The water that flows through irrigation canals and into the West’s largest farmland is provided at very low prices, and in some cases free, courtesy of the federal government.
In a new study, researchers analyzed wholesale prices charged by the federal government in California, Arizona, and Nevada and found that large agricultural water management agencies pay only a fraction, if any, of what cities pay. They said these “very low” prices burden taxpayers, increase pressure on scarce water and impede conservation, similar to the Colorado River’s depleted reservoirs.
“Federal taxpayers have been subsidizing essentially free water for a very long time,” said Noah Garrison, a researcher at the UCLA Institute for Environmental Sustainability. “As long as we continue to provide free or near-free water, we will not be able to address growing water scarcity in the Western world.”
The report, released this week by UCLA and the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, examines the water that local agencies get from the Colorado River and rivers in California’s Central Valley and concludes that the federal government provides water at far lower prices than state water systems and other suppliers.
The researchers recommend that the Trump administration begin imposing a “water reliability and safety surcharge” on all Colorado River water and water from California’s Central Valley Project canal. That way, government agencies and producers can incentivize conservation, while at the same time repairing aging and damaged canals,
“Given the growing crisis in the Colorado River Basin, there is an urgent need to price water to reflect its scarcity.”
The study analyzed only wholesale prices paid by water utilities, not prices paid by individual farmers or urban residents. It found that agencies serving agricultural areas pay an average of about $30 per acre-foot of water, while urban water utilities pay $512 per acre-foot.
In California, Arizona, and Nevada, the federal government supplies more than 7 million acre-feet of water at less than $1 per acre-foot, about 14 times the total water use of Los Angeles.
And more than half of that (almost a quarter of the water the researchers analyzed) is delivered free by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to five water districts in agricultural areas: Imperial Irrigation District, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Coachella Valley Water District, Truckee-Carson Irrigation District in Nevada, and Unit B Irrigation and Drainage District in Arizona.
Along the Colorado River, about three-quarters of the water is .
Farmers in California’s Imperial Valley receive water from the Colorado River and grow hay for their cattle, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and other crops on more than 450,000 acres of irrigated land.
The Imperial Irrigation District has been charging farmers the same rate for water for years: $20 per acre-foot.
Tina Shields, IID’s water division manager, said the district opposes any additional fees for water. Comparing the cost of agricultural and municipal water, as the researchers did, is “like comparing grapes and watermelons,” given the vast differences in how water is distributed and treated, she said.
Shields noted that IID and local farmers are already working to conserve water, and this year’s savings represent about 23% of the district’s total water allotment.
“Imperial Valley producers provide the nation with a safe and reliable food supply at a margin that many growers can barely afford,” she said in an email.
He acknowledged that IID does not pay water bills to the government, but said it does pay for the operation, maintenance and repairs of both federal water infrastructure and the district’s own systems.
“We believe there is no correlation between the cost of water in the Colorado River and water scarcity, and we disagree with these inflammatory statements,” Shields said, adding, “It appears they are intent on driving a wedge between agricultural and urban water users at a time when collaborative partnerships are more important than ever.”
The Colorado River supplies water to seven states, 30 indigenous tribes and northern Mexico, but its flow is decreasing. A quarter of a century of severe drought caused its reservoirs to collapse. The two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are currently less than one-third full.
Negotiations are underway among seven states on how to deal with the shortage.
Co-author Mark Gold said the government’s current water tariffs are so low that they cannot cover the costs of operating, maintaining and repairing aging aqueducts and other infrastructure. He said even raising the price to $50 per acre-foot of water would help modernize water systems and encourage conservation.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Reclamation, declined to comment on the proposal.
The Colorado River was originally divided between states under a 1922 compact that overpromised what the river could offer. Gold said that 100-year-old treaty and deep-rooted system of water rights, combined with water that costs next to nothing, led to “this slow-motion train wreck that is modern-day Colorado.”
Research shows that the past 25 years have likely been the driest quarter in the American West, and that global warming is contributing to this megadrought.
Scientists have found that the Colorado River’s flow has declined by about 20 percent since the beginning of this century, largely due to rising temperatures caused by fossil fuels.
In a separate article this month, scientists Jonathan Overpeck and Brad Udall said the latest science suggests that climate change is probably having a “stronger impact, meaning that precipitation in the headwaters of the Colorado River is likely to continue to decline into the future.”
Experts are calling on the Trump administration to make permanent cuts and implement them across the Colorado River Basin. Kathryn Sorensen and Sarah Porter, researchers at Arizona State University’s Kill Water Policy Center, have launched a voluntary program in which the federal government would pay landowners who buy water-intensive farmland and either clear it or “agree to permanent restrictions on water use.”
In recent years, California and other states have negotiated short-term agreements, as part of which some farmers in California and Arizona are temporarily accommodated in exchange for federal payments.
UCLA researchers criticized these deals, saying water districts “obtain water at low or no cost from the federal government, and then the government buys that water back from districts at significant cost to taxpayers.”
Co-author and NRDC researcher Isabel Friedman said the introduction of a surcharge would be a powerful conservation tool.
“We need a long-term strategy that recognizes water as a finite resource and prices it as such,” she wrote of the proposal.
