Colorado River states struggle to find agreement on longer-term Water Sharing plans
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| Colorado River Basin States |
Summary
1. Current Situation:
- - The Colorado River supplies water to seven Western U.S. states, over 25 Native American tribes, and two Mexican states.
- - Years of overuse, rising temperatures, and drought have significantly reduced water flow in the river.
- - The federal government is expected to announce water cuts soon, affecting some of the 40 million people reliant on the river.
2. Existing Agreements:
- - The 2007 guidelines determine water cuts based on levels at Lake Mead. These expire at the end of 2025.
- - In 2023, Arizona, California, and Nevada agreed to conserve an additional 3 million acre-feet of water until 2026.
3. Recent Developments:
- - In July 2024, a "historic" agreement was reached by the seven Colorado River states to reduce water usage.
- - Arizona, California, and Nevada (Lower Basin states) will reduce intake by 3 million acre-feet through the end of 2026, about 13% of their river allotment.
- - This agreement was aided by significant rainfall in 2024 and $1.2 billion in federal incentives from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
4. Ongoing Negotiations:
- - States are working on plans for water distribution after 2026 when current guidelines expire.
- - Upper Basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming) and Lower Basin states have proposed different approaches for future water management.
- - Negotiations are underway for a conservation credit program, allowing Upper Basin states to get credit for water conservation efforts.
5. Challenges and Future Outlook:
- - Climate change is expected to further reduce water availability in the Colorado River.
- - Long-term agreements (potentially 20-year plans) need to be negotiated without relying on wet years or federal funding.
- - Mexico and Native American tribes, significant water users, are not included in the recent agreement but are expected to be involved in future discussions.
6. Conservation Efforts:
- - Programs like the System Conservation Pilot Program have paid farmers and ranchers to reduce water use.
- - States are exploring ways to track, count, and store conserved water for future use or to fulfill interstate water sharing obligations.
The situation remains complex, with ongoing negotiations focused on balancing water needs across states, addressing climate change impacts, and ensuring long-term sustainability of the Colorado River water supply.
As Colorado River states await water cuts, they struggle to find agreement on longer-term plans | KPBS Public Media
The federal government is expected to announce water cuts soon that would affect some of the 40 million people reliant on the Colorado River, the powerhouse of the U.S. West. The Interior Department announces water availability for the coming year months in advance so Western cities, farmers and others can plan.
Behind the scenes, however, more elusive plans are being hashed out: how the basin will share water from the diminishing 1,450-mile (2,334-kilometer) river after 2026, when many current guidelines that govern it expire.
The Colorado River supplies water to seven Western states, more than two dozen Native American tribes, and two states in Mexico. It also irrigates millions of acres of farmland in the American West and generates hydropower used across the region. Years of overuse combined with rising temperatures and drought have meant less water flows in the Colorado today than in decades past.
That's made the fraught politics of water in the West particularly deadlocked at times. Here’s what you need to know about the negotiations surrounding the river.
What are states discussing?
Plans for how to distribute the Colorado River’s water after 2026. A series of overlapping agreements, court decisions and contracts determine how the river is shared, some of which expire at the end of 2025.
In 2007, following years of drought, the seven U.S. states in the basin — Arizona, Nevada, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — and the federal government adopted rules to better respond to lower water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Those are the river’s two main reservoirs that transfer and store Colorado River water, produce hydropower and serve as barometers of its health.
The 2007 rules determine when some states face water cuts based on levels at Lake Mead. That's why states, Native American tribes, and others are drafting new plans, which anticipate even deeper water cuts after 2026 based on projections of the river's flow and climate modeling of future warming in the West.
“The ultimate problem is that watershed runoff is decreasing due to an ever-warming climate,” said Jack Schmidt, professor of watershed sciences at Utah State University, and director of the Center for Colorado River studies. “The proximate problem is we’ve got to decrease our use."
How are these talks different from expected cuts this month?
Sometime this month, the federal government will announce water cuts for 2025 based on levels at Lake Mead. The cuts may simply maintain the restrictions already in place. Reclamation considers factors like precipitation, runoff, and water use to model what levels at the two reservoirs will look like over the following two years. If Lake Mead drops below a certain level, Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico are subject to cuts, though California has so far been spared because of its senior water rights.
In recent years, Arizona has faced the bulk of these cuts, while Mexico and Nevada also saw reductions. But these are short-term plans, and the guidelines surrounding them are being renegotiated for the future.
What are states already doing to conserve water?
Arizona, Nevada and Mexico faced federal water cuts from the river in 2022. Those deepened in 2023 and returned to 2022 levels this year. As the crisis on the river worsened, Arizona, California and Nevada last year agreed to conserve an additional 3 million acre-feet of water until 2026, with the U.S. government paying water districts and other users for much of that conservation.
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — the state's so-called Upper Basin — don't use their full 7.5 million acre-foot allocation from the river, and get a percentage of the water that's available each year.
An acre-foot is enough water to serve roughly two to three U.S. households in a year.
Have these efforts worked?
Yes, for now. A wet 2023 plus conservation efforts by Lower Basin states improved the short-term outlook for both reservoirs. Lake Powell is at roughly 39% capacity while Mead is at about 33%.
Climate scientists and hydrologists say that higher temperatures driven by climate change will continue to reduce runoff to the Colorado River in coming years, and cause more water to be lost to evaporation, so future plans should prepare for less water in the system. Brad Udall, a senior water and climate scientist at Colorado State University, said predicting precipitation levels is harder to do.
The short-term recovery in the Colorado River basin should be viewed in the context of a more challenging future, he added.
"I would push back heartily against any idea that our rebound over the last couple of years here is some permanent shift," Udall said.
What can't states agree on?
What to do after 2026. In March, Upper and Lower Basin states, tribes and environmental groups released plans for how the river and its reservoirs should be managed in the future.
Arizona, California and Nevada asked the federal government to take a more expansive view of the river management and factor water levels in seven reservoirs instead of just Lake Powell and Lake Mead to determine the extent of water cuts. If the whole system drops below 38% capacity, their plan said, deeper cuts should be shared evenly with the Upper Basin and Mexico.
“We are trying to find the right, equitable outcome in which the Upper Basin doesn’t have to take all of the pain from the long-term reduction of the river, but we also can’t be the only ones protecting Lake Powell,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of Arizona’s Department of Water Resources and the state’s lead negotiator in the talks.
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming called for addressing shortages based on the combined capacity of Lake Powell and Lake Mead, as opposed to just Lake Mead. It proposed more aggressive cuts that would affect California, Arizona and Nevada sooner when the major reservoir levels fall. Their plan doesn't call for reductions in how much water is delivered to Upper Basin states.
Becky Mitchell, the lead negotiator for the state of Colorado, said the Upper Basin's plan focuses more on making policy with an eye on the river's supply, rather than the demands for its water.
“It's important we start acknowledging that there’s not as much water available as folks would like,” Mitchell said.
Where does it go from here?
The federal government is expected to issue draft regulations by December that factor in the different plans, and propose a way forward. Until then, states, tribes and other negotiators will continue talking and trying to reach agreement.
Four Colorado River states, feds ramp up negotiations over water conservation credit program
| Original Reporting | This article contains firsthand information gathered by reporters. This includes directly interviewing sources and analyzing primary source documents. |
| Subject Specialist | The journalist and/or newsroom have/has a deep knowledge of the topic, location or community group covered in this article. |
Colorado River officials in four states, including Colorado, are negotiating a new agreement with the federal government to conserve water and get credit to protect against possible cutbacks in the future.
Water conservation is a big issue in the Colorado River Basin, where prolonged drought, a changing climate and overuse have strained the water supply for 40 million people. Currently, water conserved on a farm simply reenters streams and can be used by anyone downstream. The negotiations aim to set up a program to track, count and store that water so it can benefit the four Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Coloradans have asked for a conservation credit program, and this is a way of addressing that feedback, said Commissioner Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s representative on the Upper Colorado River Commission.
“One of the things that I heard primarily was that we need to be getting credit for the work that we are doing, and we need to be getting credit for it now,” Mitchell said Monday during the commission’s meeting.
This Fresh Water News story is a collaboration between The Colorado Sun and Water Education Colorado. It also appears at wateredco.org/fresh-water-news.
Farmers, ranchers and other water users are already being paid to cut back their use of Colorado River water. Last year, taxpayers paid farmers and ranchers $16 million to cut their water use through the System Conservation Pilot Program.
The program led to water savings, but it did not require tracking and storing the water. Theoretically, water conserved in the Upper Basin could simply flow downstream to be used on farms, ranches and cities in the Lower Basin, according to critics of the program.
After years of debating and studying possible water credit programs, the commission ramped up its efforts to set up a program in July.
The commission hasn’t explicitly defined how credits will be used yet beyond saying they will benefit Upper Basin states. One possible use is to save up the credits and use them to fulfill the Upper Basin’s interstate water sharing obligations if river conditions worsen drastically and trigger mandatory cuts in the Upper Basin.
Commissioners and officials from the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the basin’s vital storage reservoirs, aim to draft a conservation-for-credit agreement by the end of September.
It will identify general criteria for projects that could potentially conserve water for credit, like where conservation is taking place, who can participate, how the program would be regulated and how they plan to calculate conserved water.
If the commissioners approve the draft agreement, they will also have the option to move forward with accepting project proposals. The goal is to have applications in by October and to launch conservation projects in 2025, said Chuck Cullom, the commission’s executive director.
The process aligns with a highly anticipated funding announcement from the federal government in October, which follows a flood of $450 million in federal funds for environmental projects announced in July.
Establishing a conservation-for-credit program won’t be simple.
Building a long-term program to track and store conserved water raises questions about equity, funding, economic impacts and whether the idea is feasible at all.
The devil is in the details, said Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, a public water planning and policy agency that spans over half the Western Slope (which is part of the Colorado River Basin).
He wants to make sure a future program will not disproportionately impact one region, like the Western Slope. Farmers and ranchers in western Colorado have made nearly all of the water cuts through the conservation pilot program, even though communities across the state use Colorado River water.
“It’s a complex accounting world, and it takes time,” he said Monday after tuning into the virtual commission meeting along with about 100 other participants. “We do think they’re moving in the right direction.”
The potential program also has to coordinate with a set of high-stakes negotiations among all seven Colorado River states to decide the rules for storing, releasing and cutting back on water in the river’s main reservoirs, like Lake Powell and Lake Mead. These new rules won’t go into effect until after 2026.
Any credits gained before the end of 2026 will be counted but won’t be able to be used by the Upper Basin until after that process is complete, Cullom said.
The Upper Basin promised to conserve water in a proposal outlining how the four states envision future Colorado River management. Setting up a new conservation program shows the entire basin that the Upper Basin is taking action to cut back on water use, the state commissioners said.
“We all know that we have a supply and demand imbalance in the Colorado River system. We can’t control supply, so the only lever that we have to work with is demand,” said Anne Castle, the federal representative on the commission. “But if we’re reducing demand — and using taxpayer money to do it — then we have to make sure that it’s meaningful.”
Type of Story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Shannon Mullane writes about the Colorado River Basin and Western water issues for The Colorado Sun. She frequently covers water news related to Western tribes, Western Slope and Colorado with an eye on issues related to resource management,...
'Historic' agreement reached by Western states to save Colorado River
Seven states that rely on the Colorado River signed an agreement on Monday to reduce usage and help safeguard a river that provides drinking water for 40 million people and irrigation for some of the country’s most fertile agriculture.
Under a pact struck and publicized by the Biden administration, Arizona, California, and Nevada will lower intake by 3 million acre-feet (3.7 billion cubic meters) through the end of 2026, an amount equivalent to 13% of their river allotment.
The Lower Basin states of the century-old Colorado River Compact, which gives water rights to them, are these three, as are the four Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
While the Upper Basin states rely on the river and its tributaries, the Lower Basin states rely on Lake Mead, a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam and whose spigot is controlled by the United States Bureau of Reclamation.
Successful agreement was reached for Western Water Distribution Plan, supported by federal funding and favorable hydrology
The long-term health of the river is vital for the entire region, notably for the economics of large cities such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, as well as the agricultural industry.
The agreement reached on Monday removes a significant impediment to completing a three-year plan for distributing water rights beginning in 2024. Without a compromise, the federal government would have been compelled to implement cuts, which would almost certainly have resulted in a flood of lawsuits.
The deal, which the states hailed as a “historic success,” came after a year of grueling discussions that included two blown deadlines.
This year’s tremendous downpour, which filled reservoirs and packed the mountains with snow, aided the process.
Furthermore, the Biden administration made it rain with $1.2 billion in incentives under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which will reimburse local water districts, towns, and Native American tribes for cost-cutting measures.
“This year’s hydrology was really important, and not only the rains in California,” said Estevan Lopez, New Mexico’s signatory to the deal as the state’s commissioner to the river compact. “That made this possible, along with the funding from the IRA.”
Tougher Speaks First
Now, the seven states must return to work on a longer-term agreement, most likely for 20 years, that must be accomplished without relying on wet years or a flood of federal funds, and with the repercussions of climate change approaching.
“There are significantly more difficult things in the future that are going to have to be agreed to,” said John Entsminger, Nevada’s representative.
The Colorado River Compact has long been a source of contention because it was signed during a typically rainy era, leading signatories to believe they had access to more water.
The river has been strained further by rapid population expansion and, in this century, a catastrophic drought threatened to lower reservoir levels below the intake valves that supply water downstream and cut off hydroelectric output until this year’s rains.
Acknowledging water scarcity and thriving amidst a shortage
According to Entsminger, officials now recognize that there will be less Colorado River water accessible in the twenty-first century than there was in the twentieth.
However, he referenced Las Vegas, which has grown by 800,000 people since 2002 while reducing Colorado River use by 31%, as an example of how to thrive in the face of shortage.
Although significant, the agreement excludes two key river users: Mexico and Native American groups.
Lopez stated that Mexico, which receives 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year under a 1944 deal with the United States, has indicated a desire to collaborate, and that the tribes, who have an estimated one-fourth to one-third of the water rights, have been kept informed of the discussions.
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