BuRec drops a semi-hammer on the Lower Colorado; will Aridzona OR California listen?

For those not following the news in the Desert Southwest, the Bureau of Reclamation's announcement last week that it was putting the three lower Colorado River Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada under Tier 2 water cuts because of how low Lake Mead had fallen is big news.

For Arizona, which along with California is the biggest grower, ahead of Florida, of wintertime "truck farm" crops — lettuce, tomatoes, etc. — this is a biggie. A 21 percent cut. Nevada, which uses the least amount of the three states, faces an 8 percent cut. California? None. Not yet.

Why? Because of Aridzona's decades-old obstinance, that put all of its water rights "junior" to about all of California's and Nevada's, until it realized that the only way the Central Arizona Project, which pumps water to farms in southwestern Aridzona, as well as metro Phoenix and Tucson (with massive electric costs). Marc Reisner covers all of this, including the stupidity of a 1930s Aridzona governor sending his National Guard to the Colorado River border with California, in his magisterial "Cadillac Desert," reviewed but only in brief by me here. (I've read it half a dozen times or more; my copy is heavily annotated, highlighted and underlined.)

So, why these mandatory cuts? Because, as I blogged last month, and as discussed here at NM Political Report (even though NM, in the Upper Basin, faces no cuts) actual people in Colorado River Basin states, and above all, Aridzonans, refuse to engage in anywhere near the amount of voluntary cuts BuRec pushed for a year ago.

However, again, this is only a semi-hammer, per the paragraph above. High Country News has a good explainer of how states had agreed to this level of cuts already in 2019. So, really, it's not even a semi-hammer being dropped. It's a trigger being automatically pulled.

In terms of acre-feet, it's less than half of what BuRec had been pushing states to do on their own, and threatening to do forcefully if states didn't do it on their own. And, so, it's really close to a nothingburger, despite all the bitching, and Upper Basin states got no cuts at all.

That said, per that second link two paragraphs above, at NM Political Report, Upper Basin states, even with a good monsoon this year, shouldn't sit so smug. BuRec may force increased releases from Lake Powell next year, and increases from dams above Lake Powell on the Upper Colorado and its tributaries so that Powell doesn't hit "power pool," where it can no longer generate electricity, by sending more water to Mead. James Powell covers this in "Dead Pool." The High Country News piece notes that Powell is expected to be just 32 feet above power pool next year. (Depopulated Wyoming, unsuitable for crops but growing alfalfa, may become the Aridzona of the Upper Basin in a few years, and it should, contra neoliberal pseudoenvironmentalist John Fleck of the University of New Mexico.)

The LA Times (via Yahoo News) has more on not the failure of voluntary cuts, but the failure of state negotiations on how to apportion voluntary-by-state but forced-within-state cuts. It notes that Upper vs Lower Basin tensions, and urban vs. rural/agriculture, as well as state vs. state, are all issues, and all seemed to have increased during the failed negotiations. 

This also proves wrong John Fleck's bullshit claim that neoliberal negotiations always solve Western water problems. On many past cases, the threat of a hammer was needed for negotiations to get real. And, in some cases, that didn't even work. Like now.

Since the hammer wasn't nearly as severe as it could have been, it seems unlikely that the states are going to stop their squabbling. So, what's the next rabbit inBuRec Commissioner Camille Touton's hat?

In addition, I do not salute a blank check (as far as I know, it's a blank check) of $4 billion in Inflation Reduction Act money to bail out farmers in this area. Again, per the likes of "Cadillac Desert," most have grown water-thirsty crops like alfalfa, and have refused to switch to more drought-tolerant (or salt-tolerant, as salinity rises) crops, first. It's that same mindset behind failed negotiations; "rugged individualist" farmers, especially in the most socialist state in America, wanting a bailout.

On the other hand, per the Times story, not only did negotiations fail, but even before Touton dropped the faux hammer, some people were saying "bring it on," in terms of gearing up for lawsuits. Or, if not "bring it on," at a minimum, "we're ready for it." Like Bill Hasencamp, who manages the Lower Colorado River portion of water for Southern California's Metropolitan Water District?

“If the federal government does have to take unilateral action, it will likely lead to litigation, which will make it even harder to develop new guidelines for the Colorado River. So that's a big risk,” Hasencamp said. “I think everyone would agree that a consensus-based plan is better than either the courts or the federal government taking action to determine our future.”

Remember "Chinatown," the real version of that also discussed by Reisner? You ain't seen nothing yet!

Yale Climate Connections, in talking about this, noted this winter is expected to be another La Niña, which means dry, and likely warm, so another year of small snowpack, which means another spring and early summer of small runoff.

Californicators also shouldn't be too smug. Per the link in the first graf, if Mead falls yet another 5 feet below where it's expected to be this January, IT will face mandatory cuts too, for the first time, unless people there, who have faced their own water conservation pushes due to declining Sierra Nevada snowpack, look across the river at Aridzona and take stock of reality.

Within California, if that happens? Even the pretense of "fixing" the Salton Sea goes away. That, in turn means southeastern California and southwestern Aridzona, even as far as Phoenix, get toxic agrichemical dust blown in on west winds. Assuming that the 21 percent Aridzona cuts force some farms to go fallow, it's going to have that even before desiccated Salton Sea detritus blows over the Valley of the Sun.

And, to once again go to that High Country News piece? These seven states are nowhere near seeing light at the end of the tunnel. First, the long-term drought plus heat plus less snowpack in winter issues will keep getting worse. Second, American Indian tribes weren't included in this summer's negotiations. Many of them have substantial water rights but have not fully exercised them. Some of them are involved in water rights litigation as I type. (Shut up, John Fleck.) Third, the Colorado River Compact as a whole expires in four years. Without either real negotiations, or a BuRec Commissioner willing to drop an actual hammer, per Hobbs, this will turn into "a water war of all against all."

Finally, was Touton right, as far as hoped-for longer-term results, to only drop the semi-hammer instead of what she really could have done? It's arguable that she hoped that going lighter might still encourage a voluntary deal, especially in the face of the original Compact expiring in 2026. OTOH, it's arguable that that is neoliberal Kumbaya John Fleck thinking, that all the River states have shown their true colors and nobody's budging. I tilt that way.