Earlier this month, the biggest user of Colorado River water in the West agreed to conserve up to 700,000 acre feet of water through 2026.
The Imperial Irrigation District in California manages about 70% of that state’s share of Colorado River water and says it’ll be able to leave that amount of water in Lake Mead, in what it’s calling a landmark conservation agreement with the federal government.
Tina Shields, water manager at the Imperial Irrigation District, joined The Show to explain how that's going to happen.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Tina, how exactly are you going to do this?
TINA SHIELDS: Sure. And it's a little more complicated because we actually have to conserve the water before we can leave it on Lake Mead. We can't simply cut our water order, but we have three primary means of conserving that water for this particular federally funded program. And we are gonna focus on two of those measures.
The first is the expansion of our on-farm conservation program. This is a program where we provide financial reimbursement to growers who implement field level conservation measures. So they install drip irrigation systems or sprinkler systems or tailwater return systems or for some of the fields precision leveling, if you tilt fields a little bit one way or the other and slow down that water so it can be more uniformly applied. You can use less water and ideally increase your crop yield.
The second program that will generate the bulk of the water will be a deficit irrigation program, also kind of a mini fallowing program. So growers that farm alfalfa, kleingrass and Bermuda grass can actually not irrigate for a 45- to 60-day period in the summertime. The crops will come back once that period is over and they reseed and re-irrigate that they will use less water during that time period when evapotranspiration is very high and the yields are not the best quality of their year round farming.
And in exchange for that, we will offer a conservation payment because they will not be able to harvest a crop and, and get revenue from that crop.
BRODIE: Are you confident that you will have the buy-in from farmers in the Imperial Valley to meet this goal, in terms of conservation.
SHIELDS: I was a little nervous. At first, our backstop conservation program that we hope not to use is full-year fallowing and that's very devastating to our community. But we just initiated our first deficit irrigation program and we had overwhelming participation by growers. They have embraced that. It's also a time period when the egg markets aren't as strong as they are in some years.
And so based on that success and their interest in expanding their on-farm conservation measures, I'm pretty confident that we will meet the 700,000 acre foot goal.
BRODIE: How sustainable do you think these kinds of programs are, you mentioned, it's federally funded? So once that federal money runs out, is this something that you think you can continue to do in some capacity?
SHIELDS: So this is what we call a voluntary compensated short term program. And frankly, there are some downsides to this. Our agricultural runoff feeds the Salton Sea, which is the largest inland body of water. And as our farmers get more efficient or irrigate less that body of water gets smaller. We are very confident that because this is only a three year program that we can manage this, but we are definitely not committing to do this for the long term.
Our challenge is in the Imperial Valley that we only have one water supply and that's the Colorado River. So if that system crashes and isn't viable over the long term, we basically have to move.
BRODIE: So yeah, over the long run I mean, what do you do? Because it sounds like if you take the path that you're on now, that's not great for other environmental entities nearby. But if you don't encourage conservation or take other steps, as you say, you're gonna have to move because the Colorado River is gonna continue to see water levels dropping. So like what's the long term plan?
SHIELDS: So it's a collective problem. All of the states and agencies that use Colorado River are going to have to step up. As I mentioned, the Imperial Irrigation district is already conserving and transferring about 16% of its water supply. This additional water over the three year period will increase that annual percentage to between 22% and 25%.
So there's really not much more we can do without reducing farming. And that is not something our district will entertain. Certainly, we can't fail in this endeavor. So we will keep plugging ahead until we find a way to make this work.
BRODIE: Given the importance of agriculture in your part of California and given the amount of water that agriculture tends to use. Are you looking at trying to make farming more water efficient?
Are you thinking that like programs like this with maybe money coming from elsewhere where you can pay farmers not to farm at particular times of year or farm particular crops is the answer like it's not like you have a lot of residential water use that you can easily cut back or municipal water use. Like a lot of it's agriculture which as we know uses a lot of water.
SHIELDS: Well within California. Certainly 97% of the water use at Imperial Irrigation District is agricultural. You know, when people say that it kind of rubs me the wrong, the wrong way because while urban people have their landscaping issues, they're going to have to deal with and you know, not have lush green lawns in the middle of the desert, which is what traditionally has been sort of the California story. People also like to eat too.
And so I think it's really important that we continue to generate the food and not characterize that as an ag usage because at the end of the day, the markets are all urban and I think we have to collectively work together. There's going to have to be more water recycling. We're gonna have to look at augmentation projects. I would never be a proponent of full scale fallowing.
But this deficit irrigation program where it's a temporary short term measure might provide some viable solutions, particularly when the agricultural markets aren't that strong because it's a little easier than for the farmers to partake in them and it helps their businesses as well.
BRODIE: So how applicable do you think what you're doing in the Imperial Valley might be to places in Arizona?
SHIELDS: I think there's a lot of opportunities, and I will say it is going to be challenging when the Imperial Irrigation District entered into its transfers in 2003. And we actually had some already in implementation to the prior decade. It was tough. We didn't wanna do it.
Our board voted against it a couple of times until we had the strong arm of the federal government on us and, and made a business decision once the environmental issues were taken on by the state of California that fighting the federal government in court every year was not a long term viable solution.
But transfer partnerships that provided funding were realistically something we could do. We're, we're all in a better place now. They are pretty challenging to implement. But I think there's lots of opportunities within other states to try it out and see how it works for their area and have the successes that we've had with participation from growers.
BRODIE: Do you get the sense that the farmers in your district are looking at some of the things they're doing now as long term solutions, even if, you know, it doesn't necessarily come from IID. But you know, things like using different kinds of watering methods or maybe, you know, fallowing their fields temporarily, you know, for a month or two here or there, like are those things you imagine that they're interested in continuing past 2026?
SHIELDS: Yeah, the full year fallowing is tough. There's been some irrigation districts that have focused solely on that and it's been pretty devastating to their communities. Our challenge for our community and I think this is pretty normal for a lot of rural communities, is one in every six jobs is directly related to agriculture. So when you start farming less, there's this ripple effect through the community and some of those irrigation districts that have not had in their portfolio of conservation opportunities, the field level conservation so they can farm, continue to farm the same crops or maybe different crops using less water.
They've seen a lot of those devastating community impacts.
So that's our goal is to avoid those. But again, partnership moving forward, what can we do that has the minimal impacts on farming and minimal impacts on our community but still continue to yield conservation and crop at the same time.
