LOCAL COLUMN
OPINION: NM must protect its share as Colorado River wars heat up
When I first read a few weeks ago in an article in the Guardian that 38% of the water from the Colorado River Basin goes to growing alfalfa, I was shocked. Growing a high-water crop like alfalfa in the desert seemed insane. At first glance retiring those water rights would seem like a solution. If only it were that simple. But, as we know, in the Southwest we live under a Byzantine, antiquated system of water allocation.
The new federal plan of water allocation released on Friday is the result of the inability of the seven states that use the basin's water to come to any agreement. This new 10-year plan, which will be in effect for the next two years before review, addresses the water use of the Lower Basin states: California, Nevada and Arizona. It exempts the Upper Basin states, including New Mexico, but encourages voluntary water reductions. The agreement requires a reduction of about 3 million acre-feet in the annual release from Lake Powell. The Lower Basin states use the water stored in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The Upper Basin states, including New Mexico, utilize Colorado River water that flows into smaller tributaries, and the amount varies with snowpack.
New Mexico鈥檚 Colorado River water comes primarily from the San Juan, Animas and La Plata rivers. Due to lack of snowfall, this water flow was reduced by as much as 50% this year. Thus, we are already reducing our use of Colorado Basin water substantially.
What impact will this 3 million acre-feet reduction have on Lower Basin states? As explained by Scott Dance in the New York Times, 鈥淭he booming Phoenix area could find its water supply severely reduced in the driest years under the plan, because Arizona holds some of the lowest priority rights in a river system where many water rights were determined a century and a half ago.鈥� These changes are likely to require not just lawn watering limits, but minimizing fields of alfalfa, soy and other agricultural uses, and data center water use.
Even though the call for reductions in Lower Basin use was widely expected, Arizona is fuming. 鈥淧hoenix has spent decades planning for such a moment like this and is prepared to use less Colorado water, but it is wrong to lay a disproportionate share of the burden on Arizona,鈥� said Mayor Kate Gallego of Phoenix. Tom Buschatzke, the state鈥檚 water negotiator, calls the plan 鈥渄raconian鈥� and 鈥渦nacceptable.鈥� Arizona is lawyering up. That may not help.
This was hardly unexpected. The Colorado Basin supplies drinking water to millions of people and irrigation to over 5 million acres of farms. Many Native American tribes have rights to the water in the Colorado as does Mexico. We've had two decades of drought and with climate change that drought is even getting worse each year. There will be more years of reduced snowpack.
While at this stage New Mexico is only being required to make voluntary contributions, we should be very cautious in doing so. We don't want to create a precedent where the upper basin is expected to compensate for the lower basin鈥檚 overuse.
Right now, the water we get from the Colorado is limited. It is used to irrigate farming and ranching around Farmington, Bloomfield and the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry area. It supplies water to the Navajo Nation, other tribes, Farmington and northwest New Mexico communities. Some goes into the San Juan-Chama Project, a portion of which goes to Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
The fact is that this year Santa Fe only got 39% of its contractual amount of Colorado water due or natural shortages. The point is the Upper Basin users have already reduced their water use due to natural shortages. The Lower Basin users including Arizona have until now received close to their fixed allocations from their reservoirs.
In the next few years, we may be pressured to make voluntary contributions. The new water wars are beginning. We need to guard what little we have.
Judith Polich is a retired attorney, a New Mexico resident and a climate change columnist. Her website is: . She can be reached at judith.polich@gmail.com.
