Proposal for Pilot Evaporation Pond

• Description: Related to CRSP MOA
• State: CO
• Basin: Statewide
• Author: Paradox Valley Unit
• Title: Proposal for Pilot Evaporation Pond
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Budget

Paradox Valley Unit
Proposal for Pilot Evaporation Pond
Colorado River Basin Salinity
The Colorado River begins as springs and snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains.
The snowmelt travels through a series of tributaries into the Colorado River,
which extends more than 1,400 miles to the Gulf of California in Mexico. It is
one of the world's most closely monitored and controlled rivers. It provides
irrigation for nearly 4 million acres of farmland and serves municipal and
industrial water to about 27 million people in the seven western states of
Wyoming, Colorado,Utah,New Mexico,Nevada, Arizona, and California. The
Colorado River also serves about 2.3 million people and 500,000 acres of
farmland in Mexico.
A major water quality concern for the Colorado River is salinity. Water dissolves
and transports salt through soil vertically,horizontally, and over the surface to the
river. Agricultural irrigation and natural saline springs are significant contributors
of salt loading in the Colorado River. Salinity in the Colorado River causes more
than$350 million in economic damages annually in the United States alone.
In 1972,the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA)required the development
of water quality standards for salinity in the Colorado River. The basin states
formed the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum (Forum) in 1973 to
develop numeric salinity data and implement controls to reduce salt loading into
the river. In 1974, Congress enacted the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control
Act and subsequent amendments. This Act created the Colorado River Basin
Salinity Control Program (CRBSCP) and authorized the construction, operation,
and maintenance of salinity control works in the Colorado River Basin in order
"to control the salinity of water delivered to users in the United States and
Mexico." This would reduce economic damages caused by salinity and help to
meet water quality standards for Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico
pursuant to the agreement of the International Boundary and Water Commission
as well as the Mexican Water Treaty of 1944. It directed the Department of
Agriculture (USDA), Department of the Interior(DOI), and the EPA"to
cooperate and coordinate their activities effectively to carry out the objective of
this title." The Bureau of Reclamation(Reclamation)has been the lead agency in
the CRBSCP effort.
Since 1974,the CRBSCP has formed long-term interstate and interagency
public/private partnerships to fund projects to reduce salt loading into the
Colorado River. The projects combine to control about 1.2 million tons of salt
annually and have reduced economic damages due to salt loading into the river by
about$300 million per year. This has been accomplished at a federal funding
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