CSU study about water quality on lower Arkansas river
CSU is working with Arkansas Valley farmers and officials to try to come up with irrigation methods that will help to improve water quality in the river, according to the Pueblo Chieftain. From the article, "Improved irrigation techniques, coupled with sealing ditches to limit seepage, could improve water quality and yields in the Lower Arkansas Valley. Colorado State University professor Tim Gates updated the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District board on his studies of irrigation practices last week, making some specific recommendations on how to improve farming for individual producers, agricultural regions and the entire basin...
"State water law and the Arkansas River Compact with Kansas have to be taken into consideration before widespread changes are made, but Gates said several areas of research have shown promising direction. Among the most significant findings of more than five years of research on hundreds of sites spread over 250,000 acres: Increasing the depth of the water table, to prevent waterlogging fields, could reduce soil salinity and increase crop yields 10 percent; Increasing efficiency in irrigation techniques could decrease movement of salts back to the river by 40 percent, improving the overall health of the river; Less water would be lost to invasive plants like tamarisk if 'upflux' - water traveling upward through soil - was reduced, possibly netting 1,000 to 10,000 acre-feet of water per year...
"Researchers treated sections of three canals - Lamar, High Line and Catlin - with polyacrylamide, or PAM, this summer and found seepage was reduced anywhere from 10 to 90 percent, depending on conditions. The Bureau of Reclamation and Desert Research Institute in Nevada were partners on the PAM project, part of a larger look at canals throughout the Western United States. PAM was put into flowing water, settling fine solids into the sides of the canals, sealing them, Gates said. The process worked better when there were high levels of solids. On the High Line, 20 miles were treated using a converted fertilizer spreader on a motor boat. Only 2.7 miles were treated on the Catlin, using a different method of distributing the PAM. Depending on the size of the canal and the frequency, costs could range from $225 to $1,000 per mile for treatment, far less than traditional lining, Gates said...
"CSU also measured 28 fields using drip irrigation or sprinklers last summer to study how much additional water was saved that would normally be lost to evaporation. Evaporation also was studied using infrared satellite images. Analysis of the images allows tracking consumptive use of water in fields as well as how much is being lost through evaporation and transpiration of non-beneficial plants...
"The satellite data on consumptive use can be calibrated using a lysimeter installed this summer at the CSU research station at Rocky Ford. Rather than merely estimate use, the lysimeter physically weighs a block of soil with crops planted on it to pinpoint how much water a specific type of plant uses...
"Finally, in some areas of the valley, improving drainage can restore productivity. CSU looked at a 30-acre field that had been abandoned because of waterlogging, or an unusually high water table that increases soil salinity through upflux. A relatively low-cost method of connecting drainage pipes to old tile drainage systems was used to solve the problem. The old drainage systems are being identified by another CSU study being led by professor John Wilkins-Wells. Gates said the next step of the study will be to work with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the U.S. Geological Survey to find ways to cooperatively use the research in the Arkansas Valley, so it won't 'sit on a shelf.'
"colorado water"
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