Western states that have been brawling over the drought-stricken Colorado River have finally found something they can agree on: a shared hatred of the Trump administration’s plans for managing the waterway.
Without an agreement for reducing demands along the West’s most important river, the Interior Department is preparing to make the decisions itself. But states, farm districts, cities, tribes and other major players on Monday unabashedly laid into the options the Bureau of Reclamation has laid out for doing so.
The comments — part of a draft environmental review process — are a last-ditch effort to influence Interior’s approach to a problem that affects the water supply for 40 million people from Denver to Phoenix to Los Angeles. They are also a first big step in laying the groundwork for the high-stakes Supreme Court battle that looks increasingly likely to ensue.
“Reclamation is not the arbiter across all of the seven Basin States to discern and decide the water apportionments to be held and exercised by each sovereign state,” argued Wyoming State Engineer Brandon Gebhardt, his state’s lead negotiator.
