Water Management
National Grain Trade Council
New Orleans, LA
September 24, 2004
Dennis K, Carman, P.E.
USDA NRCS
National Water Management Center
Water
Impacts on Your Industry
Is the water supply sufficient to maintain our current
activities?
What if there is growth?
What are potential issues on the horizon for water
rights?
How will irrigation practices be impacted?
Will water transportation continue to be a dependable
form of transportation for agriculture commodities?
How is US water situation over the next 10-15 years
affected by the practices in Canada/Mexico and viceversa?
Water Resources 101
Let’s look at:
– Rainfall and population
– Where we use water
– For what purposes
– What are the issues (where do we have conflict?)
– Grain – Where is it produced
We will also take a quick “global water look” as
some of the same relationships
Rainfall Distribution
People locate where there is water
•Impacts the demand
•Competition for water
•Industrial
•Agriculture
•Environmental
Trends in U.S. Water Use
Water Resource Issues
Are we running out of
water?
– No …..however
Your view depends on
–
–
–
–
Where you are located
What are your interests
What is your purpose
When you ask the
question
•Globally our water balance is static
•We have no more or no less water today than during the
dinosaur age
We do have significant regional and local issues
Let’s look a little closer at your
portion of the agriculture business
Irrigated acres
Where there are significant water quantity
“issues”
What changes are taking place
How does this impact your business?
Regional Issue: California
Imperial Valley Irrigation District (IID) and San Diego County
Water Authority Water Transfer Agreement
How will the water transfer agreement between IID and San Diego
work?
IID would conserve water through on-farm or system projects and then
transfer that conserved water to the San Diego County Water Authority.
Under California State law, IID may conserve and transfer water without
the losing their present perfected water rights.
How much water does this transfer involve?
Twenty thousand acre-feet of conserved water would be transferred in the
first year of the contract. Deliveries would then increase in 20,000 acre-foot
increments until a maximum of 200,000 acre-feet is reached in year ten of
the contract.
Regional Issue
Ogallala Aquifer
Regional Issue
Georgia/Florida/Alabama
Florida to take Georgia, Alabama to court over water rights
September 2003
U.S. Water News Online
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- After failing to reach a water-sharing agreement
with Alabama and Georgia, Florida said it will ask the courts to decide how
much water each state should receive from the ApalachicolaChattahoochee-Flint River Basin.
The issue concerns the water needs of metropolitan Atlanta, farms in
southwest Georgia and the oyster-rich Apalachicola Bay in Florida, which
supplies 90 percent of Florida's oysters and 10 percent of the nation's.
The three states' governors had approved the tentative agreement in July,
setting a recent deadline for a final plan. Instead of extending the deadline,
Florida decided it would leave the water-sharing decision to federal courts
and the U.S. Supreme Court. The states have debated for five years on how
to solve the water-sharing issue.
Regional Issue
Lower Mississippi Delta Groundwater Decline
With this as a background let’s
revisit the original questions
Is water supply sufficient to maintain our current activities?
What if there is growth?
What are potential issues on the horizon for water rights?
How will irrigation practices be impacted?
Will water transportation continue to be a dependable form
of transportation for agriculture commodities?
How is US water situation over the next 10-15 years
affected by the practices in Canada/Mexico and vice-versa?
Is water supply sufficient to maintain our
current activities?
Yes ….
but not without changes
And…
certain areas or industries
will be impacted more than others
What Changes?
Increasing crop output per unit of
evaporated water
Reducing losses of usable water to sinks
Reducing water pollution
Reallocating water from lower valued to
higher valued uses
Some water development
Environmental balance
Many of these changes are
already underway
43 million acres of agricultural land were irrigated in the West.
These lands produced 72 percent of crop sales on only 27
percent of the total harvested crop acreage
High-valued orchards, berries, vegetables, and nursery crops
account for almost 60 percent of the West’s total value of
sales from irrigated crops on just 15 percent of the land
irrigated
Field and forage crops account for the remaining 40 percent
of sales, but occupy 71 percent of the irrigated area.