San Diego could sell some of its rights to Colorado River water to Arizona and Nevada under a deal struck Wednesday that could help parched inland states fill a widening gap between water supply and demand.<\/p>\n
The San Diego County Water Authority now has a water surplus thanks to a desalination plant the utility opened a decade ago after facing shortages of its own. Water wouldn\u2019t physically move inland, but the utility wouldn\u2019t draw as much from the river as it\u2019s entitled to.<\/p>\n
The deal is the first large-scale water trade between states with claims on the Colorado River \u2014 which officials said was urgently needed in light of shortages that are threatening a system of reservoirs and dams that provides water to 40 million people and 5.5 million acres of farmland across the West. Before Wednesday, the complex set of laws and court rulings that govern the use of the river\u2019s water included no legal or practical mechanism for such swaps.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe urgency is real,\u201d said Scott Cameron, acting director of the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that oversees water supplies and infrastructure in the West and is also a party to the agreement. \u201cToday we are signing a short document that represents a potential great leap forward for the water security of the people of the Southwest.\u201d<\/p>\n
The utility and the desert states still need to iron out details over how much water San Diego County can spare, and how much Arizona and Nevada will have to pay for it. That will require lawyers to pore over more than a century of legal precedent, and water managers to negotiate even as the already scarce water supply dwindles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with the momentum we have and the situation on the river, it has to happen now \u2014 it can\u2019t take more than a year,\u201d said Dan Denham, the San Diego utility\u2019s general manager. \u201cHydrology is not going to wait for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Colorado basin is facing its most dire outlook in decades of drought after a winter with the smallest mountain snowpack ever observed, which melted rapidly this spring. Flows into Lake Powell, one of two huge reservoirs along the Colorado, are forecast to be 13 percent of normal this year.<\/p>\n
Across the Southwest, some towns are warning residents they could soon run out of water<\/a>, but in many communities, rationing has been patchy despite grim forecasts.<\/p>\n The seven states that rely on Colorado River water \u2014 California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming \u2014 are struggling to agree on how to share the pain of water use cuts after failing to reach a deal<\/a> by a Feb. 14 deadline imposed by the Bureau of Reclamation. A new federal plan for the watershed\u2019s future is expected in July, Mr. Cameron said.<\/p>\n