As our forebears pioneered reservoirs and canals that brought water abundance to the Western US for more than a century, we must safeguard that hard-earned desert fertility for our descendants. We have the tools to take control of our destiny and it is long past time that we approach this problem with the seriousness it demands. It is not enough to cut usage now and hope for rain. We advocate for an aggressive and proactive stance against incipient catastrophic water scarcity. The key is to break the tyranny of meager and inconsistent rainfall by harnessing solar energy to create more water. This approach has required ever more ambitious dams, canals for an ever-diminishing supply of excess water brought from further and further away, and has long since reached its practical limit. For too long, water policy in the American West has been a zero sum game, reallocating intrinsically scarce surface water. Water demand curtailment is only half the story. Our economy rests on an assumption of abundant water and we can’t simply pay people, year after year, to not grow food and to not eat. $400/acre-foot is not enough money to compensate for lost economic activity and income, and yet $400/acre-foot would be ruinously expensive if enough demand reduction was actually obtained to match the ever-diminishing supply. Recently announced federal policy, including the Inflation Reduction Act, cuts water allocations to the beneficiaries of the lower Colorado and even offers up to $400/acre-foot for usage reductions, but this will not be enough. Climate change is changing rainfall patterns and melting glaciers, it is not going away, and it will continue to threaten water security. The Mississippi, among dozens of other economically vital rivers worldwide, is also facing record low water. The Colorado River is not an outlier, it is a harbinger. The Colorado River, which supports $1.4t/year of US GDP, has seen annual flows steadily decline lower than water extraction rights, with no end in sight. In the face of extended droughts, aspiring for greater usage efficiency is not, by itself, a sufficiently robust solution. We believe that water should be unconditionally abundant.
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