Vital Bird Habitat in the Colorado River Delta at Risk

As officers from the Colorado River Basin States (AZ, CA, CO, NM, NV, UT and WY) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) struggle to reach consensus on methods to handle the declining river after 2026 when present agreements expire, some issues stay clear. 

First, Colorado River water utilization exceeds provide, evident within the continued decline of the Colorado River’s reservoirs that had been full 25 years in the past. As we speak, they sit two-thirds empty. 

Second, options are urgently wanted. Practically 40 million folks rely on the Colorado River water provide, and 400 fowl species rely on the Colorado River’s habitats.  Water wants throughout the basin have to be met with out harming the final remaining Colorado River-dependent habitats, together with the Ciénega de Santa Clara in Sonora, Mexico. 

Sadly, some water customers are reviving curiosity in restarting the Yuma Desalting Plant, an antiquated U.S. facility in southwestern Arizona that, if operated, would negatively affect important fowl habitat. 

Earlier this month, the board of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (the company that manages the Central Arizona Undertaking, the 336-mile lengthy canal that delivers Colorado River water to central and southern Arizona) proposed a measure to help operation of the Yuma Desalting Plant, particularly calling on the federal authorities to prioritize decreasing “the affect of the bypass flows on the Colorado River system.” This obscure point out of “bypass flows” is a direct reference to the water that provides the Ciénega de Santa Clara, the biggest remaining wetland within the long-desiccated Colorado River Delta. Extracting water from this ecosystem might have devastating impacts on the pure heritage and wildlife of the Colorado River Basin and will lengthen to the migrating birds of the Pacific Flyway. 

As Audubon implements Flight Plan—our technique to preserve 300 million acres of high quality, linked, and climate-resilient habitat—defending and restoring fowl habitats whereas enhancing the well being and reliability of our water provides for communities is a precedence for our Colorado River program.
 
Origins of the Ciénega de Santa Clara

The Ciénega gives essential habitat, meals, and shelter for tons of of 1000’s of birds who migrate north and south alongside the Pacific Flyway, together with the Western Sandpiper, American Avocet, and Snowy Plover. It additionally helps the world’s largest remaining inhabitants of the endangered Yuma Ridgway’s Rail, a reclusive fowl dwelling within the marshes. 

In 1972, within the wake of adopting water high quality requirements for Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico, the USA labored with Mexico to construct a canal (known as the Predominant Outlet Drain Extension, or “MODE”) to divert salty agricultural drainage water from the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District in southern Arizona away from the Colorado River. This canal diverted the water provides away from the river as a result of farms downriver in Mexico’s Mexicali Valley had been experiencing harm to their salt-sensitive crops. The salty water within the MODE canal is named the “bypass movement” as a result of it bypasses the Colorado River. 

For greater than 40 years, the “bypass movement” of roughly 100,000 acre-feet of salty water has flowed within the MODE canal, emptying east of the Colorado River into the mudflats of the previous Colorado River Delta and creating the Ciénega de Santa Clara. Within the context of the Colorado River Delta, the place almost 2 million acres of wetland habitat disappeared because the Colorado River was dammed and diverted during the last century, the Ciénega is the biggest remaining wetland. 

At greater than 44,500 acres, this important wetland consists of:

• Cattail marshes that filter water, stabilize sediments, and provide cowl for wildlife
• Open water areas that nourish fish populations, present resting areas for waterfowl, and preserve hydrological connections
• Mud flats that function necessary feeding grounds for shorebirds and wading birds, supporting wealthy invertebrate prey 

Mexico acknowledges the Ciénega de Santa Clara’s significance, and in 1993, together with the United Nations Academic, Scientific, and Cultural Group (UNESCO) designated the Ciénega as a Biosphere Reserve. In 1997, the Ciénega was designated a Ramsar Conference Wetland of Worldwide Significance. 

Audubon’s own science repeatedly paperwork the outsized significance of the Colorado River Delta—significantly the Ciénega—for birds.

Issues with the Yuma Desalting Plant 

The Yuma Desalting Plant, an antiquated facility in southwestern Arizona, was constructed between 1975 and 1992 to deal with the salty “bypass movement” so it might be returned to the Colorado River and despatched to Mexico. The plant operated solely briefly in 1993 earlier than it was broken by floods and since then has largely sat dormant. Restarting the plant would have important impacts.

Operation at simply one-third of the Yuma Desalting Plant’s capability would divert roughly 25 p.c of the bypass movement at present sustaining the Ciénega, whereas disposing high-salinity brine focus into the MODE canal, considerably diminishing each the amount and high quality of water flowing to the Cienega threatening the ecosystem with collapse and placing tons of of 1000’s of birds in danger. 

Bringing the Yuma Desalting Plant again into common operation at simply one-third of its full capability for 20 years would require no less than $670-704 million, in addition to further unknown prices to deal with environmental harm. 

Past ecological impacts, operation of the Yuma Desalting Plant might jeopardize many years of binational collaboration between the USA and Mexico. The wetland stands as each an important ecosystem and an emblem of shared stewardship between the USA and Mexico.  Undermining it might erode the diplomatic basis of the binational Colorado River partnership, complicating future negotiations and diminishing Arizona’s capacity to pursue cooperative options—resembling binational desalination research—that promise mutual profit on each side of the border.

In the end, it isn’t clear that operation of the Yuma Desalting Plant would enhance the Central Arizona Water Conservation District’s Colorado River provide. The 1974 Colorado River Basin Salinity Management Act stipulates that “alternative of the reject stream from the desalting plant and of any Wellton-Mohawk drainage water bypassed to the Santa Clara Slough (the bypass movement) […] is acknowledged as a nationwide obligation.” This provision has ensured that the “bypass movement” has not counted in the direction of Arizona’s use of Colorado River water. If the Yuma Desalting Plant had been to function and the bypass flows decreased, the Central Arizona Water Conservation District might have to scale back its Colorado River diversion by that very same quantity of water.

Options for a Shrinking Colorado River 

Happily, there are answers that we will pursue with out sacrificing birds and different wildlife that already wrestle within the Colorado River Basin the place greater than a century of dams and water improvement eradicated many of the wetlands and riverside forests they should survive.

The USBR has proposed and carried out tasks and packages to extend Colorado River water availability. These embrace: 1) growth of water regulating storage in current reservoirs on the Decrease Colorado River to seize flows from native rainstorms and assist ship water extra exactly downstream; 2) improved administration of salty agricultural return flows in Arizona’s Gila Valley; and three) system conservation agreements that present compensation to water customers who voluntarily and briefly preserve water in Lake Mead.  

Underneath the frameworks of Minutes 323 and 330—the U.S.-Mexico Colorado River collaborative agreements—Mexico is creating advantages for water customers in each nations by implementing water effectivity tasks within the Mexicali Valley, resembling canal lining and set up of automated water management buildings, in addition to water conservation with packages that present compensation to water customers who voluntarily and briefly preserve water. The US and Mexico studied the potential for giant ocean desalination services that might function with the most effective out there expertise to keep away from environmental impacts and will present new water provides for Colorado River water customers in each nations.

Moreover, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the biggest city provider counting on Colorado River water, teed up an in depth city potable reuse undertaking and is inviting city water suppliers from Arizona and Nevada to share within the undertaking’s prices and advantages.

The problem of shrinking Colorado River provides is daunting, however alternatives to fulfill that problem with out harming the final remaining Colorado River-dependent habitats abound. The Ciénega de Santa Clara is an irreplaceable ecological asset and any determination to function the Yuma Desalting Plant should account for each ecological safety, financial practicalities, and binational water administration goals. Conservation and reuse typically provide less expensive and fewer dangerous approaches to water safety than operation of the Yuma Desalting Plant. Audubon hopes the board of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District will rethink.