Water Use and the Rio Grande
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Nothing drives comments like discussions of water use in the West, so let’s go down that path once more so I can link to this excellent series from the El Paso Times on water use in the Upper Rio Grande basin. Basically, there is way too much groundwater being used in a drought-stricken area with enormous population growth. If you think this is an unsustainable recipe for disaster, you are correct. This is just one quick bit from this 5-part series:
The Upper Rio Grande Basin, which stretches from southern Colorado to Hudspeth County, has been gripped by drought for most of the past decade, forcing cities and farmers to pump water from the ground quickly.
Because of that, the levels of groundwater, on which residents and farmers depend, have dropped in the El Paso area as much as 200 feet since 1903, an expert said.
The precipitous drop in the water table is especially disturbing because it is taking place in an area where it recharges too slowly to make up the loss. Worse, many experts predict a future in which even less water in the river will mean even more pumping.
“It’s like a bank,” said Zhuping Sheng, a hydrologist at Texas A&M’s AgriLife Research and Extension Center in El Paso. “And we’re withdrawing more than we deposit.”
In an attempt to find ways to cope with dwindling water in the Rio Grande Basin, The El Paso Times has received a grant from the Solutions Journalism Network and has embarked on a series of stories about the issue.
Sheng and other scientists who study water and the climate make it clear that those living in the upper Rio Grande Basin face a major problem.
Sheng said that in some areas around El Paso, the water table has fallen between 150 and 200 feet since 1903.
With the region locked in a severe drought and with the Elephant Butte Reservoir at less than 10 percent of capacity, the pumping is only expected to accelerate.
Accelerated pumping out of a reservoir that is had 10% of capacity. OK then.
I still maintain that agriculture will be the eventual loser here. Despite its power, it doesn’t have the votes to maintain its water use at the expense of urban dwellers. But really, the entire structure of post-1945 growth in the American West is completely unsustainable and with each drought, that becomes more and more clear.