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TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – Arizona will take the biggest hit among three states affected by a finalized federal plan to cut Colorado River water use through 2028.
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The federal government finalized the plan last Friday in an effort to stop the decline of storage in the river’s largest reservoirs.
Combined, Arizona, California and Nevada will see 1.25 million acre-feet in cuts, with Arizona taking the largest share. The cuts match what the lower basin states offered to give up in their proposal.
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Finalized plans show Arizona will see a 760,000 acre-foot reduction from its current 2.8 million acre-foot allotment of Colorado River water for the next two years. That means Arizona will shoulder more than half of the lower basin’s total 1.25 million acre-foot reduction.
Arizona agreed to the cuts in an effort to help stabilize the Colorado River over the next two years.
“The cuts are needed to keep the system from running dry, from crashing,” said Patrick Dent, assistant general manager of water policy for the Central Arizona Project. “There’s still significant hydrologic risk and frankly quite a bit riding on the winter that’s coming in terms of snowpack and runoff into the system.”
Karl Flessa, a University of Arizona researcher who has long studied the Colorado River, said the plan is “a bit of a wake-up call.”
Flessa said Tucson has prepared for the cuts and can handle them for the next two years.
“Tucson Water has stored at least six years of supplies, so I think we have some buffer,” Flessa said.
Flessa said the average Tucson resident should not see major impacts in the short term.
“I don’t think we’re going to see any immediate effects, no household effects at any rate,” Flessa said. “Turn on the tap and the water’s still gonna come out.”
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Flessa said conditions could worsen after 2028.
“Beyond two years, it could get really – pretty bad,” Flessa said. “Unless, of course, we have some really good winters of snow in the Rocky Mountains and maybe if we have some better agreements with the upper basin states where they’ll be willing to share some of the shortages.”
The Department of Interior has also included a potential plan for the post-2028 framework, which shows Arizona continuing to take the largest share of cuts. Dent said neither the Central Arizona Project nor Arizona have agreed to that framework, nor will they.
“We feel like the reductions that are needed beyond what are specified in this two-year deal need to be kind of a basin-wide approach and those need to come from existing uses,” Dent said.
Dent said all seven states need to agree to the cuts and take reductions following 2027, given that the drought is not going away soon.
Flessa said Tucson and the rest of Arizona need to look toward a future of conservation.
“Tucson and everybody in Arizona needs to accelerate thinking about saving more water, moving to water purification in cities where we recycle water so that we can drink it, and I think that’s really – let’s get going on that stuff,” Flessa said.
Dent said the current plan took more than two years of negotiations to reach an agreement, so negotiations for 2028 should begin soon.
Dent said that while households should not see a change in water allocation in the short term, water rates for those living in large municipalities like Tucson could go up.
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