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The seven states that rely on the Colorado River are deeply divided over how to manage the shrinking water supply in the future. In a meeting on Monday, Arizona’s top water official outlined major differences between the states’ ideas about how to cut back on water use.
The states have been split into two camps for months, and do not appear closer to agreement than they did when they released competing water management proposals in March. They are under pressure to agree on a plan before 2026 when the current rules for sharing water expire.
Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said he still wants and expects the states to find a collaborative solution.
“We’ll continue to pursue that as hard as we can,” he said, “But we won’t give up too much to get it.”
Buschatzke described the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah and New Mexico as unwilling to sacrifice much of their water.
“This is a visceral issue between the states,” he said. “It is a giant chasm and it is a bottom line for all three of us, California, Arizona, Nevada.”
Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top water negotiator, said Lower Basin leaders are trying to “belittle the significance” of the Upper Basin’s “parallel actions” – a series of water-saving practices outside of state-to-state negotiations.
“Those parallel actions do not come at a small cost for the Upper Basin,” Mitchell told KUNC on Monday. “These are not minor actions or a pittance, as some would call them, but these are real and meaningful.”
How we got here
Six of the seven state representatives who will shape the next chapter of Colorado River rules speak on a panel at the University of Colorado, Boulder on Jun. 6, 2024. (Alex Hager / KUNC)
Those two camps represent a rivalry that goes back to the earliest days of managing the region’s water. Now, longstanding tensions are getting reheated as climate change shrinks the amount of water in the Colorado River and the states have to find a way to cut back on water demand in response.
The Upper Basin states are legally required to send a certain amount of water to their downstream neighbors – California, Arizona and Nevada – each year. After more than 100 years of complying with that standard, Upper Basin states contend they should be allowed to send less.
The Upper Basin argues that it feels the sting of climate change more sharply than the Lower Basin since about 85% of the river starts as snowfall within its boundaries. Cities and farms within its four states have to adjust their water use in accordance with recent snowfall, Upper Basin leaders say, but the Lower Basin can count on predictable water deliveries from upstream.
The Lower Basin has its own proposal, which its leaders describe as more holistic and sustainable than the current way of managing the river and its reservoirs.
Under the Lower Basin proposal, water cutbacks would be triggered when the combined amount of water in eight reservoirs across the West falls below a certain threshold.
Cutbacks are split into three tiers. In the first two, when reservoir levels are somewhat low, Lower Basin states would be the only ones to take less water. But when combined reservoir levels drop below 38% full, both the Lower Basin and Upper Basin would have to take cuts.
“We’re committed to working with the other basin states, along with the tribal nations and the Bureau [of Reclamation], towards a collaborative solution,” Mitchell said. “But also at the same time, we’re prepared to defend Colorado’s significant interest in the Colorado River.”
Both proposals are sitting on the desk of federal officials at the Bureau of Reclamation. They ultimately decide how the river will be managed, but historically have done whatever the states tell them so long as all seven are in agreement.
President Joe Biden’s administration had urged the states to agree on one plan before the recent election to ensure that it could go through smoothly, but the states blew past that deadline. State leaders said they do not think Donald Trump’s upcoming return to the White House will disrupt negotiations, despite Trump having expressed interest in gutting some government agencies and calling climate change – the main catalyst for the Colorado River crisis – a “hoax.”
Where things stand
John Entsminger (left), JB Hamby, and Tom Buschatzke sit on a panel at the Colorado River Water Users Association annual meeting in Las Vegas on Dec. 14, 2023. The three men are top negotiators for the Colorado River’s lower basin states of Nevada, California and Arizona. (Alex Hager / KUNC)
Both groups of states are digging in their heels. Publicly, they’re expressing a desire to work together and find agreement, but don’t appear likely to back off of their initial proposals.
“We did not put this out into the world on March 6 as a negotiating ploy,” Buschatzke said. “We didn’t start from the far end and say, ‘Okay, well now we’ll negotiate to the middle.’”
While it’s no secret that the Upper and Lower Basins have disagreed for a long time, the nature and details of these contentious, closed-door negotiations are rarely stated so plainly by one of the negotiators themselves.
