Click the link to read the article on the Sibley’s Rivers website (George Sibley):

In my last post, I reported that the water mavens of both the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basins had each presented the Bureau of Reclamation with plans for managing the river after 2026, when the current, amended ‘Interim Guidelines’ expire.

The Interim Guidelines had been implemented in 2007, remember, when it was obvious that the patchwork of existing ‘Law of the River’ (LOTR) guidelines, laws, treaties, compacts and other measures propping up the Colorado River Compact were failing to constructively guide the extensive storage and distribution systems imposed on the river through the turn-of-the-century drought that had begun six years earlier.

The Bureau and the seven states have since cobbled together – with help from a big snowpack in the 2023 water year and a rain of cash from the Biden administration’s infrastructure acts – a set of added interim actions to stagger through the remainder of the interim to 2026. The immediate emergency out of the way, the Bureau asked the water leaders of the seven states, and of the 30 First People nations in the river basin that will no longer allow the states to ignore them, to come up with a plan for managing the river works from 2027 through – well, another interim, maybe another 20 years. In a time of climate change and political chaos, we no longer think ‘in perpetuity’ (which never worked out anyway).

So the water leaders gathered for several meetings, to try to come up with a plan for managing the river after 2027. But they were not succeeding, so the predictable happened: they went home to the two Basins established by the 1922 River Compact, and each group prepared an ‘alternative plan’ for the management of the river.

I’ve created a fairly detailed side-by-side comparison of the actions each alternative proposes when triggered by diminishing levels of storage in the reservoirs; it would not, however, be readable in the format of these posts, so you can click here to bring up a readable copy. Meanwhile, here is a summary of some of the main points, similarities and differences between the two alternatives.

Both alternatives are similar conceptually: they operate on a measure of storage in some of the reservoirs on the river, with changes in the total content of the selected reservoirs triggering reductions in consumptive use by one or both Basins. Each alternative, however, uses a different set of reservoirs as the base – and a different date for measuring the content of the reservoirs.

The Lower Basin alternative wants the measuring standard to be the live storage of the major reservoirs in the river’s storage system: the four large Colorado River Storage Project reservoirs in the Upper Basin (Powell, Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo), and the three mainstem Lower Basin reservoirs (Mead, Mojave behind Davis Dam and Havasu behind Parker Dam) – a total of ~58 million acre-feet (maf) when they are full, which they currently are not. And they want the total system content to be measured on August 1 every year, a time when the reservoirs are still relatively full after runoff. (‘Live storage’ is the volume minus the ‘dead pools’ that cannot be delivered past the dams.)

The Upper Basin alternative wants to measure only the live storage of Mead and Powell Reservoirs, minus an undefined ‘threshold volume’ for each of them – 4.2 and 4.7 maf respectively (probably the quantity required to keep the reservoir levels up to power-generating capacity?). This would probably be in the neighborhood of 40 maf when both reservoirs are full, which they are not. And they want the annual measure to be on October 1, the beginning of the new water year, a time when storage has been somewhat depleted by agricultural use.

Both alternatives are in agreement that reductions in use have to start with the Lower Basin cutting its use by the amount of the ‘structural deficit’ – the system losses through evaporation, riparian transpiration, et cetera, a total of ~1.5 maf. This decrease starts linearly when total storage as measured by the Lower Basin drops to 70 percent of full and ramps up to 1.5 maf when/if storage drops to 58 percent. The Upper Basin alternative has the Lower Basin starting its 1.5 maf reduction when its measure of storage is at 90 percent of full, and ramps up to 1.5 maf at 70 percent. With storage, however it is measured, chronically well down in the 30 percents these days, the Lower Basin could count on leaving 1.5 maf in Mead for the foreseeable future under either alternative.

The big difference between the two alternatives comes when or if storage drops to 38 percent by the Lower Basin’s measure of total system storage, and 20 percent of Powell-Mead storage by the Upper Basin measure. At that point – basically panic time – the Lower Basin wants both Basins to begin to ramp up to an additional 2.7 maf feet of reductions, to a total of 3.9 maf – basically the 4 maf in reductions the Bureau asked for in the panicky days of 2022.

The Upper Basin, however, wants the Lower Basin to do all of the 2.7 maf in reductions, on top of the 1.5 the Lower Basin will still be doing. Their justification: if river storage drops to those levels, then the Upper Basin, much of which has no storage to rely on, will already have had reductions at least that bad imposed by nature’s ‘hydrologic shortages.’ To make them do additional reductions to send more to the reservoirs would be the equivalent of double taxation.

The Upper Basin Alternative also throws a wild card into the game; it unilaterally grants itself the prerogative to ‘undertake parallel but separate activities that are not a part of this federal action or part of the [UB] Alternative. Parallel activities refer to actions in the Upper Basin that are beyond the scope of the Post-2026 Operations, but may complement those operations.’

The ‘parallel activities’ are briefly described as (but not limited to) activities like retaining the right move waters among the big Colorado River Storage Project reservoirs under pre-existing Records of Decision, and carrying out conservation programs like the Upper Basin’s Pilot System Conservation Program that pioneered the ‘paid reductions’ that are the core of the program to get the river system through 2026 (a pilot program partly paid for by large Lower Basin organizations). It may be too much read into this a kind of ‘declaration of independence’ for the Upper Basin, but it is an independent step toward adaptive management that might make the Lower Basin, accustomed to dependable deliveries from the Upper Basin a little nervous….

And there’s one nice thing to see: both alternatives seem to bypass the Colorado River Compact mandate that the Upper Basin ‘will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below’ an annual average of 7.5 maf, come hell or low water, or the big bad Lower Basin will come after your water to make it up. When the live storage drops to the low 20 percents in both alternatives, the releases from Powell drop to 6.0 maf – with no language implying a ‘call’ on the Upper Basin if that amount is unavailable. (Not that any such language ever existed in the Compact.)

Speaking of the Colorado River Compact. Yes, we cannot escape it. It is difficult to look at this situation and not see the Compact at work, and as usual, not in a constructive way.

Forty-seven years ago, in 1977, one of the Colorado River’s droughtier years – an estimated natural flow of 5.8 maf, third lowest since measuring began – I wrote an article about the Colorado River for a magazine that wanted ‘something about the drought.’ Figuring correctly that the drought emergency would be over by the time an article would be published, I wrote a long essay about how the drought was not a problem that year for the Lower Colorado River because of the huge storage it had – but how it could be facing problems in the future if it continued uncontrolled growth. (That article, ‘The Desert Empire,’ is archived on this site.)

But one thing I observed then as a possible source of future difficulty was the political division of the river into two basins. It was only a ‘paper division’ in the Compact, but it became concrete, as it were, when Glen Canyon Dam began to fill in 1963, finally finishing filling three years after this observation about its impact in that 1977 essay:

Glen Canyon Dam backs up a body of water … which amounts to nearly the equivalent of what flows down the Colorado River in two years. The amount of water that flows out of the lake reflects not the influx from upriver but demands from downriver.

This being the case, it seems just sentimental to continue to think of the Colorado River as a single entity. For all practical purposes there are now two rivers – interdependent, to be sure, but separate, and under separate management…. To describe the two rivers in the simplest possible manner: the Upper Colorado River is generally patterned after a ‘natural’ river, with many sources and a single destination. The Lower Colorado River, on the other hand, is patterned more after, say, a municipal waterworks, with a single primary source and many destinations. [ed. emphasis mine]

Now, a century after the Compact divided the river into two basins, and almost half a century after that observation about the post-dam river(s) – how can we look at this situation in which the water mavens from the (once) whole river sat down together to try to come up with a plan for managing the system imposed on the river(s), but after only a few days’ effort, withdrew to their ‘Upper and Lower Colorado Rivers’ to work out their River’s separate perspective on the problem? This may be the apotheosis of the Colorado River Compact, the completion of the division into two river basins whose users don’t always seem to remember they are all on the same river. Both alternatives express a willingness by their makers to reassemble as one group, but….

The natural river itself encourages this kind of separation, with a region of mostly uninhabited (if often visited) canyons constituting close to a fourth of the length of the river, separating two regions of human activity. This kind of a ‘devoid’ in the middle part of a river basin is probably just nature in the middle of some of its endless work. The river probably began as two rivers, running off the Colorado Plateau in opposite directions, that eroded into each other and are still in the contentious process of becoming one river (as soon as they are able to completely eliminate the Colorado Plateau through all their magnificent work-in-progress erosions).

The two areas of human activity above and below the canyons have evolved over the past century and a half in ways consistent with the nature of the river that runs through them. Above the canyons, mountains dropping into piedmont plateaus, carved and deposited by many small streams flowing together into larger streams, all encouraging modest scales of cultural development, by individuals or small communities, a refuge for a time for Jefferson’s and Powell’s ‘agrarian counterrevolution.’

But the other river, below the canyons, flowed out of the canyons in a powerful seasonal flood or, later, a comparative trickle, a desert river, an anomaly doing nothing for the desert but moving its silt and sand farther toward the ocean. This was a river just waiting for the Industrial Revolution, the Anthropocene juggernaut of nature transformed to the service of humankind. And that revolution arrived, late in the 19^th century, growing so fast in the desert that users in the agrarian states upstream feared the entire river might be appropriated out from under them. The Compact commission resulted, to try to quell those fears enough so the Bureau of Reclamation could build the big mainstem dam that would enable California to grow even faster….

The best the Compact commission could do was the division of the river into the two basins, linked only by the mandate for the Upper River water users to not dry up the Lower River users. This did nothing but formalize that ‘natural’  division created by the canyons – and also some of the problems innate to the cultural division between the industrial revolutionaries and the agrarian counterrevolutionaries (now enjoined with the environmental and recreational groups). The long descent toward breakdown, exacerbated by climate changes we never meant to cause, has culminated in the leaders of the two basins breaking off joint negotiations over the future, and going home to their own two rivers to draft up mandates for each other.

Yet they all appear to be committed to hanging onto the Compact, like a drowning man hangs onto a straw.

Meanwhile, however, the people who were here first in the two river basins, and the canyons too, have cleared their throats, and announced again that they will not be ignored in planning the future of the river. Sixteen of the First People nations have submitted their thoughts on the future of the river to the Commissioner of Reclamation, with a list of considerations they want answers for. We will look at that next post, and maybe muse a little further on how to make one river out of two, or thirty-two. Or should we just go with two or more? Suggested reading: Go to your Trump Bible and read First Kings 3:16-28.

Click the link to read the article on the Sibley’s Rivers website (George Sibley):

March 13, 2024

I really like the AI image above, created by a couple creatives at American Whitewater, Scott Harding and Kestrel Kunz. for a presentation at the Colorado River Water Users Association convention in January. It shows ‘the people who run the river’ running the river. But if you have ever been in that whitewater situation, you know that the river is really in charge; you run the river on the river’s terms. The guy standing up in the back of the boat is in charge of the boat, giving the others in the boat commands like ‘Five forward (strokes of the oars) on the right!’ ‘Two back on the left!’ ‘Everybody three forward!’ – trying to keep the boat on a ‘line’ he or she perceives through the rocks of the rapids. Thinking like the river to run the river.

We can draw some obvious analogies to Colorado River management – as Scott and Kestrel do in the picture above of the people in suits who ‘run the river.’ But the analogy breaks down quickly around the fact that they are all – we are all – in a boat without a boatman. Instead of all those who are running the river following directions from one person who is using his past experience to pick a line through the rocky places – ‘A 100,000 acre-feet to the Navajo!’ ‘Everybody cut 10 percent!’ – we are doing it through committees, groups, divisions, maybe some factions by James Madison’s classic definition (groups whose acts are ‘adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community’).

In this case we have the Lower Colorado River Basin on one side of the raft, the Upper Basin on the other side; they are each forming a perspective on the rocky places ahead and describing a line through them that requires issuing some advice or orders to those with oars on both sides of the boat about forward or backward actions, resulting mostly in quite a lot of noise, in which the intelligence from both sides gets rendered unintelligible….

There are various possible resolutions to such a situation. Some will say we have to have a boatman, one person to whom we will all listen and for whom we will all act obediently. On the real river, boatmen have to earn their right to be that person through experience. But on the metaphorical boat on the allegorical river, it is not always easy to select a boatman to get through the hard places because – what experience counts? What background is necessary and sufficient? What demonstrable skills? And there is always a loud narcissist in the boat who trumps the discourse by trumpeting that he or she is ‘the one, the only one that can get you through this’; those ‘strongmen’ appeal to many in the boat, when the better idea might be to just pull off the river before the hard place, unpack the lunch along with the situation, and work out a plan democratically before plunging in….

That is, in a sense, what is going on today in the Colorado River Region (natural basin plus out-of-basin extensions). Everyone knows that there are hard places as we all try to face up to some hard realities the river is imposing on us (at least partly because of hard things we have imposed on the river).

After a feel-good conference this January of the Colorado River Water Users Association, the seven basin states and representatives from the basin’s 30 First People nations sat down to work out a new set of ‘Interim Guidelines’ for an ‘interim’ beginning in 2027, to replace the tattered, battered and bandaged Interim Guidelines that the Colorado River waterworks have been working off of since 2007 with a ‘use by’ date of 2026.

That larger gathering hung together for several sessions; then, as I understand it, the three Lower Basin states withdrew to figure out how to handle a ‘structural deficit’ that is about one-fourth of their 8.5 million acre-feet (maf) allotment from the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which deficit they finally conceded was their responsibility – just their concession being a major step forward. The ‘other side of the boat,’ the Upper Basin states, began meeting on their own.

Now, just this week, the Basins have each submitted draft plans for post-2026 river management to the Bureau of Reclamation – the Upper Basin Tuesday March 4, and the Lower Basin Wednesday March 5.

I wanted to get something online this same week about this so my faithful readers would not think that I am asleep at the wheel or lost in river history, but there is no way to even obtain and read these plans, let alone try to make sense of them together, before my webmeister’s Friday deadline. So I’ll be back with you either next week or the week following with my two-bits on what’s going on.

But we can do a little backgrounding now. The ‘structural deficit’ the Lower Basin has finally conceded it must deal with is a substantial omission not covered in either the 1922 Compact nor in the subsequent elements of the Law of the River. It is, first, a compilation of all the ‘system losses’ from evaporation, bank storage, riparian vegetation, et cetera, from Mead Reservoir to the Mexico border – estimated by the Bureau of Reclamation to be around 1.3 million acre-feet (maf).

It also includes, second, up to 750,000 acre-feet that is the Lower Basin’s share of the Mexican obligation. Responsibility for these has been dismissed by the Lower Basin as being covered by ‘surplus flows’ – anything over the 7.5 maf the Upper Basin is committed to send through the canyons. For most of the 20^th century this surplus was legitimate: water not yet being used by the Upper Basin and the Central Arizona Project, plus the occasional blessings of big water years. But for roughly the last quarter century that surplus has largely been a paper accounting; the ‘structural deficit’ that emerged was basically the Bureau drawing down storage in a time of drought to keep nurturing the ‘surplus’ fiction while praying for snow.

The 2007 Interim Guidelines were created to try to address this problem – but without really addressing it. The Guidelines were kind of a shell game, ‘balancing’ the contents of Mead and Powell reservoirs, with tipping points in the storage of both that would precipitate shortages being imposed on the Lower Basin states – but doing obeisance to California’s senior water rights by shorting the other two states first and most. And they continued releasing the substantial ‘structural deficit’ water to not force the Lower Basin states cut back on their own.

These ineffective guidelines led to the Bureau’s realization in 2022 – the centennial year of the Compact – that they might be two or three years from losing the storage in the big reservoirs entirely for much of the year, resulting in the quasi-panicky call to the seven states to cut consumption within a year by 2-4 maf.

I will not go through again all the plans and counter-plans that were proposed and analyzed to answer the Bureau’s call, but do want to call attention to the fact that the situation did revive a spate of ‘Caliphobia,’ when six of the Basin states prepared a plan for a proportionate sharing among the Lower Basin states of cuts that amounted to the structural deficit, but California would only participate if its substantial senior water rights were honored, with the other two states bearing the brunt of the cuts.

This was – for me, at any rate – just more evidence of the extent to which the Colorado River Compact is a failed document. It was Caliphobia that had brought the seven states together in 1922 – California unenthusiastically – to create the Compact. All seven states had variations on the doctrine of prior appropriation as their foundational water law, and knew that the logic of the law meant they had to honor each other’s senior appropriations. But California was growing so fast, with claims on so much Colorado River water, that the other six states were concerned that there might not be enough water left for their own slower development.

Their goal in coming together was to create a division of the river among the seven states that would override appropriation law at the interstate level, eliminating a seven-state appropriation horserace in which California was already lapping the field. California participated in the compact negotiations because Congress said there would be no money to build the big flood control and storage structures California desperately wanted until the seven states were in agreement on how the river’s water would be apportioned.

They were, however, unable to do the seven-state division they needed. They each came from their own state with estimates of their future needs that, in total, added up to half-again more water than even the 18 maf pluvial river carried in that first quarter of the 20^th century. They were operating on dreams, not data, and after a couple days of critiquing each other’s numbers and defending their own, that gave up on the seven-state division.

The best they were able to do, in their November ten-day eleventh-hour do-or-die charrette was the two-basin division that gave the four states above the canyons some protection against California growth, but left the other two states below the canyons in the cage, as it were, with the thousand-pound gorilla, California. The Compact goal of ‘promoting interstate comity’ failed when Arizona refused to even ratify the Compact. And as average flows declined from the 1930s on, the Upper Basin’s Compact charge to ‘not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below’ the Lower Basin’s apportionment began to make the Upper Basin states feel more like juniors shorted to fulfill a senior water right than participants in an ‘equitable apportionment.’

Add in the failure to even mention the basin’s substantial system losses, and the Compact and subsequent Law of the River have not done much to ‘remove causes of present and future controversies,’ culminating in the situation we are in now, with California playing the seniority card on the other states, the Upper Basin and Lower Basin having different ideas about what it actually means to ‘not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below’ an average of 7.5 maf/year, and no one really wanting to face the fact that the Compact was written for a river half-again larger than the river we have now – with a modest but steady decline in this river as we continue to warm the world around it. We are going to have to impose, and accept, significant shortages that will have impacts on all of us, on the way we eat nationwide and how much we pay, as well as how we use water everywhere in the region.

What is truly ‘equitable’ when it comes to administering shortages? Or cutting right to the chase – to what extent should the appropriation doctrine dominate the discourse? Is ‘first-come-first-served’ to be the only measure for ‘equitable allocation’?

To put the question another way: could we acknowledge a distinction between water-use issues and all-river issues? Water-use issues can occur between agricultural users, and between agricultural and urban areas, and between urban areas. We have decided culturally to resolve those kinds of issues through the first-come-first-served laws, and whether that is the best way to resolve issues over water use or not, it is the way we do it. (Although it should be noted that, among multi-generation neighbors, with century-old water rights differing by a year or two, seniors seldom place ‘calls’ on their junior neighbors; they work out ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ to share the available water. Appropriation law can be brutal when strictly enforced.)

But all-river issues are matters above and beyond questions of prioritizing water use. Discovering that we are dealing with a river that is only two-thirds the size of the river the Compact was created for is an all-river issue. Trying to figure out how to do long-delayed water justice for 30 First People nations of varying sizes (with two-thirds of them in one state) on a fully appropriated river is an all-river issue. Managing for the unknown but unfolding consequences of a changing, warming climate is an all-river issue.

All-river issues are everyone’s problems, created and perpetrated by everyone, whether consciously or unconsciously; and in a just world everyone would share the pain of resolution in some equitable and proportionate way. With an all-river issue, ‘seniority’ just means the water user has been part of the problem, consciously or unconsciously, for a longer time.

I have some thoughts about how we could deal with some of our all-river issues, which I will no doubt unload on you over the next several posts, but I hope that if you have thoughts on it, you will unload them on me in comments below.

And I also hope some of the people actually at the table(s) are also trying to think beyond the limitations of the Compact and of the foundational law of the river, the prior appropriation doctrine that the Compact wanted to address but couldn’t. Like Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s main negotiator, said, ‘We must plan for the river we have, not the river we dream of.’

Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):

February 2, 2024

Becky Mitchell speaks crisply and with a bass-drum firmness. Her speeches are like freight trains, orderly processions full of weight, one thought pounding after another.

Her full-time job since July 2023, as Colorado’s lead negotiator in Colorado River matters, gives her weighty material that matches her rhetorical style. Before that, she informally held the same role as the director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

The Colorado River has been riven with rising drama in the last 20 years. The seven basin states – but particularly Arizona and California – have reluctantly, slowly conceded reforms necessary to the occasion. The federal government, the referee for the river and operator of the two giant dams, Hoover and Glen Canyon, was slow to force the hard decisions.

“It is time for a fundamental change in how we manage the Colorado River,” she told members of the Colorado Water Congress at the group’s annual conference on Jan. 30. “It’s time to adapt to the river that we have, not the river we dream of.”

“We have some difficult roads ahead of us as we work to find a sustainable solution for the basin,” she said in wrapping up her 15-minute speech. “What we must do would’ve been easier 10 years ago. It would’ve been easier 5 years ago. Tomorrow will be difficult, but we must have the courage to try.”

Following is a lightly abridged version of the speech:

Change is coming. I can’t emphasize enough how much the post-2026 negotiations matter whether you are in the upper basin, lower basin, Mexico, or a member of one of the 30 tribal nations. We all deserve a future with certainty and security in our water supply without that being jeopardized by constant crisis management. We also all deserve a future where we can live within the means of the river and without the risk of overuse or misuse driving us into crisis.

For the past two decades, the upper basin has been caught between the impacts of climate change and lower-basin overuse. I acknowledge that the lower basin does not like the term overuse. My intent is not to offend, but rather to be clear and honest about uses that exceed what the compact and hydrology can allow whatever it is called. We cannot and will not agree to guidelines that perpetuate management of our water resources that do not acknowledge what Mother Nature is providing. The basin cannot continue to use water at a rate that is unsustainable. Those who are fearful of change or who benefit from status quo will find fault in the plain facts that I share with you here today. You will find fault in the tone with which I share them.

The good news is that change is coming. The upper division states have said for years, decades now, the lower basin needs to take responsibility for the role in emptying the reservoirs. But let me be clear why this change is needed. Dry hydrology and overuse have drained the reservoirs. Future guidelines must recognize the reality of the Colorado River Basin hydrology.

Our lower basin neighbors have recently recognized that they must address the overuse. The next step for them is to explain how will they make this commitment a reality. We look forward to seeing those details.

We will continue to do everything we can to get to a seven state solution that protects Colorado and the upper basin, but we also need to be prepared for other scenarios. The upper division states have presented a concept to the lower basin states that outlines mechanisms for living within the means of the river while rebuilding and maintaining Powell and Mead and operating within the law of the river.

(Our concept) is essentially a water budget that honors the law and Mother Nature. The Colorado River Compact is our foundation. Solutions need to respect the law of the river and recognize the reality of hydrology across the entire basin. Those solutions must also be real and verifiable. Aspirational goals do not provide the clarity that is required to provide predictability across the basin.

We cannot and will not agree to balancing like the ’07 guidelines, a concept that was used to justify sending water downstream. The water should be used to rebuild storage. We’re focused on fair, legal and sustainable outcomes for the entire basin. Out of respect for the sovereignty of those lower basin states and the role of the Secretary of the Interior as the water master in the lower basin states, we have not weighed in on how they should apportion the reductions amongst themselves. That is for the lower basin (states) to work out.

We have heard our downstream neighbors say, if we figure out the structural deficit, will you meet us in the middle on climate change? That’s one heck of a hypothetical. If the lower basin overuse is addressed, we’d be looking at a very different situation than what we see today. In fact, if the lower basin had accounted for evaporation and transit losses through the ’07 guidelines, the reservoirs would likely be healthy now.

We are the ones who’ve been doing the work on climate change. We absolutely have been doing our part. What I’ve heard from across Colorado is we are willing to help. We are willing to be a part of the solution, but we cannot solve a problem alone.

We (already) take involuntary and uncompensated reductions when Mother Nature doesn’t provide water. Users in the upper basin have taken an average of 1.3 million acre-feet in shortages annually over the last several years. We make do with less in our communities, our workforce, our economies, and our food production. The lower basin must recognize and acknowledge the annual shortages that occur in the upper division states and then acknowledge — thank you — that the operation of the reservoirs must absolutely respond to hydrology. In addition, we must also acknowledge that the upper basin has not developed into our 7.5 million acre-foot apportionment and that undeveloped tribal water rights are flowing downstream.

Overuse must end, and the compact must remain our foundation. It will not be easy. As we move into a future that is more responsive to hydrology, I acknowledge that we all must acknowledge there will be hardship and pain, while also acknowledging that this hardship and pain has existed in the upper basin for decades. Because we haven’t been shielded from climate change impacts, the upper basin states are uniquely positioned to assist our downstream neighbors in learning how to live with less.

We are collaborating in unprecedented ways in the upper basin, and this time we’re doing it at a bigger table. I’m very proud that we are working with the upper basin tribal nations in recognition of their historical ownership and their undeveloped federally reserved water rights. This collaboration has made very clear to me that is unacceptable for the upper division states to accept any limitations on future uses when upper basin tribes have limited access to clean water, agricultural production, and economic vitality.

I remember the speech I gave in the summer of 2022. The reservoirs were crashing. The federal government had laid out an ultimatum: Figure out how to conserve 2 to 4 million acre feet or we’ll figure it out for you. The lower basin was unwilling and unable to reach an agreement about cuts to their uses. I remember many long meetings and long hours that my team and I put into discussions with our fellow upper division states. We worked out the five-point plan. This was a turning point for Colorado. The decision was a difficult one for me. It was not fun.

By implementing this plan, we have positioned ourselves as leaders in the basin, the ones willing to come to the table to do our part. Colorado cannot and will not accept status quo. We cannot or will not be bullied into a future that drains the reservoirs for continued unsustainable use.

For example, we pushed the Bureau of Reclamation to modify how the upper basin is represented in Colorado River Basin modeling. Our advocacy means that today the updated models better reflect the reality in the upper basin, a reality that will be represented in the post 2026 tools. Reclamation models now show what shortages look like here.

This team has also worked to make Colorado more resilient. Over the past year, the CWCB has spearheaded a turf removal program to make our municipalities more resilient for future water shortages.

Division of water resources has continued to strictly administer water rights, including painful cuts to water use to respond to Mother Nature.

My fellow commissioners and the upper Colorado River Commissioners revamped the 2024 System Conservation Pilot Program, or SCPP, to allow water users to voluntarily forego their water uses in exchange for compensation, thereby helping to put water in the river to mitigate drought in the upper division states.

The drought task force critically examined the Colorado River issues and not only applauded the good work of the state, but recommended additional resources to augment our existing work.

The river team is also working to transition our guiding principles from paper to practice. You are all familiar with the irrefutable truths. It’s one thing to say these are our principles. It’s another thing to then apply them to the basin-states negotiations. That is a difficult task. I’ve seen some of these principles gain traction throughout the entire Colorado River basin. Federal government has acknowledged the need for managing the reservoirs sustainably. The lower basin has acknowledged the need to address their overuse. The environmental community recognizes that healthy storage at our nation’s two largest reservoirs must be the first step in protecting Colorado’s rive and the, Colorado River’s ecosystems. Gradually, I’m hearing interest from DC to the Imperial Valley, recognizing that the status quo does not work anymore.

It is time for a fundamental change in how we manage the Colorado River. We must all live within the means of the river if we hope to sustain it. I want Lake Powell and Lake Mead to serve the purposes they were designed to serve. To provide for sustainable development of our compact apportionments in the Colorado River Basin and to provide water security in dry years. A sustainable system means we have to rebuild storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead and protect upstream storage for releases only in the most dire circumstances. This means that the worldview around water must change, particularly in the lower basin. We must manage demand to rebuild the storage that provides certainty of supply. In all years, we all must adapt to the available water supply.

We have an opportunity now to collaboratively determine how to adapt to the river that we have, not the river we dream of. The lower basin states have said many good things that signal that they are open to collaboration.

We believe them when they say they will own the structural deficit, when they say they will live within the means of the river, when they say they will support the tribes and that they support the environment. I take them at their word. We assume that they are serious about these commitments, and we expect open and transparent accounting of all lower basin uses of main stem tributaries so that we can trust but verify their actions. We hope that the lower basin will come around to support the framework for management of Lake Powell and Lake Mead that is sustainable for the 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River.

What we must do would’ve been easier 10 years ago. It would’ve been easier five years ago. Tomorrow will be difficult, but we must have the courage to try.

From email from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources (Michael Elizabeth Sakas):

February 1, 2024

Rebecca Mitchell, Colorado’s Upper Colorado River Commissioner, spoke to a sold-out crowd at the Colorado Water Congress’s Annual Convention in Aurora, CO this week. She shared an update on the state’s negotiation positioning, and the reality of difficult roads ahead, as the states and Tribal Nations work to find sustainable solutions for 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River in the arid southwest.

“Change is coming to the Colorado River and because it is, I can’t emphasize enough how much the Post-2026 negotiations matter,” Commissioner Mitchell said in her speech. “Whether you are in the Upper Basin, Lower Basin, Mexico, or a member of one of the 30 Tribal Nations, we all deserve a future with certainty and security in our water supply, without that being jeopardized by constant crisis management.”

The current guidelines, called the ‘07 Guidelines, manage Lake Powell and Lake Mead. These expire in 2026, and the states that share the river are in the process of negotiating new guidelines for how Lake Powell and Lake Mead will operate post-2026. Powell and Mead hit their lowest levels on record in recent years, partly because states in the Lower Basin continue to use more water than what flows into these reservoirs. Commissioner Mitchell said that the ‘07 Guidelines cannot simply be extended.

“I want to recognize that the Lower Basin does not like the term overuse. My intent is not to offend, but rather to be clear and honest about uses that exceed what the Compact and hydrology can allow,” Commissioner Mitchell said. “Whatever you call it, we cannot– and will not– agree to guidelines that perpetuate management of our water resources that do not acknowledge what Mother Nature is providing. The Basin cannot continue to use water at a rate that is unsustainable.”

“History shows that collaborative efforts by the Basin States can provide superior solutions. We will continue to do everything we can to get to a seven-state solution that protects Colorado and the Upper Basin. But we also need to be prepared for other scenarios,” Commissioner Mitchell said.

“Our Colorado River team is a force. I cannot thank the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the Division of Water Resources, and the Attorney General’s teams enough. Also, I greatly appreciate the support of  Governor Polis, who has been engaged and helpful as we enter these critical negotiations,” Commissioner Mitchell said. “Together, we have shown the federal government and the Lower Basin that Colorado cannot and will not accept the status quo or be bullied into a future that drains the reservoirs for continued, unsustainable use in the Lower Basin.”

Click the link to read Commissioner Mitchell’s full speech from the 2024 Colorado Water Congress Annual Convention on the Colorado Department of Natural Resources website:

Rebecca Mitchell, Colorado’s Upper Colorado River Commissioner 
Colorado Water Congress Annual Convention Speech
Jan. 31, 2024

Change is coming – and because it is, I can’t emphasize enough how much the Post-2026 negotiations matter.

Whether you are in the Upper Basin, Lower Basin, Mexico, or a member of one of the 30 Tribal Nations, we all deserve a future with certainty and security in our water supply without that being jeopardized by constant crisis management. We all deserve a future where we can live within the means of the river, without the risk of overuse or misuse driving us into crisis.

For the past two decades, the Upper Basin has been caught between the impacts of climate change and Lower Basin overuse, along with the increasing risk that our thirsty neighbors will look upstream for more water.

I want to recognize that the Lower Basin does not like the term overuse. My intent is not to offend, but rather to be clear and honest about uses that exceed what the Compact and hydrology can allow. Whatever you call it, we cannot – and will not – agree to guidelines that perpetuate management of our water resources that do not acknowledge what Mother Nature can provide.

The Basin cannot continue to use water at a rate that is unsustainable.

Those who are fearful of change, or who benefit from the status quo, will find fault with the plain facts I share here with you and will find fault with the tone in which I share them, as an excuse for their inaction. We must move forward together to face the future with honesty and courage. You, Colorado, and all people in the Basin deserve nothing less than honesty and courage.

The good news? Change is coming. The Upper Division States have said for decades that the Lower Basin needs to take responsibility for its role in emptying the reservoirs.

Let’s be clear about why this change is needed. The ‘07 Guidelines cannot be extended. Under the ‘07 Guidelines, dry hydrology and overuse by the Lower Basin have drained the reservoirs. Future guidelines must recognize the reality of Colorado River Basin hydrology.

Our Lower Basin neighbors recognize that they must address their overuse, what they call the “structural deficit.” I applaud that first step of acknowledging their responsibility. The next step is for them to explain how they will make this commitment a reality that we can rely on. We look forward to seeing those details.

The history of the Basin shows that collaborative efforts by the Basin States can provide superior solutions. We will continue to do everything we can to get to a seven-state solution that protects Colorado and the Upper Basin.

But we also need to be prepared for other scenarios.

The Upper Division States have presented a concept to the Lower Basin States that outlines mechanisms for living within the means of the river while rebuilding and maintaining Powell and Mead, and operating within the Law of the River – essentially a water budget that honors the law and Mother Nature.

The Colorado River Compact is our foundation. Solutions need to respect the Law of the River and recognize the reality of the hydrology of the Colorado River Basin. Solutions must also be real and verifiable. Aspirational goals do not provide the clarity that is required to provide predictability to the Basin.

We cannot and will not agree to continue  “balancing” under the ‘07 Guidelines, a concept used to justify sending water downstream to fuel Lower Basin overuse. That water should be used to rebuild storage.

We’re focused on fair, legal, and sustainable outcomes for the entire Basin.

Out of respect for the sovereignty of the Lower Basin States, and the role of the Secretary of the Interior as Water Master of the Lower Basin, we have not weighed in on how they should apportion reductions among themselves. That is for the Lower Basin to work out. We’ve rolled up our sleeves in a good-faith effort to balance the demands with supplies, and the need to have water available in dry years to keep the system from crashing.

We have heard our downstream neighbors say, “If we figure out the structural deficit, will you meet us in the middle on climate change?”

First off – that’s one heck of a hypothetical. If Lower Basin overuse is addressed, we would be looking at a very different situation than what we see today. In fact, if the Lower Basin had accounted for evaporation and transit losses throughout the ‘07 Guidelines, the reservoirs would likely be healthy.

But at this time, we’re the only ones who’ve been doing anything about climate change. We’ve shown that we are willing to do our part, that we have been doing our part. I have heard across Colorado that we’re willing to help – but we cannot solve the problem alone.

We take involuntary and uncompensated reductions when Mother Nature does not provide. Water users in the Upper Basin have taken an average of 1.3 million acre-feet in shortages annually over the last several years. In other words, we have used 1.3 million acre-feet less than what we may have used if our water users’ demands were fulfilled.
 
When we make do with less water, we also make do with less in our communities, our workforce, our economies, and our food production. The Lower Basin must recognize and acknowledge the annual shortages that occur in the Upper Division States, and then acknowledge that the operation of reservoirs must respond to hydrology.

In addition, we must acknowledge that the Upper Basin has not developed into our 7.5 million acre-foot apportionment and that undeveloped Tribal water rights are flowing downstream.

Regardless of what the future agreement looks like, the sideboards are set: we can no longer operate without regard for Mother Nature, overuse must end, and the Compact must remain our foundation.

It won’t be easy. As we move to a future that is more responsive to hydrology, I acknowledge that there will be hardship and pain in the Lower Basin – while also acknowledging that this hardship and pain has existed in the Upper Basin for decades, because we haven’t been shielded from climate change impacts.

The Upper Basin is uniquely positioned to assist our downstream neighbors in learning to live with less.

Seventy-five years ago, my predecessor agreed to the 1948 Upper Colorado River Compact, which established the Upper Colorado River Commission (UCRC) as a forum for “interstate comity.” That sentiment has never been truer in the Upper Basin than today. The Upper Division States are strongly united, and we’re stronger because of the common interests shared across Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

We are collaborating in unprecedented ways in the Upper Basin, and this time we’re doing it at a bigger table. I’m very proud that we are working with the Upper Basin Tribal Nations in recognition of their historical ownership and their undeveloped federally reserved water rights. This collaboration has made it very clear to me that it is unacceptable for the Upper Division States to accept any limitations on future uses when the Upper Basin Tribes have limited access to clean water, agricultural production, and economic vitality.

What we can do and what we will do is operate responsibly, and initiate programs and policies that promote sustainable uses across the Upper Basin.

I would like to take a moment to reflect on how far we have come as a state, and as the Upper Basin, over the last couple of years. I remember the speech I gave to you all in the summer of 2022. The reservoirs were crashing. The federal government had laid out an ultimatum: “Figure out how to conserve 2 to 4 million acre-feet, or we’ll figure it out for you.” The Lower Basin was unwilling and unable to reach an agreement about cuts to their uses.

When it became clear that a Basin agreement was impossible, I remember the many long meetings and long hours that my team and I put into discussions with our fellow Upper Division States. And we worked our way to the Five Point Plan.

That Five Point Plan was a turning point for Colorado. You all know that decision was a difficult one for me. But by implementing this plan, we positioned ourselves as leaders in the Basin as the ones willing to come to the table to do our part.

A few short months later, the General Assembly passed a bill that funded the creation of several new full-time employees. If you’ve ever worked in state government, you’ll know that getting one new employee is a massive success – imagine then how significant it is to secure nearly 20 positions dedicated to Colorado River issues.

Our Colorado River team is a force. I cannot thank the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the Division of Water Resources, and the Attorney General’s teams enough. Together, we have shown the federal government and the Lower Basin that Colorado cannot and will not accept the status quo or be bullied into a future that drains the reservoirs for continued, unsustainable use in the Lower Basin.

For example, we pushed the Bureau of Reclamation to modify how the Upper Basin is represented in Colorado River Basin modeling. Our advocacy means that today, the updated models better reflect the reality in the Upper Basin — a reality that will be represented in post-2026 tools. Reclamation models now show what shortages look like here. The models also show how shortage cuts into our water needs.

This team has also worked to make Colorado more resilient. Over the past year, the CWCB has spearheaded a turf removal program to make our municipalities more resilient to future water shortages; DWR strictly administered water rights – including painful cuts to water use – to respond to Mother Nature; Me and my fellow Upper Colorado River Commissioners revamped the 2024 System Conservation Pilot Program – or SCPP – to allow water users to voluntarily forgo their water uses in exchange for compensation, thereby helping to put water in the river to mitigate drought in the Upper Division States; and the Drought Task Force critically examined Colorado River issues, and not only applauded the good work of the state, but recommended additional resources to augment our existing work.

The Colorado River team is also working to transition our guiding principles from paper to practice. You are all familiar with the irrefutable truths. It’s one thing to say, “These are our principles.” It’s another thing to then apply them in Basin State negotiations.

I’ve seen some of the principles gain traction throughout the entire Colorado River Basin.  The federal government has acknowledged the need for managing the reservoirs sustainably. The Lower Basin has acknowledged the need to address their overuse. The environmental community recognizes that healthy storage at our nation’s two largest reservoirs must be the first step in protecting the Colorado River’s ecosystems.

Gradually, I’m hearing diverse interests, from D.C. to the Imperial Valley, recognize that the status quo doesn’t work anymore, that it is time for a fundamental change in how we manage the Colorado River, and that we must all live within the means of the River if we hope to sustain it.

I want Lake Powell and Lake Mead to serve the purposes they were designed to serve: to provide for sustainable development of our compact apportionments in the Colorado River Basin, and to provide water security in dry years.

A sustainable system means we have to rebuild storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, and protect upstream storage for releases only in the most dire circumstances. This means that the worldview around water must change – particularly in the Lower Basin. We must manage demand to rebuild the storage that provides certainty of supply in all years. We all must adapt to the available water supply.

We hope our Lower Basin partners will meet us in this moment. We have an opportunity to collaboratively determine how to adapt to the river that we have, not the river that we dream of.

The Lower Basin states have said some good things that signal they are open to collaboration. We believe them when they say that they will “own the structural deficit,” when they say they will “live within the means of the River,” that they “support the Tribes,” and that they “support the environment.”

I take them at their word. We assume they are serious about these commitments, and we expect open and transparent accounting of all Lower Basin uses– mainstem and tributaries– so that we can trust but verify their actions.

We hope that the Lower Basin will come around to support a sustainable framework for the management of Lake Powell and Lake Mead for the 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River. We are bound together by this River, by the Compact we signed 100 years ago, and by our shared interest in a vibrant American southwest.

Utilizing unprecedented federal funds, I believe that we can reach an agreement that protects all who rely on this critical resource – and we should do this post haste: 40 million people are counting on us.

I want to acknowledge my counterparts in both the Upper and Lower Basins, along with the leadership of the Bureau of Reclamation, and the fact that we have some difficult roads ahead of us as we work to find a sustainable solution for the Basin.  What we must do would have been easier ten years or even five years ago. Tomorrow will be difficult, but we must have the courage to try.

The history of the Basin shows that collaborative efforts by the Basin States can provide superior solutions. We all know we must prepare for other scenarios. But for now, I promise you that we are focused on finding that collaborative solution.

My request is that Colorado stay unified at this critical time in the negotiations. I commit to making space and time to have the difficult discussions we need to have within Colorado about these important issues. But the most important task – right now – is to find success in the negotiations with the other Basin States.

Success depends on all of us staying together with a common goal of protecting the resources of Colorado for all who depend upon them – including the Tribal Nations, agricultural users, cities, and the environment.

Thank you.

Click the link to read the article on the Inside Climate News website (Dan Gearino):

January 11, 2024

What do you call a situation that remains a crisis, but has ever so slightly improved?

I’m asking myself this as I look at the latest water level data for Lake Powell, the reservoir in Arizona and Utah that feeds the Glen Canyon hydropower plant and is a conduit for drinking water for parts of several states.

The level on Monday was 3,568 feet above sea level, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages the reservoir and the power plant.

On the same day last year, the water was at 3,525 feet—a difference of 43 feet. That was close to the reservoir’s lowest level since it was initially being filled in the 1960s.

Both the current level and last year’s are much lower than is optimal, following years of drought and overallocation of the reservoir’s water. But officials have some breathing room thanks to last year’s wet winter, which led to an above average, and in some areas, record snowpack that helped replenish some of what had been lost.

“We’ve kind of been digging ourselves out of a hole,” said Bart Miller, the healthy rivers director at Western Resource Advocates, a conservation nonprofit based in Boulder, Colorado. “The one wet year that we had is only getting a part of the way there … We still have a lot of work to do to put our demands for water back into balance with what the river provides.”

He’s talking about the Colorado River, which passes through Lake Powell. The Colorado River Basin is a source of water and hydropower for about 40 million Americans.

But this brief reprieve may soon be done because of low precipitation in recent months. The Bureau of Reclamation has noted the lack of rain and snow and last month reduced its estimate for how much water would flow into the lake in 2024. To give a sense of the scale of the problem, snowpack in the Upper Colorado River Basin was at 65 percent of normal this week.

The lake and its 1,320-megawatt power plant get a lot of attention because of their importance to millions of water and electricity consumers, and because the water level has gotten perilously close to shutting off the flow to the power plant.

If the level falls to 3,490 feet—78 feet below this week’s reading—water will be too low to spin the turbines that generate electricity.

If the level falls to 3,370 feet—198 feet below this week’s reading—it would reach “dead pool” status, when the water is too low to flow downstream from the dam. The results would be catastrophic for communities south of the dam, as David Dudley explained last year in Sierra magazine.

The Bureau of Reclamation does regular forecasts to have an idea of these risks. A report issued in August projects that there is essentially a zero percent chance that the power plant will be forced offline this year, but a 3 percent chance the water level will drop enough to force a shutoff in 2028.

Lake Powell is one several prominent examples of water resources that are at risk because of drought that climate change has exacerbated and the overallocation of the Colorado River. Downriver is another example, Lake Mead, whose low water levels have led to heightened concerns about the Hoover Dam power plant, as Rhiannon Saegert wrote for the Las Vegas Sun in August.

The Biden administration is working with states that rely on the Colorado River to find ways to conserve water and maintain adequate flow through Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The administration revised the operating guidelines for the lakes in April, including measures to better give notice to operators of irrigation systems and water utilities about water delivery reductions, and giving the Bureau of Reclamation more flexibility to conserve and store water.

“Failure is not an option,” said Tommy Beaudreau, who was then deputy secretary of the Interior, in an April statement.

Let’s take a few steps back. Hydropower plants have long been some of the most reliable sources of carbon-free electricity. The country gets 6 percent of its electricity from hydropower, which is more than any other utility-scale renewable source except for wind.

But drought and other extreme weather events are making hydropower increasingly volatile. The ups and downs show up in national figures; 2021 and 2022 were two of the three lowest years for hydropower generation since 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration. (This doesn’t include 2023, for which full-year records are not yet available.)

The shifts look ever more drastic at the state level.

From October 2022 to September 2023, hydropower generation in Washington State—the national leader in hydropower—was down 23 percent compared to the previous 12-month period.

In that same timeframe, California increased its hydropower generation by 72 percent.

The “why” comes down to local factors such as drought or recovery from drought. For grid operators, the takeaway is that hydropower isn’t as steady as it used to be.

There also is a growing view among environmental and justice advocates that hydropower has harmful effects on plants and animals, and can lead to an increase in methane emissions. And, construction of reservoirs has often displaced Indigenous communities.

Some of those advocates, with support from farmers, are saying the Colorado River should be allowed to flow freely through the area where the Glen Canyon Dam now stands in order to improve the availability of water south of the dam, among other benefits. Ian James of the Los Angeles Times wrote about this in September.

While the idea doesn’t have widespread support, it’s not being dismissed in the way it might have been a decade ago, when the problems with the dam were less apparent.

Federal officials have resources to prepare for declining water levels on Lake Powell, but they are dealing with symptoms of larger problems: climate change and a demand for water that exceeds a shrinking supply.

For now, the news is better than it was last year at this time, but Miller isn’t treating this like a victory.

“We haven’t solved the problem,” he said. “We’re still in this place where we need to do a lot of work.”

Click the link to read the article on The New York Times website (Christopher Flavelle). Here’s an excerpt:

January 6, 2024

Negotiators are seeking an agreement that would prepare for extraordinary cuts in the amount of river water that can be tapped.

“How do we live with the river that we have, not the river that we hope and dream for?” said Becky Mitchell, the lead negotiator for the state of Colorado…

The rules that govern the distribution of Colorado River water expire at the end of 2026. Negotiators are trying to reach a deal quickly, in case the White House changes hands. It’s not the prospect of a Republican administration that is particularly concerning, negotiators said, but rather a change in personnel and the time required to build new relationships between state and federal officials…

“Whenever there’s an administration change, that significantly disrupts things,” said JB Hamby, chairman of the Colorado River Board of California and that state’s lead negotiator. “If we can get a draft ready and in place by the end of the year, that will ensure that we get the hard work done.”