Agencies: Drought plan being finalized

Lake Mead level now is just 2 feet from shortage

Arizona water managers say they will work with federal officials to finalize a Colorado River drought-contingency plan in time for the state Legislature’s next session — a key step toward conserving water in Lake Mead, where storage levels are flirting with shortage.

State officials outlined their plans at a briefing in Tempe on Thursday with Brenda Burman, the commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water operations on the Colorado.

Much like her visit to California earlier this year, Burman stressed that the “time to act is now” for finishing and adopting a plan to store more water in Lake Mead in hopes of avoiding shortages on the river.

Officials from other states echoed Burman’s call for quick action, urging Arizona to settle differences among water agencies and agree to a conservation plan that will benefit the entire river.

“We are at a point where we have a potential crisis on the Colorado River,” said Jim Lochhead, Denver Water CEO. “If we all contribute together, we can — I believe — sustain this river.”

Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke, Central Arizona Project General Manager Ted Cooke and Reclamation Lower Colorado Regional Director Terry Fulp also spoke in favor of finalizing a plan sooner rather than later.

Officials stressed that such a plan likely won’t stave off all shortages — but they hope it will prevent more severe ones.

While more Colorado River water is allocated to cities and agriculture than what has flowed into its reservoirs in recent years, intense drought and climate change exacerbate the disparity.

“We know this 19-year drought is one of the worst in 1,200 years,” Burman told a gathering of about 300 people. “This is the time for action.”

‘The time for action is now’

Burman in May spoke to California’s Imperial Irrigation District and said it was time to act on a droughtcontingency plan and protect Lake Mead and its users on the lower Colorado.

Fulp on Thursday said the elevation at Lake Mead on Monday measured 1,077 feet above sea level — 2 feet away from Tier 1 shortage levels.

Officials set three tiers of shortage under a set of guidelines established in 2007. Those tiers — triggered at elevations of 1,075, 1,050 and 1,025 feet — result in successive cuts to Arizona’s annual allocation of 2.8 million acre-feet. Those losses are taken first from the water delivered to Phoenix, Tucson and Pinal County through the Central Arizona Project Canal.

Part of the issue is the shape of Lake Mead’s reservoir. It isn’t a flat hole in the ground but is shaped more like a funnel. So when elevation goes down, the water is stored in less surface area.

“(The guidelines were established) without really considering ... that you would lose greater elevation as it declines,” said Bart Fisher, board member of California’s Palo Verde Irrigation District and the state’s Colorado River Board. “Everything happens faster when you get into the low reaches of the reservoir.”

Officials fear that the reservoir’s shape, like grading on a curve, will bring shortages faster.

“Really, that’s what has everyone very concerned,” Fisher said. “For a water manager, those are scary numbers . ... It’s incumbent on all those states to work together to prevent that from happening. Actually, all the other states are ready. We’ve all got plans or concepts.”

Lochhead of Denver Water said it’s imperative for Arizona to act, and to act quickly. Mexico and all of the lower and upper basin states are ready, but they have to wait for Arizona to finish its own drought-contingency plan, he said.

Ultimately, if Arizona doesn’t pass a plan, the secretary of the Interior could step in. But that’s uncharted territory, Burman said, and it isn’t fully known what the secretary could or couldn’t do.

So the rest of the river users are banking on Arizona passing a plan before it gets to that point.

“If Arizona is unable to do that, then the secretary (of the Interior) is going to have to exercise authority and the rest of us are going to have to protect our own interest,” Lochhead said. “And that’s not something we want to do.”

He said the rest of the Colorado River states want Arizona officials to resolve their “internal issues” and finish a plan.

Arizona officials say they are doing that by acting with urgency to get a plan in place before shortages come.

“The consequences of getting these lakes into really low places could be absolutely devastating,” Fulp said. “The risk is real. We can’t exactly quantify it, but it’s there.”

What would a plan change?

A drought-contingency plan would be a seven-year agreement, Burman said. Under the agreement, water users would leave some of their allocations in Lake Mead to keep reservoir levels higher, in hopes of preventing a shortage. That means some CAP water users would have to make do with less water.

Cooke said the water stored in Lake Mead would be drawn from allocations based on priority, beginning with the lowest, so-called “excess water” not allocated to a specific user.

Next, the cuts would hit an agricultural pool of water used by customers without a long-term allocation, then non-Indian agricultural users. Indian, municipal and industrial users hold the highest-priority allocations and would feel the cuts last.

Also for the first time, California would leave water in Lake Mead once the reservoir hit shortage levels, something the state currently does not have to do. Mexico would also contribute, but Arizona would be the largest contributor by far.

Others with higher-priority water rights could voluntarily leave water in Lake Mead as well, Cooke said.

On average, a drought-contingency plan would result in less available water for CAP, which delivers about 1.5 million acre-feet of water to more than 5 million residents in central Arizona.

Officials project that all priority users could be affected by a plan through 2026, though non-Indian agricultural users would bear the brunt of it initially. By reducing demand in Mexico and in the lower-basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada, officials say it would reduce the risk of Lake Mead falling below critical elevation.

Kathryn Sorensen, director of Phoenix’s water-services department, said the Valley has been preparing for such a cutback for years by banking millions of acre-feet of water underground for future use.

“Certainly, the city of Phoenix supports collaborative efforts to keep more water in Lake Mead,” she said. “None of this is a surprise, right? We know the Colorado River is overallocated, we are in a 20-year drought, we’ve known since 1968 that our priority on the river is the lowest in the lower basin, and we’ve been planning for a shortage for 30 years.”

Climate change on the river

Arizona’s long-term drought is made worse by climate change. As temperatures increase, there’s more potential for valuable water to evaporate.

All of Arizona is currently in drought, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. Most of it is severe and extreme drought, with a large swath under exceptional drought — the worst category.

Burman said that about half of the Colorado River storage was lost between 2000 and 2005. Lakes Mead and Powell were at a combined 95 percent full just a year before, in 1999, she said. They are projected to finish 2018 at 42 percent full.

Without the conservation measures already in place and voluntary contributions to the lake, Arizona would currently be in a shortage, Fulp said.

“Can we stay out of a shortage?” he said. “The likelihood is: We probably can’t.”

Agencies working together after spat

The plans announced Thursday come after CAP, the ADWR and others publicly sparred over a CAP plan to hit a “sweet spot” in Lake Mead by conserving enough water to stay out of a shortage but still using enough to trigger releases from Lake Powell, the reservoir upstream of Mead.

CAP came under fire in April for using a graphic that called for managing the reservoir to that “sweet spot” — about 1,080 to 1,085 feet in elevation. Water managers at the time accused CAP of undercutting conservation efforts, though CAP officials said there already would have been a shortage without their actions.

In a joint meeting with The Arizona Republic in June, Cooke and Buschatzke said they have resumed talks for the drought-contingency plan.

At a press conference Thursday, Cooke said he is now willing to support “as much conservation as Arizona can afford.”

What’s next?

Officials are planning a public Q&A meeting at the Heard Museum in Phoenix on July 10 from 1-4 p.m.

Buschatzke and Cooke will also form an Arizona steering committee to resolve any outstanding issues and finalize documents. The first steering committee meeting is tentatively scheduled for July 26.