The New Colorado River Deal: An Explainer

Writing in The Land Desk, Jonathan P. Thompson provides an analysis of the newly revealed Colorado River agreement, which, while historic, “won’t be enough to save the Colorado River if the climatic conditions of the last couple decades persist or worsen.”

Thompson provides a history of the Colorado River Compact, which divides up the river’s resources between Upper and Lower Basin states and, later, Mexico. But the allocations in the compact never matched real water supplies. With populations in the west growing rapidly, the water debt that has been embedded in river policy from the beginning is becoming too severe to be ignored.

Although details of the plan are still hazy, the known points are: “The Lower Basin states together will cut consumption by 3 million acre-feet over the 2023-2026 period, with at least 1.5 million acre-feet in cuts coming by the end of 2024,” and “Up to 2.3 million acre-feet of those cuts will be federally compensated by about $1.2 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funds.”

The problem, Thompson writes, is that the promised cuts are just half of the minimum amount required to support the river and its reservoirs, according to the federal government. And, as Thompson points out, the deal only covers the next few years. “What then?”