How California's drought-plan lawsuit hurts Arizona

California's inability to compromise and work together has put a big question mark on the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan.

And that directly impacts Arizona’s ability to proactively plan for our new, drier water future. 

Imperial Irrigation District is asking a judge to put the entire basin’s plan on hold until an environmental assessment can be done on the Salton Sea. It contends that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California violated a state law when it agreed to handle IID’s cuts and sign DCP without them.

IID will go to war over the Salton Sea

It believes – though Met says otherwise – that the plan will adversely impact the very real (and growing) problem that is a shrinking Salton Sea, especially as shortages worsen and the state’s share of cuts at Lake Mead grow. IID contends that Met will just come to them during those times to buy additional water, leaving less to stabilize the sea.

And because that's a do or die issue for them, the irrigation district has no problem putting others' good-faith planning on hold so it can attempt to wrestle what it wants out of the state and the feds.

That's a problem, because the Drought Contingency Plan isn’t a fix. It’s just a Band-Aid, and a costly one at that. It simply buys us time to do even tougher work – work that will take years to complete.

We don't have time to deal with the uncertainty that a lawsuit, particularly a protracted one, would cause.

Don't squander what DCP gives us

Arizona has convened a group to weed into tough issues, like how we handle groundwater, how we encourage conservation and how we finance water-recycling or desalination projects. Some solutions will require collaboration from our neighbors, because that's the future of water in the West. Like it or not, we are all linked.

The entire basin also needs to figure out how we deal with the structural deficit – the reality that each year we use million-plus acre-feet of water more each year than the Colorado River produces. 

How are we supposed to do that when the entity with the largest and senior-most rights would rather go to court than the negotiating table?

I know. The politics driving the inaction on the Salton Sea are complex and historic. There’s a lot of emotion and broken promises driving the debate, and I won’t pretend there’s an easy solution.

But the longer this battle goes on, the less likely we are to make the most of the window of opportunity DCP bought us.

I suppose it's not surprising that the agreement would end up in court. Whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting, right?

But it's disappointing, to put it mildly.

Reach Allhands at joanna.allhands@arizonarepublic.com. On Twitter: @joannaallhands.

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