The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Lisa Shipek
This past December, the Washington Post published the article: The Colorado River is on the Verge of Crisis. No one has the solution.
More than one solution can be found in the Sonoran Desert, in the Old Pueblo. These solutions have been practiced for thousands of years by the Tohono O’odham, the Pascua Yaqui, and the Hohokam people of the past and present. Long-standing Latino communities alongside more recent white immigrants to the area are learning the solutions. Embers of all of these cultures are practicing these solutions in our day-to-day lives as desert dwellers. We at Watershed Management Group call implementing these time-honored solutions "living hydro-local." Living hydro-local means making responsible choices in our daily lives that allow us to conserve water, to reduce our dependence on water traveling from hundreds of miles away, and to build long-term resilience.
The time to embrace hydro-local living is now. The seven Colorado River Basin states, Tribal sovereigns, and Mexico have not been able to reach a deal on how to share Colorado River water supplies between us. The Federal government is prepared to step in with alternatives that would take most, if not all, of Tucson’s Colorado River water supply and cut Arizona’s water supply by 10-20%. While many may see this as a crisis, I see an opportunity to embrace a better way forward — for us here in Tucson and for the Colorado River.
If Tucson residents can achieve a water usage goal of 40 gallons per capita per day (GPCD), then we can end our dependence on Colorado River water. Tucson has made great strides in reducing water consumption. In the mid-1990s, GPCD was 121, and we're already down to 72 GPCD. A hydro-local water budget is achievable, and we are proving it every day at our Living Lab and Learning Center, where the majority of our water supply is from collected rainwater — and this can be replicated across the Colorado River Basin and beyond!
Thousands of people are living this same hydro-local lifestyle at their homes. They are doing so by harvesting rainwater and greywater, planting native species instead of water-hungry invasives, installing composting toilets, participating in our river restoration workshops, and even simple measures like taking shorter showers.
Living hydro-local is doable and pretty simple. Let’s wisely use and steward the water that we have in our watersheds and curb our demand to meet our actual supplies, instead of depleting distant watersheds, drying up rivers, and mining our groundwater.
By curbing our demand and ensuring that our local economy is scaled to our water supplies, we can survive with the water that we get from annual precipitation and not take water from the river or diminish our local groundwater supplies.
I’m seeing a ton of news articles that paint water cuts as dire and scary. I disagree. What’s dire to me is a future with no Colorado River for children and future generations. I’ve known that we’ve needed to shift away from using Colorado River water supplies for a long time, and Watershed Management and the Tucson community have been preparing for this moment. This is the time for communities across Arizona and the Colorado River basin to come together to recognize the Colorado River is not a commodity to be depleted but a life force that now needs our care and preservation in the face of a warming climate.
We need to move forward together with the best hydro-local planning for the system that exists. We need our state and local governments to be transparent and inclusive in what our water budgets look like and not seek private investment from large water users that don’t match our local water supplies. We need to make sure that we honor the settlements with our Tribal partners first and foremost, ensuring that they are prioritized in any deal that is made on how water is used in the Colorado River Basin.
We are prepared to lean into a hydro-local future and to thrive and nourish this amazing desert we call home. We are one watershed.
Lisa Shipek
