Developing state water roadmaps is essential

New turnout facility from the California Aqueduct on Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. Officials say the project will help the region prepare for the effects of climate change. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.)

Energy, water, and food are the top three threats to humanity, Nobel laureate Richard Smalley of Rice University stated in 2003. Two decades later, those three challenges remain on any list of imminent and long-term threats to global stability. Producing energy requires ample amounts of clean water, and both plentiful sources of energy and water are required to produce food.

The key, though, is ample amounts of water. The data listed above highlight the challenges of accessing and developing supplies in key parts of the American West.

Meeting these challenges starts with planning. In Texas, for example, water planners focus on “desired future conditions” for the state’s nine major and 22 minor aquifers. Without a roadmap, targets are likely to go unmet when a catastrophe like a prolonged severe drought arises.

“Energy, water and food are the world’s three most critical resources. Although this fact is widely acknowledged in policy circles, the interdependence of these resources on one another is significantly underappreciated.”

—Michael Webber, author of
Thirst for Power: Energy, Water, and Human Survival

Sketching out a vision for the future must come with enough flexibility to adjust. When done right, looking ahead can unlock public funds that states need to develop their water supplies over the next 50, even 100 years.

Establishing a clear path forward is especially crucial for Western states and the communities they serve. Texas. New Mexico. Arizona. Nevada. Colorado. California. Each wrestle with uncertainties about its water supplies and needs, and each state’s leadership should consider these essentials:

• Make water planning statewide and involve relevant voices.
• Make the plan long term and short term. Look out five, 50, even 100 years.
• Include and promote diverse strategies that reduce risk.
• Make the plan particular to a state’s regions.
• Focus on supply and demand.
• Examine where growth is likely to occur.
• Use up-to-date data and get it to local planners.
• Be honest about needs, including realistic projections of droughts.
• Emphasize the benefits of water planning.

Let’s break apart some of these fundamentals to see how they might be working – or not working – across parts of the West.

1. Statewide planning — with relevant voices at the table

Three dozen people gathered in the first-floor conference room of the North Texas Council of Governments in Arlington, Texas, on April 29 to discuss the water needs of people living in Dallas-Fort Worth and other parts of North Texas. Agricultural representatives. Environmental organizations. Municipal water planners. Attendees represented groups and interests that state law requires be part of the state’s water planning process. Together, they examined such topics as projections for population growth and water needs in a region that houses the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan area.

The late spring meeting was not their first gathering. Not by a long stretch.

Ever since 1997 – when Texas legislators passed a water-planning measure signed by then-Governor George W. Bush – regional leaders across the state and designated local parties have been convening to identify their water needs and supplies for the next five years. This bottom-up approach changed how the state had attempted to meet water needs since the 1950s. Instead of starting at the state level and planning down, the current method involves active participation of local citizens, the expertise of regional and state water authorities, and the presence of a steady flow of data.

Every five years, for instance, a new plan for the Dallas-Fort Worth region is submitted to the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB). The state body must ultimately sign off on the proposal for each of the state’s 16 regional water planning groups.

Once TWDB does so, the agency compiles the regional plans and publishes them in the state’s water plan. The document doesn’t prescribe what regions must do. Rather, it provides a guide for the next five years. Then the process starts over.

The plan includes about 5,800 strategies for the whole state. If implemented – which is always a challenge – the strategies would allow water users to meet needs across Texas through 2070. If the strategies aren’t implemented, about 25% of the state would have only about half the municipal water supplies needed during a drought of record.

The tedious work involved in planning is key to not only understanding needs, but also to unlocking the money to […]

Full article: www.bushcenter.org