EDITORIAL: Upper Basin states need to offer more to preserve Colorado River

Economist Milton Friedman is often credited with noting, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

State governments haven’t done much better managing the Colorado River.

On Thursday, the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, which is part of the National Weather Service, offered a grim outlook for the summer. After a dry winter, Colorado River flows into Lake Powell will be just 13 percent of average. That would be the lowest amount since the Glen Canyon Dam, which created Lake Powell, was finished in 1963. Lake Powell is upstream of Lake Mead. As Las Vegas residents can see, Lake Mead’s water levels keep falling.

This isn’t a one-year problem. The seven states along the Colorado River have long been using more water than the river reliably provides. The Colorado River Compact of 1922 allocated too much water from the start. Climate trends and the Southwest’s extended drought haven’t helped.

Making matters worse, the seven Colorado River states haven’t come to an agreement on how to share the pain. The current agreement expires at the end of the year. If these seven states can’t come to an agreement, federal officials say they will step in. Whatever the Department of Interior imposes will almost certainly be subject to court challenges. But a lengthy legal process won’t change the reality of the river. There isn’t enough water to go around.

The three Lower Basin states are Nevada, California and Arizona. They’ve proposed serious and robust reductions in an attempt to broker a deal with the four Upper Basin states, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. This month, the Lower Basin states put forward a plan to save up to 3.2 million acre-feet of water through 2028. For context, Nevada’s allocation of the Colorado River is just 300,000 acre-feet per year. Much of the Lower Basin’s water goes to agricultural users in California.

Nevada would give up 50,000 acre-feet in 2027 and 2028 and could contribute another 100,000 acre-feet. As part of this proposal, Lower Basin states are seeking federal funding. They also want Upper Basin states to offer “verifiable water contributions to help stabilize the system and support a near-term, seven-state bridge,” according to a release from the Colorado River Board of California. They are right to ask Upper Basin states to share in the needed reductions.

The good news for Las Vegas residents is that water recycling and the “third straw” mean Clark County won’t be left without water.

But no one should be satisfied with squabbling over a dwindling river. The federal government and these seven states should be working just as hard to use this precious resource more efficiently, particularly in the thirsty agricultural sector — and even to get more water to the West.