Biden administration launches process to develop long-term Colorado River guidelines

The Department of the Interior announced Thursday that it would be launching a formal process to develop long-term operational guidelines for the dwindling Colorado River. 

Once finalized, the new strategies will replace the 2007 Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and the Coordinated Operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead that are slated to expire at the end of 2026.

With the official kickoff of the development process, regulators will begin gathering feedback for the next set of guidelines, including new strategies that account for the current and projected hydrology of the Colorado River system, according to the Interior Department.

“As we look toward the next several years across the Basin, the new set of operating guidelines for Lake Powell and Lake Mead will be developed collaboratively based on the best-available science,” Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said in a statement.

The Interior Department announcement comes just weeks after the seven Colorado River Basin states resolved a year of conflict over short-term water consumption cutbacks.

At the end of May, the Colorado River’s Lower Basin states — California, Arizona and Nevada — submitted a proposal to the Bureau of Reclamation in which they offered to conserve about 13 percent of their total river allocation by the end of 2026.

The cuts would serve as a temporary measure to help stabilize the water levels of the basin’s biggest storage reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, until the new long-term operating guidelines take effect.

The Bureau of Reclamation has yet to officially approve the plans. If it does, more than three-quarters of the proposed cutbacks would be funded by about $1.2 billion dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act. The rest would be voluntary commitments.

The over-tapped Colorado River Basin, which serves about 40 million people, is split into a Lower and an Upper basin, which respectively include California, Arizona and Nevada, and Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.

A 1922 compact granted annual water allocations to each basin, while a 1944 treaty then granted additional resources to Mexico. But these generations-old allotments ended up exceeding the river’s actual flow — a situation exacerbated by ongoing drought.

As it became increasingly apparent that there wasn’t enough water to keep Lake Powell and Lake Mead stable, officials began discussing Lower Basin conservation measures in 2005.

They ultimately signed the 2007 Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages, which have both proven to be insufficient and are set to expire in 2026.

“Developing new operating guidelines for Lake Powell and Lake Mead is a monumentally important task,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton said in a statement.

Touton stressed that negotiations therefore “must begin now to allow for a thorough, inclusive and science-based decision-making process.”

“The Bureau of Reclamation is committed to ensuring we have the tools and strategies in place to help guide the next era of the Colorado River Basin, especially in the face of continued drought conditions,” she added.

At the core of Thursday’s announcement is a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement regarding the post-2026 operational guidelines.

The notice asks members of the public to consider how the best-available science should impact future operational guidelines, with the goal of strengthening the basin amid a range of hydrological conditions. The public comment period is open through August 15.

Recalling the recent short-term cutback consensus proposed by the Lower Basin states, Beaudreau stressed the Biden administration’s commitment to working with local partners “in the face of climate change and sustained drought.”

“Those same partnerships are fundamental to our ongoing work to ensure the stability and sustainability of the Colorado River Basin into the future,” he added.