Colorado River water users are divided over how to reduce water consumption following the expiration of current guidelines in 2026, with some calling for declines to be distributed evenly across all users and others seeking decreases based on water rights seniority.
Looking at comments submitted by a broad swath of water users and state officials, a fundamental question faces Colorado River negotiators and the Bureau of Reclamation: Should a new set of rules governing allocation reductions during times of drought follow the “first come, first served” model that has governed use of the river’s water for decades or be distributed evenly across multiple states and water users?
States first agreed to Interim Storage Guidelines in 2007 as water levels in reservoirs dropped during seven years of drought, only to agree to an even stricter set of cuts in 2019 as the continuing drought put even greater pressure on water supplies.
All seven states came back to the negotiating table last June at the request of Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton, who warned that without additional action, water levels in Lakes Powell and Mead would likely reach “dead pool,” or drop so low the agency would not be able to release water downstream. After struggling for nearly a year to determine where to make between 2 and 4 million acre-feet of reductions, the three Lower Basin states came to an initial agreement on how to conserve at least 3 million acre-feet in May. Their plan — which relies on using federal, state and local dollars to compensate users for reductions — still needs to be approved by Reclamation.
That plan, if approved, will be effective through 2026. States, however, will need to agree on what the framework for cuts will look like after that plan expires, while the Bureau of Reclamation must lay out new guidelines and strategies for its operations on Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Reclamation began the process earlier this year through a 60-day scoping process, where the agency accepted comments in preparation for an environmental-impact statement for post-2026 operations. The agency received more than 21,000 comments and plans to publish a scoping report later this fall, according to its website.
Tom Buschatzke, the director of Arizona’s Department of Water Resources and the state’s lead negotiator, told Reclamation in a public comment that future cuts should be distributed equally among all water users and not based solely on the priority system.
“[T]he burdens associated with protecting the Colorado River System should not fall disproportionately on any particular state, sector, or water user,” Buschatzke wrote. “Instead, these burdens must be shared across the basin by all who benefit from the Colorado River.”
Buschatzke has called for an equal distribution of cuts in previous negotiations to preserve the Central Arizona Project, a 336-mile canal system that delivers water to Central and Southern Arizona. Arizona’s congressional delegation agreed to cede some of the state’s long-standing rights to Colorado River water in 1968 to win California lawmakers’ approval for building the CAP; as a result, the project’s water users have borne the brunt of recent cuts due to their low-priority status.
The aqueduct’s role as a primary water source for the fast-growing metropolitan regions of Phoenix and Tucson, as well as a source of water for tribes in the region, has left Buschatzke and other state officials worried about the impact future cuts will have on these users. Farmers who rely on the CAP for their water supplies have already been cut off from the aqueduct entirely.
The idea of distributing cuts equally has garnered opposition from officials and water users in California and other high-priority areas of the basin who want cuts to be made based on the “first come, first served” system that has governed water rights in the river for decades.
The Bard Water District — a major vegetable-growing area located in California’s Imperial Valley, across the border from Yuma, Arizona — defended the current priority system in its letter to Reclamation. The district, which is entitled to enough water to irrigate 25,000 acres of farmland, said the priority system is a “key tenet” of the “Law of the River,” a legal term that collectively refers to the long-standing agreements, federal laws, and court decisions that determine how the river is managed.
Any changes to the priority system would be “outside the scope of the post-2026 process,” BWD President Ray Face and General Manager Nick Bahr argued in the letter. Reclamation would “need exceedingly persuasive justifications for departing from it,” they added.
Stefanie Smallhouse, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau, told Reclamation in a letter that a “proper balance of mitigation and voluntary system conservation with the flexibility to plan for both short- and long-term river conditions” is needed to respect Arizona farmers’ water rights. She also criticized Reclamation for not consulting more Arizona farmers in its planning.
“Although Arizona farmers have repeatedly proven their willingness to be part of the solution for the entire system, predominantly at the sacrifice of food and fiber production, high-priority ‘on-river’ agricultural users have been sidelined in these latest efforts,” Smallhouse wrote.
The Family Farm Alliance, an organization made up of agricultural water users throughout the basin, also wants to see Reclamation stick with the priority system, according to a policy brief. “A commitment to work within the framework of existing appropriative systems, rather than pursuing a new system that circumvents current water rights allocation and administration, provides the only certainty required to make responsible, long-term water management decisions,” the brief states.
State officials in the upper basin, on the other hand, called for the lower basin states to take more responsibility for cuts. Curtailments for the four states in the upper basin — Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming — are based on snowpack and runoff and these states are required to leave enough water in Lakes Powell and Mead to meet the Lower Basin’s 7.5 million-acre-foot obligation.
The Upper Basin states have been forced to use less water in recent years than the lower basin states because of this system. In 2021, for example, they utilized only 3.5 million acre-feet of their 7.5 million-acre-foot allocation. The Lower Basin states, on the other hand, used around 7 million acre-feet.
It’s easy to be “in the know” about what’s happening in Washington, D.C. Sign up for a FREE month of Agri-Pulse news! Simply click here.
Rebecca Mitchell, who represents Colorado on the Upper Colorado River Commission, and Lauren Ris, the acting director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, told Reclamation new guidelines should “recognize that Lower Basin overuse is unsustainable and puts the entire system at risk.” They said the Lower Basin should make permanent reductions of 1.2 million acre-feet to 1.5 million acre-feet each year while adding both basins should “fairly balance” the burden of climate change.
“The Upper and Lower Basins have equal apportionments of the Colorado River in perpetuity. Water users in the Lower Basin cannot be given priority over water users in Colorado and the other Upper Division States.”
Buschatzke, Arizona’s water resources director, also wants Reclamation to review its current “beneficial use” standards, which guide how water recipients use their allocations. Agricultural uses of water, for example, are deemed beneficial, as are municipal, industrial, power generation and recreation uses.
Buschatzke said these guidelines need to be updated to “ensure water use practices are updated through the Basin to minimize waste.” Brenda Burman, general manager for the CAP aqueduct system, went into more detail in her comment, calling for the agency to adopt beneficial use standards for lower basin irrigators that look at the “area to be irrigated,” the “kind of crops raised,” “cropping practices,” and the “type of irrigation system in use,” among other things.
“Beneficial use considerations should maximize the scarce water supplies for all and provide flexibility to the water users to determine appropriate improvements in water use practices,” she wrote.
Agricultural groups, however, have expressed concern that these changes would target crops like alfalfa, which has become popular in recent years due to the region’s booming dairy industry. Dan Keppen, executive director of the Family Farm Alliance, said agricultural uses of water, including alfalfa, have been part of the landscape of the Colorado River basin since before the dams were built.
“We’re concerned when we see these attacks on agriculture saying what our people are doing wouldn’t constitute a beneficial use of water,” Keppen told Agri-Pulse.
Managers of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Central Arizona Water Conservation District wrote in support of reevaluating beneficial use, arguing less than 20% of consumptive uses in the Colorado River Basin are municipal and industrial.
“In this time of shortages and other possible mandatory reductions, as the water providers with more junior rights, our agencies are potentially the most at risk if water is wasted,” they wrote.
Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said in her comments that the current 15-year term for the guidelines should be shortened and called for the inclusion of more mandatory consultation requirements for worsening hydrologic conditions.
“In hindsight, one shortcoming of the present Interim Guidelines was that their consultation provisions were ineffective in responding to the hydrology that was experienced,” she wrote.
Nemeth also recommended that Reclamation allow water users to store non-project water in system reservoirs.
Keppen said his group also wants decision-makers to “emphasize that future urban growth cannot be encouraged without locking in sustainable and diverse water supplies.”
For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
