As the interim guidelines for the Colorado River approach their expiration date, negotiations are under way among the seven Colorado River Basin states. The current guidelines, which have been active since 2007, will reach their terminus in 2026. Federal officials are urging the involved states to reach a consensus on how to move forward under new guidelines—ideally by February.
Negotiations are largely centered around how to effectively update the operating guidelines for Lake Powell and Lake Mead. These two large man-made reservoirs along the Colorado River serve as the primary water storage locations for the Southwestern United States.
General Counsel for the Upper Gunnison Water Conservancy District John McClow was also appointed by the governor to serve as alternate commissioner for Colorado on the Upper Colorado River Commission. His experience in these roles makes him uniquely qualified to comment on the nuances of this complex multi-state issue, according to General Manager of UGRWCD Sonja Chavez.
“The [2007 interim guidelines] have not been successful in obtaining their objective as evidenced by the fact that both of those reservoirs are now very, very low and continue to decline in [water] storage as a result of the operations that are conducted under those guidelines,” McClow said. “So what the [seven basin] states are now attempting to do is find a consensus about how to implement new guidelines—how to restore reservoir storage and make sure that all the states get an equitable share of the Colorado River.”
The long-standing agreement that allocates water to all of the Colorado River Basin states is the 1922 Colorado River Compact. The terms outlined in this compact are the starting point for understanding the current water issues that the Colorado River Basin states face. Under this compact, 7.5 million acre-feet of water per year are allocated to both the Upper and Lower Basins for beneficial consumptive use, in perpetuity. In 1948, all of the states in the Upper Basin signed their own additional compact, which divides this allocated water among the four Upper Basin states by percentage. Colorado’s yearly share of the Upper Basin’s 7.5 million acre-feet water apportionment is 51.75%.
Colorado’s percentage of the water allocation is higher than other Upper Basin states due to the fact that the state’s snowfall runoff is the single largest contributor of water to the Colorado River.
“Colorado contributes the most to the river. The runoff from Colorado actually makes up about 70% of the Colorado River flow,” McClow said.
Although these water allocations have been agreed upon among the seven basin states for decades, the 2007 interim guidelines have opened the door to an imbalance in water usage, with Lower Basin states using more than their allocated amount of water. While Upper Basin States consistently use less than their yearly water allotment because their supply is limited to the amount of snowpack each year.
“What has been happening under the 2007 guidelines is that the Lower Basin states have been consuming significantly more than their apportionment under the compact. In many years it has been more than 10 million acre-feet. In the Upper Basin states the most ever consumed has been 4.8 million, but on average it’s about 4.2 million acre-feet per year among all four states. In some years, even recently, 3.2 million [acre-feet], but the Lower Basin states have continued to take that full amount and more. This is the best illustration of the failure of the 2007 guidelines that has resulted in disproportionate use.”
McClow explained that the Upper Basin states are currently pushing to align operations more closely to actual supply by eliminating the practice of releasing water to Lower Basin states based on forecasted water totals rather than actual totals. The combination of this forecasting system, along with increased water usage in the Lower Basin states, is what has led to the declining water levels in both Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
“Essentially, right now the operations are pretty much demand-based. The Upper Basin states are collectively advocating for a supply-driven regime where the releases from Lake Powell would be based upon actual in-flows rather than what they do now, which is a forecast system—the forecast is often wrong,” McClow said. “This way the reservoir storage could gradually build back up and be recovered. Under the 2007 guidelines we were often releasing more water from Lake Powell than was going in. That happened in many years since 2007 and you can obviously see that leads to a lower reservoir level.”
Currently, disagreements between Upper Basin (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) and Lower Basin (Arizona, Nevada and California) states on water usage and releases continue and are preventing a consensus from being reached. The Lower Basin states are resisting reducing their water usage enough to make a supply-based operation plan feasible.
“They don’t want to reduce their use and think that the uses of the water in the Lower Basin should take precedence over the uses in the Upper Basin,” McClow said. “They want to continue to do what they’ve been doing historically. If that happens—if they don’t make significant cuts in their consumption—the system will crash. There isn’t enough water. They have pledged to reduce their consumptive use by 1.5 million acre-feet, but so far, they haven’t provided any firm description of how they will actually do that.”
The Lower Basin states are also demanding to see reductions in water usage from the Upper Basin states in return for their reductions, despite the fact that the Upper Basin consistently uses far less water than it is legally allotted each year. An additional issue with this demand is that the water supply in the Upper Basin is unpredictable as it is directly linked with yearly snowfall totals. This differs from the Lower Basin’s supply, which is predictable since all of their water is released directly from the reservoirs.
Increased water usage by Lower Basin states is placing a growing amount of strain on an already fragile water system as supply simultaneously goes down due to changes in the global climate and yearly snowfall averages.
“The river is declining in volume and has been for years,” McClow said. “It will continue to do so for years, mainly because of climate change. As the supply diminishes, somebody has to reduce their demand. If the system goes dry, nobody gets any water.”
Regardless of this fact, Lower Basin states have remained “strident” in their disagreement with Upper Basin states and continue to resist adopting sufficient water consumption cuts.
The Bureau of Reclamation has asked the states to come to a consensus regarding how to proceed with reservoir operations after the 2007 interim guidelines expire and they would like to have a fully fleshed out consensus proposal by the middle of February next year.
(Gia Wright can be contacted at 970-641-1414 or jwright@orourkemediagroup.com.)
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