Feds will pay Arizona farmers and tribes $64M to use less water from the Colorado River

Federal officials on Friday announced $64 million in new Colorado River water conservation deals with Arizona irrigators and tribes to keep reservoir supplies at safe levels.

Irrigators from the Yuma Mesa Irrigation and Drainage District agreed to accept $400 per acre-foot in federal compensation for leaving 72,477 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead from 2023 through 2025, while the Mohave Valley Irrigation and Drainage District came to the same terms on 42,303 acre-feet. Deals with the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Hopi Tribe, Cibola Valley Irrigation District, Spanish Trails Water and Cathcart Farms pushed the new savings to nearly 163,000 acre-feet.

An acre-foot is roughly 326,000 gallons, or enough to supply two or three Arizona households for a year. The deals use part of more than $4 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act earmarked for western drought relief, and bring Arizona’s total voluntary cutbacks to nearly 1 million acre-feet over three years.

“It shows the rest of the country that a thriving economy and water conservation are not mutually exclusive,” Gov. Katie Hobbs said at Phoenix City Hall, where U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton announced the agreements.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said the state’s largest city, which signed a previous conservation deal, is committed to reducing its water needs. The city adopted incentives for efficient appliances and irrigation systems this year, she said, and will begin rewarding residents for removing grass turf starting next spring.

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“Arizona is deeply committed to work to protect the Colorado River,” Gallego said.

Counting previously announced deals with the Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix, Tucson, Scottsdale, Glendale, Gilbert and others, Arizona water providers have committed to saving 984,429 acre-feet over three years, a total that Touton made a point of reading down to the last digit instead of rounding.

“Every acre-foot counts,” she said.

She stood at a podium bearing the Biden administration’s “Investing in America” placard, and several mayors and tribal officials thanked Washington for the support. The administration had previously pledged more than $314 million for 11 Arizona deals to save some 786,000 acre-feet over three years. By far the largest deal is with the Gila River Indian Community, followed by the cities of Phoenix and Tucson.

“I couldn’t be more proud of Arizona as we confront this challenge head-on, together,” Gila River tribal Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said.

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Before sustained drought and overuse plunged Lake Mead and the Colorado River into crisis, Arizona was entitled to 2.8 million acre-feet from the river every year.

Through a series of drought contingency plans, federally mandated cuts and voluntary conservation, Arizona since 2014 has left 3.7 million acre-feet of water in Lake Mead, Arizona Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke said.

The amount that the Colorado River’s Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada are collectively using this year — 5.8 million acre-feet — is the lowest since 1984, he said.

“Our work is not done,” Buschatzke said.

The three-year time frame for these voluntary reductions is significant. By 2026, the seven states who share the river must come to terms over how to share deeper cutbacks, should the warming climate continue to shrink the river as it has over the last two decades, as the old rules are expiring.

If they can’t agree, the U.S. Department of the Interior may impose new limits on its own, which could spark a protracted legal battle. These conservation contracts are intended to buy time and keep water flowing through the dams during those negotiations, and Buschatzke said he's confident that they will achieve that.

At the same time, Reclamation is working through applications for federal funds to upgrade long-term efficiency on farms, which use most of the water, and in cities.

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Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the river, had originally sought 2 million acre-feet a year from the Lower Basin states over the next three years as the big reservoirs behind Hoover and Glen Canyon dams dropped below one-third full after having been essentially full in 2000.

The bureau announced last week that the meltwater from last winter’s big snowpack in the Rocky Mountains had made negligible the risk of reaching critical elevations that could threaten hydropower production or water flow through 2026.

“Mother Nature played a very handsome role” in easing the immediate threat, Central Arizona Project Board President Terry Goddard said. “It’s still a significant crisis.”

Brandon Loomis covers environmental and climate issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Reach him at brandon.loomis@arizonarepublic.com or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @brandonloomis.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: With the Colorado River in decline, water users take cash to conserve