After 18 months of negotiating—and bickering amongst themselves—the three lower Colorado River basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada reached an agreement on how to best conserve the river’s valuable water supply in the near term.
Although the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation had set a Jan. 31 deadline for the three lower-basin states and their four upper-basin colleagues (Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming) to deliver a plan to conserve 2 to 4 million acre-feet of Colorado River water in 2023 and years beyond, no consensus was reached until May 22.
On that date, the lower-basin states sent a proposal to the Bureau of Reclamation detailing a conservation strategy to save 3 million acre-feet of Colorado River water between now and Jan. 1, 2027. California committed to saving 400,000 acre-feet of water per year—which means that a bit more than half of the total savings will be achieved by California alone.
What does this mean for the Coachella Valley water picture over the coming four years, presuming the proposal is accepted by the Bureau of Reclamation? Well … it’s complicated.
To start, let’s go back to November 2022, before Reclamation’s deadline, when the Coachella Valley Water District—one of the two valley water agencies, along with the Imperial Irrigation District, which has direct access to Colorado River water—submitted two of its own proposals to the bureau. After working closely with Reclamation, the CVWD board of directors recently approved one proposal, the Replenishment Facilities Curtailment Program. The second program, which would involve federal compensation for water savings by CVWD’s east valley agricultural sector, is still in discussion between Reclamation and CVWD, and any agreement would require approval by the CVWD board.
Jim Barrett is the general manager of the Coachella Valley Water District. On June 8, he spoke to the Coachella Valley Association of Governments’ Energy and Environmental Resources Committee about the Colorado River’s impacts on the local economy—and he began his remarks by discussing the Replenishment Facilities Curtailment Program. It calls for the district to leave 35,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water per year in Lake Mead, as a recurring conservation contribution, through the end of 2026.
“While there’s tension between the different parts of the community, like municipalities and agriculture, what we’ve attempted to do is minimize the impact locally by not proposing to curtail service to anybody who’s using water now,” Barrett said.
While that’s good news to the more than 100,000 business and residential customers of the district, which serves the middle and eastern portions of the Coachella Valley, it means the CVWD will completely cease groundwater replenishment at its Thomas E. Levy Groundwater Replenishment Facility in La Quinta.
“What we did starting last year (in October) was suspend our replenishment operations in the east valley,” Barrett said. “Our deliveries in the lower valley to the Levy facility have been consistent over time, because the Colorado River water deliveries have been consistent over time. We have put in about 500,000 acre-feet since 2010. … Moving forward, what we’re doing is suspending the 35,000 acre-feet each year to leave (that) in Lake Mead. We’ll still have about 3,000 acre-feet that we’ll run through the plant to keep the pumps from seizing up.”
Will the cessation of groundwater replenishment have any negative impacts?
“We will be watching to see how conditions in the east valley change during this period,” Barrett said. “It’s important to us to recognize how the basin responds, not only to replenishment, but also to the suspension of replenishment.”
He then sounded a reassuring note: “We do have a large expansion of our irrigation system in the east valley for agriculture that’s just about done. We’re waiting on power drops so we can get our pumps moving. That should help with some of the replenishment, since we estimate about a 30-35% return flow to the aquifer from irrigation that takes place for agriculture.”
The Colorado River water-conservation proposal is basically a pay-to-conserve deal. Through the federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed last year, the U.S. government will disburse money to the three lower basin states, to pay agriculture businesses to cut back on water usage by artificially restricting production for months or years at a time.
But the CVWD deal has a twist: Since the CVWD’s contribution involves water that would have gone toward aquifer replenishment, the IRA funding it will receive at $400 per acre-feet will bring the district about $14 million in new revenue per year through 2026. No customers will need to be compensated for artificially restricting production efforts, so the CVWD will be able to keep those funds. How will this revenue windfall be utilized?
“The CVWD Board must discuss/decide how the money will be used,” said Lorraine Garcia, the CVWD communication manager, to the Independent via email.
That prompted a follow-up question: Could these revenues be used to reduce customers’ monthly water service fees? She did not reply as of this writing.
Tina Shields is one of two water-department managers employed by the Imperial Irrigation District, which serves some water customers in the east valley, as well as Imperial County. In a recent phone interview, the Independent asked her what the IID expected its compensation arrangement with the Bureau of Reclamation would be from now until the end of 2026.
“We submitted a funding proposal … which is an open solicitation where you propose a volume in a specific time period, and a price,” Shields said. “Then you work with Reclamation to get to a common agreement. We’ve had productive discussions, but as of yet, we (haven’t reached an agreement).”
The IID is committing to conserving 250,000 acre-feet of water per year—a much larger amount than the CVWD. However, the funding the IID would receive from the federal government will mostly be paid to the agricultural businesses in the IID service area, which will need to employ various strategies to reduce their annual water use. Shields admitted that meeting the commitment will be a challenge.
“This year is halfway over,” Shields said, “and we still don’t have a funding agreement and authorization that would be necessary to move forward. So as the year goes on, IID will not be able to reach 250,000 acre-feet in water conservation this year, but we’re hoping to get that funding agreement sooner rather than later. All of this is contingent upon whether contracts can be developed (with customers), if the funding agreement is in place, and if permits are issued by the appropriate resource agencies. It all needs IID board approval. So there’s a lot to be accomplished.”
While the agreement announced on May 22 may help in the short-term, it includes no strategies for long-term, post-2026 Colorado River conservation.
Chris Harris is the executive director of the state of California’s Colorado River Board. At the June 8 CVAG committee meeting, he expressed optimism that a deal can get done.
“We anticipate the Department of Interior will be releasing a notice in the Federal Register sometime (in June) indicating that they’re going to be kicking off a formal (National Environmental Policy Act) process to begin developing the next set of guidelines for the post-2026 framework—in other words, the long-term guidelines that will replace the 2007 guidelines,” he said. “But I think we have a foundation now that we can build upon. The states are working together well now, better than we had been, say, six months ago. I think all of us remain cautiously optimistic that we can do the good work that needs to be done over the next few months—and then over the next 3 1/2 years—to get us to a set of guidelines that can help stabilize the reservoir system over the long term.”
Shields explained how the IID is approaching this conundrum.
“Frankly, the other states are going to have to go through some tough things that we’ve dealt with already.”
Tina Shields IID water-department manager, on future negotiations
“Our (initial) goal is to maximize our on-farm efficiency-conservation program,” Shields said. “If we had additional monies, we can add to the funding for the farmers; then they can implement more expensive measures, which right now are cost-prohibitive. However, saving 250,000 acre-feet is a really big number, and I doubt that we can get that much more water out of our on-farm conservation programs. So we’re working with our growers to develop alternative programs.
“The obvious one is fallowing, although I hate that, and it’s one of our measures of last resort,” Shields continued. (Fallowing refers to leaving land without crops.) “Our growers are working on developing what would be considered a deficit irrigation program, where you have low-yield (plantings) that require high water use, and you shut the water off for a 60-day period, and then you water it back, and it is able to withstand that short-term without irrigation. We have some other growers who are interested in programs that would allow them to convert to lower-water-use crops, or other potential ideas. Once we have the funding locked down, we will then take to our board the various options that we’ve developed in concert with our growers.”
Ultimately, Shields said, the IID will prioritize programs that support farming.
“It’s too important to our community,” she said. “We’re an agricultural community, and one in every six jobs is directly related to agriculture. We’re interested in helping the river out, because that’s our long-term water supply. Still, we don’t want to kill our community in a back-handed way. You know, farming communities like to farm. It’s what we do. It’s more than just a business. It’s people’s livelihood. It’s about family, and often the employees are your family members and have been for generations.
“The longer-term agreements are going to be tough. But the history of the Colorado River is collaboration. It may get a little tenuous at times, but we all know that we’re better off plotting our own future together, rather than having the regulatory agencies do something that ends up in court. The history of water litigation is that it takes decades, so that’s not a productive path.
“We’re going to stand by our water rights, and we’ll work to develop solutions that work for our community and our state. Frankly, the other states are going to have to go through some tough things that we’ve dealt with already.”
