WashingtonThe seven states that rely on water from the shrinking Colorado River are unlikely to agree to voluntary deep cuts in their water use, negotiators say, forcing the federal government to impose cuts for the first time in the water supply to 40 million Americans.
The Interior Department had asked states to voluntarily submit a plan by January 31 to collectively cut the amount of water they draw from the Colorado. Demand for those cuts, on a scale unparalleled in US history, was fueled by precipitous drops in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which provide water and electricity to Arizona, Nevada and southern California. Drought, climate change, and population growth have caused water levels in the lakes to plummet.
“Think of the Colorado River Basin as a slow-motion disaster,” said Kevin Moran, who leads state and federal water policy advocacy at the Environmental Defense Fund. “We really are in a moment of reckoning.”
Negotiators say the chances of a voluntary agreement appear slim. It would mark the second time in six months that the Colorado River states, which also include Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, have missed a deadline for consensus on cuts sought by the Biden administration to avoid a catastrophic failure of the river system.
Without an agreement, the Interior Ministry, which manages the river’s flows, must impose the cuts. That would break with the century-old tradition of states determining how to share river water. And it would all but guarantee that the administration’s increasingly urgent efforts to save the Colorado will be mired in lengthy legal challenges.
The Colorado River crisis is the latest example of how climate change is overwhelming the very foundation of American life, not just the physical infrastructure like dams and reservoirs, but also the legal foundations that have made those systems work.
The century-old laws, which assign different priorities to users of the Colorado River based on how long they have used the water, run up against a competing philosophy that says, as the climate changes, water cuts should be distributed as practical.
The outcome of that dispute will shape the future of the American Southwest.
