The Colorado River and its tributaries provide municipal and industrial water to about 27 million people and irrigation water to nearly 4 million acres of land in the United States. The river also serves about 2.3 million people and 500,000 acres in Mexico. The threat of salinity is a major concern in both the United States and Mexico. Salinity affects agricultural, municipal, and industrial water users. Damages in Mexico are unquantified, but damages in the United States are presently about $330 million per year. This biennial report on the quality of water in the Colorado River Basin is required by Public Laws 84-485, 87-483, and the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act (Salinity Control Act). The Salinity Control Act (Public [...]
Summary
The Colorado River and its tributaries provide municipal and industrial water to about 27 million people and irrigation water to nearly 4 million acres of land in the United States. The river also serves about 2.3 million people and 500,000 acres in Mexico. The threat of salinity is a major concern in both the United States and Mexico. Salinity affects agricultural, municipal, and industrial water users. Damages in Mexico are unquantified, but damages in the United States are presently about $330 million per year. This biennial report on the quality of water in the Colorado River Basin is required by Public Laws 84-485, 87-483, and the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act (Salinity Control Act). The Salinity Control Act (Public Law 93-320, as amended by Public Laws 98-569, 104-20, 104- 127, and 106-459) authorizes the Secretaries of the U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to enhance and protect the quality of water available in the Colorado River for use in the United States and the Republic of Mexico. The Salinity Control Act also requires the Secretary of the Interior to report biennially on the progress of the program. Title I of the Salinity Control Act authorized the construction and operation of a desalting plant, brine discharge canal, and other features to enable the United States to deliver water to Mexico having an average salinity no greater than 115 parts per million (ppm) plus or minus 30 ppm over the annual average salinity of the Colorado River at Imperial Dam. The Title I program (administered by the Bureau of Reclamation [Reclamation]) continues to meet the requirements of Minute No. 242 of the International Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico. Title II of the Salinity Control Act authorized several specific salinity control units in 1974 and 1984 to meet the objectives and standards set by the Clean Water Act. The cost effective portions of these units have all been completed. In 1995, Public Law 104-20 authorized an entirely new way of implementing salinity control. Reclamation’s Basinwide Salinity Control Program opens the program to competition through a “Request for Salinity damages to municipal water pipe. Salinity damages to crop production. 2 Proposal� process, which has greatly reduced the cost of salinity control. The average cost of salinity control measures has dropped from about $70 per ton to $30 per ton. The Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum (Forum) in accordance with the requirements of the Clean Water Act, prepared the 2002 Review, Water Quality Standards for Salinity, Colorado River System (Review). In the Review the Forum reported that the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program (Program) has controlled a total of 800,000 tons per year of salt. In order to meet the target of 1.8 million tons per year of salinity control through 2020, it will be necessary to fund and implement potential new measures which ensure the removal of an additional 1,000,000 tons per year. The Forum stated that in order to achieve this level of salt reduction, the federal departments and agencies would require the following capital funding: Reclamation appropriation - $10.5 million per year (bringing the total Reclamation program to with cost-sharing to $15 million per year); and USDA EQIP appropriation - $13.8 million per year (bringing the total on-farm program to $19.7 million per year with Basin states parallel program). No new measures for the BLM were proposed in the Review. It is anticipated when measures are identified they will be included in the program. The Review found that nearly 23,000 tons worth of new controls would need to be implemented each year to maintain the standards. This program goal is the combined target for the participating agencies within Interior and USDA. In Reclamation’s annual presentation to the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Advisory Council (November 2001), Reclamation presented an analysis of the program’s overall progress. The analysis showed that the program has been able to meet or exceed its 23,000 ton-per-year target mainly because of the twofold increase in efficiency achieved by Reclamation’s new Basinwide Salinity Control Program.