{"id":30136,"date":"2023-12-17T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-17T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/expect-a-messy-compromise-on-the-future-of-the-colorado-river-negotiators-say-in-las-vegas\/"},"modified":"2023-12-17T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-17T13:00:00","slug":"expect-a-messy-compromise-on-the-future-of-the-colorado-river-negotiators-say-in-las-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/expect-a-messy-compromise-on-the-future-of-the-colorado-river-negotiators-say-in-las-vegas\/","title":{"rendered":"Expect a messy compromise on the future of the Colorado River, negotiators say in Las Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Colorado River a few miles upstream from Palisade near Cameo on Aug. 27. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

LAS VEGAS \u2013 What\u2019s one central message when it comes to how the water supply for 40 million people in the Western U.S. will be managed in coming years? It won\u2019t be pretty.<\/p>\n

The top negotiators for the seven states in the Colorado River Basin, including Colorado, met Thursday at this year\u2019s Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas. The officials are in the midst of negotiating a new set of rules for how farmers, cities, industries and others will share \u2013 and cut back on \u2013 water use after 2026.<\/p>\n

Their discussion highlighted ongoing tensions in the negotiations, but several officials moderated expectations: The new rules would not be perfect or solve all of the basin\u2019s problems, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is that the post-2026 guidelines will deliver a messy compromise that will be judged harshly by history. That\u2019s the cold reality,\u201d John Entsminger, Nevada\u2019s top negotiator, told hundreds of water watchers, experts and officials during a panel discussion.<\/p>\n

The annual conference offered a chance for more than 1,000 people to hear panels on key topics in the river basin and to have backroom conversations under the heavy chandeliers and French-inspired d\u00e9cor of The Paris Hotel. Hundreds flocked to the seven states\u2019 panel in an enormous conference room to hear updates on the negotiations.<\/p>\n

Each state is trying to balance competing needs among water users in the overstressed Colorado River Basin, the officials explained. In Colorado, Front Range cities compete with rural and agricultural water users for supply. Two tribes, the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute, have settled water rights but still cannot access all of their water.<\/p>\n

Coloradans have said what they will and won\u2019t accept from the interstate negotiations, said Commissioner Becky Mitchell, Colorado\u2019s top official on Colorado River issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will not accept the status quo moving forward in the same direction that we\u2019ve been going,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cThey\u2019re not interested in striking a deal that allows for the continuation of depleting the storage and driving the system into crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storage \u2013 the water stored in reservoirs around the 246,000-square-mile basin \u2013 is a key issue. By the early 2020s, states had drained water from two immense reservoirs, lakes Mead and Powell, to historic lows.<\/p>\n

The river\u2019s water supply varies from year to year. If there\u2019s not enough water stored for drier years, it would spell a crisis for ecosystems, wildlife and millions of people across seven states, 30 federally recognized tribes and two Mexican states.<\/p>\n

Historic drought, poor planning, competing political agendas and climate change denial all contributed to the near crisis.<\/p>\n

Officials from the Upper Basin \u2013 Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming \u2013 have pointed to overuse in the Lower Basin \u2013 Arizona, California and Nevada \u2013 as another cause.<\/p>\n

In the past, Lower Basin officials balked at this, saying they\u2019ve done plenty to cut back on water use. But on Thursday, several Lower Basin officials emphasized that their overuse has outpaced the river\u2019s supply and that the problem needs to be addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a supply-demand imbalance in the Lower Basin,\u201d said JB Hamby, California\u2019s top negotiator and vice president of the Imperial Irrigation District. \u201cWhere we\u2019re at in the Lower Basin is a recognition that we have to solve (it). It\u2019s going to be tough. It\u2019s going to be challenging, but it\u2019s absolutely necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deficit isn\u2019t the only problem, Hamby said. Climate change has thrown the basin\u2019s future into question, and everyone will need to pitch in to find solutions. But the Upper and Lower basin states continue to be divided over who exactly is responsible for cutting water use and how those cuts should happen.<\/p>\n

Lower Basin officials say that everyone needs to compromise and the burden should be shared. Without compromise, the states will end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, Hamby said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has to contribute. Doesn\u2019t matter your state, doesn\u2019t matter your sector, doesn\u2019t matter your geography: This river, we share it,\u201d Hamby said. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to be protecting all of our users for the future that we\u2019re anticipating with climate change \u2026 everyone has to be part of the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The negotiators said they have three options to decide how the Colorado River\u2019s water will be shared for future decades: litigation, legislation and negotiation.<\/p>\n

But a gridlocked Congress hasn\u2019t been producing a lot of results lately, Entsminger said, and if states cannot reach an agreement and the case goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, states lose control of their own future.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll you\u2019re doing is changing out water professionals \u2013 who know and have worked on and love this river \u2013 for guys and gals in black robes that know very, very little about our river,\u201d Entsminger said. \u201cWhat the outcome of that litigation would be, no one could tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commissioners agreed that the most viable path forward is through negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still think, maybe I\u2019m naive or I\u2019ve just been so down on the other two options, to believe that that sort of compromise on this river system is still possible,\u201d Entsminger said.<\/p>\n

A representative of the 30 federally recognized tribes \u2013 who have rights to about 25% of the river basin\u2019s water supply \u2013 was not at the table, noted Chairman Manuel Heart of the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we\u2019re lacking with tribes: Who\u2019s the tribal representative that should be sitting up there with them?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Colorado has taken steps to include tribes. But Hart said he wanted to see full support from all seven states for consistently taking tribes into account.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just barely starting to be recognized, but as I said, the opportunity and the partnerships are there,\u201d he said. \u201cThey just have to reach out to some of the tribes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Representatives from each of the seven Colorado River Basin states said a long-term fix will likely be flawed and judged harshly by history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,1462,28,295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-river","tag-headlines","tag-water"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30136"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}