The Kings and Queens of "the Water Prom"
The Colorado River – and the people that rely on it – are in a state of crisis. Climate change and overuse are taking a significant toll. Seven states must compromise and reach a solution to prevent the river from collapsing.
In late 2023, tensions were running high between the major players in the water world as they convened at the annual Colorado River conference in Las Vegas. LAist Correspondent Emily Guerin was there, seeking to learn as much as she can about the people with the most power on the river – including a sharply-dressed 28-year-old from California.
This episode comes to us from the podcast Imperfect Paradise, which is releasing a whole series on the Colorado River water crisis.
Featuring JB Hamby, Becky Mitchell, John Hawk, Pat Mulroy, Jim Madaffer, Michael Cohen, Jordan Joaquin, Tom Buschatzke, John Entsminger, Chuck Cullum,
Our free newsletter is just as fun to read as this podcast is to listen to. Sign-up here.
LINKS
Agriculture uses a lot of the Colorado River - what if we replaced that farmland with solar panels?
Speaking of farms, most of the crops raised with Colorado River water don’t go to people. They go to cows.
CREDITS
This episode was written and reported by Emily Guerin
Imperfect Paradise host: Antonia Cereijido
Fact-checking by Gabriel Dunatov.
Mixing and Imperfect Paradise theme music by E. Scott Kelly with additional music by Andrew Eapen.
Outside/In Host: Nate Hegyi
Outside/In Executive producer: Taylor Quimby
Our staff includes Justine Paradis and Felix Poon
Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).
Note: Episodes of Outside/In are made as pieces of audio, and some context and nuance may be lost on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
Nate Hegyi: Hey this is Outside/In, I’m Nate Hegyi. If you’ve taken a shower in Los Angeles… or drank a cold glass of water to nurse a hangover in Las Vegas… you can thank the Colorado River.
It supplies water to millions of people in the desert southwest. It also feeds the farms that grow most of the nation’s winter vegetables… so if you like eating salads in December… tip your cap to the big CO.
But that river is in trouble. It’s drying up because of climate change and overuse. Putting the nation at risk of losing a lot.
But honestly, this is an issue that is NOT easy to cover. . A lot of the stories I’ve heard get too wonky… too water-y. They don’t focus enough on the people behind this story.
That’s why I was so excited to listen to a new series about the river from the podcast Imperfect Paradise.
It’s hosted by Antonia Cereijido [CERE-Hido], and
It starts with environmental reporter Emily Guerin critiquing her own reporting on the river from a few years ago… when she was doing something very cliche…
Emily Guerin 01:53
So I'm standing at Lake Mead, which is the lake that backs up from Hoover Dam... At the lake, there's this 130 foot tall... The bathtub ring is super visible... So I'm standing at Lake Mead. The bathtub ring is super obvious, and that's- it, that, the ring is what shows how far the lake has shrunk since it was full.
Emily Guerin 01:53
Oh my god, this is so embarrassing for me to listen to now.
Antonia Cereijido 01:55
Okay, well, this is obviously Emily Guerin, [EG laughs] who has now joined me. Um, and Emily, what are you doing in that audio we just heard?
Emily Guerin 02:02
Well, I'm trying to get the take right, so I keep doing it over and over and like walking back and forth on top of the dam. And oh, my God, it's just so cliché Antonia. Like, every journalist who's ever reported on the Colorado River has done a stand-up on Hoover Dam and talked about the bathtub ring.
Various Newscasters 02:19
[audio clips] "I'm standing on the top of the Hoover Dam right now. You see those bathtub rings there?" "The white lines behind me, that used to be the water level..." "How gigantic those bathtub rings really are..." "See how huge the bathtub ring has grown..."
Antonia Cereijido 02:32
Well, I love that you had to join in the club of people who describe the ring. What made you cover it like that?
Emily Guerin 02:38
[sighs] That's a good question. I think that I couldn't think of anything more original to do. And I also thought at the time that it was like a really obvious visual, signaling impending doom. And I could just like go there and describe it and somehow convey the nature of the crisis. But thinking back on it, and kind of what I've realized since then, is that the bathtub ring, A- It's like actually not that interesting. It's just like a white line on a rock wall. But B- It really leaves out the juiciest part of the story. Like there's no people in the bathtub ring, and this is actually a people story. Like people made this problem, and people can solve this problem. [music in] So the way things work on the Colorado River is that problems are solved by the seven states that use the water. So when there's a crisis like there is now, they all get together to figure out what to do. It's essentially a negotiation. They all know they have to use less water, but the question is, how much less and who is gonna take the cuts?
Antonia Cereijido 03:37
That sounds like a really intense negotiation.
Emily Guerin 03:39
It is really intense in a sort of wonky dry water policy kind of way. But to me, what makes it so interesting is that this is one of the early cases in the US of what happens when the shit really hits the fan, and we actually run out of a resource. Like we can't just kick the can down the road on the Colorado River like we do with pretty much every other hard climate change decision. Anyway, so when I said this is a people story, the people I'm talking about are these negotiators who are trying to cut that deal. There's seven of them, one from each of the states that uses the water.
Antonia Cereijido 04:13
They're like water avengers.
Emily Guerin 04:15
They are like water avengers! I love that. And I decided I wanted to follow them through those negotiations as they come up with a plan to save the river. [music out] I wanted to focus in particular on the lead negotiator from California, because California is kind of like the bully on the river. That's sort of their historical reputation. They use the most water. They have the biggest economy. They have a lot of money, a lot of people, and it's, it's interesting because their current lead negotiator is the youngest and the least experienced of all of them. His name is JB Hamby[CM3] , and he's 28 years old.
Emily Guerin 04:50
Did you ever think like, Oh my God, all these dudes are so much older than me. I'm in over my head. This is crazy. Or did you not think those thoughts?
JB Hamby 04:58
No, I didn't. Didn't think about that.
Antonia Cereijido 05:00
[music in] This season on Imperfect Paradise, The Gen Z Water Dealmaker, we take you behind the scenes of a historic negotiation that'll determine the fate of the Colorado River and everyone who relies on it. You're affecting people's livelihood. You're putting people out of their homes. You're destroying the whole community.
Becky Mitchell [CM4] 05:22
This is a shit job. [laughter] I mean, this is tough.
JB Hamby 05:27
This is a historic thing coming, and it's on our shoulders to be able to resolve it.
John Hawk [CM5] 05:31
He has a few good friends and a lot of enemies.
Pat[CM6] Mulroy 05:35
Probably, one of the valuable lessons I learned on the river is nobody's gonna change unless they absolutely have to and have no other choice but to.
Becky Mitchell 05:44
The one person that you cannot negotiate with is Mother Nature. She will win every time.
Antonia Cereijido 05:53
Correspondent Emily Guerin takes it from here. [music out]
Emily Guerin 05:58
I first met JB Hamby at the annual Colorado River conference. Everyone who uses or cares about the river is there. There's lawyers, journalists. There's presidents of tribal nations. This conference is so important, even some farmers show up just to find out what's going to happen to their water. JB had described it this way when I talked to him the week before the conference, which is officially called the Colorado River Water Users Association Conference, but everyone just calls it CRWUA.
JB Hamby 06:27
CRWUA is like the prom of the Colorado River. Everybody shows up, and it's the big event, and everybody's there, and everybody sort of hob nobs and sees each other. And it's, it's the thing that everybody's at.
Emily Guerin 06:37
Oh my god, you described it as the prom. I love that! Who is the prom king and the prom queen?
JB Hamby 06:40
[laughs] Who knows?
Emily Guerin 06:45
I know. [music in] There are six prom kings and one queen, the seven lead negotiators, one from each of the states that uses Colorado River water. JB is one of them. For over 100 years, the seven states along the river have regularly gotten together to decide how much water they all get to use. These negotiations take place every time a new problem comes up, like "How much water should we let Mexico have?" Or "Wow! Phoenix is getting big." The last big negotiation took place in 2007, and there's a lot less water now than there was even then. CRWUA takes place in December. So for the last six months, JB and the other negotiators have been arguing over how to keep the river from hitting deadpool. At this point, they have three months left to come up with their first attempt at a deal. If they can't agree, nobody knows what will happen. [music out] [conference ambi] The conference took place at the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The hallways are lined with these massive portraits of French royalty and overstuffed benches that are a little too small for two people who don't really know each other to comfortably sit on. But that's where I sit with JB, knees almost touching, when I finally get to talk to him in person. He's tall, white, with a clean shave. He's wearing a gray suit with a lapel pin of the state of California, a bright white shirt and a turquoise bolo tie. He has a fresh haircut and boots.
Emily Guerin 08:12
How's it being like the guy from California?
JB Hamby 08:15
Uh, I am a guy from California and, and uh... [duck under]
Emily Guerin 08:18
And this is JB's first conference as the lead negotiator from California. And whether he acknowledges it or not, there is a role he's stepping into. [music in] If this really were a high school prom, California would be the rich kid with the fancy car and the nice tux. On the Colorado River, California uses more water than any other state for watering lawns and golf courses, for drinking water and growing food. And in the past, the other states have seen California as kind of a bully, taking more water than it's allowed to and then being like, What are you gonna do about it? [music out] I asked JB if he thought that perception was fair.
Emily Guerin 08:57
...of California, as this like water bully, like overusing...
JB Hamby 09:02
Yeah, I don't, not true at all. In terms- [EG: You don't think so?] As in terms of a, a bully or these sorts- I think certainly, uh, envy is a thing. I don't think California has done anything wrong by developing water and putting it to use.
Emily Guerin 09:17
But it also seems like he's working hard to overcome the state's bad reputation. When I'm not talking to JB, I spend a lot of time watching him. He's always talking to someone, shaking hands, making unbroken eye contact, introducing people. Mostly I don't see him much. He's always ducking in and out of these little side rooms.
Emily Guerin 09:38
There's a lot of secret meetings.
JB Hamby 09:39
In the room next to us here, the commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation just walked into a little room. Not sure who she's meeting with and there's side rooms and suites. I was just in a meeting with the Colorado River Indian tribes upstairs and so there's all kinds of different meetings that people take. You know, in this main hallway here and in the little side nooks and crannies people connect, chat, have conversations, be social, have real discussions, negotiate informally. So-
Emily Guerin 10:05
It's like the shadow conference and then the conference is, is in there.
JB Hamby 10:08
Yeah.
Emily Guerin 10:08
[music in] So while most people are going to panels like "Considering Rural Enhancements," JB has been attending a different conference. I'm here at CRWUA because of the shadow conference. I want to know what's actually happening between the people who have the most power on the river, and I don't think I'm gonna figure it out in the panel discussions. I need to know what the gossip is, and I'm trying to find the people who will tell me. [music out] The next time I catch JB is when he's onstage with a bunch of California water people. We're gathered in the champagne room for an announcement.
JB Hamby 10:45
Welcome, everyone to this very important historic occasion. We appreciate everyone that's here to join today. We're grateful to be here today with... [duck under]
Emily Guerin 10:53
JB is standing at a lectern beneath a huge crystal chandelier. The wallpaper is turquoise and gold with trefoils and decorative wood paneling. The opulence of this room feels strategic, like California is trying to make a really big deal of this moment. JB is the emcee. He introduces a series of speakers, all of whom have the same basic message.
Unidentified Speaker #1 11:14
California has certainly stepped up to protect the river systems and the communities that rely on it.
Unidentified Speaker #2 11:16
California continues to lead by example.
Unidentified Speaker #3 11:17
We're using less water than we've ever used in California. I think it's 3.7 million acre feet, [clapping] and that's fantastic.[CM7]
Emily Guerin 11:34
Deadpool is not mentioned once. [music in] And then, JB begins to call people up one by one to sign all the agreements that have been made in California over the past six months to use less water.
JB Hamby 11:46
So next up, we have the Metropolitan Water District, the Imperial Irrigation District and the San Diego County Water Authority.
Emily Guerin 11:54
They walk up to the stage. There's the boots from the Imperial Valley, a farming region. The suits from Los Angeles. The suntanned guys in button downs and ties from San Diego. They sit next to each other, they sign, they shake hands. They take one serious photo and one goofy one. It's very celebratory, very back- patting. Sadly, there is no champagne. [music out] I eavesdrop on a man sitting behind me who's whispering about what a big deal this is. Afterwards, I go ask him about it, and the woman sitting next to him, who turns out to be his wife, gives him this little wave and walks out of the room. "She calls herself a water widow," he says. He spends so much time on Colorado River stuff, she comes to conferences like this one so they can spend some time together.
Jim Madaffer[CM8] 12:39
[conference ambi] Do a test, one, two, testing, one, two, testing, one, two, three, four. Okay!
Emily Guerin 12:44
Can you tell me your name and where you're from?
Jim Madaffer 12:46
You bet. It's Jim Madaffer, spelled M, A, D, A, F, F, like Frank, E, R, from San Diego. I am a past board chair of the San Diego County Water Authority.
Emily Guerin 12:57
Have you been coming to these conferences for a long time?
Jim Madaffer 12:59
Yeah, I've been, this is about, probably my 10th one, over the last 10 years. [EG: Okay.] Maybe 15th, I can't remember.
Emily Guerin 13:00
California uses far more Colorado River water than any other state, mostly for raising cattle and growing alfalfa, broccoli and lettuce. But Jim doesn't see that as a problem.
Jim Madaffer 13:05
California, you know, we don't go around saying Hey, we've got the lion's share of the water. What we instead say is, We want to work with everybody. We recognize the compact gives us as much water as it does. But we also recognize the fact that we feed the entire country. It's not California. We feed-
Emily Guerin 13:32
Who's we? When you say we?
Jim Madaffer 13:33
The state. The state and all the produce that's grown in those ag areas, those, for the most part, are shipped out of California, all over the United States. If our water was cut off, guess what? There wouldn't be salads on their plates. There wouldn't be a lot of things that people rely on, because of the water that California uses from the Colorado River.
Emily Guerin 13:56
When Jim throws out the possibility that their water could get cut off, it's not a hypothetical. That's how dire things have gotten. And that's what these on-going negotiations are all about. But it's still important for California to show it's willing to use less. That's part of why people like JB and Jim are making such a big deal of these water conservation agreements that were signed today.
Jim Madaffer 14:16
The level of collaboration right now is at an all-time high, and I think it's going to continue.
Emily Guerin 14:21
I'm realizing this is California's strategy at this conference, talking about how great they are at saving water, and working together.
Jim Madaffer 14:29
Relations with San Diego, Metropolitan, Imperial are at an all-time high.
Emily Guerin 14:33
All time high. [music in] This congeniality is not normal. Historically, the boots and the suits have been at war over California's share of Colorado River water. The cities always want more. They try to buy it from the farmers, and the farmers feel like that's an attack on their way of life because if they lose their Colorado River water, they don't have anywhere else to get it from. But today in the champagne room, I don't see any hint of tension. In fact, what I see is this small pin on the lapel of the biggest urban water agency's president that says, "We are one," which seems a little bit performative, like they're trying to convince themselves it's really true.
Jim Madaffer 14:37
This is all about relationships. If we have good relationships, if we trust each other, if we back each other up, we can make anything happen to help save the Colorado River.
Emily Guerin 14:54
A lot of people who work on the Colorado River talk this way. The river runs on relationships. It runs on trust. Most of the people who work on the river have been doing it for their entire adult lives. [music out]
Emily Guerin 15:34
Have you been coming to these conferences for a long time?
Michael Cohen [CM9] 15:36
I think my first CRWUA was 1998. [EG: Oh, okay.] So 25 years. I missed a few years. It's a new venue. Usually it's at Caesars, so people are lost because these casinos are hard to navigate.
Emily Guerin 15:51
I'm standing in the hallway outside the champagne room just after the panel, talking to Michael Cohen, cowboy boots, jeans, blazer. He's an environmental policy guy from Colorado. He tells me I missed something interesting earlier today, a contentious meeting of representatives from the Upper Colorado River Basin. California is considered part of the Lower Basin, along with Nevada and Arizona. The Upper Basin states are Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, and of course, Colorado.
Emily Guerin 16:20
Was that this morning?
Michael Cohen 16:21
Yeah, that was actually just in room right over there. So it was right, right next door.
Emily Guerin 16:25
Why was it contentious?
Michael Cohen 16:26
Because there's still assertions from the Upper Basin that the Lower Basin is overusing water. And it depends how that's measured. But that, to me, suggests that they're still far apart in how they're gonna resolve this huge problem of how to manage the river moving forward
Emily Guerin 16:44
So like in this room, they're like, Look at everything we've done. And in that room, they're like, You guys are still using too much?
Michael Cohen 16:48
Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly it. And I think part of this conversation is in response to their conversation.
Emily Guerin 16:55
They're like talking at the same time. [MC: Through the wall, basically.] Through the wall.
Michael Cohen 16:59
Yes, they're talking through the wall to each other. And maybe the wall is a good metaphor, because they're not really talking to each other.
Emily Guerin 17:07
The divide between the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin is another one of the big fault lines on the Colorado River. [music in] The two basins are extremely different. The Upper is colder, higher, with snowier mountains and smaller cities and farms. The Lower is hotter, drier, flatter with way more people and bigger farms. For the most part, the Upper Basin puts the water in and the Lower Basin takes it out. When the Colorado River was divided up on paper 100 years ago, the Upper and the Lower Basins each got about half the water. It's not divided evenly between the states by the way. California, for example, gets about 14 times as much water as Nevada. But in real life, the Lower Basin has often used more than its share, because the Upper Basin has never needed all of theirs. Still, the Upper Basin kind of always assumed the water would be there for them when they got around to needing it. But now, it's not. [music out] Climate change has shrunk the river. There's no more extra water to use. So now there's this huge fight between the two basins about who should cut back and how much.
Michael Cohen 18:17
We have to build trust back up again, and I think they're still working on that.
Emily Guerin 18:20
Can you be any more specific?
Michael Cohen 18:23
Pointing fingers from the Upper Basin at the Lower Basin doesn't build trust.
Emily Guerin 18:28
Are you talking about Colorado?
Michael Cohen 18:29
Yeah, yes.
Emily Guerin 18:32
If the Lower Basin and the Upper Basin are rival high school cliques, then California and Colorado are their respective leaders. [music in] For decades, while California has been taking more than it has rights to on paper, Colorado has been pointing this out, demanding again and again that California follow the rules. This rivalry becomes obvious the next day during the most important panel of the entire conference, the principals panel. It's the only time in which the lead negotiators from all seven states meet publicly together.
Becky Mitchell 19:07
What I would hope that folks in this room get is that shared pain first and foremost comes from acknowledging the pain that others have already suffered.
JB Hamby 19:16
That is the wrong approach.
Emily Guerin 19:20
That's coming up after a break. [music out] [break]
Emily Guerin 19:30
You're listening to Imperfect Paradise, The Gen Z Water Dealmaker. I'm Emily Guerin. The principals panel takes place in the Paris Ballroom, which is massive and totally packed. I end up sitting in the back with the sound and lighting guys. The panel begins with a convocation by Jordan Joaquin, President of the Quechan Indian Tribe.
Jordan Joaquin [CM10] 19:51
Heavenly Father, we ask for your guidance and presence. That we here today have a "we" mentality, not an "I" mentality. In Jesus name, we say amen.
Emily Guerin 20:06
And then he sits down in the crowd and listens along with the rest of us. There are 30 tribal nations that use Colorado River water, but tribes do not have a formal voice in these negotiations, and neither does Mexico. As the panel gets going, there are a few things that everyone seems to agree on. We take more water out of the Colorado River than flows into it. Climate change is causing the river to shrink even more. And to avoid deadpool, painful cuts will have to be made. But two negotiators in particular are really agreeing with each other. JB Hamby from California, and his counterpart from Arizona. At one point, the moderator asks everyone what their big take home message is. Tom Buschatzke, the lead negotiator from Arizona, says:
Tom Buschatzke 20:51
Give license to the people sitting up here that you support to compromise.
Emily Guerin 20:57
In other words, trust us. After a pause, the moderator turns to JB.
JB Hamby 21:05
Ditto. [laughter]
Emily Guerin 21:08
People laugh, but this is a huge deal. Despite both being in the Lower Basin, California and Arizona used to hate each other’s guts. They even ended up in the Supreme Court over the river. Now, they're practically finishing each other's sentences. I had been hearing rumors that Tom and JB were going to announce something big on this panel. And here it is- Although it's so wonky, it's kind of hard to tell.
Tom Buschatzke [CM11] [CM12] 21:33
We're stepping up in discussions about post 2026 in the Lower Basin to own the structural deficit, to own the supply and demand imbalance.
Emily Guerin 21:43
JB later uses the exact same phrases.
JB Hamby 21:46
In full agreement with Tom, the structural deficit has been a long time coming. There is a supply demand imbalance in the Lower Basin. It's not a new issue.
Emily Guerin 21:56
There is a lot of jargon flying around here. So let me explain. [music in] There are two big problems on the Colorado River, a supply problem and a demand problem. The demand problem is that California and Arizona need a lot of water. The supply problem has to do with climate change. There is less water in the river than there used to be, and that means the Lower Basin is draining the reservoirs. So most of the water in the river starts as snow in the Colorado Rockies. But rising temperatures means less precipitation and more evaporation. It's essentially a hot drought. Snow that does fall is getting sucked into the dry air instead of melting and flowing downstream into the river. This gap between supply and demand is why the water level in Lake Mead is dropping. It's why people are worried about deadpool. [music out] So what JB and Tom are doing here is acknowledging publicly that the gap is a problem. They use too much water, and they're going to cut back.
JB Hamby 22:56
That's our responsibility. This is a historic thing coming, and it's on our shoulders to be able to resolve it. It's going to be challenging, but it's absolutely necessary.
Emily Guerin 23:07
This moment is what everyone is going to talk about afterwards. It's huge. Estevan Lopez, the negotiator from New Mexico, an Upper Basin state, makes the point of thanking them.
Estevan Lopez [CM13] 23:18
You know, I'm incredibly heartened by the Lower Basin's commitment that they're going to take on and deal with, for the first time, the structural deficit. That gets us very far in this whole thing.
Emily Guerin 23:32
But these cuts by California and Arizona are not going to be enough to balance the river in the future. Scientists predict the Colorado River will shrink nearly a third by mid-century. [music in] And this is where the panel turns and becomes a conversation about pain. Who else besides California and Arizona is going to cut back? Here's JB.
JB Hamby 23:54
There is no user, no state, no country, no basin that can stand up and say, We're out. This is a basin wide problem, but we're not part of it. It's going to require every single user to be able to participate in resolving this problem in the future.
Emily Guerin 24:12
JB says he's talking about everyone, but really he's talking about Colorado. The negotiator from Colorado takes the mic.
Becky Mitchell 24:21
I want to be real clear right now. [music out]
Emily Guerin 24:25
Her name is Becky Mitchell. She's wearing a tweed blazer and glasses. Becky's 49, which means she and JB are the two youngest people on the panel.
Becky Mitchell 24:34
What I would hope that folks in this room get is that shared pain first and foremost comes from acknowledging the pain that others have already suffered. We can't be asked to share pain if you don't even know what we are experiencing.
Emily Guerin 24:51
In this moment. I don't totally get what "pain" Becky is referring to. But it seems important because she starts to talk really loudly, almost yelling. Her voice echoes out of the speakers and around the ballroom.
Becky Mitchell 25:03
The one person that you cannot negotiate with is Mother Nature. She will win every time. She has been telling us what to do. We have felt her wrath for 100 years. I want an agreement that lessens the pain for all of us. Not just some of us.
Emily Guerin 25:30
Later, somebody will tell me that Becky seems like she was back on her heels, like the Lower Basin had just made this magnanimous offer to cut its use, and she hadn't quite figured out how to respond, except to keep hammering on the same point about feeling her pain. Then Becky brings up the nuclear option.
Becky Mitchell 25:49
Yes, I don't want to be in Supreme Court with my friends on the panel. Sometimes friends, sometimes not.
Emily Guerin 25:58
A murmur goes through the room. I see people whispering to each other. The negotiators look blank. While Becky's saying, "I don't want to go to the Supreme Court," what she seems to be implying is "I will if you make me." [music in] Then negotiators from the other states jump in and say what a terrible idea that would be. Here's John Entsminger from Nevada.
John Entsminger 26:19[CM14]
Litigation is so appealing, right? We're gonna get those guys. We're gonna win. Our position's clear. Look at what it says on the piece of paper.
Emily Guerin 26:24
But John goes on, what you're actually doing when you go to the Supreme Court-
John Entsminger 26:36
...is changing out water professionals, who know and have worked on and love this river, for guys and gals in black robes that know very, very little about our river.
Emily Guerin 26:47
John thinks that if the Supreme Court gets involved, they could screw over everybody in ways no one can anticipate. [music out] And then John does this thing where he tells everyone to lower their expectations for what the current negotiations can accomplish.
John Entsminger 27:02
They will largely focus on plumbing. They will focus on how we operate. But the one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty, the guidelines will deliver a messy compromise that will be judged harshly by history. That's the cold reality. The only question for the people in this room is whether we will deliver that messy compromise, or whether or not people outside of this room will.
Emily Guerin 27:34
This feels strategic to me, like he's speaking indirectly to Becky, who seems to have much higher expectations for what she's trying to accomplish in these negotiations.
Becky Mitchell 27:44
I've heard a lot about we can't get to perfect, and I agree with that. We probably can't get perfect, but we sure as heck can do better than what we are doing now.
Emily Guerin 27:53
It seems like Becky wants something revolutionary, not something incremental, and she's not willing to compromise until she gets it. [music in] The panel never breaks out into outright hostility, but something in the room has shifted. JB makes a comment that's pretty clearly directed at Colorado. But all he says is it's about someone "who's not in my respective basin."
JB Hamby 28:16
I have heard a quote some, or read a quote some months ago, and it, I'll say it's not in my respective basin and the quote went along the lines of, The only time you should compromise is when you can't advance your position any further. That is the wrong approach.
Emily Guerin 28:34
I see Tom from Arizona nodding along, but I don't know. I kinda get it. I mean, California has gotten all the water it's wanted for generations, and Colorado can't let it go. [music out]
Moderator 28:48
Thanks, everybody. [applause]
Emily Guerin 28:53
The panel ends, and I start looking for Becky. That's coming up after a break. [break]
Emily Guerin 29:02
You're listening to Imperfect Paradise, The Gen Z Water Dealmaker. I'm Emily Guerin.
Emily Guerin 29:09
I find Colorado's lead negotiator, Becky Mitchell, at the end of a hallway. She's talking animatedly with a reporter from Politico. She's changed out of her black heels and into flip flops. She doesn't have time to talk to me, but I overhear her chatting with a guy sitting next to me. They're talking about Tom Buschatzke, the negotiator from Arizona. The guy says he saw Tom rolling his eyes while Becky talked.
Chuck Cullum [CM15] 29:32
My name is Chuck Cullum. I'm the executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission.
Emily Guerin 29:38
I asked him: What does Becky mean when she says "acknowledge our pain?" What is she talking about?
Chuck Cullum 29:44
[music in] So just a couple of very concrete examples.
Emily Guerin 29:50
Chuck explains how people in the Upper Basin use Colorado River water in a fundamentally different way than people in the Lower Basin. In the Lower Basin, all the water comes out of Lake Mead, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam. It's like a faucet. Arizona, Nevada and California simply call up the federal government and ask them to open the tap.
Chuck Cullum 30:09
That is a totally different river experience than in the Upper Basin.
Emily Guerin 30:15
In the Upper Basin, a lot of people literally pull water out of these little streams that feed into the Colorado. If the streams are running low, their water supply can get cut off.
Chuck Cullum 30:26
That's real hardship, real risk. In the Lower Basin, they're just now experiencing a river of uncertainty. And we see eye rolling from people on the panel today. [music out]
Emily Guerin 30:42
You saw eye rolls?
Chuck Cullum 30:43
Yeah. And it's not appropriate. It's like come up and experience it. Live next to that river. You try and grow hay at 8,000 feet. And in August, that creek is dry. You try that.
Emily Guerin 30:59
Later, I will google Chuck Cullum, and learn that he once compared Lower Basin water users to ski town "trustafarians" who drive Range Rovers, ski all day and never get a job, entitled, assuming the water will always be there, sitting in that big bathtub of Lake Mead. [music in] So when Becky's talking about acknowledging pain, she's talking about past pain, what it's been like for farmers and ranchers in the Upper Basin to survive without any guarantee they'll have water that year. As an aside, it's not like the situation is unique to Colorado. This precariousness exists across the West, including parts of California that rely on melted snow from the Sierra Nevada. And also, it's not quite as simple as Becky's making it out to be. There's certainly areas where water users get cut off, but a recent report based on federal data found that the Upper Basin actually uses slightly more Colorado River water in dry years. The report's co-authors wrote that the idea that the Upper Basin is already feeling pain is a dangerous argument to make, primarily because the Lower Basin can see through it. But it's also a great argument, as one of them told me, if you're trying to make the case to the public, that it's someone else's turn to make a sacrifice. [music out] I asked Chuck how he'd describe the relationship right now between the Upper and Lower Basins.
Chuck Cullum 32:25
The principals meet regularly. They have real, unvarnished conversations. What's the quote from "The Princess Bride?" The future is pain, and anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something. It's painful to live within the means of the river. That's the future.
Emily Guerin 32:44
But I mean, I guess people have told me it seems just worse, frankly, than it's been in the past.
Chuck Cullum 32:51
Worse how?
Emily Guerin 32:52
Like more suspicious, more distrustful.
Chuck Cullum 32:55
Well, I've been working on the river for a long time. We are doing something new and difficult. I don't believe that the conversations are easier or harder than they've been in the past. They're different. The stakes are higher. We burned through all of the resiliency in the system and drew the reservoirs down to 25 or 30% of capacity. So yeah, there's tension. But that's to be expected.
Emily Guerin 33:25
The negotiations underway right now are all about shared future pain. And what Becky's saying is, We're not willing to take on any more pain because we've been feeling it our entire lives. JB Hamby says he gets where Becky's coming from. He just doesn't think it's that helpful.
JB Hamby 33:44
Certainly what is perhaps not a constructive approach is having to start out every discussion and gathering and meeting with acknowledging one particular set of users need to be perceived as having pain.
Emily Guerin 33:59
It's after lunch on the same day as the principals panel. I'm loitering in the main hallway eyeing the other lead negotiators. JB is in high demand. His two cell phones keep buzzing, so we only have a couple minutes.
JB Hamby 34:12
There's statements made occasionally, that no set of users is more important than another. And that's true. I agree with that. But that also doesn't mean that some users who are perceived as having needs are more important or absolved from being a part of the solution and addressing these climate change impacts.
Emily Guerin 34:29
In other words, climate change has so fundamentally changed the river that whatever they were doing before is irrelevant. Sob stories about past pain have no place here. And neither do historical grudges against California and Arizona for overusing.
Emily Guerin 34:45
[music in] Well, thank you. Where are you off to right now?
JB Hamby 34:47
Um, Politico. Been trying to [EG: Oh! Okay. Cool.] nab me somewhere.
Emily Guerin 34:52
Alright, well go do it. Thanks. I'll see you around. [JBH: Good to see you.] [music out]
Emily Guerin 35:02
I am tired. I need caffeine if I'm going to make it to the evaporation and runoff reception, where drinks mixed with Colorado River water flow freely and platters of vegetables also grown with Colorado River water are piled high. As I walked toward the cookie and coffee station, I passed Tom Buschatzke, the lead negotiator from Arizona, slumped on a bench. He's wearing a dark suit and a little lapel pin with the star from the Arizona state flag. Lapel pins are big at CRWUA apparently. I ask him how the negotiations are going.
Tom Buschatzke 35:32
I like to describe these discussions as kind of a little bit of a yo-yo. The yo-yo goes to the top of the arc and sometimes goes back down to the bottom of the arc. We try to minimize the bottom and accentuate the top. But you can't get frustrated if you end up taking a step or two backwards.
Emily Guerin 35:51
Things could actually be worse. It snowed a ton last winter, boosting the level of Lake Mead by 20 feet. That took some of the pressure off the negotiators, which is helpful, especially because the pandemic kind of set them back.
Emily Guerin 36:04
Is it significantly better in person than on Zoom?
Tom Buschatzke 36:08
Yeah, because I can go to that guy in the hallway and talk to him, and, you know, try to work something out in kind of a safer way than doing in front of twenty people. [music in] If you throw something out in front of twenty people, sometimes five people will say, Oh, hell no! And it dies before, before you ever have a chance.
Emily Guerin 36:30
I get it. It's hard to have a shadow conference on Zoom. Legally, Arizona is in a bad place on the river. If Lake Mead got too low, Phoenix and Tucson would lose access to 100% of their Colorado River water before California would lose a drop. It's kind of wild, but that's how the law is interpreted. This is why it's such a big deal that Tom and JB are getting along so well.
Tom Buschatzke 36:58
JB's young. I think that's unusual, because mostly it's us old guys and women who've been doing this for a long time. I've been doing this for 42 years. Right? So he has a very progressive attitude that we haven't always seen in California.
Emily Guerin 37:20
JB is willing to work with Tom to share pain and spare Arizona's cities.
Tom Buschatzke 37:25
That's what I'm talking about. That's an example of his willingness to think progressively. [music out]
Emily Guerin 37:33
JB later told me that someone was complimented him on holding together the boots and the suits in California, the farmers and the city people. He told them, At least I don't have Tom Buschatzke's job.
Emily Guerin 37:44
[music in] The crisis on the Colorado River impacts so many people so differently. It's the creek flowing dry in the Wyoming cow pasture in the summer. It's the dirt in the Arizona field that used to grow lettuce blowing dust into the desert air. It's people in San Diego paying to turn ocean water into drinking water. It's the once mighty river that no longer reaches the sea. But climate change doesn't only inflict pain. Tom says, [music out] It kind of clarifies things.
Tom Buschatzke 38:19
There were deadpool projections, right? Well, if there's deadpool, there's still water. It doesn't matter whether you have a piece of paper that says you have better access to the water than someone else. If there's no water, there's no water for everybody. So, I think that's changed.
Emily Guerin 38:34
In other words, it doesn't matter how much water you have rights to on paper if Lake Mead drops so low that no water can get to you. The seven negotiators now have three months to come up with a deal to keep this from happening. And by the end of the conference, it feels to me like some of the people who need to make that deal are very far apart. JB needs to do more than hold the boots and suits together in California. He needs to find a way to reach a compromise that both the Lower and Upper Basins can live with.
Antonia Cereijido 39:08
[music in] That was correspondent Emily Guerin. Coming up on Imperfect Paradise, The Gen Z Water Dealmaker. JB's path to becoming the youngest lead negotiator ever on the Colorado River.
JB Hamby 39:22
I find it unpleasant to feel like I am not being purposeful and I'm not accomplishing something. Like, that bothers me.
Antonia Cereijido 39:32
And how conditions on the river got so dire in the first place.
Jeff 39:36
Everyone acknowledged that what we negotiated likely was not gonna be enough to handle the worst case scenario. It was as far as we could politically go.
JB Hamby 39:50
That was very unpleasant and so I resolved myself at that point, never again will I allow this to happen. This is so bad.
Jeff 39:59
Literally, just four or five years later, we realized there was trouble.
Antonia Cereijido 40:04
That's on the next episode of Imperfect Paradise, The Gen Z Water Dealmaker. Listen to new episodes of the podcast every Wednesday, or tune in on Sunday nights at 7pm on LAist 89.3 or LAist.com. [music out]
Antonia Cereijido 40:18
[theme music in] This episode of Imperfect Paradise was written and reported by Emily Guerin. I'm the show's host, Antonia Cereijido. Catherine Mailhouse is the executive producer of the show and our director of content development. Shana Naomi Krochmal is our vice president of podcasts. Meg Cramer is our editor. Minju Park is our producer. Jens Campbell is our production coordinator. Luke Runyon is our editorial advisor. Factchecking by Gabriel Dunatov. Mixing and theme music by E. Scott Kelly with additional music by Andrew Eapen. Imperfect Paradise is a production of LAist Studios. This podcast is powered by listeners like you. Support the show by donating now at LAist.com/join. This podcast is supported by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live. Additional support from the Water Desk at the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder. [music out]