In the midst of negotiations over the future of the overallocated Colorado River, there’s a conference this week in Boulder that typically draws water managers from the Upper and Lower Basin states. But not this year.
Alex Hager of KUNC, who’s in Boulder, joined The Show to talk about why and who will be there.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Good morning, Alex.
ALEX HAGER: Good morning. Thanks for having me back.
BRODIE: Thanks for being here. So what, first of all, what, what is this conference, I guess, in a typical year?
HAGER: Well, it is an annual gathering. This is the 45th annual gathering of people with a stake in the Colorado River, tribal leaders, scientists, policymakers, and, you know, usually it's kind of wonky policy talks, but in the last few years, those wonky policy talks have been a little more newsworthy just because there are so many people trying to find any hints on what the future of the river might be.
And over the past few years they've gotten some of the top negotiators, one from each of the seven states that uses the Colorado River, have typically for the last few years showed up and spoken publicly and occasionally taken some public questions. This year that's not the case.
BRODIE: Is it the public nature of it that has kept those those water managers away?
HAGER: You know, I'm speculating a little bit here, but it does seem to be the case, you know, when I reached out to policymakers ahead of this conference to ask why they wouldn't be coming, a lot of them said that they're really just focused on these negotiations. The negotiations tend to happen behind closed doors. Typically this conference is really only one of two times every year when those people all appear on one stage together and can take questions from some of those other people whose, you know, lives and livelihoods will be impacted by their decisions.
BRODIE: So who will be there if not the sort of the top water managers and what's on the agenda?
HAGER: Well, it's still a lot of incredibly smart and influential people. You have people with really important roles in the governance of some of the 30 tribes that use the Colorado River's water. You have climate scientists who can give projections on how exactly demand will need to be adjusted because they have a good idea of what supply will look like.
And, you know, on the sides of these you know, more official talks, there's going to be an opportunity for people to meet in a hallway that wouldn't necessarily meet each other. You know, the heads of nonprofits running into other academics or tribal leaders or scientists and having conversations that could in some other ways, in some less formal ways, you know, push the Colorado River conversation forward.
BRODIE: Sure. So you, you have talked on this show many times about sort of reading the tea leaves, reading the signals about, you know, what folks are saying in terms of what that might mean for talks on the river and negotiations and where they are. Is there anything to be read into the fact that all of these states are not sending their top negotiators? Like does that say anything about the state of negotiations or anything really?
HAGER: Well, the one notable exception is that the representative from California has showed up, sort of as a private citizen, just to sit and listen and learn, and he is certainly a popular character at these meetings this week because there are relatively few of his peers in the room. I wouldn't read into it too much.
The main takeaway for me is just that these negotiations are probably not going very well. I think if there was good news, these negotiators might be more willing to share it, you know, from what we've seen over the past year or year and some change is that these policymakers have really made up their minds. They are digging in their heels on policy stances about, you know, who should have to deal with the sting of water cutbacks to adjust to a shrinking river. And right now they are not, you know, they're they're they're not willing to to make substantial sacrifices that would push this forward.
There's a long running rivalry going back more than a century now between the upper basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, and the lower basin states of Arizona, Nevada, and California, and both of them have split into their separate camps with sort of distinct ideas of this is how much we're willing to offer and this is how much we're not willing to offer in terms of water cutbacks, and there hasn't been a lot of room in between.
BRODIE: Well, it sounds like maybe the stars of next year's version of this conference will be all the attorneys involved in the lawsuits.
HAGER: That is entirely possible. Those folks are here, but I think they probably will not be sharing very much.
BRODIE: That seems reasonable. Alex, let me ask you before we let you go about another story that you reported not that long ago about some pretty stark numbers in terms of where we are in groundwater and sort of not as much of it as we once had.
HAGER: Yeah, that's right. Groundwater is being depleted in a really significant way within the Colorado River Basin, and the most significant depletion of groundwater has been happening in Arizona.
And this new study uses NASA satellite data to really kind of put some numbers on the rate and volume of that depletion, and You know, when I talked to groundwater experts about what exactly this means, they said, look, we have been really concerned with Colorado River water shortages and, you know, you see news headlines every other day about how much water is in Lake Mead and there's pictures of how far it's dropped against the back of Hoover Dam, and they said if we could see what was going on with groundwater, it would be the same level of alarm.
BRODIE: So, I mean, this is obviously groundwater recharge is extremely difficult, and I would imagine that water managers when they're looking at the situation on the Colorado River, this is not probably, I would think, helping try to figure out what everyone's gonna do.
HAGER: It's not. It adds another layer of complication, you know, as the amount of water in the Colorado River and its major reservoirs goes down, cities, farms in Arizona and beyond are going to be looking around to try to find other sources of water. Groundwater is a big one, and so far there has been a gentle increasing of reliance on that as a resource that could go up. And, you know, the experts I talked to said without more substantial regulation for how much groundwater can be drawn from where. It's only going to get worse.
