Will a Desalination Plant Ever Feed the Colorado River

In the 1960s, during the diplomatic impasse with Mexico over this drainage water, US authorities proposed simply buying out the Wellton-Mohawk farmers. But that idea sparked so much outrage among local politicians, business leaders, and farmers that officials changed course and instead settled on the world's largest reverse-osmosis desal plant as the solution. Thirty years on, the YDP hasn't done much more than collect dust, a bad idea whose time has come and, presumably, gone. So this year, the Bureau of Reclamation investigated an alternative: leasing water from the farmers - in effect, paying them not to farm, thus saving water.

Today, many farmers would be quite willing to let their fields go fallow for the right price. It turns out that water leasing is where the West is heading, whether the old guard recognizes it or not. "We're moving water from agriculture to other uses," observes Doug Kenney, a University of Colorado water policy specialist and one of the West's foremost experts on water use. "Eventually, economics and common sense will prevail. Tourism and industry bring in more money than farming now. In the end the water will follow the money."

If it weren't for $19 billion a year in federal subsidies, US agribusiness in the arid West would already have gone the way of the Pony Express. That aid, like the YDP itself, is increasingly indefensible. As family farmers go under, the government money flowing to large agribusiness companies could increase. Slashing it would save badly needed dollars in an age of budget deficits, and the resulting competition from abroad could benefit the developing world far more than the billions in aid the US currently sends overseas.

Even officials at the YDP privately recognize this logic. Still, the Bureau of Reclamation this summer suspended the water-leasing proposal. "Some of the Arizona folks had a problem with letting the fields go fallow," was all the bureau staffer with knowledge of the pilot program would tell me. Doug Kenney may be right that common sense will eventually prevail. But in western water politics, eventually is a long time away.

Trickle-Down Hydronomics

In 1974, the US agreed to build a desalination plant on banks of the Colorado River outside Yuma, Arizona. Thirty years and $250 million later, the plant is gathering dust, an utter failure - and a surprising success.

1. The Need
As US farmers irrigated their land, salt in the groundsoil began leaching into the Colorado River, causing contaminated water to flow over the border, devastating Mexican crops.

2. The Fix
In diplomatic talks with Mexico, the US promised to build a desal plant. The first step was to construct a bypass canal that would divert salty agricultural runoff before it entered the river. While the plant was under construction, the 53-mile canal would temporarily dump the water into the Mexican desert. Once the plant began running, farm runoff would be desalted then pumped back into the Colorado.

3. The Surprise
Except for one eight-month stretch starting in 1992, the plant never operated. The agricultural runoff, meanwhile, kept streaming south, creating a 12,000-acre wetland, now a biological preserve championed by environmental activists. Turn the plant on and the canal's flow would drop by two-thirds - and soar in salinity - destroying the habitat.

4. The Irony
Amid a five-year drought and calls to reopen the plant, officials now say it may be cheaper and more environmentally sound to scale back agriculture on the US side - paying farmers not to farm - and kill the Yuma desal plant.

Jeff Howe (jeffhowe@wiredmag.com) wrote about the MPAA antipiracy campaign in public schools in issue 12.05.
credit Cameron Davidson
The Yuma Desalting Plant, the worldés largest reverse-osmosis facility, with a capacity of 23.2 billion gallons a year, hasnét operated since 1993.

credit Charles Bergman
Decades of-temporaryé runoff have turned the Ciénega into a thriving 12,000-acre marshland.

Feature:

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The Great Southwest Salt Saga

Plus:

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Trickle-Down Hydronomics

rodriguezrevey1974.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.wired.com/2004/11/salt-2/

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