By SEJAL GOVINDARAO and MEAD GRUVER<\/p>\n
PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Colorado and other upstream states aren’t doing enough to commit to sharing and conserving water in the Colorado River system<\/a>, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said Wednesday as seven-state talks on managing the critical supply blew past a Trump administration deadline with no deal.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only do they refuse to commit to any water use reductions, they tell our negotiators that it is too complicated and impossible for them to reduce water use. And I have a really hard time believing that,\u201d Hobbs said at a news conference in Yuma.<\/p>\n The remarks suggested that the upstream states \u2014 Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico \u2014 and the downstream states \u2014 Arizona, California and Nevada \u2014 have a ways to go before agreeing on how to manage the river. The dwindling supply of water now serves the needs of 40 million people, for everything from washing dishes to irrigating crops and running factories.<\/p>\n Colorado officials responded to Hobbs’ remarks, which resembled others she’s made about the negotiations recently, by saying they remained committed to the talks that have been ongoing for more than two years. A joint statement from the seven states, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Department of the Interior on Tuesday said they’ve made collective progress.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the acting head of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation<\/a>, Scott Cameron, told the seven states to agree to a framework for a river plan by Nov. 11. That deadline passed Tuesday with no announcement of a deal or even details about sticking points, heightening the chance the Interior Department will step in with its own plan before current rules and guidelines expire next year. <\/p>\n A key issue is that Upper Basin states don\u2019t use their full share of water, yet are legally obligated to send a certain amount of water on average downstream to the Lower Basin. Meanwhile, the low levels of Lake Mead on the Arizona-Nevada border have triggered mandatory reductions in the supply to those two states.<\/p>\n In a letter Tuesday to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Hobbs and Arizona legislative leaders criticized what they said was an \u201cextreme\u201d negotiating position by Upper Basin states regarding water conservation. Arizona has been a leader in conservation, the letter asserts.<\/p>\n Colorado Water Commissioner Becky Mitchell responded by saying the letter’s \u201cheightened rhetoric is not helpful at this time.”<\/p>\n A statement by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who, like Hobbs, is a Democrat, said: \u201cWe remain committed to collaborating with our fellow basin states and moving forward to do what is best for Colorado River users, including protecting Colorado\u2019s water resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Hobbs plans to meet with Burgum next week. It’s unclear when negotiators plan to meet again. Arizona Department of Water Resources spokesman Doug MacEachern said recent talks were happening about every other week.<\/p>\n \n At Wednesday’s news conference in Yuma, Hobbs took particular aim at Colorado for leading the Upper Basin states in refusing to \u201cput any water on the table to share in future water shortages.\u201d <\/p>\n More involvement by President Donald Trump’s administration seemed likely to John Berggren, regional policy manager with Western Resource Advocates, a Boulder, Colorado-based environmental group.<\/p>\n \u201cThe feds will move forward and we\u2019ll continue to advocate for what we want to see in the new guidelines,\u201d Berggren said. \u201cEnvironmental values and environmental considerations.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of the water originates as winter mountain snowfall in the Upper Basin, which collects far more that way than it consumes. Lower Basin states, including agriculture-rich regions like California\u2019s Imperial Valley, are bigger consumers.<\/p>\n Along the way, major cities, including Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles, are also significant users of Colorado River water.<\/p>\n Who gets to use water \u2014 especially in dry spells<\/a> \u2014 and who must conserve and let it flow downstream has been the focus of agreements among the states for decades. But the original 1922 Colorado River Compact<\/a> was calculated based on an amount of water that doesn\u2019t exist in today’s climate of long-term drought.<\/p>\n California\u2019s biggest Colorado River water-rights holder, the Imperial Irrigation District, said in a statement that it supported California’s \u201ccollaborative approach\u201d to a river plan and \u201cvoluntary, equitable, and durable solutions that uphold its senior water rights” while sustaining food production and the environment.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures<\/a>. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014-<\/p>\n Gruver reported from Fort Collins, Colorado. Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By SEJAL GOVINDARAO and MEAD GRUVER PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Colorado and other upstream states aren’t doing enough to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":374848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-374847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115539837781409195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}