Biden Admin Proposes Drastic Cuts To Colorado River’s Water Usage Before It Runs Dry

The White House has recommended reductions in water allotments for a group of states that rely on the Colorado River after negotiations between the states failed.

The Colorado River is the primary source of water for business, agriculture, and drinking for 40 million people in seven states. For two decades now, the river has been on the verge of collapse due to severe drought, and officials in the seven states have been in talks for months to reduce water allotments to avoid the worst-case scenario.

As negotiations have been unsuccessful so far, there is a risk of the river’s depletion or dead pooling. This could leave millions of Americans without water, and millions more could lose access to hydropower from the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams if the water level falls below the dams’ hydropower plants’ operating limits.

The Department of the Interior has proposed equal cuts to the water allotments of each state, which would contravene the legal precedent set under the framework of laws known as the “law of the river,” which has regulated Colorado River usage for almost a century.

According to The New York Times, the departure from legal precedent, which in the past has given seniority water rights priority, is justified by the changing science around climate. Tommy Beaudreau, the deputy secretary for the Interior Department, said the river’s impact of climate change wasn’t taken into account when the allotments were originally portioned out.

The government has the authority to impose cuts only on the so-called lower basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada as they are downstream. The upper-basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming withdraw their water before it is stored in Lakes Powell and Mead.

The lower-basin states consume the majority of the water from the Colorado River. The upper-basin states have already reduced their usage to match the river’s decreasing flow.

Though negotiators from Arizona and Nevada have given their consent to the government’s plan, Nevada underlined that an agreement between the states would be preferable. California has yet to weigh in on the government’s proposal. As California holds most of the seniority water rights under the current legal system, negotiators have been looking for a plan that accounts for that.

Major cuts, whatever the outcome, will be unprecedented for the states that rely on the Colorado River. The river is a significant water source for several major cities, and around half of Los Angeles’ water comes from the Colorado River while Las Vegas gets about 90% of its water from the river. The Bureau of Reclamation has requested that the states reach an agreement to reduce Colorado River use by nearly one-third.