Title
Update on Availability of Colorado River Water 2024-26 and Water Strategy
Description
This report provides an update to the City Council on the following three subjects: 1) Conditions on the Colorado River, 2) the recently proposed regional plan to use Colorado River during 2024 through 2026, and 3), the City's strategy to stabilize and address water resource portfolio challenges.
THIS ITEM IS FOR INFORMATION AND DISCUSSION.
Report
Summary
The Colorado River Basin has been in decline for over a decade, with reservoir levels dropping to historic low elevations, due to reduced flows in the river, and over allocation among the 40 million people throughout the Western United States that rely upon the river for drinking water and agricultural uses. Beginning in 2020 through 2022, the declines were particularly precipitous, resulting in a call from the United States Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) in June of 2022, to Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California (the Basin States) to take action. Specifically, Reclamation called for the Basin States to develop a plan to reduce demand on the Colorado River by two to four million acre-feet (af) by 2024 to save the reservoir system from collapse. For context, the entire State of Arizona receives a 2.8 million af allocation from the Colorado River. The announcement was particularly concerning to Phoenix, which receives its Colorado River allocation from the Central Arizona Project (CAP). The CAP is the most junior priority on the Colorado River, and the proposed reductions could end deliveries of Colorado River Water to Central Arizona under many legal interpretations of the cases, and agreements that comprise the Law of the River.
For over six months in 2022, the Basin States were unable to reach agreement on reductions to Colorado River deliveries. Last fall, Reclamation announced it would consider taking unilateral federal action to reduce deliveries, issuing a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) with two alternative plans to reduce deliveries. Neither alternative was acceptable to Arizona water users. On May 2023, the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada announced a new plan to reduce Colorado River demand in those states by 1 million af, each year, from 2024 through 2026. The reductions would be largely compensated with federal funding in the form of system conservation agreements such as the one approved by the Phoenix City Council on May 31, 2023. The plan also relies on run off from the extraordinary winter snowpack and rainfall from 2022-23. While this plan is likely not sustainable beyond 2026, it does provide the Basin States time to negotiate more permanent operating rules for the Colorado River that must address sustainable water allocations in a declining river system.
While the proposal may resolve delivery disputes between 2024 and 2026, the long-term outlook for Colorado River supplies for Phoenix is still not stable. Staff has developed a water strategy to strengthen Phoenix's long-term outlook and resilience. This includes (1) utilizing available alternative water resources; (2) increasing water efficiency through demand management; (3) promoting sustainable desert development; and (4) augmenting the Phoenix water resource portfolio.
Department
Responsible Department
This item is submitted by Deputy City Manager Ginger Spencer and the Water Services Department.