Water Use in Southwest Heads for a Day of Reckoning

A once-unthinkable day is looming on the Colorado River.
Barring a sudden end to the Southwest’s 11-year drought, the distribution of the river’s dwindling bounty is likely to be reordered as early as next year because the flow of water cannot keep pace with the region’s demands.

For the first time, federal estimates issued in August indicate that Lake Mead, the heart of the lower Colorado basin’s water system — irrigating lettuce, onions and wheat in reclaimed corners of the Sonoran Desert, and lawns and golf courses from Las Vegas to Los Angeles — could drop below a crucial demarcation line of 1,075 feet.

If it does, that will set in motion a temporary distribution plan approved in 2007 by the seven states with claims to the river and by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, and water deliveries to Arizona and Nevada would be reduced.

This could mean more dry lawns, shorter showers and fallow fields in those states, although conservation efforts might help them adjust to the cutbacks. California, which has first call on the Colorado River flows in the lower basin, would not be affected.

But the operating plan also lays out a proposal to prevent Lake Mead from dropping below the trigger point. It allows water managers to send 40 percent more water than usual downstream to Lake Mead from Lake Powell in Utah, the river’s other big reservoir, which now contains about 50 percent more water than Lake Mead.

In that case, the shortage declaration would be avoided and Lake Mead’s levels restored to 1,100 feet or so.

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Bad water? It's the cheese.

A century ago, a band of Swedish families settled in California’s Central Valley, attracted by land that cost $25 an acre and life-sustaining water from the gushing San Joaquin and Merced rivers.

The Mords, the Ahlems, the Nymans and the Wickstroms started dairy farms, milking cows and growing oats and corn for feed. The settlers, joined by Portuguese immigrants, relied on one another to tend irrigation canals and survive choking dust storms and crop-stripping plagues of jackrabbits and grasshoppers. In 1984, to add value to their milk, descendants created an enterprise that grew into Hilmar Cheese Co., one of the world’s largest cheese producers.

Now, much of the well water around the cheese plant, located in the agricultural heart of California, isn’t fit to drink.

New documents show that the cheese is the likely culprit in spoiling at least 18 water wells – probably more – in and around Hilmar. High in nitrates, arsenic, barium and salts, the well water tastes bad and violates federal health standards, increasing the risk of cancer and other health problems.

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