From oil and natural gas to rare earth minerals in the deep sea, we've looked at the competition for critical natural resources. Today, we examine the battle over a natural resource that's even more fundamental, water. There's every chance that America's Water Wars may be overflowing into your neck of the woods soon.
When it comes to America’s Water Wars, the West is as wild as it ever was. And the mighty Colorado River is one of the spoils.
The Colorado River cuts through the Grand Canyon and spans 7 states providing water for about 40 million people and 5 and a half million acres of farmland. To some, the water is as valuable as oil.
Sharyl (on-camera): Early Americans settling the West started moving water from the start for mining and farming establishing the very system that laid the foundation for who has the right to do what today.
In 1922, seven states signed onto The Colorado River Compact, a water sharing agreement that divvies up the river’s annual flow.
The water must be shared equally between Upper Basin states: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico and the Lower Basin: California, Arizona and Nevada. There’s been infighting ever since.
A recurring question: Who has the right to move and use the river water— where.
Sharyl: I kind of thought nobody could really own water?
Michael Pearce It's true. And in the Western United States, the rule has always been, you don't own water, you don't own the molecules of water, you own the right to divert it and put it to beneficial use.
Attorney Michael Pearce represents both buyer and seller in one of the most important water disputes involving the Colorado River.
The owner of farmland in Arizona’s Cibola Valley wants to sell the right to transfer water 300 miles through the Central Arizona Project canal, to a town called Queen Creek.
Pearce: We’re talking probably less than 1%, way less than 1%, of the flow of the river. This water you wouldn't even be able to notice it. It will have no visible impact at all.
Queen Creek is a quickly-expanding suburb of Phoenix. It’s seeking the Colorado River water not because its own supply is running dry; there’s plenty of that for the moment.
But Paul Gardner says importing surface water from the Colorado River is cheaper than using the city’s underground water. He’s Queen Creek’s utility director.
Paul Gardner: And so part of the law here in Arizona now is to, if you pump out a gallon of water, a gallon of water has to go back in to the ground. And there's a district that we belong to, it’s called a replenishment district, that does that. It sometimes can be very costly. And we decided as a town that we could do it more efficiently and that it would be more cost-effective if we had the control of what those costs were by getting our own water supplies.
Sharyl: When you're paying someone to have it done, like you've been doing, how do they put a gallon of water back into the ground?....
....MUCH MORE
Recently:
Regarding the California Drought: "Don't even think about stealing Columbia River water, L.A."
I don't know. Anything that normalizes the commodification of water, that, rather than exalting it as a giver of life (and one of the weirdest compounds in the universe) reduces it to just another thing to trade, brings us closer to the day when pure power politics forces the U.S. to drain the Great Lakes just to keep Phoenix and Las Vegas and Los Angeles going.
Or something....
Just so you know, I had that "quasi-mystical" "giver of life" balloon popped at a very young age. By Isaac Asimov.
