Water from the Northwest?

Worries over impending water crisis in the Southwest and severe, though intermittent, droughts in other areas have attracted widespread attention to the very uneven distribution of the nation's water resources. One prescription for redressing the balance has been the large-scale transfer of water from one river basin to another, or even from one part of the North American continent to other distant parts. The public advocacy of these transfers by various groups and the rebuttal provided by others have frequently clouded basic questions that need to be answered if water transfers are to receive unbiased and informed evaluation so that all the reasonable alternatives be considered.

The West, containing most of the country's arid and semi-arid land, is where interbasin transfers have been most often proposed. The region also contains much of the nation's irrigated acres, using 100 million acre-feet each year for irrigation, compared with a national total for irrigation of 140 million.

A survey of the country's nineteen water resource regions shows that (1) natural water availability in the West (except for the Northwest) as measured by reliable runoff is low relative to the rest of the country; (2) despite the low availability of natural water supply, the most rapidly growing regions of the country are in the West; (3) withdrawals by public supply systems (mostly urban) are small compared with those of agriculture and industry; (4) combined consumptive trios and conveyance losses in irrigated agriculture are more than ten times those in public (urban) and industrial systems; and (5) irrigation uses are heavily concentrated in the West and Upper Great Plains regions.

That is, those sections of the country that have the smallest natural endowment of water have developed types of activity that are highly water-intensive.

The Eastern, Middle Western, and Central regions also have water problems, but these are generally related to water quality. The growth of population and industry and the traditional reliance on watercourse disposal of waste (including heat) have overburdened many streams and estuaries. These regions also face the problem of infrequent, unpredictable drought—quite a different type of problem from that of perennial water deficit in the West. The western water systems, though built large, are called upon to operate at near capacity most of the time. In the regions where natural rainfall ordinarily replenishes surface and ground reservoirs, and where it supplies most of the water needed for agriculture and for watering lawns, supply systems that could meet the extreme demands of occasional long droughts require large investments that are little used much of the time.

Whether the problems of water quality, water quantity, and drought require immediate responses or whether there is time to study solutions may be a matter for debate, but one point is clear: the West cannot maintain a rapid rate of economic growth without either modifying its present pattern of water use or importing new supplies, and the East cannot continue to contaminate its water environment without seriously affecting the quality of living.

There are many ways of dealing with these problems of water quantity and quality. Among the proposed actions (particularly in connection with the water quantity problems of the West) is the large-scale interbasin transfer of water from "surplus" to "deficit" areas.

An important distinction between existing and proposed transfers is size. For example, New York City's diversions from the Delaware River Basin now average less than 1 million acre-feet a year. The city has invested around $500 million in reservoir and transmission facilities. The Colorado—Big Thompson diversion project carries an average of 230,000 acre-feet to the eastern slopes of Colorado and represents a total investment of $161.6 million.

In contrast, one of the more modest current proposals for diverting water into the West calls for a Columbia River—Colorado River transfer of 2.4 million acre-feet a year with capital costs of $1.4 billion. The largest plan of all, the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA), is designed to bring 110 million acre-feet of water (expandable to 250 million) from the far northwestern part of the continent to seven provinces of Canada, thirty-three states in the United States, and three states in Mexico at a capital cost of about $100 billion over a twenty-year construction period.

The economic, hydrological, and ecological impacts of a project of this size would be profound, both during the construction period and throughout the operating lifetime.

For interbasin transfer projects of this size, institutional and political arrangements and agreements would have to be devised on a scale never before attempted. What type of agency could carry out the planning and management of a large interbasin project in a way that would be economically efficient from the nation's viewpoint and agreeable to the many states physically affected? How would such projects be financed?

Another characteristic of large size is the indivisible or "lumpy" nature of the component parts of the systems. There are such large construction economies in the building of reservoirs and transport facilities (canals, aqueducts, tunnels, piping) that these components would rationally be built with a greater capacity than needed at the beginning of the project. Thus very large commitments of capital must be made, only to stand idle until demand catches up. These indivisibilities tend to place large transfers at a cost disadvantage relative to alternative sources of supply unless the storage and transport facilities transport facilities can be fitted into a larger systems plan that will permit fuller utilization early in the life of the project.

Interbasin transfer projects also tend to have irreversible effects on the environment as reservoirs inundate valleys and as regional water balances are changed.

Long life (current calculations of benefits and costs are typically based on an expectation of a 100-year life) means a lack of flexibility in incorporating technological innovations in the water system. A desalting plant or a water reclamation system with an economic life of twenty or thirty years may be disassembled and replaced by new equipment if technological improvements warrant such a change, once the storage and transport facilities of a transfer system are in place, it becomes physically difficult to remove the structures and probably impossible to regenerate the natural ecosystems of the reservoir areas. In general, longer life means greater uncertainty—economic, technological, and ecological—against which the investment bet is made.

Current attitudes toward large-scale interbasin diversions range widely. Some see the diversions as the answer to a crisis requiring immediate action; others condemn them. In 1964 the report of the Subcommittee on Western Water Development of the Senate Committee on Public Works typified the crisis school of thought. According to the report, the "water crisis" in the West "will grow steadily worse until it reaches alarming proportions in the years 1980 and 2000," making it "imperative" to explore new sources of water supply.

This analysis of the situation was based on projections of water demand that were, in turn, based on assumptions "that adequate water supplies will be made available under the present general pricing policies, that there will be little change in presently known technical methods of water use, and that, with the exception of increased application of techniques for improving the efficiency of irrigation, present inefficient methods of using water will continue." Naturally, such assumptions have been questioned.

Prospective exporting regions, especially the Pacific Northwest and Canada, are demanding careful study of the needs not only of their own regions but of the prospective importing regions. While many supporters of diverting Columbia River water into the Colorado quote the large flows of the Columbia that pour "unused" into the ocean each year, a recent report of the State of Washington Water Research Center concludes that by 1980 "nearly half of the local streams will have deficiencies during the 92-day critical period in the residual flows required to maintain the maximum spawning potential of salmonid fish" and that "there appears to be the likelihood that the flow in the lower Columbia will be drastically reduced by depletions from irrigation throughout the Pacific Northwest."

In Canada, officials have stated quite clearly the basic principles that will guide the government in managing the nation's vast water resource. In 1965 John N. Turner, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry Of Northern Affairs, told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's National Water Conference: "Canada does not agree that its water is a 'continental' resource as often suggested by American officials. In Ottawa's opinion it is Canadian property to be used as Canada alone decides."

Of all the proposed interbasin projects, the most discussed transfer involves the diversion of water (from 2.4 to 30 million acre-feet per year) from the Columbia River or its tributaries to points in the Colorado Basin. None of the proposed diversions has been designed in detail; hence matters of size, cost, and routes are not settled matters.

Another proposal that has been receiving increasing attention is the West Texas and Eastern New Mexico Import Project. Now included in the Texas State Water Plan, this project provides for the importation of 12 million to 13 million acre-feet a year by the year 2020, at least 7.5 million acre-feet of which would go to the High Plains, a region devoted to irrigation agriculture and dependent upon a rapidly falling groundwater table. Nine Routes are being studied by the Bureau of Reclamation, all diverting water from the Mississippi or its tributaries.

Proposals for diverting Canadian water for use by both Canada and the United States include the Grand Replenishment and Northern Development (GRAND) Canal, a concept involving the collection and diversion of runoff from the James Bay watershed into the Great Lakes for purposes of water level and quality control and power production. The proposed first stage would involve the transfer of about 17 million acre-feet a year. But this plan is far outdone by NAWAPA.

The benefits arising directly and indirectly from new supplies of water, the direct and indirect costs of providing new water by large scale transfers, and the availability of a variety of alternative water supply developments set limits on the situations in which large-scale transfers could prove the best solution. The preponderance of the evidence indicates that, except for certain sets of circumstances in socalled "rescue operations," the national economic benefits from the use of the water provided would be less than the cost of the transfers. Furthermore, there is evidence that substantial supplies could be obtained from alternative sources at lower costs.

There are many such alternatives for the West. These include reduction of conveyance losses, additional surface development, wastewater reclamation, desalination, vegetative management and phreatophyte control, evaporation retardation, and transfers from agriculture to higher valued uses. Several of these alternatives promise large additional supplies of water at costs lower than those of large-scale transfers.

Adapted from Interbasin Transfers of Water: Economic Issues and Impacts, by Charles W. Howe and K. William Easter (Johns Hopkins Press for RFF, 1971).