Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager). Here’s an excerpt:
As climate change continues to shrink the Colorado River’s largest reservoirs, a group of four states that use its water are set to lay out plans to reboot a conservation program. The Upper Colorado River Commission – comprised of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico – plans to announce details of an extended “System Conservation Pilot Program” through which water users could be paid to cut back on their use. The soon-to-be-launched program aims to use a pool of $125 million from the Inflation Reduction Act for payouts to “mitigate the impacts of long-term drought and depleted storage,” according to presentation slides obtained by KUNC…The new program is an extension of a previous effort. An earlier pilot program ran from 2015 through 2018. Designed to serve as a proof of concept, the UCRC distributed more than $8.5 million as a part of that program and conserved an estimated 47,207 acre-feet of water…
The 2023 program would allocate considerably more money than the prior iteration if the UCRC gets approval from Congress to extend the program. The proposed Colorado River Conservation Act authorizes the program to continue until 2026. The Bureau of Reclamation would also need to sign off on the use of $125 million in federal funds. The money will come out of $4 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act that was set aside for Colorado River projects.
Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said his agency is still sorting out how much money it will offer water users on a per-acre-foot basis in exchange for cuts, and does not have a target for a total amount of conservation. The Upper Colorado River Commission is slated to release its first request for proposals on December 14, with a deadline in February. Then each participating state, and the UCRC will be able to review each water-saving proposal, setting higher payout values on a case-by-case basis. Cullom said the intent of such a review is to discourage profiteering, a nagging concern of programs that pay water users to cut back.
Studies of the 2015 pilot program found that lingering uncertainties still surround programs that pay farmers for temporarily fallowing their fields to conserve water. Questions about pricing, soil health, monitoring and ensuring that conserved water reaches the beleaguered Colorado River reservoirs remain unanswered…Cullom said the Upper Colorado River Commission expects to make a formal announcement about 2023 system conservation plans in Las Vegas. The commission will hold a meeting during the Colorado River Water Users Association annual conference, a yearly meeting of policymakers, scientists and water users that has been under increasing scrutiny as the region’s supply-demand imbalance teeters towards crisis levels.