Institute for public policy. Sarah, tell us about this headline of a drastic situation with the Colorado River. What is it like. What is the water level like right now and what is happening . Where are these conversations in arizona and the surrounding states . Guest this is the second year ever in the seven states sharing Colorado River water that weve had a declared shortage, and this year, going into 2020, this is going to be deeper than they were in 2022. We are preparing for deeper cuts. More important, across the basin, everyone acknowledges that the steps we have in place, including substantial deliveries, it will enter next year and not be sufficient. We have to figure out a way to leave a lot more water in the system, so lake powell, one of the big reservoirs, or california and arizona, nevada and new mexico, they will not crash, and the levers wont it so low that hydropower cannot be produced by those stands or that water could actually get a level cold dead pool, where water cannot be the liver did it was announced that the Colorado River states, the one you are talk about, we can show them, they failed to meet a federal deadline. What happened . Guest states were given two months to come up with a plan to save more water than theyve ever done before it many different stakeholders came up with proposals and made known their opening positions in the negotiation. There was no way to get it over the finish line. Part of the problem is that we are talking about taking water away from people who are used to using it, and that is hard. Host who is working on this agreement . Guest there are seven states. Colorado, utah, arizona, and i think i did seven. Host i think you got them all. Guest you have a combination of some Agency Leaders and also stakeholders of the major water groups. Lets not overlook that native american tribes have stand show rule here as well. They have a right to substantial amounts of river water, and they participate, as we know. They are sovereign nations. These are complex negotiations. Host it is been reported that the federal government will step in. What agencies are going to oversee this, and what actions are they posting . Guest it is an open question. There is an agency under the department of interior, and the agency is called viewer of reclamation. The bureau manages most of the infrastructure related to the Colorado River system. It manages lake powell and lake mead and the hoover dam. Theoretically, they have the access and ability to take steps to not deliver water. The question is whether they have the Legal Authority to do it. For a hundred years, weve been making decisions about how to share river water consensus and negotiation. My bet is that the bureau of reclamation is reluctant to depart from that tradition. Host you think states will have a say. Guest yes. States are trying hard to get to some kind of agreement that we could live with. No one will like it, but there is an agreement out there. It could result in leaving the system in 2023. It will help to has a federal agency threaten to take action because that is a great motivator for the parties and negotiations. Host what about the legality of this agreement . A pact between states . Individuals who have the rights to water. What about the legality of that . They have any say . Guest thats what i was saying. There are water stakeholders that have high priority or in some cases low priority entitlements to the river water. They have a right to have a voice in the process it they do. They are engaged in negotiations. Host where does the water go to . How is the water use . Guest 75 of the consumptive use of river water goes to agriculture, and most goes to municipal use. The agriculture we are about is agriculture from around the country that we benefit them. Yuma arizona, other places right along the mainline that produced fruits and vegetables that everyone in the country enjoys. Let us that people eat from november to april. 90 comes from yuma arizona. Were talking about agricultural production. Host in 2021, there was an investigation. Heres what they want. Making a bad situation worst means that we have a lot of wasteful practices to add to the threat of the region. The majority of water goes to growing nonessential crops like other grasses that feed cattle for meat production. Much of those grasses are exported in the middle east and asia. Which crops are allowed, and which authorities may not have the authority to do that. It may fall to consumers to drive change, and the data suggests that if americans avoid meat, they could save an amount of water equivalent to the entire flow of the colorado each year, more than enough water to alleviate the recent shortages. What is your reaction . Guest it is certainly the case that putting less water on crops will change the market for some kind of crop that will change the practices, but it doesnt follow that if everyone gives up a beef meal, the water they are using to grow it will somehow be safe in the river. That is going to be allocated to the farmer to grow food for which there is a market. That thinking is simplistic. They grow things that there is a market for. There is a huge market for beef and dairy. That is why farmers are growing alfalfa. If we change the market, that doesnt mean that it is held in the river. Farmers will still have that. Host is there a discussion about regulating which crops can be grown . Guest i dont know if there is such a discussion, but there is a it could come with a grassroots effort among farmers in the lower basin. That includes arizona and nevada, but theres no agriculture. Even in northern mexico, there is a proposal to voluntarily reduce water orders in order to conserve water in the colorado system. Those farmers we are talking about are looking for compensation to leave it in the river because their argument is, there is that much water to grow food, and not only an economic impact, but the communities that rely on that it there is a proposal out there. I worry about ideas that agencies are in a position to tell you what to grow because people on the ground tend to be the best judges of what to grow. Host how much water is wasted, or you have the sun baking these reservoirs in lake mead, and it is evaporating . What conversations are being had about technology to preserve . Guest thats two questions. As far as efficient use of the water, especially for agriculture, over the years, agriculture has been aware of everything there, and has worked to implement efficient practices to avoid being susceptible to the accusation that they are wasting water. I can highlight this region particularly, where there is an achievement of that highest return per acre of water in the country. But youre right. A lot of water was lost through evaporation from reservoirs, and that is part of the problem. When it was allocated out of the river, there was no accounting for evaporation. Part of the reason we are seeing these levels decline is that nobody is taking it is not calculated into allocations. That is called a structural deficit as far as technology, lake mead and lake powell are massive lakes, and they are habitats, and so proposals like covering them or other types of technology that might prevent evaporation, they are, because they would likely have other environmental ramifications we need to consider. They would be quite costly, and its not clear where the money comes from to pay the cost host we want to invite our callers to call them. Go ahead. Caller it is a great topic. Ive preached about water for years. Ive been hauling my own water to my house 20 years. A lot of people do. Ive traveled the west and i love the west did i see people hauling water all over the place. I wish some of these people, we im not going to go there, but i was going to mention swimming will have been in irrigation, and all of this other stuff. Host lets talk about that. What about having lawns that require water, or swimming pools or any of the states . Guest municipal water demand is going down per capita. Year after year. People move to more efficient use of water in their own homes did you find swimming pools in yards, and these cities include denver, los angeles, southern california, albuquerque, and las vegas. Its not just phoenix and tucson. Yes. There is an opportunity to save water by using less water outdoors. That is one of the incas opportunities for municipalities. Reducing outside water use, and concentrating indoors, and in the basin, we capture and reuse almost all water that enters the Wastewater Treatment system. That is a strategy. But if we got rid of all of the pool in the Colorado River, and all of the lawns, we would still conserve water that we need to keep lake mead from reaching the catastrophic levels. Cities only use 25 of the river water, and a big amount is coming from agriculture to get to the volume supplies required rid host jb in arizona, go ahead. Caller i was looking at the map they showed earlier of the Colorado River, where it starts and where it runs two. I noticed it was only a couple of states over from Lake Superior. Minnesota, nebraska. Why couldnt we just take some of those pipelines on the keystone pipeline, and run a pipeline from Lake Superior into the Colorado River. And then force the water down there. Technology, it is moving back, and it seems like we transport oil that. Why couldnt we transport water the same way . Guest we transport water through pipelines, but the last time i fought cast, i i bought gas, i did not want to pay four dollars and . 50 a gallon for water. I think most of us dont want to have to go there. That is part of the problem. Losing water is very costly. It is heavy and corrosive. It takes a lot of energy to move it. To develop a pipeline would be extremely costly. One of the features you didnt mention there was between Lake Superior and the Colorado River. The comp colorado divide would pump thousands of feet up into the Colorado River, so there are other issues we would need to have it a driveway across a number of states, and a lot of private land. Undoubtedly, lots of landowners that would not will that red going all the way back to Lake Superior, we are typically, folks who have a right to those Water Resources and other parts of the country, they are somewhat reluctant to share their water, and they look at a region like the American West and think wow it they could use a lot of water, and we are not willing to share the water we have. We need to prepare for our own economies and population. But there are ideas out there. Moving water through pipelines. In the end, there are many strategies that we could deploy. It could get us to the Water Supplies we need or lower cost and environmental impacts and less risk of litigation and controversy. What are the strategies . There are a bunch. I would start with conservation. Going back to the caller who said swimming pools and lawns. We have seen a gradual conversion in the cities. People are becoming more conscious of their water use in their voluntary retirement of lawns and pools. Las vegas had a very active program of buying back, its voluntary, but they compensate homeowners. Theyve seen a huge amount of water conservation, and it is one of the first steps. Beyond that, reuse is the next most important thing. With municipal use, it costs cities to reclaim trees to reuse water, and the same drop of water is used over and over again. Thats a way of stretching Water Supplies over a larger basin, and more activities, lets say. Reuse is the next step. There are other concepts for adding water to the system. The governor of arizona went to israel, and he was really interested to see how well israel developed desalinization plants, and there is an opportunity to work with our neighbors to build a plant which would serve water users in mexico, and arizona and they would have funded that plant, and there was a mexico river water. There are other concepts out there. Instate system. And heres a big one. Los angeles is not reusing water the way others like las vegas reuses water. What they do is treat race water wastewater and put in the ocean. They are saying, what if we shared in the cost of getting los angeles to implement and reuse. That would be a big volume of water or los angeles. It would mean that they could take a cut of water or there would be more water in the system that they could share. Those are some of the solutions. There is a long list. I have to say, with all of those, none of them are going to result in Water Supplies that are a price point that would make sense or agriculture to use. At the scale we are talking about. We are looking at leaving 25 more water 25 more water than we take out in the system. These are solutions for cities, and in time, they will be deployed and we dont have Solutions Like that for agriculture. Host grand junction, colorado. Go ahead with go ahead. Caller i live at the colorado joint. I think, with our talk, there is an upper rockies, perhaps, and in the wintertime, and we are going to get a snowpack. There is a crystal river. As it goes down, and the california area, there are many multiple uses. It just isnt going to happen. Guest big reservoirs that we are worried about, they are meant to be filled with a pack from the upper rockies. That is right. What weve seen is warmer temperatures in this region of the upper rockies, and this changes the behavior of the snowpack and it melts faster, and it is of earlier, and there is more evaporation. Weve had summers where we dont have summer rains which we called monsoons. We see the ground is dryer. In the last two years, we have had very close to average annual snow, but it has been way below average. The flow into the system was 30 to 35 points of average, and it is that her, with 60 to 65 average. With warmer temperatures, and these changes in the cycle, less water is from the snow melt, and it is getting into the reservoirs. Host it has been suffering trouts. What has happened to the water . Guest it depends on the particular area, but in arid and semi arid places, almost all of that water evaporates. In arizona, 98 of the precipitation which falls on the ground, it winds up evaporating. This is very dry. But some of the water will wind up in the aquifers, and it is very helpful. We are talking about rain. Host chris, go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. This is mainly about something we talked about earlier, where the agency is using or acting as a motivator for the states and the agriculture to come to an agreement. It is a question about a motivator in the same sense. You dont want to tell farmers what to grow or whatnot, but because of the constraints, it sounds like there is no option in the future, unless you forecast, saying that it will come back in later times. Water will be back. If not, using the agency as a motivator to advocate for water, and to influence the farmers to grow less or differently, it could be balance. Guest i appreciate that question and observation. It brings up how hard this is because those farmers are in business, and when we ask them to grow something not as profitable, we are asking them to take a hit at typically, in a big city, we tend to see a more diverse economy, and when agriculture takes a hit, the whole region suffers. How to move to a future where there is less water available, it is going to take everyone and brilliant inventors, and it will take finance. It will take everyone to help to assist and bring the best ideas to help transform agriculture in the region. In the near term we have to be very conscious that if we asked to provide this with product across the nation, and beyond, people rely on this, and we need to consider the responsibility to help bridge and use less water. The biggest thing to address is the devastating impact that would occur if it was drastically cut. Host i want to go back to an investigation and heavy talk about the history of this agreement. They write that the states have arrived, in large part because of their own doing. They govern the use of the colorado, and it was assigned in 1922 with it was optimistic. The states agree to divide up the total amount of water, and it turned out to be much more than could flow. Nevertheless, the building of the hoover dam and the development of the Colorado River pipeline, they were able to open a savings account to fund an extraordinary growth. Those states have overdrawn the average deposit. It should be no surprise that even without a pressure of climate change, the plan would lead to bankruptcy. The system of the Colorado River has priority. Let me say that statement is certainly written in a way to incite alarm in a strong language, but the sharing of the river water is, according to a priority system. There is a highest priority, and that includes tribes and agricultural reasons that have been there, and that includes to some degree, cities. There is a framework or a shortage or lower priority users who can make do with less or take a cut, and that framework motivates lower priority users to find other supplies and be paired for cuts. That is what we are seeing. Yes. No question. The total allocation out of the Colorado River exceeds the average annual inflows. The problem we are dealing with right now is that we need to figure out a way to decrease the total annual allocation or delivery acrosstheboard, and the way, the path to that is negotiation. It is investment in new technology, its sensitivity to the hardships that water users face if they are cut. Its going to be hard. Host florida, go ahead. Caller you might be the best research for a silly question. We have been drilling holes into the united states, and drawing oil out of pools. What do the Companies Put into the holes that are and he. I imagine there is a lot of water seepage that goes into them. That might be an agricultural resource. Guest its interesting, and i dont think there are silly questions when it comes to this issue it silly questions tend to be backed up by imagination. I think there is not much oil drilling in the colorado basin. The water that is seeping in, is replacing the oil and probably groundwater that it was already there. So far as i know, there is no operation for wells and replacing the oil with river water. It probably isnt the best solution. There is a