Federal Water Tap, November 11: USDA Survey Reveals Declines and Shifts in Farm Irrigation

The Rundown

• USDA survey shows U.S. farms irrigated less land with less total water than five years ago – but used more groundwater.
• U.S. and Mexico sign Rio Grande water delivery agreement.
• EPA issues an emergency order for drinking water system failures by a California water company.
• Reclamation agrees to extend the deadline for Navajo water supply project.
• EPA decides on a two-year extension of Great Lakes advisory board.
• EPA proposes expansive stormwater permitting for three Boston-area watersheds.

And lastly, the Bureau of Reclamation discusses changes to the timeline for Colorado River rules negotiations.

“The goal is that a broad and reasonable range of alternatives is put forth.” – Carly Jerla, Bureau of Reclamation, providing an update on the agency’s timeline for developing new rules for reservoir operations in the Colorado River basin to replace those that expire at the end of 2026. The draft environmental impact statement will not be released next month, as was anticipated. The agency instead will publish a preliminary analysis of a “range of alternatives.” Those alternatives will then be analyzed in the EIS. To be incorporated into the 2027 operating plans, the new rules need to be finalized by “mid-2026,” Jerla said.

Reclamation unveiled analysis of four proposals it has received: from upper basin states, lower basin states, Gila River Indian Community, and conservation groups. In dry conditions, the upper basin proposal would benefit Powell more than the lower basin proposal. The opposite is true of the lower basin proposal: it would benefit Mead in dry conditions more than the upper basin’s proposal. This is due to how water withdrawal reductions are distributed. Reservoirs were highest in dry conditions under the proposal from the conservation groups – because the withdrawal reductions are largest.

By the Numbers

2029: Year by which the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project is now scheduled for completion. The Bureau of Reclamation says the extension is due to difficulties in integrating the infrastructure from a decommissioned coal-fired power plant. The project was authorized in 2009 to supply Navajo communities and Gallup, New Mexico. Parts of the system have been completed and are now delivering water.

13 Percent: Drop in U.S. hydropower generation expected this year compared to the 10-year average, according to the Energy Information Administration. It would be the country’s lowest hydropower output since 2001. The cause is widespread drought, particularly in the Pacific Northwest earlier this year, that weakened river flows.

News Briefs

Irrigation Numbers
Continuing a long-term downward trend, U.S. farms used less irrigation water in the last five years, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey that provides the most detailed picture of the country’s irrigation practices.

Fewer farms irrigated fewer acres with less total water, the Irrigation and Water Management survey found. But groundwater withdrawals for irrigation increased.

Total irrigation water applied to fields fell to 81 million acre-feet, a 2.8 percent drop. Just 25 years ago, total irrigation water was 97.3 million acre-feet. Since that time, farms have become more efficient with their water, and more fields have been subdivided into housing developments.

Not everything moved downward, though. Groundwater use increased by 6 percent between 2018 and 2023, largely due to more pumping in Arizona, Nebraska, and the Deep South. That number is still lower than groundwater use in 2013.

Use of treated wastewater topped a million acre-feet for the first time. Fifty-five percent of the reclaimed water for irrigation is used in California.

Another survey question asked about barriers to adopting energy or water conservation. By acreage, the top response was the improvements do not generate enough cost savings – an indication that water is too cheap or that conservation costs are too high. The second response was inability to finance the improvements.

In context: U.S. Irrigation Continues Steady Eastward Expansion

Rio Grande Water Deliveries
Representatives from the U.S. and Mexico signed a temporary agreement intended to end years of acrimony over water supplies from the shared Rio Grande basin.

U.S. water users, particularly in Texas, grew impatient recently as Mexico missed water-delivery deadlines that are required by treaty. The tardiness came amid drying conditions that have depleted flows from the border river and its Mexican tributaries. With a year remaining in the current five-year delivery cycle, Mexico is well behind on its obligations.

The new agreement, called Minute 331, offers Mexico options to fulfill its delivery requirements. Those options include transferring the rights to water already stored in border reservoirs and using water from other rivers such as the San Juan, which flows into the Rio Grande downstream of its major reservoirs.

The agreement also establishes two working groups, one to discuss infrastructure projects and the other for environmental considerations.

The agreement should be considered a test run. Its water supply provisions expire after five years, and the binational commission that oversees border rivers promised to complete a new agreement by December 2029.

In context: Can U.S. and Mexico Secure Water Supplies in Shrinking Rio Grande?

Massachusetts Stormwater
The EPA proposed broad federal authority for regulating stormwater runoff in three Boston-area watersheds.

The agency is developing a general stormwater permit that would apply to all commercial, industrial, and institutional properties with more than one acre of impervious surface in the Charles, Neponset, and Mystic River watersheds. These roughly 4,000 properties, whose stormwater discharges are not currently regulated by the EPA, would include sites such as businesses, factories, and hospitals. But the rules would not apply to municipal properties or to roads and properties owned by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

At least one commenter thinks the draft proposal, if finalized in current form, is ripe for a legal challenge.

The permitting change stems from a 2019 petition by the Conservation Law Foundation and the Charles River Watershed Association that sought to curb phosphorus and bacteria flows from these and other properties with large paved surfaces.

Public comments are being accepted through January 29, 2025. Email them to R1.RDA@epa.gov using subject line “Comments on the Preliminary Designation and/or Draft CII GP.”

Studies and Reports

Drinking Water Emergency Order
In response to repeated failures to provide clean water to customers on the Chemehuevi reservation, the EPA issued an emergency order to the Havasu Water Company.

The order has several requirements: issue timely boil-water notices to customers after a loss of system pressure, properly sample water following outages, make bottled water or an alternative available during a boil-water notice, and assess the system for repairs.

The company provides drinking water to some 361 people on the Chemehuevi Indian Reservation, in Needles, California.

The order notes five water outages that have occurred this year, and ten since March 2022, owing to pipe breaks, power outages, and lack of a certified operator to run the system.

On the Radar

Great Lakes Advisory Board Extended
The EPA will extend for two years the charter of the Great Lakes Advisory Board, a group of experts that advises the agency on matters related to the Great Lakes.

Federal Water Tap is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.

Brett Walton

Brett writes about agriculture, energy, infrastructure, and the politics and economics of water in the United States. He also writes the Federal Water Tap, Circle of Blue’s weekly digest of U.S. government water news. He is the winner of two Society of Environmental Journalists reporting awards, one of the top honors in American environmental journalism: first place for explanatory reporting for a series on septic system pollution in the United States(2016) and third place for beat reporting in a small market (2014). He received the Sierra Club’s Distinguished Service Award in 2018. Brett lives in Seattle, where he hikes the mountains and bakes pies. Contact Brett Walton