The Colorado River hits a boiling point

Feb 07, 2023 View in browser   By Debra Kahn and Ry Rivard THE BIG IDEA Colorado River dependents are between a rock and a dry place — but it can still get drier. | Jennifer Yachnin/POLITICO’s E&E News MUTINY ON THE COLORADO — Push is coming to shove on the West's most important river. The seven states that share water from the Colorado River are as close to open conflict over dwindling supplies as they've ever been. Six of them ganged up on California last week, arguing that it should bear the brunt of supply cuts because a greater share of the water evaporates before it gets that far downriver. California is bristling at the proposal. “We didn’t just learn last year that water evaporates,” said J.B. Hamby, the chair of the Colorado River Board of California. California is relying on its legal status as the senior-most user in the river's lower basin and rebuffing arguments that keeping more water for its farmers will force cities in Arizona and Nevada, other lower-basin states, to run dry. It's a political nightmare for the Biden administration, which is trying to decide how to step in, as Annie Snider reports: The fight pits the nation’s most populous state, a Democratic stronghold with a $3.4 trillion economy, against Arizona — a swing state on which Democrats’ national electoral fate could turn. In the meantime, the six states’ proposal has united factions within California — cities like Los Angeles and San Diego and big agricultural users like the Imperial Irrigation District — that have at times been at odds. “I think you have stronger unity in California than has probably existed in at least 20 years,” Hamby said. Arizona and Nevada have the stronger saber-rattling skills, but observers say California has the legal argument that's likelier to hold up in court. "If California's version of the law holds, which I think is not a bad default assumption, then Nevada and Arizona have to start drying up," said Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California-Davis. "That's how it'll bite in the short term, but it can't just go on that way." And incredibly, given the river's rapidly shrinking supplies, there's still more time to come to an agreement — partly because all parties know that whatever they come up with will be better than leaving it to elected officials or the courts. “I think this is progress, and it is creating the space to continue negotiating,” said Colby Pellegrino, deputy general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which supplies Las Vegas and surrounding areas and came up with the evaporation-based plan. Another top California water official, Jim Madaffer, vice chair of the Colorado River Board of California, who represents the San Diego County Water Authority, said California has a blueprint for other states — a multi-agency, multi-year process that California used to rein in its water use two decades ago. “California has done its part and is willing to do more, but it’s time for the other states to step up,” Madaffer said in an email. Pellegrino said she’s not clear how that would work. The California agreement took years to negotiate — years the West may not have if the Colorado’s water levels continue to decline. "We're getting closer to the final stages of brinksmanship on this," Lund said. But "one of the things that's amazing about water is how long smart people can figure out a way to cobble along until they need to make a decision. It's kind of like what the administration is doing with the debt ceiling."   JOIN POLITICO ON 2/9 TO HEAR FROM AMERICA’S GOVERNORS: In a divided Congress, more legislative and policy enforcement will shift to the states, meaning governors will take a leading role in setting the agenda for the nation. Join POLITICO on Thursday, Feb. 9 at World Wide Technology's D.C. Innovation Center for The Fifty: America's Governors, where we will examine where innovations are taking shape and new regulatory red lines, the future of reproductive health, and how climate change is being addressed across a series of one-on-one interviews. REGISTER HERE.     RESEARCH MAKE IT RAIN — Drought is renewing interest in an old technology. At least 19 firms, research institutions or individuals have patented some form of cloud seeding tech since 2018, Chelsea Harvey and Corbin Hiar report for POLITICO's E&E News. The technique has been around since the 1940s and hasn't changed much. New projects are aimed at testing the effectiveness of different kinds of particles on the clouds. “There’s no question that cloud seeding works — but the question is how much do we really produce?” said Katja Friedrich, an atmospheric scientist and cloud seeding expert at the University of Colorado, Boulder. EXTREMES DOMESTIC REFUGEES — Natural disasters may be displacing far more Americans than previously thought, Tom Frank reports for POLITICO's E&E News. A new Census Bureau survey finds that 3.4 million people — 1.4 percent of the U.S. adult population — were displaced last year due to natural disasters. That's about four times as high as the annual U.S. average from 2008-21 estimated by the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. “These numbers are unbelievable,” said Hannah Perls, an attorney at Harvard Law School’s Environmental & Energy Law Program. Some interesting findings: — About half of the displacements were caused by hurricanes. — Forty percent of people reported returning home within a week, but 12 percent said they were displaced for more than six months, and 16 percent never went home. — Louisiana had the highest displacement rate by far — 11 percent of adults, or nearly 370,000 people — despite not having a major disaster last year. — Florida, with Hurricane Ian, came in second, with 5 percent of adults reporting displacement. — Evacuation rates correlated inversely with household income. Households earning less than $25,000 per year had a 3.5 percent chance of evacuating, compared to 1.1 percent for households earning more than $200,000. PLASTIC POLLUTION INELASTIC PLASTIC — Single-use plastic waste is still increasing, Ellie Borst reports for POLITICO's E&E News. The "Plastic Waste Makers Index," issued by the Australia-based Minderoo Foundation, found that 139 million metric tons of trash was produced in 2021, 6 million more tons than in 2019. The report found, as in 2019, that more than half of the world's plastic waste can be linked to 20 companies. Exxon Mobil Corp. continues to top that list, producing 6 million metric tons of plastic waste in 2021, an increase from 2019's 5.9 million metric tons. Exxon pointed to its investments in chemical recycling as a way to reduce waste. Minderoo Foundation Chair Andrew Forrest called for more taxes, targets and pressure from investors. "We can eliminate plastic pollution within a decade, but to do so we must abandon the idea that industry can transform of its own accord," he said in the report. YOU TELL US GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we tell you about the latest on efforts to shape our future. We deliver data-driven storytelling, compelling interviews with industry and political leaders, and news Tuesday through Friday to keep you in the loop on sustainability. Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott, deputy editor Debra Kahn and reporters Jordan Wolman and Allison Prang. Reach us all at gmott@politico.com, dkahn@politico.com, jwolman@politico.com and aprang@politico.com. Want more? Don’t we all. Sign up for the Long Game. Four days a week and still free! WHAT WE'RE CLICKING — Red states are going green, Bloomberg reports. — A palm-oil watchdog is worried that the EU's new deforestation standards are too cumbersome for small farmers, Reuters reports. — V2H is taking off: The latest generation of EVs is enabling people to power their homes during blackouts, the Post reports.   LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. 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