The Trump administration may soon impose sweeping cuts to Arizona’s supply of Colorado River water after the seven states of the basin blew past a Feb. 14 deadline to agree how to share the river in coming years.
But any steps federal officials take to manage the river in absence of an interstate deal could ignite a firestorm of litigation across the region.
At the same time, there is an urgent need to shore up supplies of Colorado River water at Lake Mead and particularly Lake Powell, where water levels could drop too low for hydropower generation and regular delivery of water downstream to California, Nevada and Arizona as soon as this year.
We don’t yet know exactly what federal intervention would look like. But what we do know suggests large cuts to those three Lower Basin states, especially Arizona.
The missed deadline didn’t come as a shock. And in the lead-up to Valentine’s Day, officials from across the region were clear that an 11th hour deal was unlikely after months of deadlock between the Lower Basin states and their Upper Basin counterparts of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.
Indeed, officials from across the basin released statements announcing the failure a day early, as if suggesting that an extra 24 hours of negotiating time would be fruitless.
Still, negotiators and the feds are keeping alive a sliver of hope that they may reach an agreement to stave off the worst outcomes.
“Arizona remains committed to compromise and accommodation,” Tom Buschatzke, the head of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and the state’s chief negotiator, said in a Feb. 13 statement. “The negotiations may be at an unfortunate stalemate, but they are not at an end – not, at least, if our river partners in the Upper Basin accept the reality that Arizona cannot be asked to sacrifice its water security while receiving virtually nothing in return.”
Why are we here?
To offer a very quick refresher: A raft of interstate agreements governing the river dating back to 2007 are set to expire at the end of the year.
The new “water year,” as it’s called,1 begins October 1, and ideally, the seven states — plus the 30 indigenous tribes, conservation groups, and other stakeholders in the basin who have to varying degrees been part of these talks — would have reached a deal in time for it to be subjected to environmental and public review, receive the necessary legislative authority, and be implemented by that date.
But that hasn’t happened.
The river is chronically over-allocated and the region has been in the throes of historic megadrought for more than 20 years, making an equitable deal difficult.
And the hydrologic conditions keep getting worse. On Feb. 13, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced that “a lack of precipitation over the past month has pushed the most probable water year inflow forecast for Lake Powell down by 1.5 million-acre feet (maf) since January – now roughly 3.0 maf lower than projections made in November.”
To make those numbers a little more concrete: The feds now predict that levels in Lake Powell could for the first time drop to 3,490 feet — the minimum level for power generation and regular releases of water downriver — as early as December.
The federal government has some tools to stave off that seemingly inevitable event, but it maintains it has limited authority to compel action from the Upper Basin states to save Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam.
So it’s the Lower Basin that will feel the most pain, in the form of emergency reductions and diminished releases from Lake Powell.
Throughout negotiations, the Lower Basin states have offered to take significant cuts — about 1.5 million acre feet a year — but have asked the Upper Basin to help absorb reductions beyond that level.
The Upper Basin states have responded that they would not commit to obligatory cuts because, among other reasons, they have not fully developed into the allocation they are entitled to under the 1922 Colorado River Compact.
Upper Basin water supply is also largely influenced by snowpack, so those states argue they in effect already take reductions in the form of climate change. There are lots of other relevant details in these negotiations, but this has been one of the main sticking points, and we do seem properly stuck.
The trouble with deadlines
Reservoir operations are governed by the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires an environmental review and public comment process. As part of that process, the federal government last month published five options for managing the reservoirs based on suggestions from a number of different stakeholders.
But the feds say they can pursue only one of those options — the “basic coordination alternative” — without additional agreements from the states.
Under that alternative, the Lower Basin states would shoulder the entirety of annual cuts of almost 1.5 million acre feet.
And more than 77% of those reductions would come from Arizona, particularly the Central Arizona Project, which holds low priority water rights relative to other users in the Lower Basin. (For reference: Arizona’s 2.8 million acre-feet Colorado River allocation makes up a bit more than a third of the state’s water supply. If the Lower Basin is to make roughly 1.5 million acre feet in cuts, and Arizona must account for 77% of that total, the state must reduce its Colorado River use by about 1.15 million acre feet.)
This is obviously bad for Arizona, where users would have to dip into water reserves and tap non-renewable sources like groundwater. But perhaps the bigger consequence is to the whole basin.
Just take it from the feds themselves:
“Reclamation acknowledges that the operations under this alternative may not provide adequate protection of critical infrastructure or the system and may be viable only in the short term given current reservoir conditions,” officials wrote in NEPA filings.
In other words, the “basic coordination alternative” won’t be enough to prevent systemwide crash in all but the most optimistic hydrologic scenarios.
Reasonable minds might inquire: Is it really too late? After all, the feds set a deadline last November, and that date came and went with no deal, but also no federal action.
Yes and no.
The February deadline has more force than the November deadline because the government needs to implement a plan in time for the new water year, and NEPA dictates certain timelines the government needs to follow.
At the same time, the feds and states are leaving open the possibility for negotiations to continue.
“Negotiation efforts have been productive; we have listened to every state’s perspective and have narrowed the discussion by identifying key elements and issues necessary for an agreement,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in a statement. “We believe that a fair compromise with shared responsibility remains within reach.”
Even if the states don’t reach a deal, whatever plan the feds implement will, in theory, be influenced by comments it receives under the NEPA process. The comment period closes March 2. So, the ultimate plan may not exactly resemble the “basic coordination” alternative.
That all said, Reclamation has made clear that it will not compel reductions from the Upper Basin without an interstate agreement.
So any option, at this point, is likely bad for the Lower Basin in general and for Arizona in particular.
This means, in all likelihood, litigation.
The Lower Basin contends that it is entitled to a certain amount of water from upriver under the terms of the Colorado River Compact, and it will likely sue to protect those deliveries.
The Upper Basin may sue to limit the amount of water from its reservoirs that is released to stabilize Powell.
The basins may sue each other, or they may both sue the feds.
We don’t know the details, but we can guess that it will be costly and time-consuming, all while conditions rapidly deteriorate.
Perspective from upriver: The failure of the Colorado River Basin states to reach a deal in time to head off federal intervention has people around the region talking. Colorado officials said that the Upper Basin offered a revised proposal late in the game that the Lower Basin rejected, walking away “from the table before the deadline.”
“We’re being asked to solve a problem we didn’t create with water we don’t have. The Upper Division’s approach is aligned with hydrologic reality and we’re ready to move forward,” Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s chief negotiator, told the Denver Post in a statement this week.
Calmer heads?: Nevada’s negotiator, John Entsminger, told KTNV Las Vegas that the states aren’t actually that far from a deal, but what distance exists may be difficult to cross.
"So there's 75% to 80% of the components of a rational deal kind of floating around there, but some of these entrenched positions makes it really difficult to get from the 20-yard-line to the end zone," Entsminger said.
Environmentalists sound off: A group of conservationists argued that blowing the deadline means that states will likely wind up in lawsuits that will take decades to resolve and delay progress toward real solutions.
“Basin snowpack is at record lows, storage at Lakes Powell and Mead remains precarious, and hotter, drier conditions that present increased wildfire risks, water quality concerns, and water supply restrictions and shortages are now the operating reality,” a coalition of environmental groups said in a statement after the deadline.
No deal, no warning: A bill from Scottsdale Republican Rep. Alex Kolodin to require water utilities to notify customers if CAP water runs out failed in committee this week after opposition from water companies, lobby groups and some of his fellow Republicans, per the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy. Representatives from the water sector said the bill would cause undue panic and “scare the heck” out of their customers.
“The people out there in our communities, they’re sleep walking into oblivion right now,” Kolodin said.
Bad news for the tribes: Native American tribes were barely contemplated in the 1922 Colorado River Compact, and the 30 tribal nations of the basin have spent the last century fighting for water rights and a seat at the table that they still don’t really have. That’s especially concerning when, as ABC15’s Adam Klepp reports, the federal shortage plan could see the Gila River Indian Community lose as much as half of its annual 300,000 acre-feet allocation. Other Lower Basin tribes dependent on Colorado River water could also see cuts.
You can submit comments on the Colorado River management process to the federal government by post, phone or e-mail up through March 2. Here’s how:
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (602) 609-6739
Mailing Address: Bureau of Reclamation, Attn: BCOO-1000 P.O. Box 61470 Boulder City, NV 89006
The feds have also hosted virtual meetings to share updates about the river with the public. You can watch one of those meetings at the link here, or below!
1 The water year, as defined by the U.S. Geological Survey, starts Oct. 1 of one year and ends Sept. 30 of the next. Hydrologists and water policy wonks measure it this way for a number of reasons, chiefly that it captures snowfall from one year that may not melt until the next.