I had one of those I-used-to-walk-to-school-in-the-snow-for-five-miles-uphill-each-way moments the other day in the car as I explained to my five year old daughter: “When I was a kid, they didn’t have DVD players in cars. In fact, they didn’t have DVD players at all because there were no DVDS!” As she tried to digest this bomb I just dropped on her, I thought about things like 8-tracks, VHS, Beta, internet, personal computers, Compact Discs, cell phones, and so on. Then I decided DVD players was enough for one lesson.
But here’s another: When I was a kid, we didn’t buy bottled water. We got our water from the tap for (almost) free!
Imagine my surprise when I moved to rural Arizona twelve years ago and found that people had their very own wells and got their water for (almost) free, too. Some paper work, some digging, some hardware, and the cost to power the electric pump. The rest was free.
Those days are coming to a close.
This article in today’s Mohave Valley Daily News, which draws attention to an issue that has been in the works for years now, states
The Bureau of Reclamation is surveying all wells within the Colorado River aquifers to see if they are pumping water that will be replaced by river water.
Please accept my apologies in advance for over-simplifying an extremely complex discussion. If I misstep, please call me out in the comments.
The Bureau of Reclamation is a division of the Department of Interior that oversees the management of water resources, including the Colorado River.
Seven states depend on water from the Colorado River, each of which are allocated a specific amount of it’s water each year by a federal agreement dating back to the early 1900s. These allocations were made at a time when significantly more water flowed through the Colorado River than today
Just as pennies are counted when money dries up, allocations are counted when river water dries up.
The Department of Interior was ordered to account for every drop of lower Colorado River water by the Supreme Court in Arizona vs. California in 2006. The Bureau of Reclamation will write a rule (that is the same as a law) that will cover well owners by the end of the year.
So here’s the deal. Many people who have been drawing what they thought was ground water for years and years will soon be told they are actually drawing Colorado River water. The significance is in order for you to legally draw said river water, it must be allocated to you or you are illegally drawing from someone else’s allocation.
If the well is deemed to be pumping river water it will be considered illegal, but the Bureau will offer the owner an “entitlement” so they may continue to use the water. In order to do so they will have to sign a contract with the Secretary of the Interior.
In many cases, those wells that have been (almost) free for a long time are going to start costing.
What the MVDN article does not touch on is the City of Bullhead City’s water allocation. I believe many well users will soon be told that they are drawing river water from Bullhead City’s entitlement and will therefore be subject to a rising water tax called “impost fees.”
As you might have guessed by now, it’s all gonna come down to the almighty dollar and the price of water is going up.
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