The Colorado River’s water future was a major topic on the agenda at the inaugural meeting of the Metropolitan’s Subcommittee on Imported Water, where Bill Hasencamp, Manager of Colorado River Resources, delivered an update on the ongoing post-2026 guidelines negotiations. These discussions will set the course for managing the Colorado River’s dwindling resources at a time when water reliability is more critical than ever. Reflecting on past challenges like the 2003 loss of 700,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water, Hasencamp highlighted how decades of collaboration, adaptation, and strategic storage helped Metropolitan rebuild resilience. Now, with the current guidelines nearing expiration, finding solutions amid shifting conditions and tough negotiations is paramount.
Here’s what he had to say.
“Developing a roadmap for the Colorado River and post-2026 guidelines is difficult because the road has been continually changing. Over the last year, we’ve had changes in proposals, in alternatives, in schedules, and even administration changes that it’s been hard to track exactly what key milestone events and times are needed and when they will be.
“One thing that has not changed, at least not yet, is that we are one year away from needing new guidelines for the next decade or so in the Colorado River. What we want to try to do is get this Subcommittee and the Board up to speed on what agreements are going to be needed for the Board to approve if we’re successful in negotiations and to give the Subcommittee the opportunity to provide input and direction to staff to make sure that the agreements that are being negotiated are consistent with this Subcommittee’s desire, which means asking the tough questions of staff is fully appropriate.
But first, how did Metropolitan get here?
“Before we go to the new guidelines, I want to look back at one of the more significant events in Metropolitan history: January 1, 2003. It is an event we don’t celebrate because it was a time when Metropolitan lost access to 700,000 acre-feet of water overnight. Everything changed at that point for Metropolitan.
“Before 2003, we had an abundance of Colorado River water. In fact, we did everything we could to increase our demand for Colorado River water. We offered discounted replenishment rates. We offered discounted agricultural rates to fully maximize our Colorado River and why not? Because the reservoirs for most of the last century were full. Water was spilling. So take the water because it’s there.
“Maybe we were even a little complacent in 2002, and why not? We had just negotiated an agreement with the other six Colorado basin states and the federal government for 15 years of surplus. We knew that eventually we would have to cut back, but in 2001, we had an agreement, a document that said, ‘Metropolitan for the next 15 years, you will have surplus.’ So, we didn’t act with a sense of urgency.
“However, there were a few conditions for that surplus to continue, and one of them was that the QSA had to be signed by December 2002. Still, we thought that was on track. In December, Metropolitan’s Board approved the QSA and related agreements. San Diego County Water Authority approved it. Coachella Valley Water District approved it. The State Water Board approved the transfer from IID to San Diego County.
“But on December 30, 2002, IID’s Board did not approve the QSA. They had their reasons. They were concerned about the Salton Sea and its impacts on the local area if the sea were to shrink without being mitigated. So we were a little bit stunned and unsure what to expect on January 1, 2003, but it’s clear what happened.
“The federal government acted swiftly. They cut back instantly 700,000 acre-feet of surplus to California, which was Metropolitan’s supplies. Since we are the junior user in California, we had been using 1.25 million acre-feet of Colorado River water, year in and year out. Then we were cut back to just over 550,000 in 2003. The federal government also took action against Imperial Irrigation District, charging them with a part 417, reasonable and beneficial use, claiming that they were not beneficially using water.
“So we were in a bit of shock, but we adapted quickly. In 2003, I remember Ron Gastelum [MWD president and chief executive at the time]; his response in the papers was, ‘We’re not going north. We’re going west in response to the loss of Colorado River water.’
“I wasn’t sure what that meant at the time because, that same year, we got some transfers from Northern California that we ended up not needing. So, it seemed like we were going north in response to the loss of Colorado River water.
“But I was short-sighted because he clearly meant that we would focus locally and reduce our demand for imported water. And we far exceeded the goals I think even Mr. Gastelum laid out in 2003. Our demand for imported water back then was 2.5 million acre-feet. And as you know today, it’s about half of that amount, maybe 1.3-1.4, depending on local supplies. So, we significantly reduced our demands in response to the cut, but it took time.
“We eventually signed the QSA in October 2003, which provided many helpful tools, such as lining the All-American and Coachella Canal and providing water transfer to the San Diego County Water Authority. But those agreements would take decades before they would be fulfilled. Lining the canal would take a long time, and the transfer to San Diego would slowly ramp up. We still didn’t have much. We could go out and start doing our own programs, but we still were struggling, living with this new reality of losing 700,000 acre-feet.
What we realized is because the State Water Project was so fickle, going from more water than we could use in one year to not enough water the next year, we realized that storage was a key component that we needed to move forward with for a reliable supply. And Lake Mead was the perfect place for that because you could quickly put water in Lake Mead and quickly get it out.
“Before 2003, we had to look at the storage programs along the Colorado River Aqueduct – Hayfield, Cadiz, and Chuckwalla – storage programs that might have made sense if we had a lot of surplus, but now managing year-to-year supplies, we focused on Lake Mead.
“Not long after the ink was dry in the QSA, Lake Powell was dropping, and there was a dispute between the upper basin states and the lower basin states about the operations of Lake Powell. The Upper Basin said that, in the middle of the year, they wanted to reduce releases from Lake Powell. The lower basin said, ‘No, the annual operating plan has been approved. You can’t lower releases until the following year.’
“The Secretary of the Interior stepped in in 2005 and said, ‘It was a wet spring, so I’m not going to reduce the releases from Lake Powell, but I have the authority to do that. But rather than having me, the Secretary or Reclamation determine the rules,’ he told the seven states, ‘you come up with rules for Lake Powell, Lake Mead, and include rules for shortages, or I will do it, and you probably won’t like the way I do it.’
“So the states got busy and, over the next couple of years, executed the interim surplus guidelines, which had three components: it had the coordinated operations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the surplus, and the shortage sharing piece – Metropolitan was not involved in those two parts of the negotiations. That was done more for the Colorado River board because that didn’t affect us directly. We were focused on storage in Lake Mead, which became the ICS program.
“The guidelines expire at the end of this year. Fortunately, because next year’s annual operating plan will be approved, the next water year, we have till September before we need new rules in place.
“The agreements that went to your Board back in 2007 were limited compared to the largeness of the guidelines; it was focused on Interstate agreements. Here in California, it was the forbearance agreement needed for ICS in Lake Mead; in order for any entity to add water to Lake Mead, all of the other parties in California need to agree for that to happen.
“So, we developed programs that could be stored in Lake Mead and got approval from all the other contractors in California. A delivery agreement came along; we need a delivery agreement whenever we take ICS out. And finally, the California ICS agreement is how ICS is shared in California. For us, that was probably the most difficult agreement to negotiate, because other contractors wanted storage in Lake Mead after we first had identified it. We did end up giving IID a chunk of that storage in Lake Mead and rules for that.
“So with the guidelines in place and the QSA providing a foundation, over the next 10 to 15 years, Metropolitan was able to increase the reliability of the Colorado River that we enjoy today.
More agreements signed
“Since 2007, a number of other agreements have been approved:
- In 2012 and 2017, agreements with Mexico. They were not part of the original agreements, so they also participated in storage and shortages.
- The 2019 drought contingency agreement, where Metropolitan agreed to give up some water if Lake Mead were to get low enough. Fortunately, that never happened.
- And, most recently, all of the IRA agreements to help support the Lower Basin plan.
“Reclamation, as part of their commitment, reviewed the 2007 guidelines and found several benefits to the guidelines, but one thing that became clear was that the shortages identified were not nearly enough. The way we had been keeping the reservoirs from crashing was to continually add new programs over time to address the falling reservoirs, and it was a very ad hoc process. It was clear that the states want more certainty in protecting the reservoirs, not just on today’s conditions but the potential impacts of climate change.
“So, Reclamation started the process. They have some pretty dry scenarios in there. We’re two-thirds of the way through the process. They started two years ago, and we’re currently in the alternative analysis phase. Reclamation is still preparing the alternatives that will end up in the draft EIS that comes out in December.
“The current approach that they’re taking is that there won’t be one alternative that everybody supports in this draft: that ship has sailed. The hope is that the range of alternatives will have bits and pieces that could be used to develop a preferred alternative that goes into the Final EIS.
Current negotiations
“Metropolitan is currently involved in three different sets of negotiations:
“Metropolitan and our contractors in California are meeting with the upper and lower basin states. The first set of negotiations concerns the long-term releases from Lake Powell. This is the set of agreements that get the most play. If you go to the Colorado River water users conference, you hear about the dispute between the Upper and Lower Basins.
“So sometime in the December time frame, the draft will come out. If the states are successful in negotiating an agreement, they could submit it to the federal government in that process, which could be included in the Final EIS, which will end up in a record of decision no later than August, which will start the new guidelines.
“The Compact has rules for how water should be released, so what the states are trying to do is set the Compact aside and see if we can negotiate something that will serve both basins in a way that we can both accept. And that’s the current discussions going on among the basin. Can we agree on a long-term release that will go off into the future? We can then set the compact aside. It’s been difficult, but the federal government has now taken a more aggressive role and might be helping to move progress along.
“The second set of negotiations is with the states of Arizona, Nevada, and California, and that is how to share shortages. The Basin Project Act says the Central Arizona Project [Arizona’s straw in the Colorado River] is subordinate to California. We’re setting that agreement aside and saying we are going to figure out a way that we can work together with our partners in the other states and figure out a shortage-sharing plan that recognizes California’s priority but also lets California participate in the process since we are reliant on the Colorado River.
“We did make progress on the first chunk of shortages, the first million and a half acre-feet of shortages. We do have a conceptual agreement about how they would be shared. Basically, Arizona gives 1.7 acre-feet for every acre-foot California gives up. But we don’t have an agreement on what happens if shortages are more than 1.5 MAF. Some scenarios based on climate change said shortages in the lower basin might be two or more million acre-feet a year. So negotiations are still in place with Arizona and Nevada over how to share that extra chunk of water.
“And then, finally, the California agencies ourselves. We put 440,000 acre-feet of water on the table that California would give up in most years. There might be some years where we have some relief and other years we have to do more, so some difficult conversations about how to share that. There have been meetings between IID and MWD’s General Manager. The California agencies have got together. We don’t have a path forward yet, but we’re committed to resolving that this summer and fall. Those will be some difficult discussions that we’ll certainly want to keep the Subcommittee informed of as we go through that process.
“So, all three of these negotiations are going simultaneously with the goal of trying to wrap up as much as we can by the end of the year. So things are going to ramp up and end up here, and it will require some closed-session discussion, of course, as we get into the negotiations with this Subcommittee.
Metropolitan’s priorities
“Some of the current priorities that we’ve been using in these negotiations. This is where we want input direction from the Subcommittee. If you want to change them, let us know. But this is what we’ve been doing up till this point.
“First, provide water supply and financial predictability. We fully anticipate we will have to give up some money and some financing to get this deal done, and we need long-term predictability to help make other decisions that this Board has to make. Knowing what we can expect from the Colorado River is a key piece, and having a 20-year roadmap of what we can expect on the Colorado can help inform other decisions.
“Second is flexibility in meeting our annual water supply needs. The State project continues to be quite erratic in its supplies, from very wet to very dry years. So Colorado has to respond, but most importantly, we need to ensure that we can have reliability, whether that’s a full aqueduct or something close to a full aqueduct in dry years. That can be done either through storage in Lake Mead or option transfer agreements. There are a number of ways that can be done, but that is certainly a key when there’s not much from Northern California.
“Third is interstate augmentation opportunities. Right now, the rules do not allow one state to invest in an augmentation project in another state, like Pure Water or some other augmentation opportunity. There are even discussions about interstate augment opportunities by funding some projects in the country of Mexico and sharing it. We need rules for that to happen. Right now, that can’t happen. So that’s part of this package.
“Fourth, to protect Lake Mead power generation. Metropolitan gets more power than any other contractor from Lake Mead. New evidence that we just learned is that at low levels, the generation capacity at Lake Mead goes down. So we want to try to fix that and we also want to try to avoid hitting those lower levels.
“Finally, strengthen partnerships. We’ve been successful on the Colorado River because we’ve had working relationships with so many partners: ag, agencies, other states, tribal entities, and the country of Mexico – all together have helped us build our reliability on the Colorado River. It’s difficult when you’re in tough negotiations to keep those partnerships going, but we have to figure out how to do that.”
Future presentations to the Imported Water Subcommittee
Mr. Hasencamp laid out the upcoming schedule for presentations to the Subcommittee to prepare for what lies ahead on the Colorado River. These presentations include Law of the River components; a review of QSA, transfer programs, and storage; changes to the Multi-Species Conservation Plan and Salton Sea issues; federal authorities; and participation by Mexico, Tribes, and NGOs.
Not all stakeholders at the table yet
Mr. Hasencamp noted that so far, not all the necessary stakeholders have been involved in the discussions. “The Country of Mexico is currently not in the negotiations. We’ve been advocating that the international negotiations start quickly because Mexico is a needed part of the solution. They were key in the past. They’re key in this component. So, hopefully, that starts soon.
“Tribes on the Colorado River. The history has been that each state deals with the Tribes within its own state. The Tribes don’t necessarily agree with that. We are, however, working with our Tribes in California. The two major tribes are the Colorado River Indian Tribes and the Quatson Tribe. We are continuing to work and develop agreements with those entities.
“Finally, participation by NGO groups. NGO groups had a big impact on the pulse flow with the country of Mexico. The Colorado River dried up below Morales dam and no longer flowed to the ocean. They advocated for a one time flow release that would provide water to the River all the way down to the ocean, and it was a big success for the people in the country of Mexico and the environment. We don’t have that type of water to do every year, but there are other types of things that we can do, and having NGO participation is always helpful.”
Looking forward …
“So the next year will likely be rough, bumpy, and unpredictable,” said Mr. Hasencamp. “We will continue to provide reports to the One Water Committee and this Subcommittee as the discussions are going, but we also want to make sure that this Subcommittee is up to speed on some of the things that are very influential in the negotiations.
DISCUSSION HIGHLIGHTS
Director Stephen Faessel, City of Anaheim, asked why Mexico hasn’t been involved so far.
“It’s really up to the Trump administration to figure out the time to meet with Mexico,” said Mr. Hasencamp. “It’s not done through the Bureau of Reclamation. It’s done through the International Boundary Water Commission and the State Department. So we’ve been advocating for those negotiations to start. Hopefully, it will start soon, but it’s really up to the State Department. We can advocate, but they will determine the timing.”
Director Jay Lewitt, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, said of his recent trip to visit lawmakers in Washington DC, “One of the things that was surprising to me, being new to the Colorado River myself, is that they weren’t aware of the fact that we couldn’t exchange and trade. If Nevada needs water, and we have water, we just can’t give it to them. We told them that when the deal gets done, thinking positively, that part of the deal will be legislation advanced next, literally, an act of Congress, to allow for these transfers and trades and exchanges.”
“I think it’s going to require a seven-state consensus,” said Mr. Hasencamp. “It’s hard to get anything passed if states or agencies are fighting. So, if we have a seven-state deal, we can do a lot of things, and so far, the states are all supportive of that process. But if we end up in litigation, then it’s highly uncertain. But that’s hope. I’m glad that you’re educating them because people need to know what changes we need. A lot of people don’t understand that.”
“That leads one to believe that we’re going down the road to litigation because there’s going to be very little that can be done within [the Upper Basin] to force them to do anything if we can’t come to some consensus,” said Director Miller. “Since Reclamation has no leverage against the upper basin, they can stall all they want. Is that not true?”
“It is true that [Reclamation] has very little leverage on the Upper Basin, but it’s the Lower Basin states that have leverage on the Upper Basin,” said Mr. Hasencamp. “We’re the ones that signed the Compact with the Upper Basin. We’re the ones who are considering setting aside the Compact in exchange for a consensus-based agreement that might work out better than the Compact itself. Ultimately, it will be the two basins that decide if litigation is a better option than compromise and collaboration. Right now, the focus is on trying to come up with a solution that avoids litigation, because there are tremendous risks in that.”
“So I wouldn’t say litigation is inevitable. I would say it’s a last choice that some states may end up using. But right now, the focus is on a seven-state deal.”
Director Miller noted that he read an article that the level of Lake Mead continues to drop. Are we succeeding with all these efforts we are making in the reservoirs?
“Last year was a little dry, and this year is turning out to be quite dry,” said Mr. Hasencamp. “Had we not been doing anything, the reservoirs would have dropped quite a bit, and Lake Mead would be down at record low levels by the end of next year. But because we are conserving and meeting the goals that we set out … we’re offsetting a lot of the dry conditions, so we’re not building storage, but we’re preventing storage from significantly dropping by these actions. We’re essentially keeping the system stable through the end of 2026 so that at least we’re not going to be fighting [while developing] these guidelines.”
“Just for everyone keeping score at home, Lake Mead is at 1062 right now, so not exactly a great number, but obviously, Bill’s point is it would be at 1040 or something like that, which was the all-time low on the way if nothing had been done,” said Subcommittee Chair Mark Gold (City of Santa Monica). “But 1062 is a pretty scary number. I remember when I was on here on the Met board in 2017, 2018, and it went below 1085 we started freaking out. Now and now it’s like 1062, we’re supposed to feel comfortable. So it’s a very different world, to be sure.”
