You may not be following it but the dispute over reductions in the amount of water taken from the Colorado River by Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming is still a matter of urgent discussion. At the Wall Street Journal Jim Carlton reports on a new development:
California would have to reduce its use of Colorado River water more than current agreements require under a proposal the Interior Department unveiled Tuesday that could upend a longstanding system of water rights.
The federal agency proposed two methods by which water usage could be reduced as much as 25% next year. The seven states that tap the Colorado have been negotiating with each other since August to make voluntary cuts that could offset any new mandatory ones.
One proposal calls for equal percentage cuts for the three states at the bottom of the river: California, Arizona and Nevada. That would upend current agreements that give water districts in California more senior rights. The cuts would take effect in 2024.
The Bureau of Reclamation, part of the Interior Department, warned in August it would impose large cuts if the states that rely on the river didn’t come up with a satisfactory plan by Jan. 31. Six of the seven states—Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming—in January submitted a possible framework for an agreement that would call for voluntary cuts and conservation totaling between 2 million acre-feet and 4 million acre-feet annually.
As you might imagine California officials aren’t happy with this development—they don’t want the Golden State to be treated equally with Arizona and Nevada.
The dispute pits agricultural, home building, and environmentalists at odds with one another. The DoI proposal is presumably intended to provide an incentive for the states to arrive at their own solution.
