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Water Farming InTheAmerican SouthwestLola Sheppard andMasonWhite

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rivers, divert water in the lower Colorado River basin. Combined,they form approximately 1065 km of water highways.In the years between 1935 and 1993 almost every mile of the

Colorado River was modified in some way by this system of dams,reservoirs, aqueducts, and pumping stations. Most of the river’s flowin normal hydrologic years is now diverted for agricultural and munic-ipal water supply, leaving very little to reach its mouth in the Pacific.In its present form, the basin’s water management system has evolvedinto a symbiotic network between cities, landscape ecologies, andinfrastructure technologies.

PARTITIONING WATERS

Even in the early days of development in the Southwest, water was acritical issue. As population centers grew and the attendant demandfor water became ever more pressing, states dependent on ColoradoRiver water feared California would establish priority rights. The1922 Colorado River Compact was designed to permanently resolvethis conflict. The agreement divided the waters of the ColoradoRiver equally between “Upper and Lower Basin States.”Wyoming,Colorado, Utah, and NewMexico were in the upper basin; and Cali-fornia, Arizona, and Nevada in the lower, with the demarcation lineset at Lee’s Ferry in northernArizona. Each basin was to receive 7.5million acre-feet per year (293 m³/s). It later became apparent thatthese allocations based on hydrological data from a period when theColorado River’s flow was unusually high, would not be sustainableover the long term.In 1963, a US Supreme Court decision redefined the agreement,

reducing the quantity of water that was to be distributed among thelower-basin states, and revising upward the amounts that had beenhistorically reserved for Indian tribes and federal public lands. Becausethe Colorado River Delta is in Mexico, that country also has a legiti-mate claim to its waters. The delta was once lush with vegetationand wildlife, but the construction of 29 dams and numerous up-river

The United States has 6.5 percent of the world’s fresh water within itsborders, yet despite this abundance the country is entering a periodof crippling water shortages. Even without factoring in the expecteddrought effects of climate change, thirty-six states predict shortfallsin the next ten years that will put their environmental and economichealth at serious risk. Making the problemmore acute, the drieststates are also the fastest growing: six of the ten fastest-growing citiesin the US—Dallas/ForthWorth, Phoenix, Houston, San Bernardino,Houston, and LasVegas—are located in water-strapped regions of thesouthwest. The constant drive for urban growth in the face of waterscarcity necessitates ever more elaborate infrastructure to transportwater from wet regions to dry ones. Heroic efforts in theAmericansouthwest demonstrate what can be achieved, and at what cost, whenthis essential resource must be supplied to communities that have noready access to water.

INFRASTRUCTURAL LANDSCAPES

Man-made water networks have successfully enabled cities to growand prosper in the desert conditions of the southwest, but impendingwater shortages mean that increasingly complex regional water infra-structure is urgently needed, especially in the 243,000 km2 catch-ment area of the Colorado River basin.The Colorado River is the site of ambitious feats ofAmerican en-

gineering, many initiated during the 1930s under Franklin D. Roo-sevelt as part of the NewDeal. Most notable is the Hoover Dam onthe border between Nevada andArizona, which created LakeMead,the largest man-made lake in NorthAmerica. The dams along theColorado River collect water in enormous reservoirs, thus ensuringconsistent supplies throughout the year, managing river levels, andproviding hydroelectric power to the region. The reservoirs—whichstore more than 86 billion cubic meters of water, or four times theColorado River’s average annual volume—feed an artificial networkof canals and pipelines. Three major aqueducts, essentially man-made

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“first come, first served” system that applies to both the surface waterand the groundwater tributaries to a surface stream.The significanceof this law is twofold. First, water can be traded as a commodity,independent of the land ownership. Second, these water rights havea fluctuating value.The critical importance of water in this arid region, and its increas-

ing value, has led to the practice of “water banking,” a method of con-serving unused river water as a buffer against the shortages caused bythe regular droughts. Each year, theArizonaWater BankingAuthority(abwa ) pays the delivery and storage costs of bringing ColoradoRiver water into central and southernArizona through the CentralArizona Project canal. The water is stored underground in existingaquifers (direct recharge) or is used by irrigation districts in lieu ofpumping groundwater (indirect or in-lieu recharge). For each acre-footof water stored, the abwa accrues credit that can be redeemed in thefuture when an irrigation district or water corporation inArizona ora neighboring state needs this backup water supply.

DESERT AGRICULTURE

Fifteen percent ofAmerica’s crops and 13 percent of its livestock areproduced on the 1.5 million hectares of farmland fed by the ColoradoRiver; 80 to 90 percent of the water taken from the river is consumedby agriculture.Yuma,Arizona, and California’s ImperialValley aretwo of the nation’s most important agricultural regions, though theircapacity to supply food across the continent, especially during wintermonths, must be artificially sustained. Farming here is a billion-dollarindustry. Imported water and a long growing season allow two cropcycles each year in the ImperialValley, a major source of winter fruitsand vegetables, cotton, grain, and alfalfa (a hugely water-intensivecrop) for US and international markets. Considered one of the mostproductive agricultural regions in the world, theValley consumes thevast majority of California’s Colorado water allocation, as agreedupon in the 1922 compact.Yuma, the “Lettuce Capital of theWorld,”

diversion projects over the past 60 years deprived the area of naturalwater flow, with its vital supply of silt and nutrients. In 1944, an inter-national treaty allocatedMexico water rights in the amount of 58.6m3/s. In the 1960s, Mexican farmers complained that when the un-treated runoff from the US made its way into the Colorado River as itheaded south of the border, it raised the salinity levels, harming theircrops. In 1992 one of the world’s largest desalination plants was builtinYuma,Arizona, to treat agricultural runoff before it was deliveredtoMexico. The competition for water in the Colorado River Basincontinues to be an engineering and political problem. Given projectedgrowth in the region, these interstate and international debates areonly likely to intensify.

WATER TRADING / WATER BANKING

Every US state is divided into irrigation districts, legal bodies thattrade in water capital. These districts are quasi-political municipalor regional entities created under special laws, for the purpose ofsupplying water and power to agricultural regions and cities. Farmingdistricts are now selling their long-established water rights to thirstyurban centers.Water has become a highly valuable, tradable commod-ity. For example, a deal struck in summer 2008 between theMetro-politanWater District of California (MWD) and the PaoloVerdeValley called for farmers to divert 4.5 m3/s m³/s of their water to LosAngeles, San Diego, and surrounding settlements in exchange forUS$16.8 million a year. This desperate and expensive negotiation wasnecessary because the management of the Sacramento River Deltahad reduced its contribution to theMWD by 30 percent, to protecta threatened fish species.The legal frameworks regulating land and water rights in the

western US are known as “first in time, first in right” or “prior appro-priation” laws. Under these rules, water rights can be severed fromthe land, and sold or mortgaged as an independent piece of propertyby those who had the original, historical claim to the land.This is a

CALIFORNIA

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SALTON SEA

974 km2

IMPERIAL VALLEY

580,000 acres of agriculture

YUMASAN DIEGO

TIJUANA

281280

has 40,000 hectares of agriculture supplying almost 90 percent ofAmerica’s winter vegetables.In late 1997, the federal government reduced California’s Colorado

River allocation, and as a result the ImperialValley Irrigation District’sallocation, by 9 percent, to take effect in 2003. The Bureau of Recla-mation had ruled that local farmers were not making sufficient use ofthe water-saving practices commonly employed in other water-starvedregions. Beginning in late 2003, ImperialValley farmers agreed toidle their winter crops, to fulfill a water trade agreement mandatingthe transfer of thousands of acre-feet of water to San Diego and theSalton Sea.The local water distribution network—the Imperial Irrigation

District (iid )—comprises more than a hundred canal and pipelinebranches. The system also includes check dams, spillways, pumpingstations, and water reservoirs, all computer-monitored. The waterinfrastructure that has extended, and in some cases supplanted, theColorado River is not only constructed, it is highly automated. TheImperialValley is sustained by theAll American canal, which wascompleted by the United States Bureau of Reclamation in 1942. Pro-viding drinking water for nine cities and irrigation for over 200,000hectares of farmland, it is the largest irrigation canal in the world, car-rying up to 740.6 m3 (26,155 cubic feet) per second of water.

MANUFACTURED ECOLOGIES—SALTON SEA

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the water infrastructure sustainingthe southwest is the accelerated rate at which landscapes and ecologiesare created, erased, and redefined.An extreme example of this envi-ronmental impact is the Salton Sea. During a season of heavy rain in1905, the Colorado River breached its canal, flooding the ImperialValley and re-filling an ancient inland sea bed.The resulting body ofwater was 72 km long and 32 km wide, a 932 km2 sea with 177 km ofshoreline. The Salton is endorheic, or terminal (without a naturaloutlet), and has high evaporation rates. It is officially designated as

282

water of theAlamo and New rivers, Colorado tributaries that feedthe Salton, is at 44,000 mg/L, or approximately 4.4 percent. By wayof comparison, the Pacific Ocean is approximately 3.5 percent saltcontent, and the Colorado River water, prior to its diversion into theImperialValley, is about 0.7 percent salt content.In 2003, a federally mandated requirement to transfer over 10

percent of the ImperialValley’s water allocation to San Diego threat-ened the Salton’s future. Massive infrastructure projects are proposedto preserve the sea’s ecological stability. California has until 2018 tocome up with a long-term restoration plan for the Salton; withoutsuch a plan the sea will decline rapidly, losing roughly 60 percentof its volume, tripling its salinity, and exposing nearly 300 km2 oflakebed within a dozen years. All of this will lead to massive die-offsof birds and fish as they are displaced from their habitats.

LANDSCAPES ON LIFE SUPPORT

Much as theNewDeal infrastructure projects and the federal highwaysystem fundamentally reconfigured the NorthAmerican landscapein the 1950s and ’60s, so national water infrastructure is poised toredefine our notion of natural landscapes in the early twenty-firstcentury. However, the urgent need for these infrastructural landscapesalso indicates that there is little room for visions of a nostalgic pre-modern natural condition in the Southwest. There is no turning back:if these ecosystems and habitats are to be maintained, and agriculturalproductivity to continue, the landscape must exist on some kind oflife support. The question is not if it will require this work or when,but what it will address and how it will be occupied. The Salton Seaand its region of influence are in need of an urgent intervention thatmanages water in a new way. The iconic dams and canals of the pastcentury are no longer the appropriate design response.Anew approach is needed, but most of the proposals for mitigat-

ing the collapse of the Salton Sea rely on old technological fixes:suggestions have ranged from piping water from the Pacific Gulf, with

an agricultural sump for the ImperialValley, and its water levels aresustained by agricultural run-off. Processes of evaporation and con-centration result in a high, and increasing, saline content.Organized recreation launched the urban development of the

Salton Sea area in the 1920s. Boat racing became a major sport thereduring this period. Because high salinity increases buoyancy, theSalton was known as one of the fastest racing courses in the nation.In the 1950s the California Department of Fish and Game stockedthe Salton with a variety of fish species, making it a significant desti-nation for fishing, camping, hiking, bird watching, and boating.Tilapia,for example, a resilient fish that thrives in a high-saline environment,continues to flourish in the Salton. Development peaked in the 1950sand ’60s, and the Salton became a California Riviera, with Hollywoodfilm stars enjoying its luxury resorts, country clubs, marinas, andgolf courses.The Salton’s fish and bird populations were in dramatic decline

from the 1960s to the 1990s, as warm water and agri-chemical pollu-tants entered the lower food chain species. Many of these specieshave now bounced back, and by current estimates there are about 80million tilapia in the Salton Sea.With large numbers of fish comelarge numbers of migrating birds (nearly 400 species), for whom thesea represents a key stop-over along a Pacific flyway that has beenconsiderably degraded by the massive loss of wetlands throughoutCalifornia.One of the major problems with all of the Colorado River’s water,

exacerbated in the Salton Sea, is salinity. Salts run naturally off soilsand rocks, and when river water is used for irrigation, some waterevaporates, concentrating salts in the water that returns to the river.Salinity levels are also affected by evaporation from reservoir andaqueduct surfaces, and water use by plants along the river. Currently,the concentration of salt in the Salton Sea is 25 percent more salinethan the ocean and increasing by a rate of approximately 1 percentannually, due largely to evaporation. The concentration of salt in the

283

CENTER PIVOT IRRIGATED FIELD(POSSIBLE ALFALFA FARM)- cirle radius of 400 - 500 metres- efficient water delivery- not efficient use of ground

WHEELED IRRIGATION ARMCENTER PIVOT TOWER

CROP

GREENHOUSE FARM- controled cultivation environment

RENTENTION POND

PERMENANT FIXED STRUCTUREGREEN HOUSE

RIDGE AND FURROW QUONSET GREENHOUSE

AGRICULTURAL TYPOLOGIES

TRADITIONAL FIELD FARM W/ RETENTION POND- located north of salton sea

CROP

RETENTION POND

HYDROCULTURE TYPOLOGIES

HARVEST MECHANISM

ALGAE LOOP

ALGAE FARM- requires salt water amd freshwater- algae used in biodiesel

HATCHERY

GROW OUT PONDSWATER RESERVOIR

AQUACULTURE (TYPICAL TILAPIA FARM)- clustered around salton sea- geothermal heat to optimize breeding temperatures- 400,000 lbs annual production

SALT EVAPOURATION POND- salt harvested after evapouration- habitat for nesting birds

EVAPORATION POND

SALT WATER SOURCE

284 285

STEAM TURBINES

CONDENSER

GENERATOR

BOILER TOWERS

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PRODUCTIVE TYPOLOGIES

GEOTHERMAL PLANThot subsurface water heats secondary liquid to vapour which drives turbines

DESALINATION PLANTconverts salt water to fresh water for irrigation/consumption

SUGAR PRODUCTION PLANTproduced from sugar cane

FRESH WATER STORAGE

TREATMENT FACILITY

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attendant large-scale desalination, to building huge barrier dams,pumping stations, and canals to partition the sea into northern andsouthern ecosystems. Most projects suggest that maintaining the seain its current form is impossible, and take the current environmentalproblems as a liability to be accepted and accommodated. The Saltonessentially is viewed as the hydrological refuse point for the farmsystems of the ImperialValley. How can the partitioning, banking andtrading of water in theAmerican Southwest manage such divergentinterests?And, instead of being static and engineered, how can waterinfrastructure be interactive, public, and adaptable?

WATER FARMING: THE SALTON SEA

The Salton Sea’s extreme salinity and threatened ecosystems offeran opportunity for economic, social, and ecological innovation. Theissue of water demand across the region is central to the sea’s future.With urban areas competing for ImperialValley’s allocated use ofColorado River water, the best strategy would be to remediate thewater before it enters the Salton.Our proposal establishes the Salton Sea as a site for water harvest-

ing. In addition, no longer serving as an irrigation sump or supportinga mono-agricultural landscape, the Salton would offer harvests ofkelp, algae, fish, and (in a return to its namesake) salt.In this plan, solar ponds are staged along theAlamo and New

rivers, and irrigation water entering the Salton is regulated at ocean-level salinity, or 3.5 percent salt content. Then, rather than a singlepartitioning of the sea as many have proposed, our plan populates itwith floating pools or water-pads of various sizes and salinities. Thesepools serve as salinity regulation devices as well as farm plots, habitats,and recreational destinations.While other current proposals suggesta more aggressive division of the sea, this scheme envisionsmaintainingit in its current form, but stabilizing its salinity. The floating poolsystems generate micro-ecologies that capitalize on the benefits ofhigher-salinity, or brine, water, including a rich growth of kelp and

Kelp Algae

PRODUCTION POOLS

HARVESTING POOLS

1

1

2

3

4

1

2

3

4

5

6

23

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1 fish farm2 algae harvesting3 kelp farm4 intake valve5 fish loading6 kelp loading

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1 diving pool2 high saline race pool3 decking ring

40ppm

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Salton Sea35 ppmSalt Flat70 ppm

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HARVESTING POOLS

Salton Sea35ppm

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Motor Pool55ppm

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Tilapia

Salt Fresh Water Bird SanctuaryWetland Fish Habitat

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291290

algae, a fertile environment for tilapia farming, and salt crystallization.The next step is freshwater farming. Freshwater harvesting convertsocean saline water into salt crystals and potable water, addressing thewater quality issue within the Salton while also generating an economyof water trade for San Diego and LosAngeles.There are four pool types, varying in scale and complexity, dedi-

cated to production, harvesting, recreation, and habitat. Thesemicro-ecologies are partially moored in place but can also migratewithin a territorial range of the Salton.When maintenance or sub-stantive harvesting is necessary, they can be brought close to theshore for collection or upgrade.Along the east and west shoreline ofthe Salton, the gridded landscape of the ImperialValley is extendednorthward to generate a new water-efficient landscape sustained bythe Salton and the Coachella Canal. Shifting from traditional water-intensive agriculture, the shoreline farms will integrate sea green-houses, basins for water treatment and storage, and new wetlandsfostering wildlife habitats. A series of bays, jetties and docks articu-late this renewed Salton lakeshore, to support the land-based agricul-ture and to receive the water-borne islands.Rather than a NewDeal approach of massive engineering or

iconic infrastructure, this scheme employs adaptable, responsive,small-scale interventions. Easily replaced or upgraded, these infra-structures double as landscape life support, creating new sites forproduction or recreation. The ambition is to supplement landscapesat risk rather than overhaul them.The scheme combines existinglandscapes with emergent systems to catalyze a network of ecologiesand economies in a new public realm.