Chapter 1: Water, a basic and essential need Water question in the southwest of the USA

Transcription

1 Source 1: Arizona flooding, people at risks, in Tomahawk road, in Apache Junction Arizona. Source 2: Glen Canyon Dam in Source: Michael Cow, The Arizona Republic, July 22 nd, Source: National geographic website, Source 3: US map

2 Source: Google map, 2013 Source 4: Water scarcity in the world Source: FAO (Food and Agricultural Organisation), Questions: 1. Locate those two locations on a map of the USA. 2. Is water supply equal in the Southwest of the USA? 3. Is the two locations mentioned on source 1 and 2 in a region where water is abundant? 4. Explain how did the USA react in front of water scarcity? 5. Define sustainable development. 6. Find the problematic of the lesson. I. A region facing water scarcity and inequalities in water supply Sources to use: Source 1: Colorado River Basin, map

3 Source: United States Geological Survey Website, 2008

4 Source 2: Water stress in the USA nowadays: Colorado River Source: Aqueduct, measuring and mapping water risk website (researchers financed by The Coca Cola Company and Goldman and Sachs), 2011.

5 Source 3: Water stress projection Chapter 1: Water, a basic and essential need Colorado River Source: Aqueduct, measuring and mapping water risk website (researchers financed by The Coca Cola Company and Goldman and Sachs), Source 4: The use of water all along the Colorado river: The farmers here use groundwater 1 which is free. The amount of water used is equivalent to a 1500 mm annual rainfall. The actual rainfall in this area is 77 mm per year. Source: United States Geological Survey (USGS), 2012.

6 Photo of Yuma, city on the Central Arizona project. The rainfall in a year is about 0.55 inches per month (14 mm), i.e. 6.6 inches a year (168 mm). Source: Central Arizon Project Aqueduct, Las Vegas Strip liters of water per customer are consumed everyday in Vegas. The water comes from the Glen Canyon (see map on source 1) and the Hoover dam on the Colorado river. Source: Photo on the right Mrs Ferlut, 2008 and photo on the left telegraph.co.uk, 2012 Questions: 1. Locate precisely the Colorado River basin (source 1). 2. Prove that the Colorado River basin is concerned by important water stress and water scarcity (sources 2 and 3). 3. Define the different uses of water all along the Colorado River (source 4). 4. Prove that the access to water differ from the location and the use (source 4). II. Development, water and sustainable development, the challenges of the Southwest of the USA Sources to use: Source 5: Infrastructures all along the Colorado River:

7 The 1956 Colorado River Storage Project Act has had a significant impact on the development and management of water in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The 1956 act authorized construction of the Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP) which allowed for comprehensive development of the water resources of the Upper Basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) by providing for long-term regulatory storage of water to meet the entitlements of the Lower Basin states (Arizona, California, and Nevada). The Colorado River Storage Project is one of the most complex and extensive river resource developments in the world. There are four initial storage units built as part of the CRSP: The Wayne N. Aspinall Unit in Colorado (Blue Mesa, Crystal, and Morrow Point Dams), Flaming Gorge Unit in Utah, Navajo Unit in New Mexico, and Glen Canyon Unit in Arizona; and a number participating projects (16 of which have been completed or are in process of completion). The purposes of the CRSP identified in the 1956 act include regulating the flow of the Colorado River, storing water for beneficial consumptive use, providing for reclamation of arid and semi-arid lands, providing flood control, and generating hydropower. The CRSP also provides for recreation and improves conditions for fish and wildlife. [ ] The multipurpose CRSP has not only been integral to the development of the arid West, it has also played a vital sustaining role through extended periods of drought. The many benefits provided by the CRSP are essential to life in the West today. Source: Colorado Storage Project, United States Bureau of Reclamation, 2012.

8 Source 6: The Central Arizona Project: Chapter 1: Water, a basic and essential need Source 7: Conflits between American states: The decision for the CAP: Taken from The Central Arizona Project website, Source 8: The International Boundary and Water Commission, Its Mission, Organization and Procedures for Solution of Boundary and Water Problems (commission webpage introduction) The Convention of 1889 creating the International Boundary Commission (IBC), and the 1944 Water Treaty which changed its name to the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), both provide 1 that it shall consist of a United States Section and a Mexican Section. The 1944 Treaty further provides that it shall in all respects have the status of an international body, that the head of each Section must be an Engineer Commissioner and that wherever Treaty provisions call for joint action or joint agreement by the two Governments [ ]. The mission of the IBWC is to apply the rights and obligations which the Governments of the United States and Mexico assume under the numerous boundary and water treaties and related agreements, and to do so in a way that benefits the social and economic welfare of the peoples on the two sides of the boundary 2 and improves relations between the two countries. As provided for in the treaties and agreements, those rights and obligations include: 1 To provide = fournir. 2 Boundary = border.

9 - distribution between the two countries of the waters of the Rio Grande and of the Colorado River; - regulation and conservation of the waters of the Rio Grande for their use by the two countries by joint construction, operation and maintenance of international storage dams and reservoirs and plants for generating hydroelectric energy at the dams; - regulation of the Colorado River waters allocated to Mexico; - protection of lands along the river from floods by levee and floodway projects; - solution of border sanitation and other border water quality problems; - preservation of the Rio Grande and Colorado River as the international boundary; - and demarcation of the land boundary. Source: The Mexican-American water treaty, Source 9: The Colorado River Runs Dry: From its source high in the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado River channels water south nearly 1,500 miles, over falls, through deserts and canyons, to the lush wetlands of a vast delta in Mexico and into the Gulf of California. That is, it did so for six million years. Then, beginning in the 1920s, Western states began divvying up the Colorado s water, building dams and diverting the flow hundreds of miles, to Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and other fast-growing cities. The river now serves 30 million people in seven U.S. states and Mexico, with 70 percent or more of its water siphoned off to irrigate 3.5 million acres of cropland. The damming and diverting of the Colorado, the nation s seventh-longest river, may be seen by some as a triumph of engineering and by others as a crime against nature [ ]. The river has been running especially low for the past decade, as drought has gripped 3 the Southwest. It still tumbles through the Grand Canyon, much to the delight of rafters and other visitors. And boaters still roar across Nevada and Arizona s Lake Mead, 110 miles long and formed by the Hoover Dam. But at the lake s edge they can see lines in the rock walls, distinct as bathtub rings, showing the water level far lower than it once was some 130 feet lower 4, as it happens, since Water resource officials say some of the reservoirs fed by the river will never be full again. Climate change will likely decrease the river s flow by 5 to 20 percent in the next 40 years, says geoscientist Brad Udall, director of the University of Colorado Western Water Assessment. [ ] The city [of Las Vegas] is one of the largest in the Colorado River basin, but its share of the river is relatively small; when officials allocated the Colorado s water to different states in 1922, no one expected so many people to be living in the Nevada desert. So Nevadans have gotten used to coping with limitations. They can t water their yards or wash their cars whenever they like; communities follow strict watering schedules. The water authority pays homeowners to replace water-gulping lawns with rocks and drought-tolerant plants. Golf courses adhere to water restrictions. Almost all wastewater is reused or returned to the Colorado River. In 1922, [ ] the delta of the Colorado river stretched over nearly 3,000 square miles 5 ; today, it covers fewer than 250 6, and the only water flowing through it, except after heavy rains, is the runoff 7 from alfalfa, lettuce and melon fields and pecan orchards 8. 3 To touch. 4 39,6 mètres, soit un immeuble de 10 étages km², soit approximativement la superficie de l Isère. 6 Moins de 650 km². 7 Écoulement.

10 The river has become a perfect symbol of what happens when we ask too much of a limited resource: it disappears. In fact, the Colorado no longer regularly reaches the sea. Invasive plants, such as salt cedar and cattails, now dominate the delta, a landscape of seemingly endless mud flats where forests used to stand. And in the Gulf of California itself, shellfish, shrimp and waterfowl have declined dramatically as fresh water has dried up. Peter McBride has spent two years photographing the great river [ ]. In his career, McBride [ ] has taken pictures in 50 nations on six continents for magazines, books and films [ ]. McBride knew the delta was suffering, but he was surprised when he visited it for the first time. I spent two weeks walking the most parched, barren earth you can imagine, he recalls. It s sad to see the mighty Colorado River come to a dribble 9 and end some 50 miles north of the sea. Source: Dams, irrigation and now climate change have drastically reduced the once-mighty river. Is it a sign of things to come?, by Sarah Zielinski 10, Smithsonian magazine, October Questions: 1. Find the different kinds of infrastructures on the Colorado River and explain their function (sources 5 and 6). 2. Find the different kinds of risks the Colorado River and the inhabitants nearby face now and will have to face in the future (source 9). 3. Prove that the overuse and the overconsumption of the Colorado River can be at the origin of conflicts between users such as people, tourists, ecologists, farmers, American states, the USA and Mexico and so on. Choose one or two conflicts and give the different side arguments (sources 7, 8 and 9). III. Battles for water in the southwest of the USA? Sources to use: Source 10: Restoring the Colorado River delta: Taken from The Central Arizona Project website, Source 11: 7 states pact on drought: Taken from Fora.tv (official video in DC 2010) Source 12: Project to protect Colorado River: 8 Pépinière. 9 to fall in small drops or in a thin stream. 10 Sarah Zielinski is an assistant editor for Smithsonian. The Smithsonian institute is based in D.C. and is one of the most important research center in the USA.

11 Source: Review Journal, CRSP (Colorado Rover Storage Project), Questions: 1. Find out what are the most important problems for sustainability in the Southwest of the USA and in Mexico regarding the Colorado River? 2. Explain what are the solutions attempted to prevent that the Colorado River became completely dry and to restore its delta?