Arizona joins Nevada’s lawsuit over Colorado River cuts

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(The Center Square) – Nevada is receiving some company in the Silver State’s litigation with federal officials over Colorado River water access.

That’s because Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office declared the Grand Canyon State would join its neighbor, nearly two months after Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo filed a lawsuit in Nevada's U.S. District Court. Lombardo is suing to prevent the U.S. Department of the Interior from carrying out its planned 10-year plan, which would result in a vast reduction in water for both states.

As part of the plan, the Lower Basin states - Arizona, California and Nevada - would see their allotments cut by up to 3 million acre-feet per year over the next two years. The federal plan doesn't require cuts by the Upper Basin states - Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming. 

The Department of Interior's plan, or "Record of Decision," calls for Arizona, California and Nevada to swallow cuts of 1.25 million acre feet in 2027 and 2028, while also holding 700,000 acre-feet of additional river water over that span in dams.  

On top of that, Arizona and Nevada could face additional cuts if dams in the two states fall too low to operate effectively. 

Lombardo’s office slammed that plan in August, saying the state’s lawsuit was more a matter of protecting the economy than anything.

“This isn’t about political posturing; this is a matter of survival for a community that represents about two-thirds of our state’s citizens and the lion’s share of its economy,” the Republican governor’s August statement said.

On Friday, Hobbs’ office released a statement of its own, though staff from the first-term Democrat’s office declined to make her or any of her staff available for additional comment.

In that statement, Hobbs decried the U.S. Department of Interior forcing Arizona’s hand, saying she would not accept anything that tries to “solve the crisis on the backs of our families, farmers, and businesses.”

“We are drawing a line in the sand. I am taking this legal action alongside Nevada because the federal government refuses to hold the Upper Basin accountable for the water deliveries they owe Arizona, and is threatening to force draconian cuts that go well beyond the Lower Basin Agreement,” Hobbs’ statement read.

What cuts mean to Arizonans and Nevadans

Friday’s intervention by Hobbs’ office is the latest escalation in what’s been a long-running feud between state and federal officials over water access.

At issue is the American Southwest’s mega drought, which has sapped water from one of the largest river systems in North America since 2000.

Since 2011, 36% of Arizona’s water has come from the Colorado River, compared with 18% from rivers in the Grand Canyon State and a further 5% from reclaimed water, according to the office that Buschatzke oversees.

The Center Square reached out to Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke for additional comments on how the proposed river cuts could impact Arizonans. Members of Buschatzke's office declined to discuss the matter further, pointing to the statement his office issued on Friday, which chastised the federal government for ignoring precedent on the river and potentially devastating Arizona’s economy along the way.

In that statement, Buschatzke said the ADWR’s issues with the cuts were twofold: centering on the plan’s failure to deliver the amount of water Arizona and Lower Basin states are owed and the “sideboards” that could multiply the state’s cuts, potentially wringing out the Central Arizona Project canal system that feeds the state’s two largest cities, Phoenix and Tucson.

“Arizona believes that taking this action now provides the best path forward for protecting Arizona water users,” Buschatzke’s statement reads. “We are confident that our negotiations with California, Nevada and the U.S. will move forward. In fact, by taking this step we are protecting the integrity of our Agreement.

“By joining this litigation we can protect Arizona’s interests, whether that’s before a judge or in any settlement discussions that may ensue,” his statement continued.

The agreement Buschatzke reference is the 1922 pact that split Colorado River water among Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, California and Nevada.

In August, John Entsminger, who serves as the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority in addition to his role negotiating about Colorado River allotments for the Silver State since 2014, told The Center Square that Nevada had serious issues with the cuts long before litigation began. 

At issue for Entsminger was the fact that Southern Nevada, with the glimmering lights of Las Vegas at its heart, could lose up to 71% of its river allotment. 

Entsminger did not respond to any requests for comment for this story, though he did tell The Center Square in August that such cuts to river water would lead to "a lot of health and human safety concerns." 

Michael Crimmins, a climatologist inside the University of Arizona's Water Resources Research Center, told The Center Square that the upcoming supercharged El Niño pattern will deliver a mixed bag for the river system. 

For the Upper Basin states, the drier than average conditions in the Pacific Northwest could actually hamper snowfall, potentially putting a dent in the river's snowbank in states like Colorado and Wyoming, according to Crimmins. 

That could put a damper on how much water is recharged into the system by Lower Basin states, Crimmins said, but added there should be enough moisture to provide a much-needed shot in the arm for the river's reservoirs in the short term. 

"The upside is that a wet winter is great for an arid place (like Arizona and Nevada)," Crimmins told The Center Square. "So we're going to take the good — and it'll be mostly good — with this improvement in local soil moisture and snowpack and reservoirs across the Southwest." 

Help on the way?

Tom Frieders, the acting meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Tucson office, told The Center Square that he’s hopeful the upcoming winter could provide some help, water wise.

That’s because, Frieders said, the weather service has projected a strong (and potentially) historic El Niño pattern could impact the American Southwest. An El Niño occurs when warm water off the Pacific coast of South America weakens the normal eastern trade winds near the equator, bringing a surge of moisture up the Gulf of Mexico and into the region.

“We're certainly hopeful that that would be one benefit to an active winter season,” Frieders told The Center Square. “Our reservoirs rely heavily on winter precipitation and winter snowfall and that spring snowmelt to fill them up.”

Frieders cautioned against holding out hope that one potentially historic winter, precipitation wise, could wipe out the region’s quarter-century drought. But he did express hope that it could help Arizona and Nevada potentially make up for some of the cuts in river water, should they happen.

“It's going to take several active seasons to really alleviate the water supply concerns and things like that," Frieders said. "But given this very strong El Niño and the high probabilities of above-normal precipitation, we're hope hopeful that we can get some abundant moisture to start to recover some of those reservoir levels.”