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Arizona Expects to Lose One-Fifth of State's Colorado River Water Supply Due to Drought

2FORCEFULL

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Arizona is expected to lose about one-fifth of its Colorado River water supply, equal to 512,000 acre-feet of water, because of a statewide drought, the Association Press reported.

Nevada and Mexico will also lose some of their water supply from the river—21,000 acre-feet and 80,000 acre-feet, respectively—but Arizona will be hit the hardest by mandatory water cuts as it anticipates dropping 512,000 acre-feet.

The water loss from the Colorado River accounts for less than 8 percent of Arizona's total water supply, but each acre-foot can provide a year's supply of water for one to two houses, the AP said. Cities and tribes will be spared by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's projection, expected to be released next week, but farmers in Arizona will feel the effects of the water cuts.
 

cofooter

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Arizona is expected to lose about one-fifth of its Colorado River water supply, equal to 512,000 acre-feet of water, because of a statewide drought, the Association Press reported.

Nevada and Mexico will also lose some of their water supply from the river—21,000 acre-feet and 80,000 acre-feet, respectively—but Arizona will be hit the hardest by mandatory water cuts as it anticipates dropping 512,000 acre-feet.

The water loss from the Colorado River accounts for less than 8 percent of Arizona's total water supply, but each acre-foot can provide a year's supply of water for one to two houses, the AP said. Cities and tribes will be spared by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's projection, expected to be released next week, but farmers in Arizona will feel the effects of the water cuts.
Buckle up, decorative rock sales will go through the roof!
 

2FORCEFULL

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Buckle up, decorative rock sales will go through the roof!
here's the yard I just finished...
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Havasu is losing 18% of their allotment, but only uses 50% of that allotment, so they have a 32% buffer, but a stage 2 declaration could move closer to having an effect.
 

Meaney77

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Hasn’t there’s been some flash flooding and and several monsoons that have dumped measurable amounts of rain lately?
 

monkeyswrench

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I think they are trying to squeeze the china farmers out of az , what they grow goes to china...
It was gossip a couple years back that some of the farms were owned by middle east outfits. Bales of alfalfa being shipped to oil countries for their Arabians I guess.
 

Ace in the Hole

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It was gossip a couple years back that some of the farms were owned by middle east outfits. Bales of alfalfa being shipped to oil countries for their Arabians I guess.

Couldn't tell you about the chinaman investments...but I went to college with a guy who is some land acquisition rep for the Saudi government. He went back there after college, I follow him on linkedin...they buy a ton of property in the US/CA. They have some large land holdings in AZ.
 

Dalton

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1manshow

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It was gossip a couple years back that some of the farms were owned by middle east outfits. Bales of alfalfa being shipped to oil countries for their Arabians I guess.
Far from gossip… it’s a fact! Iam a end user and buy several thousand tons of alfalfa a year from that exact area you speak of.😢
 

1manshow

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It’s not gossip



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yep! Your right it’s not gossip as a matter of fact it’s cheaper to haul to the ports of Long Beach by trucks from Blythe and off to the Saudi’s then to truck it from Blythe to Bakersfield Ca …. Go figure right? It’s gets better. They are buying the best cuttings of hay and out bidding the Ca/Az dairy farmers in their own back yard.
 

2FORCEFULL

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What did y'all expect?. They've been draining the two major storage reservoirs on the mighty Colorado for quite a while now....right before our eyes.
LOL....that never happened...2FF made up the whole story 20 years ago....
 

2FORCEFULL

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there needs to be an export tax on hay.... that would make it unattractive to come here to farm...once the drill the well, they get free water... when they pump the ground water dry, then they will leave... for some reason, I think the dumping of mead and Powel is a push to get controll of the amount of water they are using... I firmly believe that they are fighting mother nature right now trying to make sure the water level stays down ...as fast as they are dumping, it still tries to rise..... the water level needs to be @ 1070 or below,.. if it's above they can't use the water drought law... but, like the invisible man from mars told me in 2000, the lake will drop 150' and never will it come back... it would be nice to see the real release gallons for the years from 2000, and match with pre 2000
 

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In a typical year, Lake Powell releases 8.23 million acre-feet (maf) of water to Lake Mead. Other tributaries to Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon deliver additional water, giving the Lake just over 9 maf in total. That may seem like more than enough, but the Bureau of Reclamation is stipulated to send water downstream to Arizona, California, a number of Native American tribes and Mexico. Additionally, Lake Mead loses over 600,000 acre-feet of water to evaporation each year, or about six vertical feet of water from the lake.
 

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The water stored in Lake Powell is used for recreation, power generation and delivering water to the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada. The lake, the nation’s second largest man-made lake, can hold up to 26 million acre-feet of water, or about two years of total average flows for the Colorado River.
 

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MEASURING THE CAPACITY OF LAKE MEAD

In 1935, the BOR and Soil Conservation Service undertook a mapping program to calculate the storage capacity of the nearly formed Lake Mead. As water began to back up behind the dam, surveyors recorded measurements of the ground surface based on stereoscopic aerial photographs and water soundings (Brown 1941). This study produced calculations of an estimated capacity of over 31 million acre-feet of water at an elevation of 1,221.4 feet. Since 1935, sedimentation has decreased the capacity of the reservoir and a number of subsequent studies have been carried out to determine its current storage capacity as well as to model the lake’s economic life into the future.
Subsequent ground surface measurements include bathymetric studies conducted from 1948 to 1949,1963 to 1964, and in 2001. In late 2009, BOR acquired LiDAR (combination of Light and Radar) data for elevations of emerging shorelines, which was meant to complement 2001 side-scan sonar data. The LiDAR and sonar data, which cover elevations of the ground surface at and below 1,230 feet elevation, have been obtained by Lake Mead NRA from BOR under a data sharing agreement and used to estimate lake capacity.
 

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LAKE MEAD WATER BUDGET
Abbreviations: maf (million acre-feet)
Approximate annual inflow into Lake Mead
(8.23 maf release from Lake Powell plus average intervening flows between Lake Powell and Lake Mead)
9.0 maf
Approximate annual outflow from Lake Mead

(Lower Basin apportionments to States and Mexico Treaty allocation plus downstream regulation including side inflows, evapotranspiration, transmission losses, etc.)
-9.6 maf
Approximate annual Lake Mead evaporation loss
-0.6 maf
Water balance
-1.2 maf†

†Given current average water demands over the past 10 years in the Lower Basin and Mexico, and a minimum objective release from Lake Powell (8.23 maf), Lake Mead storage is reduced on average by about 1.2 maf each year, which is the equivalent of about 12 feet in elevation at Lake Mead.
 

2FORCEFULL

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this is how you know those messing with the water level are lying bastards;

first, powell releases 9.0 MAF ( million acre ft) per year... doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that mead can't release more than that amount....right?

But, if you want to lower the lake level, and be sneaky.... here's how you do it... you got 9.0 MAF coming in.... you loose 0.60 MAF to evap.... so, to maintain the current level... you can only release 8.6 MAF from mead... right?? but... they released 9.6 MAF from the year 2000 to date... that dropped the level as predicted about 160'.. if they would have only released 8.6 MAF ,every thing down river would have stayed the same.... and most likely,... the lake would have gone up and down in a 10' level.... mead would have stayed around the 1200' level as it has for years...


they say mead is a water bank account....... most know this,... but a lot don't.... you can't write checks for more than you deposit...
 

2FORCEFULL

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the second part of the lie is this,... powell is dumping more like 10 MAF,.. and Mead is dumping more like 11 maf per year...

also,... lake mead is @ 1067' and been for a month....but, prior to that,...in april it was @ 1082' too high to claim drought and restrictions,.. so the drop started.. in may, dropped to 1076' in june to 1071' any finally in july 1067' bam, restriction now apply.... they just have to maintain that level for the feds till 2022... the easy to see part.... the lake level is still at 1067 a month later..... how could that be???? the lake dropped 15' to get it where they wanted in 3 mo. but once under the 1070' mark.... it leveled out??? Come on Man!!!!
 

grumpy88

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kill them all and rape there wives...
Lol . I meant do you think water should be proportioned by house or person ? A family of 6 uses more water a year then me keeping a pool topped off with it just being the wife and i .
 

2FORCEFULL

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here's another thing... lake mead hold 31 MAF.... and powell 26 million MAF, to make it easier to understand... lets just say gallons so, you have a 31 gallon bucket, and place a 26 gallon bucket on top... fill them both.. drill a 1/4'' hole in both buckets.... the lower bucket will stay full till the upper bucket is empty... so what this means is the level at mead should have never dropped till powell was empty
 

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The Arizona Water Banking Authority (AWBA; Water Bank) was established in 1996 to store the unused portion of Arizona’s annual Colorado River entitlement in Central and Southern Arizona. The AWBA stores water in underground aquifers to earn long-term storage credits. These credits can be recovered (pumped) during a shortage to provide back-up water supplies (known as "firming") for Arizona water users.

Through 2020, the Water Bank has accrued 4.36 million acre-feet (MAF) of long-term storage credits (LTSCs):


Time to turn on the ground water pumps................
 

PaPaG

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It was gossip a couple years back that some of the farms were owned by middle east outfits. Bales of alfalfa being shipped to oil countries for their Arabians I guess.
Rumors and gossip always have some truth to them...This one is TRUE. This is just one Article along with many other Middle East countries buying up our US land.
 

PaPaG

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This is the kind of crap that drains our own resources and helps cause our serious issues without capitalizing on the huge profit margins making them Billionaires off their oil while we should be making Billions off their huge use of American Resources... Saudi and the middle east are not the only culprits, China, Korea, Japan also bought and are buying up thousands and thousands of acres of land to avoid wasting their water.

ECONOMY
Saudi Arabia buying up farmland in US Southwest
PUBLISHED FRI, JAN 15 201611:40 AM ESTUPDATED FRI, JAN 15 201612:53 PM EST

Jeff Daniels@JEFFDANIELSCA
SHAREShare Article via FacebookShare Article via TwitterShare Article via LinkedInShare Article via Email
Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries are scooping up farmland in drought-afflicted regions of the U.S. Southwest, and that has some people in California and Arizona seeing red.
Harvesting alfalfa crop

Harvesting alfalfa crop
Andy Sacks | Getty Images
Saudi Arabia grows alfalfa hay in both states for shipment back to its domestic dairy herds. In another real-life example of the world’s interconnected economy, the Saudis increasingly look to produce animal feed overseas in order to save water in their own territory, most of which is desert.

Privately held Fondomonte California on Sunday announced that it bought 1,790 acres of farmland in Blythe, California — an agricultural town along the Colorado River — for nearly $32 million. Two years ago, Fondomont’s parent company, Saudi food giant Almarai, purchased another 10,000 acres of farmland about 50 miles away in Vicksburg, Arizona, for around $48 million.
They will continue to come over here and buy properties where they can grow good-quality alfalfa hay and ship it back to the Middle East. It makes logical sense for them to do that because they’re not going to be able to grow it in Saudi Arabia, especially for milk production.
Joseph Dutra
PRESIDENT, WESTEC
But not everyone likes the trend. The alfalfa exports are tantamount to “exporting water,” because in Saudi Arabia, “they have decided that it’s better to bring feed in rather than to empty their water reserves,” said Keith Murfield, CEO of United Dairymen of Arizona, a Tempe-based dairy cooperative whose members also buy alfalfa. “This will continue unless there’s regulations put on it.”
In a statement announcing the California farmland purchase, the Saudi company said the deal “forms part of Almarai’s continuous efforts to improve and secure its supply of the highest quality alfalfa hay from outside the (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) to support its dairy business. It is also in line with the Saudi government direction toward conserving local resources.”
Alamarai did not respond to CNBC requests for an interview.

“We’re not getting oil for free, so why are we giving our water away for free?” asked La Paz County Board of Supervisors Chairman Holly Irwin, who represents a rural area in western Arizona where food companies affiliated with the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates have come to farm alfalfa for export.

Added Irwin, “We’re letting them come over here and use up our resources. It’s very frustrating for me, especially when I have residents telling me that their wells are going dry and they have to dig a lot deeper for water. It’s costly for them to drill new wells.”
‘Beneficial use’
However, the issue of land rights comes into play. As the owners of the land, the Saudis appear to be playing by the rules. The area of the Arizona desert where the Saudis bought land is a region with little or no regulation on groundwater use. That’s in contrast to most of the state, 85 percent of which has strict groundwater rules.
Local development and groundwater pumping have contributed to the groundwater table falling since 2010 by more than 50 feet in parts of La Paz County, 130 miles west of Phoenix. State documents show there are at least 23 water wells on the lands controlled by Alamarai’s subsidiary, Fondomonte Arizona. Each of the wells is capable of pumping more than 100,000 gallons daily.
“You can use as much water as you’d like, as long as it’s put to a beneficial use, and you’re not required to report your water use,” said Michelle Moreno, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Water Resources, which has scheduled a public meeting for Jan. 30 in La Paz County to hear concerns from residents.

Back in Blythe, the purchase of farmland comes as urban residents of California face state-mandated water cutbacks due to a fourth year of severe drought.
Blythe Mayor Joseph DeConinck said between 10 percent to 15 percent of the hay grown in his region is exported overseas, but insists the practice is not contributing to the state’s drought. The mayor, who also grows alfalfa, said he isn’t concerned about the Saudis buying up land in his community.
“They are buying the ground to farm. There’s abundant supplies of water in Blythe for farmers from the Colorado River,” he said. “Our valley has the first water rights on the river.”

More competition for land and fodder is likely to make things more expensive for dairy farmers in California and elsewhere.
“It will ultimately drive the price up for the West Coast dairy operations,” said Robert Chesler, vice president of the dairy group at FCStone, a Chicago-based commodity-risk management company. “This is where they are buying that hay. This is where they are buying the farmland for dairy farms as well as and where they are buying the dairy goods, because we are obviously exporting more out of the West Coast.”
Westec President Joseph Dutra, who has served as a consultant to international companies looking to farm in the U.S., said he wouldn’t be surprised to see more U.S. farmland purchased by the Saudis. “They will continue to come over here and buy properties where they can grow good-quality alfalfa hay and ship it back to the Middle East. It makes logical sense for them to do that because they’re not going to be able to grow it in Saudi Arabia, especially for milk production.”
Asian buyers dive into American hay
Besides the Gulf countries, China, South Korea and Japan are big buyers of American hay.
In recent years, buyers in China have acquired as much as 20 percent of total U.S. hay exports. Export demand to Asia cooled last year as hay inventories abroad rose and the strong U.S. dollar made American ag crops more expensive overseas. It also didn’t help that some international dairy customers in 2014 found other sources for hay due to the U.S. West Coast port labor dispute.
“We do live in a globalized marketplace, and the fact that we ship food to China and Japan and ship automobiles back to the United States is part of the globalization of our marketplace,” said Daniel Putnam, an alfalfa and forage specialist with the University of California-Davis. “Whether we ship almonds or wheat or corn or soybeans or alfalfa or milk, it’s world demand for food products that comes from American farms.”

Squawk on the Street
 

Spectra18

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Our damn UTILITIES are going up every month here in Riverside, I tried applying for gubment assistance like the other scum suckers but apparently I’m too responsible.
 

DarkHorseRacing

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Where can I get that hawk/eagle at the very least, I am a huge iron yard decoration fan.

If you're in Havasu, check out "Hammered by Noon", they make the iron signs, but I'm sure they probably make 3D stuff as well.

HammeredByNoon.com
 

GRADS

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Am I imagining something or has climate change, extreme drought and wild fires gone up 1,000 fold since January 2021
Amazing how that works when you don't get any rain since December 2020....but I'm sure the dems put in a call to Mother Nature to stop the rain.:rolleyes:
 

rivergames

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I heard Parker has already seen more water this year compared to 2019 & 2021 combined.
 

69 1/2

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I moved to way west Phoenix valley two years ago from Iowa. I was amazed to see feed corn grown in the desert using 3,000 gallons of water to grow each bushel while the Feds pay Iowa farmers to let ground sit bare and grow nothing. Iowa doesn’t irrigate their fields, plenty of water comes from the sky! Free! Until they stare being a little smarter about water use in AZ I’m not believing all the hype. A 160 acre field of corn in AZ uses 132 million gallons of water, seed to harvest.
 

mesquito_creek

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I moved to way west Phoenix valley two years ago from Iowa. I was amazed to see feed corn grown in the desert using 3,000 gallons of water to grow each bushel while the Feds pay Iowa farmers to let ground sit bare and grow nothing. Iowa doesn’t irrigate their fields, plenty of water comes from the sky! Free! Until they stare being a little smarter about water use in AZ I’m not believing all the hype. A 160 acre field of corn in AZ uses 132 million gallons of water, seed to harvest.
Don’t let first hand experience and reason into this thread… you should reference what Az cotton uses for water. Although it is said the be the best cotton in the world.
 

Flying_Lavey

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I have no idea why our country allows non-citizens to buy land. Its probably one of the easiest and cheapest ways for a country to over-take another. Buy enough land in strategic areas and industries and you could control the subject country.
 
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