Construction begins on Imperial Valley reservoir

On a rocky patch of desert, federal and state officials Tuesday began construction on a $172.2-million reservoir that will store water from the Colorado River that otherwise would be ‘lost’ to Mexico. The reservoir will mean more water for coastal Southern California, southern Nevada and central Arizona -- where water agencies have agreed to split the cost. But it will mean less water for Mexico, where farmers and cities are suffering from drought and a leaky infrastructure that has trouble delivering water to its customers. For decades, the United States has allowed Mexico to receive more water from the Colorado River than it was assured under a 1944 treaty. The excess water came from those occasions when more water was surging down the river than Imperial Valley farmers could use. But with the region suffering a historic drought, the U.S. Interior Department took the lead in devising a project to capture excess water from the All-American Canal rather than allowing it to flow south of the border.