The Jordanians are upset that Syria is allowing water from the river to be used in farming on the Syrian side, which has decreased the amount of water available for cultivation of crops in Jordan, and the amount of water that is stored in vital dams, the paper reported.

Under the agreement signed between the two countries, Syria’s share of water from the Wahda Dam, which is built on the river, is 21 billion cubic feet (bcf) for agricultural purposes, provided that the dam operates at full capacity of 3,850 billion bcf.

For the first time since the dam was completed two years ago, it holds only one fifth of its total capacity and thus the Syrian share would be lowered to 3.5 billion bcf. But according to the Jordanians, Syria is now pumping more that its allocated share of water.

The Yarmouk River is an offshoot of the Jordan River, originating in the Golan Heights and forming a boundary between Syria and Jordan for some 24 miles before becoming the border between Jordan and Israel.

Jordan is one of the 10 most water-deficient countries in the world, and 92 percent of the country is desert. It is estimated that some 65% of the country’s water resources are used for agriculture, which only contributes 3% of the country’s gross domestic production.

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Source:  The Media Line

Pat Mulroy, SNWA general manager, told legislators that wide-ranging efforts are under way to find other water sources, including more Colorado River water, as drought conditions persist.

“We are not going to build the instate project unless it is absolutely necessary, unless there is absolutely nothing else we are going to do,” Mulroy told the Assembly Natural Resources, Agriculture and Mining Committee.

“Hopefully, Lake Mead will not go south on us as quickly as possible. But we don’t know,” Mulroy said, referring to the lake outside Las Vegas from which water is piped to SNWA customers. The lake has dropped more than 100 feet in the past several years.

Mulroy also said that the water agency’s strategy is to get all the permits needed for the 200-mile-long pipeline project, which could cost as much as $3.5 billion, so that construction could start quickly.

“Southern Nevada has no choice but to look at resources outside its boundaries in order to protect 2 million people,” she said.

Nevada’s state water engineer has scheduled a monthlong series of hearings starting Sept. 28 on a bid by SNWA, already authorized to pump more than 19 billion gallons of water a year from rural Nevada, to get rights to another 16 billion gallons from Snake Valley, on the state’s border with Utah.

Despite its water needs, Las Vegas has yet to curb water use to per capita levels found in other cities in the SouthWest.

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Source:  Mercury News.com

In part, that’s because the national SustainLane rankings of the 50 largest cities added a new category this year — water supply — in which this and most other arid Southwestern cities ranked poorly.

The drop in the SustainLane rating of Tucson from 20th to 22nd on the new survey wasn’t a total knock at this city, however, since Tucson still ranks in the top half of the 50 cities in the survey. Tucson scored better than average in 10 of the 16 categories surveyed, including air quality, green building practices, environmental innovations and use of local food and agriculture. Portland, Ore., ranked first overall for sustainability among the 50 cities, according to the report. Phoenix ranked lower than Tucson overall at 32nd.

But on water, Tucson ranked 47th worst out of 50 cities. It ranked low for being too far from its principal long-term water source, for not being as aggressive as many other cities in its water-conservation policies and for its rapid growth in an arid environment.

“Your originating source of much of your water is the Colorado River . . . one of the farthest away of any of the cities ranked from their water supply,” said James Elsen, SustainLane’s CEO. “It’s dependent on snowpack, which is declining. That puts you at great risk. You are like at the end of the pipe.”

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Source: Arizona Daily Star

For more information about water conservation, visit Nuprana.com’s LEARN section

The abundant supply of feed grains produced with water from the Ogallala Aquifer fuels the livestock, meatpacking, and ethanol industries. Additionally, the area produces approximately 32% of the national production of cotton (National Agricultural Statistics Service [NASS]). Many of these industries are vertically integrated so that changes in one industry will impact the others, having a ripple effect on the economy. The unfortunate consequence of this integration is that regional economies have become precariously water dependent.

The Ogallala Aquifer has very little recharge and is essentially a finite resource. In portions of the Ogallala Aquifer, up to 40% of the predevelopment storage has already been depleted (Feng and Segarra), and the overdraft continues to take place. Current aquifer decline rates foretell the eventual demise of irrigated agriculture and conversion to dryland production, which may have a significant long-term negative economic impact on the area.

Faced with this situation, policymakers, state water managers, and other stakeholders are investigating conservation policy alternatives aimed at reducing current levels of groundwater consumption and extending the economic life of the aquifer. In order to extend the economic life of the aquifer and maintain the economic base of the region, both voluntary and mandated policy intervention may need to be considered.

Source: Economic Efficiency of Short-Term Versus Long-Term Water Rights Buyouts by Wheeler, Erin Golden, Bill; Johnson, Jeffrey; Peterson, Jeffrey

In July, Mr. Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven times, used a whopping 330,000 gallons of water at his lush Spanish-colonial home, with an acre of gardens and a swimming pool, city water authority officials said. The bill for July was $2,460.

This tremendous flow of H2O, which is 38 times what the average household in the city uses in the summer, comes as Texas is going through a dry spell and officials are asking people to cut back on watering their lawns. “We are definitely short on rain,” Lisa Rhodes, a spokeswoman for the authority, said with a sigh.

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Source: New York Times

For more information on water conservation, visit www.nuprana.com