The deadline came and went this Tuesday for a new water agreement on the Colorado River, where dwindling reservoirs threaten water for an estimated 40 million people between Colorado and six other states.
Hours after the missed deadline, Arizona governor Katie Hobbs posted a scathing letter to X, blaming Colorado and three Upper Basin states (Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) for derailing this latest round of negotiations. Arizona is part of the Lower Basin with Nevada and California.
“Time is running out,” the letter reads. “The existing Colorado River operating guidelines are near expiration, and a meager runoff season has left the reservoirs depleted once again and one bad winter away from reaching critical lows.”
Hobbs argues Arizona needs its full allotment for more than drinking water. It also irrigates the Yuma Valley, where she claims 90% of winter greens are grown for the U.S. and Canada, and it cools semiconductor facilities she considers “critical for maintaining American technological leadership.”
Hobbs opens and ends her letter by asking Doug Burgum, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, to oversee water talks and force new restrictions on all seven states.
Summit County commissioner Nina Water calls Hobbs’ letter frustrating.
“If you’ve seen anything recently with the Federal government there seems to be a lack of accountability, and you just never know where they are going to land on things,” Waters tells Krystal 93. “This could be detrimental to the Upper Basin states, including Colorado… they tried to blame Colorado for not being willing to accept reductions, which is not the truth.”
Waters promises to write Colorado legislators, urging them to push back against Arizona’s demands. She and others, like Colorado’s lead water negotiator, Becky Mitchell, claim Upper Basin states regularly use less water than allowed – and Mother Nature controls the faucet.
“I have no idea what Mother Nature is going to do to any of you in this room this year,” Mitchell says, as quoted by Colorado Public Radio. “But I guarantee you some of you will suffer.”
Water advocates are outraged. Kyle Roerink, executive director at the Great Basin Water Network of Nevada, says all seven states should be held accountable.
“The states don’t deserve the kid-glove treatment any longer,” Roerink writes in a statement quoted by Aspen Journalism. “They have a behavioral problem as much as they do a hydrology problem. Any entity that wants to increase use is unfit to manage our most precious resource.”
A new Colorado River compact is years in the making and failing. Negotiations have stalled multiple times. The original compact was formed in 1922, before the reservoirs at Lake Mead and Lake Powell were built. Powell hasn’t hit capacity since 1983, just three years after it filled.
Preview image via Smithsonian Magazine.
