The Land Desk

Share this post

Breaking down the"breakthrough" Colorado River deal

www.landdesk.org

Breaking down the"breakthrough" Colorado River deal

It's big news, but probably won't be enough to save the river system

Jonathan P. Thompson
May 23, 2023
10
3
Share
The Colorado River and the silt flats left behind by a receding Lake Powell. Note the old Hite Marina boat ramp on the left side of the image. This was once at water’s edge. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

The News: Arizona, California, and Nevada have come up with a landmark agreement to slash their consumption of Colorado River water by 3 million acre-feet in coming years. The Colorado River and its reservoirs are saved!

The Buzzkill: Nope. Not quite.

Yes, the three Lower Basin states came up with an agreement to cut water use substantially. Yes, it’s a breakthrough (as any such agreement would be). But no, it won’t be enough to save the Colorado River if the climatic conditions of the last couple decades persist or worsen. Plus, the proposed cuts are only for the next few years. What then?

The Background: For those who may have forgotten, the 1922 Colorado River Compact divvied up the river between the Upper and Lower Basin states (Mexico was included in the 1940s). The problem: The 16.5 million acre-feet pie they parceled out was bigger than what actually existed—even back then. They assumed the river carried about 20 million acre-feet each year, on average. In fact, it was more like 14 million acre-feet, so they were already in debt to reality when the Compact was signed. Oof.

In the decades since, the population of all of the states burgeoned and water consumption also increased. Meanwhile, after the wet and wild 1980s, long-term drought and warmer temperatures diminished the river and the reservoirs that were supposed to carry the users over during dry years. Last summer it looked like Lake Powell might drop below minimum power pool, or the level needed to allow water to flow through the hydroelectricity-generating turbines, within a couple of years. Losing hydropower is one thing, but losing the ability to release water through the penstocks is another, with its own dire ramifications.

That prompted federal water officials to call on the states to cut consumption by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet per year, or else they would implement the cuts themselves. The states blew past deadlines without an agreement until finally, last month, the Bureau of Reclamation presented two alternatives:

  1. Cut Lower Basin use according to the concept of priority (meaning Arizona would take the biggest cuts); or,

    The matrix for the Bureau of Reclamation’s priority-based alternative, which would burden Arizona with the biggest cuts and barely lean on California at all. USBR.
  2. Cut a flat percentage of each state’s water use (meaning California would take the biggest cuts).

    The matrix for the Bureau of Reclamation’s flat percentage-based alternative, which would result in larger volume cuts for California. USBR.

The prospect apparently was enough to scare the bejeezus out of the states, pushing them back to the negotiating table where they came up with this week’s deal. Details so far are sketchy, but here’s what we know:

The Agreement:

  • The Lower Basin states together will cut consumption by 3 million acre-feet over the 2023-2026 period, with at least 1.5 million acre-feet in cuts coming by the end of 2024 (there is no indication of how these cuts will be distributed across the states, but the Washington Post reports California will bear about half the cuts);

  • Up to 2.3 million acre-feet of those cuts will be federally compensated by about $1.2 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funds. Most likely this means that farmers will be paid not to irrigate their crops.

So what’s wrong with this deal? I’ll admit that when I first read the stories on this, I was pretty damned impressed: 3 million acre-feet is good! Thing is, all those cuts are spread out over three years, meaning it’s only about 1 million acre-feet per year. That’s only half the minimum amount of cuts the feds say are needed to shore up the river system and its reservoirs. It just won’t cut it, so to speak, if the drying trend continues.

Furthermore, the deal clearly is meant only to be temporary — a stopgap, a band-aid — that runs out in three years. What happens then? Even if the agreement were to be extended, where would the billions of dollars come from to keep paying the farmers not to irrigate? What if the Republicans’ obstructive ways nix the payments? And what about the additional 700,000 acre-feet of cuts promised? Where will they come from? Or will that require a whole new round of negotiations?

I don’t want to be a party pooper. It’s great that the states came to an agreement and, yes, it is a solution, of sorts. But it’s not the sustainable, permanent one that’s necessary.

But who knows? Maybe this past wet winter and huge runoff isn’t an anomaly. Maybe it’s the new normal and big rains and snows will come regularly over the next 20 years, filling up the reservoirs, saturating the soil, and swelling the Colorado River into the muddy monster of yore. Maybe we won’t need these cuts after all. But I sure as heck wouldn’t bank on it.

Big water! That’s what this chart shows in the form of unregulated inflow into Lake Powell. That is an estimate of how much water would be flowing into the reservoir if there were no upstream diversions or dams. The actual inflow is slightly lower (74,000 cfs instead of 84,000), but the patterns are basically the same. Note that 2023’s runoff is bigger even than the monster flows of 1983 — so far. That’s unlikely to continue as the snowpack is melting fast. This also illustrates just how awful 2002 and 2021 were. USBR.

Challenge at Glen Canyon

Jonathan P. Thompson
·
April 20, 2022
Challenge at Glen Canyon

A shorter version of this story original…

Read full story

Alfalfaphobia?

Jonathan P. Thompson
·
September 23, 2022
Alfalfaphobia?

In recent weeks I’ve written a piece or two about alfalfa. My thesis: As the biggest single water user in the Colorado River Basin, the crop must play an equally large role in contributing to the cuts necessary to keep the river from drying out. I know, it doesn’t seem like a hot-button topic. I mean, it’s just hay, after all.

Read full story

10
3
Share
Previous
Next
3 Comments
Ann Bond
May 23

Jonathan, thanks so much the coverage on the Colorado River. I’ve been mulling over some related sidebars I haven’t seen much coverage on … including what’s going to happen when farmers in the lower basin have to fallow thousands of acres of dry fields as their water gets cut back more and more. Anyone remember what caused the “worst hard times” in the Kansas, Oklahoma, eastern Colorado and the Texas panhandle plains?

Also, as I understand it, the electricity that the dams produce is used to power the water-delivery systems themselves, not to provide electricity for cities, etc. Without it, the water cannot be moved across the dry lower basin states to thirsty cities and farms. Recent coverage appears not to make this interesting distinction.

Finally, there’s been little background reported in the media on how the two reservoirs provide different purposes in the system. Powell is a storage facility for the Upper Basin states, and Mead is the same for the Lower Basin states. I’d love to learn more on how that distinction comes to bear in terms of the bargaining game between the states.

Expand full comment
Reply
Gene Reetz
Jun 5

I very much appreciate all your articles! Thanks.

Expand full comment
Reply
1 more comment…
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Jonathan P. Thompson
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing