Colorado River Conservation Depends On The Delivery System

By Michael Bloomfield

The Department of the Interior issued the 2027-2028 Operating Guidelines, calling for Lower Basin deliveries to drop by 1.25 million acre-feet annually in 2027 and 2028, with a minimum of 700,000 acre-feet of additional voluntary conservation over those two years. Specific rules beyond that period are still under development within a ten-year framework, but water managers still have to plan for constraints that will extend beyond a single dry season. 

While temporary reductions are a start, water districts and water professionals should also consider delivery upgrades and on-farm improvements in agricultural areas that prepare growers for a new reality with less water.

Build From The Progress Already Made

Irrigation districts have been conserving water for decades. The Imperial Irrigation District implemented an On-Farm Efficiency Conservation Program that has already helped many farmers modernize for reduced water use. 

Another example, Coachella Valley is almost 60% drip irrigated and has piped and metered almost all of their delivery system. The Coachella Valley Water District’s agricultural distribution network includes about 500 miles of underground pipelines, and deliveries are metered at every farm turnout. 

The district reports system losses of about 5%. Coachella Valley shows that modernization is already underway; the next investments should address the delivery constraints that remain in each district.

Upgrading Infrastructure For Today’s Needs

Many other areas of the West’s irrigation networks are still using designs developed generations ago to move large volumes of water to fields. A district might have upgraded parts of its system while still operating other sections with limited measurement or flexibility. The question is, which remaining constraint prevents the next improvement on the farm?

Unlocking the benefits of a dependable supply and appropriate pressure in the irrigation system can come from district service or equipment and storage on the farm. For some districts, automated gates and better flow measurement could be the priority. Others need pipeline replacement or storage that lets them respond in real-time to changing irrigation demand. The investment should follow the local problem, with the district and its growers designing their improvements together.

Make Funding Work Together

There is already an effective federal model for this approach. Through the WaterSMART Initiative, the Natural Resources Conservation Service uses Environmental Quality Incentives Program funding to support eligible on-farm improvements that complement Bureau of Reclamation WaterSMART projects. The agencies have coordinated these investments since a California pilot began in 2011.

District upgrades and on-farm irrigation improvements need to be coordinated so the delivery system is ready to support the farmer’s new equipment. A delivery project will have limited agricultural benefit if growers can’t finance their part of the work, while farm equipment that’s installed before the supplying network is ready to deliver could sit underused.

Funding options that are decided early enough give districts and growers time to commit to a shared schedule that works around the growing season; identifying financing gaps during planning gives state programs and private partners time to help. Agencies can compare conservation projects by the cost of verified savings over their expected operating life and their ability to keep farms productive. 

Energy and maintenance belong in that calculation too because grants can make installation affordable but still leave the farmer with a system too expensive to run day to day. The most effective funding supports conservation that continues after the initial assistance ends.

Be Clear About The Water Result

Precision irrigation helps growers avoid overapplication and maintain production through tighter control over water and nutrients. Delivering less water to a farm, however, does not necessarily reduce the basin’s total water consumption by the same amount.

Some irrigation water returns to a river or aquifer and can be used again. If reduced deliveries also mean less water returns to the system, the basin’s net savings can be smaller than the reduction measured at the farm. The Government Accountability Office’s assessment of irrigation technologies explains why efficiency investments should be paired with conservation agreements to reduce water scarcity.

Conservation programs should establish a historical baseline and then evaluate changes in consumption and return flows after implementation to quantify the true volumetric water benefit to the watershed. If that water is used by the farmer to grow on more acreage or used by other stakeholders in the watershed, then the water wasn’t really saved, just used differently. Water conservation program policy should be clear about how much is truly conserved and what happens to the saved water. 

When assessing further reductions, agencies should also recognize those farmers who invested before the latest restrictions. They could now have fewer remaining opportunities to reduce use than their neighbors who have yet to modernize. Recording earlier improvements helps agencies assess what additional reductions are feasible without placing undue burden on early adopters. Ensuring future water cuts or increases in the cost of water are targeted to those that have not yet modernized is more equitable and will result in faster adoption of precision irrigation technologies. 

Put The Construction Period To Work

Fallowing will continue to remain necessary in some places because land can be temporarily taken out of production faster than a delivery system can be rebuilt. Earlier agreements served an immediate conservation purpose, but their limitations became apparent when farms simply resumed production with the same equipment and constraints they had before. There was no enduring change.

To improve this approach, programs that pay growers to fallow temporarily should also fund and require improvements for participating farms as they return to production. The improvements should fit each farm’s unique circumstances, with work beginning during the fallowing stage while immediate demand is being reduced.

Evaluating how much of the required conservation could come from an irrigation district’s delivery infrastructure upgrades paired with on-farm improvements will provide a more accurate view of potential water savings before committing to permanent reductions in irrigated acreage. That comparison must use basin-level savings and proceed alongside emergency conservation so immediate reductions can continue while policymakers examine the options for keeping more land productive.

Groundwater recharge and storage will also have a place where local conditions and available supplies support them. Relying too heavily on recurring land idling places a continuing burden on the environment, farm businesses, the surrounding communities that depend on them, and the entire population that depends on the food they produce.

Districts and growers can plan the needed modernized systems together. Some projects will extend beyond the current two-year rules, but securing funding and preparing construction plans now gives them the runway to coordinate the work around the growing season while emergency conservation continues. The aim is to conserve water through updated delivery systems and irrigation equipment that help growers keep producing food despite water scarcity.

Michael Bloomfield is Government Affairs Leader for Netafim North America.