The Biden administration on Tuesday published its environmental review of operations at the Colorado River’s major reservoirs, a document that lays out the painful choices facing the American West after a two-decade drought and chronic overuse has left these crucial lakes — the water supply for tens of millions of people — dangerously diminished.
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Amid the tables of numbers and technical jargon, the alternatives, summarized by the Interior Department, expose the stark decision in coming months: give priority to major farming regions in California that stock supermarkets across the country with winter vegetables — and let a large part of the water supply of Phoenix and Los Angeles “get taken virtually to zero,” as Interior Department Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau put it in an interview.
Or distribute up to 2 million acre-feet of cuts in water usage — more than 15 percent of the river’s flow — in the same percentage across all users in Arizona, California, and Nevada, an approach that would contradict a legal thicket of water rights that date back more than a century.
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And then there is the alternative of doing nothing, which Beadreau described as the most “consequential” of all. That’s because climate change and the drying of the West have put the reservoirs of Lake Powell and Lake Mead on a path toward falling so far the dams could no longer produce hydropower or even to “dead pool,” when water would effectively be blocked from flowing to the southern states.
“The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million Americans. It fuels hydropower resources in eight states, supports agriculture and agricultural communities across the West, and is a crucial resource for 30 Tribal Nations,” Beaudreau said in a statement. “Failure is not an option.”
By the end of the summer, the Interior Department is expected to decide how to move forward on cuts.
The goal of the “draft supplemental environmental impact statement” is to assess potential rule changes for how water is released from Lake Powell and Lake Mead to protect these reservoirs from falling below what is known as “minimum power pool.” That’s the point at which Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams can no longer produce hydropower because there is not enough water to flow through the turbines safely. These reservoir elevations — about 3,500 feet above sea level at Lake Powell and 950 feet at Lake Mead — will be the thresholds that the federal government is working to avoid. Lake Powell currently stands just 20 feet above that level and is less than a quarter full.
“Our fundamental assumption is we’re protecting the system and we’re not going to allow shortages to bring the system below those elevations,” Beaudreau said.
The federal process is also intended to push states to reach their own deal on how to make the necessary reductions in water use.
The unusually wet and snowy winter this year in the West has eased some of the most dire predictions for immediate cuts. The 2.083 million acre-feet ceiling on cuts that the environmental review establishes is at the low end of the 2 to 4 million acre-feet range that U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton called for last summer.
Beaudreau said he was “comfortable with that number” and that it would be the “outer bounds” of what the federal government would consider cutting heading into next year. It also gives the seven states of the Colorado River basin something to shoot for, he said, as they develop programs to conserve water by paying farmers not to plant crops and making other improvements to make irrigation more efficient.
An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, what it would take to cover an acre of land with one foot of water.
The Biden administration has set aside billions of dollars from new legislation to fund payments for drought resilience and to encourage such water savings. The more cuts that can be made voluntarily within the states to water usage would reduce the amount the federal government might impose unilaterally.
In some ways, the alternatives presented in the environmental review mirror the proposals that the seven Colorado River basin states have been wrestling over this year.
In January, six of the states — Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming — agreed on an approach that would make major cuts in a proportional way among states. That would hit California farmers in places such as the Imperial Valley — who suck up a lot of the river and have rights to it that predate cities — particularly hard.
California, the largest user of Colorado River water, rejected that approach, and called for cuts that adhered to water rights priority. Their plan would be devastating to Arizona, state officials there say.
The states have so far failed to reach an agreement on voluntary cuts.
But the environmental review also establishes a different way to justify the reductions. The six-state plan rationalized departing from a strict adherence to water rights by attributing some 1.5 million gall feet of cuts to evaporation and other losses as water travels down the canals from the major reservoirs.
But the federal government’s second alternative — the one for proportional cuts — is based not on evaporation but on the legal authority of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to protect the river.
“In our mind, the appropriate presentation is grounded in the secretary’s authorities to provide for human health and safety, manage the system under emergency conditions, and provide for beneficial use,” Beaudreau said. “It is the secretary’s responsibility, and she has the authority, to protect the system.”
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That question could be at issue if states decide to bring lawsuits challenging the federal government’s right to impose cuts in water usage. The threat of litigation has hung over this process from the beginning and many worry that a prolonged legal battle would delay taking action and let the reservoirs continue to fall.
On Tuesday morning, representatives from the basin states were traveling to the Hoover Dam on the Nevada — Arizona border for a public event about the river and the negotiations over cuts.
One state official who had been briefed on the alternatives being analyzed in the environmental impact statement said that both of them are “dire.”
“I think both signify big change” as well as “change that is needed to sustain the system,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the talks. “Where folks are struggling is where the hits exactly happen.”
State officials said they are committed to reaching an agreement among the states and talks will continue.
Colorado River Board of California Chairman JB Hamby said in a statement that “California remains committed to developing a seven-state consensus that will protect the Colorado River system for the duration of the current guidelines,” which expire in 2026.
While the Interior Department did not say which alternative it preferred, Beaudreau acknowledged that “nobody’s advocating” for the path that strictly follows water rights seniority and would cut off major cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles from big portions of their water supply.
“Even California would say that’s not what we want,” he said. “But we think analytically it’s important to show if you just follow strict priority and you had to cut 2 million acre-feet out of the system, this is what would happen.”
Now that the environmental review has been published, a public comment period will last for 45 days. Secretary Haaland is expected to choose an alternative this summer. By August, Lake Powell and Lake Mead will have new rules for how much water comes out of the dams and flows to the Southwest.
Want to know how your actions can help make a difference for our planet? Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter, in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday.
Amid the tables of numbers and technical jargon, the alternatives, summarized by the Interior Department, expose the stark decision in coming months: give priority to major farming regions in California that stock supermarkets across the country with winter vegetables — and let a large part of the water supply of Phoenix and Los Angeles “get taken virtually to zero,” as Interior Department Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau put it in an interview.
Or distribute up to 2 million acre-feet of cuts in water usage — more than 15 percent of the river’s flow — in the same percentage across all users in Arizona, California, and Nevada, an approach that would contradict a legal thicket of water rights that date back more than a century.
ADVERTISING
And then there is the alternative of doing nothing, which Beadreau described as the most “consequential” of all. That’s because climate change and the drying of the West have put the reservoirs of Lake Powell and Lake Mead on a path toward falling so far the dams could no longer produce hydropower or even to “dead pool,” when water would effectively be blocked from flowing to the southern states.
“The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million Americans. It fuels hydropower resources in eight states, supports agriculture and agricultural communities across the West, and is a crucial resource for 30 Tribal Nations,” Beaudreau said in a statement. “Failure is not an option.”
By the end of the summer, the Interior Department is expected to decide how to move forward on cuts.
The goal of the “draft supplemental environmental impact statement” is to assess potential rule changes for how water is released from Lake Powell and Lake Mead to protect these reservoirs from falling below what is known as “minimum power pool.” That’s the point at which Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams can no longer produce hydropower because there is not enough water to flow through the turbines safely. These reservoir elevations — about 3,500 feet above sea level at Lake Powell and 950 feet at Lake Mead — will be the thresholds that the federal government is working to avoid. Lake Powell currently stands just 20 feet above that level and is less than a quarter full.
“Our fundamental assumption is we’re protecting the system and we’re not going to allow shortages to bring the system below those elevations,” Beaudreau said.
The federal process is also intended to push states to reach their own deal on how to make the necessary reductions in water use.
The unusually wet and snowy winter this year in the West has eased some of the most dire predictions for immediate cuts. The 2.083 million acre-feet ceiling on cuts that the environmental review establishes is at the low end of the 2 to 4 million acre-feet range that U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton called for last summer.
Beaudreau said he was “comfortable with that number” and that it would be the “outer bounds” of what the federal government would consider cutting heading into next year. It also gives the seven states of the Colorado River basin something to shoot for, he said, as they develop programs to conserve water by paying farmers not to plant crops and making other improvements to make irrigation more efficient.
An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, what it would take to cover an acre of land with one foot of water.
The Biden administration has set aside billions of dollars from new legislation to fund payments for drought resilience and to encourage such water savings. The more cuts that can be made voluntarily within the states to water usage would reduce the amount the federal government might impose unilaterally.
In some ways, the alternatives presented in the environmental review mirror the proposals that the seven Colorado River basin states have been wrestling over this year.
In January, six of the states — Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming — agreed on an approach that would make major cuts in a proportional way among states. That would hit California farmers in places such as the Imperial Valley — who suck up a lot of the river and have rights to it that predate cities — particularly hard.
California, the largest user of Colorado River water, rejected that approach, and called for cuts that adhered to water rights priority. Their plan would be devastating to Arizona, state officials there say.
The states have so far failed to reach an agreement on voluntary cuts.
But the environmental review also establishes a different way to justify the reductions. The six-state plan rationalized departing from a strict adherence to water rights by attributing some 1.5 million gall feet of cuts to evaporation and other losses as water travels down the canals from the major reservoirs.
But the federal government’s second alternative — the one for proportional cuts — is based not on evaporation but on the legal authority of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to protect the river.
“In our mind, the appropriate presentation is grounded in the secretary’s authorities to provide for human health and safety, manage the system under emergency conditions, and provide for beneficial use,” Beaudreau said. “It is the secretary’s responsibility, and she has the authority, to protect the system.”
ADVERTISING
That question could be at issue if states decide to bring lawsuits challenging the federal government’s right to impose cuts in water usage. The threat of litigation has hung over this process from the beginning and many worry that a prolonged legal battle would delay taking action and let the reservoirs continue to fall.
On Tuesday morning, representatives from the basin states were traveling to the Hoover Dam on the Nevada — Arizona border for a public event about the river and the negotiations over cuts.
One state official who had been briefed on the alternatives being analyzed in the environmental impact statement said that both of them are “dire.”
“I think both signify big change” as well as “change that is needed to sustain the system,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the talks. “Where folks are struggling is where the hits exactly happen.”
State officials said they are committed to reaching an agreement among the states and talks will continue.
Colorado River Board of California Chairman JB Hamby said in a statement that “California remains committed to developing a seven-state consensus that will protect the Colorado River system for the duration of the current guidelines,” which expire in 2026.
While the Interior Department did not say which alternative it preferred, Beaudreau acknowledged that “nobody’s advocating” for the path that strictly follows water rights seniority and would cut off major cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles from big portions of their water supply.
“Even California would say that’s not what we want,” he said. “But we think analytically it’s important to show if you just follow strict priority and you had to cut 2 million acre-feet out of the system, this is what would happen.”
Now that the environmental review has been published, a public comment period will last for 45 days. Secretary Haaland is expected to choose an alternative this summer. By August, Lake Powell and Lake Mead will have new rules for how much water comes out of the dams and flows to the Southwest.
