California, Arizona and Nevada have agreed on a plan to take less water from the drought-stricken Colorado River, a breakthrough that comes after months of fraught negotiations and several missed deadlines.
The agreement, announced on Monday, proposes that in the three states, water districts, Native American tribes and farm operators cut about 13% of the total water use in the lower Colorado basin, a historic reduction that will likely trigger significant water restrictions on the region’s residents and farmland.
Under the threat of more stringent water cuts by the federal government, the deal between the three lower-basin states – which claim the highest share of water resources – breaks a year-long stalemate and aims to prevent the Colorado from dwindling further, imperiling the water supplies for millions of people and vast swaths of agricultural land in the US west.
Still, concerns linger that the cuts fall short of what experts believe will be necessary to sustain the system as conditions intensify in the years to come. Submitted as an alternative to federal options issued last month, the deal still must undergo an environmental analysis by the US government.
Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, stressed that the announcement is not a final deal.
“We agreed to a proposal. This is not an agreement,” Buschatzke said during a call with reporters.
In all, the plan is expected to conserve 3m acre-feet of water over the next three years – with at least half of that amount achieved by the end of 2024. (An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons, or enough water to cover an acre of land, about the size of a football field, one foot deep and a single acre-foot is enough to sustain two average California households for a year.)
Of these savings, 2.3m acre-feet will be compensated by the federal government, with $1.2bn in grant money, financed by the Inflation Reduction Act, going to cities, tribes and water districts. The rest of the savings will be worked out by the states.
The agreement averts, for now, the prospect of the Biden administration imposing unilateral water cuts upon the seven states – California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – that rely upon the river, a prospect that has loomed since last summer when the waterway’s two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, hit perilously low levels.
Harnessing the might of the Colorado river, which rises in the Rocky Mountains and flows all the way to Mexico, has enabled cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas to flourish, as well as allowing millions of acres of agricultural land to be cultivated in otherwise harsh desert environments. More than 40 million people rely on the water the 1,450-mile (2,300km) river provides.
But the enormous extraction of water, mainly for farming, coupled with the climate crisis, which has increased the evaporation of water and reduced the snowpack that feeds the river, has caused a crisis point for the river and the US west. The region is experiencing its worst drought in 1,200 years, with this year’s bumper rain and snowfall not expected to fully release the grip of a two-decade “megadrought”.
Without a deal, it was feared that the water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell would fall so much that the hydroelectric turbines they powered would fail, risking the power supply to millions of people.
Any further drop – Lake Mead is only about a third full and is at its lowest ebb since the construction of the Hoover dam, which created it – could see the drying up of the Colorado River south of the reservoir, which feeds the lower basin states: Nevada, California and Arizona.
“Today’s announcement is a testament to the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to working with states, tribes and communities throughout the west to find consensus solutions in the face of climate change and sustained drought,” said Deb Haaland, the US interior secretary.
Governors in California, Arizona and Nevada released a statement in which they hailed the breakthrough. “The lower basin plan is the product of months of tireless work by our water managers to develop an agreement that stabilizes the Colorado River system through 2026,” said Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs.
Several large water districts have also expressed support, including the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) – California’s largest holder of rights to Colorado River water.
“IID is pleased that the lower basin states have come to consensus with the development of a plan that is based on voluntary, achievable conservation volumes,” said Henry Martinez, the general manager of IID, in a statement, adding that the plan will help protect Lake Mead, from which the intensely irrigated Imperial Valley draws all of its water supply.
Experts also welcomed the deal but cautioned that a longer-term solution was still badly needed. “The fact that the lower basin states and federal government came to an agreement is encouraging – it’s a significant step forward,” said Sharon Megdal, a water policy expert at the University of Arizona.
“Lots of people will say 3m acre-feet isn’t enough, but this is about stopping the system from immediately crashing. Hopefully this will get us through the next few years and we can focus on what happens after 2026, because we were all worried how we would get there. Now there’s the hard work of getting a longer-term solution because this is by no means the end of the story.”
Though adoption of the plan isn’t certain, Camille Touton, the commissioner of the US Bureau of Reclamation, called it an “important step forward”.
Under the proposal, California – which currently received the most water based on a century-old water rights priority system – would give up about 1.6m acre-feet of water through 2026, representing a little more than half of the total. Leaders in Arizona and Nevada didn’t immediately say how they’d divide the remaining 1.4m acre feet. The upper basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming didn’t face immediate cuts, because they were not part of the pact.
The proposal would buy more time for longer-term solutions, which will be needed to sustain the over-drawn basin as conditions intensify. The plan now must undergo environmental review and the federal government is expected to release a new schedule for comment later this week, with plans to finalize the process in the months to come.
Michael Cohen, a senior researcher at the Pacific Institute focused on the Colorado River, called the amount of cuts the three states have proposed a “huge, huge lift” and a significant step forward.
“It does buy us a little additional time,” he said. But if more dry years are ahead, “this agreement will not solve that problem.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story
