WaterWired

Mississippi v. Memphis Redux: So Who's Stealing Water From Whom?

Last week I posted an update on the Mississippi v. Memphis groundwater case. I learned from reporter Tom Charlier that folks from the University of Memphis had presented an alternative view on the flow system at a conference last year. A journal article is in preparation. 

Brian Waldron of the University of Memphis was kind enough to send me a PDF of the Power Point he and Daniel Larsen presented at a conference in 2011. He gave me permission to post it (may take a while to download):

Download MS v Memphis Waldron_Larsen

They postulate that under proposed predevelopment conditions (shown below), the amount of groundwater that flowed from Mississippi into Shelby County, Tennessee (Memphis metropolitan area), was 141,725 cubic meters per day (about 37.4 MGD).

Under 2007 conditions, shown below, the amount flowing from Mississippi into Shelby County, Tennessee, was approximately 101,225 cubic meters per day (about 26.7 MGD).

So it looks like development has cost Tennessee groundwater, not Mississippi - about 40, 470 cubic meters per day (10.7 MGD). If this seems odd, remember - there is groundwater pumpage on the Mississippi side of the border.

So who's stealing from whom?

I am not in a position to evaluate their assumptions; I do they know they assumed a constant aquifer thickness (255 m or about 835 feet) and an average transmissivity of 2850 square meters per day (about 30,700 square feet per day). Use of an 'average' transmissivity suggests that spatially variable transmissivities were employed but I am unsure of that. It could simply mean that number is an average of all the values in the aquifer, and that single value was used in the flow calculations.

Curious to see what the blowback will be. 

I will be anxious to see the journal article. 

I think the fat lady has not yet sung - see today's quote.

 "We are still evaluating our options with this." - Jan Schaefer, Mississippi Attorney General's office (email to Tom Charlier, April 2011)

Oregon Water Markets: IWW and INR White Paper

My colleagues at the Institute for Water and Watersheds and the Institute for Natural Resources have collaborated on a white paper, Oregon's Water Markets:

Download Oregon_water_markets_v3_0

Looks good!

Zetland would be proud of me for posting this.

"To know values is to know the meaning of the market." - Charles Dow

Update: Memphis Sand Groundwater Pumping and Mississippi v. Memphis

It's been over two years since I posted in detail about the Mississippi v. Memphis groundwater pumping case that the Supreme Court declined to hear. That's been the only news - at least, the only news I could find.

I called Tom Charlier of the Memphis Commercial Appeal today and asked him what was happening. He emailed back to say that about a year ago, he wrote a story about  a study by two University of Memphis scientists that demonstrated that groundwater from Mississippi had flowed into Tennessee even before pumping by the MLGW and refuted the claim that Memphis was 'stealing' Mississippi's groundwater. In fact, it looks like pumping in DeSoto County, Mississippi, has 'stolen' (my word) groundwater that would have flowed into Tennessee!

I just learned from Dr. Brian Waldron, one of the study's authors along with Dr. Daniel Larsen (whom I knew as a PhD student at the University of New Mexico)  that the study is being submitted as a journal article, likely this summer. So it probably will not be available until next year. Publication submission was delayed because of the court proceedings. That's too bad; I am anxious to read it. 

Note added on 26 April 2012: see post with the PDF of the Power Point of Waldron and Larsen's presentation.

Will the Mississippi Attorney General file another suit? "We are still evaluating our options with this." said Jan Schaefer of the AG's office in an email to Charlier.

An attorney friend of mine who is familiar with the case told me that he could not see Memphis negotiating with Mississippi; they have no reason to - they 'won'. Besides, a major reason Mississippi likely lost was that the water in the Memphis Sand had not been allocated among the states. So if you don't know how much water you have, how can you claim you have been wronged by someone taking 'your' water?

Here is my latest Power Point (as a PDF). The new material is the above information from Charlier and the Waldron-Larsen PDF.

Download Campana_MEM_GEM_Seminar_17Apr2012

Stay tuned.

"We simply would do nothing to jeopardize God's greatest treasure, and that's the water." – Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton, Memphis Commercial Appeal, 25 January 2010, after learning that the Supreme Court had refused to hear Mississippi's appeal. 

RFQ: The Value of Water to the U.S. Economy

I received a request to kindly post this RFQ. Why not?

Ignore the due date on the RFQ PDF; the quotation is due 23 April 2012. That's plenty of time!

Water is vital to a productive and growing economy in the United States, and directly affects the production of many goods and services.  Under contract to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water, Industrial Economics, Inc. is seeking proposals from independent experts for the development of papers on (1) water’s contribution to the U.S. economy, (2) current capabilities to analyze and estimate this contribution, and (3) the steps necessary to improve our understanding of water’s economic contributions.  The papers are to be presented at a technical workshop to be held in September, 2012 in Washington, DC. 

 Please distribute this email and the attached documentation to anyone interested in submitting a proposal.  Interested parties should review the accompanying request for quotes, which provides additional detail on topics of potential interest, and submit proposals in accordance with the RFQ to procurement@indecon.com.  Proposals are due no later than 5:00 pm Monday, April 23, 2012.

 Any questions about this RFQ can be directed to Nadav Tanners at ntanners@indecon.com.

Download Value of Water RFQ

Good luck!

"Consultants have credibility because they are not dumb enough to work at your company." - Scott Adams

Frank Ward on 'Economics of Agricultural Water Conservation: Empirical Analysis and Policy Implications'

Dr. Frank A. Ward, Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Business at New Mexico State University, gave the presentation, Economics of Agricultural Water Conservation: Empirical Analysis and Policy Implications, at the quarterly 6 April 2012 meeting of the NM Section of the AWRA.

Here is the PDF:

Download AWRA WARD April 6 2012 April 4 Final

The abstract:

This talk will discuss a method to estimate water saved in irrigated agriculture that results from public subsidies for farmers who convert from surface to drip irrigation. The method accounts for economic incentives affecting farmers' choices on irrigation technology, crop mix, water application, and water depletion. The application is to the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, New Mexico.   Findings show that where water rights exist, water administrators need to guard against increased depletion of the water source with growing subsidies that reward reduced water applications.   Our approach for analyzing water conservation programs can be applied where water is scarce, irrigation is significant, food security is important, and water conservation policies are under debate.

Thanks to Sig Silber for sending these around.

Enjoy!

In the next few days, I'll be posting on the following quote. Stay tuned. 

"California has a 20-year supply of freshwater; New Mexico has a 10-year supply; Arizona is simply out, and has to import most of its drinking water." - attributed to Maude Barlow, Scene (Spring 2012), p. 9, Paciifc Lutheran University