City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations and Theses City College of New York 2017 The Political Water Web of the United States Omar Hammad CUNY City College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/711 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] The Political Water Web of the United States Thesis Submitted in Partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Engineering, Civil at The City College of the City University of New York by Omar Hammad December 2017 Approved: _____________________________________________________ Prof. Naresh Devineni, Thesis Advisor _____________________________________________________ Prof. Julio F. Davalos, Chair Dept. of Civil Engineering Acknowledgement This document is prepared as a Master's thesis. It is in fulfillment of the graduate degree requirements for Civil Engineering at the City College of New York (CUNY). This report, beyond fulfilling the requirements of a degree, was the product of a desire to research the topic of water compacts within the United States. Working closely with Dr. Naresh Devineni over the last few years on the subject has been a joy, I have learned an extremely fair bit from the professor and will forever be thankful to him and The Grove School of Engineering for the opportunity afforded to me. I would like to express my gratitude towards my parents and family, for helping me through this process and standing by me throughout my entire education process. 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgement .......................................................................................................................... 1 Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ 2 List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. 3 List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. 5 Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 6 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 7 2. United States Compact Clause .................................................................................................. 10 3. Water Resources and Overall Water Compacts ........................................................................ 12 4. Case Studies .............................................................................................................................. 30 4.1 United States’ Timeline ....................................................................................................... 33 4.2 The Delaware River Compact ............................................................................................. 38 4.2.1 Introduction to the Delaware River .............................................................................. 38 4.2.2 Economic Impact of the Delaware River ..................................................................... 40 4.2.3 The Delaware River and New York City Water Resources Timelines ........................ 42 4.3 The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Compact ..................................................... 47 4.3.1 Introduction to the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River ...................................... 47 4.3.2 The Economic Impact of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Rivers ..................... 50 4.3.3 The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River System Timelines ................................ 52 4.4. The Rio Grande River Compact ......................................................................................... 57 4.4.1 Introduction to the Rio Grande River ........................................................................... 57 4.4.2 Economic Impact of the Rio Grande River .................................................................. 60 4.4.3 The Rio Grande River Water Resources Timeline ....................................................... 61 5. Contrasting Populations and Resulting Timeline Comparisons ............................................... 66 5.1 Populations within the Study Areas .................................................................................... 66 5.2 Resulting Timelines............................................................................................................. 69 6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 73 7. References ................................................................................................................................. 75 7.1 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 75 7.2 GIS Maps: ........................................................................................................................... 79 8. Appendix ................................................................................................................................... 80 2 List of Figures Figure 1 The Global Water System (Vorosmarty et al. 2004) ...................................................... 12 Figure 2 The growth of US dams and reservoirs as recorded in the National Inventory of Dams (NID) (Syvitski and Kettner, 2011) .............................................................................................. 15 Figure 3 U.S. Freshwater Withdrawal, Consumptive Use, and Population Trends, 1950-2010 (Maupin, Kenny, Hutson, Lovelace, Barber, and Linsey, 2014) .................................................. 16 Figure 4 Trends in Total Water Withdrawals by Category, 1950-2010 (Maupin et al. 2014) ..... 16 Figure 5 United States Total Water Use, 2010 (Maupin et al. 2014) ........................................... 17 Figure 6 Surface Water Withdrawals, 2010 (Maupin et al. 2014) ................................................ 18 Figure 7 Groundwater Withdrawals, 2010 (Maupin et al. 2014) .................................................. 18 Figure 8 Total Withdrawals for Irrigation, 2010 (Maupin et al. 2014)......................................... 19 Figure 9 Contemporary Geography of Non-Sustainable Withdrawals for Irrigation (Vorosmarty et al. 2005) .................................................................................................................................... 20 Figure 10 Total Withdrawals for Industry, 2010 (Maupin et al. 2014) ........................................ 20 Figure 11 Projected Change in Water Withdrawals, 2005-2060 (Brown, Foti, and Ramirez, 2013) ....................................................................................................................................................... 21 Figure 12 Fragmentation and flow regulation by Large River System (LRS), (Nilsson, Reidy, Dynesius, and Revenga, 2005)...................................................................................................... 22 Figure 13 Interbasin surface water transfers in the conterminous United States from 1973 to 1982 (Emanuel, Buckley, Caldwell, Mcnulty and Sun 2015). .............................................................. 23 Figure 14 GIS Map of Water Compact Points .............................................................................. 28 Figure 15 GIS Map of Water Compact States .............................................................................. 28 Figure 16 GIS Map of Water Compact States and Points with Major Rivers .............................. 29 Figure 17 GIS Map of Case Study Watersheds ............................................................................ 31 Figure 18 GIS Map of States in Case Study and Point References .............................................. 31 Figure 19 GIS Map of Case Study States with Watersheds ......................................................... 32 Figure 20 United States Timeline ................................................................................................. 36 Figure 21 United States Condensed Timeline .............................................................................. 37 Figure 22 GIS Map of the Delaware River Basin ......................................................................... 38 Figure 23 New York City's Water Supply System (NYCDEP, 2017) .......................................... 39 Figure 24 Delaware River and New York City Timeline ............................................................. 45 3 Figure 25 Condensed Delaware River/NYC Timeline ................................................................. 46 Figure 26 GIS Map of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin ................................. 47 Figure 27 ACF River Dams and Gages (USACE, 2017) .............................................................. 48 Figure 28 ACF U.S. Corps and Private Dams (Tetra Tech, 2016) ............................................... 49 Figure 29 ACF River Basin Timeline ..........................................................................................