‘Mitigation water’ at center of new proposal
Drought talks continue, but deal remains elusive
The agency that delivers Colorado River water to parts of Arizona offered a new proposal Thursday amid difficult negotiations on a proposed deal aimed at preventing the declining levels of Lake Mead from dropping even further.
The Central Arizona Water Conservation District’s board members voted to pass a motion they described as an “interim mitigation plan.” The proposal lays out a scenario in which the agency could provide “mitigation water” to soften the blow for farmers in central Arizona who have the lowest priority in the state’s pecking order of water users.
The proposal quickly faced questions, however, because it calls for using some of the Central Arizona Project’s stored water in Lake Mead — called Intentionally Created Surplus, or ICS, water — at a time when the larger goal is to prevent the reservoir from falling to critically low levels.
“The broader community has not yet produced a consensus proposal. We’re working very hard on it,” CAP General Manager Ted Cooke told the district’s board. “We have brought the interim plan forward because we think it will work.”
The proposal passed by the board calls for using up to 400,000 acre-feet of water from Lake Mead and up to 50,000 acre-feet of water from Lake Pleasant “while maximizing opportunities to maintain CAP ICS water in Lake Mead.”
The board also called for creating a
program in which some water users would receive compensation to provide water to blunt the impacts elsewhere. Officials said this would provide up to 250,000 acre-feet of water at a cost of up to $60 million, which would be included in CAP rates. “It’s a bridge. It’s just a place to start,” Cook said. “We have to find a way to make this work.”
The board agreed to bring its proposal before Arizona’s Drought Contingency Plan Steering Committee, which has been holding biweekly meetings since July but canceled its past two meetings as negotiations dragged on.
A meeting that was billed as the committee’s final gathering is scheduled for Nov. 29, and both federal and state water managers have said they hope to finish a deal by December.
“There have been some productive conversations over the past few days,” said Suzanne Ticknor, CAP’s director of water policy. “Discussions are helping to move things forward.”
But she said three proposals have come and gone, and there is also uncertainty about the availability of funding to help compensate parties that would transfer some of their water elsewhere.
Cooke said there have been promising discussions between stakeholders this week, “but we need to have some space to keep talking.”
Lake Mead is now just 38 percent full. Under the current rules, if the reservoir’s water level reaches elevation 1,075 feet above sea level at the end of any year, the federal government will declare a shortage and supplies to Arizona and Nevada will be cut back.
Federal officials have said a shortage may be declared in 2020.
In October, the federal government and states that rely on the Colorado River released drafts of a set of agreements intended to prevent reservoirs from falling to perilously low levels. The documents lay out a framework for cuts in water deliveries to prop up the levels of Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the river’s two biggest reservoirs.
The agreements include proposed drought-contingency plans for the Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — as well as the Lower Basin states of Arizona, Nevada and California. The details of how much water each state would leave in Lake Mead have been negotiated over the past couple of years, and the proposed numbers haven’t changed since the outlines of an agreement were circulated earlier this year.
Federal officials have been discussing the proposed Drought Contingency Plan, or DCP, with representatives of water agencies in Arizona, California and Nevada for the past several years. Federal Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman has urged the states and local agencies to finish up their negotiations.
In an op-ed article this week, Gov. Doug Ducey wrote: “It’s time to get to this done and make DCP a priority.”
“Implementing DCP in Arizona will require compromise from every stakeholder. This means setting aside narrow special interests and working for the good of the entire state,” Ducey wrote in the guest column in the Arizona Capitol
Times. He said while efforts to reach an agreement have been productive, “some recent proposals are so short-sighted and unsustainable that it requires me to remind all participants why we began this process in the first place.”
Ducey said the key “purpose of a multi-state drought contingency plan is to transition to a drier future” and that “we must recognize that drought may be the new normal and that DCP is only an interim measure.”
Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, addressed the district’s board during Thursday’s meeting, stressing that collaboration has been helpful in bringing progress in the talks. He expressed willingness to discuss the proposal but also signaled concerns.
“I must point out that in its current form, this proposal does not conform to the principles expressed by Gov. Ducey,” Buschatzke said.
Others also voiced concerns. Warren Tenney, executive director of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association, said the CAP board is putting forward the proposal in hopes it will help get the DCP accomplished, and he’s glad the board is “flexible with their proposal to allow for it to be modified through negotiations.”
“Whatever proposal is ultimately adopted, it must support the goal of DCP to keep water in Lake Mead,” Tenney said in an email. “We have serious reservations about utilizing all of the Arizona’s ICS water within three years because it is counter intuitive to the purpose of protecting Lake Mead.”
Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community raised a similar point during the meeting. “The community is strongly opposed to any use of water from Lake Mead for mitigation purposes and will oppose the use of CAP ICS unless it is directly offset by other additions to Lake Mead,” Lewis said.