As a major deadline for a Colorado River deal draws closer, tensions are still simmering. Arizona water policymakers pointed to some progress in recent talks, but said negotiations between the seven states that use the Colorado River are unlikely to yield an agreement before Feb. 14.
Water leaders from across the state gathered in Phoenix for a meeting of the Arizona Reconsultation Committee. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs addressed the group, having recently returned from a meeting in Washington, D.C., that convened federal water officials and governors of the seven Western states that use the Colorado River.
Hobbs said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the direction of those talks.
“We were clearly at an impasse,” she said. “I feel like we're at a place where we can start to move past that now.”
The Colorado River is shrinking at the hands of a 26-year megadrought fueled by climate change. The seven states that use it are on the hook to rein in demand. After more than two years of negotiations, those states remain largely split into two camps: the Upper Basin of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico, and the Lower Basin of Arizona, California and Nevada.
Hobbs said she saw those two groups drawing nearer.
“Nobody wants to end up in litigation,” she said. “We want to find a way to get to a deal. For me, as the governor with the most skin in the game or most water on the table, I felt more heard by the Upper Basin than we've seen in the negotiation so far.”
Any progress, though, does not appear to be enough to help the states reach an agreement before a deadline on Feb. 14, according to Hobbs. She said states are likely to be “on a path to get a deal” by that date.
By forging a deal before that deadline, states would leave federal environmental officials enough time to do the necessary paperwork before officially implementing any changes in October, when the current rules expire.
Colorado River states have blown through previous deadlines without any penalty from the federal government, but as the clock ticks towards October, a late deal may introduce obstacles to getting water-sharing changes approved.
While Hobbs projected optimism about negotiations, some Arizona water leaders laid out a slightly bleaker, albeit hopeful, outlook. Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s top water negotiator, said he was happy to hear a “willingness” to “continue to negotiate and look for a path forward” from Upper Basin states.
At other junctures during Monday’s meeting, though, he described a reluctance to cut back on water use from those states. During a conversation with reporters, he said that Upper Basin representatives had told him, on multiple occasions, that they would not be able to cut back on water, even in dry years, while the Lower Basin makes reductions.
“We're doing 800,000 or 900,000 acre-feet a year of reductions,” Buschatzke said. "And you're telling me you can't do 50,000? You might not be able to do anything because it's so dry? I just have a hard time wrapping my head around that outcome.”
An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to fill one acre of land to a height of one foot. One acre-foot generally provides enough water for one to two households for a year.
Buschatzke said he does not know exactly what will happen if the states fail to meet the Feb. 14 deadline, but said the federal government would likely give them more time if they were able to agree on the early makings of a deal.
“They are pushing us hard to try to get to a consensus in concept if not a consensus in writing,” he said.
As the stalemate drags on, the drought situation is only getting worse. In the Upper Basin, where most of the river begins as mountain snow, numbers are grim. Snow totals for early February are the lowest they have ever been since recordkeeping began in 1986.
Barring a big surge in snow later this winter, current conditions are expected to strain major reservoirs this summer. Hobbs and other officials called on the federal government to tap into a strategic reserve of water in Upper Basin reservoirs to help make sure that Lower Basin states receive the amount of water they are legally owed amid the dry times.
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