S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show. What the new rules for sharing Colorado River water could mean for our supply. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. New rules for sharing water on the drought stricken Colorado River are coming this week. And California faces big cuts. KJZZ reporter Alex Hager is following the anticipated federal plan. He's been covering the Colorado River and all those who've relied on its water over the past five years. He joins me remotely from Phoenix. Alex , hi. Hi.
S2: Hi. It's good to be with you.
S1: Glad to have you here. So , listen , conditions have been pretty dire for the Colorado River. Give us some detail about how bad things are and what factors led to this point.
S2: Well , what we're seeing right now is a short term crisis on top of a long term crisis. Climate change and drought have been making the river drier for 26 years now. The simple fact is that the Colorado River mostly starts as snow in the Rocky Mountains , and there is less of it. Snow is falling earlier. It is? Well , it's falling less. It's melting earlier. It is getting soaked up by dry soil. And that just means that there is a lot less supply. And we have seen that trend year over year for more than two decades now. And on top of it , we had one of the driest years in recorded history , this most recent winter , meaning that there was a new level of urgency to that dry condition. And as a result of that , with supply going down , reservoirs that store that water , the nation's two largest , Lake Powell and Lake Mead , have been getting perilously low , with water dropping to record low levels. Lake Powell is less than a quarter full. And right now , what we're talking about is the challenge of reining in demand to bring it into balance with that supply. But that is proving very politically difficult.
S1: I'll bet we're expecting a record strong El Nino this year. Could that help conditions at all?
S2: Unfortunately , it could only make a small dent generally. We have seen so many back to back years of dry conditions. Such a long term trend. Now that , you know , scientists say it would take 4 or 5 of the most epic , snowiest winters in the Rockies to really turn this around in a row. And that's very unlikely to happen. One one strong winter is unlikely to fix this right now. The real challenge , the real issue at hand is bringing in demand , because that's the thing we can control.
S1: Well , now help us understand just how many people and governments and industries depend on water from the Colorado River.
S2: And this is. Us.
S1: Us.
S2: That's right. A lot is at stake. This is a sprawling system that goes from Wyoming to Mexico. It is plugged into major cities across the West like San Diego , Phoenix , Los Angeles , Denver , Salt Lake City , Las Vegas , Albuquerque. It is 40 roughly 40 million people across those seven states that use it and as well as the nation of Mexico that also includes a massive , multibillion dollar agriculture industry. So just inland from San Diego , the Imperial and Coachella Valleys grow a huge amount of produce. There's a small region between inland California and western Arizona that grows something like 70% of the nation's wintertime vegetables. And because of that , this the what's happening to the river now and what happens in its next chapter is going to have ripple effects across the country. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that there are 30 federally recognized Native American tribes that use water from the Colorado River. They unfortunately have been left out of conversations about how to manage its water going back nearly a century , and many of them say that they're still not as included as they'd like to be. Even here today , in 2026.
S1: Well , as you mentioned , you know , the conditions are dire. California and six other states share the river's water. Talk about why the federal government is negotiating new rules for how much they each can use right now.
S2: Well , the original rules for sharing water from the Colorado River were written in 1922. And as I'm sure you can imagine , things have changed an awful lot since then. The West looks very different. Our cities are bigger , our industries are bigger , and the river looks very different. There is less water in it than there used to be thanks to climate change and drought. So over the years , those rules have been kind of tweaked and they've added different layers on top of them to change water use depending on the demands of the day. The most recent tweak from 2019 is set to expire this fall , so there is a rush to replace those rules before they expire. The idea was all seven states from across the Colorado River basin that's California , Arizona and Nevada , and then Colorado , Utah and Wyoming , Wyoming and New Mexico. The idea was that those seven states would agree on a new plan and share the pain of cutbacks among them to rein in demand across the entire system. But what we've seen so far through more than a year of negotiations is that those states were unable to find a consensus. They split into two camps , kind of the upstream states and the downstream states , and they are at loggerheads about how to share the pain of those cuts. The upstream states did not volunteer to take any cuts at all. So without any mandatory cuts at all. So without a consensus , the federal government has to step in and come up with its own rules. Its priority is making sure that water and the reservoirs it owns and operates doesn't fall so low as to cause big infrastructure problems. So it is treading this careful line of how to do that without getting sued. And those are the rules. We're expecting to come soon. Is the federal government going ahead? And , you know , putting in rules that limit water use primarily to protect the large dams and reservoirs that it operates and and hope? Well , I won't say hopefully , but what seems to be happening now is that the lower basin states , California , Arizona and Nevada , they under earlier drafts of the federal rules , were slated to take the biggest cutbacks , especially acutely felt in central Arizona , in cities around the Phoenix area. And so the rules that we're expecting to see are going to be the product of a counter-proposal that those that those states put together to soften the blow , basically saying to the federal government , we agree that we we have to take some cutbacks here. We will volunteer to take some , but we'd like to do them on our own schedule.
S1: So the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has yet to adopt the new plan again. It was slated to do so last week , but may now do so this week. Does the the delay here have anything to do with clashes between the states?
S2: It may. It's pretty hard to tell what's going on inside. Kind of a black box over at the Department of the interior and the Bureau of Reclamation , which is a sub agency there. We have had certainly a shifting target in terms of when we when we expected these rules to be announced. At one point , it was last week. More recently , it was this Monday. That day came and went without an announcement. The latest I'm hearing is the end of this week , maybe Thursday or Friday. But they have. We have we have heard rumblings of days that these rules would come out before and those days have been missed. So it's it's kind of anyone's guess at this point , but they are running out of time to come up with new rules in time to make sure that they are in place before the current rules expire , which would be October 1st.
S1: So what do you know so far about this plan? I mean , how much water might California need to cut back on?
S2: It's going to be significant. I'll say this. The majority of those cuts , the hardest hit area will be central Arizona is going to be where I live here in Phoenix and many of the cities around Phoenix. Um , California stepped in to contribute some water and spread the pain a little bit. Generally , California , Arizona and Nevada work as allies across these in these negotiations. But in all honesty , both in California and in Arizona , where the hits are , the cuts are going to hit hardest. In general , most people probably will not feel the difference. Major cities where these cuts are going to be implemented have seen this coming for years. Sometimes , you know , a couple decades and have done quite a bit in terms of contingency planning to make sure that when the Colorado River is drier and they are forced to use less water , they have other sources of water they can rely upon. So we are likely going to see significant cuts for Arizona and California , and you are unlikely to feel them at your kitchen faucet. Okay.
S1: Okay. All right. I mean , but for everyday ratepayers , though , I mean then that said , what what would be the most immediate impact under these cuts?
S2: In all honesty , the immediate impact is something that is going to cause some hand-wringing and headache for people who run utilities departments. But I think the impact is not going to be immediate , but it will be long term. I've talked to a number of water experts who say , you know , the West is not ending , the West is not going dry. What is going to change is we are going to exit an era of cheap water. For a long time it has been very inexpensive to get water piped to your home. But as cities work on these contingency plans so they can survive the drier future ahead. They have to build big new infrastructure. They have to pay more to get water. They're entering transfer deals , maybe buying up water from a farm that is looking to sell it. Maybe they are engaging in some sort of , uh , maybe they're buying water from another city that has water to share. Maybe they are building a new facility that can recycle sewage back into clean drinking water. All of these things cost a lot of money , and in time that will be passed along to ratepayers.
S1: I think a lot of ratepayers feel like cheap and California like oil and water. That's right. Right. The two , do they exist together? I don't know. Um , so do you think we'll see more pressure for water conservation? Maybe.
S2: That is certainly possible. Uh , as cities. As cities. Well , I'll say this. When you look at how water from the Colorado River is used , it's important to remember that the significant majority of it is being used for agriculture. It is growing crops. Sometimes that's the stuff we eat. It's produce that you can go and buy at the grocery store. A lot of times it is growing alfalfa hay for cattle feed. That makes it so you can have readily accessible and relatively affordable beef and dairy and cheese on your pizza. That is the significant majority of water use from the Colorado River basin. A a much smaller slice of the pie is the water that goes to cities. So when we are making changes to the amount of water that gets used from the Colorado River , all of the changes in cities affect a relatively small slice of the overall picture. That said , cities that are being given less water under these new conservation plans , they are likely going to have to find a way to make up for that. And one of the ways to do that is by conserving water for home use. The significant majority of water for home use goes to outdoor use watering your lawn , watering your garden , watering plants , so I would not expect that cities are really going to crack down on the amount that you use to wash your dishes and clothes , or the length of the shower you're taking. If you are going to see the city you live in tell you how to conserve water , they are very likely going to be talking about watering your lawn , either instituting regulations that say you can only water your lawn at certain times or at certain amounts , or they might create an incentive program , or they will pay you to replace your lawn with native plants that use less water.
S1: So , you know , one thing that I'm curious about , too , is , you know , San Diego obviously has long depended on the Colorado River , but as you know , it now has excess water to sell. So what led to this surplus of water that we have and is , is the plan to sell it a good idea still? Yeah.
S2: Yeah. San Diego plays a really fascinating role in the future of the Colorado River , because San Diego County is home to the Western Hemisphere's largest desalination plant there in Carlsbad. I had the privilege of visiting it a few years ago. It is a humongous plant. It operates at really high capacity and is is , in some people's eyes , the future of creating sustainable water supplies in the Colorado River basin. So generally , it is very expensive to run a desalination plant like the one in Carlsbad. It is also very difficult and expensive to move water from the coast further inland. So because the rest of the Colorado River basin is facing a drought just like San Diego , but San Diego is the only place that has a large scale desalination facility. They're working on a sort of transfer program or an exchange. So right now , water agencies in Arizona and Nevada , especially in some of the cities that are going to be hardest hit by this next round of cutbacks , that we expect to be hardest hit by this next round of cutbacks. They are exploring an agreement with San Diego County's water Authority to exchange water , where the main water agency in central Arizona would pay the San Diego County Water Authority to leave some of its water in the Colorado River , where Arizona can take it. And because they are not using that Colorado River water , San Diego will lean harder on the water it gets from the desalination facility. So basically , central Arizona can benefit from , you know , Pacific Ocean water with the salt taken out , turned into clean drinking water without having to build a giant pipe to the Pacific Ocean. It's going to be expensive. It's it's part of why ratepayers are going to have to pay more in the future is to fund transfers like this. But , uh , it could it could help stretch out supplies quickly.
S1: Before we go , I want to talk about AI data centers , a big one going up in Imperial Valley. Typically , the demand for water for those things is high. How might this deal impact that?
S2: Well , generally , what happens with data centers and the amount of water that they use has to do more with the particular city or county that they're in. They use a lot of water. We well , they actually they actually use less water than you think. Data centers , uh , use some water for cooling. But , uh , generally from the researchers I've talked to , data centers use less water than you think. And the places that bring these data centers in generally regulate them fairly tightly to make sure that they're not putting too much strain on the grid.
S1: All right , Alex , I'm going to have to leave it there. I appreciate it so much. I've been speaking with Alex Hager. He's on the water beat for KJZZ in Phoenix. Alex , thank you so much.
S2: Thanks for having me.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
