In the western United States, where drought has depleted some water sources, several legal battles are brewing. Rural residents say agricultural water supplies are being decreased, or even eliminated, so they can be diverted to urban areas, where people argue that drinking water was never intended for irrigation, Michael Wines reports for The New York Times. One of the main problems is water rights, which vary from state to state and are ripe for legal arguments.
Sixteen months ago, in southern Texas, along the Gulf coast southwest of Houston, the state "cut off deliveries of river water to rice farmers for three years to
sustain reservoirs that supply booming Austin, about 100 miles
upstream," Wines writes. Farmers sold their water rights to the Lower Colorado River Authority years ago, but are continuing their fight in court. What's at stake is not only the present, but the future, with the Texas Water Development Board, the state’s planning agency, saying
"Cities’ demand for water will rise nearly 75 percent by 2060,
while the use of water for irrigation will decline by 17 percent." (NYT graphic: Farmers were told to stop using water from the Brazos River, but cities and power plants can still use it)
"In Arizona, activists and the federal government are fighting plans to tap groundwater used by a vast housing development — a move that would reduce the water level of a protected river," Wines writes. The battle "hinges on the still-murky question of whether the state can allow the builder to pump groundwater that sustains a river that is under federal control."
"In Colorado, officials in the largely rural west slope of the Rocky Mountains are imposing stiff restrictions on requests to ship water across the mountains to Denver and the rest of the state’s populous eastern half," Wines writes. "Fearing for their existence, Colorado farm towns on the Arkansas River have mobilized to block sales of local water rights to Denver’s fast-growing suburbs."
"In Nevada, a coalition ranging from environmentalists to the Utah League of Women Voters filed federal lawsuits last month seeking to block a pipeline that would supply Las Vegas with groundwater from an aquifer straddling the Nevada-Utah border," Wines writes. "Kansas accuses Colorado and Nebraska of allowing their farmers to divert Kansas’ share of the Republican River, which flows through all three states. A similar dispute between New Mexico and Texas is before the United States Supreme Court." And in California, which has suffered through severe drought, especially in rural areas, some fear that a battle is brewing. (Read more)
"In Arizona, activists and the federal government are fighting plans to tap groundwater used by a vast housing development — a move that would reduce the water level of a protected river," Wines writes. The battle "hinges on the still-murky question of whether the state can allow the builder to pump groundwater that sustains a river that is under federal control."
"In Colorado, officials in the largely rural west slope of the Rocky Mountains are imposing stiff restrictions on requests to ship water across the mountains to Denver and the rest of the state’s populous eastern half," Wines writes. "Fearing for their existence, Colorado farm towns on the Arkansas River have mobilized to block sales of local water rights to Denver’s fast-growing suburbs."
"In Nevada, a coalition ranging from environmentalists to the Utah League of Women Voters filed federal lawsuits last month seeking to block a pipeline that would supply Las Vegas with groundwater from an aquifer straddling the Nevada-Utah border," Wines writes. "Kansas accuses Colorado and Nebraska of allowing their farmers to divert Kansas’ share of the Republican River, which flows through all three states. A similar dispute between New Mexico and Texas is before the United States Supreme Court." And in California, which has suffered through severe drought, especially in rural areas, some fear that a battle is brewing. (Read more)
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