Why 2 competing plans to save the Colorado River could be a good thing

California is the odd state out on a plan to keep Lake Powell and Lake Mead on life support, and right now, all we want to focus on is the conflict.

Which is understandable.

The fight that’s been brewing for months between California and the six other Colorado River basin states is a thorny one about who should shoulder the burden for saving the lakes. It’s a fundamental question that plenty of folks expect will end in court.

But let me offer a contrarian view:

Maybe it’s a good thing that we now have competing proposals from these two factions.

Maybe – just maybe – this will help us in the long run.

Why 2 plans to prop up the Colorado River?

The feds challenged the seven basin states last summer to figure out how they would trim an additional 2 to 4 million acre-feet of water use this year.

This isn’t just as an academic exercise. We need that extra water in the lakes to slow the steady march toward “dead pool,” the point where water no longer flows past the dams to users downstream.

The states have never been able to come to a deal voluntarily – mostly, because this is a lot of water to figure out how to stop using this quickly. It’s going to be painful.

That’s why the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the lakes, is now studying options to mandate action.

And that’s why these two proposals exist.

Federal officials asked states to offer additional ideas by Feb. 1 so they would have enough time to model their impacts in this study, called a supplemental environmental impact statement, by the spring draft deadline.

Federal modeling will provide useful answers

No states are locked in to making the cuts spelled out in either plan. But the evaluation should help us better understand how much each could prop up the lakes, for how long, and at what costs – both environmental and socioeconomic – to states, tribes and potentially even subcontractors within states.

That would be useful data to help guide what happens next.

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Both proposals agree that we need to make big cuts in water use.

Though the six-state version doles out that pain quicker than California’s, both entail about 3 million acre-feet in cuts.

That’s a far cry from this summer, when the Lower Basin states that rely on Lake Mead – Arizona, California and Nevada – could scarcely agree on a million acre-feet.

Where 6 states and California differ

More importantly, the two factions have spelled out how they would absorb such a giant cut, with far more detail than what most states had offered to the feds individually in November.

The six-state plan builds on Nevada’s idea of “charging” the Lower Basin – including Mexico – for evaporation and system losses at Lake Mead, a hefty sum of water that until now, we have pretended doesn’t exist.

It also adopts a more aggressive shortage sharing framework, so states would be on the hook to make deeper cuts sooner on Lake Mead.

The California plan relies much more heavily on voluntary actions to prop up the lake, and when mandatory cuts are necessary, it proposes to dole them out via a longstanding priority system.

Arizona would likely bear the brunt of that, though the proposal doesn’t break out those cuts by state.

Can we find acceptable middle ground?

The six-state plan, by comparison, asks Arizona to stop using more than 1.2 million acre-feet of its allocation – more than 40% of it – once Lake Mead reaches 1,020 feet of elevation, a level that, depending on the forecast, could come as early as this summer.

California would be on the hook for more than 1.4 million acre-feet – nearly a third of its allocation – at that point.

It’s a positive step to let the public kick the tires on these ideas.

If the modeling doesn’t compel compromise among state delegates – who are still at the proverbial negotiating table; no one’s walked away yet – it will at least help make the case for federal action, which Reclamation will need to defend itself against lawsuits, should they materialize.

With this level of detail now from states, we can do a better job of analyzing the trade-offs in each approach.

If nothing else, that’s a win.

Reach Allhands at joanna.allhands@arizonarepublic.com. On Twitter: @joannaallhands.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Colorado River plans from 6 states, California could be good news