Competing priorities, outsized demands and the federal government's retreat from a threatened deadline all combined to thwart a voluntary deal last summer on how to drastically cut water use from the parched Colorado River
The Interior Department is still evaluating proposals for a slice of theand can't say how much savings it will generate, Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said in an interview.
Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton's call for a massive water cut in testimony to Congress on June 14 was a public bombshell of sorts. A week earlier, with a heads-up from the federal government, the Lower Basin states talked about collectively, with Mexico, cutting up to 2 million acre-feet during a meeting in Salt Lake City, the emails and interviews showed.
In late July, Harris, of California, emailed a proposal to the Bureau of Reclamation outlining scenarios in the range of 1 million acre feet in cuts, saying it was imperative negotiators be able to “declare some level of victory." But state officials said when it became clear the federal government wouldn't act unilaterally, it created a “chilling effect" that removed the urgency from the talks because water users with higher-priority water rights were no longer at risk of harsh cuts, Arizona's Buschatzke said in an interview.
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