In the American West, water adjudication lawsuits are adversarial, expensive, and lengthy. Unsettled Waters is the first detailed study of water adjudications in New Mexico. The state envisioned adjudication as a straightforward accounting of water rights as private property. However, adjudication resurfaced tensions and created conflicts among water sovereigns at multiple scales. Based on more than ten years of fieldwork, this book tells a fascinating story of resistance involving communal water cultures, Native rights and cleaved identities, clashing experts, and unintended outcomes. Whether the state can alter adjudications to meet the water demands in the twenty-first century will have serious consequences.
Examines the water policy of the arid southwestern US from the perspectives of political science, economics, and the law. The 15 chapters discuss the political context and legal doctrines; the role of governments; and water allocation and other management issues.
One of the greatest conundrums facing the arid western United States is the availability, use, and quality of groundwater. In large sections of the West, groundwater is the only dependable source of water for agricultural production and home consumption. Yet many of the aquifers are being depleted at a rate that will suck them dry within a century. Furthermore, dependence upon groundwater in many areas will only increase in the future. This dependence is already having serious consequences for small towns on the Great Plains. Faced with growing costs associated with deeper wells and the need for ever more advanced technology for extracting water, these towns find they lack the resources to maintain current agricultural practices. ø In this timely assessment of the West?s groundwater resources, the authors provide a detailed overview of groundwater management in the Western states. The authors present for each state the various management strategies, laws, and political realities that have made groundwater appropriation such a volatile subject. They also suggest possible difficulties that states and regions might face under current groundwater policies. By examining separate cases and viewing the West as a whole, the authors are able to identify not only the most pressing problems but also the most appropriate management techniques for protecting water supplies for future use.
The American West faces many challenges, but none is more important than the challenge of managing its water. This book examines the role that water transfers can play in allocating the region's scarce water resources. It focuses on the variety of third parties, including Native Americans, Hispanic communities, rural communities, and the environment, that can sometimes be harmed when water is moved. The committee presents recommendations to guide states, tribes, and federal agencies toward better regulation. Seven in-depth case studies are presented: Nevada's Carson-Truckee basin, the Colorado Front Range, northern New Mexico, Washington's Yakima River basin, central Arizona, and the Central and Imperial valleys in California. Water Transfers in the West presents background and current information on factors that have encouraged water transfers, typical types of transfers, and their potential negative effects. The book highlights the benefits that water transfers can bring but notes the need for more third-party representation in the processes used to evaluate planned transfers.
This book addresses water management issues in the State of New Mexico. It focuses on our current understanding of the natural world, capabilities in numerical modeling, existing and evolving regulatory frameworks, and specific issues such as water quality, endangered species and the evolution of new water management institutions. Similar to its neighboring states, New Mexico regularly experiences cycles of drought. It is also experiencing rapid economic growth while at the same time is experiencing a fundamental climate shift. These factors place severe demands on its scarce water resources. In addition to historical uses by the native inhabitants of the region and the agricultural sector, new competitive uses have emerged which will require reallocation. This effort is complicated by unadjudicated water rights, the need to balance the ever-increasing needs of growing urban and rural populations, and the requirements of the ecosystem and traditional users. It is clear that New Mexico, as with other semi-arid states and regions, must find efficient ways to reallocate water among various beneficial uses. This book discusses how a proper coordination of scientific understanding, modeling advancements, and new and emerging institutional structures can help in achieving improved strategies for water policy and management. To do so, it calls upon the expertise of academics from multiple disciplines, as well as officials from federal and state agencies, to describe in understandable terms the issues currently being faced and how they can be addressed via an iterative strategy of adaptive management.
Climate change: a strategic opportunity for water managers? / Kathy Jacobs and Paul Fleming -- The delta : resolving California's water conundrum / Pat Mulroy -- The San Diego strategy : a sea change in western water / Maureen A. Stapleton -- The Colorado River story / Jim Lochhead and Pat Mulroy -- Why examine Nebraska's water governance framework? / Ann Bleed -- Harnessing hydrogeological analysis to improve groundwater management across the American West / Burke W. Griggs and James J. Butler Jr -- Southeast Florida : ground zero for sea level rise / Doug Yoder -- Finding the balance : developing resilient, sustainable water and wastewater systems in New York City / Alan Cohn, Angela Licata, and Emily Lloyd
As the Democratic congressman from Colorado's Fourth District from 1949 to 1973, Wayne Aspinall was an advocate of natural resource development in general and reclamation projects in particular. A political loner, considered crusty and abrasive, he carved a national reputation by helping secure the passage of key water legislation—in the process clashing with colleagues and environmentalists alike. Fiercely protective of western Colorado's water supply, Aspinall sought to secure prosperity for his district by protecting its share of Colorado River water through federal reclamation projects, and he made this goal the centerpiece of his congressional career. He became chair of the House Interior Committee in 1959 and ruled it with an iron fist for more than a dozen years—a role that placed him in a key position to shape the nation's natural resource legislation at a time when the growing environmental movement was calling for a sharp change in policy. This full-length study of Aspinall's importance to reclamation in the West clarifies his role in influencing western water policy. By focusing on Aspinall's congressional career, Stephen Sturgeon provides a detailed account of the political machinations and personal foibles that shaped Aspinall's efforts to implement water reclamation legislation in support of Colorado's Western Slope, along the way shedding new light on familiar water controversies. Sturgeon meticulously traces the influences on Aspinall's thinking and the arc of his career, examining the congressman's involvement in the Colorado River Storage Project bill and his clash with conservationists over the proposed Echo Park Dam; recounting the fight over the Frying Pan-Arkansas Project and his decision to support diverting water out of his own district; and exploring the battles over the Central Arizona Project, in which Aspinall fought not only environmentalists but also other members of Congress. Finally he assesses the Aspinall legacy, including the still-disputed Animas-La Plata Project, and shows how his vision of progress shaped the history of western water development. The Politics of Western Water portrays Aspinall in human terms, not as a pork-barrel politician but as a representative who believed he was protecting his constituents' interests. It is an insightful account of the political, financial, and personal variables that affect the course by which water resource legislation is conceived, supported, and implemented—a book that is essential to understanding the history and future of water in the West.
