Stumbling Toward Dead Pool 

This week, the Biden administration signaled it is willing to step into an ongoing water debate for states that rely on the dwindling supply of the Colorado River. The river, which supplies some 40 million people across the arid Western United States, has always been overallocated. But as climate change continues to stretch droughts into megadroughts and megadroughts into aridification, more water woes are coming. This will test many things, including our ethics.

There will be no good alternatives. Still, the Biden administration is hoping that the Colorado River states — Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, California — along with federal tribes, can negotiate a solution. If not, the question becomes: Who should make the biggest cuts? Nevada, Arizona, and California are in the most trouble, as they rely on water released from Lake Mead, which last summer saw its lowest levels ever and which is inching closer to “dead pool” — the level at which the river is too low to exit the dam, too low to run. 

If they can’t come up with an agreement themselves, the feds could ask all three states to cut water allotments equally — by up to 25 percent. But because Western water law was first put together by miners, a complex regime of water rights could bind things up in court. California has senior rights, for example, and its farmers might not take kindly to cuts that benefit Arizona golfers. Navajo Nation, on the other hand, might have something to say about its own rights versus orange groves. 

As is becoming the norm in a world where change is faster than politics, it will come down to individuals to do what we can, or what we must. What can we do? Xeriscape all yards? Cut 10-minute showers down to seven? Change our concept of what “dirty” laundry is? Each of us is on our own to figure it out, I fear, considering how well covid-masking policies went. I hope one day in the future, our norms will be able to handle our world. Until then, each of us must become expert environmental ethicists, waiting for better days to come. 
 

Photo by David Denicolò

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