PRICE, Utah — Kevin Cotner is familiar with the dreaded term "curtailment."
The Price-area hay farmer experiences it naturally as a result of the ongoing drought.
"The water's just not here," Cotner told FOX 13 News in an interview on Thursday.
He has volunteered to fallow some of his farms through a program administered by the Colorado River Authority of Utah. Since he lives along a tributary, he's being compensated to not grow crops on some fields for a couple of years.
"To us, it’s a way to help, maybe, and get compensated," Cotner explained.
With a deadline quickly approaching to have a deal governing the Colorado River — which supplies water to more than 40 million people across seven states in the West — the Utah State Engineer's Office is now floating worst-case scenarios that include the potential for deep cuts to people's water shares.
Utah wouldn't be alone. If Lower Basin states make a case that Upper Basin states along the Colorado River are in breach of agreements? Curtailments would have to be made in multiple states.
"This is very, very unprecedented. No one’s ever had to regulate water on a Basin-wide perspective, certainly in the western United States," said Michael Drake, the deputy state engineer.
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Drake spoke at length about the potential for curtailments during a meeting with the Colorado River Collaborative (a new project of the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, of which FOX 13 News is a member). He cautioned it is not imminent, as the states continue to negotiate, but rather something to be aware of. Drake also warned of the potential for massive litigation if it were to happen.
But the Colorado River is also seeing less water, adding to the pressure.
"We’re all hoping and crossing our fingers that a deal is reached and we find a proactive way to address these concerns," Drake told FOX 13 News. "But we do have a river that’s in trouble right now."
Practically speaking, curtailments mean that agriculture users can't dip into their water shares and they have to watch it go downstream. More junior water users would be more impacted under Utah's "first in time, first in right" doctrine.
But it also means drinking water for a significant part of northern Utah is affected. Some Colorado River water is pumped into the heavily-populated Wasatch Front through the Central Utah Project.
"Many of the Central Utah Project water rights are junior water rights by definition," Drake said Thursday. "They’re among the first to be cut."
However, Drake noted there is significant water storage in the Central Utah Project's system so it would not necessarily be an immediate impact.
The states are in the middle of tense negotiations over a new agreement to manage the Colorado River. The Trump administration has given the states a November 11 deadline to provide them an update on a deal. One of Utah's negotiators expressed some optimism when contacted by FOX 13 News on Thursday.
"Negotiations have become focused on the art of the possible given the need to respond to poor hydrology and low reservoir levels which will persist into next year, when the rules governing river operations expire," Amy Haas, the executive director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah, said in a text message. "Utah remains committed to a negotiated agreement rather than a litigated or federally-mandated outcome and we’re working in earnest on a consensus plan to meet the November 11 deadline for an agreement in principle on a seven state deal."
As FOX 13 News has previously been told, the states could agree to some "mini-deals" to buy more time. There will be a major summit in Las Vegas in December where more concrete details could be hashed out.
Cotner said there are things he'd like to see in a deal.
"We’d like to see them come to some type of agreement where we aren’t impacted as heavily as we potentially may be," he said.
The Utah State Engineer's Office has joined others in pushing for voluntary reductions in water use along the Colorado River and its tributaries. Environmental groups have been doing similar measures, but for slightly different reasons. The Nature Conservancy, for example, has a project along the Price River where it leases water for in-stream flow from willing water users to benefit the area. The problem is there's an insufficient supply of river water to meet legal diversions and environmental needs.
"We’ll be able to reduce the number of low flow days in the river, and that has impacts for our native fish species, for their habitat," said Ellie Oakley, The Nature Conservancy's Utah Colorado River project manager.
The Nature Conservancy said it is seeking 1,000 acre-feet of water each year for the next three years.
This article is published through the Colorado River Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative supported by the Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water, and Air at Utah State University. See all of our stories about how Utahns are impacted by the Colorado River at greatsaltlakenews.org/coloradoriver
