DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, HOST:
For years, Western states have been fighting over water - specifically how much they can get from the shrinking Colorado River. Well, on Friday, the federal government released details of a two-year management plan for that river. The so-called workhorse of the Western water system irrigates and hydrates seven states, supplying water to approximately 40 million people. But that workhorse is running dry, and those states have been unable to come to an agreement. This federal plan would force Arizona, Nevada and California, collectively known as the lower basin, to majorly cut back their water use, while asking much less of upper basin states like Colorado and Utah. JB Hamby is California's top Colorado River negotiator, and he joins me now to discuss the deal.
Welcome, JB.
JB HAMBY: Thanks for having me.
KURTZLEBEN: So we've known about this deal, but this week, we got to see the details. First, just describe the cuts for us.
HAMBY: Yeah, that's right. It's consistent with what we have been proposing to the federal government and to our sister states throughout the Colorado River basin for the past several years here. What we've been working to do is replace the 2,000 set of guidelines that have operated the major reservoirs on the river, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, and so what we've been proposing is to reduce uses in the lower basin, as well as our partners in Mexico, by a million-and-a-half acre feet a year. This is meant to deal with this ongoing what's called a structural deficit in the lower basin, even with releases from the upper basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah, uses have been exceeding that available supply, and this was really meant to be the first major effort to deal with this reckoning of climate change and continued drought that we've seen over the last 25 years. So this more than exceeds that structural deficit and is really meant to materialize larger efforts across the seven basin states moving forward. We really need to bring demands in line with the available supply. We know that the supply that we have has been diminishing over the last 25 years. More needs to be done, and we need to see all seven states participate, not just the three lower basin ones.
KURTZLEBEN: Tell me more about how this will affect people on an individual basis. How will they feel the impacts of these reductions?
HAMBY: It's a good question. So for each of our individual states, it's going to look different in different ways. Nevada is really ahead of the curve in a lot of their world-class conservation efforts within that state. So it's really a continuation of those excellent conservation methods. Within Arizona, it is going to be a significant change, and there's a lot of tools that folks within Arizona are looking to to be able to make that happen. Within California, we have a significant amount of conserved water that has been put into Lake Mead, and that can help offset these reductions and leave that water permanently in Lake Mead. What we've seen, particularly over the last three or four years or so at this point, is record-setting conservation, amounting to an excess of 3.7 million acre feet from the lower basin states that has really protected Lake Mead and the Colorado River system, and we're looking to do more of that moving forward.
KURTZLEBEN: Now, as we've mentioned, the seven states involved here tried for years to come to agreement on this and failed. That's why the federal government stepped in. Do you think the states will be able to more effectively negotiate this issue in coming years?
HAMBY: I think there's good opportunity for it. On one hand, we have great opportunity in the sense that we are taking on bigger amounts of challenge successfully than ever before within the lower basin and Mexico. The bigger question, though, moving forward is, will we get to a place where the upper basin states - Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah - actually start to bring down demands in line with available supply and to make obligations to the lower basin states and Mexico of the amount of water that they're required to deliver. We're open to providing relief and having some flexibility provided to the upper basin states. But certainly, there's not going to be a situation moving forward where we have the three of seven states do all the lifting for all seven while four sit it out.
KURTZLEBEN: JB Hamby is chairman of the Colorado River Board of California and the state of California's Colorado River Commissioner.
JB, thank you so much.
HAMBY: Thanks for having me.
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