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California Emerges as Big Winner in Colorado River Water Deal

Monday’s historic Colorado River agreement represents a big win for California, which only months ago was embroiled in a bitter feud with Arizona, Nevada and four other Western states over how to dramatically reduce their use of water supplies in the shrinking river. The proposition, which came after months of tense negotiations, would see the three states in the Colorado’s lower basin conserve about 3 million acre-feet of water from the river by 2026 — a 14% reduction across the Southwest that amounts to only about half of what could have been imposed by the federal government had the states not come to an accord.

Opinion: Review-Journal’s Feb. 15 Editorial on Federal Intervention to Solve Colorado River Crisis Contains Many Inaccuracies

The Review-Journal’s Feb. 15 editorial promoting federal intervention to solve the Colorado River crisis contains many inaccuracies.

Let’s start with the inference that a six-state proposal is an actual “accord,” lacking only California’s acquiescence. It is not. A “consensus” solution based primarily on reducing the entitlements of water users not involved in the discussions, or in concurrence with the final proposal  and namely the most senior water right priority tribes, lower Colorado River agricultural water users, California contractors and Mexico  is not consensus or an implementable solution to the crisis.

Opinion: Solving the Worsening Drought in the Western States Will Require All of Us Working Together

For Californians, drought has been a constant and inescapable fact of life for decades. Worsening drought in the Western United States is just one of the many life-threatening impacts of the climate crisis. And as drying conditions bring water reservoirs along the Colorado River to dangerously low levels, the impact of extended drought conditions is now threatening 40 million Americans’ access to water — unless we can come up with a plan to protect it.

Opinion: An Unfair Plan to Cut California’s Use of Colorado River Water

The immediate question before the seven states that use rapidly vanishing Colorado River water is not how to renegotiate the century-old agreement and accompanying laws that divvy up the supply.

California and other states will have to grapple with that problem soon enough, and it won’t be easy.

Opinion: The Colorado River Compact Hasn’t Aged Well | Writers on the Range

The Colorado River Compact turns 100 this year, but any celebration is damped down by the drying-up of the big reservoirs it enabled. The Bureau of Reclamation’s “first-ever” shortage declaration on the river acknowledges officially what we’ve known for years: the Compact and all the measures augmenting it, collectively known as The Law of the River, have not prevented the river’s over-development.

Nearly every pronouncement from the water establishment about the centennial of the Colorado River Compact calls it the “foundation,” “the cornerstone” of the Law of the River — as though before the Compact was adopted, the river was lawless.

Could the Colorado River Compact Adapt to Go With the Flow?

Dwindling flows in the Colorado River Basin are stirring discussions about whether a 100-year-old agreement that governs how that water is divided needs to be overhauled. But there may be another option: don’t rewrite the law, instead reinterpret it.

Despite its status as the cornerstone of the “Law of the River” — the various agreements that dictate how the water is managed between seven basin states and Mexico — some key provisions in the Colorado River Compact remain unsettled.

The West’s Extreme Drought: Colorado River Plans Explained

The West is locked in the grip of a 20-year megadrought, with the Colorado River approaching record-low flows.

The seven states in the Colorado River basin—Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming in the upper basin and Arizona, California and Nevada in the lower—established drought contingency plans in 2019 for managing and operating the river in the ongoing crisis. They’re the latest piece of the “Law of the River,” which allocates water to the seven states.

Here’s how Arizona is Preparing for 1st Cuts to Colorado River Allocation

Arizona is gearing up for the first-ever “Tier 1” shortage on the Colorado River in 2022, which will trigger significant cuts to the state’s annual allocation from its most important water resource. As daunting as it sounds, the vast majority of citizens and businesses will not be affected, state water leaders said during a Colorado River Preparedness briefing last week.

California’s Water Wars Serve As a ‘Bellwether’ for Colorado River Negotiations

After three decades of water wars in Southern California, policy experts hope a new era in collaborative management will offer inspiration for the ongoing and complex negotiations over Colorado River allocations amid a historic and deepening drought.

Those lessons need to catapult us forward,” said Patricia Mulroy, former head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, during the fall meeting for the Association of California Water Agencies in December. These states, these constituencies, these communities cannot afford for these discussions to crater. Failure is not an option.”

2020 Delivers Setbacks For Some Long-Planned Western Water Projects

2020 has been a tough year for some of the Colorado River basin’s long-planned, most controversial water projects.

Proposals to divert water in New Mexico, Nevada and Utah have run up against significant legal, financial and political roadblocks this year. But while environmental groups have cheered the setbacks, it’s still unclear whether these projects have truly hit dead ends or are simply waiting in the wings.