The Imperial Irrigation District in California, which uses more Colorado River water than any other farm district or city in the West, has agreed to conserve 100,000 acre-feet in 2023 in exchange for payments from the federal government. It's less than half the amount of water the district originally proposed saving last spring.
The district's conservation agreement represents the first batch of water conserved as part of Imperial’s contributions to a three-state agreement in which California, Arizona and Nevada are pledging to conserve at least 3 million acre-feet of water by the end of 2026, with at least 1.5 million conserved by the end of 2024. An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to fill one acre of land to a height of one foot. One acre-foot generally provides enough water for one to two households for a year.
In April, the irrigation district said it would conserve 250,000 acre-feet each year through 2026 as part of a water-saving proposal from the Colorado River Board of California. The 100,000 acre-feet announced in this latest proposal is less than half of that initial goal, but officials with the district say they are aiming to conserve a total of 800,000 acre-feet across the four-year stretch—a goal still 200,000 acre-feet short of the original four-year proposal.
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