This year, for the first time in its 50-year history, Hohokam Irrigation and Power will have no water to distribute to its farmers. The tier 2 cuts in deliveries of Colorado River water mean that the district will get zero allocation from the Central Arizona Project. In our cover story this month, Hohokam General Manager Grace Garcia and Board President and Chair Waylon Wuertz tell us about the hard realities of supply and demand during this period of long-term drought and the future of farming in Pinal County.

Next, we speak with three New Mexico water managers. Dr. Patrick Sullivan, the new treasurer-manager of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, tells us about facing drought, maintaining infrastructure, and fostering all-important collaboration in the Rio Grande basin. Coley Burgess, the manager of southeastern New Mexico’s Carlsbad Irrigation District, tells us about his agency’s infrastructure and efficiency efforts, and Aron Balok, the superintendent of the Pecos Valley Artesian Conservancy District, tells us about the water conservation measures his agency has taken to prevent the depletion of the area’s artesian aquifer and to avoid the risk of a priority call from senior water rights holders downstream.

A new software tool, IrrigationViz, developed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office, aims to help irrigation districts decide whether to move forward with system modernization projects by generating estimates of water savings, return on investment, and other metrics. INL Applied Data Scientist Shiloh Elliot and PNNL Software Engineer James Kershaw tell us more.
We also highlight another initiative aimed at using software to make data more manageable. Tony Willardson, the executive director of the Western States Water Council, tells us about the forthcoming Western States Water Data Access and Analysis Tool (WestDAAT), which will streamline the sharing of water data for western states.

Cortec is a major global manufacturer of corrosion- inhibiting products, with solutions for the water treatment, irrigation water, and civil construction industries, among others. We speak with Scott Bryan, Cortec’s technical sales manager for water treatment and coatings additives, and Julie Holmquist, its marketing content writer, to learn more about its products for the irrigation market.

United States Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska recently introduced the Precision Agriculture Loan Act, which would establish a loan program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency dedicated entirely to helping farmers adopt precision agriculture technologies. We speak with her to learn more.

Long-term drought on the Colorado will require all water users in the West to work to increase efficiency and conservation through infrastructure upgrades, new technology, and analytics. As the stories in this issue demonstrate, the professionals of our irrigated agriculture industry are showing the way forward.

Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader magazine and the president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.