[Senate Hearing 117-468]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-468
SHORT- AND LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS TO EXTREME DROUGHT IN THE WESTERN UNITED
STATES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 14, 2022
__________
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-126 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia, Chairman
RON WYDEN, Oregon JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont MIKE LEE, Utah
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico STEVE DAINES, Montana
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
MARK KELLY, Arizona BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana
JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
Renae Black, Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
Melanie Thornton, Professional Staff Member
Richard M. Russell, Republican Staff Director
Matthew H. Leggett, Republican Chief Counsel
Brian Clifford, Republican Principal Deputy Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from West
Virginia....................................................... 1
Barrasso, Hon. John, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from
Wyoming........................................................ 3
WITNESSES
Touton, Hon. Camille C., Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation,
U.S. Department of the Interior................................ 5
Entsminger, John J., General Manager, Southern Nevada Water
Authority...................................................... 15
Hall, Dr. Maurice, Vice President, Climate Resilient Water
Systems, Environmental Defense Fund............................ 19
O'Toole, Patrick, President, Family Farm Alliance................ 27
Stern, Charlie, Specialist in Natural Resources Policy,
Congressional Research Service................................. 53
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
American Farm Bureau:
Survey entitled ``Assessing Western Drought Conditions''..... 91
Barrasso, Hon. John:
Opening Statement............................................ 3
Central Arizona Irrigation and Drainage District et al.:
Statement for the Record..................................... 151
Deschutes Basin Board of Control:
Statement for the Record..................................... 160
Entsminger, John J.:
Opening Statement............................................ 15
Written Testimony............................................ 17
Hall, Dr. Maurice:
Opening Statement............................................ 19
Written Testimony............................................ 21
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 134
Hasman, Gregory:
Gillette News Record article entitled ``Drought Could Leave
Wyoming Ranchers With Tough Choices''...................... 145
King, Jr., Hon. Angus S.:
Chart depicting megadroughts occurring in the West over the
last 1,200 years........................................... 81
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
Opening Statement............................................ 1
(The) Nature Conservancy:
Letter for the Record........................................ 165
O'Toole Patrick:
Opening Statement............................................ 27
Written Testimony............................................ 29
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 137
Stern, Charlie:
Opening Statement............................................ 53
Written Testimony............................................ 55
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 141
Touton, Camille C.:
Opening Statement............................................ 5
Written Testimony............................................ 7
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 120
Western States Water Council:
Statement for the Record..................................... 167
Statement for the Record regarding the DOI WaterSMART Program 178
Statement for the Record regarding federal water and climate
data and analysis.......................................... 180
Statement for the Record regarding the Bureau of Reclamation
Drought Response Program................................... 182
SHORT- AND LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS
TO EXTREME DROUGHT IN THE
WESTERN UNITED STATES
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TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m. in
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joe Manchin
III, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA
The Chairman. Now, for our hearing today, which is our
drought hearing, moving on to the focus of today's hearing. I
want to thank you all for being here today as we discuss the
western drought crisis, an extremely pressing issue that is no
doubt ever-present in the minds of our western colleagues. The
West is currently facing a historic megadrought, and 92 percent
of the area at large is facing some degree of drought. From
some states like Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and
Utah, that figure is at 100 percent. In the southwestern U.S.,
scientists have called this the worst that the area has seen in
1,200 years. I know the water issues out West are very
different than what we have in West Virginia. We are often
faced with the opposite problem of flooding and too much water
rather than a drought.
But it does not matter where you live, drought has a domino
effect that indirectly spills over into the lives of all
Americans, from the economic losses to wildfires to food
scarcities and higher food prices. The historic significance of
this period should serve as a wake-up call to the entire
country on the critical importance of stakeholders coming
together to develop and implement drought-proof water solutions
that tackle both water supply and water demand, especially in
light of population growth and climate change. But as I have
often said on the topic of climate change, I want to stay
focused on actionable solutions, and that will be the focus of
the drought discussion today.
The Bureau of Reclamation has a vital role to play when it
comes to managing western water resources and addressing water
scarcity. President Teddy Roosevelt created the Bureau of
Reclamation shortly after signing the Reclamation Act on June
17, 1902, 120 years ago this Friday. Today, the Bureau of
Reclamation is the nation's largest water supplier, operating
over 300 reservoirs that provide one in five western farmers
with the water for their crops and deliver ten trillion gallons
of drinking water to millions of people each year. But the
Agency is currently facing unprecedented challenges given the
historic low and continuing declining levels of water in many
of the country's largest reservoirs. And the Colorado River
Basin, Lake Mead, and Lake Powell have reached their lowest
levels ever recorded. Currently, Lake Mead is sitting at 29
percent capacity while Lake Powell is currently at 27 percent
capacity. These lake levels put hydropower, which is critical
to current and future grid reliability in the West, at risk
because the water must be high enough to actually turn the
turbines. In fact, the North American Electric Reliability
Corporation, or NERC, cites the threat of low water levels to
hydroelectricity generation to be among the challenges to
maintaining grid reliability in the West for the coming summer.
Future water projections in this Basin also look grim, and
if water levels continue to decline, it would trigger the most
severe water cuts for the Southwest. This is incredibly
alarming to everyone. These reservoirs are a crucial source of
water to millions of households, thousands of farmers and
ranchers, wildlife habitat, and provide power for over 3.5
million homes. With multiple entities competing for limited
water resources that Reclamation facilities provide, there are
no doubt going to be some tough decisions ahead about how to
equitably allocate these water supplies. Last year, Congress
invested in western water infrastructure and provided the
Bureau of Reclamation a historic amount of funding in the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, $8.3 billion, to fund projects
that can provide short-term drought relief and long-term
drought resilience. It provided funding for water recycling,
desalination, storage and aging infrastructure projects,
incentives for water conservation and efficiency, and funding
for projects that provide multiple benefits for people and the
environment. I look forward to hearing from Commissioner Touton
about how the Agency is prioritizing these funds to deal with
our scarce water supplies, and where additional Congressional
action may be needed to prepare for the future.
While the discussion around drought has centered on water
supply availability, water demand solutions must also be part
of the conversation. I have talked at length about how energy
efficiency is a common-sense way to reduce our energy
consumption, and I think it makes sense to look at water
through the same lens. Water and energy are two sides of the
same coin. It takes a lot of energy to treat the water we use
in our everyday lives and it takes substantial amounts of water
to produce energy. Given the current drought and high energy
costs we are seeing across the board, water conservation and
efficient water use are the lowest hanging fruit to managing
our demand. I understand there are tools available that can
help western communities make investments to conserve water.
One such tool is the Bureau of Reclamation's WaterSMART
program. This program was designed specifically to address
water demand by investing in irrigation infrastructure and
water conservation and efficiency improvements to help
communities respond to water scarcity conflicts across the arid
West.
One thing we can all agree on is that an all-of-the-above,
collective approach is needed to adapt to these tough
conditions because there are only so many ways to split such a
critical and limited resource. I look forward to learning from
our expert witnesses on where opportunities exist to further
invest in both water supply and water demand. Finally, a long-
term, coordinated drought effort is going to require flexible
water management strategies and meaningful investment at the
state and federal levels. The bottom line is this, water is the
most essential resource to the health of our people, our
economy, and our environment, but prolonged drought is becoming
a frightening new norm. It is going to take effort and
collaboration from all parties involved to commit to
implementing sustainable drought solutions. Recognizing this
reality is critical. So I look forward to learning more and
discussing how we can better manage and conserve the limited
water resources that are the lifeblood of so many economies and
communities.
I will now turn to Senator Barrasso for his opening
remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING
Senator Barrasso. Well, thanks so much, Mr. Chairman, for
holding this important hearing today on the devastating drought
that we are living through in the West.
First, I want to welcome Pat O'Toole of Savery, Wyoming to
be at the Committee today as a member of our panel. Mr.
O'Toole, thanks so much for agreeing to testify today. You have
been here in the past to testify. You always provide valuable
insight, and I am glad you are here to provide that insight
today on this important topic.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to give a more extensive
introduction of Pat, who is formerly a member of the Wyoming
legislature, when we get to that point, in terms of the witness
testimony.
Extreme drought is a serious concern to all westerners, but
especially to small, rural farming and ranching communities in
Wyoming. Drought can create conditions for catastrophic
wildfires that threaten homes and communities. According to the
National Interagency Fire Center, over 27,000 wildfires have
already burned close to two million acres this year--and it is
all across the country. Drought also reduces recreational and
tourism opportunities. It reduces related jobs around
reservoirs and public lands, and now, according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 36 national parks, over
400 ski resorts, and over 1,500 reservoirs are experiencing
moderate to exceptional drought.
Drought impacts energy production and availability. Low
water levels threaten the operation of hydro dams, which
provide a significant amount of carbon-free electricity to
western communities, and you mentioned that in your opening
statement, Mr. Chairman. Lack of water availability also
threatens hydraulic fracturing. This is a process which
produces abundant supplies of clean natural gas. Drought denies
water to vital grazing lands and alfalfa fields necessary for
feeding and raising cattle. This can result in significant
economic impacts for communities that depend on agriculture and
ranching to create jobs. When farms and ranches stop producing
because of a lack of water, it doesn't just put farmers and
ranchers out of work, it increases the cost of food. This hits
families in the West and across the country who can afford it
the least.
American families are dealing with skyrocketing inflation
and record-breaking gas prices at the pump, the highest in
history today. We cannot afford a grocery-drought tax on top of
all that, which is going to clearly bust family household
budgets even further. The problems and impacts of drought are
clear. What Westerners need are solutions. This means we need
solutions to help Upper Basin states like Wyoming be in
compliance with their obligations to other Colorado River Basin
states. These solutions include providing flexibility in the
operation of Bureau of Reclamation facilities to better manage
available water resources. We also need to develop better data
to understand how much water our state and other states are
using and account for that use. Improved data is going to help
us understand what the drought is doing to our states and to
our water users across all sectors. Better forecasting data
will also identify drought-related problems before they arise.
We also need to invest in additional water storage
opportunities to more effectively use the water that we do
have. Building more water storage will give Wyoming and other
states the water they need. It will provide system resiliency
and will help maintain stream flows to benefit fish and
wildlife.
The stakes could not be higher, Mr. Chairman. We need
short-and long-term solutions that provide Westerners the water
they need. Any policies that do not ensure the health, safety,
and economic well-being of American families first, are not
policies worth pursuing. More water storage, improved federal
flexibility, better data, and improved forecasting can help
accomplish these goals. Upper and Lower Basin states benefit
from working together to address the drought and accomplish
these goals. Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward
to hearing from the witnesses.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
I would like to now introduce our panel of witnesses, and
we have joining us today Hon. Camille Touton. She is the
Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation at the U.S.
Department of the Interior.
We have Mr. John Entsminger, General Manager of the
Southern Nevada Water Authority.
We have Dr. Maurice Hall, Vice President of Climate
Resilient Water Systems at the Environmental Defense Fund.
We have Mr. Pat O'Toole, President of the Family Farm
Alliance, whom Senator Barrasso is going to introduce.
Finally, we have Mr. Charlie Stern, a specialist in Natural
Resources Policy at the Congressional Research Service.
I want to thank each and every one of you for being here
and taking the time to be with us today to help educate us.
Now, to the witnesses opening remarks, first of all, I am going
to start with Mr. O'Toole, and I would like for Senator
Barrasso to properly introduce you.
Senator Barrasso. Well, thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. And I
would like to take this moment just to introduce Pat O'Toole of
Savery, Wyoming, who is going to be testifying shortly. He is
the President of the Family Farm Alliance, also a cattle and
sheep rancher and a hay grower. He has been a member of the
Family Farm Alliance's Board of Directors since 1998, and was
named as the organization's fifth president in March 2005. He
is a former member of the Wyoming House of Representatives.
He and his wife, Sharon, live on a ranch that has been in
the family since 1881, which was nine years before Wyoming even
became a state. The O'Toole family and the Ladder Ranch were
the recipients of the 2014 Wyoming Leopold Environmental
Stewardship Award. He is a graduate of Colorado State
University and has a strong background in irrigated
agriculture. His understanding of the water needs of rural
western ranching communities in the Upper Basin is going to
prove valuable for today's hearing.
So, Pat, again, thanks for making the trip. Thank you for
joining us today. Welcome to the Committee.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Now, we will start with our witnesses, and Honorable Ms.
Touton, if you would.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CAMILLE C. TOUTON, COMMISSIONER,
BUREAU OF RECLAMATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Ms. Touton. Good morning, Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member
Barrasso, and members of this Committee, and good morning to
this panel. My name is Camille Calimlim Touton, and I am the
Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. Thank you for this
ongoing dialogue on the very important issue of water across
the West. The panel can talk about the specificity of how the
drought impacts agriculture, communities, and ecosystems. I
will focus on the management of the system and the actions
Reclamation is taking to manage this moment and into the
future.
My written testimony goes into more specifics on the
actions in which we manage our 189 projects, but you will see a
similar fact pattern in every major river basin--hydrologic
variability, hotter temperatures leading to earlier snow melt,
dry soils, all translating into earlier and low runoff. This is
coupled, as the Committee has mentioned, with the lowest
reservoir levels on record. There is so much to this that is
unprecedented, and that is true, but unprecedented is now the
reality and the normal in which Reclamation must manage our
systems. A warmer, drier West is what we are seeing today.
Reclamation is responding basin by basin and engaging in
actions to mitigate the impacts of a drying landscape.
We are utilizing our operational and financial authorities
as we take on this challenge based on the best available
science and a whole-of-government approach, and we take these
actions on with our partners across the West. Here are a few to
date. We are maximizing our financial resources. We
reprogrammed $100 million in FY21. We received $210 million in
FY22 from Congress, and we immediately put that to work for
drought and wildfire activities. In FY22, we also selected 56
projects, funded $55.3 million in WaterSMART grants across the
western states. We are using our operational flexibilities. In
the Colorado River, we have the 500+ Plan and we are engaged in
the Lower Basin states, and the projects include tribal,
agricultural, and municipal users. In the Upper Basin, last
month, we announced two separate drought response actions that
will help increase Lake Powell storage by nearly one million
acre-feet over the next 12 months to help preserve and protect
power pool.
We are implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and
last month, Reclamation announced 46 project selections for
aging infrastructure and extraordinary maintenance, totaling
$240 million. We have funding opportunities available for water
recycling, desalination, water efficiency projects, and those
are announced throughout this year. And this Friday, on our
birthday, we will be breaking ground on the first $100 million
contract for dam safety at B.F. Sisk in California. This
Friday, Reclamation will celebrate 120 years since we were
created by Congress, and the challenges we are seeing today are
unlike anything we have seen in our history. The science of the
system across the West and especially in the Colorado River
Basin indicates one of immediate action. And we rely on our
120-year track record of partnerships to solve these challenges
and will continue to do so.
But in the Colorado River Basin, more conservation and
demand management are needed in addition to the actions already
underway. Between two and four million acre-feet of additional
conservation is needed just to protect critical levels in 2023.
It is within our authorities to act unilaterally to protect the
system. And we will protect the system. But today, we are
pursuing a path of partnership. We are working with the states
and tribes in having this discussion, and I have the faith and
confidence of a century's track record in reaching a consensus
solution. But faith alone is not enough. We need to see the
work. We need to see the action. And my ask of Congress today
is to keep pushing us back to the table. And to my partners, to
stay at the table until the job is done.
The nearly 6,000 Reclamation professionals of today are
part of a rich legacy of Americans renowned for harnessing
cutting-edge technology, who inspired our nation through the
Great Depression and World War II, and continue to help sustain
the life and livelihood of the American West we know today.
Working with our partners in serving the people in the
communities of the American West is how Reclamation has met and
overcome its many challenges and will continue to do so in the
future. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Touton follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Now, we will have Mr. Entsminger.
OPENING STATEMENT OF JOHN J. ENTSMINGER,
GENERAL MANAGER, SOUTHERN NEVADA WATER AUTHORITY
Mr. Entsminger. Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso,
Senator Cortez Masto, and members of the Committee, thank you
for the opportunity to address you on this issue of critical
importance to both Nevada and the western United States. My
name is John Entsminger. I am the General Manager of the
Southern Nevada Water Authority. I am not a person who is prone
to hyperbole, but I can assure you from on the ground that the
ominous tenor of recent media reports is warranted. What has
been a slow-motion train wreck for 20 years is accelerating and
the moment of reckoning is near. While the situation is
objectively bleak, it is not in my view unsolvable. There is
little we can do to improve the Colorado River's hydrology. The
solution to this problem--and by solution, I do not mean
refilling the reservoirs, but rather avoiding potentially
catastrophic conditions--is a degree of demand management
previously considered unattainable.
Nevada's efforts are a case in point. With only 1.8 percent
of the river's allocated flows, we are little more than a
rounding error. Lake Mead loses twice as much water to
evaporation than we use each year. However, this tiny volume of
water sustains 70 percent of the state's population. Our
population has increased by 800,000 people over the last two
decades, but our water consumption last year was 26 percent
less than at the turn of the century. We achieved this by
paying customers to replace grass with drip-irrigated plants,
setting mandatory irrigation schedules, and strictly enforcing
water waste rules. We have removed enough grass to lay a roll
of sod all the way around the Earth. And we are not done. In
addition to even tighter restrictions on ornamental turf, our
sights are now set on improving irrigation efficiency and
reducing evaporative cooling.
There are headwinds along this journey, including a
reluctance of the business community to embrace conservation
and ESG metrics that value energy efficiency over saving water.
Our key advantage is that we capture and recover virtually
every drop of indoor water. This is why continued financial and
administrative support for projects on the Las Vegas Wash--
green infrastructure through which we return water to Lake
Mead--are so important. We also encourage federal support for
large-scale water recycling projects for communities without
access to large reservoirs. In engaging my colleagues in other
states, it is clear they recognize the urgency of the situation
and are ramping up their conservation efforts. However, and
there is no way around this, cities alone cannot address this
crisis, not because of indifference but because we simply do
not use enough water to tip the scales. As in the cities, the
primary consumptive use in the agricultural sector is grass.
Around 80 percent of the Colorado River is used for
agriculture, and 80 percent of that 80 percent is used for
forage crops like alfalfa. I am not suggesting that farmers
stop farming, but rather that they carefully consider crop
selection and make the investments needed to optimize
irrigation efficiency.
My view has always been that you cannot improve efficiency
unless you can measure it, so I strongly support the current
OpenET bill, Senate bill 2568, sponsored by Senator Cortez
Masto. This legislation will provide access to more consistent,
accurate water use data than is currently possible. By reducing
their use of Colorado River water, agricultural entities are
protecting their own interests. If Lake Mead reaches deadpool,
Nevada's allocation will undoubtedly be further reduced, but we
can still meet critical needs because we have invested $1.4
billion in local funding to secure our access to water.
However, at that same elevation, California, Arizona, and
Mexico will be cut off entirely, because water simply cannot
escape from Lake Mead. We are 150 feet from 25 million
Americans losing access to the Colorado River, and the rate of
decline is accelerating. The burden of shortage cannot be borne
by any single community or sector. Rather, I urge every user of
the Colorado River to follow our lead and do all they can to
preserve what remains of the lifeblood of the Southwest. Our
collective futures depend upon it. Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Entsminger follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, sir.
Now, we have Dr. Hall.
OPENING STATEMENT OF DR. MAURICE HALL, VICE PRESIDENT, CLIMATE
RESILIENT WATER SYSTEMS, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND
Dr. Hall. Thank you, Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member
Barrasso, and Committee members, for the chance to speak to you
today on this most urgent issue. EDF's mission is to build a
vital earth for everyone, and our water work supports water
supply systems that provide the water we need for fish and
other wildlife, cities, farms, and rural communities. The
Commissioner and Mr. Entsminger and the Chairman have already
made clear the urgency of the moment. So I will focus on some
things we can do to address this emergency.
My first major point is that we need the broadest portfolio
of tools that we can assemble. This challenge is just too big
for one single solution. Thankfully, we do have options, but we
have to manage for the rain and snow patterns that climate
scientists tell us we are in for, not for the patterns we long
for. This means we have to adjust to less water use. And our
toolbox should indeed include some targeted water supply
enhancement, but we must have an increased emphasis on tools
for reducing the demand. And we also need actions that directly
respond to the compounding risk of climate change. In a word,
we must build resilience.
The portfolio of strategies needed includes some familiar
actions like municipal conservation, reuse, recycling, water-
saving agricultural practices, and it also includes
infrastructure investment. But these investments must extend to
our long-neglected natural infrastructure--our watersheds,
streams, rivers, and groundwater aquifers. And I want to
highlight one specific strategy that deserves attention called
Mutibenefit Land Repurposing. This resilience strategy merged
from a huge collaboration with a range of partners in
California's San Joaquin Valley, where, even with some supply
enhancements, studies suggest that half a million to a million
acres of agricultural land will have to come out of production
because of lack of water supply. Now, to avoid this devastating
outcome, the State of California has recently committed $50
million to launch an innovative new Multibenefit Land
Repurposing Program. The intent is to steer a transformation in
the Central Valley toward a water-resilient agricultural region
by supporting the repurposing of previously irrigated land into
a mosaic of vibrant new land uses that require less water and
that provide other needed benefits for the community, benefits
like habitat corridors, recreational space for families, and
recharge to groundwater.
Now, the demand for this program from farmers and water
managers is already twice the funding we have available. And we
expect that demand to grow, for this general concept is
adaptable to other places. With local collaboration,
stakeholders with different priorities can tailor this approach
to address the unique physical, cultural, and economic
conditions of their region. This brings me to my second major
point, and that is, durable solutions we need are going to come
from good-faith collaboration, and addressing the challenge we
now face is going to require an unprecedented level of
collaboration. We need to look at examples like the Yakima
River Basin Integrated Plan and replicate and invest in them.
And as in Yakima, it can no longer be just the water agencies
making the decisions. We need everyone's best ideas and
perspectives in the game and that includes the tribes,
disadvantaged and rural communities, and environmental
interests.
My last point--to accelerate and make that collaboration
successful, we need good information. And this means supporting
the longstanding efforts of federal programs like the USGS and
NRCS. And we also need new tools, like the OpenET platform. The
drought conditions we are seeing today should be a blazing
wake-up call for bold and innovative action. And how we respond
now will shape the future of the rural communities and
agriculture across the West and the economic health and quality
of life for the whole region. EDF stands ready to continue our
collaborative efforts and work with you and a range of partners
to meaningfully address extreme drought in the West. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hall follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, sir.
Now we have Mr. O'Toole.
OPENING STATEMENT OF PATRICK O'TOOLE,
PRESIDENT, FAMILY FARM ALLIANCE
Mr. O'Toole. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Barrasso,
I appreciate the kind words, and it is an honor for me to be
here. You can imagine what it is like to come from Wyoming and
come to the Capitol and be in this building, in this room. It
is truly amazing to me.
You know, the advantage of being further down the line
after other testimony is to be able to maybe react a little
bit, and a couple of things I heard was take land out of
production. We have to do different crops. We have heard that
for years and years and years. I was on a federal water
commission, appointed by President Clinton, 25 years ago, to
look 20 years into the future. What was water going to be like
in 20 years? And the answer was always take water away from
agriculture.
Well, the reality is--here is the reality. I have heard the
word unprecedented used more times than I ever have in one
session because that is what we are involved in, an
unprecedented situation. We also are about to do with
agriculture what we did with manufacturing and let it go
overseas. The numbers of food production coming into this
country to take our markets has changed the fundamentals. And
what our farmers and ranchers are trying to do is figure out
how to be successful in the future. That is what my family--
that started with my wife's great grandfather trailing horses
from Eagle Pass, Texas to Wyoming in 1881 to raise horses for
the Army, and we have been at it a long time and we have seen
the ups and downs, the 30s, the drought, the creation of the
conservation districts. And in my perspective, representing the
growers that grow every crop that is grown in the United
States, every livestock that comes from this country, is
members of the Family Farm Alliance. And I can tell you, the
stress that our people are feeling, that is unprecedented
because their families are under attack. All you have to do is
read the New York Times, LA Times, any of those newspapers who
pick up on, we can solve everything by demonizing farmers. It
has to stop because we are at an unprecedented lack of
sustainability in replacing ourselves.
And to me, the thing that breaks my heart the most is to
hear a farmer or a rancher say to their children, do not do
this because there is no future in it. And I have heard it too
many times because of the economics, because of the water, and
now with all the other inputs that we have. I do a lot of
different things. I have been on multiple boards. I have been
with the Family Farm Alliance for many years. I went to Glasgow
this year and the climate meetings. I am chairman of a group on
migratory birds in the western states that, you know, we do
conservation. Our valley is unprecedented in the amount of
conservation we are doing. I spent 14 years building as a
legislator and then trying to permit a reservoir that saved our
lower valley years ago. We are trying to build a second one.
And what we need to realize is that there are impediments
to our best wishes. This Committee has a reputation for
unanimous votes where people work together. That has been going
on for a long time, leading a unanimous coordination of
allowing the process to work. Storage is going to be critically
important, and even more important in my mind, on the Colorado
River--I live 25 miles from the head of the Continental
Divide--is the forest. The forests are broken, and I will give
all the compliments I can to the Bureau of Reclamation, which I
work with through the Alliance, but other agencies--I graze my
entire operation in the National Forest--it is dead. It is not
generating water. The headwaters of the Colorado River is not
generating near the numbers of acre-feet that it should because
the forest is not functioning. What we need to do is take the
laws and the efforts and the dollars that have come through the
recent infrastructure bills and put them into place.
I spent Sunday with a major national group and some
conservation people talking about how we redo the forest so
that it generates the kind of water that it could. I spent last
week with the Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy on the
National Forest walking where I rode horses my whole life. An
elephant could not walk through now. And we need to empower
those people that want to do things to actually do what you all
have said go do. That is the problem. We are not acting in the
way that we know how to act, and it just breaks our heart
because we know what to do. Senator Larry Hicks from the
Wyoming Legislature is probably the best implementer of policy
in the United States. I was with him Sunday talking about the
frustration. And it may sound cynical but what COVID has done
in my world is the--we are prisoners of a bureaucracy that is
not functioning.
We have to allow the system to function, and if there is
one message that is coming from farmers, it is let us do what
we do. We cannot give up our production to the Third World,
which we are in the process of doing at the expense of the
Third World. There are food riots in Peru where we are raising
avocadoes and taking their major crops here. We need to reverse
that. American agriculture is as powerful as it has always
been, and again, my message about farmers telling their
children not to farm because there is no future in it. We have
to turn that around. This is as critical as anything that I can
tell you. And when we look at the food crisis that we think is
a Ukrainian deal, it isn't. It is much more complicated, and it
has been going on for years. And if we do not act, we won't
have farmers and we won't have rural communities.
This has been such an opportunity for me. I really
appreciate it and will be happy to answer any questions. I did
want to mention one thing about Goshen County, Senator, and
that is the, you know, the infrastructure that had to be
replaced was built in 1902--the Roosevelt Administration. Not
Franklin--and that is the infrastructure part of how important
it is that we really get down and do what we know how to do.
Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. O'Toole follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Stern.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHARLIE STERN, SPECIALIST IN NATURAL
RESOURCES POLICY, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
Mr. Stern. Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, and
members of the Committee, thank you for inviting the
Congressional Research Service to provide testimony on drought
in the western United States. My name is Charles Stern, and I
am a specialist in natural resources policy at CRS. My comments
today will focus on drought, not in any one specific location,
but as a broader policy issue. In serving the U.S. Congress,
CRS takes no position on these issues.
As you know, a multiyear drought remains widespread across
many western states, with some areas in an extended period of
extreme drought. May 2020 through April 2022 was the second
driest two-year period since 1895 in Arizona, California,
Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, and the fifth driest two-year
period since 1895 in Colorado. While the West has a long
history of drought, the geographically widespread nature of the
current drought across these states is notable. The Federal
Government generally defers to state primacy in surface and
groundwater allocations. Therefore, state, local, and tribal
entities lead most government efforts to respond to drought.
However, these entities often look to the Federal Government
for relief when disasters occur. Following a series of droughts
in the 1990s, Congress enacted the National Drought Policy Act
in 1996 and created the National Drought Policy Commission. In
2000, the Commission submitted to Congress its report, and
among other things, noted that the United States needed to
embrace national drought policy with preparedness at its core.
It also recommended that Congress establish a federal/non-
federal National Drought Council to coordinate federal programs
addressing drought. Congress enacted some of these
recommendations, for instance, creating the National Integrated
Drought Information System within NOAA in 2006. Other
recommendations, such as increased support for non-federal
drought preparedness were adopted administratively. Current
federal drought coordination efforts take several forms.
Congress has enacted a range of authorities related to
drought. Most federal financial aid for drought addresses
agricultural production loss. Other authorities address
drought-related monitoring and research, emergency drinking
water supplies, and other short- and long-term drought response
and mitigation actions. Multiple federal agencies contribute to
efforts to predict, plan for, and respond to drought. The 2000
National Drought Policy Commission Report identified 88
drought-related federal programs, and this total has certainly
increased since that time. As you know, in 2021, Congress
appropriated billions of dollars to respond to drought,
including new funding in disaster and infrastructure
supplemental appropriations for activities that are expected to
improve drought monitoring, preparedness, and resiliency. Due
to expected lag times in obligating these funds over multiple
fiscal years, it will take several years before their effects
are fully realized.
Outside of new funding resources, some have proposed other,
often interrelated actions to mitigate drought. Our testimony
broadly divides these proposals into planning and preparedness,
data and monitoring, augmenting supplies, and demand
management.
In regard to planning and preparedness, some observers have
highlighted the need for better coordination of federal drought
planning and capacity-building programs. The Biden
Administration has also pointed to opportunities for states and
localities to utilize FEMA funding for drought planning and
mitigation.
Drought data collection and integration is another point of
emphasis by federal agencies. Various efforts to improve
drought information and monitoring networks are ongoing. These
efforts have the potential to strengthen the overall
understanding of drought and strengthen NIDIS's National
Drought Early Warning System.
In terms of augmenting water supplies, Congress's 2016
enactment of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the
Nation Act authorized the first significant Reclamation
financial support for new water storage project construction in
decades. These funds have supported studying construction at 13
projects across three western states with more funding pending
allocation. Some support extension of this authority, which has
largely been used to support non-federal water storage
projects.
Apart from new water storage, alternative water supplies,
such as water reuse, recycling, and desalination is an area
where federal support has facilitated development. Barriers to
a wider adoption vary, depending on the technology, water
source, and location involved, and are influenced by financial,
regulatory, and political context. Some in Congress propose
increased prioritization for alternative supplies with multiple
benefits for stakeholders or for projects that are constructed
in rural areas. Groundwater storage, aquifer recharge, and
other similar projects are also viewed as an alternative to
surface water storage. Congress has enacted but not funded
authority for Reclamation to support these projects. Federal
support for other state and local efforts to respond to
drought, including various efforts to manage demand for water
during times of scarcity, are also areas of consideration. We
discuss these and other options in our written testimony.
This concludes my remarks. I will be pleased to address any
questions you may have at the appropriate time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stern follows:]
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The Chairman. First of all, thank you all very much for
your testimonies, and we are going to start our questioning
now. And I understand Senator Kelly has to go to head up a SAS
hearing, and if you will, sir, go ahead and start.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
everybody, for being here today. Commissioner Touton, good to
see you again. I think we have all established that this
drought is unprecedented, and I understand from your testimony,
Commissioner, that the Colorado River is facing a structural
deficit of between two and four million acre-feet of water next
year. To put that amount in perspective for everybody in the
room, or anybody who is watching, Arizona's allocation of
Colorado River water is 2.8 million acre-feet. California, 4.4
million. Colorado gets 3.9 million acre-feet from the river.
Arizona has junior water rights in their allocation to the
river.
So if our state absorbed this two to four million acre-foot
loss, it would wipe out deliveries--water deliveries to cities,
tribes, and farms in Phoenix and in Tucson. This is certainly
not in the public interest given our state's national role in
Ag, strategic minerals, and semiconductor manufacturing. You
mentioned, Commissioner, that Reclamation is working with Basin
states to develop a consensus agreement to conserve more water
in Lake Mead and Lake Powell by August. I want to make sure we
understand your testimony. If Basin states cannot reach an
agreement, is the Department prepared to take actions to impose
restrictions on other states without regard to river priority?
Ms. Touton. Thank you for that question, Senator.
Yes, we will protect the system. But we are not at that
decision point yet. So let's get to the table and let's figure
this out by August.
Senator Kelly. Okay. And when do you anticipate you might
get to that decision point?
Ms. Touton. For us, on the river, the August 24-month study
is usually where we determine what our operations are for the
next calendar year. August 16th is the date that normally--
where we had the first Tier 1 shortage announcement last year.
Senator Kelly. Okay.
Ms. Touton. That is what we are working toward.
Senator Kelly. All right, thank you.
So Arizona has been leading the Basin in conserving water
to date. Farms have been fallowed. Tribes are forgoing their
full water rights allocation. Cities are tightening their water
budgets. We have worked to conserve nearly 850,000 acre-feet in
the Lower Basin. And Arizona has done everything that Arizona
has been asked. And we are going to continue to step up here,
but we need partners and long-term commitments from the Federal
Government because this is a Basin-wide problem, not just an
Arizona problem. We laid the groundwork for increasing
conservation and augmentation in the Bipartisan Infrastructure
bill that was passed, and we fully funded programs like the
Drought Contingency Plan and the 500+ Plan to keep more water
in Lake Mead.
Commissioner Touton, does California or the Upper Basin
have a plan for how it will utilize resources under the Drought
Contingency Plan?
Ms. Touton. Those are conversations that are ongoing,
including with the Upper Basin states, and certainly with
California.
Senator Kelly. So you do not know if they currently have a
plan?
Ms. Touton. There is the Drought Relief Operations Act that
the Upper Basin has, but could there be more system demand
management? Yes.
Senator Kelly. And will the Administration be pushing
Mexico to conserve more Colorado River water?
Ms. Touton. That is a conversation we are having with our
partners in Mexico. They are fully aware. We briefed them in
the way we briefed you on what we are seeing on the river. They
are absolutely a partner here that we need to work with.
Senator Kelly. And, Commissioner, can the Federal
Government move faster in deploying desalination and water
recycling projects under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law?
Ms. Touton. Yes, we will.
Senator Kelly. Okay. And finally, and I might go over by 30
seconds, I hope that is okay, Mr. Chairman.
Based on your testimony, Arizona could see Tier 2 water
curtailments as soon as next year. The first round of cutbacks
last January hit farmers in Central Arizona especially hard.
And if we do not invest more in conservation, augmentation, and
assistance to farmers, it could raise food prices at a time
when food prices are at record highs. The White House
Interagency Drought Task Force recently called for a whole-of-
government response. Does Reclamation have a cost estimate for
the resources needed to mitigate future-year shortages?
Ms. Touton. That is something that we are talking about
now, especially with the scale of what we are looking at and
the magnitude of actions we need to take. But what I will say,
Senator, is I will spend the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
money to make sure that we are meeting the goals as Congress
intended, but also to provide sustainability in the West.
Senator Kelly. Okay, and when you get that cost estimate,
can you get it to my----
Ms. Touton. Absolutely, Senator.
Senator Kelly [continuing]. Office, thank you.
And it appears that drought is outpacing the annual
appropriations process right now. So it is faster than we are
appropriating the money to deal with it. Could you get back to
me on how Reclamation might benefit if Congress expanded the
Stafford Act for drought?
Ms. Touton. Yes, I will get back to you.
Senator Kelly. All right, thank you.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. O'Toole, we talked about--thank you for that amazing
opening statement. Never checked a note, talked from the heart,
very emotional. It hit every member of the panel. I am very
grateful for you to be here.
I wanted to ask you about the impact on food costs that the
drought has brought because you made some suggestions there.
What we are seeing is a reduction in food supplies, increasing
costs for American families. So to address this and provide
more water, Wyoming continues to advocate for things such as
more water storage, to be more efficient in capturing water for
agricultural use rather than letting it flow downstream, more
flexibility from the Bureau in reservoir operations to better
manage available water supplies and better forecasting data.
Do you agree with these steps and are they going to help
lead to more food production if we do those things?
Mr. O'Toole. Thank you for that question, Senator. And I
absolutely do. And our written testimony is prodigious, as you
can tell, and it is full of specific recommendations about how
we make these moves forward. The thing that I would like to
emphasize though, and let's just take the cattle and the sheep
industry that I am involved in, you know, the pricing that is
going to the consumer has nothing to do with the producers. We
are not receiving that benefit. And you know, what I think is,
America is this ecological and incredible system that knows how
to produce food and knows how to do rural communities.
I said at a hearing with Senator Bennet recently that what
is happening in the Amazon is a crime against humanity. And we
have to realize that in places where good is happening we have
to accelerate the benefits, and the base benefit for the
American population is the food supply. We are giving away our
food supply capability, and the recommendations from the Family
Farm Alliance are specific. Things that this Committee has
recommended, things that the Ag Committee has recommended. We
just have to start implementing. If there is one message I have
today, it is implementation.
Please, let the--you know, there is no esprit de corps in a
lot of the bureaucracy right now. That is a result of COVID and
all kinds of things. The agencies have to have the ability to
direct activities that we all agree on to get done. And the
permitting of the reservoir in my community that I am very
familiar with is so frustrating. Meeting two times a week in a
no-brainer process. The Forest Service is desperate to get in
and fix what they know is broken, to deliver water, 160,000
acre-feet does not go down the North Platte River because the
forest is not functioning. We know that. We have to change that
and that is the case with every watershed in the western United
States where the water for the Bureau of Rec comes from.
Senator Barrasso. Well, in addition to what you talked
about in terms of the producers not noticing, they see the
increased prices, but not having the impact affect back to them
is what I was--this past weekend it was the 150th anniversary
of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. I was with all of
them in Cheyenne. This weekend, you go to the grocery store and
prices are up on hamburger, eggs, milk, soup, things that, you
know, Bobbi and I go to the store to buy. So we are seeing it,
but it is, as you point out, it is not heading back.
I wanted to get to the next question, which is the Goshen
Irrigation District tunnel collapse, and you have been to the
site. I have been to the site. It left more than 100,000 acres
of crop land in both Wyoming and Nebraska without water. It
significantly impacted farmers and ranchers in both states, and
that is why I introduced this bill, S. 4233, the Platte River
Basin Critical Maintenance and Repair Act, to secure funding to
address this. Would you agree that drought only underscores the
need for addressing lots of aging infrastructure, such as what
we saw there at the Goshen Irrigation District collapse?
Mr. O'Toole. Well, it is as I have mentioned earlier, you
know, about how the Ukrainian issue is a real issue with food
and wheat and distribution, but it is a bigger issue than that.
It is a bigger issue with American farmers and food production.
And what drought has done is moved ahead trends that were
happening without this kind of drought and climate-driven--
whatever is happening to us, is so different. It is trends that
have been happening. And as you know, I have testified here
before on the need for storage, on the need for forest, on the
need--and I am, what I am trying to, you know, just giving from
my heart, it is not happening. It is not happening at the pace
that Americans deal with crisis.
We are crisis managers in America, and this Committee is a
crisis management committee. Your direction is so critical that
it be implemented.
Senator Barrasso. Commissioner Touton, you know, many of
the actions taken in the past to address the drought in the
Colorado River Basin were to increase the flexibility in how
the Lower Basin states can store and use water. This was done
using existing authorities. That increased flexibility is
extended to the Lower Basin's access to water and the
reliability of available water supplies, you know, over the
last 20 years. What comparable increased flexibility is the
Bureau considering or pursuing for the Upper Basin states, like
Wyoming, in terms of what Mr. O'Toole just talked about in
operation of federal reservoirs here?
Ms. Touton. Sure, thank you for that question.
First, on the aging infrastructure, your report, your
legislation is the basis of what we have as our framework for
what we find, so, Goshen Irrigation District and that work are
top-of-mind for us at Reclamation.
Regarding flexibility, that is a conversation we are having
with the states. One of the flexibilities we had under DROA--
the Drought Relief Operations Act--is to move water from
Flaming Gorge down to Lake Powell. So there are conversations
that need to be had. And it is not Reclamation telling the
states what to do. It has to be--what is it you need? Here are
my authorities. And if we do not have the ability to do that,
to have a conversation with this Committee.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
I will go now with my questions, very quickly. So this is
to all five of you, and if you could think about it, and as
quickly as you can because we only have five minutes. But what
role should Congress and the Federal Government have in western
drought and water management going forward?
Mr. O'Toole, you have been very direct in some of the
things that you have said. This does not make sense at all. So
if we could start with Ms. Touton, if you could tell me what
you think we could do and help you do that job better to make
sure that western drought does not significantly get worse, but
we can improve.
Ms. Touton. First, thank you to this Committee for the
investment of $8.3 billion for just investment in storage. It
is roughly equivalent in the last 18 months of this
Administration that the previous Administration invested. So we
invested $461 million in storage alone. So resources are always
of assistance, but really, it is having to style----
The Chairman. How quick is it going to be put out? How
quickly will that money be invested?
Ms. Touton. Some of those we have already put out, frankly.
There are some projects that we are working on, Los Vaqueros in
California being an example of it.
The Chairman. Mr. Entsminger.
Mr. Entsminger. I think Congress needs to make massive
investments in agricultural efficiencies. I agree with Mr.
O'Toole that we need to prioritize food security, but we cannot
balance the structural deficit by evacuating cities. So we are
going to need to make our ability to grow the same amount of
food with less water a priority.
The Chairman. Dr. Hall.
Dr. Hall. I think, certainly, one of the more urgent issues
is providing the information that we need, and that includes
continuing robust support for the USGS, NRCS, and management of
data systems, approving Senator Cortez Masto's bill to
implement OpenET in the USGS, and I think more broadly, the
support for giving the Bureau of Reclamation the broad
flexibility to work with states on new approaches, like
groundwater management and groundwater storage. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Stern.
Mr. Stern. Well, Senator, as you know, we at CRS would not
necessarily recommend any one specific approach, but I would
say that there is more support among observers for activities
that can be done from the ground up, and stakeholder-driven
things that may vary from one basin to the next than there is
for top-down command and control types of federal activity.
The Chairman. Mr. O'Toole, do you have anything else you
want to add to your--something you think will be the most
urgent thing we could do?
Mr. O'Toole. Senator, I testified in front of the World
Bank last year as part of the climate meetings I went to, and
the biggest word that they appreciated was scale. And in a
meeting with major foundations, Sunday, on the forest, they
said we are nibbling. And that is the problem. We are nibbling
at a time when we have crisis and we need to move to scale.
The Chairman. Ms. Touton, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
provided $8.3 billion, as you have acknowledged. What steps is
Reclamation taking to ensure the efficient delivery? That is
what we are concerned about--are these funds being efficiently
delivered to the source so we can basically cure some of the
problems we have?
Ms. Touton. Absolutely. The first thing we did was hire the
hirers. We hired--I want to get the number right for the
record--but it is 86 people within the last six months.
Engineers, but also acquisitions and grant specialists so that
we can get that money out. And part of this is also a level of
transparency. We constantly have stakeholder sessions and
briefings also with Congress so that you know what we are
doing. And then finally, putting capacity where we can
immediately, so those can get done. Rural water being an
example of that, and getting those resources out the door.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Lankford.
Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for
all the witnesses here as well, to be able to talk this
through.
My state is somewhat unique in this conversation today
because if you are in Oklahoma, the eastern side of my state
gets a tremendous amount of rain and the western side of my
state is the stopping point on it, and so we face intense
droughts in the West and we are growing tall timber in the
East. So we get this. So let me walk through a couple of things
that may be unique to my state, but also may translate into
other areas. Moving waters by pipeline and actually trying to
be able to transition water from East to West at times in some
of these border states and areas--is that being explored at all
as options and possibilities? Obviously, there is compact and
there are other things with other states as water continues to
be able to move south across the east, but how much is that
even being discussed?
Ms. Touton.
Ms. Touton. We are looking at all options, but certainly
being able to utilize what is in Basin, what we have within our
reservoirs is our priority. You know, a lot of our projects
require authorization of Congress with a feasibility study. And
so, should that be where Congress wants us to go, that is what
we will do, but will say that I am focused on what we have now
and what is in our Basins at the moment.
Senator Lankford. It has been interesting to me that in the
past, go back several years ago, we actually had to have an act
of Congress to move water from within my state from east to
west because it was a different Reclamation area. Though it was
Oklahoma's water, it was not crossing any other state boundary
and it was not even violating any of our agreements with the
states around us and where the water ends up at. Just moving it
east to west took an act of Congress to be able to move that
through Reclamation areas. Is that something that needs to stay
in place? Has that become a regulatory barrier or an issue that
we need to resolve?
Ms. Touton. I am happy to continue that conversation,
Senator. Oklahoma is certainly at the heart of the 100th
meridian of really seeing the drought, and where the water
floods.
Senator Lankford. Yes, we experience both on that.
The interesting idea from some of the guys in the
southwestern part of my state that do a lot of irrigation--
there is a lot of cotton and other things that are in that
area. One of the challenges that we have is power-related as
well. If we are going to do drip irrigation in some of those
areas to reduce the amount of water usage that is there, it is
a great idea, it is a good use of water, except you also have
to have electricity in those areas, in very rural areas, to be
able to do this. Is this part of the dialogue Bureau of
Reclamation is currently having right now about how we are
going to manage water, to also talk about how we are going to
manage electricity and power?
Ms. Touton. Absolutely. And I know you have legislation on
that that we talked about earlier this month. So I am happy to
continue that conversation.
Senator Lankford. Would be great.
Mr. O'Toole, let me ask--you make a statement in your
written document about how water management of the West is
becoming too inflexible. You made a statement earlier about
permitting and regulations, and how it is not functioning now.
But there is a statement that you made--you said you were
facing a regulatory drought as well as a hydrologic drought.
Take us a little bit deeper in that because this seems to be an
area that you are focusing in on where you are talking about
how the bureaucracy is not talking to the bureaucracy and it is
locking up and we are not able to resolve the issues there. Can
you give me an example of that?
Mr. O'Toole. So part of the conflict with agriculture in my
world is lack of water, obviously, with the drought and that
part, but there is also a conservation, fish, wildlife piece
that is critically important and many acres have been taken out
of production because of ESA issues, for example. The changes
in the NEPA process are disturbing to us because we need to get
things done. I have said it over and over again. And the
process is not as user-friendly as it could be. So the
regulatory drought, and I will use a perfect example--the
National Marine Fisheries Service is a duplicative agency that
is working, sometimes at odds, with the Fish and Wildlife
Service because they are fish only, when in fact, when you are
looking, particularly in today's world where you have, you
know, you have birds, you have fish, you have other mammals,
you have farmers. And that whole system, when it is not working
smoothly, is taking acres, in fact, it is hundreds of thousands
of acres out of production because of this regulatory process
that our irrigators have to go through.
Senator Lankford. So what would need to change to be able
to make that work?
Mr. O'Toole. Say that again?
Senator Lankford. What would need to change to be able to
make that work better then?
Mr. O'Toole. Well, Senator Barrasso is no longer here, but
we spent, really, three years working on the ESA process with
conservation groups, with a real cross section. We did not get
it done. We did not get it across the line. But we have to have
a system that works, and right now we have so much duplication,
and to some extent, part of what I like to talk about is, are
we doing solutions or are we doing agendas? And so, we have to
figure out what are the solutions and then overcome the
agendas, and to some extent, the litigation industry in the
West has been very effective in keeping us, for example,
cleaning up the forest.
Senator Lankford. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
As you know, our western states are suffering from
aridification, and you will notice I did not say drought, but
aridification. Not to mention, extreme wildfires as we speak
that are burning in my state and Arizona and others. But I
would just start because this is a drought hearing--this is not
some random event. It is, frankly, a direct result of the lack
of action on climate that we have seen for more than 20 years.
And we all, collectively, own that.
Now, Dr. Hall, as you know, this is a drought hearing, but
we have experienced drought before, and what you and others on
the panel said today is that what we are experiencing is now,
actually, unprecedented. You know, I would make the point that
it is not a drought if this is our new normal. You used the
word aridification. What does that mean and how do we manage if
this is the new normal?
Dr. Hall. Thank you, Senator Heinrich. You make an
exceptionally important point. And I think one important thing
we have to realize is that we do not actually know how this is
going to evolve. And so we have to be aware and continuously
adaptive, and that gets to the point that I was describing
about collaboration, which also addresses some of the points
about regulation. And what you can do in collaboration is you
can work together in an organized way to come up with programs
and then figure out how to make them work with the different,
various regulations.
So on the point of aridification, we have, in the past,
tended to view our water management through a lens of
stability. I had one entire class in my graduate work on the
different distributions--normal and non-normal distributions of
the climate patterns in the past, and that is what we did all
the designs on. That class, as difficult as it was, is no
longer even useful. We have to throw all of that out and
increase our real-time and in near real-time monitoring and
information processing and be prepared to make adjustments as
we discover how the new climate processes are affecting our
water resources.
Senator Heinrich. Commissioner, I want you to share with
us, again, how many acre-feet we are going to have to conserve
on the Colorado Basin to avoid dead pool in Lake Powell and
then, because most people do not really understand what an
acre-foot is, talk to us about how much water that is.
Ms. Touton. Sure.
Senator Heinrich. And yes, just start there.
Ms. Touton. So an acre-foot is exactly what that sounds
like, an acre of land with a foot deep of water. And the way
that we look at that is, that is enough water, roughly 325,000
gallons, for a family of four for an entire year.
And so, when you look at Lake Powell and when you look at
Lake Mead, this is just for critical elevations. We are looking
at two million to four million acre-feet, starting in 2023,
that we need to conserve.
Senator Heinrich. We have talked a lot about the Colorado
River Basin. Talk to me about the Rio Grande Basin and what you
are seeing there and then what actions you are able to take
there to address the same patterns that were experienced on the
Rio Grande.
Ms. Touton. The Rio Grande is not unique to the entire West
or the Colorado River Basin. Demands of the system, tribal,
ecosystem, irrigation, drought, as well as listed species, but
one of the things that we did with Elephant Butte was a
WaterSMART grant. So this is low-hanging fruit. Reclamation
spent $1.8 million on efficiencies of the system. You asked me
for numbers, Senator. It is roughly 9,000 acre-feet of
conserved water. So that is real water gained in efficiencies.
So that is short-term. We are also looking at operational
flexibilities with the system and then longer term in helping
to solve longstanding conflicts.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Now we have Senator Lee.
Senator Lee. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Touton, let's start with you. The drought has caused a
lot of problems in my home State of Utah. You know, as is
happening in some other places, but to a pretty acute degree in
Utah, ranchers are delaying putting livestock on the range.
Growth has, of course, been impacted by water uncertainty, and
a lot of local economies are being stretched thin by virtue of
their inability to access some Bureau assets like Lake Powell.
I really appreciate some of the recent actions/decisions made
by the Bureau of Reclamation to boost water levels at Lake
Powell, including, of course, the release of 500,000 acre-feet
from Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the withholding of an
additional 480,000 acre-feet from release downriver from Lake
Powell. What can you tell me about the Bureau's priorities
moving forward as they relate to water levels at Lake Powell?
Ms. Touton. Thank you, Senator, and good morning.
We have a great partnership with the State of Utah. Gene
Shawcroft is one of the principals we work with in the Basin
states. What we are prioritizing right now is really short-
term. What actions to make up that two to four million acre-
feet in the Basin to help protect Lake Mead and Lake Powell,
because all of the actions that you mentioned--the nearly one
million acre-feet that we did this year--buy us a year. And we
cannot be in the same place next year where we are talking
about critical levels to protect power pool. So we are spending
a significant amount of time. This is the priority for us
between the next 60 days, to figure out a plan to close that
gap.
Senator Lee. All right, yes. Thank you.
Ms. Touton. Yes, sir.
Senator Lee. Mr. O'Toole, I have done a lot of work on NEPA
reform, policy reforms in the NEPA space, because I agree with
you, these are essential to making sure we can do what we need
to do. As I have engaged in that effort, it has become apparent
that some Members of Congress resist changes to NEPA. And their
responses are usually kind of interesting. They include some
variation of the argument that, you know, we do not need to do
this because the agencies already have authority to do this
through their own existing rulemaking procedures. It is an
interesting argument to make, especially because, regardless of
what they have in mind, and regardless of the fact that they
may have tools at their disposal to do it, they don't because
things don't change in this regard. I think in many instances
they are debilitated by a fear of litigation, and that
obsessive fear of litigation, while understandable, makes it
very, very unlikely that they impose these limitations on
themselves.
What do you believe Congress needs to do in order to break
the logjam with regard to NEPA?
Mr. O'Toole. Thank you, sir.
You know, categorical exclusion is another part of that
NEPA process which gives flexibility to the agencies. The river
that I live on crosses the state line 32 times. That means that
our valley is both Colorado and Wyoming. So I am in two
forests, two BLMs, two game and fish, two fish and wildlife,
and have a lot of experience with agencies. It is human-driven,
and there is a fear of failure, or a fear now, as I expressed
earlier, you know, the agency people need to have a mission.
And we are going to have to send a message. We have sent money.
There is money in the infrastructure bill to achieve, but that
is not going to be achieved if we don't have a mission to use
the tools. And I think that, you know, my personal experiences,
you know, I have the best conservation district in the U.S. I
really am so lucky. Just give you an example, 17 percent of
farmers use it, in ours it is 90 because we have trust built.
We use categorical exclusion. The surrounding conservation
districts are coming to us asking--how do you get that done?
Because you do not have the agency people have experience with
it and because of the litigation issue that you mentioned, that
I have mentioned, it is really inhibiting our ability to do
what we have all agreed we need to do.
Senator Lee. Now, drought data collection has become a
point of emphasis by some federal agencies in recent years.
Some proposals would go so far as to use satellites to quantify
evaporation and also quantify consumptive use in addition to
evaporation. I have heard some concerns raised by some
agricultural producers that overly intrusive monitoring, while
it has some potential to help, could also create other
problems, could lead to burdensome regulation of private water
resources. Do you share those concerns and do you feel there
are protections that could be offered to agricultural producers
to help protect their interests while also allowing for greater
data collection?
Mr. O'Toole. Well, I am a big fan of data and science, but
I will tell you, my new friend, Mr. Hall, is in the process of
negotiation with the Family Farm Alliance over the OpenET
issues because of the potential for misuse of the data. And we
want data. I want data to do the right thing, but we have to
have some protection because, as you all know, farmers seem to
be described as a monolith. We are individual businesses, of
families, mostly, and we cannot stand the vulnerability of
litigation. I have had it happen to me on a situation where we
won finally because the State of Wyoming on bighorn sheep
defended us using the Forest Service. But an individual is so
vulnerable, and one thing we never talk about--bankers don't
care about conservation. They don't care about these issues.
They care about getting paid. And when one individual producer
sort of gets demonized because of the use of data, we want to
make sure that that is done in a way that there are protections
for those individual family producers.
Senator Lee. Great. Thank you.
Mr. O'Toole. Yes, sir.
Senator Barrasso [presiding]. Senator King.
Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, absolutely important
hearing.
First, this is a cycle. And I have found a very--I did not
develop it, but found a very interesting chart that shows the
water situation in the West over the last 1,200 years. And what
it shows is-- up and down. And we are at the second lowest
point that we have been. The last one was around 1500.
Interestingly, the West was settled and developed during a
period of relative high water, and we are now in a situation
where we are at this low point. One of the questions is, will
the low point--historically, these drought periods lasted about
20 years. The question is, is the climate change effect going
to make it a much more permanent kind of situation?
But anyway, I would like to submit this chart for the
record.
Senator Barrasso. Without objection.
[The chart referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator King. A second observation is that the amount of
water in the world is constant. It never changes. It has not
changed since the dinosaurs. The question is, where is it?
Unfortunately, right now, it is in a lot of places where it
does not do you any good. In Greenland, I have flown over
Greenland in a helicopter and seen the enormous amount of
water. In one day last summer, eight billion tons of Greenland
melted. That is enough to cover Florida in two inches of water.
And the question is, how do we move water? And Senator Lankford
asked the interesting question about pipelines. Now, and
obviously, a pipeline from Greenland is not possible, but from
other sections of the country, I think that is something that
needs to be discussed. It is not something we have ever thought
about before, but we have pipelines for oil and gas and we do
have, in some areas, huge pipelines for transferring water, for
example, in New York State, down to the city.
Desalinization, we have to talk about. All that water in
Greenland is fresh water that is going into the ocean. So I
guess, Dr. Hall, how feasible and economically viable is
massive desalinization from the Pacific Southwest into this
region to alleviate this problem? Is that just fantasy, or is
there a possibility that that is something that we could invest
in and it would make a difference?
Dr. Hall. Thank you, Senator King.
As a water resource engineer, I will tell you that we like
to build things, and we have studied lots of possibilities and
some that--some we have implemented. Some were good ideas. Some
turned out not to be so good ideas. And some are just not cost-
effective. And so, with respect to pipelines and desalination,
the cost issue is certainly a big one. Some of the most
expensive water in the West, on the order of $2,000 an acre-
foot, comes from the desal plant that was recently completed, I
think recently, in the last five years or so at Carlsbad and
San Diego. And for San Diego, who is at the end of the Colorado
River water distribution system----
Senator King. But also adjacent to the ocean.
Dr. Hall. And adjacent to the ocean, with, in fact, an
already existing outfall to help dispose of the brine at a
lower cost, it made sense as part of a resilience portfolio for
the city. And in some other targeted areas, desal does make
sense.
Senator King. But to reach the kind of scale to relieve
this whole region is not really feasible. Is that your
suggestion?
Dr. Hall. At this time, it is not feasible due to cost and
other environmental issues.
Senator King. And interestingly, looking at this chart, the
drought sections are surrounded on both sides by more water--
excessive precipitation, which suggests, as Senator Barrasso
talked about storage, but a lot of storage. I mean, a couple of
years would not really solve it if you are talking about a 20-
to 40-year cycle. So storage is part of the solution also,
isn't it?
Dr. Hall. Certainly, storage can be really valuable. And
especially in our current situation, it can be a helpful tool
in making our deployment of the water more flexible. In most of
the West, frankly, there is not enough water to fill the
storage.
Senator King. Today.
Dr. Hall. Today.
Senator King. But I am talking about in the 80s, there was
an excessive rainfall in the West, which, if we could have
captured that and held it for 20 years, it might have helped.
Let me ask one other, not a question, but just an
observation. Fascinating experiment going on in California now
of building solar panels over canals, which will generate
electricity, but also diminish evaporation. If you could build
a solar farm on top of Lake Powell, you could supply
electricity for all of the West and diminish the enormous water
loss to evaporation. I am not ready to undertake that project,
but I think there is--we have really got to think in new and
different ways here.
Dr. Hall. Yes, absolutely.
Senator King. Because this is, as many people say,
unprecedented. At least it is unprecedented in the last 500
years. Thank you all for your testimony.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator King.
Senator Cortez Masto.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. Let me just thank the
Chair and Ranking Member for this important conversation today,
and what we are talking about is drought in the West, not just
along the Colorado River, but along in the western states, but
we have the benefit of so many of you that have knowledge about
the Colorado River. And I want to start there because in
Nevada, the Colorado River is very important for our needs in
the state.
And Mr. Entsminger, I want to put this in perspective,
because there has been a lot of talk about the water. If we are
just talking about the water along the Colorado River, it
really follows the law of the river, which was implemented,
what, in 1920, along the seven Basin states, and how they would
allocate that water and share it because, quite honestly, if
you want more water out of the Colorado, you are taking it from
some other state. And so, there was an agreement. And can you
talk to me, how much water is Nevada allocated out of that 15
million acre-feet of water?
Mr. Entsminger. Our allocation is 300,000 acre-feet----
Senator Cortez Masto. Is that the lowest amongst all of the
states?
Mr. Entsminger. Yes, by far. If you add up the seven states
and Mexico, Nevada has the legal entitlement to 1.8 percent of
the river.
Senator Cortez Masto. That's right, because we have the
seven Basin states and then over a million acre-feet have to go
to Mexico as well, along the Colorado River. So because of the
lowest allocation we have, and now we have three million people
in the state, talk a little bit about what the Las Vegas Valley
Water Authority did, really, in early 2000 to address the water
needs of the people in Nevada that were taking water,
including, you know, across the state, but particularly in
Southern Nevada, where we have most of the population. What did
the water authority do? Because I think conservation is key
here, and it plays a great role in the story of what we have
done in Nevada to augment some of this water. Would you talk a
little bit about that?
Mr. Entsminger. Absolutely, and I am as big of a fan as
anybody else if there is a solution to bring in more water, but
what we have seen in the last 20 years is really--it is all
about conservation. It is all about demand management. And our
wake-up call came in 2002, which is still the driest year in
the recorded history of the river, when only 25 percent of
normal inflows came in. And so, beginning in 2002, we upped our
WaterSMART landscape program, paying people. We currently pay
$3 per square foot for people to remove turf. And as I
mentioned in my opening, we have now taken out enough turf in
the Las Vegas Valley to lay an 18-inch-wide piece of sod all
the way around the circumference of the globe. We have very
strict water waste enforcement. We have a tiered rate structure
so that those who use more water pay more for it, and use those
funds to fund our conservation programs. And overall, it has
led to a dramatic decline in water usage. As I said in my
opening, we are using 26 percent less Colorado River water
today than we were in 2002, despite our population increasing
by 800,000 people.
Senator Cortez Masto. What do you anticipate, because you
anticipate how many years in the future that we are going to
need water. Talk a little bit about that. Is Nevada and Las
Vegas in dire need of water right now, or you are planning for
the future with population growth included in that, is that
correct?
Mr. Entsminger. That is correct. So we do a 50-year
resource plan, and we do it every single year so that we always
have a fresh five-decade outlook on what we think our
population is going to do, which for Southern Nevada, we
project it will increase from about 2.4 million today to about
3.8 million in 2076. So we are always looking out into the
future, and we then match up what we have to accomplish in
conservation in order to be able to accommodate that population
growth with, again, the smallest water supply on the river. So
we are, right now, using about 112 gallons per-person, per-day,
and we project we need to continue to drive down that use to 86
gallons per-person per-day by 2035 in order to be able to
accommodate that growth.
Senator Cortez Masto. And that includes back in, what,
August 2021, and I think the Commissioner referred to this, is
there was a Tier 1 shortage condition for Lake Mead, which
required us to allocate less water, right? Reduce our water
consumption from Lake Mead by how much?
Mr. Entsminger. That was by 20,000 acre-feet, but
fortunately because of our conservation efforts, the shortage
declaration does not mean you have to use less water than you
are using today, it reduces your legal entitlement. So we
reduced our entitlement from 300,000 to 279,000, but last year
we only used 242. So because of two decades worth of
preparation and conservation planning, we did not have to
actually have our customers reduce the amount of water they
used last year.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. And I know I am running
out of time, but one final thing. We are landlocked. So what
else should we be doing? What else do we need to be thinking
about to address the water needs in the western states,
particularly along the Colorado River right now?
Mr. Entsminger. We need to help all of our friends and
partners in the other six states and Mexico continue on their
conservation journey. As you know, with the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law, there is funding for the major regional
recycling facility in Southern California and that is an
example of across-state-lines cooperation, and I think, a model
for other things that need to be done. But every user in every
sector needs to be planning for how they are going to take care
of their share of the pain.
Senator Cortez Masto. Is every user doing just that?
Mr. Entsminger. Not yet.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
Senator Barrasso. Senator King, any additional questions?
Okay.
Mr. O'Toole, I believe building more water storage is going
to give Wyoming and other states the water they need, provide
system resiliency, also help maintain stream flows, benefit
fish and wildlife. What do you believe are the associated
benefits of smaller, watershed-sized storage projects?
Mr. O'Toole. Well, for example, the project I talked to you
about in our community is a two-state project, as I described
earlier. And so, you know, as you know better than anybody, the
Endangered Species Act looms over all of us. And having the
flexibility of water for migratory birds, for example, you
know, our family is working on Upper Colorado endangered fish
and sage-grouse. And having storage to release later, once you
have seen, you know, I hope this does not sound too bold, but
three years ago I could have told you what was going to happen
to Mead and Lake Powell because you were not seeing the
springs. The springs in my world are drying up. So I am putting
in solar wells and solar panels and doing every innovative
thing I can do. You can have all the grass in the world, but if
you don't have water, you can't run livestock.
So, you know, it has such multiple benefits. And part of
those is protection in, you know, when I am with my grandkids
riding around and we see migratory birds, we are as excited as
we are about the genetics of our livestock because we realize
we are in a system. And this idea of watersheds with small
storage at the tops of the watersheds, the one we are looking
at, it is at 8,200 feet. That takes away the issue that Mr.
Entsminger talked about with losing, you know, water from heat
and those issues. So high mountain storage and watershed
storage are the future.
Senator Barrasso. Ms. Touton, if I could just ask if, in
terms of the Bureau, would they invest and look for more water
storage opportunities in Wyoming and in the Upper Basin states,
as we just heard described by Mr. O'Toole?
Ms. Touton. Yes, sir, yes.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Senator King, you had one more question?
Senator King. Yes, I also wanted to mention that when you
store water you also are storing electricity, potentially, if
you have hydro associated. So that is another benefit.
Mr. Entsminger, evaporation--how big a problem is
evaporation in a large lake like Lake Powell or Lake Mead? And
are there technologies, and I don't know the answer to this, I
am genuinely looking for the information--a film of plastic, a
non-toxic chemical that would diminish or eliminate
evaporation, or is evaporation not worth worrying about? My
sense is, it is a big number.
Mr. Entsminger. It is a huge number. Just between Lake Mead
and Lake Powell, you are talking about almost two million acre-
feet of evaporation every year. So to put that in context, they
evaporate more, just from those two reservoirs, than Las Vegas
uses in seven years.
Senator King. So is there anybody on the panel that might
know, are there people thinking about the technology of
limiting and diminishing evaporation, or is that just something
we have to live with?
Mr. Entsminger. We have seen, unless maybe one of the other
witnesses is aware of something I am not, at the retail level,
all of our reservoirs in Las Vegas are covered. They are
underground, and we have seen, in other places, there are
essentially, you know, ping pong balls that can float on top of
the water that radically reduce evaporation, but those are all
pretty small scale. I mean, you are talking about reservoirs
that, you know, go on for, you know, hundreds of miles and
across state lines. So I don't know of a technology to stop
that.
Senator King. Dr. Hall, is there any thought given to how
to diminish evaporation on a large scale?
Dr. Hall. Yes, I think when we talk about evaporation and
transpiration from plants, it is a really important question in
our overall water balance. And in fact, living in Northern New
Mexico, seeing the fires, I realize very keenly how much
management of our forests makes a difference, and there is lots
of work going on now to better understand how forest management
can reduce the transpiration from the forests in the watersheds
and provide other benefits--improved habitat, improved
recreational experiences, et cetera. And so, to the point of
Mr. O'Toole's spring flow diminishment, that is something we
are seeing across the West and undoubtedly, higher evaporation
rates, which are going to happen when you have higher
temperatures, are part of that issue.
And so, to the point of investing in our natural
infrastructure, looking at forest management very carefully and
implementing the right management for our forests and frankly,
to rangelands as well, to improve the water yield and provide
other benefits, is a really important thing for us to invest in
and get figured out and get moving on.
Senator King. Well, Ms. Touton, I hope that this may be an
area of research. You are doing a lot of practical things, and
it may be that we should be talking to the Department of
Energy, but your office may be right place to think about what
are scalable technologies to reduce evaporation, which we have
learned is a very significant number. If you could save enough
water to supply Las Vegas by controlling evaporation on those
two lakes, that would be a substantial win. So research, it
seems to me, is a place where we could do some good here.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Barrasso. Senator Cortez Masto.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, and you teed me up nicely
because I want to talk about the ET bill that both Mr.
Entsminger and Dr. Hall, you talked about. This is the Open
Access Evapotranspiration Data Act that I introduced. The
information is already there. Our goal is to make it public.
And why is that important as we talk about evaporation,
transpiration, water usage? Why do we need this data?
So Dr. Hall, I am going to ask you first and then Mr.
Entsminger, if you would follow up.
Dr. Hall. Thank you, Senator.
You know, my vision of the future of the West includes a
resilient agricultural community. Some of my most rewarding
times as a professional have been when I am working with
farmers and ranchers, early in northeastern Colorado, more
recently in Colorado, in California, and Arizona. And if we
want that irrigated agriculture future to be resilient, we are
going to have to manage that water more closely. And to do
that, we need good information on how much water is being used
by the crops, how much water is infiltrating into the ground,
or recharge our groundwater and later, recharge streams and
rivers. And information on the evapotranspiration of the
consumptive use is a key part of better understanding that
water balance.
And it is important to know that this information has been
available for many years. It is a technology that is well
established, and some states, like Idaho, have used it in a
systematic way for decades. But that information, up to this
point, has been primarily in the hands of a handful of
entities--those who have the money to invest in it and pay
someone to provide that information. And so, we felt it was
really important to put that same information into the hands of
everyone who makes water management decisions, from the
irrigators on the farms, water district managers, groundwater
basin managers, and to make it more easily accessible to state
agencies, et cetera.
And that is what the OpenET platform does. It puts that
data into the hands of everyone so that we can begin looking at
the same data, diminish the arguments about whether that method
is a little bit better, or this method is a little bit better,
and converge on a piece of information that we can all use and
understand how it is affecting the water decisions we make.
Senator Cortez Masto. And the idea is that it is available
to everyone, including farmers and ranchers?
Dr. Hall. That is absolutely right and----
Senator Cortez Masto. Because, let me just say, and Mr.
O'Toole, thank you for being here because I have worked very
closely with the farmers and ranchers in Nevada. I have found
that my farmers and ranchers are better scientists and
environmentalists about the land than some of the scientists
that have been at the table because they have to be. They know
the land so well. They have lived it. They live off of it and
they respect it. So the purpose here is to make sure that that
data, which already exists, is also in the hands of our
ranchers and farmers so that they can utilize it to their
benefit as well. That is the purpose here.
And Mr. Entsminger, anything else?
Mr. Entsminger. Well, you know, working for a water
utility, we are firm believers that you cannot manage what you
cannot measure. And the OpenET bill will give us the tools to
measure where exactly the water is being consumed. And I will
give you an example from our service territory of how something
like that could be deployed on the ground, and we did our own
ET studies, figured out that the type of turf that has
historically been installed in the Las Vegas Valley uses 73
gallons of water per square foot each year. But then we found
some other species of turf that only use 55 gallons per square
foot per year. So even in places where we want to have grass,
which is not very many places in Las Vegas, but in our schools,
in our parks, we can replace that thirstier grass with less
consumptive uses and that is the kind of thing that that OpenET
bill could probably be deployed for on the ground.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
Senator Barrasso. Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is going to be a question for you, Dr. Hall, and let
me just kind of set the table here. The summer begins next
week. More than half of my state is already suffering extreme
or severe drought. Seventeen Oregon counties have been declared
to be in a state of emergency because of water shortages. This
is the first time that Deschutes County has been in a drought
emergency three years in a row. Now, drought conditions have
been so bad in central Oregon that for 18 straight months, the
Wickiup Reservoir, the primary source of irrigation water for
Jefferson County, set record lows for month's-end contents.
Now, Commissioner Touton knows how drought has hurt the
Klamath Basin, where the lack of water is devastating the farms
and tribal resources and causing residential wells to run dry.
And then, on top of this, the first responders and experts on
the ground expect that the drought conditions are going to fuel
wildfire risks beyond even the historically bad conditions of
the past couple years. Dr. Hall, you talked eloquently about
the need for collaboration--good faith collaboration--because
that is how you bring people together to tackle these
challenges. In Oregon, we call it the Oregon Way. The best
ideas are ones that have broad buy-in from all of those who are
actually impacted. I wrote the Watershed Results Act to
encourage people to come together to expand and improve
watershed opportunities, looking back at both agriculture and
environmental needs. Specifically, my legislation would fund
pilot projects to address the impact of drought on watersheds.
These pilot projects use the best available science and would
identify quantifiable outcomes before they were able to secure
funding.
So what are your thoughts with respect to these science-
based, collaborative approaches?
Dr. Hall. Thank you very much, Senator Wyden, and I very
much applaud your efforts to bring good science into decision-
making through your Watershed Results Act. And as I described
before, I think this concept of bringing the best minds
together, bringing all the ideas from the different
stakeholders together in a dynamic, collaborative way, is the
way we are going to shape the future of the West that we want
to see, and we need good information for that. The quicker that
we can get on the same page, understand the challenge that we
are facing, what our current situation is, and our trajectory
is, the more quickly we can get to solving problems.
A handful of things that I think are important in our work,
where we need better science and data, is in the area of
proactive groundwater management. We have this incredible,
natural infrastructure below our ground that, frankly, provides
the drinking water and water supply for most of the rural West,
and we can better understand that if we invest in the right
data and begin to use that and manage it more proactively. I
think another issue is short-term forecasting. We have so much
better information now about what is actually going to happen,
not just today, but over the next several days in our rain and
snow systems, and knowing that data sooner allows us to make
better decisions on reservoir operations and improve the yield
of the projects that we already have in place.
Senator Wyden. Very good.
One question for you, Commissioner, glad to see you. You
have a lot of experience with water issues. The Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law provided $8.3 billion for investments in
western water infrastructure and climate resilience. I am not
sure, I guess my colleagues have touched on it, but I am not
sure it is clear in our part of the world what steps the Bureau
of Reclamation is taking to ensure the best possible efficiency
in the delivery of these funds to get good science out there to
manage water management in our part of the world.
Ms. Touton. Thank you, Senator.
One of the things that we did this year that I have
mentioned is, step one is to hire the hirers and hire the
people who can help get out the grants, who specialize in
acquisitions, and certainly hire engineers. And so we staffed
up, I think, by 86 people just to be able to implement the bill
and get those funds out the door. Certainly, transparency in
our actions, in our FY22 plan, our FY23 spend plan, talking
with Congress about our path forward. So really, communicating
with everyone across the board. But certainly, on Friday, we
get the privilege of breaking ground on a $100 million dam
safety investment in California to celebrate our 120th
anniversary. And we are coming to Yellowstone and Montana to do
the same thing.
Senator Wyden. Thank you. Were you finished?
Ms. Touton. Yes, Senator, thank you.
Senator Wyden. Okay, great.
I think the point I was just trying to make, Mr. Chairman,
if you set the politics aside in this area of watersheds and
drought challenges, it is amazing what you can do. And I will
not bore my colleagues with long stories, but when I came to
the Senate, a little bit after I arrived, I rushed to the floor
with a brilliant idea for letting government work across
agencies and with the private sector on watersheds. And when I
got there, the Chairman of the Committee--and Senator Barrasso
knows him--Senator Gorton said, Ron, this is a really good
idea, but maybe we ought to correct it. And he went out and did
a bunch of corrections, put it in a big bill and when I arrived
home, people said, this watershed approach--the Wyden
Amendment--is a brilliant idea. And I turned to my staff and I
said, gee, I don't know what the Wyden Amendment is. And it is
now being used across jurisdictions with the private sector
because Slade Gorton was willing, as a Senior Republican, to
help a very new Senator who wanted to do the right thing,
wanted to work with people.
So Senator Barrasso and our colleagues here, there is hope
on these watershed issues. There is hope on drought because it
does cross party lines, and let's get together and get it done.
Thank you.
Senator King. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to note, I
learned subsequently that I am not crazy. There are, in fact,
very large floating solar projects, mostly in Asia, one as big
as 320 megawatts. So this is something that I think we really
ought to think about.
And Ms. Touton, you have 2,000 miles of canals--nice place
for solar projects.
Ms. Touton. I am happy to follow up with you, Senator.
Senator King. Thank you.
Senator Barrasso. I have one last question. Ms. Touton,
talking about bipartisan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
included appropriations for implementing the Colorado River
Drought Contingency Plans, $50 million of the appropriation was
designated to implement the Upper Basin Contingency Plan.
Wyoming and the Upper Basin states compiled a detailed list of
infrastructure investments and related efforts to advance
implementation of the plan and presented the list to the Bureau
in January. Could you give us an update on the status in
providing the funding for these infrastructure investments?
Ms. Touton. Senator, if I may follow up with you on the
record on that or follow up with your staff, we can give you a
more detailed update.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
With that, I also have to introduce to the record from the
American Farm Bureau Survey, this historic drought is having
devastating consequences for farmers and ranchers, and the
American Farm Bureau Survey--58 percent of respondents in my
home State of Wyoming said they expect crop yields to be down
50 percent or more due to the drought.
And without objection, I will submit this for the record.
[American Farm Bureau Survey follows:]
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Senator Barrasso. Otherwise, I want to thank all of you,
all the witnesses for joining us today, this morning. Members
may put some questions to you in writing and they will have
until the close of business tomorrow to submit additional
questions for the record.
With that, this Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:47 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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