Sunday, September 16, 2007

Drying up agriculture Here's a look at a new Family Farm Alliance report about the pressure on irrigation exerted by unbridled growth, from the The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article: Using irrigation water as drought insurance for growing urban areas is an unwise course that could threaten the nation's food supply, a new study [pdf] looking at climate change reports. A Family Farm Alliance study says climate change could reduce snowpack, increase the need for water and decrease groundwater recharge. The group recommends more reservoirs to capture earlier runoff and balance stream flows. It also cites effective programs in which agricultural needs are incorporated into planning for future water shortages. The study, however, has harsh criticism for water policies that rely on ag water to meet supplies for cities, a major thrust in Colorado, where a Statewide Water Supply Initiative identified a municipal supply "gap" that would most likely be filled by converting farm water to supplies for cities. "Relying on agriculture to be a shock absorber to soften or eliminate the impending water shortage is not planning," said Patrick O'Toole, president of the alliance. "It is a choice to put our heads in the sand and hope for the best. It is a decision that could worsen the overall impact of climate change on our nation's economy and security."[...] Redundancy - whether for watersheds or supply lines - is a concept municipal planners often stress, but farmers often see their plight as the whims of Mother Nature. Looking at the variety and location of crops throughout the West and the development of farmland in areas inhospitable to dryland farming, O'Toole sees an equal danger to the nation's food supply if redundancy throughout the industry is removed... The report says climate change could tip the scales even further against agriculture, since water already is a scarce commodity in the West. In addition, the report says climate change could reduce snowpack while increasing the need for water as temperatures rise. In Colorado, the U.S. Geological Survey has begun looking for signs of climate change. "What we're seeing is a variability in the timing of snow melts, and the trends are small if there are trends," said David Clow, USGS snow hydrologist. While spring runoff is occurring earlier, nothing has yet occurred outside the range of the historical record. Clow said it will be necessary to group data from a variety of sites to determine how the state's water supply is being affected. On a larger scale, climate change is considered a real possibility by many scientists, although how it will affect specific regions is largely unknown. The possibility of reducing water supply in the West, where water supplies are already inadequate to meet demands, alarms the Family Farm Alliance... Changed climate and agriculture -- some of the negative effects: Colorado is losing 460 acres per day of agricultural land, and will lose 3.1 million more acres by 2022 on its present course. Environmental programs on the Platte River have the potential to dry up hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in Wyoming and Nebraska. Growth of cities in Arizona and Nevada are drying up farms at record rates. In a few years, the Salt River Project in Arizona will cease to provide water for agriculture, the report said. Las Vegas is adding 70,000 new residents a year, and is hunting water supplies in rural areas even as it maximizes conservation through programs like reuse and paying residents to remove lawns. California converted 1 million acres of farmland to urban use from 1988 to 1998, and likely will lose more ground as the population is projected to increase to 59.5 million, from 37 million today, by 2050. More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here. "colorado water" 9:34:39 AM

Energy Policy: Oil and gas According to The Glenwood Springs Post Independent "reg", recycling produced water is catching on in oil and gas operations. From the article: Williams Production recycles all of the water it produces during drilling and gas production, Dave Cesark, an environmental specialist for the company, said at the Colorado River District's annual water seminar in Grand Junction Friday. "We take water very seriously at Williams. We do our best to conserve water, to recycle it and to minimize our fresh-water use," Cesark said. David Grisso, an operations field leader with EnCana Oil & Gas (USA), said the company expects to recycle a total of about 8.5 million barrels of produced water in its Piceance Basin operations this year. Water is injected into a well to fracture it to increase production, then brought back up for fracturing in a different well. "If I can use produced water to 'frac' with, I don't need river water, fresh water," Grisso said... The 9 million barrels of water that it produces annually - 378 million gallons - would be enough to irrigate only about 350 acres of alfalfa, he said. Williams is putting the water to another beneficial use by using it for fracturing in lieu of using fresh water, he said. EnCana injects some produced water into deep wells for disposal but hopes to end that practice. Williams does no disposal injections. Grisso said EnCana holds a temporary permit to release treated, produced water into the Colorado River, where it would become a resource for the state, but the company has never done that. It costs about 60 cents a barrel to inject water underground, and would cost more than $2 a barrel to clean it enough to put it into the river, he said. Both companies treat produced water before reusing it. And they are increasingly using pipelines rather than trucks to transport the water to well pads for fracturing. Grisso said that practice has cut truck traffic or in some cases eliminated it altogether. Cesark said one 66-well project it developed included a closed-loop piping system to a treatment center and back that did away with 12,500 truck trips. The company is able to do remote fracturing from more than a mile away from a well, "so we don't have to transport tanks and water back and forth," he said. Eliminating the need for on-site fracturing fluid tanks also enables Williams to build smaller well pads, which reduces the surface impact of drilling, he said. More Coyote Gulch coverage here. "colorado water" 8:12:29 AM

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