By Kennedy Maize
After more than a year of bickering and negotiating, the U.S. Department of the Interior Friday (July 31) unveiled its plan for dealing with the Colorado River crisis, as it rolled out its final environmental impact statement on river policies. The statement is a clear indication of what the agency-imposed plan for the river stalemate will be as the prior 2007 plan under the 1922 Colorado River Compact expires this year. 
The plan covers details of how Interior will manage the actions of the seven states affected: the four upper basin states (Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah) that supply the water and the three consuming lower basin states (Nevada, Arizona, and California) where 75% of the “beneficial use” of the water is for agriculture.
Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation says it will cut the allocation of river water to the lower basin states by 20% while leaving the upper basin states essentially unaffected. BuRec’s 80-page executive summary of the environmental statement makes the aim clear. The first objective: “Update and expand management guidelines for Colorado River reservoirs, particularly for the coordinated operation of Lake Powell and Lake Mead.”
The new plan is likely to exacerbate regional politics that are already quite fierce in the long-running struggle over the river.
The agency is focused on keeping water levels high enough behind the two mainstem dams’ hydropower generators to keep them in service. Glen Canyon Dam, the first on the river and the newest, has 1,320-MW of capacity. The final downstream Hoover Dam’s generating capacity is 2,000-MW. Water levels in both dams are critically low, a product of an outmoded 1922 compact and subsequent 20-year implementation plans, economic and population growth, and a 25-year regional drought.
In a news release, Interior said, “The combined contents of Lake Powell and Lake Mead have not been this low since before Glen Canyon Dam began filling in 1963, and since 2000 water use has exceeded total system inflow in most years.”
According to DOI, “Between 2020 and 2024, the average consumptive use in the Colorado River Basin was 13.1 million acre-feet. That is broken down by: Upper Basin Use: 3.8 million acre-feet (29%), Lower Basin Use: 6.5 million acre-feet (49%), Mexico Use: 1.4 million acre-feet (11%), Evaporation: 1.4 million acre-feet (11%).” An acre foot = 325,851 gallons.
The government can’t regulate the total amount of water available to the river from rain and snow, so keeping more water from flowing through the dams to the consuming states is the only way to prevent the pools behind the hydropower water entrances from reaching “minimum power pool level” effectively shutting down electricity production. Even worse is the prospect for “dead pool,” where no water at all can flow below Hoover Dam.
Interior’s upcoming regulatory regime is a bit of a punt. Previous plans have been for 20 years. The current 2007 plan, has had several amendments over the years. BuRec says the new deal will be for 10 years, to 2036. According to the agency, “This framework provides for more robust operational provisions than the current guidelines while preserving the flexibility to respond to changing hydrologic conditions and to incorporate future consensus recommendations, should they be reached.”
More significantly, the 20% cut will be for only two years, through 2028, in accordance with a deal Interior Secretary Doug Burgum made with the lower basin states during a trip west this summer. BuRec said, “The Department would issue operating guidelines at anticipated 2-year periods, unless consensus-based agreements provide for a longer duration. It also establishes a structure under which operating guidelines will be developed, reviewed and periodically updated.
“This approach provides certainty regarding a decision process over the next 10 years while preserving the flexibility to adapt to changing conditions.” It also means that the current DOI leadership is unlikely to be in place after 2028, regardless of who wins the 2028 national presidential election.
The plan the environmental statement outlines has quickly generated opposition from the lower basin, particularly in Arizona.
The Grand Canyon State is hit especially hard because of the arcane way water is allocated in the arid western U.S. states. It’s the “prior appropriation law,” The basic principle is that the first person to divert water and apply it to a “beneficial use” gets the senior water right, which must be fully satisfied before anyone who came later can get a drop.
Among the three lower basin states, Arizona was the last to be admitted to the United States (in February 1912, a month after New Mexico). That means that California (1850) and Nevada (1864) get first rights to Colorado River water. Arizona is at the end of the legal spigot.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gellego issued a statement Friday, saying, “Solving the Colorado River crisis demands a fair, basin-wide solution in which every stakeholder is asked to sacrifice. Instead, the federal government takes aim at Arizona and Lower Basin states even though we continue to do our part and conservation is a core part of our water culture. Phoenix is prepared to use less Colorado River water, but it is wrong to lay a disproportionate share of the burden on Arizona.”
The Arizona Department of Water Resources also issued a statement, saying that the proposed water reductions “would devastate Arizona’s water users and its economy,” adding that the “framework also fails to include any Upper Basin reductions or sufficient use of water stored in the Upper Initial Units (reservoirs above Lake Powell).”
While partisanship has not figured prominently in the troubled negotiations leading to Interior’s coming action, that could change once it is in place.
The three lower basin states are all deep blue, with both Senators and the Governor Democrats. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom is likely to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. In Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly is also getting serious mention as a potential 2028 Democratic candidate.
In the upper basin, by contrast, both Colorado and New Mexico are American Flag blue while Wyoming and Utah are scarlet.
The Quad Report, covering energy policy and politics