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Tag: bureau of reclamation

Arizona lawyers up for potential Colorado River court battle

Key Points:
  • The Arizona Department of Water Resources has retained the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell
  • The announcement comes as negotiations over Colorado River sharing remain stalled
  • Despite pleas from Gov. Katie Hobbs, the federal government has not intervened

Arizona is retaining legal counsel in preparation for a potential court battle over the Colorado River, according to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources has hired the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell to represent the state’s position as negotiations remain at a standstill and federal intervention on behalf of the Lower Basin seems unlikely. 

The Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico and the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada have entered a third year of negotiating guidelines for sharing the river after 2026. The announcement comes after negotiators missed two federally-imposed deadlines to reach a deal, one in November and the other in February. 

No consequences appeared to come from missing the deadlines, but in January the Bureau of Reclamation issued a draft environmental impact statement with five alternatives to the river’s current operating guidelines. Arizona’s leaders oppose all five alternatives and have asked the bureau to revoke the draft EIS.

Hobbs has repeatedly called on leaders at the Department of the Interior to step in and serve as mediators in the stalled negotiations, but to no avail. She made one such plea on March 17 during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce summit in Washington, D.C., imploring President Donald Trump and his administration to recognize the threat to Arizona’s Colorado River allocation as a national security issue. 

“Let me be very clear, this administration’s goals rely on Arizona receiving our fair share of Colorado River water,” Hobbs said. “It relies on Arizona-made missiles, Arizona-made semiconductors, and Arizona grown-agriculture … This administration must step in, show leadership and help the seven states come to a reasonable and fair agreement to ensure Arizona has the ability to defend our nation, feed our nation and build the high tech economy of our nation’s future.”

Hobbs’ office says it is currently unclear on what shape the litigation will take as the seven states await action from the federal government. A decision from the Department of the Interior on the draft EIS is likely to come around June, which will help the state better understand its legal position. 

Depending on the department’s decision, Arizona may sue the federal government or the Upper Basin states. Officials in Hobbs’ office say they believe Arizona has a very strong case based on delivery obligations outlined in the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which requires the Upper Basin to deliver 7.5 million acre feet of water to the Lower Basin annually.  

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told lawmakers in his state in January that his office has built up a team ready for litigation, while California and Nevada have obtained counsel for a Supreme Court showdown, according to Hobbs’ office. Arizona allocated $3 million to a Colorado River Litigation Fund in 2025, and state lawmakers are hoping to add even more money to the fund during this year’s budget process. 

Hobbs has long said that a negotiated agreement is still the preferred outcome, but that possibility is seeming less and less likely. Arizona’s chief water negotiator, ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke, is still engaged in weekly negotiation meetings though, according to Hobbs’ office. 

The seven Colorado River states are currently operating under a temporary deal brokered in 2023, intended as a bridge to negotiate a 20-year agreement set to take effect in 2027. As part of those negotiations, Arizona has agreed to reduce its Colorado River usage by 1.5 million acre feet, which amounts to 27% of the state’s allocation. 

Hobbs has said the state is willing to cut more, but only if the Upper Basin states agree to reductions in their supply. The Upper Basin states have argued they should not be forced to make cuts because they historically have not used their entire Colorado River allocation, while California and Arizona have regularly used more than their allotted share. 

The stakes have only been raised by a dismal winter on the Colorado River watershed, which brought a snow drought and record-high temperatures. The Department of Interior hopes to finalize new operating guidelines for the river by Oct. 1. 

A crack in Arizona’s Colorado River front

Key Points:
  • Arizona leaders are anxious amid stalled Colorado River negotiations
  • Some Republicans are splitting hairs with Gov. Katie Hobbs over what to do next
  • One lawmaker is accusing his rural colleagues of organizing to sell out cities

Arizona leaders are getting antsy as the state’s water future hangs in limbo without a negotiated deal on Colorado River sharing guidelines and without federal intervention. 

A federally imposed deadline for an agreement on splitting the river’s water between the seven basin states came and went in February with no movement. And despite leaders from the Department of Interior pledging to step in and broker a deal, no progress has been made so far this year.

Arizona leaders at every level and from every party are opposed to the Interior Department’s draft environmental impact statement on post-2026 Colorado River operations, which they say fails to consider the meaningful cuts the state has already made to its water usage. The public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement ended on March 2 and the Department of Interior and Bureau of Reclamation have yet to communicate a path forward. 

In the meantime, with competitive elections hanging over the heads of nearly all the state’s elected officials, cracks are beginning to form in Arizona’s united front as leaders contemplate how best to make a case to the federal government. 

“People are pretty united about the state’s position, and I think it’s because the state’s position is we’re not going to take a deal that leaves us worse off than no deal,” said Sarah Porter, director for Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy. “… I don’t expect to have perfect unanimity in terms of ‘what do we do next.’”

Arizona’s position

In January, the Bureau of Reclamation published a draft environmental impact statement, offering five alternatives to the current operating guidelines. All of those alternatives suffer from “serious legal and analytical defects,” according to Arizona’s chief water negotiator and director of the Department of Water Resources, Tom Buschatzke. 

In a letter, Buschatzke notes that the alternatives do not adhere to the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which requires the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico to deliver certain quantities of water to the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada. 

Gov. Katie Hobbs has said Arizona is not willing to cut more than the around 5 million acre feet in water usage it has already conserved unless the Upper Basin states also agree to meaningful reductions in their own usage.

At a U.S. Chamber of Commerce summit in Washington, D.C. on March 17, Hobbs said the environmental impact statement signals that the federal government plans on balancing the Colorado River water shortage “completely on Arizona’s back.”

“Since the 1950s, we’ve added over 6 million people to our state and have an economy roughly 100 times bigger, yet we’re still using roughly the same amount of water,” Hobbs said. “And we’re willing to do more, but recent plans from the Department of Interior are putting our water supply in jeopardy.”

Making the case

Hobbs went on offense over the fall of 2025 to promote the state’s position, blasting the Upper Basin states for their “extreme negotiating position” and urging the Department of Interior to intervene ahead of a Nov. 11 deadline to reach a deal. 

During the annual Colorado River Water Users Association in December, some states’ water stakeholders complained to Arizona’s representatives that Hobbs was “getting so engaged” in an area where governors typically rely on their state’s Colorado River negotiators to communicate their position. 

Hobbs “called for and secured the unprecedented meeting” between the Colorado River governors and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in February, according to her office. The governor told reporters the meeting left her feeling “cautiously optimistic” about a negotiated deal, though nothing further emerged from it. 

All of that isn’t stopping Arizona Republicans in the Legislature and in Congress from accusing Hobbs of not doing enough to sway the conversation in the state’s favor or to court the approval of President Donald Trump’s administration. U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told reporters on March 13 that he met with House and Senate Republicans at the state Capitol to strategize on the Colorado River.

“We’re working with the Bureau of Reclamation and trying to make our case and we really haven’t seen much help from the Governor’s Office,” he said. 

Biggs, who is seeking the Republican nomination to run against Hobbs in November, said the governor hasn’t collaborated enough with Arizona’s congressional delegation on the Colorado River. 

“She should have been working with us for the last couple of years to work with this administration,” Biggs said. “Whether we like it or not, Washington, D.C. deals in politics and parties, and that’s why I’m glad Senator (Mark) Kelly is working on this and pushing from his side, and we’re pushing from our side, and I think that that’s where she should have been all along.”

Biggs and Kelly sent a letter calling on the Bureau of Reclamation to rescind the draft environmental impact statement, given that none of its outlined options are favorable to Arizona. Some Republicans in the Legislature, like Rep. Alex Kolodin of Scottsdale, are echoing Biggs’ concerns at the state level. 

“I am concerned that the Hobbs administration is simply not qualified or capable of negotiating a resolution that is going to be anything but devastating to the people of Arizona,” Kolodin said. “They have been way too hesitant to seriously prepare for litigation and I believe this weakness is being sensed by all participants.”

Hobbs and Republican lawmakers earmarked $3 million for potential Colorado River litigation in the state’s budget last year, but Rep. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, said in an early February press release that Arizona is late to the party.

“Arizona does not get to wish its way out of a water fight,” Griffin said in a statement. “Other states have been positioning themselves for court long before this fund was created.”

While a court battle is still largely viewed as a last resort by Arizona leaders, lawmakers in the House unanimously approved a funding measure in February to add another $1 million to the state’s litigation fund, signalling bipartisan appetite for a lawsuit. 

In a statement, Hobbs’ communications director Christian Slater slammed Republican lawmakers for staying silent on Colorado River issues for the last three years.

“Their failure to stand up and fight for Arizona’s fair share of Colorado River water is a stunning failure of leadership from politicians more interested in launching partisan attacks than getting the job done,” Slater said. “Their criticisms are nothing more than a desperate, election-year stunt to attack Governor Hobbs and cover for their complete and utter lack of engagement on the issue.”

Water is for fighting

Rifts are also starting to form within the Legislature’s Republican caucus over the river. Kolodin told a meeting of the Legislative District 3 Republicans on March 9 that he believes rural lawmakers are forming a negotiating party to advocate for their districts in the event of drastic cuts imposed by the federal government.

“If we’re in a situation where Arizona’s Colorado River allotment gets cut back severely, every lawmaker is going to be trying to protect their districts, that’s their job,” Kolodin told the Arizona Capitol Times. “Because water is a zero sum game, everybody’s going to be trying to get the best deal for their districts at the expense of others.” 

Hobbs’ office says Arizona has been a leader on water conservation over the past few decades, but only because leaders have been able to set their differences aside.

“That success has been made possible by bipartisan leaders who know water isn’t a Democratic or a Republican issue, it’s an Arizona issue,” Slater said in a statement. 

Porter, of the ASU Kyl Center for Water Policy, also cautioned against discord among state officials, saying a lack of unity from local leaders at all levels could spell trouble. 

“There are different politics, and if we get to a very deep shortage, what will be daylighted is the dysfunctionality more than anything else,” Porter said. 

Feds outline ‘necessary steps’ for Colorado River agreement by 2026 but no recommendation yet

Federal water officials made public on Wednesday what they called “necessary steps” for seven states and multiple tribes that use Colorado River water and hydropower to meet an August 2026 deadline for deciding how to manage the waterway in the future.

“Today we show our collective work,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said as she outlined four proposals for action and one “no action” alternative that she and Biden’s government will leave for the incoming Trump Administration — with formal environmental assessments still to come and just 20 months to act.

The announcement offered no recommendation or decision about how to divvy up water from the river, which provides electricity to millions of homes and businesses, irrigates vast stretches of desert farmland and reaches kitchen faucets in cities including Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

Instead it provided a bullet-point sample of elements from competing proposals submitted last March by three key river stakeholders: Upper Basin states Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming, where most of the water originates; Lower Basin states California, Arizona and Nevada, which rely most on water captured by dams at lakes Powell and Mead; and more than two dozen Native American tribes with rights to river water.

“They’re not going to take the any of the proposals,” said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “The federal government put the components together in a different way … and modeled them to provide near-maximum flexibility for negotiations to continue.”

One alternative would have the government act to “protect critical infrastructure” including dams and oversee how much river water is delivered, relying on existing agreements during periods when demand outstrips supply. “But there would be no new delivery and storage mechanisms,” the announcement said.

A second option would add delivery and storage for Lake Powell and Lake Mead, along with “federal and non-federal storage” to boost system sustainability and flexibility “through a new approach to distributing” water during shortages.

The third, dubbed “cooperative conservation,” cited a proposal from advocates aimed at managing and gauging water releases from Lake Powell amid “shared contributions to sustain system integrity.”

And a fourth, hybrid proposal includes parts of Upper and Lower Basin and Tribal Nations plans, the announcement said. It would add delivery and storage for Powell and Mead, encourage conservation and agreements for water use among customers and “afford the Tribal and non-Tribal entities the same ability to use these mechanisms.”

The “no action” option does not meet the purpose of study but was included because it is required under the National Environmental Policy Act, the announcement said.

In 2026, legal agreements that apportion the river will expire. That means that amid the effects of climate change and more than 20 years of drought, river stakeholders and the federal government have just months to agree what to do.

“We still have a pretty wide gap between us,” Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s main negotiator on the Colorado River, said in a conference call with reporters. He referred to positions of Upper Basin and Lower Basin states. Tribes including the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona have also been flexing their long-held water rights.

Buschatzke said he saw “some really positive elements” in the alternatives but needed time to review them in detail. “I think anything that could be done to move things forward on a faster track is a good thing,” he said.

Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado said in a statement the alternatives “underscore how serious a situation we’re facing on the Colorado River.”

“The only path forward is a collaborative, seven-state plan to solve the Colorado River crisis without taking this to court,” he said. “Otherwise, we’ll watch the river run dry while we sue each other.”

Wednesday’s announcement came two weeks after Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election to Republican former President Donald Trump, and two weeks ahead of a key meeting of the involved parties at Colorado River Water Users Association meetings in Las Vegas.

Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network advocacy group, said “snapshots” offered in the announcement “underscore the uncertainty that is swirling around future river management as a new administration prepares to take office.”

“The river needs basin-wide curtailments, agreements to make tribes whole, a moratorium on new dams and diversions, commitments for endangered species and new thinking about outdated infrastructure,” he said.

Buschatzke declined to speculate about whether Trump administration officials will pick up where Biden’s leaves off. But Porter, at the Kyl Center, said the announcement “shows an expectation of continuity.”

“The leadership is going to change, but there are a lot of people who have been working on this for a long time who will still be involved in the negotiations and modeling,” she said.

___

Associated Press writer Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, contributed.

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