It’s time to set the record straight regarding the negotiations among Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado regarding the post-2026 Colorado River operations.
Amid the backdrop of prolonged drought and declining flows of the Colorado River, the seven states have the unenviable task of balancing the amount of water Mother Nature provides and the stressors related to the use of that water for 40 million people and millions of acres of farmland.
Discussions among the seven basin states continue, but finding common ground has been extremely challenging. The United States has told the seven basin states that if an agreement is not reached by November 11, 2025, they will move forward with an alternative. The terms and conditions of that alternative have not been disclosed. There is still an opportunity to avoid the path of federally imposed operating guidelines and the legal entanglements that would likely follow. But the clock is ticking.
However, Arizona, California, Nevada, and our partners in Mexico have not been idle. Over the last decade, we have reduced our water use so that the elevation of Lake Mead, the primary storage reservoir supplying water to our three states and Mexico, is over 100 feet higher because of those water-use reductions. That is over two trillion gallons of water. Arizona’s contribution to that success story? Nearly a trillion gallons of that total entirely on our own.
Those reductions have been painful, but they have not been enough to sustain the river. Moving forward, all seven states must do more.
That outcome requires bold thinking, sacrifice, and a willingness to share in protecting the Colorado River by all seven states that benefit from its bounty. The tool to achieve that goal is simple: reduce water use.
Arizona, California, and Nevada have put forth a Post 2026 operational proposal that requires mandatory, certai,n and verifiable water-use reductions of additional billions of gallons of water by the three Lower Basin states.
To the contrary, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico have not agreed, nor have they proposed, any mandatory, certain and verifiable reductions in their water use. Not. One. Single. Gallon. Instead, they propose that water-use reductions needed to save the Colorado River come solely from Arizona, California and Nevada.
Such an outcome could bring Arizona’s people to their knees. But that will not happen. The State of Arizona shall not perish from this earth.
I implore the citizens of the Colorado River Basin to rise up and demand that the negotiators for Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico partner with Arizona, California, and Nevada and put mandatory, certain, and verifiable water-use reductions on the table for their four states. That is the only outcome that can result in a seven-state agreement.
In the alternative, the path we are on can be best captured by a quote from William Shakespear’s “Julius Ceasar,” “Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”
Tom Buschatzke is the Director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and is the chief Colorado River negotiator for Arizona. He has over 43 years of public service ensuring that Arizonans have a sustainable water future.
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