this is CAP solution to our water dilemma

Sid Wilson talks water … Central Arizona Project manager discusses challenges of drought … Today’s News-Herald … By John Rudolf … Sunday, February 17, 2008 7:34 PM MST …

If anyone in Arizona knows water, it’s David “Sid” Wilson, general manager of the Central Arizona Project. For almost 40 years, beginning with a job in his early 20s on the Salt River Project, Wilson has worked to provide water to a burgeoning population in the country’s driest state.With the Colorado River entering its eighth straight year of drought, and concern mounting about imminent shortages of water for cities in the region, it’s a far from simple task. In an interview in his Phoenix office, Wilson discussed some of those challenges, the state of water in the West, and offered his advice for smaller cities concerned about a drier future.The first thing people don’t realize was the difficulty in simply delivering water from the Colorado River to homes and businesses in Maricopa, Pima and Pinal Counties, Wilson said.The Central Arizona Project canal, which begins at the southern end of Lake Havasu, travels 336 miles and rises more than 3,000 feet on its journey east, carrying a minimum of 1.5 million acre-feet of water.“That 1.5 million acre-feet constitutes the largest river in the state of Arizona,” Wilson said. “It’s a manmade river, and it’s moving uphill.” Heavy, dense and in almost unimaginable quantities, lifting that water consumes a huge amount of energy. In fact, the aqueduct system, which includes pumping stations, tunnels, canals and treatment plants, is the single largest consumer of electricity in the state of Arizona. “Just the challenges, the mechanical challenges of lifting that water are enormous. If we fail in that mission, the river doesn’t flow anywhere,” he said. Beyond the technical challenges are delicate political negotiations over how to deal with potential shortages, as users from Colorado to Mexico begin to pull their maximum allocations from the river. Under the Law of the River, drawn up between the seven Colorado River basin states — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada — Arizona, and the Central Arizona Project, will be among the first to suffer shortages if Lake Mead falls below a certain level.Yet with a relatively wet winter in the Colorado River basin, and with the snow pack in the Rocky Mountains well above average, indications point toward a good year for river flows. While that is certainly good news, according Wilson, it is not yet time to break out the party hats. “ Right now, on the river, we still have a drought,” he said. “You can have a ten or twenty year drought, and in the middle of that have one or two years of normal or above normal precipitation. But when you look at the total record, you’re way below normal.” Even a potentially good year for runoff, he said, would not be enough to lift the region out of drought. But it could move the specter of shortages several years into the future, a welcome development for all users on the river, particularly low-priority users such as the Central Arizona Project — and Lake Havasu City, which shares the CAP’s fourth-priority status.“Well, right now, this year is looking like it could be above normal, maybe 120 percent of normal,” he said. “If that happens, I would say there’s no risk of shortage to us before probably 2012, probably more like 2015 or 2030. But I’m not suggesting that we don’t have a problem.”Shortage declarations are tied to specific levels in Lake Mead, which currently hovers around 50 percent of capacity. If it continues to drop, increasingly severe shortages will hit those who draw water from the river.A contentious debate now rages over exactly when Lake Mead will hit those reduced levels. Just last week, a group of researches at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego released a study predicting that Lake Mead faced a 50 percent chance of emptying out by 2021, due to overuse of water on the river, and intensifying drought conditions caused by global warming.Such an event would devastate major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix, which pull huge amounts of water from the river. Yet equally hurt would be small users such as Lake Havasu City, which will lose a proportional amount of water from the river as reservoir levels fall.Under the first shortage declaration, which experts warn could come as early as 2011, Arizona would lose 400,000 acre-feet of water. The Central Arizona Project, which uses 90 percent of the water, would absorb 90 percent of the loss. The river communities would most of the rest of the shortage.Yet for several years the Central Arizona Project has been pumping huge amounts of water into depleted underground aquifers, for use at a later date. Smaller cities have no similar safety net.According to Sid Wilson, while Lake Havasu City and other river communities lacked the financial clout to hire major lobbying muscle, or aggressively fight for their interests in interstate water negotiations, it did not mean their concerns were being forgotten.“Their needs are important. Their risks are important,” he said. “We all feel that the best way to represent our needs and protect against our risks is if we’re at the table having a voice in it, but the truth of the matter is that a lot of people have to rely on others to represent their interests, because they don’t have the ability to sit at the table all the time.”The only solution, he said, was increased communication.

Some of the more compelling and salient statements in this article are: provide water to a burgeoning population in the country’s driest state… and under the low of the River, Arizona and the CAP will be among the first to suffer shortages if Lake Mead falls below a certain level and water experts warn this shortage could arrive by 2011, in less than 3 years, before the expiration of the term of the next President of the United States….?

And what is our Governor Janet Napolitano doing about the implications of these water deficits…?

Well apparently she’s not even aware there is a “real” state-wide water issue, as it is reported she feels these are merely “local squabbles” like the Verde River situation between SRP and our neighbors to the north in the vicinity of Prescott.

“Well, right now, this year is looking like it could be above normal, maybe 120 percent of normal,” he said. “If that happens, I would say there’s no risk of shortage to us before probably 2012, probably more like 2015 or 2030. But I’m not suggesting that we don’t have a problem.”Shortage declarations are tied to specific levels in Lake Mead, which currently hovers around 50 percent of capacity. If it continues to drop, increasingly severe shortages will hit those who draw water from the river.A contentious debate now rages over exactly when Lake Mead will hit those reduced levels. Just last week, a group of researches at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego released a study predicting that Lake Mead faced a 50 percent chance of emptying out by 2021, due to overuse of water on the river, and intensifying drought conditions caused by global warming.Such an event would devastate major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix, which pull huge amounts of water from the river. Yet equally hurt would be small users such as Lake Havasu City, which will lose a proportional amount of water from the river as reservoir levels fall.Under the first shortage declaration, which experts warn could come as early as 2011, Arizona would lose 400,000 acre-feet of water. The Central Arizona Project, which uses 90 percent of the water, would absorb 90 percent of the loss. The river communities would most of the rest of the shortage.Yet for several years the Central Arizona Project has been pumping huge amounts of water into depleted underground aquifers, for use at a later date. Smaller cities have no similar safety net.According to Sid Wilson, while Lake Havasu City and other river communities lacked the financial clout to hire major lobbying muscle, or aggressively fight for their interests in interstate water negotiations, it did not mean their concerns were being forgotten.“Their needs are important. Their risks are important,” he said. “We all feel that the best way to represent our needs and protect against our risks is if we’re at the table having a voice in it, but the truth of the matter is that a lot of people have to rely on others to represent their interests, because they don’t have the ability to sit at the table all the time.”The only solution, he said, was increased communication.In light of a pending increase in the consumption of electricity as noted in recent newspaper accounts, one would expect CAP, as the largest single consumer of electricity in our state, to pass on these increased operational costs to its users – that’s you and me.
So get ready for triple whammy to hit you as we begin this new economic era – recession – of

§ increased water rates
§ increased sewer rates
§ increased electric rates

Couple that with a decreased amount of “safe” water available for you and me.

But wait – Janet and her minions – continuously assure us that “we” have all the necessary ingredients in place to support her economic mantra of “unsustainable” growth…?

The only solution, he said, was increased communication….but that communication discussion does NOT include you – John Q Public – sorry …?