States that share water from the Colorado River are working to balance the needs of farmers and cities

Upper Division: Colo., N.M., Utah and Wyo.
Lower Div.: Nev., Ariz. and Calif. (Wikipedia map)

Contention over how to share water from the Colorado River has rankled seven Western states and the federal government for more than 100 years. The stakes have only increased in recent years. "The future of the American West is quietly being hashed out in the conference rooms of a Las Vegas casino this week," reports Annie Snider of Politico. "Just across the strip from the Bellagio's fountains, in the shadow of an enormous Eiffel Tower-knock-off, negotiators from the seven states that share the Colorado River are racing to reach a deal on how to share the West's most important — and shrinking — waterway."

Over the past 20 years, climate change and drought have shrunk the river's flow by more than 20 percent, and "the only question now is how much worse things will get," Snider writes. "The negotiations over how to share the pain of bringing water use in line with the shrunken waterway will have huge implications for the 40 million people who rely on it at their taps in metro areas. . . as well as for the powerhouse farming operations that use roughly three-quarters of the river's water to irrigate some of the country's most productive agricultural land. Also on the line are the interests of 30 federally-recognized tribes along the river and the 11 national parks and monuments it courses through, including the Grand Canyon."

Colorado River Basin (Wikipedia map)

Politically, the conflict is a "landmine for the Biden administration, which has taken a much more aggressive approach with the affected states than its predecessors," Snider reports. "The sharpest pain will be centered on the three lower river states: Arizona and Nevada — two crucial political swing states – and California, home of the Democratic Party's most deep-pocketed donors and whose governor is widely believed to harbor presidential ambitions."

The roil doesn't stop there. "Especially contentious is the fault line between farmers, who typically hold the most protected rights to the river," Snider explains, "and the urban areas that are states' economic engines and are home to their voting bases, but are first in line for water delivery cuts under the century-old legal regime that governs the river."

This past year's record snowpack melt, paired with a three-state agreement to "conserve water over the next three years in exchange for $1.2 billion in federal funding, have headed off the disaster for now," Snider reports. "But crafting new rules to govern the river through a much drier future beginning in 2026 will be exponentially harder."