Make-or-break stretch on water
The next few weeks could make or break Arizona’s water future. That’s not hyperbole.
Lake Mead, which supplies 40 percent of our water, has a 1 in 5 chance of falling to catastrophically low levels by 2026, requiring cuts that will hurt every water user in this state.
The proposed Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan aims to lower that risk for a time by requiring Arizona, California and Nevada to leave more water in the lake.
Yet the plan has reached an impasse in Arizona, and how we resolve it will have repercussions for years, maybe decades.
The DCP is supposed to go to the Legislature in early January. The Bureau of Reclamation has made it clear that it wants Arizona to commit at a December meeting that it is close to signing the deal.
Yet the steering committee tasked with figuring out how Arizona handles the DCP’s cuts canceled its last two meetings after the Gila River Indian Community rejected a proposal to funnel water to Pinal County farmers hit hard by the cuts. No subcommittees are meeting in the interim, though people are meeting one-on-one and in private.
The steering committee isn’t scheduled to meet again until its final meeting on Nov. 29.
It’s possible that the DCP could still go to the Legislature without details about how Arizona intends to lessen the impact on farmers. But it may be a stretch to pass without them.
State Sen. Lisa Otondo summed up the frustration in a letter this week to the state’s DCP steering committee, where she wrote in part: “The longer we argue and delay, the more we risk. Time is our enemy. We are facing a common crisis and will all have to take a hit or face the judgment of history.”
She’s right. Unless we find a magic rain cloud somewhere, there isn’t enough water to insulate everyone from pain when a shortage is declared, perhaps as soon as 2020.
Fiddling around until then also has consequences. Sure, for a time, shortages would play out under guidelines set in 2007. But if Lake Mead tanks, the feds could step in and impose additional cuts to keep it afloat. At least with the DCP, we’ll know what kind of additional cuts may be coming.
What’s more, the current guidelines will reopen in 2020, and all seven Colorado River basin states will be at the table. Guess what a bad negotiating position Arizona will be in if it’s the sole state to sit out of the DCP (remember: Upper Basin states are working on their own DCP deal).
We already have junior rights to water on the river. Better to be seen as a team player now than the odd state out when everyone starts jockeying in 2020.
The Gila River Indian Community has a proposal to lessen the impact of the DCP’s cuts, but the details remain a closely guarded secret. Central Arizona Project has one, too, which its governing board will publicly consider today. In a nutshell, it would use water that CAP has stored in Lake Mead for three years to help farmers, tribes and cities impacted by the cuts.
It’s not the best idea — and some proponents even admit as much. After all, the whole reason we’re doing the DCP is to prop up lake levels. Yet CAP is essentially proposing to take water out of the lake to help people ... who will get less water from the lake.
Meanwhile, two high-priority water users — the Colorado River Indian Tribes and the Mohave Valley Irrigation and Drainage District — have indicated that they are willing to fallow some of their land to move water to Pinal County (for compensation, of course). Yuma farmers have already voiced opposition to the irrigation district’s proposal because they believe it will take water off the Colorado River on which they rely.
Cost may also be a barrier to the tribe’s offer, which involves $37 million over three years — essentially, to fallow farmland in one part of the state to prop up farmland in another.
It’s anyone’s guess what will happen this morning. CAP is expected to outline the proposal in greater detail. There will be time for public comment, and the board could vote on it.
CAP board member Terry Goddard says the intent, if the plan passes, is to present it to the DCP steering committee and, eventually, the Legislature. But it’s unclear what will happen if the steering committee balks. Will there be competing measures before lawmakers? We don’t know.
Some groups have strong concerns about the proposal, though few are speaking on the record about them. Suffice it to say that either this meeting will generate constructive criticism that leads to better ideas — or it will be dynamite in an already volatile situation.
Gov. Doug Ducey spelled out four principles to guide the debate in an oped this week, noting that “demands for water and money to mitigate reductions are growing to insurmountable proportions” and that “individual interests must be appropriately balanced against the interests of the State as a whole.”
All indications are that Ducey intends to become more involved in this process to move DCP across the finish line. But there is skepticism in some corners about whether Ducey can broker a deal, as he did this spring with his 20by2020 plan to boost teacher pay.
Conspicuously absent from this process has been Sen. Jon Kyl, the politician who knows the most about water policy. It’s not clear why he’s kept such a low profile.
But we need him. And Ducey. At this point, it’s all hands on deck to decide whether we’re in or out on the DCP — and to maintain the relationships necessary to keep working on water once the deal is signed.
Because while the DCP is necessary, it’s just a Band-Aid to avoid catastrophe while we work on longer-term solutions to help this state thrive in its new reality, one with far less water.