2026 is shaping up to be a key year for the Colorado River and the seven basin states that rely on its water.
Those states hope to wrap up negotiations on how to use less of the overallocated river’s water by the end of this year — that means Arizona lawmakers and the governor would have next year to approve the deal.
Joanna Allhands, digital opinions editor for The Arizona Republic, has written about this and joined The Show, along with editorial page editor Elvia Díaz, to discuss.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Joanna, it seems like next year will be a pretty big one in Arizona, in terms of hopefully getting the state on board with other basin states. Can you sort of outline what the stakes are for us potentially next year?
JOANNA ALLHANDS: Oh, it's gonna be huge, and it could really, I mean, I don't mean to make this sound alarmist, but it really could change the trajectory of our state, depending on what happens.
And I think that's the challenge, is right now, we don't have a ton of details. We know that just based on some of the proposals that have been made out there so far. That the cuts that could come to Arizona's Colorado River water allocation could be very deep, could be things that could be pretty painful.
But how deep, exactly who does that hit? Where does it go? We don't have those details yet, and we're really actually running out of time to try to figure a lot of this out.
So that's the challenge, is that we, we know that we're going to have this big thing that we're gonna have to deal with. A lot less water is going to be coming our way, but we don't know exactly how much. And there's going to be a lot of people who are going to be saying, “you can't take my water.” So how do you deal with that? That's gonna be the big thing.
ALLHANDS: Absolutely, because never mind the fact that next year is an election year, and, you know, I think kind of what's different now based on we we've we've sort of had some of these things come up in the past, not nearly with as high a stakes as what we're facing now, but there have been water deals with the Colorado River that have had to go to the Legislature before.
What's different is that we've got divided government, you know, there is sort of this tension between the Democratic governor and the Republican-run Legislature, and water is much more of a partisan issue now than it has been in the past. There's a lot more divisions on Republican versus Democrat lines instead of how it used to be where you get these really weird bedfellows on things, really just depending on the locality and the issue and the water users, not necessarily the politics and the partisanship of it.
BRODIE: So, Elvia, when you look at this issue and this Legislature, as Joanna just said, it's become more of a partisan issue as opposed to maybe an urban versus rural issue. How do you see this potentially shaking out in this Legislature, frankly, as Joanna said, with divided government, Republican-led Legislature, and Democratic governor?
ELVIA DÍAZ: Well, you know what, I see it differently because I'm questioning, one, why does it take so long to know how much water we're talking about, how deep the cuts, the cuts that Arizona might be facing?
I mean, Joanna was writing about, they're gonna come up with that, with those estimates or those alternatives by the end of this year, and then we're gonna have an entire year, meaning 2026, to actually deal with it. For an ordinary reader/listener, that sounds like a lot of time. Not, not, not in politics, right?
And I'm actually looking forward to seeing this as a campaign issue. I know Joanna doesn't like to see it as a political partisan issue, but I, I don't think there's a, no other issue that is more partisan than water allocation, you know, throughout history. So maybe just maybe the fact that we're gonna be in the middle of a campaign for governor for the state Legislature, that the, the candidates are actually gonna be paying attention and not, and actually simplifying the issue for Arizona residents and to understand what really is at stake here.
BRODIE: Elvia, do you see that as a good thing or a bad thing that, or maybe just a thing, that voters might be a little more engaged on this and candidates and policymakers might be having to talk about this issue a little more on the campaign trail?
DÍAZ: I hope so. I mean, Joanna was also mentioning in her column, the positive step that Phoenix mayor and the Mesa mayor took in terms of promoting water conservation. I haven't heard that at all, only in our internal discussions and only on specialty columns like this one.
So I'm not sure again, and I have said this before when we talk about water, that residents really understand or care to understand how our water allocation happens and what dire need we're facing. So anything that we can do to inform residents, anything that we can do to actually get them involved, I think it's a good thing.
BRODIE: Joanna, you cite in your column a few recent examples of water policy in the Legislature. One that was pretty successful in terms of the drought contingency plan from a few years ago that passed reasonably quickly with reasonable bipartisan support. One that has not been as successful in terms of fighting over groundwater in the state. Which of those do you think might be the better lesson for what things might look like going forward?
ALLHANDS: Well, I would hope that we look a lot like the drought contingency plan, which occurred in 2019, because to your point, it really was this bipartisan effort. People all got into a room, very disparate water users got together and really were given a lot of leeway to be creative and figure out, OK, how are you gonna make this work? It's not necessarily that you're just gonna balk, it's gonna say, how can you live with this?
And I've been saying that for a really long time, is that the only way forward and water is if you not hold out for the deal that you want, but you take the deal that you can live with. That's the only way we move forward, because there are sacrifices that are just gonna have to be made. I'm hoping that we can find compromise like we did during the drought contingency plan.
If it plays out like what groundwater negotiations have done so far, that just means no one compromises, everything falls apart, we don't get anywhere. And then that could be really disastrous for us, specifically because Arizona is the only Colorado River basin state that is required to have legislative approval for whatever deal comes our way.
If we can't get through that step, not only are we having issues internally as a state, but the rest of the base and states are gonna be looking at Arizona and going, why can't you get this together? Why can't you do that?
Of course, that's also presuming that there is a deal that comes, and it's not that everything falls apart and all the states are litigating and going to the Supreme Court trying to figure out how are we gonna do this.
BRODIE: Sure. Elvia, does one of those examples strike you as the more likely scenario for what we might see next year?
DÍAZ: I don't think we know, and that's the, and that's the truth. I mean, politicians and bureaucrats move very slowly, as we have seen, especially with, with water. I mean, if we have, if we don't know, and Joanna keep saying that if we don't know what kind of allocation we might have, what kind of situation we may face, and we are facing a deadline and was still all that is up in the air, so we can't possibly predict, that kind of deal that might come our way or the kind of politics that we'll be facing next year.
