SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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80–093PS
2002
DROUGHT PREDICTION, PREPARATION,
AND RESPONSE
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JUNE 3, 2002
Serial No. 107–77
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/science
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
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HON. SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York, Chairman
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
JOE BARTON, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
NICK SMITH, Michigan
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
DAVE WELDON, Florida
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., Washington
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
GARY G. MILLER, California
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
FELIX J. GRUCCI, JR., New York
MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania
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J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
RALPH M. HALL, Texas
BART GORDON, Tennessee
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
JAMES A. BARCIA, Michigan
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California
LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan
ZOE LOFGREN, California
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
NICK LAMPSON, Texas
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
MARK UDALL, Colorado
DAVID WU, Oregon
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington
JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania
JOE BACA, California
JIM MATHESON, Utah
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
DENNIS MOORE, Kansas
MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
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C O N T E N T S
June 3, 2002
Witness List
Hearing Charter
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Chris Cannon, Member, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives
Written Statement
Statement by Representative Jim Matheson, Member, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives
Written Statement
Panel I
Dr. Thomas D. Potter, Director, NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction, University of Utah; former Director, Western Region, National Weather Service, NOAA
Oral Statement
Written Statement
Biography
Financial Disclosure
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Mr. Mark Eubank, Meteorologist, Channel 5, KSL TV, Utah; Past President, Utah Meteorological Association; Adjunct Professor, Westminster College
Oral Statement
Written Statement
Biography
Financial Disclosure
Discussion
Predicting Drought Patterns
The Administration's Climate Change Policy and Its Effect on Drought
Accuracy of Drought Prediction
HALE Cycle
Soil Moisture Monitoring
Remote Drought-Sensing Technologies
Paleo Climate Data
Panel II
Mr. Robert L. Morgan, Executive Director, Utah Department of Natural Resources
Oral Statement
Written Statement
Mr. R. Leon Bowler, Cattle Rancher and Farmer, Southern Utah
Oral Statement
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Written Statement
Financial Disclosure
Dr. Michael J. Hayes, Climate Impact Specialist, National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Oral Statement
Written Statement
Biography
Mr. David G. Ovard, General Manager, Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District
Oral Statement
Written Statement
Discussion
Drought Research Inadequacies of the Federal Government
Farmer/Rancher Severe Drought Preparations
Mandatory Water Usage Guidelines
Use of Tertiary Water
Alternative Farming
Water Consumption Reduction Goals
Drought Effect on Cattle Prices
Advance Planning for Drought Conditions
Appendix: Additional Material for the Record
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Letter from Representative Jim Matheson to Mr. Randy Julander of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Response of Phillip J. Nelson, Natural Resources Conservation Service, to Representative Matheson's inquiry
Submitted Statement of Mr. Ronald C. Sims, Director, and Mr. Mac McKee, Associate Director, Utah Water Research Laboratory, Utah State University
Submitted Statement of Mr. Tony Willardson, Associate Director, Western States Water Council
Submitted Statement of Mr. Randy Crozier, General Manager, Duchesne County Water Conservancy District
Andrew C. Revkin, ''Bush Climate Plan Says Adapt to Inevitable,'' San Francisco Chronicle, 3 June 2002, A3
DROUGHT PREDICTION, PREPARATION, AND RESPONSE
MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2002
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
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Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 1 p.m., at County Council Chambers, 2001 South State Street, Salt Lake City, Utah, Hon. Christopher Cannon presiding.
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HEARING CHARTER
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Drought Prediction, Preparation,
and Response
MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2002
1:00 P.M.–3:00 P.M.
SALT LAKE COUNTY GOVERNMENT CENTER
2001 S. STATE STREET, SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84190
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PURPOSE
On Monday, June 3, the Science Committee will hold a hearing to examine issues related to drought prediction, preparation and response in Utah. Drought is a normal part of the climate cycle and occurs throughout many regions. The impacts of drought on our economic, environmental and social systems are significant. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimated annual losses attributable to drought in the U.S. were $6–8 billion in 1995.
Drought preparedness planning has become an important tool to assist governments and resource managers in their efforts to reduce the risks associated with prolonged periods of deficit rainfall. Forecasting and preparation for droughts is different than preparation for sudden, extreme weather events such as tornadoes and hurricanes. Drought is a slow developing climatic event resulting from deficit in rainfall that extends for long periods of time. Long-range prediction tools are needed to predict rainfall patterns, and sustained monitoring is necessary to understand the relationship between rainfall, water supply, and patterns of water demand to enable Federal, State, and local governments to develop alternative management strategies for land and water resources.
Utah has experienced serious drought conditions several times in recent years. In October of last year, twenty-nine counties in Utah suffered serious losses in the agricultural sector due to drought. Drought also resulted in conditions leading to catastrophic forest fires across the west and southwest during the last few years.
The scientific programs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Geological Survey support improved understanding of climate conditions that lead to drought cycles. The Committee will hear from state, local and regional experts about their efforts to develop and utilize better tools for managing water and about how federal programs can better help them to mitigate the effects of drought on Utah's economy and resources.
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WITNESSES
Panel One: Drought Prediction
Mr. Mark Eubank—Meteorologist with Channel 5, KSL TV; Utah Past President, Utah Meteorological Association; Adjunct Professor, Westminster College.
Dr. Thomas D. Potter—Director, NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction, University of Utah; former Director, Western Region, National Weather Service, NOAA
Panel Two: Drought Preparation and Response
Mr. David G. Ovard—General Manager, Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District
Mr. Leon Bowler—Farmer and Rancher, Southern Utah
Dr. Michael J. Hayes—Climate Impacts Specialist, National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Robert Morgan—Executive Director, Utah Department of Natural Resources
Mr. CANNON. We would like to welcome you all to this hearing and thank you for the documents and other things given to us recently.
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I want to thank Mr. Matheson for being here with us today and also from out of state we have the pleasure of having Lynn Woolsey here from California and Brian Baird from Washington State, who are Members of the Science Committee and deeply interested in the issue today of the western drought.
Interestingly, Utah is the second driest state in the United States and Utah has just finished its third consecutive year of drought. The driest state, by the way, is Nevada. So we are at the top of the list there. This year Utah experienced one of the lowest snowpacks in history. Combined with lower than average precipitation, the situation is dire for Utah ranchers.
Last month Governor Leavitt declared a statewide agriculture disaster due to the drought, and the following week he issued an additional disaster declaration based on the grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestation within our state. These two disasters together have the potential to wipe out Utah's agricultural industry. The cricket problem is going to finish off what small amount of vegetation survives the drought.
Last month Senator Hatch and I met with James Little, Administrator of the Farm Service Agency and asked for Federal assistance for Utah Farmers. And as result of that meeting, the Secretary of Agriculture, Ann Veneman, authorized emergency grazing on the CRP lands in Southern Utah. We hope this will give our ranchers some temporary relief.
As I look out over the audience, I see Booth Wallentine with us here who represents the Utah Farm Bureau. Welcome, Booth. We all deeply appreciate the farmers in America, and the fact that we eat food that seems to me to be cheaper every year. Due to the simple nature of the droughts in the Western United States it is important we have a clear understanding of the causes and effects of drought in our region. This ultimately will enable the states to develop plans to weather our drought cycles. We look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses. They all have a welcome knowledge in the area. It should be very imformative. At this time I would like to give Mr. Matheson the opportunity for an opening statement.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Cannon follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE CHRIS CANNON
I would like to start by thanking Mr. Matheson, Mr. Baird and Ms. Woolsey, and Members of the Science Committee staff for being present today. The topic of today's hearing, the western drought is very timely.
Indeed, Utah is the second driest state in the Nation, and it has just finished its third consecutive year of drought. This past year Utah has experienced one of the lowest snowpacks in history. Combined with lower than average precipitation the situation is dire for Utah ranchers and farmers.
Last month Governor Mike Leavitt declared a statewide agricultural disaster due to the drought, and the following week he issued an additional disaster declaration based on the grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestation within our state. These two disasters together have the potential to wipe out Utah's agricultural industry. The crickets will finish off what small amount of vegetation survives the drought.
Last month I met with James Little, administrator of the Farm Service Agency to ask for federal assistance for Utah farmers. As a result of that meeting Secretary Veneman authorized emergency grazing on CRP lands in Southern Utah. This should give Utah's ranchers some temporary relief.
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But due to the cyclical nature of droughts in the western United States it is important that we have a clear understanding of the causes and effects of drought in our region. This knowledge will enable the states to develop plans to weather our drought cycles.
I look forward to hearing the testimony offered by our witnesses. They all have a wealth of knowledge in this area and should be very informative. At this time I would like to give Mr. Matheson some time for an opening statement, and then I will introduce our distinguished panel of witnesses.
Mr. MATHESON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome everyone to Utah, as Mr. Cannon said, the second driest state in America.
A decade ago, Wallace Stegner, standing on the banks of the Colorado River, which is the lifeblood of four western states, said: ''Living in a desert calls, I think, for a certain humility. It does call for adaptation to the terms the country enforces.''
Multiple years of drought are the reason we convene this hearing. We can't fool Mother Nature. In a country that gets less than 20 inches of rain in a normal year, anything less can spell disaster.
Now, the people of Utah have always understood much more clearly than the Federal Government, the scarcity and importance of water.
In 1847, Mormon Church leader Brigham Young reached the Salt Lake Valley and almost immediately he put the pioneer families to work building irrigation systems, diverting streams, and taking steps to protect canyon watersheds as the source of drinking water. No group of citizens ever worked harder to ensure that the land and the settlement would survive.
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That accomplishment was noted and admired in the work of U.S. Government geologist and explorer John Wesley Powell. Powell spent seven years writing his 1876, ''Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States—with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah.''
The West was big. It was diverse. It had towering peaks, deep gorges, shimmering salt flats and erupting geyers. But it had one overriding unity—the unity of a scarcity of water.
Powell's running of the Colorado River made him a hero. He offered Federal leaders a blueprint for Western expansion based on good science. But he was largely ignored. Congress passed laws encouraging settlement in the West that mimicked the settlement in the East.
But the West was, is and always will be a land of little rain.
If the West is leading the way in planning for limited water resources, the East, South and Midwest are not far behind. Today, as drought-stricken forests burn in New Jersey, California, Utah and Colorado, there are concerns about how to manage with historically low levels of moisture as we head into summer.
I want to stress about what this hearing is and what it is not. It is not a solution to the drought. What it is. . .is a start at getting us thinking and strategizing outside of the box with respect to drought issues and the Science Committee is the natural venue for that. While drought aid is important it does not get to the heart of matters. Using good science and scientific analysis, we need to answer questions such as: ''How can we do a better job predicting drought cycles?'' ''What actions can we take to prepare for drought?'' And ''How can we improve efficiency of water delivery and water use?''
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I do want to thank the Science Committee, particularly my two colleagues from two very wet Congressional Districts—Ms. Woolsey and Mr. Baird—for agreeing to come to Salt Lake City when the winter snow is gone—sooner than anyone is comfortable with. And I also want to thank my colleague, Congressman Chris Cannon, for agreeing to chair this hearing. Drought is not a partisan issue and the entire Utah delegation will get together to raise awareness about the conditions we face in the West.
And I also would like to thank our witnesses. We have world-class experts on weather prediction and drought planning right here in Utah. Home-grown doesn't preclude world-renowned. Dr. Hayes, from Nebraska, is our one visitor and he comes with a distinguished record of work on drought risk mitigation planning.
We should do more, through the information gathered today, than just try to mitigate drought. Science can help us understand the terms set out by an arid land. But it is up to us to bring human innovation and technology to the challenge of living, and growing, within this desert environment.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Matheson follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JIM MATHESON
Welcome To Utah—the second-driest state in America.
A decade ago, Wallace Stegner—standing on the banks of the Colorado River which is the lifeblood of four western states, said: ''Living in a desert calls, I think, for a certain humility. It does call for adaptation to the terms the country enforces.''
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Multiple years of drought are the reason we convene this hearing. We can't fool Mother Nature. In country that gets less than 20 inches of rain in a normal year, anything less can spell disaster.
The people of Utah have always understood—much more clearly than the Federal Government—the scarcity and importance of water.
In 1847, Mormon Church leader Brigham Young reached the Salt Lake Valley. Almost immediately, he put the pioneer families to work, building irrigation systems, diverting streams and taking steps to protect canyon watersheds as the source of drinking water. No group of citizens ever worked harder to ensure that the land and the settlement would survive.
That accomplishment was noted and admired in the work of U.S. government geologist and explorer John Wesley Powell. Powell spent seven years writing his 1876 ''Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States—with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah.''
The West was big. It was diverse. It had towering peaks, deep gorges, shimmering salt flats and erupting geysers. But it had one overriding unity-the unity of drought.
Powell's running of the Colorado River made him a hero. He offered federal leaders a blueprint for Western expansion based on good science. But he was largely ignored. Congress passed laws encouraging settlement in the West that mimicked the settlement of the East.
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But the West was, is and always will be the land of little rain.
If the West is leading the way in planning for limited water resources, the East, South and Midwest are not far behind. Today, as drought-stricken forests burn in New Jersey, California, Utah and Colorado, there are concerns about how to manage with historically low levels of moisture as we head into summer.
I want to stress what this hearing is and what it is not. It is not a solution to the drought. What it is. . .is a start at getting us thinking and strategizing ''outside the box'' with respect to drought issues and the Science Committee is the natural venue for that. While drought aid is important, it does not get to the heart of the matters. Using good science and scientific analysis we need to answer questions such as: How can we do a better job predicting drought cycles? What actions can we take to prepare for drought? How can we improve efficiency of water delivery and water use?
I want to thank the Science Committee, particularly my colleagues from two very wet Congressional Districts—Ms. Woolsey and Mr. Baird—for agreeing to come to Salt Lake City when the winter snow is gone—sooner than anyone is comfortable with. I also want to thank my colleague—Congressman Chris Cannon—for agreeing to chair this hearing. Drought is not a partisan issue and the entire Utah delegation works together to raise awareness about the conditions we face in the West.
I also would like to thank our witnesses. We have world-class experts on weather prediction and drought planning right here in Utah. Home-grown doesn't preclude world-renowned. Dr. Hayes, from Nebraska, is our one visitor and he comes with a distinguished record of work on drought risk mitigation planning.
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We should do more-through the information gathered today—than just try to mitigate drought. Science can help use understand the terms sent out by an arid land. But it is up to us to bring human innovation and technology to the challenge of living—and growing—within this desert environment.
Mr. MATHESON. Mr. Chairman, I would ask for unanimous consent that the record of this hearing be held open for 14 days to enable those who are unable to testify or attend today to submit written materials to the record if they would like to do so.
Mr. CANNON. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you, Mr. Matheson.
Panel I
We would like to now turn to our first panel of witnesses. First of all, Mark Eubank, as is well known by everyone in this audience, is the Chief Meteorologist for KSL Television, an NBC affiliate, here in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mr. Eubank has been doing television broadcasts in the Salt Lake area—I don't believe this, Mark, for over 36 years. That dates us both. I am a little worried about that. But a great 36 years. He also owned and operated WeatherBank, Inc., a weather-consulting firm for 20 years. Mr. Eubank is past President of the Utah Chapter of the American Meteorological Society, and has been an advisor for the State of Utah Weather Bureau Weather Modification Board. He was also Chief Meteorologist for the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics as well.
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Dr. Thomas D. Potter is the Director of NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction and a professor of meteorology. The Institute is located at the University of Utah. Dr. Potter has served as its director since 1998. Prior to becoming the Director of the Institute, Dr. Potter was the Director for the Western Region office of the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City. He also served as Director of two organizations within the World Meteorological Organization: the World Weather Watch, and the World Climate Program. Dr. Potter will discuss the definition of drought and produce some long-term climate records during the drought cycles that affect possible extremes in climate.
Because droughts result in cumulative extended days without precipitation, precise determination of the beginning and ending of drought is difficult to define and so we look to our expert witnesses to help us understand that a little bit more. You will each have five minutes and then we will go through a series of questioning with each member of the panel having five minutes so I will assure you you will have opportunity to expand on your ideas but given the fact we have six people testifying we would hope you would keep an eye on the clock. And with that, Mr. Eubank, would you begin your testimony.
Mr. EUBANK. Congressman, we will do anything you want. It might fit logic a little better if Dr. Potter went first to set the stage, but any way you want.
Mr. CANNON. That would just be fine.
Dr. Potter, if you would like to begin, that would be great.
STATEMENT OF DR. THOMAS D. POTTER, DIRECTOR, NOAA COOPERATIVE INSTITUTE FOR REGIONAL PREDICTION, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH; FORMER DIRECTOR, WESTERN REGION, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE, NOAA
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Dr. POTTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to give a brief summary of my written remarks.
Drought originates as a deficiency in precipitation over an extended period compared to the long-term average. There are some 120 different definitions but it still originates as a deficiency in precipitation over this extended period. It is a common recurring feature of climate but it's a temporary feature that's distinct from aridity which is a permanent feature. In Utah, the West Desert is arid and the rest of the state can and does have a drought over certain periods.
Drought is measured by the amounts of rainfall, snowpack, streamflows, and other water indicators compared to the averages.
There are lots of data points here. In order to simplify the analysis of these thousands of bits of data, climatologists have devised indexes where a single number represents all the data in one reasonably easily understood value showing the severity and duration of a drought.
There's several different drought indices but I am going to talk about only two. The first is the Palmer Drought Severity Index first devised in 1965 and since used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and others. Figure 1 shows a series of the PDSI calculated back to 1895 for the Wasatch Front. The colors in red are the drought periods. It starts over on the left. Mike, can you perhaps move that up so they can see a scale. Maybe they won't—There it is. The top scale starts in 1895 and the second one runs from—I can't see it very well here—but I think it is 1920 and so forth. They're 25 year blocks. All the red blocks are droughts. You can see in the 1930's the extended drought, in the 1950's as well, and the 1980's.
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The next slide is an example of the second standardized—is the Standardized Precipitation Index. That picks up drought much quicker than the PDSI by several months. You can see in the Southwest United States the reddish-orange colors in Southern Utah and Southern California, and other places, and the brown over most of Utah as well, showing that there are very severe drought problems.
A common question is how does the current drought compare to the past droughts. Weather instruments have been deployed for about a hundred years or more, so we have these PDSIs, as I showed in the first one, for back to 1895. Figure 3 shows similar data for Northern California. Those will not match up exactly with those in the first one that I showed for Utah because it is in a different location but it does show that even a reasonably wet place like some parts of Northern California do have very severe droughts as indicated there.
Beyond the instrumented period, beyond a hundred years or so, climatologists used proxy paleoclimate data from tree rings, lake and dune sediments, and historic and archaeological records. Tree ring data for west-central Utah as shown from the period 1700 to 1978 in Figure 4, that's the top, and it just shows that there are several periods of very severe droughts. These kinds of paleo data can be extended well back into the 10,000-year period and it shows that even more extreme droughts of greater length have occurred in the distant past. Since these extreme long-lasting droughts have occurred in the past, it is reasonable to assume that they may occur in the future as well.
Speaking of the future, global climate change is one of the main scientific issues of our time, and the relationship of drought to climate change is a significant issue for this committee. Global climate models show increased greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane will increase the Earth's temperatures in the 21st Century. It will also bring increased precipitation in the high latitudes and less in the low latitudes. Some of these modelers speculate that in between, in the mid-continent regions, droughts may become more frequent and more severe. But at this time the models are not accurate enough to really specify that so we can't be sure whether future droughts in the western United States will be more severe and longer or that they will occur more frequently.
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Let me turn now to the current drought situation. The next slide—this shows the Palmer Index ending on the 25th of May. You can see that almost all of the southwestern part of the United States is in the brown or yellow shades and the brown shade that's in Southern California—it's a little difficult to see the colors here—indicates that they are in severe drought and certain of the areas are in extreme drought and all the rest of Utah is in at least severe drought.
The next slide shows the stream flow and the color pattern is the oranger or redder the more, the lower the stream flow averages. The orange color is less than 50 percent of the average and so almost all the streams in all of Utah are less than 50 percent of the normal stream flow. This is a projection for this coming summer.
The next slide and the last slide—this shows the Drought Monitor Map from the National Drought Monitoring Center, where Dr. Hayes and my colleague, the director Dr. Don Willheiser. It also shows the similar picture. Throughout all of the southwestern United States there are droughts that will impact agriculture. The three main categories they are listing here are agriculture, water resources, and fire danger. That concludes my remarks, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Potter follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THOMAS D. POTTER
Thank you Mr. Chairman. My name is Tom Potter. I'm a Research Professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Utah and Director of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction. Our institute specializes in mountain meteorology and includes research on predictions at all time scales. For the past seven years, we have concentrated on the development of short-range predictions for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. I'm very pleased to report that the weather support to the 2002 Winter Games in the Salt Lake City area was very successful, provided by a unique team from the public, private, and academic sectors.
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Since we have concentrated on short-range predictions in the past seven years, I sought out the best source of reliable information on drought at the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) located at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, whose Director is a long-time colleague of mine, Professor Donald Wilhite. Much of the material I will present today came from the NDMC and some other material from Professor Don Jensen, the Utah State Climatologist at Utah State University.
Drought originates as a deficiency in precipitation over an extended period, compared to the long-term average. It is a common, recurring feature of climate, but drought is a temporary phenomenon, distinct from aridity which is a permanent condition. Drought has been termed a ''Creeping Phenomenon'' because it is difficult to detect, either the onset or the end of a drought. It is extremely difficult to predict either the length or the severity of droughts.
Drought is measured by the amounts of rainfall, snowpack, streamflows, and other water supply indicators compared to the averages. Since these parameters vary from one location to another, especially in the mountains, data is required from many locations to determine the presence of a drought. To simplify the analysis of these thousands of bits of data, climatologists have devised drought indices, where a single number represents all of the data in one easily understood value showing the severity and duration of a drought.
There are several different drought indices, but I will discuss only the two main indices. First is the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) first devised in 1965, and since then it has been used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and others. A time series of the PDSI has been calculated back to 1895 and is shown in Figure 1 for the Wasatch Front. Prominent droughts during several periods are clearly visible. The second major index is called the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), first devised in 1993 by Tom McKee at Colorado State University, which identifies droughts many months before the PDSI. Further, it can be computed over various time scales which are appropriate for different economic effects such as agriculture or water supplies. An example of the SPI for a 4-month period through 30 April 2002 is shown in Figure 2.
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A common question is ''How does the current drought compare to past droughts?'' Weather instruments have been deployed for more than 100 years, so past data are available to determine the severity and length of droughts, as shown previously in Figure 1, depicting the PDSI for the Wasatch Front from 1895–2000. Figure 3 shows similar data for northern California. Beyond the instrumented period, climatologists use proxy paleoclimate data from tree rings, lake and dune sediments, and historical and archaeological records dating back thousands of years. Tree ring data for west-central Utah during the period 1700–1978 are shown in Figure 4. The most severe droughts in this period occurred about 1730, 1815, and in the 1930s. Other paleoclimate data exist for much longer periods, and they show that even more extreme droughts of greater length have occurred in the distant past. According to archaeologists, such extreme droughts very likely were a major cause of the demise of the Anasazi and Mayan cultures. Since these extreme, long-lasting droughts have occurred in the past, it is reasonable to assume that they may occur in the future, too.
Global climate change is one of the main scientific issues of our time, and the relationship of drought to climate change is a significant issue for this committee. Global climate models show that the increased greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane will increase the Earth's temperature in the 21st Century. It will also bring increased precipitation in the high latitudes and less in the low latitudes. Some modelers speculate, that in mid-latitude continental regions, droughts may become more severe and longer lasting. However, these models cannot yet determine accurately the regional effects on climate nor whether extreme events like droughts will occur more often. At this time, we cannot be sure whether future droughts in the Western United States will be more severe and longer or that they will occur more frequently.
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Let me turn now to the current drought situation in Utah and the other Western States. Figure 2 is the 4-month Standardized Precipitation Index which shows that over this period it has been extremely dry over southeast Utah and very dry over the remainder of the State, while southern California, western Arizona, and the southernmost part of Nevada have been extremely dry. Figure 5 shows the current Palmer Drought Severity Index through 25 May 2002. The southeastern part of Utah is in extreme drought, while the western half is in a severe drought; only the northeastern part of Utah is in a near normal condition. Southern California and most of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado also are in an extreme drought.
The projected summer streamflows are shown in Figure 6, with nearly all of the streamflows in Utah below 50 percent of the long-term average streamflow. The western part of Colorado and parts of Wyoming and New Mexico also will have very low streamflows, all resulting from the very low mountain snowpacks which exist this year. The U.S. Drought Monitor map for May 28 shows that nearly all of Utah is in either extreme or severe drought or abnormally dry. Other Western States as depicted. Most of these areas have drought impacts in agriculture, water resources, and wildfire danger areas.
Mr. Chairman, this completes my presentation. I am prepared to answer questions about my presentation and related drought matters.
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BIOGRAPHY FOR THOMAS D. POTTER
825 Juniper Point Court, Salt Lake City, Utah 84103; Phone: 801–595–6953; E-mail: tpotter@aros.net
EXPERIENCE
51 years experience in the application of atmospheric and hydrological sciences and technologies for the protection of life and property, enhancing the national economy, and benefiting private companies;
Extensive experience (30 years) as a senior manager of large operational agencies;
Expert experience in field operations of modern, complex environmental technology systems;
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Expert experience in management of organizational change, including technological training;
JOBS HELD
Professor of Meteorology, University of Utah, and Director of NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction; Weather Coordinator for 2002 Winter Olympics—August 1998–Present
Regional Director for Western Region 1989–1998
National Weather Service (NWS)
Responsible for providing 24-hour per day weather and water services to the public and other customers in the eight western states of the U.S.;
Responsible for the deployment and operation of modern Doppler weather radars, Automated Surface Observing Systems, Advanced Weather Interactive Processing Systems, and modern telecommunication systems while maintaining full operational capabilities of the old systems;
Transformed the work force through training and motivation to a fully professional workforce capable of effectively operating the completely new technologies and using advanced scientific capabilities—providing better weather services to customers with fewer people.
Director of World Weather Watch (WWW) 1987–1989
World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Geneva, Switzerland
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Provided consulting advice to 161 member nations on the full range of real-time weather operations: observing, telecommunications, numerical weather prediction centers, instrumentation, aviation and marine meteorology, tropical meteorology (hurricanes and typhoons), satellite meteorology, and data processing activities;
Developed and disseminated standards on real-time weather operations to all member nations, including computer systems;
Following Chernobyl nuclear accident, developed use of WMO Global Telecommunications System to warn all members of the United Nations within 15 minutes of any nuclear accident occurring anywhere in the world. Tests of system gave warnings within five minutes.
Director of WMO World Climate Programme (WCP) 1982–1986
Led WMO efforts to create a new World Climate Programme, providing advice on climate applications to 161 member nations, with emphasis on food, energy, water, & transportation;
Developed CLICOM program to provide donated computers to meteorological services in developing countries, along with training and consulting advice on their use;
Developed a biennial publication (Global Climate System) which reviewed all aspects of climate variations and applications. Used extensively by member nations and by universities;
Developed application programs in agriculture, energy (both renewable energy and energy sources affected by climate such as hydroelectric power), water (flooding and water resources);
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Conceived, planned and implemented first international conference on the role of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in global climate changes (Villach, Austria, 1985).
Director and Deputy Director 1977–1981
Environmental Data and Information Services (EDIS)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Provided national environmental data and information to wide variety of commercial and industrial firms, lawyers, engineers, scientists, and to the public;
Managed EDIS, including five national data and information centers: National Climatic Center, National Oceanographic Data Center, National Geophysical Data Center, The Center for Experimental Design and Data Analysis, and the Center for Environmental Impact Assessments;
Modernized computer systems improving productivity and overall capabilities.
Director 1975–1976
NOAA National Climatic Center (NCC)
Provided climate data and information to wide variety of commercial firms and industries, lawyers, engineers, and scientists;
Managed all aspects of NCC, including daily operations, computer systems, telecommunications, data archival systems, personnel, budget and customer relations.
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Associate Professor 1974–1975
St. Louis University
Taught graduate and undergraduate courses in atmospheric sciences;
Did research in atmospheric sciences including mesoscale meteorology, applied climatology, and cloud pattern recognition techniques using satellite imagery.
Vice Commander (1972–1974) & Other Positions (1951–1971)
Air Weather Service (AWS), United States Air Force
Directed activities of a 10,000 person organization operating 24-hours per day at 310 locations in the free world providing operational weather and space environment support to U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and national intelligence agencies;
Provided weather and space environment support to highest priority national defense programs;
Commanded USAF Environmental Technical Applications Center, providing consulting advice on wide variety of applications of environmental sciences to defense problems.
EDUCATION
BA in Math 1951, BS in Meteorology 1954, MS in Meteorology 1956: U. of Washington (Seattle);
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Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences 1962 from Penn State University;
Diploma from Industrial College of Armed Forces (Management) 1960;
Diploma from Harvard University Advanced Management Program 1971.
AWARDS
Presidential Meritorious Executive Award for ''Sustained superior accomplishment in management of programs of the United States government;''
Penn State University Alumni Fellow, the highest award for professional achievements;
Fellow of the American Meteorological Society;
Sequoyah Fellow of American Indian Science & Engineering Society;
Member of Sigma Xi (Scientific Research Honorary Society);
U.S.A.F. Legion of Merit, two Meritorious Service Medals, and two Commendation Medals;
NOAA Administrator's Award.
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Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Dr. Potter.
Mr. Eubank.
STATEMENT OF MARK EUBANK, METEOROLOGIST WITH CHANNEL 5, KSL TV, UTAH; PAST PRESIDENT, UTAH METEOROLOGICAL ASSOCIATION; ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, WESTMINSTER COLLEGE
Mr. EUBANK. First of all, thank you for the privilege of being here and having a chance to address this group.
Let me say that it's my goal to speak in a unified voice for all the meteorologists in Utah. There is something I think your group needs to know and that is that the data that's used for predicting the weather is put out by the National Weather Service, part of the Department of Commerce. It is their tools that make this country work. Now, there's a big private sector and I am part of that with the television group. We're just the face. We are the face of dissemination but it's those tools, the Doppler radar, the satellites, the computer modeling that government supplies and puts out for the people that makes this thing work. I think that's important.
I have divided my remarks into two parts, the short-term prediction and the long-term prediction. For a short-term prediction you have to monitor, you have to know what's going on, and the two basic things with droughts, especially in the west, is rainfall and snow. In the East it doesn't make a huge difference how much snow you get, it's the rain for the year, but in the west it's our cold season snow. If we don't get it, that hurts us badly. So rainfall, snow water, snow depth, temperature, soil moisture, reservoir levels and well levels. If you can monitor that, then you can know what the short-term is going to do.
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In Utah, in our mountains, there are 143 sites that measure the snow. Sixty of those are still done manually. They have to have snowmobiles or helicopters, you have manpower expenses, you have equipment expense, and, why? Because we have never funded the automatic—we haven't finished funding the automatic equipment. Automatic equipment for the other 83 stations sends it back here every 15 minutes and we get reports back to the computers anywhere in the state or anywhere in the country via the Internet.
The other problem is the soil moisture. You can have a big snowpack but if your soil, like a sponge, is dry—whoosh—a lot of it goes into the soil rather than run off. Out of the 143 sites, only six have soil moisture probes. And that's a crime. We need to fix that and that's something that this Science Committee, you need to be aware of, that all the western states need to better monitor the soil moisture conditions.
When you get right into the actual predictions, there are models that measure the—they can predict the snow melt runoff. The timing of the storms, even though we get little storms in the west, if they come at about a week or 10-day intervals, then the crops can survive. If you go 30 days and then you have a cloudburst, it's almost wasted. And so being able to predict the timing, or you can better control the timing, would be the best thing.
The Climate Prediction Center issues 30- and 90-day outlooks and they are fairly accurate. They do a good job of helping us on that 30- and 90-day time scale. Okay. That's short-term. Long-term—on a long-term national and global scale, the two huge things are temperature and rainfall—temperature and precipitation. You need to monitor those. And actually the world does a pretty good job of doing that. There are huge variables that come up that make a big difference.
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Let me give you an example: ENSO, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. They measure the pressure between Darwin, Australia and Tahiti. As it goes back and forth the weather somehow correlates to that. There's another one called the North Atlantic Oscillation between Iceland and Lisbon, Portugal.
The pressure bounces back and forth and the weather in the Atlantic and Eastern United States and Europe seems to correlate to that. There are sea surface temperatures that I think vastly affect weather conditions. There's a thing called a quasi-biennial oscillation; way up in the stratosphere every 2.2 years, the wind directions reverse. The South Africans have discovered a major correlation to their droughts and the direction of those upper winds. Then there's the sun's magnetic cycles; there's a 22-year cycle called the HALE cycle and the U.S. droughts are fairly highly correlated to that magnetic cycle on the sun. And there are probably many others.
Predictions. Long-term predictions in this country come from the Climate Prediction Center. They do 90-day forecasts out for a year. You know what? They don't work very well. They work quite well in the tropics because the major input is El Niño and the Atlantic Oscillation. And that helps the tropics really well but it just leaves us gasping for more in the mid-latitudes.
I would like to suggest that there are some brilliant people in this country who we haven't tapped into. Always before we turned to government or perhaps academia, but the private sector, there's some pretty smart people, and I would like to just make a proposal if it is appropriate. I would suggest that a contest be held involving academia, reliable or established private sector, and then maybe other groups as well. Maybe even some seed money, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars seed money be provided for up to twenty groups like this with a prize at the end, something—a million dollars and a 20-year patent on their technique. I think if that were to be put into effect, like the pharmaceutical industry does, I think you could get some thinking out of the box, some ideas, you would have to have a certain level of accuracy. It would have to be like 80 percent or better or there is no prize. But I think if that were to be considered, or battered around, or put together by a great committee, I think some new ideas would come forth.
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Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Eubank follows:]
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Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Eubank. Your idea of a contest reminds me of the prize that was established by the French government for someone, for determining longitude that actually precipitated a great deal of innovation. At this point in time I'll—We'll go down the aisle to my left and start with Mr. Matheson and allow people to ask questions to you.
Discussion
Predicting Drought Patterns
Mr. MATHESON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Potter, currently the Federal Government is investing significant amounts of money on climate change research. I was wondering how much application of this research is currently structured, how much of this research do you think gives us an understanding of patterns of drought?
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Dr. POTTER. Well, I think the research is basic research generally and but it is applied to some extent by groups like the Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, and in other places. As Mark said, the capability of making accurate long range forecasts is simply not available within the overall scientific community right now but significant progress has been made over the last 20 years in understanding ENSO, the El Niño and La Niña, and many other aspects of the relationship of the ocean to weather patterns in the North Pacific and in the North Atlantic, and so on.
So I think that steady progress is being made and I would certainly advocate that funds continue to be supplied to do that. I don't think that there is an immediate solution on the horizon in the next year, or two years, or perhaps even in the next 10 years, but I think progress is being made steadily.
Mr. MATHESON. Is there any new technology that's being tested or research pads for new technology that we could try to pursue that would help us get better tools for predicting drought further in advance when it happens?
Dr. POTTER. Other than the general kind of research that's going on now and improving the general climate models, they are getting better all the time in explaining past climates and in shorter term predictions, I don't know of any concentrated effort that is being applied to the prediction of drought by itself.
Mr. MATHESON. Mark, did you——
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Mr. EUBANK. I am aware of one group that happens to be here in Utah that is doing a pattern recognition. Now, that's in a very simplified form, but the CIA has used it to do lie detection by monitoring those brain waves and recognizing patterns. It seems to me something like that might be more applicable or as applicable to weather than we have been using.
Mr. MATHESON. Again, Mark, you mentioned the issue with the sensors and how only six are soil sensors. I assume from those comments we might have some better predictive capability if we invested in that infrastructure, in snow sensors, and moisture sensors, if we were able to fully implement that type of situation in the west that might give us a little better predictive capability in your opinion?
Mr. EUBANK. Yes, and that's a step in the short-term. I think what happens now, if you have some people that are absolute experts, they've been here for so long they have a feel for it, but when they're gone, their juniors, you're much better off to use some rigorous data than just have it all up in your head, and that's what these tools will do.
Mr. MATHESON. And if you are a spokesman communicating to the public issues such as drought—and you mentioned in your opening statement that a lot of your data comes from government sources—are the Federal agencies providing you with the necessary information you need to effectively communicate these issues to the public?
Mr. EUBANK. In the past, I couldn't have told you yes, but today I can tell you yes. I think the information age, the Internet has opened up those government data sets to everybody. And I find that to be extremely healthy. So the answer today is yes.
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Mr. MATHESON. Could there be, in terms of coordination are there, do you have any suggestions for what we could be doing better in that regard?
Mr. EUBANK. No, I think the forums, though, forums like this, or perhaps even more scientific, with an open mind just let the ideas come and not just bottleneck them because they're not rigorous. Let everything happen and just go off and work on those kinds of projects. I think that is a healthy thing to do.
Mr. MATHESON. As you probably know, this Committee has jurisdiction over the National Science Foundation and we know there's a lot of efforts for investment in government research and so do you have a sense of where we could go with research to provide additional tools that would help in your department in developing predictive capability?
Mr. EUBANK. Not a specific recommendation, Congressman.
Mr. MATHESON. The pattern of recognition maybe you mentioned earlier?
Mr. EUBANK. As Dr. Potter said, it's a tough problem. If it was easy, it would have been solved years ago. It's a very, very complex problem but I still think it's possible. I am firm believer that we can make long range weather predictions a year or more accurately, especially with droughts.
Mr. MATHESON. Thank you, Mr. Eubanks.
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Mr. CANNON. Thank you. Does the young lady from California wish to ask questions?
Ms. WOOLSEY. No. I just came to listen. Is this on?
Mr. CANNON. It should be on.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Matheson, for inviting me. This guy has talked about what's going on here, it is getting dull, as a matter of fact, he talks about it so much. He cares so much about what's happening with the drought in this area. Just to put some of this in context for you, from where I come from. I have this in big large print right here in my district. I represent the district just north of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge. So that tells you who I am and who they are, and a bit different from maybe who all of you are.
The Administration's Climate Change Policy and Its Effect on Drought
Today in The San Francisco Chronicle, I'm reading the paper on the airplane, the headlines say, ''Bush Climate Plan says Adapt to the Inevitable.'' So now my question to both of you will be, and I'm going to read a little bit about what he says, but as I'm reading it, I'll get you prepared. Thinking outside the box, do we only have to adapt or can we do some prevention? And is adapting the only way we're going to do this? That the people in Utah are going to be able this year to flush their toilet every other day, next year every fourth day, or whenever? Or are we going to be able to do something about global warming? So it says, this report says that: ''The United States will be substantially changed in the next few decades. In spite of that,'' and the report goes on. It says: ''Very likely seeing the disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more cycling heatwaves, and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes, for example.''
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It is not proposed—the report does not propose any major shift to the Administration's policy on greenhouse gases. Instead, it recommends adapting to inevitable changes instead of making rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gases to limit global warming.
First, Mr. Eubank, could you respond in your history. What do you think we he should be doing about this?
Mr. EUBANK. You've asked a hard question.
Ms. WOOLSEY. I know I have, but it's got to be asked or you aren't going to be able to flush your toilets ever.
Mr. EUBANK. In my opinion, in the short-term, we have to adapt, but I think that's the wrong answer for long-term. I really believe that there has to be a way, I just intuitively believe that there is a way to figure this out. But it is not here now and won't be, as Dr. Potter says, in the next few years. So adapting is the only way to survive.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Short-term. Okay. Dr. Potter, do you want to take a whack at maybe long-term?
Dr. POTTER. Well, in the long-term I think Mark Eubank is correct that there are good possibilies of some reasonable solution. There's much work going on about the sequestration of carbon dioxide in various forms deep in the ocean, and so forth. There are many schemes, engineering kinds of schemes under way that look—I don't know of any that has a magic solution that can be applied next year and they will be quite expensive, but it seems to me, compared to the trillions of dollars that are involved in the international economies, that some of that money should be put to those kinds of solutions.
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I think that better predictive capability is also important. I hark back to the 1997 El Niño when in contrast to some of the earlier predictions the Climate Prediction Center did a very good job in alerting all of the citizens, particularly of middle and Southern California about the upcoming El Niño, and floods, and mud slides, and all of the other kinds of terrible activities that took place. And many of the communities that we visited, and others visited from the National Weather Service, out in California were able to take measures to protect themselves, to clean out the storm drains, and make sure that they were not going to have a whole lot of debris collecting in there that would aggravate the floods, and so forth. So I think that both the engineering solutions and better scientific understanding and better predictive capability can do a lot toward helping us in the long run.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, thank you. But, actually, I live there.
Dr. POTTER. Yeah.
Ms. WOOLSEY. And it was the first time in history houses slid down hills that had been stable forever. There was no way to predict that that was going to happen.
Dr. POTTER. That's quite true. There are many activities like that. But there are other activities where the warning was out. Now, there is not much that one can do about protecting a million dollar-plus house that's sitting on the edge of a——
Ms. WOOLSEY. These are little cabins they aren't——
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Dr. POTTER. Okay.
Ms. WOOLSEY. They are not outrageous—I know coming from my area you could think that.
Dr. POTTER. Some on the east side——
Ms. WOOLSEY. But these are just very, very little houses.
Dr. POTTER Yeah.
Ms. WOOLSEY. And the prevention now, we have raised a lot on the Russian River that's in my district, we've raised the homes that wanted to be raised. So that the next time it floods, you know, it doesn't serve a flood, but it's the increase that I want to prevent. And I thank you for thinking about it. I think that's where part of our energy and a lot of our thinking must go. And you are a scientist and you're an expert, and Mr. Eubank, thank you very much.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Baird, would you like to ask questions?
Mr. BAIRD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for your leadership on this and it's a pleasure to serve with you on the Amphetamine Caucus as well, and my good friend, Jim Matheson, as well as who is tremendously focused on this problem and a champion of issues related to Utah, in the Congress and it's a privilege to serve with them. It's also fun for me to be back as a graduate of the University of Utah and remember seeing Mark on TV when I say that.
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Mr. CANNON. As a fact of the matter, we like you to be part of our delegation. That's a standard invitation. I speak for Jim, Jim Hansen I believe, also I hope Jim Matheson.
Mr. BAIRD. I take that as a compliment. Thank you very much.
Accuracy of Drought Prediction
How accurate are we in the sense of, if you look over say the last 10 years, assuming we have been getting better, what percentage of the time are we within what percent of our prediction? How does that compare with the predicted for the norm and standard deviation?
Mr. EUBANK. That's a tough one to answer.
Mr. BAIRD. Yes. Sorry.
Mr. EUBANK. In the—I think that the Climate Mitigation discussion may get into some of those details but right now the prediction tries to go into one of three categories: Near normal, above normal, and below normal. And even at that, I don't know the exact number, but I would suspect it's somewhere between 50 and 60 percent accurate and that's not good enough but that's just my opinion.
Dr. POTTER. I confirm that. The temperature predictions are somewhere around close to 60 percent, the precipitation is a little lower. If you talk to some of the long range forecasters, climate forecasters at the Climate Prediction Center, they will say that it's just barely over 50 percent. It isn't a lot but it is improved somewhat. There are certain other periods, such as when an El Niño sets in or a La Niña sets in, and the signals are much better, stronger than they are across the board. So in those periods they may be rising into the level of 60 or 65 percent and maybe even higher. But that doesn't happen all the time. And I agree with Mark, it's not good enough. It is a little better than it was 20 years ago, when we had no knowledge of the El Niño, La Niña and the rest. There are some figures available, I don't have them on the tip of my tongue or right here, but I can get them, about the statistical representation that you talked about.
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Mr. EUBANK. Let me add just one more comment. When an El Niño comes along, Southern California and Arizona and Southern Utah respond wet in the wintertime. That's recognized. Salt Lake City, during an El Niño year, half of those times it's really wet and half of those times it's really dry. So El Niño doesn't mean hardly anything for Salt Lake City. And that's what happens around the country. Some areas it responds and other areas it doesn't.
Mr. BAIRD. How in your experience, and this may be beyond your area of specialization and maybe others will comment on it, I want to follow on the theme I have just introduced, the predictability and accuracy of that. I am looking at this chart here and we have got a broad spectrum, some days, some years it's pretty wet and some years it's pretty dry. How does our urban planning or our agricultural planning take into account the frequency of drought? Do we tend to overly—and, again, this may not be your area, but are we overly optimistic? Do we plan for the wet years and hope we don't have dry years? Or how does that take into account just in urban planning or agricultural planning?
Mr. EUBANK. Well, in Utah, knowing that those deviations swing so big, most reservoirs for local consumption are designed to run at two-year capacity. And a two-year capacity doesn't mean it just has two years, it means that that cushion let's you get—well, we are already four years in, and we are skimping and we're being very careful and conserving but we are still getting by. So that mind set and that experience allows you to design water works to handle these situations and I think the water planners have done a marvelous job of that.
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Mr. BAIRD. So they are taking that into account?
Mr. EUBANK. They are.
Mr. BAIRD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
HALE Cycle
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Eubank, you talked about the HALE cycles, this 22 years which is predictable for America. I'm just wondering, looking at your chart we have given here, it looks like we had a lot of rainy years. Are we now on the bad side of that cycle or what does that look like for us?
Mr. EUBANK. Well, the HALE cycle is a double sun spot cycle and the spots kind of go about every ten and a half or eleven years, and we're just coming out of the peak of a sun spot cycle. That's the problem. You know is it a two-year deal? Is it a three-year deal? The average drought in Utah is between three and four years but we have gone as long as nine. So we never quite know exactly when the end is. We know we're in one, but all these different parameters still aren't good enough to predict the end.
Mr. CANNON. It seems that prior to the last three or four years we actually had lots of more than normal wet years.
Mr. EUBANK. Yes.
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Mr. CANNON. And it looks like the cycle is eight, nine or 10 years. Could we be in this thing another—based on just the HALE cycle, another three, four, or five years?
Mr. EUBANK. You say could we be in it that long?
Mr. CANNON. Yes.
Mr. EUBANK. It's possible. And no one knows. My opinion is we are probably within two years of coming out of it. That's just based on my experience of seeing the weather in this valley bounce up, and this state bounce up and down.
Mr. CANNON. You mentioned the two-year cycle that we've sort of lived off our reservoirs. Many of those are very low right now so we would want to conserve on them.
Mr. EUBANK. I think Deer Creek is the lowest it has ever been.
Mr. CANNON. Yes, I was quite surprised as I drove by there the other day.
Soil Moisture Monitoring
You talked earlier about temperature and precipitation, those are pretty easy to measure and, of course, soil monitoring is not nearly as successful and predicting what the ocean is going to do. Who does soil moisture monitoring and who pays for that and do we have a national program there?
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Mr. EUBANK. The Soil Conservation Service, the snow survey people. What's the Federal agency. Do you know, Tom? Is it National—it's NRSC, National——
Mr. CANNON. National Resource Conservation Service?
Mr. EUBANK. That's the Federal group and then locally they're the ones that monitor in Utah. I think every state in the west has that same agency.
Mr. CANNON. Do you know if that agency is available on line, by any chance?
Mr. EUBANK. Yes, it is. Absolutely, it is.
Mr. CANNON. Thank you.
Mr. EUBANK. We use it every day.
Mr. CANNON. Good. Did you have a comment?
Dr. POTTER. Yes. I think it's fair to say, though, that the number of places around the country where soil moisture is measured is woefully inadequate. I think most of the people in the agricultural side and the soils concept would say that. Soil characteristics vary a lot from one local place to another and just as snow pack in mountains, so you need a fair number of places where it's measured to get an adequate representation of what's going on.
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Remote Drought-Sensing Technologies
Mr. CANNON. Do you have any idea if there's any kind of remote sensing technology, whether it be the color of some kinds of plants might be indicative of the amount of moisture in different depths of soil? Is that going on so that we can reduce our costs of gathering that data?
Dr. POTTER. Yes, it's going on. NASA regularly does this and some of the operational Federal agencies also are involved in it, I believe the USDA and others are making maps, satellite maps of greenness indicators and they readily show across places as large as the whole United States, or across all of Africa, very clear indications of when the plants are being stressed and, hence, when drought is around.
Mr. EUBANK. That's primarily though the root zone. And this soil moisture that sucks the snow into the deep earth is at 20 inches or lower.
Mr. CANNON. That's why I asked. Are you focusing on some different kinds of—I take it you have deeper roots on different kinds of plants that might tell us real good answers.
Mr. EUBANK. I don't know the answer to that.
Mr. CANNON. A lot of these things possibly are in planning. I would love to see that kind of technology developed where we could get more data for less money.
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Paleo Climate Data
Dr. Potter, you talked about paleo data about 10,000 years. Can you give us a little more information about how much of this information is available by region in America and around the country based on paleo data.
Dr. POTTER. Yes. I'm certainly not an expert. Perhaps our colleague, Mike Hayes, probably can answer more, but there's a lot of data around from different sources, different groups, and mostly university groups, working on this paleo climate data and there are, in addition to the ones that I mentioned, there's ice core data from Greenland and from Antarctica that show some of it back tens and hundreds of thousands of years ago. So there's a fair amount of data available. The triggering data is really enough so that they can tell what the drought is year-by-year back for several hundred years to even thousands of years. Some of the bristlecone pine trees are 4,000 years old and by looking at them very carefully they can tell what the drought conditions and temperature conditions are every one of those years.
Mr. CANNON. And you do that, say, in Arizona where they've got bristlecone pines that've sat for a thousand years or more. Do you have any sense of how much this is done worldwide and whether there's a pool of data?
Dr. POTTER. I think there is a fair worldwide thing. I know that within Europe there are many centers looking at various aspects of ice cores and tree rings and other paleo data.
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Mr. CANNON. Thank you very much. Are there Any other questions from the panel? We appreciate you being with us today and giving the information available. And now we have our second panel.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CANNON. Yes.
Ms. WOOLSEY. May I enter this article.
Mr. CANNON. Without objection, it is so ordered.(see footnote 1)
Thank you, Dr. Potter, and Mr. Eubank.
Panel II
Mr. Morgan, Dr. Hayes, Mr. Leon Bowler, and Mr. Ovard have joined us. We appreciate that. While they are taking their seats, why don't I go ahead and introduce them. Our first witness will be Mr. Robert Morgan, who is the Executive Director of Utah Department of Natural Resources. Mr. Morgan has served in various positions in the Department of Natural Resources since 1970, in the Division of Water Rights and Water Resources. Prior to being employed as Executive Director by the Governor, Mr. Morgan served as State Engineer and was responsible for issues related to water distribution for the State as well as dam safety, stream alterations, and water well drilling. Mr. Morgan has a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Utah.
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Dr. Michael J. Hayes, is the Climate Impact Specialist at the National Drought Mitigation Center. Dr. Hayes joined the NDMC staff in July 1995. He previously worked briefly with the National Biological Service, studying the impact of weather on endangered prairie plant species. Dr. Hayes' research at the Center emphasizes the economic, environmental, and social impacts of drought, developing new drought monitoring and impact assessment methodologies. Dr. Hayes received a Ph.D. in 1994 from the University of Missouri-Columbia in Atmospheric Science, specializing in Agricultural Meteorology and Remote Sensing. So we will ask questions along those lines of you, Dr. Hayes.
Mr. Leon Bowler is a life-long resident of Utah's Dixie. Utah's Dixie includes all of the Southern Utah area, and this name originated from the fact that they raised cotton down in that area, like they did in the Dixie part of the United States. Mr. Bowler is a rancher and farmer. He operates a 300-head cattle ranch in Iron County on BLM land and 20,000 acres of private land and he also farms 1,000 acres.
Mr. David G. Ovard—welcome—is the General Manager of the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District in Utah, a position he has held for the past 13 years. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Provo River Water Users Association, Provo Reservoir Water Users Company, and the Bell Canyon Irrigation Company. Mr. Ovard has also served as President of the Utah Water Users Association and as Chairman of the Utah Association of Special Districts and of the Intermountain Section of the American Water Works Association. We welcome you and appreciate the experience you are willing to bring to bear on this.
And, Mr. Morgan, can we turn the time over to you for your testimony.
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STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT L. MORGAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UTAH DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
Mr. MORGAN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cannon. The entire State of Utah is experiencing drought conditions at the present time. The state-wide total reservoir storage is down from last year and is currently about 68 percent of normal. This year, 2002, is the fourth consecutive year of below normal water supply. Throughout the state, most municipalities have taken steps to ensure an adequate culinary water supply to meet current and future growth.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Morgan, could you move your microphone a little closer to you so we can hear more clearly.
Mr. MORGAN. Is that better?
Mr. CANNON. Not much. Is that microphone on? Where's our microphone specialist? Are those microphones movable or are they fixed to the desk?
Mr. MORGAN. They're fixed.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Ovard, does your microphone work?
Mr. OVARD. Yes, it does.
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Mr. CANNON. Would you mind just switching places and the Clerk can switch the cards.
Mr. MORGAN. We're going to have funny questioning here, figuring out who is who here.
Mr. CANNON. We apologize for the inconvenience. We'll start the clock over again for you, Mr. Morgan.
Mr. MORGAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. CANNON. Take your full time.
Mr. MORGAN. The entire State of Utah is experiencing drought conditions at the present time. State-wide total reservoir storage is down from last year and it's currently about 68 percent of normal. This year, 2002, is the fourth consecutive year of below normal water supply. Throughout the state most municipalities have taken steps to ensure an adequate culinary water supply to meet current and future water needs. Most communities will survive the drought years with minimal problems. Utah's agricultural sector is suffering the greatest impact of the drought. San Juan County and Southeastern Utah made a formal drought emergency declaration on March 11th.
On March 26th, the Navajo Nation made a drought emergency declaration. On April 24th, Governor Michael Leavitt signed an Executive Order declaring a State of Emergency and Statewide Agricultural Disaster exists throughout the State of Utah, and activated the state emergency operations plan. In the weeks that have followed, drought emergency declarations have been formally declared by twelve additional counties. The State Drought Relief Reporting Committee has met on a regular basis to be briefed on a statewide drought situation and discuss potential relief action.
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With the Governor's formal drought emergency declaration, the Drought Response Committee was activated. This committee meets regularly to discuss drought impacts and coordinate response action. Some of the recommended responses include funding and drilling of wells to secure adequate water supplies for fire suppression, trucking feed for cattle, and opening up the CRP lands for grazing. Action being taken by state agencies including the Division of Wildlife is expediting well permitting processes and allowing temporary water rights for drought related mitigation, the Board of Water Resources, the State Community Impact Board have low and no interest loans with priorities given to projects that address drought related water problems.
Dissemination of information regarding the drought situation and raising public awareness about the critical nature of Utah's water supply levels has been very effective. We appreciate the State Water Agencies working with local media to keep the general public aware of the drought situation. Even in normal years, Utah has a limited water supply. The second driest state in the Nation—and we must become more efficient in the use of our existing water supplies.
Governor Leavitt has initiated a statewide water conservation initiative, not only is this initiative a response to the current drought, but it will provide a legacy of intelligent water use for future generations. Water conservation will play a significant role in meeting the water needs of future generations. Utah has set a goal of reducing per capita water usage by 25 percent over the next 50 years. Governor Leavitt appointed the Governor's Water Conservation Team comprised of representatives of major water districts, state agencies, municipal water users, Envision Utah, and the green industry, and gave them the challenges of developing and coordinating statewide programs that would encourage water conservation.
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Communities have been asked to pass a time-of-day water ordinance of no watering lawns from 10 AM to 6 PM each day, and to develop a water conservation pricing schedule. In addition, a new State water conservation web page has been developed with helpful water conservation information.
Water conservation efforts have been most effective when incentives are in place to motivate the public to use the water more efficiently. The governor has directed the state water resource agencies to encourage incentive pricing to water users. The Division of Water Resources is providing technical information and help for water retailers to develop incentive pricing rate structures and has made this a requirement for receiving aid for water resource projects.
New landscape irrigation controls that apply only the necessary amount of water for landscape are greatly effective. It is predicted that these types of landscape irrigations can reduce the water use by 40 percent, if used correctly.
In Utah, our major water supply comes from melting snow. An accurate assessment of snowpack and other hydroclimatic variables is necessary to accurately predict water availability several months in advance. I would encourage this committee to look very seriously at those agencies that provide water information, particularly the USGS and stream gauging programs and the NRCS and their snow monitoring programs to see that this data is compiled. In previous years, the funding for these agencies has been, shall we say, stressful and we would encourage you to look at fully funding these agencies. Thank you.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Morgan follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT L. MORGAN
Utah's Water Situation 2002 and Beyond
Current Drought Situation
The entire State of Utah is experiencing drought conditions at the present time. For much of the state, snowpack is gone and streamflows that should be peaking now have fallen to drastically low levels. Statewide total reservoir storage is down 14 percent from last year and at about 75 percent of normal.
This year, 2002, is the fourth consecutive year of below normal water supply. Last year's drought was more severe in the northern portion of the state, while this year's conditions are much drier in the southern portion of the state. Southern Utah has, with its normally dry climate, less reservoir storage than is found in the northern part of the state. Consequently, southern Utah is more susceptible to the impacts of drought. While statewide precipitation for the past year is about 78 percent of average, areas in the southern portion of the state have received only 20 percent to 30 percent of normal precipitation.
Throughout the state most municipalities have taken steps to insure an adequate culinary water supply to meet future growth and projected water needs. These communities will survive the drought years with few problems. However, communities in southern Utah that rely on springs for their municipal water have marginal or inadequate water supplies. These communities are managing with outdoor water use restrictions. Utah's agricultural communities are suffering the greatest economic impacts from the drought. The agricultural industry operates with a smaller margin of error between supply and demand. Any shortage of agricultural water is keenly felt by agricultural producers.
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Drought Declarations
San Juan County, in southeastern Utah, made a formal Drought Emergency Declaration on March 11, 2002. The county requested assistance from the State of Utah and Federal agencies, including the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. On March 26, 2002, the Navajo Nation, also located in San Juan County, made a formal Drought Emergency Declaration appealing to county, State and Federal agencies for assistance.
On April 24, 2002 Governor Michael O. Leavitt of Utah signed an executive order (Attachment C) declaring that: a ''State of Emergency'' and ''Statewide Agricultural Disaster'' exists throughout the State of Utah, and activated the state emergency operations plan. In the weeks that have followed, drought emergency declarations have been formally declared by the following counties: Iron, Piute, Grand, Washington, Carbon, Millard, Kane, Wayne, Daggett, Emery, Duchesne and Uintah. A complete chronological list of the counties' declarations and requests for assistance is included as Attachment A to this document.
Another important issue is the possibility of disastrous wildfire in the watersheds. These fires would not only have and effect in this year but for years to come in the changing of the hydrologic characteristic of the watersheds leading to decreased water supplies.
Response and Mitigation Efforts
Prior to the Governor's formal Drought Emergency Declaration, the State Drought Response Plan was already in operation. The State Drought Review and Reporting Committee has met on a regular basis, since last summer, to be briefed on the statewide drought situation and discuss potential relief actions. With the Governor's formal drought emergency declaration, the Drought Response Committee was activated. This committee meets regularly to discuss drought impacts and coordinate response action.
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A drought committee meeting was held in Monticello, Utah, on May 13, 2002, to discuss possible mitigation and response measures that could be taken to reduce the impacts of the drought for San Juan County. In attendance at the meeting were representatives from Federal, State and local government agencies as well as representatives from the local farming, ranching, banking, real estate, commercial and industrial sectors. Some of the mitigation measures discussed at the meeting include: funding and drilling of wells to secure adequate water supplies for fire suppression, trucking in feed for cattle, and the opening up of Conservation Reserve Program Lands (CRP) for grazing.
The Farm Service Agency representative spoke at the meeting about their efforts to secure a temporary allowance of grazing on the Conservation Reserve Program lands. It was agreed by all present that such action would help mitigate the impacts the drought has had, and will continue to have, on the availability of feed for livestock. It was pointed out, however, the decision to allow grazing on CRP lands is not made locally. Since that meeting, the Farm Service has lifted grazing restrictions on CRP lands in the San Juan County. It would be helpful if this grazing variance were expanded to include the other southern Utah counties that also face severe drought conditions.
To help reduce the impacts of the drought, state agencies are taking actions. The Division of Water Rights is prepared to expedite the well permitting process and approval of temporary water rights for drought-related mitigation. The Board of Water Resources has low and no interest loans and will give priority to projects that address drought related water problems. The State's Community Impact Board has also gone on record to give preferential consideration and priority status to projects that include drought mitigation.
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Dissemination of information regarding the drought situation and raising public awareness about the critical nature of Utah's water supply levels has been effective. The state and other water agencies have worked with the local news media (television, newspapers and radio) to keep the general public aware of the drought situation and informed about ways the average citizen can help. Public response and support has been gratifying.
Long-term Water Supply Outlook
Even in normal years, Utah has a limited water supply. It is the second driest state in the Nation. Most of Utah is classified as a desert receiving less than 13 inches of annual precipitation. Fortunately, previous generations of Utahns provided for a sufficient water supply by constructing many water storage reservoirs along with the associated collection, transportation and distribution systems. Federal projects such as the Weber Basin, Central Utah and Joes Valley, along with local projects funded in part by the Utah Board of Water Resources and the Utah Drinking Water Board, have provided additional water as well as infrastructure replacement.
The Utah Division of Water Resources and the Utah Board of Water Resources have been directed by the Utah Legislature to plan for the future water needs of Utah. An integral part of this process has been the development of a State Water Plan. The overall plan is based on hydrologic river basin plans developed in cooperation with local water users, and local and State government agencies involved in water use and management. The plan identifies resources available, current usages and future demand based on estimates of population growth by the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget. The plan also identifies areas of water quality, instream use and recreation that need to be addressed.
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A significant finding of the Utah State Water Plan is that we must become more efficient with the use of its existing water supplies. In the residential sector, Utahns have the second highest water usage rate in the Nation, partly due to the desert environment and developed landscapes dependent on irrigation.
Now we face the need to provide for future generations. To do this Governor Leavitt has initiated a Statewide Water Conservation Initiative. Not only is the initiative a response to the current drought, it will provide a legacy of intelligent water use for future generations. Water conservation will play a significant role in meeting the water needs of future generations. Utah has set a goal of reducing per capita water usage by 25 percent over the next 50 years.
Governor's Water Conservation Team
Governor Leavitt appointed the ''Governors Water Conservation Team'' comprised of representatives from major water districts, state agencies, municipal water user organizations, Envision Utah, and the ''green'' industry and gave them the challenge to develop a coordinated statewide program that would encourage water conservation. The team in its second year of existence, funded a media campaign of television and radio ads, brochures and public presentations that provided information on the importance of using our water resources efficiently and tips on ways to conserve. Communities have been asked to pass a time-of-day water ordinance (no watering of lawns from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM each day), and to develop a water conservation pricing schedule. In addition, a new State of Utah water conservation web page www.conservewater.utah.gov has been developed with helpful water conservation information.
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Awareness and Education
It is one thing to realize more water is being used than is needed and another to know what to do about it. For example, studies show that automatic sprinkler systems are often initially set at the rate needed to meet the peak demand during July and August and left at this setting for the entire season. These systems could reduce water use by 40 percent to 50 percent if changes were made biweekly. Information on the amount of water and automatic timer settings is provided on the State of Utah water conservation web page and is being communicated on local television station's weather forecasts.
Incentive Pricing and Billing
Water conservation efforts have been most effective when incentives are in place to motivate the public to use water more efficiently. The Governor has directed the state water resource agencies to encourage incentive pricing to water users. The Division of Water Resources is responding by providing technical information and help for water retailers to develop incentive pricing water rate structures and has made this a requirement for receiving state aid for water resource projects.
Technologies
For many years the Board of Water Resources has provided low interest or no-interest loans to agricultural irrigation companies to improve water system efficiencies. These system improvements include canal lining, transmission and distribution pipelines, and sprinkler irrigation systems. The State of Utah intends to continue to participate in these types of endeavors to use advancing irrigation technology in the agricultural sector to increase water use efficiencies.
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In the municipal and industrial (M&I) sector, we need to encourage increasing water efficiency. New household appliances and plumbing fixtures use less water to accomplish the same tasks as older appliances and fixtures. New landscape irrigation controllers that apply only the necessary amount of water for landscapes have great potential. Two-thirds of M&I water use in Utah is for landscape irrigation, and local university horticulturists tell us the most common problems in Utah residential landscapes are connected to over-watering. We can reduce landscape irrigation water use by 40 percent if only the correct amount of water is applied.
In Utah, the majority of our water supply comes from melting snowpack. An accurate assessment of the snowpack and other hydroclimatic variables is necessary to accurately predict water availability several months in advance. In addition stream gauging is an important tool in assessing water supply availability. These activities have primarily been a responsibility of the Federal Government through the Natural Resource and Conservation Service and the United States Geological Survey and the State of Utah is very concerned that federal funding for these programs has not kept pace with the increasing costs of providing this vital information.
Conclusion
The State of Utah is committed to improving our water-use efficiency both in the agriculture industry as well as in the municipal and industrial sector. We believe we have implemented programs that will be successful in doing this in the long run.
Utah would like to see the Federal Government temporarily suspend the grazing restrictions on CRP lands and other federal lands that could provide relief to farmers and ranchers in Utah during the currant drought. Utah would also like to see the process for Federal drought financial aid be accelerated so as to meet the current needs in Utah's agricultural sector before it is too late. The Federal Government also needs to be prepared to aggressively suppress fires this summer in Utah that threaten our watersheds. In addition increased Federal funds need to be provided on an ongoing basis to adequately fund stream gauging and snowpack monitoring throughout the western states.
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Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Morgan. Why don't we go now down the panel, because we know this microphone works and so Mr. Bowler, if you would favor us with your testimony, it would be appreciated.
STATEMENT OF MR. R. LEON BOWLER, CATTLE RANCHER AND FARMER, SOUTHERN UTAH
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Mr. BOWLER. Thank you. I am Leon Bowler and I do live in Southern Utah. In fact, if you look at Dr. Potter's map up there, I live in that little part of Utah that was circled out as being in the extreme drought area.
I have the unique situation of having been in the livestock business for 70 years. My grandfather had a policy when the oldest child was born or the first child of each one of his children, he gave them a heifer calf, so I've been in the livestock business my whole life. I have never in my life seen anything in Southern Utah like this. I tried to look at the map to see if I could gauge that and I couldn't for sure. But I have never seen anything like this in my life.
My son and I now operate a ranching and cattle operation, as you have been told, where we have 20,000 acres of private property and that's a farm, we take care of all of our livestock with no problem. We, however, also have BLM rights in Utah and Nevada. Our ranching operation is involved in Northern Washington County and in Western Iron County. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past years in building water systems and trying to take care of water for our ranching and livestock programs. We find ourselves within the last year having to drill four additional wells deeper because the underground water has deteriorated to the point we have to go deeper to get that. We have spent thousands of dollars in piping water from springs and moving it around on our range so that we would be able to do a better job and more efficient job of taking care of the range and getting the use of the resources. This is the first time in history that I know of that some of the springs on that range have dried up as they have. A year ago we had a windmill—that in my history had never stopped pumping—that did, and we went in and purchased a solar system, and where we put the solar system down the well further and turned it on and got a great stream of water for five minutes and it quit. We then reduced the flow so that it fell to one gallon per minute and were able to water some of cattle with that well, but that had to be restricted in order to do that.
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In trying to find what I ought to say to this committee, I decided that I should contact as many of the ranchers and farmers in the area and talk to them about their situation and what they were going to do or what they thought they could do. In discussing it with one of the ranchers, let me tell you first it was very disheartening to do that, very discouraging to do that. The first farmer that I talked to said, ''I don't think there's anything that they can do for me.'' He said, ''I just think that I'm out of business.'' I said, ''Well, don't you think a low-cost loan program might help you?'' And he said, ''No, if the money were free I'm probably still going to be out of business.'' He said, ''I'm taking my cattle to the auction as fast as I can take them.'' The auction can only handle so many and everybody wants to go to the auction so they're selling at $400 a pair. If I could keep them for three months, the calves themselves under normal condition would bring me $500 a piece and I would still have the cows. But I can't keep them. They're on the verge of dying or are dying, so I have to do something with them.''
The next guy I talked to had a herd of about 400 head of cattle and he said, ''To this point I have had 21 head die. I'm feeding $400 a day with the hay and I'm losing money every day. If I sell my cattle today they will not pay what I owe on the cattle and I'll still have the mortgage on the farm.''
I have a neighbor who has a range, a nice pasture both to the north and south of me. He needed to move his cattle the other day through my pasture to get to his higher country where he thought he might have some more feed for his cows. I do know that he has been spending $200 a day on feeding the cattle in that pasture. And yet as he tried to move them from one pasture to the next, two of them died on my pasture because they didn't have the strength to go on through to get to the next pasture.
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I started, as I said, I have been in the cattle business all my life, but 20 years ago I determined that I wanted to build a special herd, a special herd of livestock that had characteristics and genetics that I wanted in my herd, and so hired some professional help and I began doing an artificial insemination program where I was getting certain genetics out of certain bulls across the United States and putting them into my herd to build them up to the point that some of the local cattle buyers have told me that that's the best looking herd of Black Angus cattle in the State of Utah. However, if I am forced to sell them at this point, or if they die, then that 20 years will be gone.
To give you an example of how dry it really is in Southern Utah, this year in the fall of the year, as we always do, we planted 250 acres of rye. Now, some people in our area consider rye as a weed because rye grows sometimes when it's not wanted and you can't hardly get rid of it. But it is a good early spring green crop for the cattle. So I planted the 250 acres last fall, expecting that this spring I would have that green feed. Usually you can always depend on some storm in the winter and very little storm will germinate rye.
This spring I have not seen one green shoot out of that rye. So, wondering if there was something else wrong, I had gone through that field on my hands and knees and dug up many, many of the seeds, and some of the seeds I find have sprouted and sprouted just barely, not enough to get through the ground, but just enough to show the seed was good and the seed would have grown had there been moisture. But I don't have a green stalk on that 250 acres that was planted last fall that should have germinated through the winter.
The big problem that cattlemen are facing in our area this year is that right now is the breeding season. They are not only going to be in trouble with what they have to do to survive this year but next year they are not going to have a calf crop, because the cattle are too poor to breed and they're not going to get a calf crop next year.
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I appreciate the opportunity to come and cry on your shoulders. I'll tell you, it was a disheartening program for me to gather this information because I knew how bad I felt but I had no idea how bad some of my neighbors felt. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bowler follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF R. LEON BOWLER
To Whom it may concern
The drought conditions that exist in South Western Utah today are the most severe that I have seen in my 70 years of living there. The negative impacts to the economy of this drought condition are very significant and could leave long-term deficiencies, especially in the farming and ranching industry.
In Washington and Iron Counties, there are 42,000 head of beef cattle that rely on range land pasture to support their feed needs. These range lands have not received sufficient precipitation over the last few months to sprout grass and feed for the cattle herds. As a result of the range land conditions, cattle grazing has been cut by at least 50 percent, and in some cases eliminated.
These conditions have forced cattle ranchers to explore other options which include buying high priced hay to feed their herds, look for pasture options in other regions, and selling the herds. The drought has caused local feed supplies to diminish and local feed prices to escalate to the point that buying feed for range cattle is not feasible. Pasture options in other regions is not feasible as well, due to the long freight distance and short length of stay. Selling off the herds is also not a feasible option. Due to the depressed prices in the cattle market, most ranchers would not be able to pay off the bills associated with their herds, and building future herds would be almost impossible.
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Many ranchers have already lost a significant number of cattle to death loss due to the drought conditions. Also, watering springs and wells have dried up, causing serious problems with cattle herds.
Water supply is at its all time low and most water reservoirs will be empty by the middle of June. Even the virgin river is running 20 percent of normal, with normal being defined as very slim this time of year.
The South Western part of Utah must be designated as a disaster relief area, and funds should be appropriated from Congress to address the extreme drought conditions that exist, especially for those in the farming and ranching industry.
Thank you.
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Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Bowler. We appreciate those candid and stirring remarks. I spend a lot of my time in that part of the state and it is one of the areas I call home. I haven't been back there very much recently, and your statements are startling reminders of the very difficult and personal cost that this drought is exacting. I appreciate your remarks.
I think, Dr. Hayes, that this microphone is not going to work. Would you tap it and we'll see if it will. We will proceed with Dr. Hayes and then Mr. Ovard.
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STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL J. HAYES, CLIMATE IMPACTS SPECIALIST, NATIONAL DROUGHT MITIGATION CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN
Dr. HAYES. My name is Michael Hayes, I am a Climate Impact Specialist, National Drought Mitigation Center. I appreciate this opportunity to speak before the Committee today on issues related to long-term water and drought planning.
As background, the National Drought Mitigation Center was formed at the University of Nebraska in 1995. The mission of the NDMC is to help people and institutions develop and implement measures to reduce or lessen long-term societal vulnerability to drought by proper planning and appropriate risk management techniques.
There are six of us at the National Drought Mitigation Center: the director; two additional scientists, including myself; and the staff people.
Drought has been a persistent feature, not only here in Utah but across the United States in the last couple of years. My first transparency shows some of the economic costs due to some of the recent droughts in particular areas of the country. Unfortunately, though, when you look at those costs, they are not complete and you won't see any costs from 2001 and 2002 on that list. This illustrates one of the challenges with drought and it is very difficult to quantify the impact due to drought, and that's because of the characteristics of drought. For example, you cannot quantify the problems, the chronic drought problems that, for example, are faced in Southern Utah right now. There is just no way to put a dollar amount onto those types of losses that these people are facing. FEMA, though, recently has estimated that the average annual losses caused by drought in the United States are between six and eight billion dollars. That's more than any other natural hazard. The recent drought events illustrate the country's vulnerability with drought and why we need to take a more risk management approach in dealing with drought to properly reduce some of these drought losses that we have across the U.S.
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One of the areas where we have been making progress with drought is in the monitoring arena. And Dr. Potter talked about that a little bit already this afternoon. Monitoring is very important because it tells you where we are, and where we might be going in dealing with the droughts. Another area where we have had a lot of success in recent years is in state drought planning.
My second transparency shows the status of drought planning by state across the United States as of May this year. In 1982, three states had drought plans in the United States. Now there are 33 states in the gray and the blue shades that have some kind of drought plan in the United States. In 1998, New Mexico took a very important step in developing their drought plan. They actually incorporated specific mitigation actions that the state could take when they were not in drought that would hopefully reduce their long-term impacts when faced by drought. Since then, six other states in the blue color there have also either revised their drought plans or developed a new plan that also incorporates these mitigation actions into their plans. The three states in red are in some stage of drought planning right now in trying to develop a state drought plan. California and Florida actually delegate their drought planning to local authorities.
And what we have seen on some of the most successes we have seen at NDMC in working with these states is when states take a two-tier approach, there's drought planning at the state level but also drought planning at the municipal and water supplier level. South Carolina and Kentucky are good examples of those, Texas as well. Rhode Island is developing their plan, are trying to incorporate this aspect into their plan. And then Utah has actually been trying to encourage counties to come up with drought mitigation plans that would coordinate with their state drought mitigation plan.
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We really encourage these efforts and the NDMC actually works with a lot of states that you see up there trying to collect lessons learned at each of these states as they go through drought and they plan and prepare for droughts and provide this information to other states as well as internationally.
The other areas where we have seen a lot of progress made in the drought planning arena of the United States is with the Native American tribes in Southwestern Utah. Right now the Hopi, Zuni and Navajo nations are at some stage of drought planning, so are a couple of other tribes in the southwest. They are getting assistance in drought planning efforts from the Bureau of Reclamation and they are also taking specific methodologies that have been adapted, developed by the the National Drought Mitigation Center and adapting them to their specific conditions and locations in order to develop a drought mitigation plan that would reduce their long-term impact from future droughts.
There are considerable challenges in trying to reduce the drought impacts in the future by taking the risk management approach. One of the biggest challenges I think that we face is making that paradigm shift from the crises management response-oriented mode in dealing with droughts to a more proactive risk management approach that emphasizes mitigation and preparedness.
So I think addressing this particular challenge, which Senator Domenici of New Mexico, and his colleagues in the Senate, and Representative Hastings of Florida, and several other Congressmen in the House, have introduced the National Drought Preparedness Act of 2002, a couple of weeks ago. This bill actually addresses the concept of risk management and looking at mitigation and preparedness in the United States on a national level.
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So the NDMC appreciates this committee should have a keen interest in this bill. One of the concerns NDMC has with the bill is scientists need to be the key component of membership of the proposed National Drought Council and a national drought policy needs to be based on clear scientific understanding of the issues and differing regional impacts and needs associated with drought in this country. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hayes follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. HAYES
Drought is a normal feature across almost the entire United States, including Hawaii and Alaska. In fact, since 1895, there has not been one year in which severe or extreme drought has not occurred somewhere in the U.S. During the last four years, since 1998, drought has occurred in every part of the country, except for a portion of the Upper Midwest. Parts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, and Hawaii experienced four consecutive years of drought from 1998 through 2001, the East Coast experienced a crippling drought in 1999, and the Northwest and northern Rockies faced a severe drought in 2001. In late May 2002, severe and extreme drought exists along portions of the East Coast and across most of the Rockies and High Plains from Montana to Arizona and Texas.
These recent drought events have illustrated the country's vulnerability to drought and the economic losses caused by the variety of drought-related impacts should be addressed through a systematic effort aimed at reducing the risks associated with extended drought. FEMA recently estimated that the annual losses caused by drought in the United States are $6–8 billion. The concept of identifying and implementing ''mitigation'' actions to reduce natural hazard impacts has long been an important component of emergency management. For droughts, however, incorporating mitigation into long-range planning efforts is a relatively new concept.
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The National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) was formed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1995. The mission of the NDMC is to help people and institutions develop and implement measures to reduce societal vulnerability to drought by stressing preparedness and risk management approaches. Drought mitigation defined by the NDMC are the actions and programs taken by decision-makers before a drought in order to reduce drought impacts from a future drought event. To accomplish the NDMC mission, one of the original actions of the NDMC was to develop a comprehensive drought information clearinghouse for drought-related issues on the World Wide Web (http://drought.unl.edu/ndmc). In 2001, the NDMC server received four million hits. Funding for the NDMC every year has been provided by a special grant through USDA/CSREES.
Along with the formation of the NDMC, there has been additional progress in drought risk management in recent years. One of the examples of progress has been made in the area of drought monitoring. Drought monitoring is the key to good drought planning because it provides answers to questions such as ''Where are we now?'' and ''Where are we going?'' that are necessary for planning and responding effectively to droughts. One of the monitoring ''success stories' is the collaboration and coordination provided by the weekly Drought Monitor product (http://drought.unl.edu/ndmc/dm). The Drought Monitor map is a weekly assessment of current drought conditions around the United States and is put together by a group of scientists at the Climate Prediction Center, the National Climatic Data Center, USDA, and the NDMC, as well as a group of approximately 150 local experts around the country.
Drought planning at the state level has also made progress in the past two decades. In 1982, three states (Colorado, South Dakota, and New York) had drought plans. Now, 33 states have drought plans, and several additional states are in the process of developing plans. In 1998, New Mexico took an important step of incorporating drought mitigation actions into the drought plan they were developing. Since then, several states have followed New Mexico's example and have revised their existing plans to incorporate mitigation (Nebraska, Utah, Montana, and Colorado) or have developed new plans that incorporate mitigation actions (Texas and Hawaii). There are numerous examples of successes that states have had in drought planning and reducing the impacts from drought events. All states, however, continue to search for more assistance and information on how to further reduce their drought impacts. The NDMC has worked with many states in various capacities to facilitate drought planning efforts and also documents these experiences for states and others.
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Another success story regarding drought planning has been the progress made by Native American tribes in developing drought mitigation plans in the southwestern U.S. The tribes that are currently in some stage of drought planning include the Hopi, Navajo, Zuni, Haulapi, and Paiute. With the assistance of the Bureau of Reclamation, and adapting specific methodologies developed by the NDMC, each of these plans incorporates mitigation actions in order to reduce the long-term drought impacts resulting from future droughts.
There are considerable challenges in trying to reduce drought impacts in the future by taking a more risk management approach. One of the biggest challenges is to continue to make a paradigm shift from the crisis management, response-oriented approach of drought management toward the more proactive risk management approach that includes mitigation and preparedness.
Addressing this particular challenge is the reason that Senator Domenici of New Mexico and several colleagues in the Senate and Representative Hastings of Florida and several colleagues in the House introduced the National Drought Preparedness Act of 2002. Some of the key provisions of the bill include: 1) creating a national drought policy; 2) improving the coordination and delivery of federal drought programs; 3) creating new tools for drought preparedness planning; and 4) improving drought monitoring and forecasting. The NDMC provided comments to the Western Governors' Association as WGA was assisting Senator Domenici in the development of this bill. Because of the potential interest in this bill by the House Committee on Science, it is important that Committee Members are aware of this bill. One of the concerns of the NDMC is that scientists are a key component of the membership of the proposed National Drought Council and that a national drought policy is based on a clear scientific understanding of the issues and differing regional impacts and needs.
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BIOGRAPHY FOR MICHAEL J. HAYES
Dr. Hayes joined the National Drought Mitigation Center in July 1995. He previously worked briefly with the National Biological Service, studying the impact of weather on endangered prairie plant species.
Responsibilities with the NDMC include conducting research on the economic, environmental, and social impacts of drought, developing new drought monitoring and impact assessment methodologies, helping develop the NDMC's website, developing a network of drought planners, helping organize and conduct workshops and conferences, writing reports, and more.
Education:
Ph.D. in 1994 from the University of Missouri-Columbia in Atmospheric Science, specializing in Agricultural Meteorology and Remote Sensing. Dissertation: Utilizing Satellite Data Within a Corn Production Assessment System for the United States Corn Belt.
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M.S. in 1989 from the University of Missouri-Columbia in Atmospheric Science, also specializing in Agricultural Meteorology and Remote Sensing.
B.S. in 1986 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Meteorology.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Ovard.
STATEMENT OF DAVID G. OVARD, GENERAL MANAGER, JORDAN VALLEY WATER CONSERVANCY DISTRICT
Mr. OVARD. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today. I am the General Manager of the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District in the State of Utah, serving 20 other entities on a wholesale basis in Salt Lake County. Our sources of supply are the following: Large subscribers for project water here in the state, major users of Provo River project water. You have substantial chlorides in the Provo and Weber Rivers, and we are also a major user of groundwater here in Salt Lake County.
I would just like to comment, thank goodness for the Central Utah Project. Without that project, which you may remember 20 years ago was quite controversial, people worried it was going to cost too much, and without the Central Utah Project water this year we would be in a major more dire situation than we are.
We find ourselves at present in Utah in the fourth year of the below normal precipitation. And the runoff from snow melt usually peaks at this time of the year and runs far into the summer. The runoff for the year is essentially over for most of the state. Reservoir levels are at historic lows. And you are correct, Deer Creek is at its lowest historic level since it was constructed in the 1930's. Groundwater levels are declining throughout the valley. Soil conditions are extremely dry. The cumulative effects of four years of drought have taken their toll, and it is very unlikely that we will be able to reverse our present situation in the near future.
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My greater concern, though, is for the long-term situation. Utah's population is projected to grow by 70 percent over the next 30 years. Over 80 percent of this will be natural increase; that is our own children and grandchildren. It is projected that this growth will require an additional water supply of about 500,000 acre-feet or 160 billion gallons of new water per year to meet this need. In Salt Lake County, the cheap and easy way to develop water is gone. Our efforts are being complicated and compounded by concerns for the environment and water quality. We are struggling to replace old and inefficient components of our infrastructure. And in light of events of September 11th, we are also being confronted with the need to provide security for our water resources and facilities. In this regard I wish to thank this committee and express appreciation for the efforts to authorize the funds for EPA to assist with vulnerability assessments for water utilities in the Nation.
Jordan Valley is pushing the envelope of developable water supply in areas never before contemplated in our area. We have pioneered the recharge of our principal groundwater aquifers through deep injection wells. We have partnered with Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation and the State of Utah to reclaim groundwater contaminated by past mining activities. We are conducting research and pilot studies to convert lower quality agriculture waters to municipal standards through membrane filtration and reverse osmosis processes. We are modeling and implementing treatment processes to maximize the quality and quantity of surface waters. We have installed biological toxicity monitoring stations to provide warnings against hazardous material spills in our surface water sources and against terrorist acts. We are exploring how waste water effluent can be used to supplement and extend our water needs.
In short, we are leaving no stone unturned in exploring ways to expand and extend our limited water supplies. All of this is being done, also, while attempting to recognize and balance environmental values and interests. Indeed, there is a great need for investigation and mitigation of environmental impacts with regard to all our water development efforts.
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On behalf of the residents of the State of Utah, it is our desire that the House Science Committee consider providing funding to support innovative water development projects, water treatment processes, technologically efficient and economical infrastructure, and environmental investigations and mitigations that will expand and extend the future water supplies of Utah and of our great nation. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ovard follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID G. OVARD
REGARDING WATER NEEDS IN UTAH
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding water needs in Utah. My name is David Ovard. I am General Manager of the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District, which is the largest municipal water district in Utah serving 20 other entities on a wholesale basis in Salt Lake County.
We find ourselves at present in Utah in the fourth year of below normal precipitation. The run-off from snow-melt usually peaks at this time of year and runs far into the summer. The run-off for this year is essentially over for most of the state. Reservoir levels are at historic lows. Groundwater levels are declining. Soil conditions are extremely dry. The cumulative effects of four years of drought have taken their toll, and it is very unlikely that we will be able to reverse our present situation in the near future.
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My greater concern, though, is for the long-term situation. Utah's population is projected to increase by 70 percent over the next 30 years. Over 80 percent of this will be natural increase, our own children and grandchildren. It is projected that this growth will require an additional water supply of 500,000 acre-feet or 160 billion gallons of new water per year to meet this need.
In Salt Lake County, the cheap and easy to develop water is gone. Our efforts are being complicated and compounded by concerns for the environment and water quality. We are struggling to replace old and inefficient components of our infrastructure. In light of the events of September 11, we are also being confronted with the need to provide security for our water resources and facilities. In this regard, we wish to express appreciation for the efforts of this committee to authorize funds for EPA to assist with vulnerability assessments for water utilities.
We are pushing the envelope of developable water supply into areas never before contemplated in our area. We have pioneered the recharge of our principal groundwater aquifers through deep injection wells. We have partnered with Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation and the State of Utah to reclaim groundwater contaminated by past mining activities. We are conducting research and pilot studies to convert lower quality agriculture waters to municipal standards through membrane filtration and reverse osmosis processes. We are modeling and implementing treatment processes to maximize the quality and quantity of surface waters. We have installed biological toxicity monitoring stations to provide warnings against hazardous material spills in our surface water sources and against terrorist acts. We are exploring how waste water effluent can be economically used to supplement and extend our water needs.
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In short, we are leaving no stone unturned in exploring ways to expand and extend our limited water supplies. All of this is being done also, while attempting to recognize and balance environmental values and interests. Indeed, there is a great need for investigation and mitigation of environmental impacts, with regard to all our water development efforts.
On behalf of the residents of the State of Utah it is our desire that the House Science Committee consider providing funding to support innovative water development projects, water treatment processes, technologically efficient and economical infrastructure, and environmental investigations and mitigations that will expand and extend the future water supplies of Utah and of our great nation. Thank you.
Mr. CANNON. We have rules that control how we do these hearings. We have people in the audience who would like to make comments. In order to do that, you have to disclose where your income comes from and give us some background. What I would suggest we do, if the panel would agree, is at the end of the questioning period, we will adjourn this hearing and then we will let those who can, stay here for a few more minutes. It will not be a part of the record, although anyone who would like to make a comment in the record can do so in the next four days, and unless there is objection we will allow those. So that's so ordered. And then you can participate in the hearing which gives us a written summary of what you would like to say or some written documentation. And if you have a question about that, you can meet with Tom, who is sort of working that or setting up afterward. He will tell you what you need to do. But you will need to have a curriculum vitae explaining who you are and that would need to include, as I understand it, sources of income so that we understand what some of these interests are and whether there are conflicts. And we look at information. So if everyone is comfortable with that, that's how we will proceed. If there are others who would like to participate when we finish with the normal hearing, if you would come up on this side, we will have sheets for you to sign up.
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Mr. Matheson, you have some questions.
Discussion
Drought Research Inadequacies of the Federal Government
Mr. MATHESON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Hayes, I am pleased to see that the National Drought Mitigation Center is taking some action at the Federal level to try to address this issue, and I guess the question I want to ask you is the thing about what is there we are not doing still. The National Drought Mitigation Center, as I understand it, is a real effective organization in helping raise awareness, it is helping communication. We get tremendous hits on our web site and encourage mitigation programs you had up on the overhead chart. I think you were probably also one of the organizations involved in the National Drought Preparedness Act that Senator Domenici and Representative Hastings have drafted and submitted and I co-sponsored. I think it is a great idea and I think it really does move the ball down the field on this issue. Yet that bill hasn't necessarily been referred to the Science Committee and so this is a longwinded way of asking you, in terms of basic research and research function in the government, is there something else we ought to be looking at doing or that we are not looking at right now?
Dr. HAYES. I think you bring up an important point, that I think the Science Committee probably should look at this bill closely because one of the things that we haven't been doing well in looking at droughts recently has been incorporating the scientists into the policy and looking at that. So I think that is very important. As far as what I think needs to be done research-wise, I think there needs to be some encouragement made to look at some of these issues. For example, not just climate change issues but how do people look at climate variability? How do people use the forecasts that have been issued? We need to go a lot deeper than just the surface of looking at the global changes and issue forecasts. It has to incorporate political or social scientists and physical scientists as well. And I think that needs to be encouraged. So I encourage, I think, certainly things that can be encouraged and I think there needs to be some funding available through NSF or some of these agencies to help move us along in this whole process.
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Farmer/Rancher Severe Drought Preparations
Mr. MATHESON. At the risk of creating musical chairs, could I ask a question of Mr. Bowler. Could I do just an experiment here and ask would you tap your microphone. I suspect it doesn't work.
I just want to ask you both as a farmer and a rancher, how do you go about preparing for a sustained drought and are there actions you take?
Mr. BOWLER. The actions—Are you hearing me?
Mr. MATHESON. If you speak up loud enough, I can hear you. I don't know if the other people can.
Mr. BOWLER. The actions I have taken, if you can imagine, with the number of acres I have, I have got to be able to ride any drought through. I have lived through many of them, we have never had one like this in Southern Utah. And in the area that I am in I think the chart showed that we never had. But we have never had one in 70 years. And the problem that we have is just so much greater that I am not sure how we are going to live through it this time. Do you think that's better?
Mr. CANNON. If you would move closer to the mic. Maybe we can try one of these two microphones on this side. We hate to move you but we actually do want to hear what you are saying.
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Mr. BOWLER. I assumed after 70 years of experience that I had planned for the worst type of conditions in that I had more than sufficient acreage to run my limited number of livestock on. I have BLM rights in Nevada and in Utah and I assumed that I had taken care of the problem. This problem has been so much greater than what we have ever seen that I think that what I would have done, had I known this was going to occur, is I would have either moved, I would have sold my herd off prior to the time that it occurred, because there is just no chance for survival in that particular area at this point.
Mr. MATHESON. You may have started to answer the follow-up question I was going to ask which is: If we were able to develop better predictive capabilities such that you had more advanced warning about going into a sustained drought, are you given better flexibility with that advance warning to take action than is the case today?
Mr. BOWLER. I think, had I have known for a certainty last spring things were going to be as severe as they have have been, I would have—I did, by the way, go up to a little community called Kanosh that I thought had sufficient water supply and I tried to rent some irrigated pastures in that area because of the drought I had experienced in the last couple of years. That turned out that everybody in Southern Utah wanted that same piece so I didn't get it. My son is today looking at going clear into Northern Nevada where they have larkspur. And I said, ''Gee, if you take them there that larkspur is going to kill them,'' and he said, ''I would rather have them die from the larkspur than here where I can see what happened.''
Mr. MATHESON. There may be benefits if there is better predictive capability. I have one more question, it was for someone else, that is Mr. Morgan.
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Mandatory Water Usage Guidelines
Mr. Morgan, you spoke extensively about the state's ineffective water restrictions and encourage use guidelines. Whenever I drive around and see Utahans watering concrete, and when I look out of my office windows and see the Federal Building watering its concrete, which is something we will take care of in talking to folks there, I am just wondering if we are moving toward where there will be a mandatory aspect to the water guidelines, or if there will be penalties considered, or where you think we are heading with these guidelines as we move further into the drought situation?
Mr. MORGAN. Unfortunately, it is really difficult exacting any punitive damages because we don't control the water users. People like Mr. Ovard, that community purchases the water wholesale and retail. I live in Sandy City. If I turn on my sprinkler system after 10 AM and before 6 PM I am subject to a fine. So I think other communities need to take this effort. There has been a considerable effort to get state agencies to comply. The DOT, even higher education seems to be oblivious to these problems and yet once we call it to their attention they generally comply. But I think that's mandatory, we have to force them.
Mr. MATHESON. I will just ask Mr. Ovard as well. Are you looking into going to that level, where you may have punitive measures for violating guidelines?
Mr. OVARD. It is going city-by-city, district-by-district type thinking. Right now we are hoping we get through the summer but we are going to check again in another 30 days. The real trial will come in August and September. If we have the type of fall that we had last year, it could be very difficult. So I am not comfortable as I see the levels in Deer Creek. Right now there is some Central Utah water there by exchange, but there is a potential that Deer Creek Reservoir is right down into a dead pool and that's going to be a very difficult situation with regard to hoping to get water this winter.
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Mr. MATHESON. Thanks for your patience, Mr. Chairman. I will yield back.
Mr. CANNON. Ms. Woolsey, do you have any questions?
Ms. WOOLSEY. Yes, I do. Mr. Bowler, while you are there on that microphone—I would like to ask you a couple of questions also of Mr. Ovard and Dr. Hayes.
Use of Tertiary Water
First of all, I represent the dairy industry that provides 45 percent of the dairy products in the Bay area but these are family, small family farms, 500 cattle would be a lot on any one of those three or four generation farms. And I represent the grape industry that is Sonoma County, the best wine in the world. Okay? We use tertiary water. Are you moving into that arena at all? Are you thinking about it? We don't use it everywhere but I mean we have, you know, the highest end wines in the Nation and in the world, and we use it. Those farmers want tertiary, it is treated water.
Mr. OVARD. I think it certainly makes a lot of sense. There's two barriers. Number 1 is perception. Unfortunately, the treatment plants are generally at the low end of the system and so that involves pumping water up to the head of your water district. It is not a popular concept. The main issue we have to deal with is cost and I think the day is coming when it will be viable to use that water economically but right now you are talking about retrofitting congested streets, and trying to get a secondary water system through those with all the utilities in them and pump it up to elevation so you have the dual system. That final treatment cost scenario, we estimate that probably the waste water effluent, to treat that to municipal standards is still at least double. Of course, some of the water right now, this indicates it is being used on a limited basis in golf courses and some roadways on the green strips along.
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Ms. WOOLSEY. Tertiary or secondary?
Mr. OVARD. We call it secondary irrigation system. It would be tertiary water.
Ms. WOOLSEY. When you refer to cost, one of the best conservation controls is rates. Ours are very high, even though we have rain but not always. What is your rate structure?
Mr. OVARD. There are some communities in Utah that have very high rates. Typically water rates in Utah have been maybe half the national average and I expect that over the next 20 years that we will certainly be joining the national averages in that the cost of water projects that we have on our drawing boards is about double the cost of the Central Utah Water Users, which is kind of our benchmark.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you. Dr. Hayes, somebody asked me just yesterday what was the most interesting trip I have had as a 10-year member of the House of Representatives and my answer, without blinking an eye, was the South Pole, Antarctica, where the science for global warming is being carried out. Have you ever been there?
Dr. HAYES. I have not.
Ms. WOOLSEY. You need to do that, so does everybody who is part of the Science Committee. It is a great experience. One of the things we did was fly over actual land in the dry valley area of the antarctic, where there is no snow, there is no water and hasn't been for centuries. And that is what made it so ingrained in my mind that we have to do something about what's going on globally so that we don't end up like that. And actually it is like Mars, there is nothing there but beautiful rock. What would it look like to have science as part of the process that we are doing? You said you want science. What does it look like?
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Dr. HAYES. There's actually a lot of scientists who specialize in some of these topics; for example, monitoring. Drought monitoring is very important and collecting that data in order to monitor is important. We have regional committee centers around the county who specialize in this issue, and it seems like they should be brought to the table when dealing with climate issues, drought being one of them, climate changes being another, and frequently you don't see them involved in those discussions. The Drought Mitigation Center understands drought, we work all the time with drought. Maybe we should be involved in a panel that is looking into drought policies for the United States. And I could go on and on and on.
Ms. WOOLSEY. I agree with you. As a Member of the Science Committee, as a Member of the House of Representatives, as a Member of Congress of the United States of America, there are very few things that we do that aren't totally political. The Science Committee hearings with scientists are the least political experience I have and it is so fulfilling. Because of the honesty and straightforwardness, it is really beneficial. And the reason I love my district is I love the farmers.
Alternative Farming
So my question to you, would be, Mr. Bowler: Have you thought about alternative farming? I mean would you have just closed your doors or would you have gone into a different kind of farming had you known that this drought was going to be what it is?
Mr. BOWLER. Well, as I stated in my statement to begin with, I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in my farming operation and my cattle operations so some of the things I have done trying to eliminate this problem. When I first started the farm, we were using flood irrigation. Flood irrigation in our area wasn't that efficient and used a tremendous amount of water. So we have evolved from in-line sprinklers to side row sprinklers. Now, all of my irrigation is done by pivot sprinklers so I can determine the amount of water needed on the ground. I can determine when it is put on and I can even determine the time of day or night that it runs. And so we have done a lot of things in that area trying to do the best job we can, and taking care of the water that we have.
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You need to understand that I just can't express to you enough the difference that we are experiencing this year over what we have in the past. Last year, you have heard recorded here that in many peoples' minds, last year was a drought year in our area. However, my pond that I used for gravity flow irrigation in the areas that I have overflowed the overflow last year and I irrigated until the first of June with water that was normally—and that was the normal thing to do, overflow in June. This year that pond didn't fill up to a third. This year no runoff came into that pond, it just didn't fill up. That's a difference that I have experienced this year. So this year is an entirely different year than anything I have ever dealt with. And I have tried to explain again in my report that I have spent thousands of dollars piping water from springs to move out where there would be grazing available and that hasn't been over-grazed because of limited water supply in that dry arid area. The springs have all gone dry. They have never been dry before but they are now.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Okay. I think I have taken enough time. Thank you.
Mr. BAIRD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the witnesses for your testimony.
Mr. Ovard, I am trying to remember the growth rate, the time frame and growth rate.
Mr. OVARD. It was 70 percent over the next 30 years.
Water Consumption Reduction Goals
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Mr. BAIRD. The reason I ask is because I recognize, I am not trying to put you on the spot, I just sense a train wreck. And some place I saw in your conversation that the plan, that the goal is to reduce water use by 20 percent, and if you are seeing a population increase of 70 percent and water reduction of 20 percent, you have got a problem.
Mr. OVARD. We have updated that since. In fact, last Monday my board has reset that goal to reduce by 25 percent over the next 25 years and wanted to do it in much shorter time frame than this but economics weren't there. It is kind of scary to reduce your income faster than your growth. It is hard to make sure debt service payments are met.
Mr. BAIRD. That's a net decrease of 25 percent per capita?
Mr. OVARD. Per capita.
Mr. BAIRD. I have got you. So that's still, your net is going to be a problem.
Mr. OVARD. Yes. We know that we need to do a lot better and in the words of our governor last summer as he was urging conservation, he set a goal for the state to reduce water consumption 25 percent or 50 percent. So we have had that already and I think we would like to even have that more if we could, but it is going to take—we are working on the public awareness, education, and we kind of come to a late start on that. We are working very hard on it. It is our goal to make Utah a model for conservation for the entire nation.
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Mr. BAIRD. That's a worthwhile quest. I raised the question not to put you on the spot. And these numbers aren't going to lighten the load up. Here we live in the desert, that's one of the things you learn, you have got to live accordingly, I suppose. I am interested in whom you have talked to about CPR land. I am interested in the impact on that, the long-term implications of it. Maybe these panelists aren't supposed to ask, I am just curious about it.
Mr. CANNON. I am sure Mr. Bowler has some experience with that.
Mr. BOWLER. I have visited with two different people who have property under that program to see if it was possible to rent their pasture from them. The people that I have talked to have no water on their property, no live water that they can irrigate or water livestock on. And so that's going to be a problem in some areas. Most of them have not had fences, don't have any fences, are in the middle, quite a few of them in the middle of farming areas so there's going to be a lot of problems involved. There is some feed available in the middle of the State of Utah that under that program, in our area that wouldn't matter. I have pasture that I have down in my area that could be considered. That's because I rotate my grazing and I don't graze only every third year and some of these pastures should have had feed up a foot high. It never greened up this year. I told you rye didn't sprout. The grass didn't green, just stayed. What feed I have is what was there last year so that's going to be dried feed to the southern end of the state. When you go up to Fillmore I have seen some areas up there and I talked to some of those people about doing something but the problem is no fence, no water.
Mr. BAIRD. Got you. That's helpful. Let me make an observation. Clearly there are a lot of demands here, a lot of needs, and folks are suffering a great deal, and it is something that, you know, we all like being helped.
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I just can conceptualize hearing requests for additional funding for a meteorological system, including drought, water, soil moisture, and things of that sort. Obviously, there's some need for other projects and aid to the farmers. I just conceptualize the fact that we are a hundred million dollars in deficit right now, so the ability to meet those demands may be constrained, to say the least. I am not sure how to deal with this necessarily, but it is going to be a difficult challenge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Bowler. I am trying to figure the 70 years. You don't look 70. You must be counting the time your mother was tending the cows before you got here.
Mr. BOWLER. My statement was my grandfather gave each first child in the family a heifer, so I had a heifer when I was born.
Mr. CANNON. You don't look 70 years old.
Mr. BOWLER. Thank you.
Drought Effect on Cattle Prices
Mr. CANNON. Your testimony is just horrible, it is just horrific to think about what you were talking about, people having cows die traversing your property. You talked about prices. If everybody is dumping their cattle at auction, what is going on with prices? It is, two-fold one with cows or calves that need to be——
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Mr. BOWLER. I tried to cover that in my report. What normally would happen a year ago, two years ago at this time of year someone would have come to my herd and wanted to buy a cow and a calf, what we call a pair. They would have been eight to nine hundred a pair. What happens now is they take them to the auction and if they are lucky, they get $400 a pair. Say that in three months if my calves had feed, in three months the age of these calves, they now are worth $500 a piece before today's price. So what is happening, the drought has pushed many of those poor cattle onto the market. No one has any means to take care of them so no one wants them, they are just not selling.
Advance Planning for Drought Conditions
Mr. CANNON. We had a question a little earlier what we could do to plan better and part of what this Committee is trying to figure out is how to help in the future. It seems to me, as big a property owner as you are, it is very hard to have more impoundment of water to take you through the season. So pretty much unless you had more knowledge about what the future was going to be, it seems you are pretty limited to maybe not planting, maybe preserving water for the cattle for drinking as opposed to watering pasture, maybe storing silage and everything, so you have something to feed them in advance. But those are pretty limited options, it seems to me. Is that not the case?
Mr. BOWLER. I have tried to say, as I have testified, this is the worst that I have ever seen it. I believe I have been closer to it than anyone that I know of, being involved in it all my life, and this is the worst I have ever seen it. In hard times the government has released grain products when they purchased surplus. And farmers made salt meal and they have been able to make their cattle survive and they can go through a year. Sometimes they have made low income loans available, or even at times grants available to help those farmers, and if in fact next year is a good year that could help them and they could survive the problem. I don't know what next year will be.
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Mr. CANNON. So what we want to focus on a little bit here is what would it take financially, as Dr. Hayes was talking about earlier, to get a little better sense of what our capacity is to help in advance?
Mr. BOWLER. I agree wholeheartedly with what I heard the doctor and Mark talk about in the beginning, that's about if you had and if I could tell now what is going to happen next summer, next winter. If I knew what was going to happen this winter I would be able to make more meaningful decisions on what to do with my livestock operation.
Mr. CANNON. Thank you for your testimony. I am going to conclude at this point and thank you, Panel. Does anyone want to ask any questions of the panel? We appreciate your information. The problem is severe and we are aware of it. Thank you for your information. And if there is no other business we will adjourn the hearing.
[Whereupon, at 2:50 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
Appendix:
Additional Material for the Record
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF RONALD C. SIMS AND MAC MCKEE
COMMENTS BY THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE UTAH WATER RESEARCH LABORATORY ON DROUGHT RELIEF IN UTAH AND THE WEST
BY RONALD C. SIMS, DIRECTOR,
AND MAC MCKEE, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
UTAH WATER RESEARCH LABORATORY
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY, LOGAN, UTAH 84322–8200
Introduction
The water supply in Utah is subject to high year-to-year variability, and drought is often a multi-year phenomenon. These conditions adversely affect many sectors of Utah's economy, especially agriculture, and place restrictions on the management of valuable environmental resources (e.g., wetlands, endangered species, recreational resources). Development and implementation of better water management policies and science-based technological capabilities to deal with drought—and other water problems—will benefit all of Utah's water users. The Utah Water Research Laboratory (UWRL) at Utah State University (USU) can assist in this effort.
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Utah's Drought-Related Information Needs and Problems
Drought conditions can be managed in Utah by application of a wide array of water conservation measures. For many large-scale water supply systems—such as the numerous irrigation systems in Utah that account for the vast majority of the state's water use—more efficient water use can be achieved through improved water management. However, more intensive water management places new data collection and analysis burdens on water agencies. In addition, individual water users of all types—especially farmers and ranchers—require better information about current and future drought conditions in order to make informed individual management decisions. At present, both individual water consumers and water system managers are hampered in their ability to make better drought-related management decisions because there are many gaps in the available database and in the analytic tools used to forecast future conditions. Among the most critical of these gaps are these:
Data Collection: There is a lack of a consistent recognition on the part of Federal, State, and local agencies of the strategic importance of data collection. For example, investments in the collection of streamflow data are declining through time, even though demands for water are increasing. This is also the case for some types of meteorological data, such as snowpack data for which funding support for USGS data collection programs has been reduced and/or threatened in recent federal budgets. In Utah, there is very little investment in the collection and dissemination of soil moisture data, even though soil moisture information is critical for forecasting future streamflows for both drought and flood conditions (for example, our ignorance of soil moisture played a major role in our failure to correctly forecast the floods that struck the Colorado River Basin in the 1980s and caused substantial economic damage). Generally, government agencies at all levels have failed to recognize that the value of hydrometeorological data is increasing as the demand for water grows, and investments in data collection have not kept pace with the need for data.
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Long-term Forecasting: Increased investment in data collection will only have value if the data can be analyzed and effectively used to improve our knowledge of the present and future condition of our water systems. At present, we lack the scientific capability to utilize available hydrometeorological data to make good long-term forecasts (say, 3 to 12 months in advance) of snowfall and streamflow. This seriously limits the ability of water system managers and individual water consumers to plan for future water shortages.
Short-term/Real-time Management of High-volume Water Systems: Large water supply systems in Utah, especially irrigation systems, account for much of the state's total water use. Therefore, a small improvement in the efficiency of water use in these systems can result in the savings of relatively significant quantities of water. Accomplishing this, however, will again require investment in data collection and development of analysis and forecasting techniques. With the help of the Provo Office of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, reservoirs and water conveyance systems throughout the entire Sevier River Basin have been instrumented in recent years, and the data made available through this investment have enabled the system managers to substantially improve the efficiency of water use. Research is now on-going in cooperation with the Utah Water Research Laboratory at USU to develop and implement intelligent computer software that will help the operators of canals and reservoirs in the Sevier River Basin to further increase overall system efficiency through better real-time analysis of data and identification of optimal short-term management decisions. The technology and methods applied in the Sevier River Basin could be exported to other large irrigation systems in Utah and the Utah Water Research Laboratory would be a valuable asset in the State's efforts to address drought-related water management problems.
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All of these factors—the lack of a strategic commitment to support systematic data collection efforts, our inability to make good long-term forecasts of precipitation and streamflow, and the need to implement data collection and analysis techniques for more intensive large-system management—make it difficult to achieve greater efficiency of water use for private individuals and water purveyors.
Available and Emerging Capabilities
Even though the above data collection and forecasting gaps hamper our ability to manage scarce water supplies, capabilities are emerging that promise to improve this situation. These include:
Remote Sensing: The science of remote sensing is rapidly developing even as government agencies at all levels reduce their support for the more traditional hydrometeorological data collection methods. While the costs of remote sensing technology are still typically out of the range of most large-scale water systems, and though the technology for extracting useful information for many aspects of water management are not yet well developed (e.g., accurate estimation of the quantity of water in the snowpack from a combination of airborne and satellite imagery is an important area still requiring significant research), the information potential of remotely sensed data is extremely promising.
Long-term Forecasting: The last decade has seen significant advances in the use of sophisticated mathematical tools to recognize the underlying structure of complex hydrologic systems and to provide long-term forecasts of the behavior of those systems. For example, in the 1990s researchers at the Utah Water Research Laboratory at USU developed the best model to date for constructing long-term predictions of future levels of the Great Salt Lake by using the mathematics of chaos theory and pattern recognition. Research is continuing in extending the application of these approaches to forecast future precipitation, streamflow, floods, drought, and so forth. Successful development and implementation of these techniques could potentially provide tremendously valuable information for water managers and individual water users, alike. The Utah Water Research Laboratory is available to help in these efforts.
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Short-term Forecasting: The past decade has also seen development of new tools for constructing very accurate forecasts of the short-term behavior of complex systems, including river flows and reservoir and canal systems. These approaches often rely on various pattern recognition methodologies such as artificial neural networks and support vector machines. One application of these methods developed at the UWRL/USU is now being tested in the Sevier River Basin in southern Utah to help improve the operation of large complex irrigation systems.
Actions Needed to Improve Drought Management
In spite of recent scientific advances, much remains to be done before the benefits of the emerging technologies can be fully realized by water users. Further, it should be recognized that investments in these efforts will not provide useful information for dealing with the current drought; they may, however, make the management of the next drought much more feasible and much less economically damaging. Among the critical actions needed to improve drought management are:
Data Collection: The diversity of Federal, State, and local agencies involved in various aspects of hydrometeorological data collection must improve the coordination of these activities and work to streamline the dissemination of the data. This includes:
improvements in quality assurance/quality control for data that are assembled and provided to managers and the public, especially meteorological data
efforts to merge or integrate diverse regional data sets (e.g., integration of traditional groundbased data collection methods with advances in remote sensing) in order to improve the total regional picture of water conditions; advances in the mathematics of data/sensor fusion, originally developed in the Department of Defense, show promise in this regard
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Forecasting: Research in the development of long-term and short-term forecasting techniques need to be supported, including:
Long-term forecasting (3–12 months into the future):
The difficulty of accurately estimating how much water is in the snowpack for the drainages of an entire river basin might be solved through the application data/sensor fusion methodologies.
For western states like Utah, obtaining better estimates of when and where the snowpack will turn into quantities of streamflow will require improvements in watershed modeling to make it cheaper to do and to make the results of modeling more widely available to stakeholders in a decision-relevant form.
Accurately estimating future precipitation quantities (both rain and snow) on a regional scale will almost certainly require advances in our understanding of the role that long-term global climatic phenomena (such as ENSO and El Niño) play in affecting weather patterns in the Great Basin. Frankly, much was done in this regard during the mid-1990s, but support for this sort of research from both Federal and State agencies is almost nonexistent during times when droughts or floods are not being experienced. These investments must be made now in order to prepare for the next water crisis.
Short-term (on a time frame of hours to days) forecasting and management of water-intensive systems:
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Cheaper data collection and telemetry technology must be developed and installed on large water systems so that accurate information can be maintained on a continuous basis on the state of the systems (e.g., canal flows, reservoir volumes, soil moisture, local weather conditions) and desired future water deliveries. Better real-time data will result in more efficient system management.
Effective and easy-to-use methods must be developed to provide the capability for timely analysis of large water system conditions in order to identify optimal real-time and short-term system operations rules. Again, these technologies might make substantial water savings possible.
The Utah Water Research Laboratory has expertise and research methods available to assist the State of Utah in the several areas identified and described above. Additional resources would be needed to support statewide applications and implementations. We would be pleased to collaborate with water resources agencies and other research organizations in the development a more detailed work plan to address the sorts of problems and needs discussed here.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE WESTERN STATES WATER COUNCIL
PRESENTED BY TONY WILLARDSON,
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
The Western States Water Council is an organization representing eighteen states. Members are appointed by their respective governors to address a broad range of water policy issues affecting the West. The Council has been actively involved in drought management and policy since 1976, when it served the governors as a regional coordinating body for drought relief efforts and a clearinghouse for information on drought conditions. Western states learned from that experience, and began developing drought preparedness plans for the future. There is no doubt that timely, effective government action at the Federal, State, local and tribal levels to prevent or mitigate drought impacts can significantly reduce the effects of drought and the need for relief expenditures. Every one of our member states has in place some type of drought preparedness plan, and drought prediction, monitoring and assessment activities are an important part of these plans.
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Much of the West is characterized by its aridity. Water is scarce. Its availability continues to circumscribe our economic and environmental well being and quality of life. Drought is a continuous threat. However, this year many areas of the West are facing record breaking shortages. Since 1976, much has been done to develop new water supplies for all purposes and improve water use efficiencies, but a fast growing population and its demands for both consumptive and non-consumptive uses of limited water resources make balancing our water resource supplies and demands a never ending challenge. Drought makes that challenge more difficult, while at the same time serving as a catalyst for changing water management and use policies. Responsibilities for addressing the impacts of water shortages must be shared. Individual private initiative is the first line of defense, followed by collective local action and the use of state programs. However, the impacts of drought may over extend their available resources and require a federal response. In the past, our collective actions have not always been well coordinated.
Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico and Judy Martz of Montana, co-lead governors for drought issues for the Western Governors' Association have said, ''It is high time for our nation to have a comprehensive national policy for drought.''
Recently, Rep. Alcee Hastings introduced H.R. 4754, the National Drought Preparedness Act of 2002 to establish a National Drought Council within the Federal Emergency Management Agency to improve preparedness, mitigation and response efforts. A bipartisan group of members from across the Nation have signed as co-sponsors of the bill. Companion legislation (S. 2528) has been introduced by Senator Pete Domenici, again with bipartisan support. Western governors helped draft this legislation and have called on the Congress and the President to support its enactment. It calls for coordination of government efforts at all levels involving drought monitoring, planning, mitigation and response. It also calls for establishment of research priorities and improved collaboration among scientists and resource managers.
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Drought monitoring and the establishment of triggers for response is a critical component requiring a comprehensive, integrated national program designed to provide reliable, accessible and timely information to decision-makers. The uncertainty surrounding the definition and occurrence of drought, as well as its magnitude, duration and severity often make it difficult to make policy and management decisions. Sound science and good data are key to successful drought management strategies.
The National Drought Preparedness Act directs that the National Drought Council would coordinate and prioritize specific activities under a National Drought Monitoring Network, which would collect and integrate information on key drought-related indicators, including streamflow, ground water levels, reservoir levels, soil moisture, snowpack, precipitation and temperature. States rely to a large extent on climatological and hydrologic information gathered by several federal agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The Council would be responsible for coordinating drought monitoring, prediction and research, as well as water supply forecasting activities. The Council would also be responsible for developing an effective drought information delivery system that would communicate conditions and impacts to government decision-makers at all levels, as well as the private sector and the public. This would include near-real-time data and other information products that reflect regional and state differences in drought conditions.
Other important components of the legislation include the establishment of a National Office of Drought Preparedness, creation of a Drought Assistance Fund, federal financial and technical assistance for the development and implementation of drought preparedness plans, drought mitigation cost sharing to address environmental, economic and human health and safety issues, technology transfer related to drought and water conservation strategies and innovative water supply techniques, post-drought evaluations and recommendations, and drought-related wildfire suppression assistance.
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The Western States Water Council supports enactment of H.R. 4754 and S. 2528. We also urge the Congress and the Administration to appropriately fund existing federal programs designed to gather information critical to state water managers, especially the NRCS Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecasting Program and USGS National Streamflow Information Program and Cooperative Water Program.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on these vital issues.
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The article is printed in Appendix 1: Additional Material for the Record, p. 82.