Three Colorado River states must take big water cuts as biggest US reservoirs plunge to record lows

By Laura Paddison, CNN

(CNN) — Arizona, California and Nevada will be forced to make deep cuts to the water they draw from the imperiled Colorado River under a new two-year operating plan published Friday, intended to help stave off an escalating crisis in the beleaguered waterway.

The long-awaited plan from the Department of the Interior comes after years of fraught negotiations between the seven states that rely on Colorado River water failed to produce a deal. And it arrives at a time when the river’s two key reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have both fallen to record lows — threatening water and power supplies for tens of millions of people.

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In July, the US Bureau of Reclamation published an operating framework for the waterway which set out the broad parameters of water sharing over the next 10 years, including a provision that cuts be set out every two years.

The new plan covers the first of these two-year periods, stipulating cuts for the three lower basin states through 2028. California will have the smallest at 440,000 acre-feet; Nevada will take 50,000 acre-feet less water; and Arizona will endure the steepest cuts at 760,000 acre-feet. It sets out no mandatory cuts for the upper basin states of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico.

These cuts translate into about a 27% cut to Arizona, 10% cut to California and 16% reduction in water flowing to to Nevada, according to Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. In Arizona, that means people who use Colorado River water are taking a 50% cut, she said.

Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, told CNN the water cuts to his state take into account previous discussions and recommendations between the three downstream states. “It could have been draconian,” he said. “I would like the reductions for Arizona to be zero but that’s not the reality we’re facing,” he said. “It’s a pretty good outcome.”

Arizona’s Democratic Senators Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly issued a joint statement also expressing support of the new operating guidelines.

The plan is the latest stage in the quest to divvy up the shrinking water of the Colorado River. Some experts expressed relief that something is finally in place, even if it only covers a short period, but others say it is far from enough as water levels reach record lows with little chance of relief anytime soon. There are also fears the plan may spark a lawsuit as tensions between the states over who shoulders the cuts bubble over.

“We are at a time of tremendous change in how we are managing water in this system and what that means for both communities and the river itself,” said Celene Hawkins, director of the Colorado River Program at the Nature Conservancy.

The Colorado River is a lifeline for the Southwest, providing water to around 40 million people and irrigating more than 5 million acres of farmland. For more than two decades, it has shrunk dramatically due to a climate change-fueled megadrought, high temperatures and years of heavy demand.

Water levels in its two key reservoirs plummeted to a combined record low last month. Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, is now lower than it’s ever been since it was created nine decades ago, and Lake Powell reached a record low on August 15.

It’s “a dramatic signal that the system is at risk of crashing, meaning reservoir levels so low that water cannot be delivered from them,” Porter told CNN previously.

Colorado River water is divided between states under the 1922 Colorado River compact, which allots 7.5 million acre-feet of water yearly to the upper basin and another 7.5 million to the lower basin. The agreement was made at a time when the region had a smaller population and benefited from wetter years, with much more snow to feed the river’s headwaters in the Rocky Mountains. As water levels dwindle, it is no longer workable.

So, states have been locked in negotiations over how to share what remains. The lower basin states, which have historically used the most water to support vast farms and booming cities, have proposed cuts in their water use over the past few years but want the upper basin states to share in the pain.

California’s agriculture and urban water users will negotiate a plan to make the required cuts, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California General Manager Shivaji Deshmukh said in a statement. But, he added, “water users across the Basin must make a renewed effort to forge a longer-term agreement that produces additional reductions, including through participation of all seven Basin states.”

The upper basin states — which, unlike the lower basin, cannot be compelled by federal authorities to reduce water use — have resisted cuts, arguing drought has already reduced the water available to them and that the lower basin uses far more water and should shoulder the cuts.

The new two-year guidelines provide an interim plan up to 2028 in the absence of a state-led agreement. Cuts will then be reassessed every two years.

In the meantime, the seven states can keep negotiating between themselves for a deal that would supersede the federal plan. “It’s very clear that a consensus is needed for us to manage the basin through what will likely be a permanently hotter and drier future,” TNC’s Hawkins said. But experts aren’t confident an agreement will be forged anytime soon.

A big fear is that the issue will wind up in court; states could sue each other or the federal government. “We definitely have seen some indications that some of the basin states are preparing for litigation,” TNC’s Hawkins said.

Arizona, which will experience the biggest cuts, has previously made noises about opting for a legal route and authorities have criticized federal plans for the river. Last month the Arizona Department of Water Resources said the cuts proposed in the 10-year framework were “unacceptable” and “would devastate Arizona’s water users and its economy.”

Any lawsuit would likely rumble on for many years, during which the Colorado River looks set to continue its downward trajectory. “Renegotiating these issues every year means we could be one dry year away from crisis and one legal battle away from system failure,” California’s Deshmukh said.

Additional reporting by Andrew Freedman

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