Guest Column
The Green Line: Cooperation critical to solving shared water problems
- The Green Line: Cooperation critical to solving shared water problems
- By Talli Nauman/The Herald Mexico-El Universal
- April 16, 2007
If the All-American Canal in California is hard-surfaced to swell the flow of Colorado River water to San Diego’s municipal users, the environmental impact will probably affect the availability and swell the price of Mexican shrimp as well. But that’s just the beginning of the story with the effects of such a move.
Lining the irrigation ditch with concrete will deprive Mexico of 80 million cubic meters of seepage annually. In other words, it will reduce each year’s supply by an amount that would cover 65,000 acres a foot deep in water. This setback to aquifer recharge means the loss of 67 percent of the river delta’s shrimp nurseries, habitat and vegetation.
In the wake of 20th Century U.S. dam projects along the Colorado River, the approximately 200,000 people who live in the 1,127 communities of the river’s Mexican watershed have mounted campaigns to save what drops still trickle down to them, obtain more and restore habitat. They want to secure a minimum flow for agriculture and other activities in the Colorado’s 3.1 million-acre (1.3 million-hectare) area of influence in Mexico.
The April 6 U.S. federal appeals court ruling that the canal lining should proceed is based on legal considerations that are blind to environmental justice. A three-judge panel in San Francisco lifted the injunction against the process, arguing that a 2006 law signed by President George W. Bush orders the Bureau of Reclamation to get on with the project. The ruling states that Mexico still will receive the 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado water to which it is entitled by treaty, anyway.
The 1922 Colorado River Compact allocated 90 percent of the river’s water in the United States to Imperial and Coachella valley agriculture, as well as other lands in seven states north of the border. The 1944 Water Treaty between the United States and Mexico assigned the remaining 10 percent (1.5 million acre-feet, or 1.85 million cubic meters, a year) to Mexican growers and other businesses in the Mexicali Valley of Baja California state.
These and related legal instruments, now known as the Law of the River, allot nothing for fishing, recreation, or wildlife, except in extraordinary cases of surplus.
The non-profit Consejo de Desarrollo Económico de Mexicali, based in Baja California, was among groups that sued to gain the injunction last year. Supporters will undoubtedly contest the court decision.
Members of the Hardy and Colorado River Users Ecological Association (AEURHYC) note that the assurance of more water is key to the tourist economy in the delta area as well as people’s food supplies far and wide.
Shrimp served at dinner tables throughout Mexico and the United States depend on the amount of Colorado water reaching the Gulf of California. The shrimp population has declined in relation to the river water. Reestablishing the estuaries near the mouth of the river requires an additional 0.057 acre-feet (70 cubic meters) per minute during three months of the year.
That is 35 times more than the river users are asking just to restore the river corridor habitat. If the river’s dams released even 0.002 acre feet (2 cubic meters) per second more, they would provide a permanent flow to the sea. That would be enough to give a new lease on life to the lower Colorado basin.
It would help repopulate nearly extinct protected species, such as the unique vaquita, a small porpoise that has almost been lost due to Colorado water shortages in the Upper Gulf of California and Colorado River Delta Biosphere.
It would safeguard delta wetlands such as Andrade Mesa for their importance to migratory birds and other wildlife, as well as their ability to hold and purify water.
The wetlands provide stable hydrological conditions, flood control, storm and erosion protection, mitigation of potentially catastrophic climate change impacts, aquifer recharge, nutrient retention, a genetic diversity repository, and carbon sinks.
Threats to the wetlands lead to worries of an impending water war. Yet solutions are possible and opportunities for collaboration are at hand. International law requires crossborder consultation on Colorado River water rights decisions. A more proactive attitude on both sides of the boundary line would have results that go beyond the requirements of the 1944 Water Treaty. Inhabitants have demonstrated this already.
- The International Boundary and Water Commission acknowledged the obligation to address the water shortage by establishing the Binational Technical Task Force in 2000. With this backdrop, a bigger Mexican government commitment to achieving more U.S. participation in reaching conservation and restoration goals would strengthen the delta’s position.
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- Talli Nauman is a founder and co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness. talli@direcway.com
- Article at: http://www.mexiconews.com.mx/24265.html
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