Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Despite separate plans for Colorado River cuts, stakeholders continue to talk
One proposal would bring cuts of 2 million acrefeet of water for users pulling from the droughtchoked Colorado River system, mostly affecting California, Nevada and Arizona, in an attempt to conserve the region’s most valuable commodity: water.
When looking at the plan released Monday by six of the seven states that rely on the Colorado River for their water supplies — and fiercely try to protect what they believe is their fair share — one water expert came to a harsh conclusion.
“It’s a bandage for a gunshot wound,” said Kyle Roerink, the executive director at the Great Basin Water Network.
The proposal, Roerink says, falls short because it puts the burden mostly on the three southwestern states — the so-called Lower Basin states.
“I think any time we see a proposal put forth that is going to limit consumptive uses, that’s helpful,” Roerink said. “It’s promising, but when you look at who’s giving up what, it just begs the question: Why does the Upper Basin get off scot-free?”
The Colorado River and its tributaries pass through seven states and into Mexico, serving 40 million people and a $5 billion-a-year agricultural industry. Some of the largest cities in the country, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver and Las Vegas, two Mexican states, Native American tribes and others depend on the river that’s been severely stressed by drought, demand and overuse.
The 1,450-mile river also generates hydroelectric power for regional markets and irrigates nearly 6 million acres of farmland.
States missed a mid-august deadline to heed the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s call to propose ways to conserve 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water. They regrouped to reach consensus last week to fold into a larger proposal the Bureau of Reclamation has in the works.
Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming sent a letter Monday to the Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the major dams in the river system, to outline an alternative that builds on existing guidelines, deepens water cuts and factors in water that’s lost through evaporation and transportation.
Those states propose raising the levels where water reductions would be triggered at Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which are barometers of the river’s health. The model creates more of a protective buffer for both reservoirs — the largest built in the U.S.
It also seeks to fix water accounting and ensure that any water the Lower Basin states intentionally stored in Lake Mead is available for future use.
The modeling would result in about 2 million acre-feet of cuts in the Lower Basin, with smaller reductions in the Upper Basin. Mexico and California are factored into the equations, but neither signed on to Monday’s letter.
California on Tuesday submitted its own proposal, which details how states could conserve between 1 million and nearly 2 million acre-feet of water through new cuts based on the elevation of Lake Mead.
But, unlike the plan released by the states, California’s attempt did not account for roughly 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River water lost to evaporation and transportation — a move sought by the other states that would mean big cuts for California.
Instead, California proposes reducing water taken out of Lake Mead by 1 million acre-feet, with 400,000 acre-feet coming from its own users. The state previously outlined that level of cuts in October.
Arizona would bear the brunt of bigger cuts — 560,000-acre feet — while Nevada would make up the rest. Those numbers are based on discussions from prior negotiations, California’s letter said.
The proposals, of both the six states and the separate one by California, are only a shortterm solution for next three to five years before the seven states will meet again for negotiations in 2026, said John Entsminger, general manager at the Southern Nevada Water Authority. He said all seven states had been negotiating in good faith.
“I don’t view not having unanimity at one step in that process to be a failure,” he said. “I think all seven states are still committed to working together.”
Patricia Mulroy, CEO of Sustainable Strategies Consulting and former CEO of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said the plan proposed by the six other states is “a great first step.”
Aside from meeting the conservation goals requested by the Bureau of Reclamation, Mulroy thinks the cuts would finally force California to release its priority position in water rights. This would “represent a major shift and would make the river community nimbler,” she said.
On the other hand, Roerink isn’t concerned about California so much as he is the Upper Basin states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. In a social media post, Roerink wrote that “the Upper Basin states must have signed that letter with an ear-to-ear grin” because there are no cuts above the compact line.
“When you look at this proposal, it doesn’t mean that much to me — the fact that you got the Upper Basin states to sign on because they get everything they want (and) there’s no sacrifice for them,” Roerink said in an interview.
With no proposed cuts for the four states, Roerink believes they could continue to develop new dams, diversions and pipelines that would bring all other water conservation efforts to naught.
Entsminger doesn’t necessarily agree with his water colleagues about the Upper Basin states.
Despite a lack of proposed cuts for the Upper Basin states, Entsminger said that they will still be making contributions, especially through the Drought Response Operations agreements that have moved water downstream from the Flaming Gorge Dam on the Green River near the Utah-wyoming border, along with future conservation programs.
“The majority of cuts have to come in the Lower Basin (because) that’s where the vast majority of the water is used,” Entsminger said. “With the Upper Basin … they’re having curtailments under their state laws on a pretty regular basis. … So it really is almost a year-toyear effort in the Upper Basin.”
Mulroy even said she was pleased to see the Upper Basin states’ contributions, especially since they don’t use their full entitlement of water compared to California, Nevada and Arizona.
One point on which Roerink, Entsminger and Mulroy agree is that the need for “shared sacrifice and … some element of equity” from the farmers to the city developers and state actors who depend on the Colorado.
“I’ve never been a big fan of finding a villain and blaming a villain, (but) if you want to find a villain, that spreads across every single user group,” Mulroy said.
Farmers, many of which hail from California, need the water for their crops and use roughly 70% of the water allocated to the Lower Basin states, according to Mulroy. Roerink has also accused places like Las Vegas of continuing to develop housing and expand despite water’s scarcity.
And while Entsminger admitted that Las Vegans need to be realistic about the arid climate, which would inevitably make water scarce, he believes every user in each sector of the basin needs to use less water.
“It’s so critical to spread out the pain,” Entsminger said. “If you can come up with a system where every water user is taking a 5-10% reduction and you can balance the system that way, then it’ll be painful but not catastrophic to any one user.”
The Bureau of Reclamation will consider the separate proposals as part of a larger proposal to revise how it operates Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams — behemoth power producers on the Colorado River. The reservoirs behind the dams — Lake Powell and Lake Mead — have reached historic lows amid a more than two-decade-long drought and climate change.
The bureau plans to put out a draft of that proposal by early March, with a goal of finalizing it by mid-august when the agency typically announces the amount of water available for the following year. Bureau of Reclamation officials have said they will do what’s needed to ensure the dams can continue producing hydropower and deliver water.
“I think all seven states are still committed to working together.”
John Entsminger, general manager, Southern Nevada Water Authority