Water in the Colorado River is dwindling to levels not seen in decades, and the seven states whose residents and farmers depend on the river can’t agree on the right way to divide what’s left.
The talks are going nowhere despite more than six months of ongoing talks, and negotiations by the Trump administration, which has brought the governors together twice in hopes of progress that never came. States are already balking at aspects of a water-use plan the Federal Bureau of Reclamation will unveil this summer and enforce later this year, and are threatening to sue each other over the water delivery, raising the possibility of lengthy legal battles as Western states grapple with demands to drastically cut water use.
The river’s system of dams and canals was designed for the climate and population of the last century. It is difficult to adapt to declining water supplies and rapid growth in river basin communities, despite improvements in efficiency that mean even thriving cities use less water than before. Water rights that may date back to the arrival of European settlers also complicate matters. And a year of extreme drought makes it very difficult to determine how much each state can draw from Colorado.
It’s not a lack of effort.
“We’ve invested time, effort and money in trying to do a multi-state deal,” Scott Cameron, acting commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, said in an interview this month, shortly after signing an agreement that could expand the basin’s supply using desalinated water from a plant in Carlsbad, Calif.
But after a day, Mr. Cameron told a conference of water experts in Boulder, Colo., that states have repeatedly rejected compromise proposals. He said he does not expect any situation to be happy with the steps the federal government is expected to take to delay or prevent water reservoirs from falling to low levels in the short term.
“I think we’ve succeeded in making everybody unhappy, and probably maddening everybody,” he said.
About 40 million people and 5.5 million acres of cropland depend on the Colorado for drinking and irrigation water, but its flow has been steadily declining over the past two decades as the climate has gotten hotter and drier in the West. Now the arcane water rights system that governs the river gives each country and Mexico the right to much more water than is actually available. The laws prioritize the longest-standing water uses, many dating back to the 1850s and 1860s.
But the regions could not agree on the reduction of water which would reflect the new reality.
In the lower river basin – which includes growing urban areas in California, Arizona and Nevada, large agricultural operations and the largest reservoir in the country, Lake Mead – communities have suffered a significant decline in recent years. A new proposal that states are asking the federal government to consider would reduce consumption significantly, but lower states and tribes have asked communities in New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming to cut back as well.
But whenever the winter snowpack at the river’s edge is thin, the upper basin is forced to use less water, so those districts have resisted committing to reducing water use every year. Although the 1922 compact divides the United States’ share of the river’s flow equally between the two basins, the sparsely populated upper basin consumes much less water each year than the lower basin.
The tension between the bowls deepened as the poles grew. The existing water system expired this winter, and the states missed key dates to agree on a new one, which should be in place by October to avoid chaos and confusion in water delivery.
A mild winter and extreme spring temperatures left the winter ice pack so depleted that Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest lake reservoir, which straddles the upper and lower basins, was in danger of falling below critical levels for generating electricity until federal officials began implementing emergency measures to move water around to keep the dams generating electricity.
So far, Trump administration officials have refused to enforce any plan independently, although Mr. It provided $454 million for water conservation projects around the region, using money left over from the Deficit Reduction Act, which was passed under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and included $4 billion for drought relief in the West. Mr. Cameron said less than $100 million is left to help pay for additional water conservation.
“We floated, three times, solutions that we thought represented something that the seven regions could agree on,” said Mr. Cameron. “It turns out we were wrong.”
Since states can’t agree, the federal government is set to put new guidelines in place. Mr. Cameron said he expects Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose department includes the Reclamation Bureau, to release a plan in July that will govern the use of the river for the next decade. Before that plan can become final, it will need approval from the White House, which has so far not been very involved in Western water issues.
The draft plan released in January includes a range of options, some of which would make major cuts in the downstream area, where federal control of dams gives more power to cut off water flows. Another option would be to force water shortages, especially in the basement, based on reservoir conditions. It involves various levels of mitigation that can leave some risks of unplanned emergency water shortages in the lowlands.
Arizona is particularly vulnerable because of its high reliance on water and its limited water rights.
The government’s plan will include a place for reforms and discussions every two years, said Mr. Cameron. But state officials across the region said that could make matters worse.
The biggest problem is that reopening the entire system every two years will undermine any certainty about water supply, which is the main goal of the negotiations, said Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s chief water negotiator.
“Conversation every two years is difficult to understand,” said Ms. John Entsminger, Nevada’s coordinator, agreed that “it’s not a good idea.”
But Mr. Cameron said it was the best option given how difficult it has been to get a long-term deal done.
As the negotiations stall, the threat of litigation increases, although negotiators say they hope to avoid court disputes that are sure to be long, expensive and unpredictable. Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, warned Wednesday on Capitol Hill that he would seek to block drought relief money from any states that claim water from the Colorado River.
In Arizona and Colorado, state officials have been training lawyers and setting aside public funds to fight water legalization. Earlier this year, television ads paid for by the Arizona Water Users Alliance warned that the state was “targeted” for crippling cuts. Officials in both states said litigation was a real possibility.
In public comments submitted in response to the government’s proposal, the states have expressed conflicting legal interpretations of the 1922 treaty, offering both compelling arguments that suggest the Trump administration was in danger of violating that document. At issue is whether the compact requires upstream states to deliver a set amount of water downstream, regardless of conditions, or if the compact simply prevents those upstream states from using more than their legal allocation.
Arizona officials said the state’s plan would “improperly prioritize Lake Powell conservation at the expense of necessary releases downstream,” and thereby reduce the flow the state says it owes. Colorado said the plan “fails to place sufficient deficits in the Lower Basin to protect the system” and would illegally draw on surface water to stabilize Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Focusing on legislative discussions could keep states from reaching consensus, Ms Mitchell said. But Arizona’s top water official, Tom Buschatzke, said the lawsuit is “very much in play.” State lawmakers tripled the size of the river litigation fund when they included $6 million for that purpose in the budget submitted Thursday for approval by Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who emphasized Arizona’s need to protect its water.
Because the 1922 treaty is only about 1,700 words long, Mr. Entsminger of Nevada suggested that states may never agree on exactly what each of them is entitled to – and that was all the more reason for them to find common ground without resorting to the courts.
“The only way you will be able to be sure of that is probably the action of the Supreme Court,” said Mr. Entsminger. “The way you avoid that is the seven-county agreement.”
