The Coalition to Protect Arizona Lifelines, an advocacy group supported by the Central Arizona Project, has begun rolling out television ads and online videos defending water providers’ rights to the Colorado River, which faces severe hydrologic and political pressures.
An ad aired by the coalition warned: “Arizona is being unfairly targeted for reducing the flow of water in the Colorado River, which will weaken our state, weaken our economy and weaken our nation’s defense.” The report also noted that Arizona communities have done their part by dedicating more water to Lake Mead’s protection than other states, and that several options for managing the river that the federal government is weighing would have the greatest impact on the state.
CAP General Manager Brenda Burman said recently that one alternative being reviewed would essentially dry up the agency’s canal from the river to Phoenix and Tucson.
“In this case, they’re proposing to wipe us off the map,” she said. The other three alternatives are less harmful to CAP. The agency rejected all of them because it unfairly penalized Arizona while requiring far less from upstream states.
The alternative Berman mentioned was never stated as a preference of the Trump administration, but rather an idea that the seven states that share the river’s water could draw on as they write a deal to share worsening water shortages. However, now that states have failed to reach such an agreement, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is faced with either enacting a similar agreement or quickly developing a new federal plan to replace river guidance that expires this fall.
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In normal times before the drought of the past quarter-century, CAP was entitled to 1.6 million acre-feet of water—each acre-foot equals about 326,000 gallons, enough to support about three homes for a year. During those periods of abundance, Arizona pumped some of the water and sunk it underground for future use.
In recent years, the loss of Lake Mead’s stored water has forced CAP to abandon more than 500,000 acre-feet of land each year. More severe cuts are coming, but how dry the canal will be depends on the rules the federal government imposes.
CAP formed the coalition last summer in anticipation of fighting and announced that discussions with the mayors of Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa and Surprise led to its formation. Eventually, two dozen other mayors joined, as did leaders of several business groups and Native American tribes.
The coalition’s website and ads ask Arizonans to pledge support for efforts to protect CAP water. The group posts video testimonials from many of its members.
“If there were significant cuts or changes to how water from the Colorado River is distributed, the impact on our communities and the entire state could be devastating,” Casa Grande Mayor Lisa Fitzgibbons said in a testimony. “That’s why the state of Arizona and cities like Casa Grande are taking proactive steps to protect the future of our water,” including through urban demand management plans.
While the materials don’t directly address how members want to get their water, some of the videos rely heavily on the so-called Rivers Code and its guarantees of water in the four water source states of Arizona, California and Nevada. The theme reiterates what CAP and Arizona water officials have stressed over the past year or so that the 1922 Colorado River Compact would be on their side if the legal fight came to a head.
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“It’s an obligation”
Two river tutorial videos note that the compact grants the three lower basin states an average of 7.5 million acre-feet per year, plus half the U.S.’s smaller obligation to Mexico, and says the upper basin states will not drain river flows below that level.
Video shows Twentieth Century negotiators from the Upper Basin admitting this because they feared California and Arizona could claim much of the river because of their earlier use of its water. In wet years, the upper basin itself can use as much as 7.5 million acre-feet of water, but in dry years it allows at least that much water to flow to more developed urban and agricultural areas of the Southwest.
“It is an obligation,” says a narrator, “meaning a guarantee.”
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Modern negotiators for upper basin states dispute this point, saying lower basins continue to use most of the water and that climate change, not their own consumption, is reducing supplies.
“We have no delivery obligation under the terms of the agreement and will not now agree to impose it on ourselves through the agreement,” Colorado Rivers Commissioner Becky Mitchell said at a meeting of the Upper Colorado River Commission last year.
As states prepare for a showdown in court, CAP and its Protect Arizona Lifeline coalition have made clear they will demand strict compliance if other states don’t cut back enough on their use.
“The Colorado River Compact is not only History,” one of the videos asserts. “This is the foundation of Western water law. It still determines how the West shares its most important resource: water. “
Brandon Loomis covers environment and climate issues for the Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Contact him: Brandon.loomis@arizonarepublic.com.
Environmental coverage for azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
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This article originally appeared in The Arizona Republic: Coalition says Colorado River cuts ‘unfairly targeted’ Arizona