The Biden administration released an environmental analysis in April of competing plans for how seven Western states and tribes reliant on the shrinking water supply from the Colorado River should cut their use.
States Divided on Colorado Water Supply Issue
California and some tribes along the river want to protect their high-priority rights to the river’s water, which they use for drinking and farming.
The other six states — Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico say it’s time to come up with a different approach that more fairly shares the river.
The Interior Department did not say how states should get to deeper water cuts but defended its authority to make sure basic needs such as drinking water and hydropower generated from the river are met.
The 1,450-mile Colorado River serves 40 million people across seven states, spans tribal land, and Mexico, generates hydroelectric power for regional markets, and irrigates nearly six million acres of farmland.
“We have consistently maintained in Colorado that we support the Secretary of Interior moving forward in this process, we also believe that action needs to be taken to protect the system,” said Becky Mitchell, Colorado Commissioner, Upper Colorado River Commission and Director of Colorado Water Conservation Board of the Colorado River Department of Natural Resources. I know hydrology has maybe taken the foot off the gas pedal at this point, but I don’t think there is any time that it’s too soon to start doing better. We know that our system has not benefited from the way water is being used across the basin. So, no action is not a feasible alternative.”
Drought Relief Not Enough
A multi-decade drought in the West intensified by climate change, rising demand, and overuse has sent water levels at key reservoirs along the river to unprecedented lows. That’s forced the federal government to cut some water allocations and to offer up billions of dollars to pay farmers and cities to cut back.
Mitchell said although some relief is expected this year from a series of storms that blanketed California and the Western Rocky Mountains, more work is needed to meet the region’s long-term water needs.
“We cannot let this one year of good snowpack distract us from the fact that we must bring the system into balance both in the near term,” she said. “I think it is also important to make sure we stay focused on the long-term operational decision.”
In January, six of the seven U.S. states that rely on the Colorado River — Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado — outlined how they would conserve significantly more water, but California disagreed with the approach and released its own ideas a day later.
Both plans heeded a call last year from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the major dams in the river system, for states to propose how they would cut their water use by roughly 15 percent and 30 percent — in addition to existing water cuts agreed upon in recent years. Each achieves about 2 million acre-feet of cuts, which is at the low end of the requested cuts.
The environmental analysis released by the Biden administration explores both options, as well as a third that includes taking no action. States, tribes, and other water users now have until May 30 to comment before federal officials announce their formal decision.
Consensus-Based Modeling Alternative to Reclamation
States sharing the Colorado River submitted a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) that outlines a Consensus-Based Modeling Alternative for Reclamation to evaluate and incorporate into its development of a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) to revise current Operating Guidelines (2007 Guidelines) for Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell and Hoover Dam at Lake Mead.
Revisions to the 2007 guidelines are necessary to protect critical elevations and infrastructure within the two reservoirs to ensure the Colorado River system – which has been significantly impacted by more than two decades of prolonged drought exacerbated by climate change and depleted storage – can continue to serve more than 40 million people, approximately 5.5 million acres of irrigated farmland, Basin Tribes, environmental resources, and power production across seven states and portions of Mexico.
The states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming jointly submitted the Consensus-Based Modeling Alternative, and the states remain committed to working cooperatively with their local water users, the federal government, other Basin States, Basin Tribes, non-governmental organizations, and stakeholders throughout Reclamation’s environmental review and in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
While the Consensus-Based Modeling Alternative is not a formal agreement between the Colorado River Basin States, it serves as an alternative framework for Reclamation to analyze in its SEIS process. It provides an approach to help protect Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam infrastructure, water deliveries, and power production to mitigate the risk of either Lake Powell or Lake Mead reaching a dead pool.
A dead pool occurs when water in a reservoir drops so low that it can’t flow downstream from the dam.
The Consensus-Based Modeling Alternative includes, but is not limited to, the following modeling criteria for Reclamation to consider and analyze:
- Adjustments to the existing 2007 Guidelines, including reduced releases from Lake Powell and Lake Mead to ensure the deliverability of water downstream and power production.
- Adjustments to Lower Basin contributions are required under Drought Contingency Plan.
- Accounting for more than 1.5 million acre-feet of losses within the Lower Basin that are necessary to protect infrastructure.
- Additional combined reductions of 250,000 acre-feet to Arizona, California, and Nevada at Lake Mead elevation 1,030 feet and below.
- Additional combined reductions of 200,000 acre-feet to Arizona, California, and Nevada at Lake Mead elevation 1,020 feet and below, as well as additional reductions necessary to protect Lake Mead elevation 1,000 feet.
- Actions outlined within the Upper Basin State’s Drought Response Operations Agreement.
- Additional voluntary conservation measures that take into account hydrologic shortage in the Upper Division States.
“The CBMA includes the significant and necessary step of assessing evaporation and transit losses against Lower Basin uses. The Lower Basin actions operate in coordination with additional actions in the Upper Basin. We can only save the Colorado River system if we act together. The CBMA approach appropriately distributes the burden across the Basin and provides safeguards for the Tribes, water users, and environmental values in the Upper Basin,” Mitchell said.
Upper Basin System Conservation Pilot Program Addresses Drought Issue
From 2015-2018 the Upper Division States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, through the Upper Colorado River Commission (UCRC), conducted the first Upper Basin System Conservation Pilot Program (SCPP) – a four-year pilot program designed to explore potential solutions and to address declining water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell due to long-term drought in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The program tested and implemented on-the-ground water conservation opportunities that were helpful in managing drought conditions in the Colorado River Basin.
In June of 2022, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton provided testimony to the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee concerning the need for additional protective measures that could protect the Colorado River System. Specifically, she asked Basin managers to collectively save an additional 2-4 million acre-feet of water, a significant percentage of the Colorado River’s total annual flow.
In response to Commissioner Touton’s request, the Upper Division States and the UCRC developed and adopted a Five-Point Plan, which put forward a number of strategic activities to help improve the Colorado River System, in conjunction with commensurate conservation activities proposed and undertaken by the states of the Lower Basin.
Five-Point Plan Development
The first listed element of the Five-Point Plan was the re-authorization and re-initiation of the SCPP program with the subsequent steps of developing the agreements, legislation, and funding that would enable SCPP activities to take place in the Upper Basin in 2023.
The agreement includes a commitment of up to $125 million available for projects between 2023-2026, but the UDS and UCRC’s current focus is on participation in the 2023 water year.
The federal government reauthorized the SCPP late last year offering money to farmers and others willing to forgo their water use this year.
“We got federal reauthorization for this program, which we needed to implement in December of 2022, and there was a Request for Proposals put out,” said Amy Ostdeik, Section Chief of Interstate, Federal, and Water Information Section at Colorado Water Conservation Board. “The initial deadline for application was Feb.1, and that was actually moved back to March 1 to give water users more of an opportunity to consider whether they wanted to participate and how. As soon as the applications came in, we hit the ground running.”
Ostdeik said Colorado had the highest number of projects with 28 and a total of 72 proposals across the Upper Basin. She said most of the projects are agriculture in nature.
“That will conserve an estimated 39,178 acres feet of water,” she said. “The project is to mitigate the impacts of drought in the Upper Basin, but hopefully we can learn something from doing that, and see what types of conservation activities might be part of our tool kit going forward.”
Publisher’s Note: As of the posting of this article, the Biden Administration will require California, Nevada, and Arizona to conserve 3-million-acre feet of water through 2026. According to an ABC News article, dated May 22, 2023, “The Interior Department is temporarily withdrawing the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) proposal published last month in light of the state’s voluntary conservation proposal. Representatives from the seven Colorado River Basin states have agreed to the submission of the conservation proposal and have requested the proposal be fully analyzed as an action alternative under SEIS.”
For more information on Colorado’s water supply, check out “Clear as Mud: Making Sense of Colorado’s Water Rights” and “The Concerning Truth About Colorado’s Depleting Water Supply.”
