Colorado River Basin States Fail to Reach Water Agreement, Federal Intervention Looms
Negotiators from seven states failed to reach a consensus on Colorado River water conservation by a federal deadline Saturday, raising fears of painful water cuts, prolonged legal battles, and broader impacts across the American West.
The impasse comes as the Colorado River faces historically low water levels and a worsening drought, threatening the water supply for 40 million people across Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
“This winter has been a really stark illustration of some of the challenges that we may face in keeping our watersheds and rivers and lands healthy,” said Celene Hawkins, the Colorado River Program Director at The Nature Conservancy, on Wednesday. “And so I think it is really profoundly terrifying to think about moving into a future where we aren’t starting to really focus on implementing solutions that the basin needs.”
Conservation groups have advocated for tools like conservation pools, which would incentivize voluntary water cuts, and a climate response indicator to adjust water releases from Lake Powell based on drought conditions. However, implementation of these ideas is now uncertain as the current operating guidelines for Lake Powell and Lake Mead are set to expire this fall.
Hawkins and other environmental leaders are warning about the consequences of continued gridlock. “The courtroom is not the place” for states to resolve these issues, Hawkins stated, arguing that litigation would divert resources away from finding solutions.
The failure to reach an agreement has plunged the future of the river into a state of uncertainty. A recent summit in Washington, D.C., involving most of the basin’s governors, failed to produce a breakthrough.
States in the upper basin – Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico – maintain that there simply isn’t more water to contribute, stating in a joint statement last week, “Our downstream neighbors are seeking to secure water from the (upper division states) that simply does not exist.”
Arizona, California, and Nevada, in turn, fault the upper basin states for not agreeing to mandatory water restrictions during times of drought.
Arizona faces particularly significant potential cuts. According to a report from AZFamily.com, almost every major city in Arizona relies on water from the Colorado River, and the state may face larger cuts than previously expected. Scottsdale, which receives nearly 70% of its water from the Central Arizona Project – a system solely reliant on the Colorado River – could see reductions of 20 to 30%, according to Scottsdale City Councilmember Solange Whitehead. “We are probably more vulnerable than other cities in the state,” she said.
Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, explained that Arizona’s “junior priority status” makes it particularly vulnerable to cuts. Because of a 1968 law establishing the Central Arizona Project, users of that system are lower in priority than other water users in the lower basin.
Despite the impasse, Sinjin Eberle, of the conservation group American Rivers, urged negotiators to continue working towards a solution. “Hang in there,” he said Wednesday. “Do your best to set aside your differences, because the hydrology is going to force the hand of a really dire situation if action isn’t taken now.”
Eberle warned that continued deadlock could jeopardize municipal water supplies and cause ecological damage, including to the Grand Canyon, as well as harm the recreation industry along the river.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is now likely to impose a solution, a prospect that could lead to legal challenges. The Axios report indicates that federal intervention could mean “forcing mandatory cuts.”
