Introduction
Arizona, Nevada and the Southwest US in general are dry places. They are also beautiful places with modern cities that people want to move to.
Water usage is measured in acre feet. This is enough water to cover an acre of land 1 foot deep. An acre foot is enough to provide ample water to about 3 households for a full year. It is 325,851 Gallons, and most people in a typical Arizona household use about 100,000 gallons a year, and even less if they don’t have a yard. When we talk about an entire state we use the measure of million acre feet (MAF). A million acre feet per year is then 325,851,000,000 gallons of water used over a year, 892,742,465 gallons of water a day, 619960 gallons of water a minute or 10,332 gallons of water a second, enough to fill the average backyard pool.
Agricultural use of water is much higher per acre than municipal use. In face over 70% of the water used in Arizona is still for Agricultural use. An acre of suburbs that is built replaces an acre of farms, and for this reason Arizona actually uses less water each year, with the peak water usage being in the early 1980’s. We are currently using almost 30% less water today than we did back then. Most agricultural water users pay $20 or less per acre foot of water. Home users pay about $3.20 per 1000 gallons which would be over $1000 per acre foot. Of course that cost includes all purification and transportation of the water which is much more expensive than the water cost.
Arizona gets a bit over 1/3rd of its water from the Colorado River, however the groundwater table has been getting lower and lower so will not be able to sustain the current withdraw rate forever. For much of the last 20 years the Colorado has not been producing as much water as needed. This has caused the levels in lake mead (our main surface water storage) to go down. 2022 and 2023 were fairly wet years and usage has gone down, therefore the levels have restored quite a bit but most official websites have not been updated to show this. It is not as much of a priority by these agencies to get the word out now that the problem is not as bad.
It is impossible to measure the exact amount of water that is used, but a close estimate can be made. In the early 1980’s Arizona had peak water usage and was using about 9-9.5 MAF per year, after that there was a steady decline and for the last few years we have been currently using about 7 MAF, of which less than 2 MAF are being used by all municipal and industrial uses. This was during a time when our population has almost tripled.
What is the Colorado River Basin?
A basin is an area of land where all the water that falls in that area goes to a single body of water. The Colorado River Basin is the grey area on this map, any water that falls in this area will eventually make it to the Colorado river, it may first spend a long time as ground water. The only natural way water is added to this basin is when it comes from the sky. The basin is created by topography because water simply only goes downhill.
CAP
The central Arizona project is a 336 mile system of canals that brings Colorado river water to the central part of Arizona. Without it Phoenix would not be even half the size it is today. It took 20 years and $4 Billion to build it, paid for by the Federal government, signed into law by LBJ on Sept 30th 1968. Construction started in 1973 and finished in 1994, with upgrades and maintenance continuing to this day. Cap has the ability to transport 1.4 MAF per year to central Arizona, and storage capacity of 300,000 acre feet.
So how do we save Arizona?
There are only two solutions, use less or start with more. We need to attack the problem from both sides.
We are well on the way towards the use less solution, mostly giving dramatic cuts to the amount of water given to agriculture. The number one crop grown in Arizona is alfalfa, which is used to feed cattle and other animals. This crop can grow in other areas that are not so water stressed. The federal government has started giving farmers $521 per acre foot of water that they reduce their usage by, but this is an expensive program for the government.
Getting more water into the basin.
There has been talk of crazy ideas like a desalination plant in Mexico and piping the water up hill all the way to Phoenix, this idea is very expensive and could cause issues if our relationship with Mexico deteriorates.
If we are thinking of desalination a much better idea would be to have water swaps. Arizona would pay to build a plant near LA, and give .5 MAF of water to LA, then they would take .5 MAF less water from the famers of the imperial valley and then they could take .5 MAF less from the Colorado allowing CAP to take that water instead. Unfortunately the current policies of California will not allow for the building of any new desalination plants, desalination plants are expensive and use massive amounts of electricity.
So what about other sources of water. In most of the United States water is not nearly as scarce. In the Columbia river basin, for example, the vast majority of the clean pure water simply flows to the Pacific ocean. The snake river alone discharges 36 MAF per year into the Columbia river. The Columbia river discharges an average of 192 MAF into the Pacific Ocean. There is so much water that everyone on this water system has no fears of shortage, and prices of water for agriculture are at or near zero.
Snake River
Lets look a bit more at the snake river. It is a major river, and it the border between Idaho and Oregon for much of their border. The water in the snake river is owned by the state of Idaho and managed by the federal government, more specifically by the army corps of engineers. Most of the 36 MAF per year of flow from the snake river happens more downstream, but at the point of the American Falls Reservoir the discharge is 7 MAF per year, and that the Palisades Reservoir the output is close to 6 MAF per year.
The Green River
Now let’s look at the green river. It is a 730 mile river that starts near the grand Tetons and discharges about 4.5 MAF into the Colorado river each year just south of Moab Utah. It is big enough to handle additional water. All we need to do is move water from the Snake river to the Green River.
The Green Snake Project
So how would we move water from the snake river to the green river. The easiest way would be to build a pipeline at lake Palisades (elevation 5600 ft) near Alpine Junction Wyoming to the headwaters of the green river near Daniel Wyoming, where highway 191 and 189 meet. Daniel is a small village with a population of just 150 people and an elevation of 7200 ft. The straight line distance between these two points is just 50 miles. You would have to go through the pass between Hoback Peak and Mt, McDougal. These two mountains are both around 10,800 in elevation. This is rugged and mountainous land, with almost no people. It will not be able to take a direct path and will likely need to be at least 70 miles long unless tunneling is involved.
The starting part of the green river may not be able to handle all the extra water, but additional infrastructure can be built to make it happen. By the time the water gets to the Fontenelle dam it averages about .5 MAF per year, but the powerplant at that dam can 1.2 MAF per year, while the dam itself and the river beyond it can handle 1.6 MAF per year. This means we could move an additional 1.1 MAF per year into this river system without significant improvements to existing infrastructure. With a $100M or less of improvements it could easily handle over 2.5 MAF of extra capacity.
The water will be carried all the way down to the Colorado river and then into our lakes, and eventually can be used by the thirsty cities and CAP. As the water goes down the Colorado river it will encounter many different reservoirs and dams which will generate much more electricity than it takes to move the water over the mountain range. It will also fill up every dam and reservoir below it over time. 2.5 MAF could go missing from the snake river annually and not even be noticed by the people who live on the river. Not all of the water will make it to Arizona, some will be used, some will evaporate and some will flow into ground water to fill it up first. We could easily expect to lose 40% of the water we put into the system, but this water will serve to help communities all along the river system.
Costs
The cost to build such a pipeline and pump station will likely be over $300 million. While the cost of water near the snake river is about $5 per acre foot, making an acre foot worth about $5M dollars, the value to Arizona is closer to $250 per acre foot while the federal government has set the price of water in AZ to $521 per acre foot. If we move 2.5 MAF of water that is a positive value add of over half a billion dollars per year, paying off the entire cost to build it in the first year. This is a drop in the bucket companied to the economic impact of not having to worry as much about water. Billions of dollars of new construction can be built, tourism at the lakes will increase and have a huge impact on their local economy.
Politics
Of course water is always a hot topic, and taking this much water from people who have come to expect it is going to be hard, even if they have so much they will hardly notice the withdraws. There are really only two ways to do it, either have the Federal government decide that it is more important for the SW to have the water, and they can just pass a new law. The other option is that Arizona, Nevada and other parties can buy this water and pay Idaho for it. Idaho can sell this water and create an even larger state surplus of funds, it can also be used to add additional water infrastructure in the state. You could also do a mix of the two. The current value of 1 MAF the water to Idaho is under $5 dollars, if we offered 10 times that much it would likely dissolve most resistance as long as that money was shared correctly with those that are harmed.
To get something like this to pass we need people to promote it. To make it easier promote we should all use the same name for this project, I felt that an obvious choice would be the Green Snake Project. People in power to make such choices need to become aware of this option.
Alternatives:
It would also be more politically viable and maybe even less costly option to follow existing highway systems. You could get water from the snake river near lake Walcott, at this point the snake river is larger and lower after having been fed by a few other rivers. You then could move the water on a pipeline along I-84 south to I-15 and then down south of ogden UT and back along I-84 until you reach I-80 and then release the water near Granger Wyoming. This would be a nearly 300 miles.
Another middle option would be to start near Pocatello ID you could take highway 30 to and release the water just north of Granger Wyoming which is just under 200 miles of pipeline. The benefit of either of these paths is that they go through the Salt Lake basin allowing you to release some water for the salt lake city area if it is needed.
There are also some other projects that could be done to bring water to the thirsty desert. Another barely viable project would be to take water from the Caballo Reservoir on the Rio Grande River near Caballo New Mexico and move it to the Gila river near Cliff New Mexico. The Gila river flows directly into the Phoenix metro area and then eventually to the Colorado river. This is much flatter land, but it is also long with a distance of about 100 miles. The biggest problem with this plan is that the flow of the Rio Grande at this point is too small, reserves are lower right now than even in Arizona and the current cost for an acre foot of land is actually higher than Arizona at this time.
Next Steps
The next step is to share this article with people in power. Most people don’t have the attention span to read even this short article, so a video should be made explaining all of these points in graphic form, such a video could be shared on social media and online, bringing this idea to the world.
About the Author
Jason Dragon is an Arizona native, a small business owner, and a Realtor. He has seen firsthand the beauty of our state, the massive water flows of the snake river and the policy impact of drought. He runs a computer hardware recycling company and has always had an interest in environmental protection, and of course making things green. The green snake project would make Phoenix and the surrounding areas much more green.
Credits:
Sources: www.arizonawaterfacts.com, nps.gov, www.cap-az.com, www.wbur.org, www.desertsun.com,
Images courtesy of: Shannon 1, WyGJim, Jason Dragon, arizonawaterfacts.com, cowboystatedaily.com