Competing priorities, extraordinary demands and the federal government’s backtracking on a deadline threatened to prevent a deal last summer on how to drastically reduce water use from the dry Colorado River, emails obtained by The Associated Press show.
The document covers the June to August window the US Bureau of Reclamation gave states to reach a consensus on water cuts for the system that supplies 40 million people a year – or ask the federal government to do so. Most include communications between water officials in Arizona and California, the major users of the Lower Basin river.
Reclamation wants the seven U.S. states that depend on the river to decide how to reduce the 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water — or up to about one-third — on top of the anticipated reduction. The emails, obtained through a public records request, reflect a desire to reach consensus but disagree on how much each state can or should provide.
As the deadline approached without significant progress, one water manager warned: “We’re all going to a very dark place.”
“The challenges we have this summer are significant challenges, actually,” said Chris Harris, executive director of the Colorado River Council in California, in an interview about the preliminary talks. “I don’t know if there’s any wrongdoing, I don’t know. There are different interpretations of what he’s asking and what he’s going to do.
Scientists say the megadrought in the US Southwest is the worst in 1,200 years, putting a deep strain on the Colorado River as major reservoirs draw to historically low levels. If countries do not begin to take less from the river, the main reservoir threatens to decrease so much that it will not be able to generate hydropower or supply water to farms that grow crops in other countries and cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix.
The river’s future looked so precarious last summer that some water managers felt efforts to reach a voluntary deal were futile — only mandated cuts would avert a crisis.
“We are out of time and out of any cushion to allow for a voluntary plan,” Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, told Bureau of Reclamation officials in a July 18 email.
When 2023 begins, fresh incentives make countries more likely to give up water. The federal government has set aside $4 billion for drought relief, and Colorado River users have submitted proposals to get the money through actions like leaving fields unplanted. Some cities are tearing up thirsty ornamental grasses, and tribes and major water agencies have left some water in major reservoirs — voluntarily or by mandate.
Reclamation has also agreed to spend $ 250 million mitigating the dangers of the California lake bed drying, the condition of the state’s water users agreed to cut use by 400,000 hectares in a proposal released in October.
The Department of the Interior is still evaluating proposals for a slice of $ 4 billion and can not say how much savings will generate, Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said in an interview.
The states are again trying to reach a grand deal — with a deadline Tuesday — so that Reclamation can become part of a larger plan to transform operations at Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam, giant power producers on the Colorado River. Failure to do so will make it more likely that the federal government will impose cuts – a move that could invite litigation.
Figuring out who is absorbing the extra water cuts has become a point of contention, with accusations of drought favoritism, reneging on commitments, too many negotiators in the room and the unsteady hand of the federal government, follow-up emails and interviews show.
California says it is a partner willing to sacrifice, but other states see it as a reluctant participant clinging to the water priority system where it ranks near the top. Arizona and Nevada have long felt they were unfairly forced to bear the brunt of the water rights system they developed long ago, a growing frustration that grew during the discussions.
Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton’s call for a massive water cut in testimony to Congress on June 14 was a public bombshell of sorts. A week earlier, with the heads of the federal government, the Lower Basin countries talked about jointly, with Mexico, cutting up to 2 million hectares during a meeting in Salt Lake City, emails and interviews show.
But when the week passed and the proposals were exchanged, the Lower Basin state barely reached half of the amount, and the commitment was nowhere near real, the email shows. Adding to the difficulty is not knowing whether Mexico, which also has part of the river, can contribute.
In several exchanges until July, Arizona and California each proposed different ways to get a cut, build an agreement related to the level of Lake Mead, consider water lost due to evaporation or inefficient infrastructure, and strongly protect priority system, though. it was clear that the negotiators were getting tired.
Those states are not happy with a proposal from farmers near Yuma and southern California to be paid $1,500 per acre for stored water. Cooke responded by advising farmers to work for a third of the price, higher but closer to the tariff.
In late July, Harris, of California, emailed a proposal to the Bureau of Reclamation outlining scenarios for the 1 million-acre cut, saying negotiators should be able to “declare some level of victory.”
“Otherwise,” he wrote, “I truly believe we are at an impasse, and we are all going to a very dark place.”
But in the end, Arizona and Nevada never felt that California was willing to give enough.
“It doesn’t make sense, it’s not enough. We don’t believe California is going to do its part,” Cooke said in an interview.
At the time, Reclamation privately told the state — but did not publicly acknowledge — that it was backing away from the mid-August deadline, officials involved in the discussions said. Beaudreau, the deputy secretary of the Interior, said in an interview that the deadline does not mean creating an ultimatum between getting a deal and forced cuts.
But state officials say that the federal government will not act unilaterally, thus creating a “terrible effect” that removes the urgency of the negotiations because water users with higher priority water rights are not at risk of severe cuts, Arizona Buschatzke said in an interview.
“Without that hammer, it’s a different tone of negotiation,” he said.
Today, the Interior Department’s priority remains to ensure Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam have enough water in them to maintain hydropower, and the department will do whatever is necessary to ensure that, Beaudreau said.
The Upper Basin states of New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado – which historically have not used their full inventory – are looking to the Lower Basin states to do much of the work.
Reclamation is now focused on considering the latest comments from countries on how to save the river. Nevada wants to count the water lost to evaporation and transportation in the water allocation – a move that could mean the largest volume of cuts for California – and some Arizona water managers agree, a letter of comment obtained by the AP shows.
But disputes remain over how to determine a fair and legal cut rate. California’s goal is to protect its status while other states and tribes want more of the old water rights to be taken into account – such as whether users have access to other water sources, and the effect of cuts on disadvantaged communities and food security.
Reclamation’s goal is to get a draft cut proposed by early March, then a final decision before mid-August, when Reclamation regularly announces how much — or how little — river water is available for next year.
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Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona. Associated Press writer Michael Phillis in St.