Land Lines January 2019 1 President‘S Message George W
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JANUARY 2019 CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF LAND LINES Colorado River Basin Issue A Colorful History of the Colorado River Seeking Compromise in an Era of Drought How Western Planners Can Integrate Water & Land Contents JANUARY 2019 | VOL 31 | NO 1 EDITOR Katharine Wroth FEATURES DEPARTMENTS CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Will Jason and Kathleen McCormick 14 Hydraulic Empire 2 President’s Message DESIGN & PRODUCTION Studio Rainwater Sharing a Legacy, Carving a Future Where the Water Meets the Land www.studiorainwater.com for the Colorado River By George W. McCarthy PRODUCTION EDITOR Susan Pace In its sheer complexity, the Colorado stands out among the rivers of America—and probably the COMMUNICATIONS & PUBLICATIONS EDITOR 5 Map: Colorado River Basin Emma Zehner world. The twists and turns of this 1,450-mile waterway provide invaluable lessons in history, geography, innovation, and imagination. 6 About the Babbitt Center VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLICATIONS & COMMUNICATIONS Maureen Clarke By Allen Best 7 City Tech 14 PRESIDENT & CEO Precision-Mapping for Water in the Desert George W. McCarthy By Rob Walker CHAIR & CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER 26 Beyond Drought Kathryn J. Lincoln The Search for Solutions as 10 Colorado River Reflections THE LINCOLN INSTITUTE OF LAND POLICY Climate Impacts a Legendary River seeks to improve quality of life through the An Interview with Bruce Babbitt effective use, taxation, and stewardship of land. The Colorado Basin states and tribes, the U.S. A nonprofit private operating foundation whose government, and Mexico have been pushing hard to By Jim Holway origins date to 1946, the Lincoln Institute researches and recommends creative finalize plans for addressing a persistent drought. approaches to land as a solution to economic, These efforts are likely just the beginning of a hard social, and environmental challenges. Through reckoning throughout the basin, as water managers 49 Place Database education, training, publications, and events, rethink some of their basic assumptions about the we integrate theory and practice to inform Percent Change in Population river—beginning with how much water it can provide. public policy decisions worldwide. Colorado River Basin 2000–2016 Land Lines is published as a digital monthly and By Jenna DeAngelo 26 By Matt Jenkins print quarterly magazine to report on Institute- sponsored programs and related subjects. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy 38 Grow with the Flow 113 Brattle St, Cambridge, MA 02138 T (617) 661-3016 or (800) 526-3873 How Planners in Two Western Cities F (617) 661-7235 or (800) 526-3944 Are Integrating Water and Land EMAIL FOR EDITORIAL CONTENT In the face of a historic drought and the [email protected] uncertainty of climate change, planning for the EMAIL FOR INFORMATION SERVICES future availability of water in the arid and rapidly [email protected] urbanizing western United States has taken on a new urgency—and is inspiring new collaborations. A rafting trip makes camp at Travertine Falls www.lincolninst.edu in the Grand Canyon. Credit: Dylan Harris By Kathleen McCormick 38 2 LAND LINES JANUARY 2019 1 PRESIDENT‘S MESSAGE GEORGE W. McCARTHY In many ways, the success of that little patch This is a hotly contested watershed. The river of land is the story of the entire Colorado River supplies drinking water to more than 40 million Where the Water Basin. When you look at the big picture—when people, more than half of whom live outside the you peer down from an actual or figurative basin; irrigates more than 5.5 million acres of Meets the Land mile-high perspective—you see a complex farmland; and produces more than 4 gigawatts of system, a tangle of geography and history and electrical power. Because the river is allocated— culture, a limited, nearly tapped out resource that actually, overallocated—through a byzantine multiple states, tribes, and countries have relied web of water rights, interstate agreements, and on, shared, and fought over for the last century. an international treaty, forging new agreements But get down to the ground and poke around a and practices among these stakeholders might FOUR YEARS AGO, I found myself in an airplane return flow from groundwater and agricultural little, and you see something else: Little patches seem to be an insurmountable task. above the Colorado Delta with Katie Lincoln, our irrigation to provide a more reliable water supply. where innovation and collaboration are blooming. Just because something is hard doesn’t board chair. From our shared vantage point, we This land use experiment, which had been Restorative partnerships and renewed commit- mean it’s not worth doing. We decided to find could see miles and miles of dry and dusty river invisible from the air, demonstrated clearly that ments to confronting seemingly intractable out whether and how the Lincoln Institute sediment and scarce vegetation. It was a native habitat could be restored in the delta. It issues. A growing understanding of the impor- could contribute to better stewardship of stunning, vast, otherworldly landscape, painted also was clear that much more needed to be done. tance of recognizing the intersections of water, the river. with a thousand shades of beige. At one time, the delta was the largest wetland land, and people. We embarked on field research to find out On the ground, we saw a different story. in North America, covering some 173 million During our debrief following the tour, I asked who was already working on water issues in the Eleven months earlier, the United States and acres. After the headline-making pulse flow in our hosts about the end game for the delta— basin and assessed our own core competencies. Mexico had released a “pulse flow” from dams 2014—which was actually a return of water due to what would it take to restore the entire place? We wanted to see whether there was demand for on the Colorado River to mimic the historic Mexico that had been stored in Lake Mead, The pulse flow was a singular moment, produced our potential contributions. Could we leverage spring floods that occurred for millennia before following a 2010 earthquake that damaged by a constellation of events and aided by our knowledge and experience in the areas of humans began managing the river’s waters. irrigation canals south of Mexicali—the United diplomatic intervention. It would take a different land policy and stakeholder engagement? More than 100,000 acre-feet of water—enough States and Mexico negotiated the release of more alignment of actors to generate a permanent Should we extend our efforts at collecting, to meet the annual needs of more than 200,000 regular, more gradual base flows. In September solution. But which actors? Would it be possible curating, and mapping new data sets? Should households—flowed south to satisfy provisions 2017, they agreed on the delivery of 210,000 to promote civil discourse among the river’s we adapt and advance the use of our scenario- and promises that had been made between the acre-feet of water to the delta over the next stakeholders to conceive a collective solution to planning tools to promote informed decision two countries years before; for the first time in decade. Earlier this year, the Natural Resources manage this precious resource? Who would making and better civic engagement? two decades, the river reached the Gulf of Defense Council reported that the original convene them? California. restoration site at Laguna Grande had grown to Leading up to that event, public and civic more than 1,200 acres. The Laguna Grande restoration area before, during, and six months after the Colorado River pulse flow in 2014. Today, the site is actors from the two countries prepared an forested with native vegetation, which stands so tall that a photo taken from the same spot yields a full frame of green. Credit: Dale Turner/The Nature Conservancy experiment to see whether the natural habitat of the delta could be restored with improved water flow. They cleared about 320 acres of land near Laguna Grande of non-native vegetation, seeded some of the land with native plants, and planted native trees in other sections. By the time Katie and I visited the site, the success of the experiment was obvious. Native flora was thriving, and it was attracting native fauna back to the site. Both migratory and non-migratory birds made their presence known with a cacophony of calls and responses. As luck would have it, two beavers had taken up residence next to the restoration site. Their dam captured 2 LAND LINES JANUARY 2019 3 We encountered a crowded field of research- He had this to say when I asked him, after he WYOMING ers, advocates, technicians, and dedicated public took a recent Grand Canyon rafting trip, to reflect servants. Universities and government agencies on what’s at stake in the basin: OREGON continuously study the science of the river. Policy IDAHO makers and analysts cover the broad contours of Looking forward, Colorado River managers basinwide policy. Various experts are producing will face numerous political rapids and Little Snake River and perfecting technical projections of demo- significant uncertainty about future climate, Water Project graphic, drought, and development scenarios. We water supply, and water demand conditions. Colorado River Basin hydrologic boundary noted, however, that the nexus of land and water However, we face nothing like the dangers policy was a neglected but critical niche in the and hardships faced by the early explorers of Adjacent areas in the field. Land use decisions are often made without the Colorado. Solutions to our challenges do United States that receive Colorado River water consideration of their impacts on water, putting exist, and we can build on John Wesley Central Utah Project and Strawberry Valley Project the sustainability of our communities and the Powell’s legacy of exploring the Colorado river at risk.