Feisty sports matches need referees to take control early or risk mayhem on the field. In the furious battle over the rights to dwindling Colorado River water — a game with life-or-death stakes — the U.S. government has let things get out of hand. It’s only just now starting to flash yellow cards. It shouldn’t wait too long to make even tougher calls.
After decades of misuse, soaring temperatures and a 23-year drought, the Colorado’s flow has fallen by 20% since 2000. The 40 million people that depend on it, spread across seven U.S. states, tribes and parts of Mexico, must make painful sacrifices now or risk watching this precious resource dwindle even more. The critical reservoir of Lake Mead risks going “dead pool,” the point at which water will stop flowing to farms and cities in the river’s lower basin and the Hoover Dam will stop producing hydroelectric power.
Two months ago, the states blew a U.S. government-imposed deadline for agreeing to share the burden of cutting between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet of water use per year, or up to a quarter of current usage levels. (An acre-foot is how much water it takes to flood one acre with a foot of water.) That followed a similar missed deadline last summer. All along, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation has threatened to impose its own harsh cuts if the states couldn’t agree.
The states haven’t agreed. But the federal government still hasn’t acted. On Tuesday it did finally warn of two possible repercussions, representing unpalatable extremes.
The first would impose big percentage cuts evenly across all states, which would be particularly hard on California, the Colorado’s biggest and highest-priority water-rights holder. Most of those rights benefit farmers in the Imperial Valley, a key source of food for the country at a time of high inflation. In January, California was the only holdout on a multi-state deal that would have imposed 1 million acre-feet of water cuts — still far less than what is needed.
The second plan would use traditional water rights to divvy up the pain. That would punish the politically key state of Arizona and its population centers such as Phoenix and Tucson, something else the Biden administration likely wants to avoid just ahead of an election year.
The idea seems to be that such threats will motivate states to finally come to the table and cut a deal before yet another deadline this summer — roughly a year after the first deadline. “I think what will advance the conversation is having something down on paper that shows those bookends” of possible outcomes, Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau told the Los Angeles Times.
Here’s hoping. But while we wait for still more negotiations, the Colorado is still dangerously low. After months of heavy snowfall, the amount of water frozen in the Rockies is 159% above average, promising some relief. Lake Mead is a couple of feet higher than the Reclamation Bureau forecast last month.
But the lake is still about 183 feet below full pool, or 28% of capacity, and 40 feet lower than it was five years ago. Dead pool is still a live threat. If that happens, the most painful water restrictions under consideration today will feel luxurious in comparison. A changing climate means more hot, dry weather is a certainty. The longer we delay accepting this reality, the harder the choices will get.
