How failing talks could spark a legal fight over Colorado River water
With leaders of seven states deadlocked over the deepening crisis of the Colorado River, there is a growing possibility that the talks will fail; This could lead to the federal government imposing unilateral cuts and fueling litigation that would lead to a complex court battle.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has called on negotiators for states to reach an agreement by Feb. 14, but serious disagreements remain.
“All seven states know that if we can’t reach an agreement, this will end up in the courts, and it will be a long and uncertain process,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in an interview.
“I am confident that Colorado will prevail based on merit,” Polis said, but a court fight “is not something any state would aspire to.”
The Colorado River supplies approx. 35 million people and 5 million acres of farmland from the Rocky Mountains to northern Mexico. Water was first divided among the states in 1922 under an agreement called the Colorado River Compact.
This agreement promised more than the river could deliver. And the relentless drought exacerbated by climate change in the last quarter century, disrupted the flow of the river and left its giant reservoirs severely depleted.
Three states of the Lower Basin (California, Arizona, and Nevada) are in dispute with four states of the Upper Basin: Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico.
At a meeting this week, Arizona officials appeared to be expecting failure. They noted that the amount of water flowing into Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, could soon drop to a legal trigger point.tripwireThis would allow Arizona to claim cuts upriver and sue for breach of contract.
The century-old agreement requires water released from Upper Basin dams for Arizona, Nevada and California to average at least 7.5 million acre-feet in any given decade, as well as an allocation for Mexico.
Brenda Burman, executive director of the Central Arizona Project, said water reaching the Lower Basin will likely drop below that point this year or next year, which has never happened before. “It’s very sobering,” he said. “Our neighbors in the Upper Basin have always fulfilled this obligation in the past.”
Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s chief negotiator, said Arizona likely won’t let up on the issue unless Upper Basin states take “significant steps” by agreeing to larger water cuts.
Buschatzke said if the states cannot reach an agreement, federal officials could sharply cut off Arizona’s water starting next year, at which point a lawsuit would likely be filed.
“I can’t tell you when it will happen, but it looks like that’s the path we’re on.”
Representatives of the Lower Basin states offered to accept significant cuts: 27% for Arizona, 17% for Nevada and 10% for California.
“We’re willing to do more if our partners in the Upper Basin states come to the table with their own reductions,” Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs said at Monday’s meeting.
Hobbs was one of six governors who met with Burgum in Washington last week.
California Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot, who replaced Gov. Gavin Newsom, said negotiators had “narrowed down the differences issues between the two basins, and that gives me optimism.”
They have been talking for more than two years and are trying to agree on new rules that will come into force in 2027. Negotiators were initially talking about a 20-year agreement. They have now reduced their target to a maximum of five years.
The Trump administration has hinted at what might happen next without a deal. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has outlined several options that would cut water by 33% to 69% in Arizona and 24% to 67% in Nevada. Depending on some options, California could see reductions of 29% to 33%.
Cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles will have to turn to other water sources, and some areas may face shortages and increased restrictions on outdoor irrigation. Some tribes could get less water. Agricultural activities, which consume three-quarters of the water, may also cause shrinkage and drying of some fields.
At the same time, Buschatzke said the federal proposals would actually allow Upper Basin states to increase water use.
“As we continue to grow, we’re going to have to cut even more,” he said.
Negotiators from Arizona, California and Nevada say they are pushing Upper Basin leaders to commit to reducing water use to help boost low reservoir levels, and those states’ resistance to firm commitments has been a sticking point.
However, Police said: mandatory deduction requests It’s a “non-starter” for Colorado.
“Upper Basin states cannot legally commit to mandatory cuts,” Polis said, because there are landowners with senior water rights and if states take away those rights “they would be responsible for hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.”
“That said, we definitely want to do our part in protection,” police said. “We are ready to put specific protection targets on the table.”
He said he hopes federal funds will be available to support water conservation efforts.
This has happened before. For example, under a tentative agreement reached in 2023, farmers in California’s Imperial Valley and other parts of Paid to leave hay fields dry part of the year.
Polis said the cuts offered by the Lower Basin would be sufficient in years of average snowfall in the Rocky Mountains, but the plan should also include larger cuts for dry years.
States also disagree on how much water should be released from upper basin dams to prevent flooding of Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the river’s two largest reservoirs. dangerously low levels.
Lake Mead is only 34% full and Lake Powell is 26% full.
This winter’s hot, dry conditions don’t help. Rocky Mountain The snowpack is one of the smallest in recent years, at just 57% of average.
One of the purposes of negotiations is to prevent.DeadpoolA scenario that would mean a catastrophic water shortage for California, Arizona and Mexico if the water in the reservoirs reached levels where it could hit the concrete at the bottom of the dams and no longer flow downstream.
Last year, a group of experts called on both regions to acknowledge “shared suffering”. applicable water cuts. Without an agreement on this issue, “it’s hard for me to be optimistic,” said Anne Castle, a senior researcher at the Getches-Wilkinson Center at the University of Colorado. “The only way to get around this is for the states to agree on how to share the river fairly.”
As the Trump administration’s Feb. 14 deadline approaches, federal officials are “pushing us to come to a consensus, at least in concept,” Buschatzke said, but they haven’t said what they will do if states miss the deadline.
Stephen Roe Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona, said the chances of reaching an agreement “seem pretty slim at this point.”
“I know we are all preparing for the possibility of failure,” he told state officials.
Buschatzke said he is focused on protecting Arizona. The state relies on the Colorado River for more than a third of its water.
“If we cannot reach a collaborative outcome, I will not view it as a failure,” he said.
“When I look in the mirror, the only real failure for me would be to give away the water supply of the state of Arizona to the next few generations,” he said. “And that’s not going to happen.”
