Playing Chicken on the CRB and other stuff
Friends of Confluence West -
While the Upper Basin and Lower Basin state leaders remain radio silent on their CRB negotiations, there are interesting tea leaves to read.
Right now, the word on the street is that Reclamation will wait until the new Administration gets its sea legs – maybe the first quarter in 2025, maybe the second. There will be no joint UB and LB panels at CRWUA - ditto at last week’s ‘Big Kahuna’ meeting in Santa Fe. Tom Buschatzke, the head of Arizona DWR (and one of the smartest CRB state leaders), recently announced his contingency plans for a ‘no deal’ scenario.
The states’ negotiations are behind closed doors, and stakeholders with skin in the game (e.g., Tribes, river-huggers, cities, et al) aren’t at the table. All in all, not pretty.
For a cheerier read, check out our last two Three Drop Thursday Money, Money, Money – Making the Case. So many encouraging sustainable water protection projects are happening – just now, not a long-term result in the CRB states’ negotiations. All those negotiations impact 34 million people, including 30 plus Tribes, Mexico, and agriculture. Just sayin’.
For the West,
Kimery
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Playing Chicken on the CRB
John Fleck’s blogs are usually encouraging, but this most recent one is not (though in the same post, John manages to riff on the Beatles' Rubber Soul album).
Remember the game of chicken theory? Two drivers are speeding towards each other on a collision course. Do they serve, stop, or crash? The authors of the “chicken” theory note: Without foresight into game changes over time, players are blind to the fact that they are in a game of chicken. We model agents with foresight by interconnecting games across time and show how this creates opportunities for“strategic loss” early on, allowing players with foresight to reduce total costs. High future costs can thus be avoided with foresight if the rising costs of inaction are made apparent.
John comments: “The Upper Basin seems to have convinced itself, at least based on public pronouncements, that it has a winning legal argument in terms of its obligation, or lack thereof, to send water downstream past Lee Ferry.”
He adds: “Once deliveries past Lee Ferry drop below one of the "tripwire" triggers (82.5maf / ten years or 75/10), the Lower Basin states have nothing to lose by suing.”
Many of the CRB decision-makers don’t (despite rhetoric claiming otherwise) understand how inaction will bring enormous consequences (probably some we can't even imagine right now.
Is conservation enough? Probably not …
It’s good to see Luke Runyon back in the CRB saddle for the Colorado Sun. His recent piece is, Cities in the West are booming. But will they actually need a lot more water?
He points out that collectively, western cities that rely on CRB water have grown 25% from 2000 to 2020, but that water usage has dropped by 18%, with per-person rates down by 30% (i.e., ag vs urban usage.)
It's definitely a conservation success story. But as Runyon asks, thanks to a rapidly changing climate on the CRB, is there a floor to how much conservation will continue to work?
The western water managers we work with are asking a similar question: Is there a conservation savings bottom, and if so, how will you know when you get there? How much new supply (DPR, IPR, desal, etc.) will be needed—and when?
Major Design Flaw. Oops!
Zak Podmore’s piece, Glen Canyon Dam faces Dead Pool, popped our eyes open with this fun factoid: Even at Dead Pool, Powell would still stretch 100 miles upstream – a basic design flaw of no ‘plug’ in the system.
Right now, Reclamation is madly working on modifications, including how to drill tunnels at or near the river level to allow Powell to empty.
Zak adds: “Allowing the Colorado River to flow freely through Glen Canyon was a radical idea in the 1990s, but the opposite is true today. Climate change and steady water demand in the Southwest have shown us that the Glen Canyon Dam, instead of being a boon to water users, is part of the problem.”
Zak ends his piece with this: “The extremists today are those who deny climate change, assuming that Lake Powell will refill again soon. In a rapidly warming world, business as usual should be treated as the fringe position.”
For years, I’ve been in the “Keep Glen Canyon Dam” camp – Mead is at a lower elevation, and climate change is accelerating, so the evaporation levels would be higher. I’m clueless about what to do with Glen’s hydro production, but I know smarter minds are working on that. All that said, climate change likely leaves us with no choice – can we plan accordingly?
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