U.S. proposes major water cuts on Colorado River

The federal government on Tuesday laid out two options for preventing the Colorado River’s depleted reservoirs from falling to critically low levels, saying it could either impose cuts across the Southwest by following the water-rights priority system or by using an across-the-board percentage.

The stakes of this decision are high for California, which receives the largest share of water from the Colorado River. An across-the-board cut could hit California harder, particularly agricultural regions.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation presented its alternatives as an initial step in a review aimed at revising the rules for dealing with shortages through 2026. The reductions, if adopted, could affect cities and farming areas in California, Arizona and Nevada.

The river’s largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have declined dramatically during 23 years of drought intensified by climate change. Even after storms that have blanketed the Rocky Mountains with the largest snowpack since 1997, federal officials say the likelihood of a return to dry conditions means the region still needs a plan for apportioning additional water cuts if necessary over the next three years.

“Everybody understands the significance of the crisis,” Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said. “I think everybody understands that, as fortunate and thankful we are for the precipitation, that nobody’s off the hook, and that there needs to continue to be unity in trying to develop solutions.”

Representatives of seven states, water agencies and tribes have been discussing options for reducing water use to prevent the reservoirs from dropping toward dangerously low levels. Closed-door talks are set to continue while the federal government receives input on the proposals.

The Bureau of Reclamation said it released its initial review of alternatives, called a draft supplemental environmental impact statement, to “address the continued potential for low run-off conditions and unprecedented water shortages in the Colorado River Basin.”

The agency is revising the 2007 guidelines for its operations of Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam, which include measures for dealing with shortages through 2026 — but which federal officials say would no longer be sufficient if reservoirs continue to decline.

The Biden administration released its options more than two months after officials from California and six other states presented two conflicting proposals for water reductions.

Under one alternative, the federal government would consider making water reductions based predominantly on the existing priority system for water rights.

That would mean smaller cuts or no cuts for agencies and entities that hold older senior rights, including agricultural suppliers such as California’s Imperial Irrigation District, which uses the single largest share of Colorado River water to supply about 500,000 acres of farmland in the Imperial Valley. Strict adherence to the water-rights priority system would also mean large cuts for junior water rights holders that started taking water from the river later, such as the Central Arizona Project, which supplies Phoenix, Tucson and other cities in Arizona.

Under a second alternative, the Bureau of Reclamation would analyze the effects of reductions “distributed in the same percentage” for all water users in the three Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada.

This approach would mean across-the-board cuts for all water users in the region, including senior water rights holders, amounting to a reduction of about 13% on top of cuts that were already agreed to under a 2019 deal. Agricultural irrigation districts, cities and tribes would all need to participate based on a schedule of reductions tied to the levels of Lake Mead.

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