Millions of people across the American West can breathe a sigh of relief this week. On Monday, after months of negotiations, the seven states in the Colorado River Basin announced a deal with the Biden administration on use of the waterway. The Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada agreed to conserve 3 million acre-feet of water over the next three years — amounting to 13 percent of their total apportionment — with the administration compensating them for three-quarters of the savings. This would total about $1.2 billion in federal grants from the Inflation Reduction Act.
The agreement is a boon for the 40 million people who rely on the river for drinking water and electricity as well as the significant but dwindling populations of flora and fauna the basin supports. But the work to save the Colorado River from catastrophic overuse cannot end here.
The river has long been on an unsustainable course. After years of drought and climate change, its flow has shrunk by approximately 20 percent from its rate throughout the 1900s. With volume declining, there is simply not enough water to distribute at the levels agreed upon in the 1922 Colorado River Compact or even according to more recent guidelines. The dwindling flow has also elicited concerns that the river might soon contain too little water to operate its hydroelectric dams.
Water levels in Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir, hit record lows in February. Thanks to a large snowpack, the lake’s levels rose this spring, raising with them hopes of delaying worst-case scenarios. Still, experts warned of a looming catastrophe without urgent, farsighted action.
The new agreement — announced ahead of a May 30 deadline set by the federal government — buys time for stakeholders to craft a longer-term solution. Both sides had to compromise: The Lower Basin states initially wanted compensation for all their water savings, while the administration hoped to direct more funding toward lasting infrastructure investments over short-run buybacks. Ultimately, a consensus was reached after the Interior Department released a review in April outlining two extreme policy alternatives, including one option that saw the interior secretary imposing unilateral cuts on states.
The deal is, however, only a temporary reprieve for the river and those who depend on it. It extends through 2026, and stakeholders will soon embark on the lengthy process of renegotiating use of the river for the years thereafter. Further cuts will be needed for the river system to remain viable. Some of these reductions will have to come from the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Though some water districts have dramatically improved the efficiency of their water systems, more can be done: Cities, for example, can curb the presence of water-reliant vegetation, invest in water recycling and reduce wastage in plumbing. Farms, meanwhile, can improve irrigation processes, line canals to reduce leaks and prioritize crops that require less water.
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End of carousel- D.C. Council reverses itself on school resource officers. Good.
- Virginia makes a mistake by pulling out of an election fraud detection group.
- Vietnam sentences another democracy activist.
- Biden has a new border plan.
The D.C. Council voted on Tuesday to stop pulling police officers out of schools, a big win for student safety. Parents and principals overwhelmingly support keeping school resource officers around because they help de-escalate violent situations. D.C. joins a growing number of jurisdictions, from Montgomery County, Md., to Denver, in reversing course after withdrawing officers from school grounds following George Floyd’s murder. Read our recent editorial on why D.C. needs SROs.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) just withdrew Virginia from a data-sharing consortium, ERIC, that made the commonwealth’s elections more secure, following Republicans in seven other states in falling prey to disinformation peddled by election deniers. Former GOP governor Robert F. McDonnell made Virginia a founding member of ERIC in 2012, and until recently conservatives touted the group as a tool to combat voter fraud. D.C. and Maryland plan to remain. Read our recent editorial on ERIC.
In Vietnam, a one-party state, democracy activist Tran Van Bang was sentenced on Friday to eight years in prison and three years probation for writing 39 Facebook posts. The court claimed he had defamed the state in his writings, according to Radio Free Asia. In the past six years, at least 60 bloggers and activists have been sentenced to between 4 and 15 years in prison under the law, Human Rights Watch found. Read more of the Editorial Board’s coverage on autocracy and Vietnam.
The Department of Homeland Security has provided details of a plan to prevent a migrant surge along the southern border. The administration would presumptively deny asylum to migrants who failed to seek it in a third country en route — unless they face “an extreme and imminent threat” of rape, kidnapping, torture or murder. Critics allege that this is akin to an illegal Trump-era policy. In fact, President Biden is acting lawfully in response to what was fast becoming an unmanageable flow at the border. Read our most recent editorial on the U.S. asylum system.
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The Interior Department still has some policy levers it could use to push states and localities toward this transition. On Wednesday, it announced new investments for water conservation and efficiency, and it is finalizing new conservation agreements with eight local water entities. It could consider counting evaporated water toward all states’ allocations or defining the “beneficial use” of water and using that standard to allot deliveries. Moreover, the agency manages the operating guidelines for the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams, allowing it to control downstream releases according to the system’s hydrologic conditions.
As the post-2026 discussion picks up, it will be crucial to include other partners in negotiations — particularly the 30 tribes that depend on the river and have a range of experiences and insights to share. The Biden administration should also continue to work with Mexico, which receives a quota of water under a 1944 treaty.
Safeguarding the Colorado River for future generations will take years of dedicated planning and action. Federal and state officials, local leaders, and water districts have earned a moment to celebrate this week’s long-awaited deal. Then the hard work truly begins.