Day: November 24, 2024

Despite Biden Administration Proposals to Address #ColoradoRiver Shortages, a Solution Is Far Off — Inside #Climate News #COriver #aridification

The All American Canal, the largest diversion on the Colorado River, passes through Winterhaven, CA on its way to the Imperial Valley. The Colorado River is seen flowing next to it.

Click the link to read the article on the Inside Climate News website (Wyatt Myskow):

November 21, 2024

The Biden administration on Wednesday released four alternatives to address the drought-stricken Colorado River’s water shortages, giving seven states, 30 tribes and the 40 million people who rely on the river a taste of how the vital waterway will be managed in the coming decades. 

But the announcement offers little in the way of hard details, with a draft environmental impact statement analyzing the impacts of the Department of Interior’s proposed alternatives pushed back to next year. The states, meanwhile, remain divided over the path forward to deal with shortages on the river. Over the past year, the seven Colorado River Basin states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming—along with tribes and the federal governments have been in negotiations over the “Post-2026 Operations” for the river that will dictate how to deal with water shortages. The river’s current drought guidelines, drafted in 2007, will expire at the end of 2026. 

“We continue to support and encourage all partners as they work toward another consensus agreement that will both protect the long-term stability of the Colorado River Basin and meet the needs of all communities,” said Laura Daniel-Davis, the acting deputy secretary of the Department of Interior. “The alternatives we have put forth today establish a robust and fair framework for a Basin-wide agreement. As this process moves forward, the Biden-Harris administration has laid the foundation to ensure that these future guidelines and strategies can withstand any uncertainty ahead, and ultimately provide greater stability to the 40 million water users and the public throughout the Colorado River Basin.” 

The river that enabled the Southwest’s rapid growth and vital agricultural production has seen its flows diminished roughly 20 percent over the past two decades by a megadrought. Climate change and years of overuse of the river’s resources have led the system’s massive reservoirs—lakes Mead and Powell—to fall to just a third of their capacities. That prompted steep cuts in allocations of the river’s water to Arizona, California and Nevada, and tense negotiations over its future. Further declines at the reservoirs could cause their respective dams to reach minimum power pool, where they can no longer generate electricity, or dead pool, when the water drops too low to flow through the concrete dams’ plumbing.

The Colorado River Basin is regulatorily split in two. The Upper Basin consists of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. The Lower Basin is composed of Arizona, California and Nevada, which historically has used more of the river. Under the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which divided up the river’s resources and is the bedrock document for how it is governed, the Upper Basin is required to allow the Lower Basin states’ allocation of water to flow downstream before it can use its half of the river. If the Upper Basin fails to send the required amount of water, its own allocation could be cut. 

Earlier this year, each basin submitted its own proposals for how it would manage the river’s water post-2026, but there was little agreement between their plans. The Upper Basin argued that, since it does not have large reservoirs and its users already have to make cuts anytime there is drought, it should be able to send less water downstream and the Lower Basin should bear responsibility for cutbacks. Under the Lower Basin’s proposal, all users would be forced to take cuts based on the total amount of water held in eight reservoirs across the entire system. Meanwhile, tribes have submitted their own proposals and comments, as have environmental groups.

The two basins remain deeply split, and though both sides are committed to coming to an agreement, it’s possible that the question of how Colorado River water will be divided and distributed between the basins will have to be settled in court, KUNC reported earlier this week. The Upper Basin representatives also maintain it has the right to take more water out of the river, given it does not use its full share, something that’s drawn the ire of its lower basin counterparts, environmental groups and water attorneys.

The Interior Department will analyze the four options presented Wednesday in an environmental assessment, with a final decision planned for 2026 on how to advance the process the Biden administration began and that President-elect Donald Trump’s administration will have to take over. One alternative is the federal government’s plan to “achieve robust protection of critical infrastructure,” like Hoover and Glen Canyon dams and the large amounts of hydropower they produce, along the river. Another combines that plan with comments from tribes and others. A third follows a proposal submitted by environmental groups, while the fourth combines the proposals of the states and tribes. 

“Big picture: There’s still a lot of conflict about how Lake Powell will be managed,” said Kyle Roerink, the executive director of the Great Basin Water Network. A key difference between the alternatives is how water would be released from Lake Powell, the massive reservoir in the middle of the river system. He said the Upper Basin’s proposal would use it as a “piggy bank” to store water for them while the Lower Basin, which has priority rights to the water, wants to see it used to deliver what it is owed by the upstream states.

The states themselves say it will take time to fully analyze the proposals put forth by the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees the river’s management, but neither side seems excited about the options, though they’ve admitted the need to continue working together.

“There are some really positive elements to these alternatives, but at the same time I am disappointed that Reclamation chose to create alternatives, rather than to model the Lower Basin states’ alternative in its entirety,” said Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, in a statement. “The Lower Basin’s alternative didn’t start at one extreme or the other, and it showed unequivocally that the Lower Basin was willing to take the first tranche of cuts.” 

In a statement, Colorado River Commissioner Becky Mitchell said that “Colorado continues to stand firmly behind the Upper Division States’ Alternative, which performs best according to Reclamation’s own modeling and directly meets the purpose and need of this federal action.

“The Upper Division States Alternative is supply-driven and is designed to help rebuild storage at our nation’s two largest reservoirs,” she said. “The Alternative protects Lake Powell’s continued ability to release water downstream into the future to continue to meet our obligations and protect our significant rights and interests in the Colorado River.”

Roerink likened the Biden administration’s efforts to bring water users together as “herding cats” and said that Wednesday’s decision may help bring them back to the table to find a solution. But the divide between the two basins remains wide. “Change is scary,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News (hyperlink to the original story), a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Audubon’s Jennifer Pitt Testifies before Congress on #ColoradoRiver Habitats: Audubon supports bills that support wildlife habitat amid changing #climate #COriver #aridificationd

Audubon’s Jennifer Pitt testifies before Congress on Colorado River habitats. Photo: Caitlin Wall/Audubon

Click the link to read the release on the Audubon website (Jennifer Pitt):

November 20, 2024

The following is the oral testimony of Jennifer Pitt, Audubon’s Colorado River Program Director before a House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries:

Chair Bentz, Ranking Member Huffman, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for holding this hearing on proposed legislation addressing water management in the western United States. My name is Jennifer Pitt and I serve as the Colorado River Program Director for the National Audubon Society, with over 25 years of experience working on water issues in the Colorado River Basin. National Audubon Society is a leading national nonprofit organization representing more than 1.4 million members and supporters. Since 1905, we have been dedicated to the conservation of birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow, throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, education, and on-the-ground conservation. Audubon advocates for solutions in the Colorado River Basin that ensure adequate water supply for people and the environment. 

Audubon supports H.R. 9515, the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program Amendment Act of 2024. The Program constructs habitats along the Colorado River below Hoover Dam, and that habitat is essential not only for the 27 species the program targets, but also for many of the 400 species of birds that rely on the Lower Colorado River, including Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Sandhill Cranes, and Yuma Ridgway’s Rails. Today, because the Program spending does not keep pace with the collection of funds from non-federal partners, about $70 million is held in non-interest-bearing accounts. If these funds were held in an interest-bearing account, the Program would have about $2 million in additional funds per year, and be more able to maintain program implementation in the face of increasing costs. 

Audubon appreciates the inclusion of H.R. 9969 in this hearing. This bill directs Reclamation and the Western Area Power Administration, in consultation with the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Work Group, to enter into a memorandum of understanding to explore and address potential impacts of management and experimental actions to help control invasive fish passage in the face of drought and declining water levels. Rapidly changing conditions on the Colorado River warrant the experimental approach of adaptive management, with the Work Group bringing together varied interests to a consensus on how to protect downstream resources and strike a balance on river operations. Results of this collaboration include improved sediment flows that help maintain sandy beaches used by plants and animals that dwell in the floodplain, as well as by people traveling the canyon by boat.  

The context for these bills is the current crisis on the Colorado River. Climate change continues to ravage the Colorado River Basin, which is now in its 25th year of drought. The forecast for this winter is for above-normal temperatures and below-normal snowpack, which could impact Colorado River water supply. With a 2026 deadline looming for the expiration of existing federal guidelines for operation of federal Colorado River infrastructure – with implications for water supply reliability for people and the river itself – human nature is creating unacceptable risks. Colorado River water managers are preparing for conflict to protect their share of an increasingly scarce water supply, rather than focusing on holistic solutions.  

Earlier this year, Audubon joined with conservation partners in submitting to Reclamation our Cooperative Conservation Alternative for consideration in the post-2026 NEPA process for developing Colorado River Operating Guidelines. Cooperative Conservation is designed to improve water supply reliability, reduce the risk of catastrophic shortages to farmers and cities, create new flexible tools that can protect infrastructure, incentivize water conservation, help Tribes realize greater benefits from their water rights, and improve river health. We urge Reclamation and all Colorado River Basin parties to consider our approach as they proceed through the NEPA process. 

From a bird’s eye view, the whole system matters. That needs to hold true for water users who must figure out how to share the Colorado River. The old adage applies: united we stand, divided we fall. The Colorado River community – in particular Upper Basin and Lower Basin interests – must stop thinking parochially and start thinking about how we survive drier times together.  

I would like to thank Congress for funding water conservation programs, such as WaterSMART and the Cooperative Watershed Management Program, and the crucial funding in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, both of which include funding to improve the resilience of the Colorado River Basin. With this funding, and states working together, we have avoided a crisis, but we are still just one bad winter away from catastrophic shortages. To be effective, this funding needs to get out of federal coffers and into the hands of water users and water managers, to incentivize water conservation and efficiency, to improve the health of the forests and headwater streams that are the river’s source, and to stabilize the river itself – the natural infrastructure that supplies water to more than 40 million people. Congress will need to help in the future with additional funding to support continued resilience investments in the Colorado River Basin as warming continues. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify and I would be happy to answer your questions.

Public land protectors are ready for a fight — Jennifer Rokala (WritersOnTheRange.org)

The Citadel, Bears Ears National Monument, Dave Marston photo

Click the link to read the article on the Writers on the Range website (Jennifer Rokala):

November 18, 2024

President Donald Trump’s first term was a disaster for America’s public lands. While the prospects for his second term are even more bleak, Westerners across the political spectrum—even those who voted for Trump—stand ready to oppose attempts to sell off America’s public lands to the highest bidder.

As for Trump’s pick for Interior Secretary, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum: If Burgum tries to turn America’s public lands into an even bigger cash cow for the oil and gas industry, or tries to shrink America’s parks and national monuments, he’ll quickly discover he’s on the wrong side of history.

Public lands have strong bipartisan support in the West. The annual Conservation in the West Poll, last released by the Colorado College State of the Rockies Project in February 2024, found that nearly three-quarters of voters—including Republicans—want to protect clean water, air quality and wildlife habitats, while providing opportunities to visit and recreate on public lands.

That’s compared to just one-quarter of voters who prefer maximizing the use of public lands available for drilling and mining. According to the poll, which surveyed voters in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming—80 % of Westerners support the national goal of conserving 30 % of land and waters in America by the year 2030.

Bipartisan support for more conservation and balanced energy development has been a cornerstone of the poll’s findings since it began in 2011. Under the leadership of President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the current administration has made progress over the past four years in bringing public land management in line with the preferences of Western voters. That includes better protecting the Grand Canyon, increasing accountability for oil and gas companies that operate on public land, and putting conservation—at last—on par with drilling and mining on public land.

The President-elect may find it hard to immediately block what Westerners want. After Trump took office in 2017 promising to transform public land management, his team was unprepared and used its power to benefit its own interests, ignoring the wishes of the American people.

Trump’s first Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, misused his position to advance his dream of owning a microbrewery in Montana. Trump’s second Interior secretary, oil and gas industry lobbyist David Bernhardt, put his finger on the scale in the interest of a former client. Trump’s choice to run the Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley, served illegally without being confirmed by Congress.

We worked hard to shed light on this corruption and defend public lands from Trump’s attacks. Still, Trump’s Interior department allowed oil and gas companies to lock up millions of acres for bargain basement prices.

In his second term, Donald Trump will attempt to shrink national monuments like Bears Ears in Utah and permit drilling and mining in inappropriate areas. The president-elect has already committed to undoing President Joe Biden’s energy and environmental policies.

Project 2025, the policy handbook written by former Trump officials, clearly lays out a plan to gut the Interior Department and remove environmental safeguards that ensure the health of our public lands.

Project 2025 would give extractive industries nearly unfettered access to public lands, severely restrict the power of the Endangered Species Act, open millions of acres of Alaska wilderness to drilling, mining and logging and roll back protections for spectacular landscapes like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. It would also remove protections for iconic Western species such as gray wolves and grizzly bears.

What can we do about this assault? The law and public opinion are on our side. Public land protections are stronger today than ever, thanks in large part to the grassroots efforts of Tribes, local community leaders and conservation organizations.

We know much of what’s in Trump’s public lands playbook, and we will fight back. We’ll continue to shine a light on corruption within the Trump administration and hold it accountable.

Our partners will work in Congress to stop bad policies and projects from going forward. We are ready to take action in the courts and in the streets. And we’re not waiting until Inauguration Day to start.

Jennifer Rokala is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about Western issues. She is executive director of Center for Western Priorities, a nonpartisan public lands advocacy group.

The Western Slope just asked for federal #climate dollars to buy crucial water rights — #Colorado Public Radio #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Water runs down a spillway at the Shoshone hydro plant in Glenwood Canyon. Rockfalls, fires and mudslides in recent years have caused frequent shutdowns of plant operations. Credit: Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Public Radio website (Ishan Thakore). Here’s an excerpt:

November 22, 2024

A $99 million plan to buy and permanently preserve some of the oldest water rights in Colorado is inching closer to securing all of its funding. But President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to gut climate spending could throw a wrench in the deal, despite its bipartisan support. The Colorado River District, which advocates on behalf of Western Slope water users, submitted a funding application today to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation under a program for drought mitigation. The district is seeking $40 million from the federal agency to help purchase water rights from Xcel Energy, the state’s largest utility…

Since the agreement, around 25 Western Slope water providers, the river district and the state of Colorado have committed $56 million to purchase the water rights. The state’s water conservation board, much of Colorado’s congressional delegation, and a bipartisan group of state lawmakers support the plan. To make up the remaining funds, the river district is banking on money from the Inflation Reduction Act, the nation’s largest climate law, which was signed by Biden in 2022. Bureau of Reclamation records show the agency has $450 million remaining under the law to dole out to state, local and tribal governments in the upper Colorado River Basin for projects that offset the effects of drought and climate change…

That stream of federal funding for the Shoshone water deal has not yet been committed and could be in jeopardy, according to Martin Lockman, a law fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. President-elect Trump said he would rescind any remaining funds from the inflation law when he returns to office. Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint influential among the president-elect’s advisors, has called for repealing elements of the law.