Feds cut Colorado River allocation to Arizona, Nevada as talks fail
thehill.com
thehill.com
Almost a textbook tragedy of the commons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
> ...the federal government on Tuesday announced new water allocation reductions, including nearly 25 percent in cuts to Arizona.
> In a news conference Tuesday, federal Bureau of Reclamation officials announced cuts to the yearly water allocation to Arizona and Nevada, as well as Mexico, which is also party to the compact. The bureau will withhold about 21 percent of Arizona’s yearly water allocation next year, as well as 8 percent of Nevada’s.
In context, Arizona's population is expected to increase by 26.1% by 2040. Given that population increase, if their water allocation remains the same, then the average Arizonan in 2040 will have access to 62.6% as much water as the average Arizonan did yesterday.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/arizona/how-arizona-s-popula...
> In economic science, the tragedy of the commons is a situation in which individual users, who have open access to a resource unhampered by shared social structures or formal rules that govern access and use,[1][2] act independently according to their own self-interest and, contrary to the common good of all users, cause depletion of the resource through their uncoordinated action
Note the unhampered by shared social structures or formal rules that govern access and use?
The formal rules which govern access and use were put into place 100 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact
> The Colorado River Compact is a 1922 agreement among seven U.S. states in the basin of the Colorado River in the American Southwest governing the allocation of the water rights to the river's water among the parties of the interstate compact.
However, it is quite an interesting fact that the current democratic administration has just dumped money on this problem and the favorable outcomes seem to lean toward California. Which has overburdened their allotment of water from the Colorado River by over 20% since at least 2012.
Who takes more than they're alotted? What are the possible fair reductions?
> “Everything blew up” in negotiations last week, Kyle Roerink, executive director at the Great Basin Water Network, told The Hill in an interview.
> “You had some parties bringing a good chunk of water to the table. Others didn’t even want to be bothered with coming to the table with anything meaningful,” Roerink said. As a result, as of Monday evening, the states had not reached an agreement “as the nation’s largest reservoirs rapidly deplete themselves.”
> Roerink called the breakdown a microcosm of the poor relations among stakeholders on the river. The major players, whom he dubbed the “water buffaloes,” have “touted their ability to collaborate and coordinate and negotiate in a civilized manner, but if the last week is any indicator, folks are not singing ‘Kumbaya,’ they are sharpening their knives,” he said.
> Rather than negotiate towards a mutually beneficial agreement, he said, parties have been focused on reaching an arrangement that benefits them at the expense of others.
> “What we are seeing is a situation where folks are talking about for legislation, litigation, other tactics to try and get the best deal, they believe, for their respective constituencies,” he said. “But I think one way to describe what we’re seeing so far is that there are entities out there that think this is a zero-sum game.”