As time grows short for a Colorado River deal, Trump is set to fill vacant water post

Yahoo

15-05-2025

The Trump administration is preparing to announce its pick to head the Bureau of Reclamation, a crucial position in deciding the future of the Colorado River, a White House spokesperson told the Arizona Republic. The move would effectively complete the new federal team overseeing strained negotiations over one of Arizona's largest water sources.
The new commissioner will take charge amid tense negotiations among the seven states that use the Colorado River, which has strained under multi-decadal drought and high water demand.
Southwestern states are working on an agreement to manage the river after the current guidelines expire in 2026. Without a proposal from the states, the new administration must impose a solution and risk drawing the river into a stream of lawsuits and conflict.
Experts worry that this year's poor river flows could trigger lawsuits over foundational river-management laws as soon as 2027. States only have months to reach a deal, and negotiators have not shown signs of progress.
'It's been more than a little frustrating,' Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said during a news conference on May 13.
Tom Buschatzke, director of the state Department of Water Resources and Arizona's Colorado River negotiator, has said the Trump administration is already more 'engaged in a much more meaningful way' on the Colorado River than former President Joe Biden's team and has responded to some of Arizona's long-unanswered requests in the negotiating process.
Trump officials could give Arizona and the other Lower Basin states of California and Nevada a new opportunity to convince federal regulators that those states should not have to take all the cuts on the river. Biden negotiators would not call for cuts in the Upper Basin, while Buschatzke said the new administration may be more open to finding a 'collaborative' solution.
Even so, Upper Basin states — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico — have continued arguing that they cannot be forced to cut their water use if climate change and drought are the causes of low flows in the river, meaning any attempts to cut their use could lead to a lawsuit. A case could drag on for years, while water levels in the reservoirs continue to drop.
"We have a non-depletion obligation, not a delivery obligation," Colorado Water Conservation Board official Amy Ostdiek said at a 2024 conference. "If we were in a territory close to dropping below a certain amount over a 10-year period, it would initiate an inquiry into what made that happen."
By contrast, the Lower Basin believes the Upper Basin must send a certain amount of water down the river no matter what.
"The Lower Basin states believe the Upper Basin owes the Lower Basin ... roughly 83 million acre feet over a 10-year average," Buschatzke said at the May 13 briefing. "That obligation occurs regardless of how much water they use or don't use in the Upper Basin."
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The White House expects to announce its nominee for Reclamation Commissioner in a matter of weeks, according to the spokesperson. The nominee will go through what could be a months-long process to be confirmed by the Senate before taking office.
A confirmed commissioner will fill out the three-person federal team that governs Colorado River management along with the states. President Donald Trump chose North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as his Interior Secretary and nominated former North Dakota Department of Water Resources Director Andrea Travnicek as Assistant Interior Secretary for Water and Science.
Travnicek has completed the first step in her Senate confirmation process, clearing the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on April 30. She said the Colorado River will be among her highest priorities in office.
The previous commissioner, Camille Calimlim Touton, left her position in January, along with other Biden appointees. Since then, Deputy Commissioner David Palumbo has served as acting commissioner, a typical arrangement during a transition between administrations. Scott Cameron has served as acting assistant secretary for water and science.
Trump's reclamation commissioner could be the only person on his appointed Colorado River team who comes from the river basin itself. So far, two of the three major federal officials who most affect the Colorado River — Burgum and Travnicek — are from outside the basin.
Anne Castle, who served as assistant secretary for water and science under President Barack Obama, said in an interview that the four previous commissioners have all come from Colorado River states.
'There has been significant experience and interest from the last several reclamation commissioners in the Colorado River basin,' Castle said.
Measuring water: How much water flows down the Colorado River? The right answer is more important than ever
Buschatzke said during the May 13 briefing in Phoenix that Trump's existing team has been more responsive to Arizona's concerns on the Colorado River. Specifically, Buschatzke said the bureau is helping model the potential consequences to the Upper Basin states if they don't come forward to make a deal and are seen as failing to meet obligations under the 1922 Colorado River Compact.
Arizona has repeatedly asked Reclamation to take that step in the past, a request that went unheeded until the arrival of the new administration.
'The federal government is helping us look at options that would show risk not only to the Lower Basin, but also to the Upper Basin, something we've really asked the government to do … when both sides feel risk, I think that creates the collaboration we need to move forward,' Buschatzke said.
Still, those moves don't necessarily indicate progress toward a seven-state proposal for river management, which is necessary to avoid a federally imposed solution and possible years-long court battles.
While Trump officials have been more responsive to some requests, Buschatzke said the administration has not yet heeded Lower Basin states' desires to change the federal government's list of options for managing the river after 2026. Arizona officials are not happy with the options the federal government put forward, which did not include the proposal Arizona submitted with California and Nevada (it also did not include the proposal from the Upper Basin states).
'We sent a letter saying we don't like that report … we want you to rescind that report," Buschatzke said. "That has not happened.'
To avoid one of the federal government's unappealing options for the river, the basin states need to set aside their differences and agree to their own proposal this summer, at the latest. Some officials have said that the agreement needed to materialize by May.
'If there's no collaborative outcome, I believe the federal government will move forward with whatever alternative they want to analyze, and we probably won't like what they analyze,' Buschatzke said.
Buschatzke said the administration has been more willing to 'tweak' the alternatives proposed for federal action and talk with states collectively about a collaborative alternative.
States had hoped to agree on a shared proposal for managing the river before the change in the White House in January, but disagreements over who should take cuts in their water use during dry years dragged negotiations out. State negotiators have declined to speak together at a water conference in Boulder, Colo., in June, which some water experts see as a possible indication that talks are not going well.
The fact that the Upper Basin is engaging in talks at all is a 'sign of progress,' Buschatzke said, but he would not comment on the chances of a seven-state agreement.
Meanwhile, projections of worse-than-average river flows this year are only getting worse. Scientists project that the Colorado River will only produce about half of its normal summer flow in 2025, according to a May 1 outlook from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center. Low water levels in large reservoirs could send Arizona into a new level of water cuts in 2027, even deeper than the cuts it has already taken, according to an April projection from the Bureau of Reclamation.
Official projections from Reclamation also show that flows from the Upper Basin could drop below the annual average amount required to satisfy allocations to the Lower Basin and Mexico as soon as 2027, depending on changes in dam operations. Water experts see that event as a possible tripwire for litigation.
The two basins disagree on the mechanics of how the 1922 Colorado River Compact divides river water, and any attempt to enforce one interpretation could lead to a lengthy lawsuit that reduces vast technical and diplomatic questions to the decision of a court.
Arizona has already started arming itself for a legal struggle. Governor Katie Hobbs called for $3 million in her January budget proposal to use on Colorado River litigation. The governor reaffirmed her support for the idea at a visit to the Central Arizona Project on May 13.
'We need a signal that we're prepared to defend our water," Hobbs said, "and I think that's a strong one.'
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Arizona will likely take the largest cuts of any state, regardless of which alternative Reclamation or the states choose. All the options put forward by federal officials call for cuts exclusively from Lower Basin states. Some irrigation districts in Pinal County have already left half their acreage fallow because of Colorado River cuts, and some Arizona leaders wonder how much more there is to cut before they hit essential municipal services and national security-related industries.
Central Arizona Project Board President Terry Goddard said any new cuts in Arizona's water cannot come from CAP users. The CAP, a canal system that transports Colorado River water 336 miles to supply 6 million people in the Phoenix and Tucson areas, has some of the lowest priority water rights on the Colorado River in Arizona, meaning it has taken the bulk of recent water cuts.
Meanwhile, tribes and farmers in the Mohave Valley and Yuma areas have continued irrigating with their high-priority water rights or have been compensated for saving water. Goddard said it's time to set up a conversation about ways for those farmers to take on more of the burden of water shortages, because central Arizona can't cut much more.
'Not every gallon is equal, the productive use or money you can make from a gallon of water depends where it's being used, and I think we have to be able to sit down with (Yuma-area farmers) … and say, in times of emergency, we have to have a way to keep industry and tribes from going dry, and I don't think that's an unreasonable requirement,' Goddard said.
A representative from Yuma-area farms was not present at the May 13 news conference to offer a response.
Buschatzke said Arizona residents shouldn't expect their taps to run dry anytime soon, but they might have to change their outdoor watering practices. He said Arizonans might also take hits to their environmental areas, like riparian zones, and water restrictions could spell trouble for some economic sectors.
Goddard said average Arizona water users should feel protected from water shortages in the short term, but know that there is not yet a long-term solution.
'We've cut the fat, we've cut the muscle," he said. "Now we're talking about cutting bone.'
Austin Corona covers environmental issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to [e-mail].
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump administration soon to name Reclamation Commissioner nominee