The Colorado River begins in the Rocky Mountain snowpack, which provides the water that starts off the river on its epic journey. But as the American West gets hotter, the snowpack at the start keeps getting smaller and smaller.dodged the difficult questions raised by the Lower Basin’s competing demands. But it did complicate matters further by opening the door to diversion of more water by the Central Arizona Project.
The river is seriously overallocated. The 1922 compact and a 1944 treaty with Mexico apportion a total of 17.5 million acre-feet a year, far more than the available supply. And there is virtually no chance that all seven states will ever agree to amend or redo the 1922 compact. It’s not even clear that the political leadership of all four Upper Basin states can accept that climate change is real.
California, Arizona, Nevada and the tribal communities of the Lower Basin are in a position to take advantage of what has worked for the Upper Basin. A Lower Basin subcompact could allocate water based on how much is available, not what we thought we had decades ago. It could also include provisions for assessing evaporation and a commission to administer the deal.