SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Federal government released a new plan yesterday to conserve water on the Colorado River. Cities and farms in seven states have relied on that river for many years, even as climate change and drought have reduced its levels. According to the federal plan, Arizona, California and Nevada will all need to reduce their water draws through the next two years. KJZZ's Alex Hager has been covering the story from Phoenix. Thanks so much for being with us, Alex.
ALEX HAGER, BYLINE: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
SIMON: And remind us again why the federal government's even involved.
HAGER: Well, after years of closed-door negotiations, the states could not come to a consensus about how to bring down demand for water, so the federal government made some cuts instead. They say they have the legal authority to do that because they built a lot of the dams and canals that move water around the downstream states. That brings us to yesterday's announcement.
The federal government says those downstream states - Arizona, California and Nevada - will take about 20% less water from the river over the next two years. The biggest of those cuts will be in Arizona. This plan does not include mandatory cuts for the upstream states that use the river - that's Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico - where the federal government doesn't think it has the legal power to require cuts.
SIMON: So does this mean that people in Arizona, Nevada and California are just going to have to use less water?
HAGER: The short answer is no. The cuts are going to hit hardest in the Tucson and Phoenix areas. Cities around where I am in Phoenix have seen these cuts coming for years. So they've spent a lot of money on a backup plan. For most cities, they don't just depend on the Colorado River. They also pull water from underground and a different nearby river system. So when they have to dial back their take from the Colorado River, they can just turn to the water they get from those other sources. But it's really expensive to build the kind of pipes and wells and treatment plants they need to access that other water. So even though taps aren't going dry, people will feel this eventually because their water bills are going to go up to pay for all those backup plants.
SIMON: What's the reaction from these states been? What are people saying?
HAGER: The reaction has been mostly positive. The 20% cut that came out yesterday is kind of a sigh of relief for Arizona, California and Nevada. The federal government said it could cut their water up to 40%. So this will be easier for them to bear. But there is also a sense of unease. Arizona's top water negotiator, Tom Buschatzke, says the future is still uncertain for them since these rules only last for a couple of years.
TOM BUSCHATZKE: The reductions will provide substantial stability for folks as we continue to negotiate and figure out how we're going to operate over a longer-term period, which is what we all want.
HAGER: The states are probably heading back to the negotiating table soon to figure out what happens after 2028 and if bigger cuts are going to be needed.
SIMON: So this is not a long-term solution.
HAGER: That's right. The Colorado River is in the midst of a long-term problem. Twenty-six years of drought and climate change have been drying it up, and people have still been taking a lot of water out. And a two-year short-term cut to demand doesn't change that enough to make a big difference. These cuts are mostly focused on keeping water in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the nation's two largest reservoirs.
If water drops much further, they could lose some of their ability to generate hydropower for millions of people across the West. This two-year plan helps preserve some of that hydropower, but a bigger fix is still needed for the Colorado River as a whole. That would probably mean deeper, longer cuts to water use for more of the cities and farms that depend on the river.
SIMON: KJZZ's Alex Hager. Thanks so much.
HAGER: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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