The Daily - 7 States, 1 River and an Agonizing Choice

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

In the United States, 40 million people in seven states depend on water provided by the Colorado River.After 20 years of drought, the situation is dire and the river is at risk of becoming a “deadpool,” a condition in which there is not enough water to pass through the dams.The states were supposed to come up with a deal to cut their usage by Tuesday. Now, the federal government may have to step in and make a difficult decision.Guest: Christopher Flavelle, a climate reporter for The New York Times.Background reading: The seven states that rely on the river for water are not expected to reach a deal on reductions. The federal government could impose cuts for the first time in the water supply for millions of Americans.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. Forty million people in seven states in the western U.S. depend on water provided by the Colorado River. After 20 years of drought, that river has reached a breaking point. And those seven states were supposed to come up with a deal to cut their use of that water by today. My colleague Christopher Flavelle explains why the federal government may now have to step in and make an agonizing choice. It's Tuesday, January 31st. Chris, we know the water situation in the West is pretty bad.

But you've reported now that the problem and that the effort to solve the problem has come to a crisis point. So tell me about that. What's going on? So the U.S. has had a drought in the West since 2000, and that's meant a lot of things. But one of them is that the Colorado River, which provides water to about 40 million people in seven states, is drying up. Those states are Arizona, Nevada, California, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. Its annual flow is decreasing precipitously. But now for years, states and the federal government have tried to cut the use of that water, but it hasn't worked. They haven't cut enough. And so last year, as those levels got really low, officials said, we have to do more. So last summer, the federal government said, we have to do more. So last

summer, the federal government said, we want these seven states to find a deal to cut their total water use by two to four million acre feet. That's about 20 to 40% of the total flow of the river. It's just an astonishing amount of water. 20 to 40% of the flow of the river. Right. It's almost inconceivable. Wow. But the government said, we've got no choice. The situation is so dire. You, the states, have to make this cut. Please come to an agreement. They gave them a deadline of two months.

The states blew that deadline. There was no deal. So last fall, the government again said, really, states, we need you to come to a deal to make significant cuts. And the deadline for that second round was today, Tuesday. Oh, wow. And I spent the last few weeks talking to negotiators from the states, and they all tell me the same thing. It is extremely unlikely that they're going to reach a deal to make the magnitude of cuts the government wants. And what exactly would happen if they don't reduce their water usage, Chris? I mean, what's the actual problem that they're trying to solve?

In a word, it's Deadpool. And Deadpool is coming up fast. Deadpool. Okay, what's Deadpool? Large man-made reservoirs like Lake Mead could become a Deadpool. Deadpool. Okay, what's Deadpool? Large man-made reservoirs like Lake Mead could become a Deadpool. Deadpool. Deadpool is when Mead gets low enough to crash the whole Colorado system. I am genuinely worried about the possibility of this system hitting Deadpool. You are.

Absolutely, I am. So let's take a step back and remember at the center of this Colorado River system is two man-made lakes, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, both created by erecting enormous dams. The lakes are for drinking water, reservoirs. They also provide hydropower and flood control. They're crucial to the system. And there's two sorts of red lines that we're approaching as the drought gets worse. red lines that we're approaching as the drought gets worse. The first red line is if the water level in these two lakes gets low enough, these dams can't produce power anymore. That's a pretty significant hit for this region. It's not the end of the world. These aren't the only sources of

power, but it's a big problem. The next red line is way worse. The next red line you get to is Deadpool. At Deadpool, there's not enough water in these lakes for any water to pass through the dams. And what that means is these downstream states, California, Arizona, Nevada, they're losing what are in some cases their main source of drinking water and their main source of irrigation water. So as bad as no power is, no water at all passing through these dams is almost catastrophic for the lower half of this basin. And that's the one point everyone agrees on, the federal government and the seven states. Everybody wants to avoid Deadpool, but the question is, how do they do it? So how close are we to this nightmare scenario you're describing?

Well, when you physically look at the lakes, you can tell right away how incredibly low they are. Wow, this lake is so shallow right now. You can see the sides of the basins where there's the so-called bathtub ring areas that used to be wet and are now bone dry. We were able to see handfuls of previously sunken boats that used to be at the bottom of the lake, and now they're just sitting completely dry on the shore. You can see exposed parts of the lake bed. As the lake level recedes, secrets emerge. You can see in some places things that used to be buried,

like old boats, even in some cases... Like a body found in what's left of a metal barrel. Bodies that have turned up. Four bodies have been discovered as the lake dries up. But the scary thing here is that no one really knows with much certainty when Deadpool could arrive. And the reason no one really knows is for a long time, there was a fairly predictable relationship between how much snow fell in the mountains and how much of that water reached the river through snowmelt. What's happened recently is that relationship is broken down. So what I

heard from sources is that last year there was almost average snowpack, but well below average stream flows. The year before that, also almost average snowpack, but only about a third of average flows. So if you lose that relationship, that connection between how much snow falls and how much water flows the streams into the river, it becomes really hard to predict how fast the system dries up. So that's probably the worst place to be, where you lose your ability to predict just how fast these systems could disappear. So you're saying that it could happen anytime, basically. Like we don't really know what the timing of this is. And look, it doesn't seem like anyone thinks this could happen tomorrow and probably won't happen this year, but definitely a concern for the year after

and the year after that. But really the point to underline is all the models that used to inform how much water would be in these lakes are breaking down because of climate change, because the pattern of precipitation is changing, the temperature in the air is changing. So we no longer have as solid a grasp about how much time we have. So we no longer have as solid a grasp about how much time we have. So the government has to not just work on really tight timelines, but also acknowledge we can't be sure of anything anymore. And so everyone's trying to move as fast as they can in case we have even less time than we think. So the states are told they have to come to some agreement, right, on reducing their water usage. But they can't seem to do it. Why can't they come to an agreement?

The answer to that question starts 100 years ago. Back in 1922, the states argued over and finally agreed on how to apportion the water from the Colorado River. They knew even then that the Colorado is the key to their survival in terms of human habitation, irrigation, building cities. And that deal from 1922 called the Colorado River Compact has really held together over the last century. And it remains the foundation of how they interact. But the problem is that deal was really based on a fiction. Even at the time, the amount of water that was assumed to be running through the river every year was rarely as high as I thought it was going to be. And because of population growth and now climate

change, there's more and more pressure. So the actual water flow through that river keeps getting farther and farther below the number that holds up this whole deal. So Chris, they just miscalculated from the beginning? You know, you could say they miscalculated. You could say it was wishful thinking. But whatever the cause, the number that underlay this whole deal, 17.5 million acre feet of water every year, was just wrong. Oh, man. over the last century, it's been below that. And the last 20 years, it's been dangerously below that. And that number keeps on shrinking almost every year. So really what's happening here is a deal that was never really quite based on fact

is colliding with the reality of climate change. Yeah, interesting, interesting. So basically all this development in the West, you know, the growth of agriculture in Southern California, the growth of cities like Phoenix, was all based on a flawed assumption. That there would be way more water than there ever actually was. That's right. And the consequences of that flawed assumption just grew over time because based on those assumptions, cities emerged and got bigger. Communities got bigger., farmers planted more crops. So the demand on that river grew. And at the same time, especially in the last 20 years, the supply of water has shrunk even more dramatically

because of the drought and the effects of climate change. So this deal, this sort of foundational agreement is under pressure from both sides, more demand and less water. And last year and this year are really the point where it becomes obvious to everyone. It's just untenable. So what exactly are these states arguing? I mean, what does the fight look like? Well, there's two basic groups, Upper Basin and Lower Basin. Let's start with the Upper Basin. The Upper Basin are four states, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. They're kind of a group. What makes them a group is that they are all upstream of these two reservoirs, Lake Powell

and Lake Mead. So the important thing what the upstream states is they don't rely on giant reservoirs to just pull their water from. They are sort of dependent on whatever the stream flow is. And as the snow melts in the Rocky Mountains has gone down, the amount of water reaching these states has dropped precipitously, I'm told they're getting about half as much as their actual allotment is the amount of actual water reaching the mostly farmers' fields in these states. Amazing. So their argument is, don't look to us. We're already at half of our paper rights for water,

so how can you ask us to go much lower? We can't be the solution. Right. We're already down by half, so no way. Not us. Exactly. And so that just leaves the three lower-based states, which are Nevada, Arizona, and California. And Nevada's pretty straightforward. They already get almost no water. They have an allotment of 300,000 acre-feet. It's a sliver in the pie. Even if you just cut off Nevada entirely, it wouldn't get the government that much closer to its goal. And Nevada says, well, hang on, we're already doing a lot anyway to reduce our water use. The state even passed a law last year outlawing some kinds of grass lawns. So their argument is, don't look to us. Right. So that leaves just two states, Arizona and California, which happen to be the two states that actually use the most water. And they've got something else in common, which is both states say

more cuts should come from the other state. Okay. But what makes those two states really interesting is they have just fundamentally different arguments and different philosophies about how this should be decided. So what looks at first glance like a battle between states is really a battle between two competing ideas. We'll be right back. Okay, Chris, so this big question about how to reduce the water use of the Colorado River is, as you just laid out for us, basically coming down to a dispute between California on the one side and Arizona on the other. And you said they had two really different approaches. So what are these approaches? Tell me about them.

So let's start with California. And we should say it's the southern part of the state that's getting this water. It's Los Angeles and San Diego. And most of all, it's farmers in the Imperial Valley and other parts of the southern part of the state, this sort of breadbasket of America. And Southern California is making what boils down to a legal argument. The way the laws of the river work is that different users have different priorities based on how long they've been using the water. And California, Southern California, has really the most senior rights in the system. Before California gets cut, others, in particular Arizona,

are supposed to get cut first. So California says, look, our legal basis is strong. We don't have to take these cuts. They should go to somebody else first. And only once Arizona goes dry do you come to us. Now, it's not their only argument. California also says that because they produce so much of the vegetables and even hay for cows around the country, if California were to be meaningfully cut, you would have a food crisis. Right. But their main argument is on the law. And everyone I talked to for the story said that on the law itself, California is mostly right. That's not the dispute. The dispute is how much will that argument count for against Arizona's case? So what's Arizona's case?

Arizona makes a very different argument. And the negotiators I spoke with conceded that their legal argument isn't that strong. But they say they've got different arguments. The main one is what's practical and what's fair. They say that most of the farmers in Arizona who rely on this water have already suffered and lost a lot of that water. It really comes down to this point to cities, Phoenix and Tucson, and also tribes. A significant number of Native American tribes are along these canals in Arizona, and they would be hurt too. So Arizona says, sure, on the law, maybe you can cut us first, But in reality, it makes no sense. You would be causing

significant health harms to these cities, and the government would be violating its obligations to tribes that have been promised this water through treaties. So Arizona's argument boils down to, don't just look at the law, look at what makes sense. And if you look at what makes sense, you cannot cut us that deep because people would suffer too much. I mean, Arizona is basically saying to California, we're talking about people and drinking water and being able to bathe. I mean, this is more important than some cabbages or some almond farms. I mean, this is more important than some cabbages or some almond farms. Yeah, and it's a really compelling argument. But at the same time, California has what seems like a compelling argument, which is, was it a good idea in the first place for Arizona to build these cities in the desert that rely on a supply of water whose legal foundation was never that solid, right? And I think the intractability of these negotiations really comes down to the fact that both sides have good

arguments, but they're good in different ways. And nobody is quite willing to agree to a deal that imposes really severe harm on their own constituents. And I don't know how you get around that dynamic. So what are they going to do? What happens now? So the federal government, having failed last summer to get states to make a deal, tried again. And in November, they said to the states, all right, here's what's going to happen. We're going to start a process to study the effects of significantly cutting water use from the Colorado. And we want you to give us a plan that we can study. Because if we don't have a plan in place that's been studied by the summer, which is when evaporation is highest, temperatures are highest.

Right, the threat of Deadpool is looming. That's right. The threat of Deadpool is highest because these lakes will shrink even more. So this isn't some arbitrary timeline. The government has said to states, if you want to be involved in this and have us study your plan, give it to us by the end of January. And that's the deadline the states now seem unable to meet. Right. So now the federal government has to find a plan of its own because

it won't have a plan from the states. And the federal government is concerned that if there isn't a plan the states have agreed on, that sets up a very real risk that whatever the government does gets mired in legal fights, which could slow down the whole process and make it harder to act with the urgency that's required. Like a delay that they can't really afford. Yeah. So we don't know yet how these cuts will actually be distributed, but it's a pretty safe bet that it's going to be some combination of the following. Probably some portion of farmers in California won't have water to irrigate their crops. They'll have to fallow their fields. Number two, cities in Arizona and quite possibly in Southern California will have to be even more aggressive and innovative and rushed about using less water, becoming more efficient and ripping up more lawns.

Tribes in Arizona in particular will see their access to water go down. These are communities that will suffer a lot if they lose access to water. So this pain is going to be spread around. But the question that I think everyone is asking is, will the pain be so great in any one area that it's just unbearable? And in some cases, these states are going to decide that they can't bear it, and they need to find new sources of water, whether it's recycling, desalination, maybe even bringing water in from somewhere else through pipelines. So this isn't the end of the story.

This is going to prompt a whole new wave of aggressive, risky, maybe not quite feasible strategies to try and get more water. So really, we're back to where we were 100 years ago. They've got to figure out where to get more water. Right. Back then, the West looked around and, you know, saw a landscape that was mostly desert, but decided not to accept that reality and instead decided to do these really dramatic things to change that reality. And you're saying they might do that again. That's right. Anyone who's been to this part of the country knows there is an almost magnetic draw, like an almost unearthly beauty that this part of the country has.

And people can't get nothing. And just like 100 years ago, they'll do whatever they can to make it livable and to grow there. Even as the cost of that growth gets harder and harder to bear. And the only question is, what will they try next? Chris, thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. On Monday, the fallout from the death of Tyree Nichols,

the 29-year-old who was violently beaten by police in Memphis, continued. After firing five officers, the city confirmed that it had removed two more officers from duty for their role in the encounter, one of whom fired a stun gun at Nichols. Meanwhile, the city's fire department fired two medics and a lieutenant for failing to follow protocols. Video footage of the incident show the medics failing to treat Nichols after he was beaten. And in Pakistan, a powerful bombing ripped through a mosque in Peshawar, a northern provincial capital near the border with Afghanistan,

killing at least 60 people and injuring at least 157. The suicide bombing was the worst attack in the country in months and comes as violence near the border has been rising, especially against Pakistan's police and military. The mosque that was hit on Monday was frequented by police officers. Today's episode was produced by Michael Simon-Johnson and Will Reed, with help from Claire Tennis-Sketter. It was edited by Paige Cowett,

contains original music by Marian Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.