Interior Department’s plan spares Colorado from mandatory cuts for now

After years of stalled negotiations among the seven states that rely on the Colorado River, the federal government on Friday released its own plan for managing the drought-strained system.

Calling it a balanced approach that offers flexibility and predictability, the plan released by the U.S. Department of the Interior cuts the allocation of Arizona, California and Nevada, while sparing Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming for now.

But it’s a temporary fix, as the states that rely on the river still fight over a long-term management plan for the dwindling resource that powers huge swaths of the Western United States.

Under the plan, the Lower Basin states could face collective cuts up to 3 million acre-feet through 2036, “subject to hydrology,” according to a news release by the Department of the Interior. That’s enough water to serve more than 25 million people a year.

The plan would also allow annual releases between 5 and 12 million acre-feet from Lake Powell, the basin’s second-largest reservoir. Under the 10-year federal framework, water management decisions will be made every two years.

The river’s current interim operating guidelines, set in 2007, are due to expire on Oct. 1, the beginning of the next water year.

The seven Colorado River states — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico from the Upper Basin, and Nevada, California and Arizona in the Lower Basin — have time and again failed to reach an agreement on how to manage the river.

The river’s flows have been declining for more than 25 years, leaving the 40 million people, tribal nations, farms, industries and hydropower systems that depend on it in an increasingly precarious situation.

Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Andrea Travnicek said in a statement Friday that the plan, known as a final environmental impact statement, “strikes a balance between flexibility and predictability for the Colorado River system that is vital to the 40 million people who rely on it, given unprecedented hydrologic conditions and the potential for considerable impacts on water users.”

“It also allows a new flexibility to respond to changing conditions and potential consensus,” Travnicek said.

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: 3.8 million acre-feet (29%)

• Lower Basin: 6.5 million acre-feet (49%)

• Mexico use: 1.4 million acre-feet (11%)

• Evaporation: 1.4 million acre-feet (11%)

The 1922 river compact estimated the river could supply at least 15 million acre-feet of water every year to the seven states and Mexico, but it was based on hydrology at the time that was well above average.

At the time the 1922 compact was signed, the seven states had a combined population of about six million — roughly the size of Colorado’s population today.

Renegotiating the river’s rules every two years didn’t sit well with Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s lead negotiator and a commissioner with the Upper Colorado River Commission.

She said last month that she “has no idea what that process would look like, constantly negotiating every two years.”

“That would be incredibly difficult,” she said.

Mitchell, speaking at the annual CU-Boulder Getches-Wilkinson conference on the Colorado River, said she supports the framework tied to actual conditions, what the river is producing and what’s in the reservoirs, which she called a definite positive.

But she questioned how to fund projects if the negotiators are constantly renegotiating and how to create certainty for the people who rely on the river.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had released a draft environmental impact statement earlier this year, outlining four likely operating alternatives, along with a “no action” option that was widely viewed as unworkable.

Scott Cameron, the acting Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the Interior Department, said at a conference in Boulder last month that it was “almost inconceivable” that a seven-state proposal wouldn’t fit within one of those five options. A long-term agreement — ideally 20 to 30 years — was the federal government’s goal, he said, but negotiators haven’t been able to agree on even a two-year plan.

In a statement Friday, the Upper Colorado River Commission — representing negotiators from the four upper-basin states — said operations at Lake Powell and Lake Mead must shift away from a demand-based framework and instead reflect the river’s actual supply.

The commission said the upper basin states are doing their part to support Lake Powell and the river by managing within available supply.

Lake Powell is the water “bank” for the upper basin states, but its current level — at 3,522 feet above sea level — is only 22% full. At 3,370 feet, the Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell will fail to generate hydropower and the reservoir would be in a dead pool.

Estimates from the Bureau of Reclamation indicate Glen Canyon could hit dead pool as early as next year.

The Upper Colorado River Commission said it is reviewing the final environmental impact statement and awaiting a decision from the federal bureau, as well as details for 2027 river operations.

Once that happens, the commission said it would provide a more comprehensive assessment of the operating plan.

No one is happy

It appears no one is happy with the federal plan.

In a statement Friday, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado said he is deeply disappointed that the Department of the Interior “could not develop a 7-state consensus agreement.”

“While a 2-year operating plan is the bare minimum needed to operate the river, a long-term consensus agreement that recognizes real hydrologic conditions is the only durable solution to bring certainty to the Colorado River,” he said.

In neighboring Arizona, the state’s Department of Water Resources said that it has been clear for months that Colorado River negotiations have become an exercise in lowering expectations — especially for a long-term, seven-state operating agreement. That increasingly bleak outlook, the agency said, prompted Arizona, California and Nevada to put forward their own proposal to stabilize Lake Powell and Lake Mead with more than 3 million acre-feet of water savings over two years.

The three states submitted their own proposal in May, expanding the existing system conservation program across the Lower Basin. The plan calls for at least 700,000 acre-feet of savings — with a goal of up to a million acre-feet — and identifies more than 3.2 million acre-feet in total contributions through 2028.

Arizona’s Friday statement said the final environmental impact statement adopts some of the core elements of the three-state proposal. However, it leaves out any cuts in water allocation to the Upper Basin states and the framework, which includes reductions in the Lower Basin of up to three 3 acre-feet per year, rather than over a two-year period, is unacceptable.

“Such reductions would devastate Arizona’s water users and its economy,” the state said.

Luke Runyon, co-director of The Water Desk, a journalism initiative at the Center for Environmental Journalism that focuses on Western water issues and the Colorado River Basin, told Colorado Politics that when the federal government released its alternatives, it acknowledged they would not solve the water supply and demand gap on the river.

This plan doesn’t do that either, Runyon said, adding this is but one step in a long history of trying to manage the river.

As to the Upper Basin states, Runyon explained the Interior Secretary has clear authority as water master in the Lower Basin — but the officeholder doesn’t have that authority for the Upper Basin states.

That’s part of why it’s taken years for the seven states to reach an agreement on cutbacks, he said.

The plan is to create an “adaptive” management scheme for the river, but none of the states is keen on a 10-year framework in two-year increments. That puts them in a constant state of negotiation, he said.

There’s also the specter of litigation.

“It would not shock me if we see litigation out of this plan,” Runyon said.

“This year shows just how dire the situation can get on the Colorado River,” he added. “The way out is with drastic cutbacks in water use throughout the region. This plan does not meet that moment.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.