New federal forecasts for the Colorado river show more dry conditions in low reservoirs. And that means the shortage declaration will continue, as will cuts to the amount of water Arizona gets.
At the same time, the seven Colorado River Basin states continue to try to find agreement on new rules for the overallocated river. Alex Hager from KUNC in Colorado is with The Show to talk more about this.
MARK BRODIE: Good morning, Alex.
HAGER: Good morning, Mark. Thanks for having me back.
BRODIE: Thanks for being here. So kind of same as it ever was for the Colorado River, huh?
HAGER: Well, same as it has been since 2021, at least. This is obviously pretty bad news. It is a sign that there is not nearly as much water in the river as there used to be, despite the fact that we have quite a bit of demand for it. But it is not necessarily new news in that we have seen conditions like this for, you know, many years now and we have been officially under a shortage, as the feds would call it, going back for.
BRODIE: Yeah, certainly not great news. But is this surprising news to anybody who's paying attention to this?
HAGER: I don't think it's surprising news. Climate change means that we are seeing less water in all of the places that we expect it to show up. Most of the river starts as Rocky Mountain snow, and we have seen steady declines in most of the places where we measure it. And that snow then melts off into the river and flows its way down, you know, all the way to, all the way to Arizona.
And we have been tracking data that shows this is a trend heading in this direction for quite a while. So I would say it is not a surprise.
BRODIE: OK, so on a practical level, you mentioned this has obviously been going on for several years now. What does the fact that this shortage declaration is continuing, what does that mean for a state like Arizona?
HAGER: The official shortage declaration means that there are mandatory cutbacks to some water users in the Lower Colorado River Basin. So mostly in Arizona and Nevada. And the consequence of that is not something that you're necessarily going to see show up. So it's a lot of times that means cutbacks to water from the Central Arizona Project, that's that big 300-plus mile canal that takes water from the Colorado River to the Phoenix and Tucson areas.
But a lot of the places that take that water and then redistribute it to, you know, kitchen faucets. So your city utility, they have a lot of backups in place. They have made it so even with cutbacks, they have a more diverse water portfolio and they have some reserves to make sure that your tap doesn't go dry with those reserves, though.
BRODIE: I mean, if they're needing to rely more on those, is there a chance that those supplies become a little less reliable?
HAGER: They are generally going to last, you know, at least a decade. And realistically, we are going to need to see big, big management changes to how we share the Colorado River that will change the whole scene for how we think about who gets water where in the Southwest. So the current rules for the Colorado River expire in 2026.
The clock is ticking to replace them, and the people who are in charge of replacing them, they are facing a lot of calls for, you know, really substantial change. So right now, we don't necessarily know what the water scene will look like 10 years down the road or even one year down the road.
So I think a lot of the folks at city utilities and these other water management agencies, they are kind of sitting around saying, look, we need a game plan, but we need a little bit more explanation to know how to plan.
BRODIE: Does this forecast from the Bureau of Reclamation and its implications, does that change anything about the negotiations? Does that do anything maybe to speed things up or move things along at all?
HAGER: If it was going to speed things up and move them along, I think it would be reasonable to believe that it might have done so already. Right. We have seen some degree of shortage for the past four years. And along the way, we have had people in the nonprofit space, we have had tribal nations, we have had environmentalists, we have had farmers and cities kind of all wringing their hands saying, hey, pick up the pace a little bit.
You know, our water future depends on your decisions. We would like those decisions to come sooner rather than later. So, you know, if it was going to spur action, it probably would have by now. And you have a lot of smart people saying it should have. I think there's a perception that over the last four years, we have known how dire the water supply situation is, and the leaders in charge have not responded with a sense of urgency that reflects that well.
BRODIE: So you referenced the clock is ticking. And we know often in government, nothing motivates like a deadline. Where do we stand right now in terms of these talks? Like, does it seem as though the states are going to be able to get together on an agreement?
HAGER: There have been little glimmers of hope to emerge, but right now it does not feel like we are that much closer to agreement than we were anytime in the past handful of years. Like you said, there is nothing that, you know, helps people pick up negotiating pace like a hard deadline. And if you want to have some optimism, here it is the fact that we are approaching the deadline.
State leaders have been candid about the fact that in the past, big water deals have only come together in the 11th hour. I think there are a lot of really there are a lot of things that make this really complicated, and people are not necessarily willing to make big, big public concessions before they absolutely have to.
So when we are talking about the need to permanently give up some water supply to places in your state, state leaders have been not very excited about doing that preemptively. But if we get close to the deadline, they might be a little bit more willing under that pressure of time.
BRODIE: All right. We'll see what happens as the clock continues to tick. Alex Hager from KUNC in Colorado. Alex, good as always to talk to you. Thank you.
HAGER: Mark, thanks so much.
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