fe: Cracking down on users
Santa Fe got serious about drought response before many Southwestern cities
knew they had a problem, implementing its current severe stage of curbs on
April 10.
Restrictions there include no new plantings of perennials and flowers,
delaying hotel sheet changes, no washing of cars at home and only once a
month at a commercial wash, one-day-a-week lawn watering and heavy
surcharges. While Denver charges $1.90 on each 1,000 gallons of water over
20,000, Santa Fe charges $25.
Also in Santa Fe, water caught fleeing the scene of a crime - a leaky or
misdirected lawn sprinkler - is officially dubbed "fugitive water" and can
cost the homeowner a hefty ticket.
City reservoirs are 29 percent full, compared with 65 percent in the
comparable season of an average year, spokesman Juan Rios said.
A major portion of Santa Fe water comes from wells mining the aquifers
connected to the Rio Grande, but depleting those is a major concern, Rios
said. Two more months of drought will force the City Council to consider a
complete watering ban or even a building moratorium, he said.
"We started out the winter very well. But it seems El Nino dried us up and
left us hanging," Rios said.
Albuquerque: Switching philosophies
Albuquerque is overhauling both its physical and cultural approaches to water.
Over the next three years, the city will switch from well water to surface
water, captured in reservoirs near the New Mexico-Colorado border and
brought down the Chama-Rio Grande river systems. That means Albuquerque
residents will be praying just as hard for Colorado snowfall as the
residents of Denver do, Mayor Chavez said.
Environmental groups, however, question the new draws from the Rio Grande
because they may further endanger the silvery minnow and other river life.
The cultural overhaul will take longer, Chavez added. "For years our
building codes required X minimum amount of grass. We've changed that, but
the cultural shift has been a little slow. It's hard to tell businesses to
plant grass, then two years later say, take out your grass. Getting there
takes time," Chavez said.
Las Vegas: Light on the restrictions
Las Vegas doesn't fall under the Four Corners moniker, but draws 88 percent
of its water from the all-important Colorado River system through Lake Mead.
But one river doesn't make one uniform policy - under current drought
restrictions, Las Vegas homeowners can water lawns every other day this
coming summer, even though natural rainfall at 4 inches a year is less than
one-third of Denver's.
The Las Vegas conservation program focuses on stopping water waste although
a citizens advisory committee is considering small drought surcharges for
this summer's water rates, said spokeswoman Tracy Bower.
Denver Post staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or 303-820-1686.
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