Federal official on drought pact: ‘Close isn’t done’
A top federal water official announced Friday that because California and Arizona haven’t finished Colorado River drought plans, the Interior Department is asking the governors of all seven states that rely on the river for recommendations on how to prevent reservoirs from continuing to drop.
Federal Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman said there has been tremendous progress toward a deal, including the Arizona Legislature’s quick passage of drought legislation before a Thursday-night deadline. But she said that doesn’t change the fact
that the states haven’t completed the Drought Contingency Plan for the river’s lower basin, which aims to reduce the risks of Lake Mead falling to perilously low levels.
“Neither California nor Arizona have completed all of the necessary work,” Burman told reporters on a conference call. “Close isn’t done.”
Her announcement came the day after Arizona’s political leaders hailed the Legislature’s endorsement of the state’s plan for dealing with a shortage on the river. The federal government’s step toward intervention calls those efforts into question and raises the possibility that Washington might end up as the arbiter that metes out water cutbacks across the Southwest.
Even though the federal government is stepping in, the states still can handle the situation on their own — if they act within the next month. Burman said that while the government is asking the states for recommendations, the whole process could be called off and the notice could be rescinded if California and Arizona signed the plan.
“If all seven states are able to complete the Drought Contingency Plan before March 4, we will rescind and terminate that request,” Burman said.
Burman had set the Jan. 31 deadline in December while pressing for the states to wrap up the deal. With the agreements not yet finished, the Interior Department submitted a notice to the Federal Register requesting the seven governors’ recommendations “for protective actions Interior should take amid ongoing severe and prolonged drought.”
The federal government plans to accept input from the states for a 15-day period starting March 4. The notice says the Interior Department is considering “potential federal actions to revise Colorado River operations in an effort to enhance and ensure sustainability of Colorado River water supplies for the southwestern United States.”
The three-state Drought Contingency Plan is aimed at preventing Lake Mead, which now is just 40 percent full, from crashing. Nineteen years of drought, rising temperatures and chronic overuse have pushed the reservoir’s levels lower and lower.
If the deal were signed, Arizona, California and Nevada would share in water cutbacks during the next seven years. The plan would represent a temporary fix on top of the existing rules for managing shortages, and would be in force until 2026.
The agreement has been in discussion for the past several years. The four states in the Upper Colorado River Basin — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — approved their Drought Contingency Plan in December. The Bureau of Reclamation said “efforts among the Lower Basin states of California and Arizona have delayed DCP completion” past the Jan. 31 deadline set by Burman.
Patrick Ptak, a spokesman for Gov. Doug Ducey’s office, said the deliberations in Arizona are done. He said the state took the necessary action before Burman’s Jan. 31 deadline. “We met the deadline yesterday with the passage of the legislation,” Ptak told
“And now it’s time for California, the lone state that has not passed DCP, to do so.”
In California, water agencies including the Imperial Irrigation District and the Coachella Valley Water District failed to meet the deadline to sign on. The IID’s board has placed conditions on participating. They’ve said they want to be the last to sign the deal, and they want $200 million in federal funds for projects to control dust and build wetlands around the shrinking Salton Sea.