7905

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7905
• Author: U.S. Department of the Interior.
• Title: Quality of Water, Colorado River Basin.
• USFW Year: 1995.
• USFW - Doc Type: Progress Report No. 17,
• Copyright Material: NO

Reclamation believes that the impacts of the 1993 Gila River flood may make any data
from the district invalid for 1993 and 1994 until the impacts of the Gila River flood on
ground-water storage and Imperial Dam diversions are removed.

Irrigation drainage pumping has increased to about 145,000 acre-feet per year, and
diversion rates are increasing because of several factors, including some changes from
permanent to vegetable crops.

Other factors which are affecting WMIDD operations include the Salt River Pima-
Maricopa Indian Community Water Rights Settlement Act of 1988 which removed
2,225 acres of land from irrigation. In addition, the Gila River flood of 1993
significantly damaged some of the lower irrigated areas and WMIDD is currently
purchasing more than 2,000 acres of these flood-damaged lands.

Reclamation continues to investigate the causes of increased irrigation drainage
pumping. In cooperation with WMIDD, SCS, and others, Reclamation will explore a
program of irrigation efficiency improvement measures or other measures, with a goal
of permanently reducing irrigation drainage pumping to 108,000 acre-feet or less per
year.

TITLE II PROGRAM

Bureau of Reclamation

Title II of the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act authorized the Secretary of
the Interior (Secretary) to construct the Grand Valley Unit, the Las Vegas Wash Unit,
the Lower Gunnison Basin Unit, portions of the McElmo Creek Unit as part of the
Dolores Project, and the Paradox Valley Unit. Another unit, the Meeker Dome Unit,
was completed in a verification well-plugging program. No additional actions are
planned for this unit.

Title II further authorized and directed the Secretary of the Interior to expedite
completion of the planning reports on units described in the Secretary's report,
Colorado River Water Quality Improvement Program, February 1972, section 203(b)(2),
and directs the Secretary to undertake research on additional methods of accomplish-
ing the objective of this title (Title II of Public Law 93-320).

To ensure the effectiveness of Reclamation projects, several projects are being staged.
Staging allows additional time to monitor actual results of salinity control methods
and fine-tune the techniques used to predict just how effective the project will be. In
the Grand Valley Unit, the results of the stage one monitoring program have
significantly improved confidence in the techniques used to predict effectiveness of
both the Reclamation and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs.

In 1985, Reclamation and USDA formed the Technical Policy Coordination Committee
to coordinate salinity control investigations and construction of salinity control units.
In the Grand Valley Unit, coordination of the data and methods used to evaluate the
potential effectiveness of various salinity control techniques has improved the
effectiveness of both Reclamation and USDA programs.

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