Speaker 1: The Western United States is dealing with a twenty three
Speaker 1: year mega drought that has left the Southwest with very
Speaker 1: little water. To put it bluntly, the Colorado River basin
Speaker 1: is drawing up. Today. We'll talk about what that means
Speaker 1: for the millions of people who depend on that water,
Speaker 1: and we'll look at what states and regulators are doing
Speaker 1: to ensure that communities get the water they need to survive. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome back to Parts for a Billion, the Environmental
Speaker 1: podcast from Bloomberg Law. I'm Matthew Schwartz, sitting in for
Speaker 1: David Schultz. Seven Western states are frantically working to reach
Speaker 1: an agreement on how to divvy up the available water
Speaker 1: ahead of a February first deadline, at which point the
Speaker 1: federal government has suggested it will impose its own rules
Speaker 1: to fix the problem. Joining me to discuss the latest
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Laws, Water and Public Lands reporter Bobby McGill. Bobby,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. Hi. So this drought has
Speaker 1: been going on for decades? Now, what exactly does it
Speaker 1: mean in practical terms? We know there's a drought, but
Speaker 1: it's it's about more than just people getting enough drinking water. Right,
Speaker 1: How bad are things. Yeah, So the West drought started
Speaker 1: in the middle of the year two thousand. It contributes
Speaker 1: to wildfire. It contributes to low reservoir levels that restrict
Speaker 1: the amount of water that both farmers and cities receive.
Speaker 1: It reduces stream flows. It has tremendous impact on on
Speaker 1: just general water availability for drinking water, but also for
Speaker 1: fish and other species that use streams and other wetlands.
Speaker 1: One of the primary effects of the drought has been
Speaker 1: just the massive wildfires out west. Let's just lay out
Speaker 1: the geography of the problem right now, just so we
Speaker 1: can picture it. The states out there get a lot
Speaker 1: of water from the Colorado River. Where does the river
Speaker 1: actually start and where does that water flow. The Colorado
Speaker 1: River starts in the rocky mountains and it's fed by mountains,
Speaker 1: snows and all of that runoff. Historically it trickled down
Speaker 1: to the to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen anymore because people for decades and decades
Speaker 1: now have built cities and suburbs in pretty dry places,
Speaker 1: and so they had to have water. And one of
Speaker 1: the ways they obtained that water was to dam the
Speaker 1: Colorado River so that they could create reservoirs and hydropower
Speaker 1: dams and basically take water from those reservoirs. So which
Speaker 1: states are actually fed by the Colorado River. So the
Speaker 1: seven states of the Colorado River basin, they're actually divided
Speaker 1: into the upper basin in the lower basin. The upper
Speaker 1: basin is where the water comes from the lower basins
Speaker 1: where most not all, but most of the water users are.
Speaker 1: There are forty million people in this basin, plus five
Speaker 1: and a half million acres of farmland that produces a
Speaker 1: lot of your winter vegetables, for example. So it serves,
Speaker 1: you know, cities from Denver all the way to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: The upper basin is Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah.
Speaker 1: The lower basin is Nevada, California, primarily southern California, and Arizona.
Speaker 1: And is there a law or an agreement that exists
Speaker 1: to apportion the water between the states. It's called the
Speaker 1: Colorado River Compact. It was signed in when water was abundant.
Speaker 1: There's a certain amount of water that the upper basin
Speaker 1: is obligated to to send each year to the lower basin.
Speaker 1: And it's really tenuous because the upper basin entirely depends
Speaker 1: on the amount of snow and rain. They get mostly snow,
Speaker 1: and the lower basin depends on how much waters in
Speaker 1: the reservoirs, so they can get a continuous amount of
Speaker 1: water to feed farms and cities. And just so we're
Speaker 1: clear about the scope of the problem, when you say
Speaker 1: that this drought affects millions of acres of farmland in
Speaker 1: those states that produce vegetables, it seems like you're implying
Speaker 1: that this drought doesn't just affect people in those states.
Speaker 1: It seems like it would affect everybody in the country
Speaker 1: who might want to purchase those vegetables. Is that right?
Speaker 1: This is a national problem because the water that the
Speaker 1: Colorado River provides two farmers basically provides part of the
Speaker 1: economic engine for the southwest of the United States. So
Speaker 1: what happens on there affects the rest of the country.
Speaker 1: It affects the food supply. Um, your lettuce that you
Speaker 1: get from the store right now, there's a pretty good
Speaker 1: chance it came from southern Arizona near Yuma and the
Speaker 1: farm fields in that region, those are are entirely fed
Speaker 1: by water from the Colorado River. So let's talk more
Speaker 1: about that law from two that you mentioned is it
Speaker 1: is it working well today to to divvy up this water.
Speaker 1: So it worked well for a while, although there's probably
Speaker 1: some arguments about that. Today it doesn't work quite as well.
Speaker 1: Why does the law no longer work? That law was
Speaker 1: signed with the assumption that the amount of water that
Speaker 1: was in the system was going to remain that, you know,
Speaker 1: Mother nature would provide a steady amount of water or
Speaker 1: snow every year, and that has not borne out, So
Speaker 1: that law didn't take into account the possibility of a
Speaker 1: twenty year drought. That's right, and there's no evidence that
Speaker 1: the drought is really subsiding, and scientists are pretty clear
Speaker 1: that in the long run, we're watching the continued ertification
Speaker 1: of the West, which means there's going to be less
Speaker 1: and less water in the system. All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about possible solutions. You wrote that officials say they're optimistic
Speaker 1: that states will reach a consensus agreement in the next
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. Tell me about what this agreement might
Speaker 1: look like and how we got to the point where
Speaker 1: the states are actually working together to reach an agreement.
Speaker 1: So the states have always worked, I mean, the Colorado
Speaker 1: River Compact is an example of states working together to
Speaker 1: solve a regional issue, which was, you know, how the
Speaker 1: river should be governed and who gets how much water
Speaker 1: from this multi state river system. The situation where in
Speaker 1: now is a result of the drought, and there is
Speaker 1: a long term water shortage and the states are having
Speaker 1: to come together to deal with that. Part of the
Speaker 1: problem is that the two major dams in the Colorado
Speaker 1: River they produce hydro power, and if the reservoir levels
Speaker 1: dropped below a certain point, it causes lots of problems.
Speaker 1: They won't be able to produce hydro power anymore. And
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Reclamation, which runs those damns, you know,
Speaker 1: is able to potentially mandate regional water cuts against the
Speaker 1: states will if if it comes to that. The states
Speaker 1: desperately don't want the federal government to step in and
Speaker 1: tell them how to cut water, and so they're highly
Speaker 1: motivated to come together and figure out a way to
Speaker 1: make those cuts. Now, what happened last year was that
Speaker 1: for the first time the federal government, the Bureau of Reclamation,
Speaker 1: part of the Interior Department, declared a water shortage on
Speaker 1: the river. In December, the Beuera of Reclamation said to
Speaker 1: the seven basins states, Hey, if you don't have a
Speaker 1: water cuts plan by early three, we're going to be
Speaker 1: very likely to, you know, impose some cuts on you,
Speaker 1: or at least consider that. And the thing is that
Speaker 1: the deadline is a little fuzzy. They said February first,
Speaker 1: but they said there's some flexibility there, and it's they're
Speaker 1: trying to give the states as much of an opportunity
Speaker 1: as possible to come up with their own solution. Do
Speaker 1: we know what that solution might look like? Most folks
Speaker 1: seem to agree that the lower Basin states are going
Speaker 1: to have to find ways to cut utter. It's really
Speaker 1: complicated because each of the Lower Basin states has its
Speaker 1: own internal issues with how water is allocated within the state,
Speaker 1: and they have to make some pretty difficult choices there.
Speaker 1: You know, They've got some other systemic issues they've got
Speaker 1: to figure out, including how to deal with evaporation, like
Speaker 1: more than a million acre feet of water. Again, a
Speaker 1: lot of water and is lost just to the air
Speaker 1: the evaporation, So they're trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: stem that water loss. There's a number of unresolved issues.
Speaker 1: It's gonna require probably a pretty complicated technical, legally technical solution.
Speaker 1: And nobody's quite willing to make public exactly how that's
Speaker 1: going just yet. So you wrote that the talks between
Speaker 1: the states are currently in a delicate place. Do we
Speaker 1: know what that means exactly? Like, do we know what
Speaker 1: the sticking points in the negotiations are or are they
Speaker 1: holding this pretty pretty tight to the best? Well, it's
Speaker 1: delicate because, I mean, these are all politically like you know,
Speaker 1: for example, if you're I mean there there was a
Speaker 1: situation in Arizona just this week, not directly related to this,
Speaker 1: but it shows you the delicacy of the issue, which
Speaker 1: is that, you know, the city of Scottsdale cut off
Speaker 1: the water supply to a neighborhood north of town because
Speaker 1: they just didn't have enough water to go around. And
Speaker 1: it's you know, people are pretty upset when somebody is
Speaker 1: forced to cut back on water against their will, or
Speaker 1: if it means it could mean lost jobs, it could
Speaker 1: mean less production, it could mean you know that some
Speaker 1: residents in some places don't get to water their lawns,
Speaker 1: some farmers don't get to produce crops this next year.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty delicate situation. When we return Bloomberg Laws,
Speaker 1: Bobby McGill talks more about who the winners and losers
Speaker 1: could be under whatever consensus agreement is reached, which states
Speaker 1: will get first DIBs on the water stick around? Welcome
Speaker 1: back to parts per billion. I'm speaking with Bloomberg Laws,
Speaker 1: Bobby McGill. So keep talking about making cuts and it
Speaker 1: it seems like in theory, oh yeah, that that makes sense,
Speaker 1: just cut, reduce your water usage. But how could states
Speaker 1: enforce this and what kind of impact would this have
Speaker 1: on real people? Like, how do you just make cuts?
Speaker 1: How does that even work? People need water? People need water,
Speaker 1: but there has to be the water for them to need. Um,
Speaker 1: it's going to hit farmers before it's going to hit cities.
Speaker 1: For the most part, cities have throughout Arizona, California, have
Speaker 1: done a lot to reduce their water consumption, some better
Speaker 1: than others. But you know, it's a matter of whether
Speaker 1: or not water is actually diverted from the Central Arizona
Speaker 1: project or or in California to two farmers, and they
Speaker 1: just may not get what they need to grow their crops.
Speaker 1: So the states are working on an agreement internally probably
Speaker 1: which will include many of the states. Are most of
Speaker 1: the states making cuts if they can't come up with
Speaker 1: an agreement. Can we expect the federal government to come
Speaker 1: in and just mandate cuts. That's what they're afraid of.
Speaker 1: The puer Reclamation will basically turn off the faucet if necessary,
Speaker 1: but it's not clear what that's gonna look like. The
Speaker 1: Beer of Reclamation is basically said they don't want to
Speaker 1: do that. They want to come up with what they
Speaker 1: call a consensus solution that the states come up with themselves,
Speaker 1: and most states would agree to that, and uh, it's
Speaker 1: not going to be a situation of, you know, each
Speaker 1: state cutting equally. And one of the sources of tension
Speaker 1: here is that, you know, because most of the water
Speaker 1: users are in the lower basin, the upper basin wants
Speaker 1: to make sure that a lot of the water use
Speaker 1: cuts are down there and not in the upper basin.
Speaker 1: You mentioned a minute ago that some of the states
Speaker 1: have senior priority and some have junior priority. How does
Speaker 1: this work exactly? How do they determine who gets access
Speaker 1: to the water first. Again, it's it's determined by the compact,
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is the way it generally works
Speaker 1: is you know, first in time, first and right if
Speaker 1: you were there first and you claim the water first,
Speaker 1: then your water rights have seniority over over others. The
Speaker 1: Central Arizona Project, which feeds the Metro areas in in Arizona,
Speaker 1: that has junior water rights, you know, compared to southern California,
Speaker 1: And so there's concern about how and if the State
Speaker 1: of California is going to exercise those rights in this
Speaker 1: particular situation. And I'm wondering how to tribal water rights
Speaker 1: play into all this. To do the tribes have a
Speaker 1: seat at the table. They do, And it's a wild
Speaker 1: card because for lots of historical reasons. Is you can imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, the Colorado River Compacts signed in two did
Speaker 1: not include Native American tribes. It's taken many decades and
Speaker 1: court decisions to quantify the water rights of indigenous tribes.
Speaker 1: Will you talk about senior priority who was there first?
Speaker 1: It seems like they were there before everybody exactly. And
Speaker 1: so they're going to get senior water rights, which means
Speaker 1: that somebody who's using the water right now is going
Speaker 1: to have to give it up. And so that's going
Speaker 1: to create some tension. And I think if you're a
Speaker 1: city and you're using water, that might eventually go to
Speaker 1: a tribe, You're probably gonna kind of deal with that tribe,
Speaker 1: and I think that's going to be part of this equation.
Speaker 1: But over the last forty five years or so, some
Speaker 1: tribes have been able to quantify their water rights. But
Speaker 1: the big wild card is the Navajo Nation. The Navajo
Speaker 1: Nation has had its water rights quantified in Utah and
Speaker 1: New Mexico because it spans three states, but the bulk
Speaker 1: of the Navajo Nation is in Arizona and that has
Speaker 1: yet to be quantified. Um tribal water rights could actually
Speaker 1: consume a good quarter of of all the water in
Speaker 1: the Colorado River basin. That's a lot of water. So
Speaker 1: it's unresolved. Nobody knows exactly how this is going to
Speaker 1: play out, especially as water supplies dwindle. And this is
Speaker 1: a real environmental justice issue because a large minority of
Speaker 1: the Navajo residents they don't have running water, that they
Speaker 1: don't have the infrastructure to provide running water, and so
Speaker 1: they have to truck their water in or they get
Speaker 1: it from someplace else, and it's it's a real tragedy that,
Speaker 1: you know, thousands of people, thousands of Americans simply don't
Speaker 1: have faucets in their house. We are in the second
Speaker 1: half of January right now. When can we expect states
Speaker 1: to reach a tentative agreement? Well, it sounds like they're
Speaker 1: going to try earnestly too agreed to something, um by
Speaker 1: the end of the month. Whether they will or not
Speaker 1: remains to be seen. I imagine we're going to hear something,
Speaker 1: you know, in the first half of February. It sounds
Speaker 1: like that's a goal, but um, it's really anybody's gas
Speaker 1: is too. When this is going to be finalized or
Speaker 1: even if it's going to be finalized. That's Bobby McGill,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Laws, Water and Public Lands reporter Bobby, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being here, you bet, thank you, And
Speaker 1: that's it for today's Parts per Billion. If you want
Speaker 1: more environmental news, check out our website news dot Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law dot com. That's news dot Bloomberg Law dot com.
Speaker 1: Today's episode of Parts for Billion was produced by myself,
Speaker 1: Matthew Schwartz. Parts per Billion was created by Jessica Combs
Speaker 1: and Rachel Dagle and is edited by Zach Sherwood and
Speaker 1: Renee Chauff, and our executive producer is Josh Block. Thanks
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