As Colorado River states await water cuts, they struggle to find agreement on longer-term plans

WASHINGTON — The federal government is expected to soon announce water restrictions that will impact some of the 40 million people who rely on the The Colorado River, the powerhouse of the American WestThe Interior Ministry announces water availability for the coming year months in advance so Western cities, farmers and others can plan.

Behind the scenes, however, even more elusive plans are being worked on: how the river basin will distribute the water of the 2,334-kilometer (1,450-mile) river after 2026, when many of the current river basin guidelines will 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 hydroelectric power that is used throughout the region. Years of overuse, combined with rising temperatures and drought, have resulted in less water flowing in the Colorado today than in decades past.

That is made the fraught politics of water in the West sometimes particularly deadlocked. Here’s what you need to know about the negotiations around the river.

Plans for how the Colorado River’s water will be divided after 2026. A series of overlapping agreements, court rulings and contracts govern how the river is divided, some of which expire in late 2025.

In 2007, after 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 falling water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the river’s two main reservoirs that convey and store water from the Colorado River, generate hydroelectric power and serve as barometers of its health.

The 2007 rules dictate when some states face water cuts based on water levels in Lake Mead. So states, tribes and others are drawing up new plans that call for even deeper cuts after 2026, based on projections of river flow and climate models of future warming in the West.

“The ultimate problem is that the discharge of water from the watershed is decreasing as the climate warms,” ​​said Jack Schmidt, a professor of water sciences at Utah State University and director of the Center for Colorado River Studies. “The biggest problem is that we have to reduce our use.”

Sometime this month, the federal government will announce water cuts for 2025 based on Lake Mead’s water levels. The cuts could simply maintain restrictions already in place. Reclamation takes into account factors such as precipitation, runoff and water use to model what the two reservoirs’ water levels will look like over the next two years. If Lake Mead falls below a certain level, Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico will be subject to cuts, though California has been spared so far because of its senior water rights.

In recent years, Arizona has had to bear the brunt of these cutswhile Mexico And Nevada also saw reductions. But these are short-term plans and the guidelines around them are being renegotiated for the future.

Arizona, Nevada and Mexico facing federal water cuts to river in 2022. That deepened in 2023 And this year returned to the 2022 levelAs the crisis on the river worsened, Arizona, California and Nevada agreed last year to Save an additional 3 million acre-feet of water by 2026with the U.S. government paying water companies and other users for much of that conservation.

Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – the state’s so-called Upper Basin – do not use their full 7.5 million acre-foot allotment from the river and receive a percentage of the available water each year.

One acre-foot is enough water to supply approximately two to three American households per year.

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 about 39% capacity, while Mead is at about 33%.

Climate scientists and hydrologists say higher temperatures caused by climate change will continue to reduce discharges to the Colorado River in the coming years, more water lost through evaporationso future plans must account for less water in the system. Brad Udall, a senior water and climate scientist at Colorado State University, said predicting precipitation levels is more difficult.

The short-term recovery in the Colorado River Basin must be viewed in the context of a more challenging future, he added.

“I would be very reluctant to think that our recovery of the last few years is a permanent change,” Udall said.

What to do after 2026. In March, the Upper and Lower Basin states, tribes, and environmental organizations 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 broader view of river management, calculating water levels in seven reservoirs instead of just Lake Powell and Lake Mead to determine the extent of water cuts. If the entire system falls below 38% capacity, their plan said, deeper cuts would be divided equally between the Upper Basin and Mexico.

“We’re trying to find the right, fair outcome where the Upper Basin doesn’t have to bear all the pain of the long-term reduction of the river, but we also can’t be the only ones protecting Lake Powell,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona 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, rather than just Lake Mead. They proposed more aggressive cuts that would hit California, Arizona and Nevada sooner when major reservoir levels fall. Their plan does not call for reductions in the amount of water delivered to the states in the Upper Basin.

Becky Mitchell, the lead negotiator for the state of Colorado, said the Upper Basin plan focuses more on making policy with an eye on the river’s water supply, rather than the demand for the water.

“It’s important that we recognize that there’s not as much water available as people would like,” Mitchell said.

The federal government is expected to issue draft regulations in December that will take into account the various plans and propose a path forward. Until then, states, tribes and other negotiators will continue to talk and try to reach an agreement.

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