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Emergency Water Delivery-Tijuana-San Diego County Water Authority

Water Authority Delivers Emergency Water Supply to Tijuana

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Fast action by the San Diego County Water Authority and its partners is helping maintain water service in Tijuana after problems with the city’s aqueduct emerged in December.

Emergency water deliveries started last week after a coordinated effort between the Water Authority, Otay Water District, and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The typical multi-month approval process was compressed into a few days to avoid additional water supply shortages in Tijuana.

Agency accelerates emergency water delivery

“We’re extremely proud of how quickly the Water Authority staff worked to meet the emergency water needs of our neighbors to the south,” said Mel Katz, Water Authority Board Chair. “Coordinating with multiple agencies and getting the necessary approvals in just three days was a team effort and is a credit to the Water Resources and Operations & Maintenance departments.”

Cross-border emergency deliveries started more than 50 years ago and are governed by an agreement between the United States and Mexico to provide Tijuana with a portion of Mexico’s Colorado River supply. The Water Authority provides emergency water deliveries to Mexico through a cross-border connection in Otay Mesa. These deliveries use Water Authority, Otay Water District, and MWD facilities to transport the emergency supplies from the Colorado River to Mexico, which pays transportation costs on deliveries to Tijuana and provides funds for meter connection upkeep. Deliveries are typically planned months in advance due to the number of government agencies involved.

Coordination with multiple agencies

On January 2, the Water Authority received a request for emergency water delivery to Tijuana. Water Authority staff immediately expedited the complex approval process during this unplanned Tijuana aqueduct outage. Those steps included working with the U.S. International Boundary & Water Commission, Otay Water District, and MWD to confirm system capacity availability and establish costs associated with the additional emergency deliveries.

The current water deliveries are scheduled to continue until the end of February. Consistent with the previously approved schedule, planned water deliveries will restart in April and continue through September 2023.

(Editor’s note: The Otay Water District is one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across San Diego County.)

Director Jim Madaffer Elected Vice Chair of the Colorado River Board of California

/in , , /by /Water News Network Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

San Diego County Water Authority Board Member Jim Madaffer has been elected vice chair of the Colorado River Board of California. The CRB represents California in river management discussions with other Basin states, federal agencies, tribes, and Mexico.

Madaffer, the Water Authority’s CRB representative since 2019, will serve a four-year term as vice chair following his election on January 11 during the CRB meeting in Ontario, Calif. He will serve alongside Imperial Irrigation District Board Vice President JB Hamby, who was elected chair.

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Nevada Outlines Framework for Colorado River Cuts as States Show Their Cards

/in , , /by /The Nevada Independent by Daniel Rothberg

At the end of last year, the seven states in the Colorado River Basin committed to once again work together and negotiate a consensus framework for making significant cuts to water use, an attempt to stabilize the nation’s two largest reservoirs and avoid an even deeper shortage crisis.

The states recommitted to considering a consensus deal, by Jan. 31, after several deadlines passed in 2022 — with seemingly irreconcilable differences over how to make painful cuts in a watershed relied upon by 40 million people who use the river for drinking water and agriculture.

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San Diego County Water Authority And its 24 Member Agencies

Director Jim Madaffer Elected Vice Chair of the Colorado River Board of California

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San Diego County Water Authority Board Member Jim Madaffer has been elected vice chair of the Colorado River Board of California (CRB), which represents California in river management discussions with other Basin states, federal agencies, tribes, and Mexico.

Madaffer, the Water Authority’s CRB representative since 2019, will serve a four-year term as vice chair following his election on January 11 during the CRB meeting in Ontario. He will serve alongside Imperial Irrigation District Board Vice President JB Hamby, who was elected chair.

“I look forward to working with Chair Hamby and the rest of the Colorado River Board to both protect California’s water supplies during these challenging times and to work collaboratively to keep the river flowing for all users,” said Madaffer, a former chair of the Water Authority Board. “It is essential that California agencies unite to uphold the Law of the River as we seek solutions with the widest possible benefits.”

Established in 1937, CRB consists of agency representatives from the Water Authority, IID, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Coachella Valley Water District, Palo Verde Irrigation District, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Additional representatives include the directors of the California Department of Water Resources and Department of Fish and Wildlife, along with two public representatives.

CRB’s role has been pivotal in protecting the state’s share of the river during this period when two decades of drought have caused a sharp supply/demand imbalance, leading to a severe decline in water levels in the river’s two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell.

Led by CRB, California has proposed conserving up to 400,000 acre-feet annually through 2026 to support the river. Though that conservation will not affect the San Diego region’s high-priority Quantification Settlement Agreement supplies, the region is continuing to take active steps to conserve as it has over the past three decades.

“The San Diego region is committed to doing our part to be good stewards of our water supplies,” said Water Authority Board Chair Mel Katz. “We also believe in working collaboratively with all stakeholders on the river, and Jim’s leadership on the Colorado River Board in his new role as vice chair will only advance those efforts.”

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In a Water Deficit, Arizona Contemplates a Future Without Colorado River Access

/in , , /by /Courthouse News Serviceby Joe Duhownik

Water from the Colorado River covers more than a third of Arizona’s total water usage, but the state is increasingly losing access to that supply.

The state is no longer in what Terry Goddard, the president of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District Board of Directors, called “a fool’s paradise.” Arizona had maintined a surplus of water since the mid-1980s, but that’s not the case today. Now, it’s losing water, and it’s losing it fast.

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‘It’s a Marathon, Not a Race’ — What Utah’s Recent Snowstorms Mean for the Colorado River

/in , , /by /The Salt Lake Tribuneby Leia Larsen

The snow keeps falling across Utah, which will likely benefit beleaguered waters like the Great Salt Lake and Lake Powell. But it’s too soon to say how much of a difference it will make.

Snowpack is well above average in watersheds across the state, according to the latest data from the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Snow Survey. The Southeastern Utah basin is an astounding 190% above normal for this time of year, and other drainages that feed the Colorado River are close behind. All that snow has done little to lift Lake Powell’s elevation to date, which currently sits at about a quarter of its capacity and around 30 feet above the point where it will no longer be able to generate hydropower.

Still, there are reasons to be optimistic.

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Colorado River in Crisis

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Times

The Colorado River can no longer withstand the thirst of the arid West. Water drawn from the river flows to more than 40 million people in cities from Denver to Los Angeles and irrigates more than 5 million acres of farmland.

For decades, the river has been entirely used up, leaving dusty stretches of desert where it once flowed to the sea in Mexico. Now, chronic overuse and the effects of climate change are pushing the river system toward potential collapse as reservoirs drop to dangerously low levels. A water reckoning is about to transform the landscape of the Southwest.

Colorado River in Crisis is a series of stories, videos and podcasts in which Los Angeles Times journalists travel throughout the river’s watershed, from the headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to the river’s dry delta in Mexico. These stories reveal the stark toll of the river’s decline, responses that have yet to match the scale of the crisis, and voices that are urging a fundamental rethinking of how water is managed and used to adapt to the reality of a river that is over-tapped and dwindling.

The Times podcast: Colorado River in Crisis, Part 1: A Dying River

 

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Opinion: We Can Overcome the Drought by Learning From Nature

/in , /by /Don Galeby The Salt Lake Tribune

One hundred years ago — little more than a lifetime — nature and the Colorado River conspired almost every spring to ravage soil, rocks, vegetation and anything else in the river’s path on its rapacious way to the Pacific Ocean. The river overran its banks to flood California’s Imperial Valley plus other low-lying ground in Arizona, Mexico and California. It filled those valleys with fertile mountain soil.

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Wyoming: Unhappy in Its Own Way at the Top of the Colorado River

/in , /by /The Desert Reviewby Brian McNeece

Wyoming, the Cowboy State, is at the other end of the Colorado River from the Imperial Valley. Its Green River starts high on the western slopes of the Wind River Mountains, and as the largest tributary to the Colorado River, plays a major role in sending us water 1400 miles away.

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Snowpack at 142% After Week of Storms in Upper Colorado River Basin

/in , , /by /8 News Nowby Greg Haas

Snowpack levels crucial to water supplies in the Colorado River basin have been rising over the past week as storms hit the Rocky Mountains. Dec. 27 measurements of 102% snowpack in the region — just above normal — had risen to 142% as of today in the Upper Colorado River Basin. That week-to-week change is good news but demonstrates the volatility of snowpack levels.

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