Colorado River view.

Response to “Enduring Solutions on the Colorado River": Baseless Accusations and Little Substance

Published
October 4, 2024

 

On August 16, 2024, the Kyl Center for Water Policy published a paper entitled “Enduring Solutions on the Colorado River.” The paper compares intentionally created surplus (“ICS”) under current Colorado River operating guidelines (described in the paper as “Assigned Water,” which may include any similar storage program to be developed in the future) to system conservation (referred to as “System Water,” but intended to describe water that is voluntarily conserved rather than used, and that accrues to the benefit of the Colorado River system, rather than to any particular user).

ASU Kyl Center for Water Policy at Morrison Institute - Enduring Solutions on the Colorado RiverADWR offers the following information in response to the paper, which incorporates supposition and opinion masquerading as fact (even using subjective and even judgmental phrases like “what rational actor would invest in schemes to conserve water,” “because of its sparkling qualities,” and “a tool as flexible and alluring as Assigned Water”).

First, ADWR agrees wholeheartedly with the general premise that System Water is preferable to any category of Assigned Water. Increased volumes of System Water will improve outcomes for water users across the entire Basin, as well as the environment. ADWR also agrees with the need to divorce decisions regarding system operations from any Assigned Water stored in the system. Ongoing negotiations incorporate this concept, as seen in the Lower Basin Alternative for Post- 2026 Operations. However, ADWR takes issue with some of the allegations in the Enduring Solutions paper.

  • The paper incorrectly asserts that “there was no open bidding process or invitation to smaller entities to acquire this valuable water.”

    •  First, the water was not offered for “acquisition.” Instead, the process involves Lower Basin Contractors (defined as those who have an entitlement to Colorado River water in the Lower Basin) creating proposals to conserve their own water supplies by reducing their own uses, thereby leaving the water in the reservoir (Lake Mead).
    • There are a few instances where one Contractor may finance the conservation by another Contractor in the same state for the benefit of the financing Contractor. To date, this has occurred in California as an outgrowth of the Quantification Settlement Agreement and has been crucial to California’s willingness to reduce its water use voluntarily.
    • Second, ADWR held a public process to recruit Contractors for participation in the creation of ICS as part of its stakeholder process to develop the Arizona implementation plan for the Lower Basin DCP. ADWR posted the proposals for review and comment by Arizona stakeholders, and exhibits were modified as a result of that process. ADWR also entered an Arizona ICS Framework Agreement with the United States and CAWCD to ensure that Contractors in Arizona, including Tribes, On-River users, and CAWCD, would have access to Arizona’s capacity to create and accumulate ICS.
    • Due to the legalities associated with ICS, agreement by other Contractors (and the State of Arizona) to the creation and delivery of ICS is essential. This has limited the opportunities to add new ICS projects. The Lower Basin States are considering ways to allow more flexibility in that respect.
  • While creation and accumulation of ICS has delayed shortages, it is also creating an incentive for Contractors in the Lower Basin to voluntarily take a (temporary) shortage, under certain conditions. Arguably, these individual contractors are taking their shortage early.
    • This component was crucial to securing participation by California in the 2019 Drought Contingency Program. In particular, The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California relies primarily on Colorado River water and the notoriously vacillating California State Water Project. California could only commit to participate in voluntary reductions if it could take those reductions in years when the State Water Project supply would be sufficient to meet its municipal water needs.
    • ADWR disagrees that Assigned Water availability reduces participation in conservation and creation of System Water. The creation of ICS in Lake Mead through conservation has been greater than the creation of System Water there. Note also, that the creation of System Water grew substantially in 2022 and even more so in 2023 due entirely to funding availability. In 2022, the United States and parties in the Lower Basin announced the 500+ plan and agreed to invest $200 million to help achieve 500,000 acre-feet of conservation. While some of that 500,000 acre-feet was achieved through the creation of ICS, the $200 million (including $40 million pledged by the State of Arizona) funded voluntary conservation to create System Water.
    • In 2023, as a result of several billion dollars appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act, the United States was able to fund substantially more conservation to create System Water. Moreover, the Lower Basin States and water users came forward with the Lower Basin Plan to conserve substantial volumes of water to resolve near-term operations and avoid the risk of reaching critical elevations in the Colorado River reservoirs.
  • Perhaps most importantly, the Enduring Solutions paper asserts, without any explanation or evidence, that Assigned Water “potentially protects lower-priority right holders to the detriment of higher-priority right holders;” that “Assigned Water is replacing priority to a significant degree;” a general suggestion that Assigned Water somehow harms others “who have made investments and built economies based on the priority system;” and that ICS has “generated very real and potentially negative externalities for others.”
    • The paper asserts that delivery of Assigned Water results in “a lower water level, and potentially deeper shortage condition, than would otherwise have been the case.” However, the paper provides no data or analysis to demonstrate that the delivery of water (which would not have been there but for the earlier conservation) actually results in lower reservoirs or deeper shortages than would have occurred absent any conservation at all. Again, Assigned Water only exists if water is conserved through the reduction of current uses. This fact ensures that no senior priority users are losing any water under the ICS program.
    • The paper provides absolutely no information, explanation, or other basis for its fundamental premise that Assigned Water somehow harms other users – particularly if the Assigned Water in a Post-2026 regime is treated as operationally neutral.