WSP05341

• File Number: 8278.100
• Description: Title I - Yuma Desalting Plant
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 12/23/1992
• Author: USDOI/BOR
• Title: Yuma Desalting Plant - Alternatives for the Interim Period
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

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interim period continues, the Secretary is entitled to use the
132,000 af per year of water conserved by lining the Coachella Canal to
replace the additional water released from storage and can continue to
allow the irrigation drainage to be bypassed and lost from use in lieu
of operating the Desalting Plant. As it is likely that unused Arizona
apportionment will continue to be available, the Secretary is expected
to be able to meet California water requests for the near future, thus
continuing the interim period. The water conserved from lining would be
adequate for full replacement of the additional water released from
storage, and there would be no need to operate the Desalting Plant until
the conserved water supply is no longer available to assist the
Secretary. The United States would allow the 132,000 af per year of
irrigation drainage remaining to continue to be lost from use.

Use Of Temporary Entitlement Is Authorized

According to Section 102(a) of the 1974 Act: "To assist in meeting
salinity control objectives of Minute No. 242 during an interim period,
the Secretary is authorized to construct a new concrete-lined canal or,
to line the presently unlined portion of the Coachella Canal... The
United States shall be entitled to temporary use of a quantity of
water .., conserved by construction or lining the said canal. The
interim period shall commence on completion of construction or lining
said canal and shall end the first year that the Secretary delivers
mainstream Colorado River water to California in an amount less than the
sum of the quantities requested by ... the Cal ifornia agencies...."

In the Section-by-Section Analysis of the 1974 Act provided by the
Departments of State and of the Interior (Interior) (page 71 of the
March 1974 hearings), the departments stated how they intended to use
the water conserved by lining the Coachella Canal:

"The Federal use of the saved waters would consist (1) until
the Desalting Plant comes on stream, of supplying a part of
the water that must be delivered to Mexico in substitution
for bypassed Wellton-Mohawk drainage; and (2) after the
Desalting Plant is operational, of restoring to the Colorado
River Basin the water borrowed from the Basin's storage
reservoirs as substitution water for Mexico from the time
the agreement enters into force to the time the Desalting
Plant is completed."

The Departments envisioned that once the Desalting Plant became
operational, the water conserved by lining the Coachella Canal would be
used to restore the water borrowed from the Basin's storage reservoirs,
if any, as a result of the difference between the amount of bypass loss
and the estimated amount of water conserved by lining the Canal. There
is no discussion of the possibility that the water conserved cQuld be
used in lieu of operating the Desalting Plant. However, because of the
high flows that occurred from 1983 through 1986, the system reservoirs
refilled and the storage deficit referred to in (2) of the paragraph
above never developed.

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