Tuesday, January
8, 2002
nnovations in irrigation
may help
By Ryan Alessi
Scripps Howard News Service
It had all the makings
of a modern western showdown: angry farmers, two dwindling fish
populations and one heck of a drought.
The Klamath basin, a valley of green wilderness that straddles
the Oregon and Northern California border, had run out of water
to serve the irrigation needs of farmers and of the endangered
coho salmon and suckers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shut
off water for the farms, setting off protests, lawsuits and political
skirmishes galore.
The situation may sound familiar to West Texans. In the 1980s,
the development of O.H. Ivie Reservoir was almost derailed by
concerns about the Concho water snake. Contractors had to set
aside a separate environment for the creature before moving on
with the lake's construction.
In the Northwest, many began wondering if such battles were a
sign of things to come: that there won't be enough water to go
around and, as a result, farmers everywhere will suffer.
"I think farmers across the country, particularly those who
are irrigating, are definitely feeling stresses that they have
never felt before," said Oregon State University professor
Aaron Wolf, an expert on water conflicts.
Like with any commodity, as water gets more scarce, its price
rises.
Texas has been losing irrigated land at a rate of 1 percent a
year for the last 20 years as the underground aquifers dry up
and water becomes more expensive for farmers and ranchers. Sandra
Postel, author of Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last?,
said some land in the West devoted to cheap grazing crops for
livestock might no longer be worth cultivating.
"The water is just going to be too scarce to continue that,"
she said.
The government, farm groups and environmental groups agree that
if the right steps are taken now, the country might avoid a nationwide
dry-up.
About 80 percent of freshwater from lakes, rivers and aquifers
is used for irrigation. Over the last few decades farmers slowly
have been encouraged not to waste that water.
"We have no more water now than we did when the earth was
created," said Tom Kimmell, executive director of the Irrigation
Association in Falls Church, Va. "It just goes around in
a circle. Now we're looking at using recycled water - cleaning
up sewage and filtering it to use in irrigation systems - as a
way to create more water."
Reused water
More than ever, filtered and sterilized municipal sewage water
is irrigating parks, golf courses and fields. Sold for less than
freshwater, recycled water is a cheap alternative for irrigators,
leaving more freshwater for cities and homes.
Abilene's recycled water program has grown dramatically the last
two years.
Before 2000, the primary users of effluent water in the Big Country
were farmers who owned land close to the city's water treatment
plant in Hamby. A drought-tightened water supply caused Abilene
city leaders to install a new wastewater pipeline so the old line
could be used to transport treated water in the other direction
- to customers.
The operation cost $2 million and made 3 million gallons of water
a day available to the city's golf courses. More recently, the
city started pumping the effluent into Lake Kirby. Plans to add
lines to the effluent network, bringing water to Dyess Air Force
Base and other large green spaces, are underway.
"Recycling water is just now becoming commonplace in many
places in the West, similar to the habit we became used to of
recycling aluminum cans," said Rick Martin, water recycling
coordinator for the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees the
nation's largest projects.
By the time the 14 major projects are finished, they will create
475,000 acre-feet of water, enough to sustain 475,000 families
for a year. The government will spend more than $36 million next
year on those systems, mostly being installed in California and
other points west.
Irrigation innovations
Beyond technology-heavy recycling, about half of U.S. farmers
cut their water use in the fields by using more precise irrigation
systems.
While its history is long, developments in irrigation efficiency
have mostly come in the last 60 years.
Slightly more than half of American farmers still use the basic
irrigation method developed by the Mesopotamians, called the "gravity
and flood" system. They dig a ditch from the river to the
fields for water to flow and soak into the cropland.
In the 1930s, some began using pressurized sprinkler systems.
In the last decade, more farmers have turned to more precise "drip
systems" that deliver just the right amount of water to crops.
As a result, the half of U.S. farmers who use pressurized systems
use nearly 50 percent less water than those using the flood method.
"The whole idea of irrigation is to give the plant the water
it needs and no more or no less," said Kimmell.
Complicating matters further, many western states still have "use-it-or-lose-it"
laws, created when the rugged settlers first laid claim to their
property. In some cases, if landowners don't use all the water
they are allotted, they lose their right to it.
Unless those state laws change, farmers and ranchers have little
incentive to conserve, environmentalists say. That just sets up
more fierce battles.
"You'd be hard-pressed to find a water system in this country
where you don't have a lot of competing demands," said Chris
Tollefson, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "I
grew up in Wyoming and we always used to say, 'Whiskey was for
drinkin' and water was for fightin'."
Scripps Howard News Service writer Joan Lowy and Reporter-News
resources writer Samuel Segrist contributed to this report.
Contact Washington
bureau writer Ryan Alessi at alessir@shns.com.
On the Net: Irrigation
Association: www.irrigation.org
Send a Letter to
the Editor about This Story
Start or Join A
Discussion about This Story
Send
the URL (Address) of This Story to A Friend:
|
