A Ground-Breaking Agreement to Prevent the Colorado River from Drying Up for Now

 

In a ground-breaking agreement that, for the time being, prevents the Colorado River from dropping too low and jeopardizing water supply for major Western cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles as well as for some of America's most productive farmland, Arizona, California, and Nevada have agreed to take less water from the drought-stricken Colorado River.

According to the arrangement, which was announced on Monday, the federal government would pay irrigation districts, cities, and Native American tribes in the three states roughly $1.2 billion if they temporarily use less water. In order to achieve the overall reductions required to prevent the collapse of the river, the states have also committed to make further cutbacks above that threshold.

These cuts would represent one of the most drastic ever experienced in the lower Colorado Basin, accounting for nearly 13 percent of all water usage. Significant water restrictions for residential and agricultural uses are likely to be necessary.

The Colorado River irrigates 5.5 million acres of farmland and provides drinking water to 40 million Americans in seven states and a portion of Mexico. Millions of homes and businesses are powered by the electricity produced by dams on the river's two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell.

However, compared to historical averages, drought, population development, and climate change have reduced the river's flows by one-third in recent years, endangering the West with a water and power crisis.

The federal government controls Lake Mead, which is formed by the Colorado River at the Hoover Dam and provides water to California, Arizona, and Nevada. The amount of water that each of the three states receives is decided by the Bureau of Reclamation, a division of the Interior Department. The Colorado River and its tributaries provide water directly to the other states that rely on it.

The weekend deal still needs to be legally accepted by the federal government and only lasts through the end of 2026. Since the river's fall is certain to continue, all seven of the states that depend on it, including Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, may then have to make even more difficult decisions.

Crisis: Last summer, the water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two biggest reservoirs along the river, dropped to the point where officials worried the hydroelectric turbines they powered may soon stop working, which sparked the negotiations over the Colorado.

Even the possibility existed that reservoir levels may drop so low that water would stop flowing into the intake valves that manage the flow out of the lakes, thus drying up the river downstream.

Faced with that possibility, the Interior Department ordered the seven states in June to figure out a method to cut their water use by two to four million acre-feet annually. (An acre-foot is approximately equal to the annual water use of two to three families.) Even though the water levels in the two reservoirs remained dangerously low, the states were unable to come to an agreement.

The federal government set the stage for unilaterally imposing cuts on those states as a result of its inertia. The department hinted last month that it would defy the 100-year-old regulations dictating which states should take the brunt of the cuts and instead come up with an alternative formula, adding to the pressure.

States were given until May 30 by the federal government to express their opinions on the possibility of unilateral reductions. However, the Biden administration was secretly talking with the states to negotiate a compromise and avoid having to impose cuts that would undoubtedly face legal challenges and postpone any action.

The majority of the reduction, or 2.3 million acre-feet, under the agreement revealed on Monday would come from water agencies, farmers, towns, and Native American tribes that pledged to use less water in exchange for federal grants made available under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The sum of these payments will be almost $1.2 billion.

California, Nevada, and Arizona, who agreed to negotiate the cutbacks among themselves in the next months, would provide an additional 700,000 acre-feet. The Interior Department threatened to withhold the water if they didn't, a decision that might be met with legal and political resistance.

Over the following three and a half years, the cutbacks would save three million additional acre-feet than what is already specified in existing agreements. On an annual basis, that is far less than what the federal government had asked for last summer.

Thanks to an extraordinarily rainy winter that produced much above-average snowpack levels in the Colorado Basin, particularly in California, the Interior Department was able to negotiate less severe cuts. That should, at least temporarily, greatly increase the amount of water in the river.

A senior Interior Department official who was involved in the negotiations and who talked to The New York Times on the condition that he not be identified by name outlined the deal's details. A portion of the agreement was covered by The Washington Post last week.

The arrangement's design enables the Biden administration to temporarily avoid the issue of which states would bear the brunt of the budget reduction.

The Interior Department failed to give a breakdown of the voluntary, federally compensated reductions totaling 2.3 million acre-feet, detailing how much of those reductions would come from each state. The three lower-basin states will have to work at locating the additional 700,000 acre-feet at their own speed.

This has led to an outcome that is more palatable for the participating states, if not precisely welcoming, from what had previously appeared to be a state-against-state cage match.

According to the 1922 regulations governing the river, California would first endure decreases before a sizable portion of Arizona's supply from the Colorado River was reduced to practically nothing. Arizona's water supply would still be severely decreased, but the agreement effectively eliminates the possibility of drastic cuts.

Additionally, California performs better than it may have done otherwise. The Interior Department suggested that each state's supply may be reduced by an equivalent amount relative to its overall use. California would have lost the most since it draws more water from the Colorado River than any other state, shocking farmers in Southern California and urban areas like Los Angeles and San Diego. By mostly relying on voluntary reductions, this issue is resolved.

The agreement represents somewhat of a victory for the Biden administration, which at times seemed confused of how to handle the escalating issue. It gave the states deadlines to reach an agreement twice in the past year, but neither date was met. According to the agency, the deal demonstrates that states and the federal government can collaborate to address the issue of the Colorado's decline.

That idea will also soon be put to the test. The Interior Department has stated that before choosing how to move further, it will first analyze the outcomes of the agreements reached by the states. The following round of talks, regarding what to do after 2026, are scheduled to start next month.

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