The Babbitt Center’s new Colorado River Basin map is available at no cost as a downloadable pdf and as a hard copy.

Where is the Colorado River Basin? A novice attempting a cursory Google search will be surprised—and perhaps frustrated, confused, or a little of both—to find that there is no simple answer to that question. Winding through seven U.S. states and two states in Mexico—and supporting over 40 million people and 4.5 million acres of agriculture along the way—the Colorado River is one of our most geographically, historically, politically, and culturally complex waterways. As a result, creating an accurate map of the basin—the vast area of land drained by the river and its tributaries—is not a simple undertaking.

Commonly used maps of the region vary widely, even on basic details like the boundaries of the basin, and most haven’t kept up with changing realities—like the fact that the overtapped waterway no longer reaches its outlet at the sea. At the Babbitt Center, we began to hear a common refrain as we worked on water and planning integration efforts with stakeholders throughout the West: people frequently pointed out the flaws in available maps and suggested that addressing them could contribute to more effective water management decisions, but no one seemed to have the capacity to fix them. So, with the help of the Lincoln Institute’s newly established Center for Geospatial Solutions, we embarked on a mapping project of our own.

Our newly published peer-reviewed Colorado River Basin map seeks to correct several common errors in popular maps while providing an updated resource for water managers, tribal leaders, and others confronting critical issues related to growth, resource management, climate change, and sustainability. It is a physical and political map of the entire Colorado River Basin, including the location of the 30 federally recognized tribal nations; dams, reservoirs, transbasin diversions, and canals; federal protected areas; and natural waterways with indications of year-round or intermittent streamflow. We are making the map freely available with the hope that it will become a widely used resource, both within the basin and beyond.

Challenges, Choices, and Rationale

Even though they have few words, maps still speak. All maps are somewhat subjective, and they influence how people perceive and think about places and phenomena. During the peer review process for our new map, one reviewer asked whether our purpose was to show the “natural” basin or the modern, aka engineered and legally defined, basin. This seemingly simple question raised several fundamental questions about what a “natural” basin actually is or would be. This struck us as akin to a perennial question facing ecological restoration advocates: to what past condition should one try to restore a landscape?

In the case of the Colorado, this question becomes: when was the basin “natural”? Before the construction of Hoover Dam in the 1930s? Before Laguna Dam, the first dam built by the U.S. government, went up in 1905? The 18th century? 500 years ago? A million years ago? In an era when the human–natural binary has evolved into a more enlightened understanding of socioecological systems, these questions are difficult to answer.

We struggled with this quandary for some time. On the one hand, representing a prehuman “natural” basin is practically impossible. On the other hand, we felt an impulse to represent more of the pre-dam aspects of the basin than we typically see in conventional maps, which often privilege the boundary based on governmental contrivances of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ultimately, after multiple internal and external review sessions, we agreed on a representation that does not attempt to resolve the “natural” versus “human” tension. We included infrastructure, clearly showing the highly engineered nature of the modern basin. We also included the Salton Basin and Laguna Salada Basin, two topographical depressions that were formed by the Colorado. Both are separate from the river’s modern engineered course, and often excluded from maps of the basin. We didn’t choose to show them because we expect the Colorado River to jump its channel any time soon, nor because we presume to accurately represent how the delta looked prior to the 20th century. But from our research, we learned that the 1980s El Niño was of such magnitude that river water from the flooded lower delta reached back up into the dry bed of the Laguna Salada, making commercial fishing possible there. Environmental management of the heavily polluted Salton Sea, meanwhile, is a contested issue that has figured in recent discussions about future management of the Colorado. These areas are not hydrologically or politically irrelevant.

Our map doesn’t attempt to answer every question about the basin. In many ways, our contribution to Colorado River cartography highlights the unresolved tensions that define this river system and will continue to drive the discourse around water management and conservation in the Colorado Basin.

There is no simple definition of the Colorado River Basin. That might be the most important underlying message of this new map.

Zachary Sugg is a senior program manager at the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy.

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n el otoño de 2018, los gestores hídricos de Arizona debatían acaloradamente sobre cómo limitar los daños de una megasequía en el río Colorado que duró décadas. La sequía forzó cálculos y reajustes penosos en el uso del agua en toda la cuenca del río. Debido al modo en que se fue asignando el agua a través del tiempo, se hizo evidente que Arizona pagaría los platos rotos de la inminente escasez, y que los agricultores del estado, de los cuales muchos tienen derechos hídricos de baja prioridad, se enfrentarían a recortes graves.

En una reunión de octubre de ese año, Stefanie Smallhouse, presidenta de la Oficina Agrícola de Arizona, denunció los cortes propuestos. Sugirió que las propuestas eran una falta de respeto a los agricultores, en particular para un colono blanco llamado Jack Swilling que, según dijo, de forma heroica había hecho florecer el desierto. “Me resulta irónico que estemos exactamente a 150 años del primer agricultor que comenzó el asentamiento en la zona de Phoenix”, dijo Smallhouse. “Allí no había nadie más. Había reliquias de actividad agrícola de las tribus en el pasado, pero [Swilling] fue prácticamente quien empezó todo”.

Más tarde habló Stephen Roe Lewis en la reunión. Lewis es el gobernador de la comunidad indígena del río Gila, una reserva al sur de Phoenix que alberga a miembros de las tribus akimel o’otham y pee posh. El patrimonio de los akimel o’otham se remonta a la civilización hohokam, que a partir de unos 1.400 años atrás construyó un sistema masivo de canales de irrigación para atender los cultivos de algodón, maíz y otros vegetales en la zona. Pero en las décadas de 1870 y 1880 se construyeron nuevos sistemas, y el río Gila quedó drenado. Estos sistemas nuevos estuvieron a cargo, principalmente, de agricultores blancos, y además de asolar las granjas de los akimel o’otham y pee posh, provocaron hambrunas. “La historia es importante”, afirmó el gobernador Lewis, y corrigió el relato de Smallhouse sobre que Swilling solo halló “reliquias” de agricultura de las tribus. “Hace más de 1.000 años que cultivamos, y el único momento en que eso se interrumpió fue cuando nos quitaron el agua”.

De hecho, la comunidad indígena del río Gila ha dedicado gran parte de los últimos 150 años a intentar recuperar el agua de la cual sus miembros dependieron durante tanto tiempo. En 2004, un acuerdo aprobado por el Congreso otorgó a la comunidad una cantidad importante de agua del Colorado. Desde entonces, esta ha trabajado activamente para proteger esos derechos. “Estaremos aquí todo el tiempo que sea necesario para hallar soluciones”, dijo Lewis a las partes reunidas en 2018. “Pero lucharemos hasta el final para procurar que no se vuelvan a llevar nuestra agua”.

Tal como demuestra ese intercambio, la larga historia de los nativos estadounidenses en la cuenca del río Colorado se suele ignorar en los debates sobre la gestión del recurso, al igual que sus vínculos sociales, culturales y medioambientales con el río. Los comentarios de Lewis indican el compromiso que tienen hoy los dirigentes tribales para cambiar eso. Desde fines de la década de 1970, las tribus de la región han ganado una serie de acuerdos que confirman sus derechos sobre el agua del río Colorado. Hoy, controlan alrededor del 20 por ciento del agua del río. Ante la realidad de la severa escasez en toda la cuenca, se hizo evidente que en toda conversación que ocurra sobre el futuro, las tribus deben ser piezas claves, porque poseen soberanía bajo la Constitución nacional, lo cual les da derecho a gobernarse a sí mismas.

Lo que está en juego no es poco, no solo para las tribus, sino también para todas las personas que dependen del Colorado. Unas 41 millones de personas de siete estados de los Estados Unidos y dos de México usan el agua del río, que irriga más de un millón y medio de hectáreas de tierras agrícolas. Si la cuenca del Colorado fuera un país aparte, sería una de las 10 mayores economías del mundo. Pero las sequías y otros efectos del cambio climático están excediendo la capacidad del río de suplir las enormes demandas que tiene; así, las tribus llegan de forma más directa a la política del río.

Para mejorar la capacidad de las tribus de gestionar el agua y fortalecer su voz en los debates y decisiones sobre gestión de la cuenca, en 2017 varias organizaciones formaron la iniciativa Water & Tribes (WTI, por su sigla en inglés), con financiación del Centro Babbitt para Políticas de Suelo y Agua, un programa del Instituto Lincoln. Ahora, el proyecto también recibe financiación de las fundaciones Walton Family y Catena y otros asociados; lo dirige un grupo diverso de representantes tribales, funcionarios y exfuncionarios estatales y federales, investigadores y grupos conservacionistas, entre otros.

“Si trabajamos juntos, podremos hallar soluciones a estos problemas”, dice Daryl Vigil, miembro del pueblo jicarilla apache y cofacilitador de la WTI. Él dice que es un momento delicado para las tribus: “Si no nos adelantamos al juego, en términos de apenas un reconocimiento básico de soberanía tribal en el proceso, los riesgos serán inmensos”.

“Nos entusiasma ser parte de esta asociación que evoluciona y crece”, dice Jim Holway, director del Centro Babbitt. “El trabajo que hace la WTI es esencial para la sostenibilidad de la cuenca a largo plazo, y es fundamental para nuestro objetivo de mejorar los vínculos entre la gestión del agua y el suelo”.

Aguas divididas

Las 29 tribus con reconocimiento federal en la cuenca del río Colorado viven en una paradoja desde hace mucho tiempo. En 1908, la Corte Suprema de los Estados Unidos determinó que las tribus tienen derecho a agua para sus reservas. En la jerarquía por orden de llegada de la ley hídrica occidental, la Corte les jugó un poderoso as bajo la manga: determinó que los derechos hídricos de una tribu se basaban en la fecha de creación de la reserva. Dado que casi todas ellas fueron creadas por el gobierno de los Estados Unidos en la segunda mitad del s. XIX, en teoría están en una situación más favorecedora que cualquier otro usuario del río. Al igual que los akimel o’otham y los pee posh, todas las tribus estaban allí desde mucho antes que los colonos no nativos.

Pero cuando los representantes de los siete estados de la cuenca se reunieron en 1922 para redactar el convenio del río Colorado, empujaron a las tribus hacia el fondo. El convenio especifica la división del agua entre California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah y Nuevo México, y sentó las bases para una red compleja de acuerdos, leyes y resoluciones judiciales que se conocen de forma colectiva como “la ley del río”, que, básicamente, ignoró a los indígenas (si desea estudiar con mayor profundidad sobre el río y su historia, consulte la edición especial de Land Lines de enero de 2019). Si bien el convenio reconoce escuetamente “las obligaciones de los Estados Unidos para con las tribus indígenas del país”, no entra en detalle sobre los derechos hídricos de estas. Como indicó el académico Daniel McCool: “al haber omitido la consideración de los derechos de los indígenas, se dejó sin resolver uno de los problemas más importantes de la cuenca” (McCool 2003).

El escritor e historiador Philip Fradkin llevó esta idea un poco más allá al declarar que “en esencia, el Colorado es un río de blancos”. Pero indicó que los colonos angloamericanos ignoraron a los indígenas bajo su propio riesgo: el problema no resuelto de los verdaderos derechos indígenas sobre el agua del Colorado fue una “espada de Damocles” que pendía sobre el futuro del río (Fradkin 1996).

Aún no se ha cuantificado todo el alcance de los derechos hídricos de los indígenas. A principios de la década de 1970, las políticas federales tomaron un rumbo radicalmente nuevo y adoptaron el principio de la autodeterminación de las tribus. Así, las tribus negociaron directamente con el gobierno federal para establecer sus derechos hídricos. La comunidad indígena ak-chin de Arizona fue la primera en hacerlo, en 1978; desde entonces, se han negociado 36 acuerdos de derechos hídricos entre tribus, otros titulares de derechos sobre la cuenca y organismos estatales y federales (ver nota de recuadro en página 82). “La aparición de los acuerdos negociados fue una parte importante de la evolución” de los derechos hídricos de las tribus, dice Jason Robison, profesor de leyes en la Universidad de Wyoming. “Pero las características incorporadas también abrieron nuevos caminos”.

Si bien al principio los derechos hídricos de las tribus se consideraban como una necesidad para cultivar en las reservas, los acuerdos del s. XX permitieron a algunas de ellas alquilar sus derechos a usuarios ajenos a la reserva. Esto resultó ser una herramienta para el desarrollo económico y una forma de financiar servicios básicos para los miembros de las tribus. Para el pueblo navajo de Arizona, Nuevo México y Utah, vincular el agua con el desarrollo económico “se trata de crear una patria permanente, a donde la gente va, se educa y vuelve a casa”, dice Bidtah Becker, miembro de la tribu y abogada que desde hace mucho se involucra en asuntos hídricos como funcionaria del gobierno del pueblo navajo. “Estamos intentando desarrollar una patria próspera a la cual la gente pueda volver, que funcione”.

En muchos casos, las tribus no tienen la infraestructura física para hacer uso del agua asignada. En todo el país, es 19 veces más probable que un hogar nativo estadounidense no tenga cañerías internas, en comparación con un hogar blanco. En el pueblo navajo, es probable que la falta generalizada de servicios hídricos haya sido una de las causas de las terribles pérdidas que tuvo la tribu por COVID-19. En un momento de 2020, el pueblo tuvo la tasa de infección per cápita más elevada de todos los estados del país (Dyer 2020). “Entre 70.000 y 80.000 navajos siguen acarreando el agua [a su hogar] todos los días”, dice Vigil. “En nuestro país, en 2020, aún hay entre 70.000 y 80.000 personas sin conexión a infraestructura hídrica en una pandemia. Es una locura”.

Vigil es el administrador hídrico del pueblo jicarilla apache de Nuevo México. En un acuerdo de 1992 con el Departamento del Interior de los Estados Unidos (DOI, por su sigla en inglés), se asignaron a la tribu casi 50 millones de metros cúbicos de agua al año (unos 50 mil millones de litros), que alquilaron al operador de una central eléctrica a base de carbón. El alquiler ayudó a financiar pagos anuales a miembros de la tribu durante muchos años. Pero a medida que la economía empezó a virar hacia energías ecológicas, los alquileres no se renovaron. “Así, de pronto nos quedamos con el agua del acuerdo almacenada [en un embalse] a unos 65 a 70 kilómetros, sin poder usarla”, dice Vigil.

Añade que, debido a la sequía actual, la tribu podría alquilar su agua a otras partes sin problemas, pero los términos del acuerdo federal le prohíben alquilar agua por fuera de Nuevo México. En cambio, el agua se escapa de entre las manos de la tribu y cae en las manos de otros usuarios. “No hay mecanismos disponibles para sacar el agua de las fronteras del estado”, dice Vigil. “En los últimos dos años, tuvimos unos 37 millones de metros cúbicos de agua sin alquilar que corrieron por el río”.

La capacidad que tienen las tribus de alquilar agua les puede dar ventaja y un estímulo económico. En un acuerdo de 2004 muy peleado, la comunidad indígena del río Gila (GRIC, por su sigla en inglés) adquirió derechos sobre un volumen de agua dos veces superior al de la ciudad de Las Vegas. Usó esos derechos para convertirse en una gran fuerza, muchas veces subestimada, en políticas hídricas y la política general de Arizona. La tribu participó en negociaciones sobre el Plan de Contingencia ante Sequías (DCP, por su sigla en inglés), un acuerdo de varios años para toda la cuenca firmado en 2019, en respuesta a los impactos de las décadas de sequía (Jenkins 2019).

Durante el proceso del DCP, los estados negociaron sus propios acuerdos; en Arizona, la GRIC aceptó dejar parte de su agua en el lago Mead, el embalse que provee de agua a la cuenca baja, y alquilar otra parte al Distrito de Reabastecimiento de Agua Subterránea del Centro de Arizona para responder a inquietudes sobre suministros de agua a largo plazo para nuevos desarrollos. Ambos acuerdos podrían otorgar hasta US$ 200 millones a la tribu.

También tuvieron una participación importante en el DCP las tribus indígenas del río Colorado (CRIT, por su sigla en inglés), una comunidad que incluye tribus mohave, chemehuevi, hopi y navajo en una reserva junto al río en Arizona y California. La comunidad participó, pero no faltó la controversia interna: algunos miembros se oponían al DCP e intentaron retirar a los miembros de su consejo tribal. Al final, la CRIT acordó dejar hasta el 8 por ciento de su asignación anual en el lago Mead durante tres años a cambio de una compensación de US$ 30 millones del estado de Arizona y una garantía adicional de US$ 8 millones de un grupo de fundaciones y corporaciones organizadas por la fundación Walton Family y la iniciativa Water Funder.

Las negociaciones del DCP fueron complejas y conflictivas. Al final, para llegar a una resolución se necesitó acercar a tribus, ciudades, agricultores y otras partes interesadas importantes.

La relación entre las asignaciones estatales y tribales

Cuando una tribu adquiere el derecho de usar o alquilar cierta cantidad de agua del río Colorado, esa agua se considera como parte de la asignación del estado donde se basa la tribu. Dado que los estados tienen asignaciones individuales de agua bajo las leyes y los acuerdos que rigen al río, los nuevos acuerdos hídricos de las tribus reducen la cantidad de agua disponible para los usuarios de ese estado. Antes, cuando no se usaban las asignaciones tribales de agua, esta quedaba en el sistema para que la usaran otras partes. Este problema es particularmente grave en Arizona, donde tienen reservas 22 de las 29 tribus de la cuenca. Los derechos hídricos de muchas tribus aún no se reconocen y no están cuantificados, resulta lógico que estas y otras partes interesadas sientan ansiedad sobre la disponibilidad del agua en el futuro, con la cuenca asolada por las sequías, y pretendan hallar formas de trabajar en conjunto para garantizar un futuro sostenible.

Para acceder a resúmenes de políticas, informes y otros materiales elaborados por la iniciativa Water & Tribes, visite www.naturalresourcespolicy.org/projects/water-tribes-colorado-river-basin.

Salvar la brecha

Desde su concepción, la WTI pretendió mejorar la capacidad de las tribus de promover sus intereses y una gestión sostenible del agua en la cuenca mediante la resolución colaborativa de problemas. “Estamos caminando sobre una cuerda floja”, dice Matt McKinney, quien cofacilita la iniciativa con Vigil. McKinney es mediador desde hace mucho tiempo y dirige el Centro de Recursos Naturales y Políticas Medioambientales en la Universidad de Montana. “Por un lado, es bastante fácil vernos como defensores de las tribus, y lo somos. Pero el marco más amplio es que defendemos un proceso justo, equitativo y efectivo para resolver problemas y tomar decisiones”.

“El éxito de los acuerdos hídricos para las tribus se ha basado en las relaciones de las personas que se reúnen”, dice Margaret Vick, abogada de las tribus indígenas del río Colorado. “Y la iniciativa Water & Tribes hizo que aumentara la [cantidad de] gente en la reunión”. Hoy, la WTI está trabajando para alejarse de las negociaciones estrechas de acuerdos hídricos individuales y acercarse a una conversación mucho más amplia que abarque a toda la cuenca:  las pautas actuales de gestión del río vencerán a fines de 2026, y pronto se acordarán otras nuevas para las próximas décadas.

La Oficina de Recuperación de los Estados Unidos (USBR, por su sigla en inglés), la división del DOI que administra el Colorado y otras vías fluviales del oeste, está revisando las negociaciones y operaciones de los últimos quince años a fin de prepararse para la próxima ronda. “Necesitamos un proceso de renegociación más inclusivo”, dice Morgan Snyder, funcionario sénior del programa de medioambiente de la fundación Walton Family. “Esta es la oportunidad de influir en los próximos 25 años de gestión hídrica en la cuenca”.

Para anticiparse al proceso de renegociación, en 2019 McKinney y Vigil realizaron entrevistas con más de 100 personas, entre ellas dirigentes de tribus, gestores hídricos y otras personas vinculadas con asuntos hídricos en la región, para identificar los problemas importantes de la cuenca y buscar modos de promover la resolución colaborativa de problemas, en particular la participación de las tribus en las decisiones acerca del río. La WTI realizó talleres con miembros de tribus y otras partes interesadas de toda la cuenca para identificar estrategias y así aumentar la participación de las tribus y otros participantes.

“Muchas de las personas entrevistadas creen que es momento de ir más allá de administrar el río como un sistema de plomería e ingeniería que provee de agua a ciudades y granjas, pensar en un sistema más holístico e integrado que responda mejor a múltiples necesidades e intereses, como por ejemplo valores sagrados y culturales de las tribus, valores ecológicos y recreativos, y la integración de decisiones sobre la gestión del suelo y el agua”, escribieron McKinney y Vigil. “Aquí, la intención es articular una visión holística e integrada y luego progresar hacia esa visión de forma gradual en determinado lapso . . . y pasar de un sistema centrado en el uso del agua a la gestión de la cuenca” (WTI 2020).

La WTI está publicando una serie de resúmenes de políticas para concientizar, ayudar a comprender mejor y catalizar conversaciones; los temas abarcan desde la función permanente de las tribus en la cuenca hasta una visión de sostenibilidad para todo el sistema. También está ayudando con el desarrollo de un plan estratégico a Ten Tribes Partnership, una coalición creada en 1992 para aumentar la influencia de las tribus en la gestión del agua del río Colorado.

Pero no será fácil cambiar la índole de las negociaciones sobre la gestión hídrica, y ni hablar de la índole de la gestión hídrica en sí. “Al igual que cualquier otro proceso muy complicado, se debe hallar un modo de desglosarlo”, dice Colby Pellegrino, gerente general adjunto de la Autoridad del Agua del Sur de Nevada, que abastece a Las Vegas y sus suburbios. “Hay que abordar la ley del río Colorado y todos los problemas interrelacionados de a un bocadito a la vez. Esto es problemático si distintos grupos interesados tienen opiniones discrepantes sobre el alcance de las negociaciones”.

Algunas tribus se han frustrado por lo difícil que les resulta hacerse oír, a pesar de que son naciones soberanas. “No somos ‘partes interesadas’”, dice Vigil. “Siempre nos meten en la misma bolsa que las organizaciones sin fines de lucro, grupos conservacionistas. Pero, ‘No, somos soberanos’”.

Los gobiernos estatales y el federal también han dado traspiés importantes. En 2009, la USBR lanzó un estudio importante para evaluar la oferta y demanda actuales y futuras en el río (USBR 2012), pero no se incluyó a las tribus en ese proceso con la relevancia debida. La oficina encargó un estudio de asignaciones hídricas a las tribus solo tras ser presionada por varias de ellas; se hizo con Ten Tribes Partnership y se publicó años más tarde (USBR 2018). El estudio resume las barreras que impiden que las tribus desarrollen sus derechos hídricos por completo y analiza los posibles impactos de que lo hagan, en particular para otros usuarios que ahora dependen del agua que las tribus no usaron durante mucho tiempo. Y en 2013 los estados de la cuenca y el gobierno federal comenzaron los debates sobre el Plan de Contingencia ante Sequías sin notificar a las tribus.

“Los estados ignoraron el uso y los derechos hídricos de las tribus desde el convenio de los 20”, dice Vick. “El [estudio de oferta y demanda] fue un proceso que surgió de los estados; estos no comprendían los derechos hídricos de las tribus y casi no se involucraron siquiera para pensar qué ocurre dentro de la reserva en lo que respecta al uso del agua. Ya no podemos [hacer esto], porque se debe comprender todo para poder administrar la sequía de 20 años que hay ahora”.

Un desafío básico, pero esencial, aún no resuelto es hallar una forma común de comprender y debatir los asuntos relacionados con el río.  Anne Castle, exsubsecretaria de agua y ciencia del DOI, responsable de la USBR entre 2009 y 2014, hoy es miembro del equipo de liderazgo de la WTI. “El desafío es que no solo estamos hablando de sumar personas (representantes de las tribus) a las reuniones”, dice. “Esos representantes de las tribus también incorporan distintos valores. Nunca habíamos lidiado de verdad con esos valores culturales, espirituales y ecológicos en estos tipos de debates”.

Castle añade que sortear esa brecha es un proceso lento. “Los gestores hídricos estatales hablan el mismo idioma desde hace tanto tiempo . . . que es difícil exponerse a una forma distinta de hablar sobre el agua”, dice. “Pero lo opuesto también es cierto: [a los representantes de las tribus] les lleva mucho tiempo de sentarse en reuniones y oír para comprender cómo los afectará lo que están diciendo los gestores hídricos estatales”.

Qué sigue

Las renegociaciones venideras “son un punto de inflexión muy importante acerca de cómo los estados de la cuenca y el gobierno federal tratarán la soberanía de las tribus sobre la cuenca de ahora en adelante”, dice Robison, de la Universidad de Wyoming. “Cuando se planee ese proceso, podremos ver hasta qué punto están apartando de nuevo a las tribus a los márgenes. Hasta qué punto los altos cargos federales y de los estados de la cuenca de verdad no tienen intenciones de seguir pateando el asunto”.

Varios organismos hídricos grandes están aportando fondos a la iniciativa Water & Tribes, lo cual es una señal de esperanza para la posible colaboración; algunos de ellos son la Autoridad del Agua del Sur de Nevada, Denver Water, el Distrito de Irrigación de Imperial (CA), el Distrito Metropolitano de Agua del Sur de California y el Proyecto de Arizona Central. Además, The Nature Conservancy y otros grupos ambientalistas han apoyado convocatorias de la WTI.

No queda muy claro cómo las tribus podrían tener una opinión más sustancial en las decisiones acerca del futuro del río. Una propuesta que surgió de las entrevistas de 2019 de la WTI en toda la cuenca es crear un equipo revisor soberano que incluya representantes estatales, federales y tribales, quizás con el complemento de un consejo asesor de representantes de las 29 tribus de la cuenca.

No importa cómo se estructuren las negociaciones, los riesgos son muchos para todas las partes involucradas. Si bien parece haber un compromiso general con el consenso y la colaboración, en el fondo del empeño hay una tensión fundamental. McKinney indica: “Uno de los intereses fundamentales de las tribus es desarrollar y usar sus derechos hídricos. Ese interés parece ser el extremo opuesto de los intereses actuales de los estados de la cuenca y los objetivos del DCP, que se centran en usar menos agua”. Históricamente, el agua que no usaban las tribus terminaba en manos de entidades externas; así, en algunos casos, dichas entidades podían excederse de su asignación. Ahora, en un momento de sequía a largo plazo y cambio climático, hay cada vez menos agua para repartir. “Es evidente”, dice McKinney, “que la cuenca se enfrenta a conversaciones y elecciones complicadas”.

Para muchas tribus, la elección es clara. “Debemos desarrollar nuestros derechos hídricos”, dice Crystal Tulley-Cordova, principal hidróloga del Departamento de Recursos Hídricos del pueblo navajo. “No deberían exigirnos que renunciemos a nuestro desarrollo”.

Uno de los problemas más conflictivos se centra en la posibilidad de que las tribus alquilen el agua a usuarios por fuera de las fronteras de su reserva. Permitir a las tribus alquilar el agua (o no) es una de las fuentes principales de ventaja que tienen los estados individuales sobre las tribus que están dentro de sus fronteras. “Dado que el estado en que se encuentra la reserva administra los derechos hídricos de las tribus, estas deben trabajar con los funcionarios estatales y otros usuarios para hallar soluciones que beneficien a todas las partes y equilibren las necesidades y los intereses”, dice McKinney.

Vigil concuerda, y enfatiza que el derecho de una tribu de hacer lo que quiera con su agua, ya sea usarla para agricultura o desarrollo económico en tierras propias, o alquilarla a otros usuarios, es un axioma clave del principio de autodeterminación codificado en las políticas federales desde los 70. “El núcleo de esto son los conceptos básicos de poder determinar nuestro propio futuro”, dice Vigil. “Y para mí, eso es la soberanía”.

Hallar puntos en común

La WTI ya está ayudando a las tribus a acercarse al tipo de solidaridad que dificultará que cualquier entidad ignore su voz colectiva. Hace poco, 17 dirigentes tribales se unieron para enviar una carta al DOI sobre la próxima etapa de las negociaciones. “Cuando las tribus participan en los debates y acciones importantes sobre el río Colorado, podemos contribuir (como ya lo hemos hecho) con las soluciones creativas necesarias en una época en la que el agua es cada vez más escasa”, decía la carta. “Creemos que la comunicación frecuente, de preferencia cara a cara, es adecuada y constructiva”.

“La ‘ley del río’ siempre evoluciona”, dice Holway, del Centro Babbitt.  “Confío en que podremos incorporar mejor las perspectivas y los intereses de una comunidad más amplia en los debates futuros sobre la gestión del río Colorado. Ante una mayor escasez del agua, será esencial contar con una mayor base de partes involucradas. También tengo la esperanza de que podamos ver una voz tribal más fuerte en el Departamento del Interior de los Estados Unidos” (al momento de la publicación, el presidente electo Joe Biden había nominado a la representante Deb Haaland, de Nuevo México, para ser secretaria del interior; Haaland sería la primera nativa de los Estados Unidos en estar a cargo del organismo y la primera secretaria nativa de los Estados Unidos en el gabinete).

Según McKinney, el principio que rige a la WTI es “seguir forjando la cultura de colaboración en la cuenca y centrarse en los puntos en común, crear una sensación de ímpetu al trabajar en el 80 por ciento de los asuntos en los que los dirigentes tribales y otros pueden estar de acuerdo, y luego regresar y abordar esas diferencias”.

Ese enfoque en los puntos en común está ayudando a crear vínculos más fuertes, no solo dentro de las tribus, sino también entre las tribus y la comunidad establecida que gestiona el agua. “Uno de los mejores aspectos de la iniciativa Water & Tribes es que intenta crear una red de gente que puede apoyarse entre sí”, dice Colby Pellegrino. “Es crear un tejido para que la gente pueda cruzar, en vez de una cuerda floja”.

Matt Jenkins es un escritor independiente que ha colaborado con New York Times, Smithsonian, Men’s Journal y muchas otras publicaciones.

Fotografía: Un miembro de la tribu cocopah examina la antigua zona de pesca de su tribu en el río Colorado. El cambio climático y las sequías intensas están provocando una escasez de agua crítica en toda la cuenca del río Colorado. Crédito: Pete McBride.

Referencias

Dyer, Jan. 2020. “Practicing Infection Prevention in Isolated Populations: How the Navajo Nation Took on COVID-19”. 17 de agosto. Infection Control Today 24(8). https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/how-the-navajo-nation-took-on-covid-19.

Fradkin, Philip. 1996. A River No More: The Colorado River and the West. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Jenkins, Matt. 2019. “Más allá de la sequía: La búsqueda de soluciones ante el impacto climático sobre un río legendario”. Land Lines. Enero. https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/beyond-drought.

McCool, Daniel. 2003. Native Waters: Contemporary Indian Water Settlements and the Second Treaty Era. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.

USBR (Oficina de Recuperación de los Estados Unidos). 2012. Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study. Washington, DC: Departamento del Interior de los Estados Unidos. https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/finalreport/index.html.

———. 2018. Colorado River Basin Ten Tribes Partnership Tribal Water Study Report. Washington, DC: Departamento del Interior de los Estados Unidos. https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/tws/finalreport.html.

WTI (Water & Tribes Initiative). 2020. “Toward a Sense of the Basin”. Missoula, MT: Centro de Recursos Naturales y Políticas Medioambientales de la Universidad de Montana. https://naturalresourcespolicy.org/docs/colorado-river-basin/basin-report-2020.pdf.

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Phoenix es la quinta ciudad más grande y la metrópolis con mayor índice de crecimiento de los Estados Unidos. Kate Gallego es la segunda alcaldesa mujer electa en la historia de Phoenix; y, con sus 39 años, es la alcaldesa de una ciudad importante más joven del país. Según ella, orientar este crecimiento implica priorizar la diversidad económica, las inversiones en infraestructura y la sustentabilidad. Cuando estaba en el ayuntamiento de Phoenix, dirigió la campaña para aprobar un plan de transporte en toda la ciudad que se prolonga hasta 2050. Cuando este se aprobó, en 2015, fue el acuerdo más grande del país de un gobierno local sobre infraestructura de transporte. Antes de dedicarse a la política, Gallego trabajó en desarrollo económico para Salt River Project, un servicio público de agua y electricidad sin fines de lucro que atiende a más de dos millones de personas en el centro de Arizona. Poco después de haber sido electa por segunda vez, la alcaldesa Gallego habló con Anthony Flint, nuestro miembro sénior. Fue la primera de una serie de entrevistas por el 75.º aniversario con alcaldes de ciudades que tienen una importancia especial para el Instituto Lincoln. A continuación, se presenta la transcripción editada de la conversación.

Anthony Flint: La felicito por la reelección. ¿Cuáles cree que son los temas que más motivaron al electorado en estos tiempos turbulentos?

Kate Gallego: El electorado buscaba candidatos que pudieran liderar en función de datos reales y tomar decisiones basadas en la ciencia. Yo llego a este puesto con un historial en desarrollo económico y un título de grado en medioambiente. El profesor de química nos decía que cuantos más cursos de química hiciéramos, más lejos estaríamos de avanzar en política electoral. Pero creo que el 2020 puede haber sido un año distinto: la ciencia fue importante para el electorado . . . El electorado de Arizona quería dirigentes que se tomaran la COVID-19 en serio, al igual que otros desafíos como el cambio climático y la recuperación económica.

Particularmente para el sector más joven, el cambio climático era un asunto muy importante. Me postulé cuando la comunidad sufría el verano más caluroso que se hubiera registrado. Puede que en algunas comunidades el cambio climático sea un tema del futuro, pero en Phoenix es un problema al que nos enfrentamos ahora. Las distintas generaciones lo describen de distintas formas. Mi papá me dice: si puedes hacer algo para aliviar el calor que sentimos durante el verano aquí, seguro saldrás reelecta. Es otra visión, pero creo que el resultado es el mismo.

AF: ¿Cómo afectó la pandemia a las labores de planeamiento urbano? ¿Surgieron oportunidades imprevistas?

KG: La pandemia realmente cambió el modo en que la gente interactúa con su comunidad. Aumentaron los paseos en bicicleta y a pie. Lo que la gente nos dice es que antes no se daba cuenta de cuánto disfrutaba esa forma de moverse en la comunidad, y pretende mantener algunos de esos cambios de conducta . . . Estamos evaluando cómo podemos crear más espacios públicos. ¿Podemos expandir la gastronomía al aire libre y permitir a la gente interactuar más entre sí?

El Dr. Anthony Fauci nos dijo que cuanto más tiempo pasemos al aire libre mejor combatiremos la COVID-19. Pero hay otros beneficios muy buenos. Soy la alcaldesa de la ciudad con mayor superficie de parques en todo el país, y este fue un año récord en que se disfrutaron esos parques . . . Puedes estar en el medio de Phoenix haciendo senderismo, y hay días en los que no ves a nadie más. Este año, esos servicios y el enfoque en la planificación en función de los parques mejoraron mucho.

Además, seguimos invirtiendo en el sistema de transporte. Decidimos acelerar la inversión en transporte; esa decisión se debatió mucho, y creo que nos permitirá avanzar hacia una forma más urbana. En realidad, notamos un aumento en la demanda por vivir en la ciudad. En el centro tenemos más grúas que nunca, y a menudo vemos solicitudes para edificios más altos que los que hemos visto hasta ahora. Comprendo que se está dando un diálogo intenso a nivel nacional acerca de si la gente querrá estar en un entorno suburbano, pero hoy en el centro de nuestra ciudad el mercado apunta hacia otro lado.

La COVID-19 también nos hizo observar algunos desafíos clave de nuestra comunidad, como viviendas asequibles, la brecha digital y la seguridad alimentaria, y también hicimos inversiones importantes en esos sentidos.

AF: Quizás mucha gente piense que Phoenix tiene mucho espacio para viviendas unifamiliares, que una casa con un patiecito y una entrada para automóviles es relativamente asequible. Sin embargo, la ciudad tiene un problema importante de sinhogarismo. ¿Cómo se llegó a eso?

KG: Phoenix compite por la mano de obra con ciudades como San Francisco y San Diego, y otras con costos de vivienda mucho más elevados que los nuestros. Pero las viviendas asequibles han sido un verdadero desafío para nuestra comunidad. Phoenix presentó el mayor índice de crecimiento del país. Si bien los ingresos aumentaron bastante, no se actualizaron a la par de los grandes aumentos en costos hipotecarios y de alquiler que sufrió la comunidad. Es bueno que la gente esté entusiasmada con nuestra ciudad y quiera ser parte de ella, pero ha sido muy difícil para el mercado inmobiliario.

El concejo acaba de aprobar un plan de viviendas asequibles que incluye un objetivo de crear o conservar 50.000 unidades durante la próxima década. Estamos analizando varias políticas como herramientas, y, si queremos obtener las unidades necesarias, las viviendas multifamiliares tendrán que conformar una gran parte de la solución. Es posible que esto también nos acerque a una forma de desarrollo más urbana.

AF: Quienes se opusieron a la reciente expansión del metro ligero argumentaron que sería demasiado costosa, pero también parecía haber cierta respuesta cultural negativa hacia ese tipo de urbanización. ¿Qué pasó con eso?

KG: En repetidas ocasiones, el electorado votó a favor del sistema de metro ligero. La última vez fue una propuesta de plebiscito [para prohibir el metro ligero] en 2019, poco después de que fui electa. Esto fracasó en todos los distritos del concejo: fracasó en el distrito más demócrata y también en el más republicano de la ciudad. El electorado transmitió un mensaje rotundo: desea esa forma de desarrollo más urbana y la oportunidad que trae el sistema de metro ligero. Hubo inversiones importantes en recursos de atención médica y viviendas asequibles junto al metro ligero. Además, algunos distritos escolares pueden invertir más en aulas y salarios docentes porque no deben pagar el transporte de tantos estudiantes. Fue muy gratificante ver el impacto del metro ligero en la ciudad, cuando las empresas vienen a nuestra comunidad. Suelen pedir ubicaciones junto al metro ligero porque saben que es un servicio que el personal valora. Entonces lo considero un éxito, pero sé que seguiremos hablando sobre cómo y dónde queremos crecer en Phoenix.

AF: No podemos hablar de Phoenix y Arizona sin hablar de agua. ¿En qué estado se encuentran las conversaciones sobre innovación, tecnología y conservación para administrar ese recurso?

KG: Hablando de la ambición del electorado, este aprobó un plan para que la ciudad de Phoenix establezca el objetivo de ser la ciudad desértica más sustentable. La conservación del agua siempre fue un valor aquí, y lo seguirá siendo. La ciudad ya reutiliza casi toda el agua residual en cosechas, humedales y producción energética. Desarrollamos programas sólidos para depositar y reconvertir agua, eficiencia y conservación, y muchos de ellos sirvieron como modelo para otras comunidades.

Estamos planificando a futuro. Muchas partes de la ciudad dependen del río Colorado, y ese sistema fluvial sufre sequías, y quizás se enfrente a mayores desafíos en el futuro. Entonces, intentamos planificar a futuro e invertir en infraestructura para responder a eso, pero también consideramos el ecosistema de bosques y otras soluciones para asegurarnos de que podamos seguir entregando agua y dar prioridad al problema del cambio climático. También tuvimos suerte con bonos verdes y de sustentabilidad, que la ciudad emitió hace poco. Era hora de invertir en la infraestructura, y . . . las asociaciones con The Nature Conservancy y otras organizaciones nos ayudaron a analizar cómo gestionar el agua de modo que se aproveche el ecosistema natural, ya sea por filtración de agua pluvial o la manera en que diseñamos las soluciones del pavimento. Así, hemos tenido buenas innovaciones. La comunidad incluye muchas empresas que están a la vanguardia del uso del agua, tal como se esperaría de una ciudad desértica, y espero que Phoenix se ponga al frente y ayude a otras comunidades a abordar dificultades relacionadas con el agua.

AF: Por último, si nos da el gusto: el fundador creó la Fundación Lincoln en 1946 en Phoenix, donde participaba en acciones filantrópicas locales. ¿Nos daría su opinión sobre el modo en que se entrelazan las historias de Phoenix, la familia Lincoln y esta organización?

KG: Por supuesto. La familia Lincoln tuvo un impacto inmenso en Phoenix y nuestra economía. Uno de los puntos de mayor crecimiento en lo que respecta al empleo es la atención médica, y la red HonorHealth debe su legado a John C. Lincoln. El Centro Médico John C. Lincoln invirtió y nos ayudó en muchos aspectos, desde la COVID-19 hasta todas las dificultades que tiene una ciudad que crece rápido.

Quiero destacar a un miembro en particular de la familia: Joan Lincoln, una de las primeras mujeres a cargo de una ciudad de Arizona [fue alcaldesa de Paradise Valley entre 1984 y 1986; Joan era la esposa de David C. Lincoln, director del Instituto Lincoln por mucho tiempo, y madre de Kathryn Lincoln, la directora actual]. Cuando decidí postularme como alcaldesa, ninguna de las 15 ciudades más grandes del país tenía una alcaldesa mujer; muchas ciudades importantes, como Nueva York y Los Ángeles, nunca habían tenido una. Pero en Arizona es algo común. No soy la primera alcaldesa [mujer] de Phoenix, y soy una de las muchas alcaldesas [mujeres] que hay en el valle. Cuando Joan allanó el camino, no era así. Fue una pionera increíble de verdad, y logró que fuera más posible y más común que hubiera candidatas como yo. Agradezco su liderazgo.

Anthony Flint es miembro sénior del Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo y editor colaborador de Land Lines.

Fotografía: Kate Gallego. Crédito: Kate Gallego/Twitter.

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This article is copublished with the American Planning Association’s Planning magazine.

After a severe winter storm in 2018, a dumpster broke free of its moorings in Boston’s warehouse district, and started floating, almost serenely, down a flooded street. Someone captured the scene on video and it went viral, prompting headlines that the rapidly developing area should be renamed the “Inundation District.”

For the planners, engineers, and others in eastern Massachusetts who have been working to prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change—a projected 40 inches of sea level rise, and the creeping storm surge and high-tide flooding that comes with it—there have been no shortage of such omens. The constant reminders of a wetter future suggest a race against time for a place rated the 8th most vulnerable among coastal cities worldwide, in the company of New York, New Orleans, and Miami.

While reducing carbon emissions is ongoing — Massachusetts recently passed a climate bill with firm net-zero limits for 2030 and beyond — the business of building resilience has been a priority for Boston and surrounding communities for the last several years. The looming crisis is made clear in maps projecting flooding over low-lying areas and all the extensive filling of tidal flats and marshes and other land creation that has been done over centuries. Without action, thousands of acres could be underwater, destroying homes and businesses in a terrifying transformation of the metropolitan region.

The work has been, by necessity, at the local level, without a federal organizational framework, guidance, or funding for the last four years. “With the absence of the federal government, cities like Boston have really had to step up and chart their own path in climate planning and climate resilience,” says Deanna Moran, AICP, director of environmental planning at the Conservation Law Foundation. That has meant doing careful measurement of where the flood paths are and what neighborhoods are most vulnerable, which has helped establish a detailed blueprint for targeted interventions. (Indeed, Boston is hardly alone, as is noted in APA’s Climate Change Policy Guide. “Planners have the expertise, perspectives, and skills to lead the local and regional responses to the climate crisis — but require federal and state action to amplify local planning efforts.”)

Now, with the COVID stimulus bill and another $2 trillion infrastructure package being debated in Washington, the Boston region finds itself at a pivotal moment. Funding for large-scale measures may be on the way, but that has also ratcheted up the pressure to make the right choices for effective and long-lasting protection. Confronting sea level rise here has become an extraordinary puzzle of private development, government regulation, concerns about equity, and the prospect of some areas being restored to a natural state, ultimately requiring people and places to relocate.

Years in the making

Like many coastal communities under threat, Boston has gone through early iterations of what to do, including a giant barrier stretching from Hull in the south to Winthrop in the north, protecting Boston Harbor. A 2018 study concluded the $9 billion proposal would not be cost-effective. Design competitions run by the Boston Society of Architects and the Urban Land Institute have also produced futuristic schemes like turning Back Bay streets into canals.

The search for innovative solutions continues still in the spirit of trial and error, but much of the work has settled into more down-to-earth measures: raising streets, building berms and barriers, and putting in emergency flood gates that can be deployed before a storm, for example—all based on a more precise knowledge of where the water actually goes, when it penetrates the inlets and low-lying areas in the most flood-prone areas.

Boston has already overhauled parks in the Seaport and the North End, to protect recreational facilities by giving the water different places to go. A similar approach is envisioned at Joe Moakley Park in South Boston, set to be protected by a long berm and sand dunes along the nearby beach, as a first line of defense; beyond that, flooding will be managed through a kind of re-ordering of land forms, steadily rising in elevation like a series of terraces. The playing fields can absorb some water, but the goal is to keep them as functional open space.

In addition, zoning, building codes and guidelines, and other land-use regulations are being adjusted to encourage floodable basements and parking garages, and moving mechanicals to higher elevations. Boston published a draft of Coastal Flood Resilience Design Guidelines in 2019 to begin to tackle better building design—although in terms of strict rules, local governments can’t exceed the statewide building code. Developers are also being asked to pitch in by recreating natural systems that act like a sponge, seen in the living shoreline experiment adjacent to the luxury residential development Clippership Wharf in East Boston.

Flooding knows no boundaries

Under the administration of Mayor Martin J. Walsh, who has since become U.S. labor secretary in the Biden administration, the city of Boston has led the way in climate adaptation, with the initiatives Resilient Boston Harbor, concentrating on 47 miles of shoreline, and the broader program Climate Ready Boston. (The Climate Ready Boston Report received a National Planning Achievement Award for Resilience — Gold from APA in 2019.) Yet it is readily apparent to everyone working in resilience that efforts need to be coordinated across multiple municipalities and coastal jurisdictions, since flooding doesn’t care where the town line is.

“The goal is to have a statewide flood risk model and everyone is planning for those same risks,” says Richard McGuinness, Boston’s deputy director for Climate Change and Environmental Planning. “Whether it’s Dorchester down to Quincy, or the flood paths coming into East Boston from Winthrop and Revere — regionally we see the need to determine where the action should occur. The ocean is an infinite source of water.”

McGuinness envisions a series of interventions similar to Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace — at its core a sanitation and flood-control public works project — extending across jurisdictional boundaries.

Although Massachusetts cities and towns are famously decentralized, especially in land use, a framework for regional collaboration is already in place: the Metropolitan Mayors Coalition, representing 15 eastern Massachusetts communities and 1.4 million residents, established by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the regional planning agency for Greater Boston.

The fiscal implications of rising seas will also get even more complicated if individual municipalities attempt to go it alone, according to Linda Shi, assistant professor at Cornell University’s department of city and regional planning.

The rules on coastal development in the 21st century simply can’t vary from one town to the next, and in fact, she says, larger-scale regional measures like the transfer of development rights and relocation through land assembly or land readjustment will be necessary. Individual nature-based solutions are fine, Shi says, but ultimately the coming transformation of coastal communities requires a broader consideration of land policy. The metaphor she invokes is a larger sheet cake, rather than individual cupcakes here and there.

A similar concern is threaded through the matter of equity. All along the East Boston waterfront, new high-end development can prompt the one-two punch of gentrification and potential flooding impacts that could get past the new building and swamp the working-class neighborhood two blocks inland, says Magdalena Ayed, founder and executive director of The Harborkeepers, a grassroots coastal resilience organization. A more uniform standard is needed to spell out the obligations of private developers to help protect the community at large, she says.

Planning, and more specifically scenario planning, can help clarify all the tricky elements inherent in building climate resilience, says Amy Cotter, director of climate strategies at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. “We can wait for different events to happen and react as best we can at the time, accepting the immediate loss of property and life and the cumulative effects on our communities and prosperity,” she says. “Or we can think through the different ways in which climate change will be felt and prepare for them, increasing our ability to withstand them and bounce back, and guarding against the unintended consequences of snap decisions made during crisis. Scenario planning is a great way to think about what could happen and what you’ll do as different things occur and indicate the way the future is unfolding.”

Laying out different scenarios for the future of a given area can be a sobering exercise, but one that reveals the wisdom — and the cost — of resilience interventions. Cornell’s Shi put together a case study for the town of Hull, Massachusetts, a seaside community south of Boston on the front lines of rising seas, that projects outcomes of a range of actions, from doing nothing, building a seawall, micro-protection measures like elevating homes and businesses, or pulling back to higher ground and restoring natural ecosystems. Projected costs ranged from $600 million to over $2 billion, further clarifying the stark realities of the challenges such coastal communities are facing.

Though unpleasant, facing up to the massive disruption that rising seas will bring is critical to ensure the long-term effectiveness of resilience measures — in contrast to doing just enough to buy time. In his new book, Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward, oceanographer John Englander praises the Boston area’s resilience planning — but argues it doesn’t go far enough. (Read the Planning book review.)

“Boston really is as good as it gets in the U.S. I hold up Boston and Singapore as places that are thinking futuristically,” Englander said in a recent interview. But, he adds, a truly sophisticated approach would be to plan for not three and a half feet of sea level rise, but 10 feet, over a 100-year time frame. “As good as Boston’s current plan is — and it is among the best in the world at the moment — they’re not thinking big enough. Nobody’s thinking big enough.”

As radical as some engineering solutions may sound at the moment, they could be made to be adaptable—even something as simple as the foundation of a bridge being designed to relatively easily increase its clearance as necessary. Building in that kind of flexibility in the design of infrastructure is increasingly accepted practice; what is required is a further conceptual leap, on a topic that already strains the imagination. So it is that the last few years of planning and policymaking around climate resilience, as earnestly as it has been undertaken over the last several years, is just a start.

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and a contributing editor of Land Lines.

Photograph: A luxury residential development in East Boston sits in one of several flood paths the city has identified. Developers have raised elevations and re-created natural systems to help absorb inundation, but  some wonder whether it will protect residents of the working-class neighborhood two blocks inland. Credit: Photo courtesy Anthony Flint.

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Rick Schultz doesn’t hate grass outright. He can see the use for it in some places—kids should be able to play soccer somewhere, sure—but there’s no need for it in road medians or sweeping lawns in arid places, says Schultz, a water conservation specialist at the municipally owned utility in Castle Rock, Colorado.

Located on the southern fringes of the Denver metro area, Castle Rock is one of the fastest growing communities in the country. Its population has skyrocketed from 20,224 in 2000 to nearly 72,000 today. Seventy percent of Castle Rock’s water supply comes from non-renewable groundwater, so as the town grew, officials had to figure out how to stretch that supply. In 2006, the water utility and the planning department started collaborating to address that issue. 

The community created a water master plan that set guidelines—like where it made sense to have grass—to delineate how and where they could conserve water while still accommodating growth. Schultz says they had to think outside of traditional land use regulations and water supply patterns to work toward long-term sustainability, steering disparate parts of the planning process toward smart growth: “We needed to push the boundaries a little if we wanted a better outcome.”

Since then, Castle Rock has introduced financial incentives, regulatory changes, and even behavioral science strategies to ensure that water supply is actively considered as part of every planning and development process. From offering incentives to developers who install water monitoring systems to requiring landscapers to pursue professional certification in water efficiency, Castle Rock has become a leader in this area, recognized by the state of Colorado for its efforts and for sharing best practices with other organizations. 

In communities across the United States, water managers and planners are emerging from the silos they’ve traditionally operated in to find new ways to work together. This is in part because climate change is causing turbulence for the water sector nationwide, in the form of prolonged droughts, damaging floods and wildfires, severe storms, and sea-level rise. The urgency of developing resilience in the face of these threats is becoming increasingly clear. Collaboration is also increasing because, although communities face many different challenges and operate with countless variations on municipal structures, many are rediscovering a singular truth about land and water: when you plan for one, you have to plan for both. 

“Water engineers are beginning to recognize they cannot provide sustainable services without involving those in the development community—including planners, architects, and community activists,” explains the American Planning Association’s Policy Guide on Water (APA 2016). “Leading edge planners are reaching across the aisle to water managers to help advise on their comprehensive plans, not only to meet environmental objectives, but also to add value and livability, rooted in the vision of the community.” 

How We Got Here

Picture the view from an airplane as you fly over rural areas or the outskirts of any major city: the way the right-angled boundaries of agricultural fields and housing plots contrast with the twisting braids of river channels and the irregular shape of lakes and ponds. Land and water are very different resources. They have been managed differently—and separately—as a result.

The divide between water and land planning has deep roots. Although water is connected to all parts of sustainable growth, from ecosystem health to economic viability, planners and water managers have long worked separately. From volunteer planning boards in rural communities to fully staffed departments in major cities, planners focus on land use and the built environment. Water managers, meanwhile, whether they are part of a municipally owned utility, private water company, or regional wholesaler, focus on providing a clean and adequate water supply. 

“I can’t think of a single city where [planning and water management] are contained within a single division,” says Ray Quay, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability who has served as both assistant director of land planning and assistant director of water services in Phoenix, Arizona. Quay says regional and watershed-wide development choices about growth often don’t line up with water supply.

“A typical divide would be that planners plan for growth while assuming the water utility will be able to supply water, while water utilities don’t participate in decisions about community growth, they just build infrastructure to serve the new growth that comes to them,” adds Jim Holway, director of the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy, which was created by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in 2017 to advance the integration of land and water management.

Ivana Kajtezovic, planning program manager at Tampa Bay Water, a regional wholesale drinking water utility in Florida, confirms that lack of alignment. “Tampa Bay Water doesn’t have a say in growth in the counties and cities we serve,” says Kajtezovic. “Our only mission is to provide drinking water, no matter the growth or the speed of growth. Land use decisions are made by the counties and cities we serve.”

In a 2016 APA Water Working Group Water Survey, 75 percent of land use planners felt they were not involved enough in water planning and decisions (Stoker et al, 2018). “We know that land and water are connected, and no one ever argues that they’re separate,” says Philip Stoker, assistant professor of Planning at the University of Arizona, who conducted the APA survey. “It’s only people who have separated them.” 

This divide is partly a result of historical regulatory structures. “Water is very much state law-based, with some federal hooks into various aspects of it,” says Anne Castle, former assistant secretary for Water and Science at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Federal management involves regulations such as the Clean Water Act and agencies such as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and water rights are allocated at the state level. Meanwhile, although there is federal and state oversight of some public lands, most of the regulation and planning related to private land happens locally or regionally, reflecting individual and community rights and desires. While there are state-level initiatives to “put more emphasis on the consideration of water in developing land,” Castle says—including in Colorado, where she is based—there are still wide gaps in priorities and responsibilities.

Communities across the country are dealing with unique issues, of course, but Stoker’s survey suggests the barriers to solving them are similar: lack of time, lack of resources, fear of a loss of jurisdictional power if they surrender some control, and differences in education, experience, and technical language. It can be hard to surmount those issues. “Logically it should be easy, but when institutions grow up with a single focus, it’s hard to change their mission and expand into other places,” says Bill Cesanek, cochair of the APA Water & Planning Network. Cesanek says things work better when planners share the responsibility for determining where the water to meet future demands will come from.

Land and water planners have to work together, agrees Quay, and need to be realistic about where, how, and whether their communities can grow. “One of the really critical factors is political will,” he says. “We should be thinking about what’s most important for our community, and we should be allocating our water to that.” 

According to Holway of the Babbitt Center, that’s becoming more common. “With growing demand for water in the face of increasing challenges to acquiring new water supplies, utilities and land planners are having to figure out how to work together to maintain a balance between supply and demand.”  

“Too Much, Too Little, Too Dirty”

According to the APA Policy Guide on Water, water-related threats often fall along familiar lines: not enough water, thanks to increased population growth and climatic stress on top of already fully allocated or overallocated water supplies; too much water, due to flooding and rising sea levels; or compromised water quality due to agricultural and urban runoff and other sources of contamination. In every case, the urgency is growing.

Not enough water. In the Southwest—especially the overtapped Colorado River Basin, which serves 41 million people in seven U.S. and two Mexican states—persistent drought means diminishing snowpack, dwindling supplies in natural aquifers, and shrinking reservoirs. Researchers predict that Colorado River flows will decline by 20 to 35 percent by 2050 and 30 to 55 percent by the end of the century (Udall, 2017). 

The drought also has cascading impacts on water systems. For instance, increasingly frequent and large wildfires in dry Western forests are causing watershed contamination in areas that haven’t previously dealt with it, like the headwaters of the Colorado. During fires and for years afterward, according to the EPA, water can be polluted by ash, sediment, and other contaminants, which forces water managers to scramble for solutions. “I do think there’s a much greater trend of land use planning and water management collaboration occurring fastest in places that are facing scarcity,” Stoker says.

Too much water. Over the last 30 years, floods in the United States have caused an average of $8 billion in damages and 82 deaths per year (Cesanek 2017). As climate change fuels more extreme weather events, Quay says, floods are exceeding parameters defined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that have traditionally guided planning decisions. Quay says it’s hard to adapt because our stationary planning guidelines and laws aren’t set up for those extremes. 

Places like low-lying Hoboken, New Jersey—where rising sea levels and superstorms like Hurricane Sandy have inundated sections of the city—are building water system resilience into their planning. The city is incorporating features like manmade urban sand dunes that work as physical barriers and can divert storm surges to newly built flood pumps. “The stormwater system is at the same level as the river—[stormwater] has nowhere to go, so they’ve had to build a really innovative resilience planning program,” Cesanek says.

Contaminated water. During heavy rains, which are increasingly frequent due to climate change, the combined sewer system in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, overflows into neighboring rivers and Lake Michigan, polluting the waterways, compromising the ecosystem, and affecting the water supply. “Stormwater gets into our combined and sanitary systems. Nothing is water-tight,” says Karen Sands, director of Planning, Research, and Sustainability at Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD). Sands says MMSD has had to align at-odds geographic and jurisdictional layers to find solutions that protect the watershed. One of those solutions is the construction of 70-acre Menomonee stormwater park, built in conjunction with city planners, which is expected to treat 100 percent of runoff from industrial and commercial areas nearby. It both ensures a clean supply of water now, and preemptively manages demand for the future. 

Chi Ho Sham, president of the American Water Works Association, a nonprofit international organization for water supply professionals, says one of the group’s biggest concerns is water quality, particularly protecting water at the source, limiting pollutant use, and creating barriers to slow or prevent contamination. “From my point of view, our job is to work very collaboratively with landowners,” he says. “Water managers cannot do it alone.”

Infrastructure and Equity Issues

The U.S. population is projected to reach 517 million by 2050, and the fastest-growing cities are in the South and West (U.S. Census Bureau 2019). You can’t keep people from moving to Tempe or Tampa Bay, but this population growth is occurring in regions where the pressure on both water quality and quantity is already high. In some places, this rapid growth has forced the hand of planners and water managers, who have implemented water conservation and reuse measures to ensure there will be enough water to go around.

To complicate matters, our nation’s water infrastructure hasn’t kept up with changing demographics. Old lead pipes are disintegrating, and water treatment plants are overwhelmed by the amount of water they need to process. In 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s drinking water a D grade, estimating a cost of $100 billion for all the necessary infrastructure upgrades (ACES, 2017).

There is also a divide between places that can afford to upgrade their infrastructure and those that cannot. Addressing that inequity is crucial to securing future water supplies for everyone, says Katy Lackey, senior program manager at the nonprofit US Water Alliance, a national coalition of water utilities, businesses, environmental organizations, labor unions, and others which is working to secure a sustainable water future. 

“We believe water equity occurs when all communities have access to clean, safe, and affordable drinking water and wastewater services, infrastructure investments are maximized and benefit all communities, and communities are resilient in the face of a changing climate,” she says. Reaching that goal will require new ways of working.

How to Work Together Well

Integrated planning starts with getting people in the same room to understand the needs of their community, the gaps in current processes, and how they can better work together, says Holway of the Babbitt Center. From there, formalizing goals around planning and water is critical, whether those goals are reflected in a comprehensive or master plan for community development, in a more specific plan based on conservation and resilience, or in zoning and regulatory changes. 

“We are focused on identifying, evaluating, and promoting tools to better integrate land and water, with input from a diverse group of practitioners and researchers,” Holway says, noting that Babbitt Center Research Fellow Erin Rugland has produced several publications for practitioners, including a matrix of available tools for integrating land and water (Rugland 2021) and two manuals focused on best practices (Rugland 2020, Castle and Rugland 2019).

Those focused on the importance of integrating land and water say there are several factors that contribute to successful collaborations, including:

Build relationships. Stoker found that getting people out of their silos is an important first step. “In the places that have been the most successful at integrating land and water planning, the utilities and planners were friends. They knew that if they worked together, they would benefit,” he says. Stoker cites Aiken, South Carolina, where water managers helped build the comprehensive plan, as an example, adding that this kind of collaboration is important at every scale. In Westminster, Colorado, water managers participate in preapplication meetings for any new development. From the beginning, they have a chance to advise on how choices made about things like plumbing and landscaping will impact a project’s water use and fees.

Westminster is one of 33 western communities that have participated in the Growing Water Smart program, a multiday workshop run by the Babbitt Center and the Sonoran Institute with additional funding from the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the Gates Family Foundation. Growing Water Smart brings small teams of leaders together to communicate, collaborate, and identify a one-year action plan. 

“The heart of Growing Water Smart is getting land use planners and water managers from the same communities together to talk to each other, sometimes for the very first time,” says Faith Sternlieb of the Babbitt Center, who helps to facilitate the program. “Once they start sharing resources, data, and information, they see how valuable and important collaboration and cooperation are. It isn’t that they didn’t want to work together, it’s that they truly thought they had everything they needed to do their jobs. But they don’t often have the time and space they need to think and plan holistically.”   

“What has worked in my experience is to form relationships with the planners making decisions,” confirms Kajtezovic of Tampa Bay Water. “To the extent possible, I communicate with them and explain the importance of source water protection.”

Be creative and flexible. Once relationships are formed, creativity and flexibility are key. Because every community is facing different planning challenges, “context is incredibly important,” says Quay. This is true not just among different regions, but within regions, and sometimes even from one community to the next. “What works in Phoenix won’t necessarily work in Tempe [a city of nearly 200,000 just east of Phoenix], so we can’t just adapt best management practices, we have to think about best for who.” He recommends identifying a broad, flexible set of tools that can be used and adapted over time.

Be willing to learn. Because of specialization, planners and water managers “don’t speak the same language,” says Sham, who says the AWWA has been working on collaborative education about source water protection for members and landowners. Sometimes it feels like added work on the front end, and he says people can be reluctant to take on work that’s not in their purview, but developing a shared language and understanding is crucial for long-term sustainability. 

John Berggren helps communities coordinate land and water planning as a water policy analyst for Western Resource Advocates. He says one of his first steps is to educate local leaders and get them excited about including water in their comprehensive plans. “We get them interested and concerned about conservation, to create top-down support for planning departments and water utilities,” he says. Once water is codified in a comprehensive plan, he says, that allows planners and utilities to come up with creative, progressive solutions. 

Be comprehensive. The integration of land use and water planning works best when it is included in state-level regulations or in comprehensive plans at the community level. According to the Babbitt Center, 14 states formally incorporate water into planning in some form, and that number is growing. For example, the 2015 Colorado Water Plan set a goal that 75 percent of Coloradans will live in communities that have incorporated water-saving actions into land use planning by 2025; communities across the state are working on that process, and 80 communities would have to take action to hit the 2025 deadline. Colorado also recently passed state legislation that outlines water conservation guidelines for planning and designates a new position in the state government to support the coordination of land and water planning. 

Since 2000, when Arizona passed the Growing Smarter Plus Act, the state has required communities to include a chapter in their comprehensive plans that addresses the link between water supply, demand, and growth projections. It’s happening in less dry places, too. The Manatee County, Florida, comprehensive plan matches water quality with need to make the best use of non-potable water. It includes codes for water reuse and alternative water sources to increase availability, and to make sure that water gets to the most appropriate destination.

To incorporate water into comprehensive plans, Quay says, communities need a concrete idea of the type and amount of their available resources. Water managers and planners can then work together to identify new and alternative water sources like treated wastewater and graywater (household water that has been used for things like laundry and can still be used for flushing toilets); to identify projected demand; and to outline how to meet it.

Embrace the power of local action. Even if water-related planning is not mandated by the state or incorporated in a community’s comprehensive plan, water managers and planners can still find ways to collaborate. More specific local plans can include water supply and wastewater infrastructure plans; hazard mitigation and resilience plans, like floodplain and stormwater management; demand management; watershed processes and health; and plans for interagency coordination and collaboration. If those variables feel overwhelming, Berggren suggests that planners look to their peer communities for best practices. Although each community is different, he says, “no one needs to reinvent the wheel.” 

Local policy shifts can also include form-based codes that outline water-related aspects of the built environment. In Milwaukee, Sands says best practices for managing flooding and pollution include “updating municipal codes and ordinances to encourage green infrastructure and more sustainable practices.” That green infrastructure, which mimics natural processes at the site level through things like bioswales and stormwater storage, can make communities more resilient to climate change, while restoring ecosystems and protecting water supply.  

Water-wise policy shifts can also come in the form of zoning ordinances, like smaller lot sizes. Planners can use subdivision and land development regulations to promote on-site capture, infiltration, and slow release of stormwater. Some communities have adopted plumbing codes that require high efficiency fixtures, or building codes that permit water recycling, or submetering to increase efficiency in multifamily residences. Fountain, Colorado, has conservation-oriented tap fees, which incentivize developers to meet water efficiency standards beyond the building code. Developers can pay lower tap fees if they agree to options like native landscaping or including efficient indoor fixtures across a development.

The benefits of integrating land and water planning are myriad, from measurable results like adapting plans for development to ensure an adequate water supply to more indirect, long-term effects like reducing conflict between water users as supplies shrink. Back in Castle Rock, Schultz and his colleagues have observed that water-focused land use ordinances can have a big impact, and can benefit quality of life as a whole. It hasn’t always been easy, Schultz says, but the new way of doing things seems to be paying off: “We’ve shown that we can do better if we provide a good foundation.” 

Heather Hansman is a freelance journalist, Outside magazine’s environmental columnist, and the author of the recent book Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West.

Lead Photograph: In Castle Rock, Colorado, planners and water utility managers have partnered on plans for sustainable growth. Credit: Robert Young via iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus.

References

APA (American Planning Association). 2016. APA Policy Guide on Water. Chicago, IL: American Planning Association. https://www.planning.org/policy/guides/adopted/water/.

ACES (American Society of Civil Engineers). 2017. Infrastructure Report Card. Washington, DC: American Society of Civil Engineers. https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/.

Castle, Anne, and Erin Rugland. 2019. “Best Practices for Implementing Water Conservation and Demand Management Through Land Use Planning Efforts: Addendum to 2012 Guidance Document.” Denver, CO: Colorado Water Conservation Board. January. https://dnrweblink.state.co.us/cwcbsearch/ElectronicFile.aspx?docid=208193&dbid=0.

Cesanek, William, Vicki Elmer, and Jennifer Graeff. 2017. Planners and Water: PAS Report 588. Chicago, IL: American Planning Association. https://www.planning.org/publications/report/9131532/.

Rugland, Erin. 2021. “Integrating Land and Water: Tools, Practices, Processes, and Evaluation Criteria.” Working paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/working-papers/integrating-land-water. (February).

Rugland, Erin. 2020. Incorporating Water into Comprehensive Planning: A Manual for Land Use Planners in the Colorado River Basin. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/other/incorporating-water-comprehensive-planning.

Stoker, Philip Anthony, Gary Pivo, Alexandra Stoicof, Jacob Kavkewitz, Neil Grigg, and Carol Howe. 2018. Joining-Up Urban Water Management with Urban Planning and Design. Alexandria, VA: The Water Resource Foundation. https://www.waterrf.org/research/projects/joining-urban-water-management-urban-planning-and-design.

Udall, Bradley, and Overpeck, Jonathan. 2017. “The Twenty‐First Century Colorado River Hot Drought and Implications for the Future.” Water Resources Research 53 (3): 1763-2576.

U.S. Census Bureau. 2019. “Fastest-Growing Cities Primarily in the South and West.” Press release. May 23. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/subcounty-population-estimates.html.

Related

Growing Water Smart: Workshop Helps Western Communities Integrate Water and Land Use Planning

Water Planning: Land Use Decisions Could Make or Break the River that Sustains One in Nine Americans

In the fall of 2018, water managers in Arizona were in heated discussions about how to limit the damage from a decades-long megadrought on the Colorado River. The drought has forced painful reckonings and realignments related to water use throughout the Colorado River Basin. Because of the way the water has been allocated over time, it had become clear that Arizona would bear the brunt of the looming shortages—and that farmers in the state, many of whom have low-priority water rights, would face severe cuts.

At a meeting that October, Stefanie Smallhouse, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau, denounced the proposed cuts. She suggested that the proposals showed disrespect for farmers, in particular for a white settler named Jack Swilling who, in her telling, had heroically made the desert bloom. “I find it’s ironic that we are exactly 150 years from the first farmer starting the settlement [of] the Phoenix area,” Smallhouse said. “There wasn’t anybody else here. There [were] relics of past tribal farming, but [Swilling] was pretty much the starter.”

Later in the meeting, Stephen Roe Lewis spoke. Lewis is the governor of the Gila River Indian Community, a reservation south of Phoenix that is home to members of the Akimel O’otham and Pee Posh tribes. The Akimel O’otham trace their heritage to the Huhugam civilization, which constructed a massive system of irrigation canals to support the cultivation of cotton, corn, and other crops in the area beginning about 1,400 years ago. But in the 1870s and 1880s, new canal systems built primarily by white farmers drained the Gila River, devastating the Akimel O’otham and Pee Posh farms and leading to famine and starvation. “History is important,” Governor Lewis stated, correcting Smallhouse’s account of Swilling finding only “relics” of tribal farming. “We’ve been farming for over 1,000 years, and the only time that was disrupted was when that water was taken away from us.”

The Gila River Indian Community has, in fact, spent much of the past 150 years trying to win back water its members had long depended on. In 2004, a congressionally approved settlement awarded the community a substantial quantity of water from the Colorado. Since then, the community has actively worked to protect those rights. “We will be here as long as it takes to find solutions,” Lewis told the assembled stakeholders in 2018. “But we will fight to the end to make sure that our water is not taken again.”

As that exchange illustrates, the long history of Native Americans in the Colorado River Basin is often ignored in discussions about the management of the resource, as are their social, cultural, and environmental attachments to the river. The comments from Lewis indicate how committed today’s tribal leaders are to changing that. Since the late 1970s, tribes in the region have won a series of settlements confirming their rights to Colorado River water. Today, tribes control an estimated 20 percent of the water in the river. As the entire basin faces the reality of serious shortages, it has become clear that tribes—which have sovereignty under the U.S. Constitution, giving them the right to govern themselves—must be key players in any conversation about the future.

The stakes are considerable, not just for tribes but for everyone who depends on the Colorado. Some 41 million people in seven American and two Mexican states use water from the river, which irrigates more than four million acres of farmland. If the Colorado watershed were a separate country, it would be among the 10 largest economies in the world. But drought and other effects of climate change are pushing the river beyond its ability to meet the enormous demands on it, bringing tribes more squarely into the river’s politics.

To improve the ability of tribes to manage their water, and to give them a stronger voice in management discussions and decisions in the basin, several organizations launched the Water & Tribes Initiative (WTI) in 2017, with funding from the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy, a program of the Lincoln Institute. Leaders of the project, which is now also funded by the Walton Family Foundation, Catena Foundation, and several other partners, include a cross-section of tribal representatives, current and former state and federal officials, researchers, conservation groups, and others.

“If we work together, we can find solutions to these issues,” says Daryl Vigil, a member of the Jicarilla Apache Nation and co-facilitator of WTI. He says this is a delicate time for the tribes: “If we’re not ahead of this game, in terms of just a basic recognition of tribal sovereignty in this process, there are huge risks.”

“We are excited to be part of this evolving and growing partnership,” says Jim Holway, director of the Babbitt Center. “The work WTI is doing is critical to the long-term sustainability of the basin and is central to our goal of improving the links between land and water management.”

Divided Waters

The 29 federally recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin have long lived within a paradox. In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that tribes have a right to water for their reservations. In the first come, first served hierarchy of western water law, the Court dealt them a powerful trump card, ruling that a tribe’s water rights were based on the date its reservation was created. Since most reservations were established by the U.S. government in the second half of the 1800s, tribes are theoretically in a stronger position than any of the other users on the river. Like the Akimel O’otham and Pee Posh, all of the tribes were here long before non-native settlers.

But when representatives from the seven basin states gathered in 1922 to draw up the Colorado River Compact, they pushed tribes into the background. The compact specifies the division of water among California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico and laid the foundation of a complex web of agreements, laws, and court rulings collectively known as the “Law of the River”—which essentially ignored Indians. (See the special issue of Land Lines, January 2019, for an in-depth exploration of the river and its history.) Although the compact briefly acknowledges “the obligations of the United States to American Indian tribes,” it does not go into detail about tribal water rights. As the scholar Daniel McCool has noted, “the omission of any consideration of Indian rights left unresolved one of the most important problems in the basin” (McCool 2003).

The author and historian Philip Fradkin put a finer point on it, declaring that “the Colorado is essentially a white man’s river.” But Anglo settlers had ignored Indians at their peril, he noted: the unresolved issue of Indians’ true rights to water from the Colorado was a “sword of Damocles” hanging over the river’s future (Fradkin 1996).

The full extent of Indian water rights is still not quantified. In the early 1970s, federal policy took a radically new course, adopting the principle of tribal self-determination. That led to tribes negotiating directly with the federal government to settle their water rights. In 1978, Arizona’s Ak-Chin Indian Community was the first to do so; since then, 36 water-rights settlements have been negotiated between tribes, other water-rights holders in the basin, and state and federal agencies. “The onset of negotiated settlements was an important part of the evolution” of tribal water rights, says Jason Robison, a law professor at the University of Wyoming. “But the features they’ve come to incorporate have also broken new ground.”

While tribal water rights were originally seen primarily as a necessity for farming on reservations, the settlements of the 20th century allowed some tribes to lease their water rights to users outside their reservations. This came to be seen as an economic development tool and a way to fund basic services for tribal members.

For the Navajo Nation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, tying water to economic development is “all about creating a permanent homeland, where people go off, get educated, and come home,” says Bidtah Becker, a tribal member and attorney who has long been involved in water issues as a Navajo Nation government official. “We’re trying to develop a thriving homeland that people come home to, that works.”

In many cases, tribes don’t have the physical infrastructure to put their allocated water to use. Throughout the United States, Native American households are 19 times more likely than white households to lack indoor plumbing. On the Navajo Nation, the widespread lack of water services has likely contributed to the tribe’s horrendous losses to COVID-19; at one point in 2020, the nation had a higher per capita infection rate than any U.S. state (Dyer 2020). “Between 70,000 and 80,000 Navajos still haul water [to their homes] on a daily basis,” Vigil says. “In our country, in 2020, there’s still 70,000 to 80,000 people who aren’t connected to water infrastructure in a pandemic. It’s crazy.”

Vigil is the Water Administrator for the Jicarilla Apache Nation in New Mexico. In a 1992 settlement with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), the tribe was allotted 40,000 acre-feet (roughly 13 billion gallons) of water per year, which it leased to the operator of a coal-fired power plant. The lease helped fund annual payments to tribal members for many years. But as the economy shifted toward green energy, the leases were not renewed. “So all of a sudden we’re left with settlement water stored [in a reservoir] 40 to 45 miles away, with no ability to use that water,” Vigil says.

Given the current drought, he says, the tribe could easily lease its water to others, but the terms of its federal settlement prohibit leasing water outside of New Mexico. Instead, the water flows out of the tribe’s hands and into the hands of other users. “No mechanisms are available to take our water outside of state boundaries,” Vigil says. “For the last two years, we’ve had over 30,000 acre-feet of unleased water going down the river.”

The ability to lease water can give tribes leverage—and an economic boost. In a hard-fought 2004 settlement, the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) secured rights to more than twice as much water as the city of Las Vegas. It has used those rights to become a major, though often overlooked, force in Arizona water policies and politics. The tribe participated in negotiations around the Drought Contingency Plan (DCP), a multiyear, basinwide agreement signed in 2019 to address the impacts of the decades-long drought (Jenkins 2019).

States negotiated their own agreements as part of the DCP process; in Arizona, GRIC agreed to leave some of its water in Lake Mead, the reservoir that provides water to the Lower Basin, and to lease another portion to the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District to address concerns about long-term water supplies for new development. Together, the two deals could be worth as much as $200 million to the tribe.

The Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT)—a community that includes the Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi, and Navajo tribes on a reservation spanning the river in Arizona and California—was also an important participant in the DCP. The community’s participation was not without internal controversy: some tribal members were opposed to the DCP and attempted to recall the members of their tribal council. Ultimately CRIT agreed to leave up to 8 percent of its annual allocation in Lake Mead for three years in exchange for compensation of $30 million from the state of Arizona and an additional $8 million pledge from a group of foundations and corporations organized by the Walton Family Foundation and Water Funder Initiative.

The DCP negotiations were complex and contentious. In the end, coming to a resolution required getting tribes, cities, farmers, and other major stakeholders to the table.

The Relationship Between Tribal and State Allocations

When a tribe wins the right to use or lease a certain amount of Colorado River water, that water is considered part of the allocation of the state where the tribe is based. Because the states have individual allocations of water under the laws and agreements governing the river, newly negotiated tribal water settlements reduce the amount of water available for other users in that state. In the past, when tribal water allocations were not used, this water was left in the system for use by others. This issue is particularly acute in Arizona, where 22 of the 29 basin tribes have reservations. With the water rights of many tribes still unrecognized and unquantified, tribes and other stakeholders are understandably on edge about the future availability of water in the drought-stricken basin and intent on finding ways to work together to ensure a sustainable future.

To access policy briefs, reports, and other materials produced by the Water & Tribes Initiative, visit www.naturalresourcespolicy.org/projects/watertribes-colorado-river-basin.

Bridging the Gap

Since its inception, WTI has aimed to improve the tribes’ abilities to advance their interests and to promote sustainable water management in the basin through collaborative problem-solving. “We walk a tightrope,” says Matt McKinney, who co-facilitates the initiative with Vigil. McKinney is a longtime mediator who directs the Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy at the University of Montana. “On the one hand, it’s pretty easy to see us being advocates for tribes, which we are. But the larger frame is that we’re advocates for a fair, equitable, effective process of solving problems and making decisions.”

“The success of tribal water settlements has been based on the relationships of the people in the room,” says Margaret Vick, an attorney for the Colorado River Indian Tribes. “And the Water & Tribes Initiative has expanded the [number of] people in the room.” WTI is now working to shift away from narrow negotiations on individual water settlements to a much broader conversation spanning the basin: the current guidelines for managing the river will expire at the end of 2026, and new guidelines for the next several decades will soon be hammered out. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR)—the division of DOI that manages the Colorado and other western waterways—is reviewing the past decade and a half of negotiations and operations to prepare for the next round. “We need a more inclusive renegotiation process,” says Morgan Snyder, senior program officer at the Walton Family Foundation’s environment program. “This is the opportunity to influence the next 25 years of water management in the basin.”

Anticipating the renegotiation process, McKinney and Vigil conducted interviews in 2019 with more than 100 people, including tribal leaders, water managers, and others involved in water issues in the region, to identify major issues facing the basin as well as ways to enhance collaborative problem-solving, particularly tribal participation in decisions about the river. WTI held workshops with tribal members and other interested parties from across the basin to identify strategies to enhance tribal and stakeholder engagement.

“Many interviewees believe it is time to move beyond managing the river as a plumbing and engineering system that supplies water to cities and farms and toward a more holistic, integrated system that better accommodates multiple needs and interests, including but not limited to tribal sacred and cultural values, ecological and recreational values, and the integration of land and water management decisions,” McKinney and Vigil wrote. “The intent here is to articulate a holistic, integrated vision and then make progress toward that vision incrementally over some period of time . . . and to move from a system focused on water use to watershed management” (WTI 2020).

To raise awareness, increase understanding, and catalyze conversations, WTI is issuing a series of policy briefs on topics ranging from the enduring role of tribes in the basin to a systemwide vision for sustainability. It is also helping the Ten Tribes Partnership, a coalition created in 1992 to increase the influence of tribes in Colorado River water management, develop a strategic plan.

But changing the nature of water management negotiations—to say nothing of the nature of water management itself—will not be easy. “Just like any other really complicated process, you have to figure out a way to break it down,” says Colby Pellegrino, deputy general manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which supplies water to Las Vegas and its suburbs. “You have to eat the elephant that is Colorado River law and all of the interrelated problems one bite at a time. This presents issues if different stakeholder groups have differing opinions on the scope of negotiations.”

Some tribes have been frustrated by the difficulty of making their voices heard, even though they are sovereign nations. “We’re not ‘stakeholders,’” Vigil says. “We always get thrown into the same pool as NGOs, conservation groups. But it’s like, ‘No, we’re sovereigns.’”

The federal and state governments have also made some significant missteps. In 2009, the USBR launched a major study to assess current and future supply and demand along the river (USBR 2012), yet tribes weren’t meaningfully included in that process. Only after pressure from several tribes did the bureau commission a study of tribal water allotments, conducted with the Ten Tribes Partnership and released years later (USBR 2018). That study outlines the barriers to the full development of tribal water rights and analyzes the potential impacts of tribes developing those rights—especially for other users who have come to rely on the water that long went unused by the tribes. And in 2013, the basin states and the federal government began discussions about the Drought Contingency Plan without notifying tribes.

“States have ignored tribal water rights and tribal water use since the compact in the 1920s,” Vick says. “The [supply and demand study] was a state-driven process, and the states did not understand tribal water rights and were rarely involved in even considering what goes on on the reservation, as far as water use. They can’t [do this] anymore, because there has to be a full understanding to be able to manage the 20-year drought that we’re in.”

One basic but critical remaining challenge is finding a common way to understand and discuss issues related to the river. Anne Castle, a former assistant secretary for water and science at the DOI who held responsibility for the USBR from 2009 to 2014, is now a member of WTI’s leadership team. “The challenge is that we’re not talking about just having additional people—tribal representatives—at the table,” she says. “Those tribal representatives bring different values to the table as well. We haven’t really dealt with those cultural and spiritual and ecological values in these sorts of discussions previously.”

Bridging that gap is a slow process, Castle adds. “When you have spoken one language for as many years as state water managers have . . . to be exposed to a different way of talking about water is difficult,” she says. “But the converse is also true: it takes [tribal representatives] a long time of sitting in meetings and listening to understand how what state water managers are talking about will impact them.”

What Comes Next

The coming renegotiations “are a very important inflection point in how the basin states and the federal government treat tribal sovereignty in the Colorado River Basin going forward,” says Robison of the University of Wyoming. “When that process gets mapped out, you’ll be able to see, okay, to what extent are the tribes again being pushed to the margins? To what extent are the basin-state principals and the feds willing to actually not kick the can down the road?”

In a hopeful sign of potential collaboration, several large water agencies are contributing funding to the Water & Tribes Initiative, including the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Denver Water, the Imperial (CA) Irrigation District, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and the Central Arizona Project. The Nature Conservancy and other environmental groups have provided support for WTI convenings as well.

Exactly how tribes might get a more substantial voice in decisions about the river’s future isn’t clear. One proposal that emerged from WTI’s basinwide interviews in 2019 is for the creation of a sovereign review team that would include state, federal, and tribal representatives, perhaps supplemented by an advisory council of representatives from each of the basin’s 29 tribes.

No matter how the negotiations are structured, much is at stake for all involved. While there seems to be a general commitment to consensus and collaboration, there is a fundamental tension at the heart of the endeavor. As McKinney notes, “One of the tribes’ fundamental interests is to develop and use their water rights. That interest seems to be diametrically opposed to the current interests of the basin states and the objectives of the DCP, which are all about using less water.” Historically, unused tribal water has been used by nontribal entities, in some cases allowing those entities to exceed their allocations. Now, in an era of long-term drought and climate change, there’s less and less water to go around. “You can see,” says McKinney, “that the basin is faced with some difficult conversations and tough choices.”

For most tribes, the choice is clear. “We need to develop our water rights,” says Crystal Tulley-Cordova, principal hydrologist for the Navajo Nation’s Department of Water Resources. “We shouldn’t be expected to forfeit our development.”

One of the most contentious issues centers on the ability of tribes to lease their water to users outside the boundaries of their reservations. Allowing tribes to lease their water—or not—is one of the principal sources of leverage that individual states have over the tribes within their boundaries. “Given that tribal water rights are counted as part of the allocation for the state in which the reservation is located, tribes need to work with state officials and other water users to find mutual gain solutions that balance everyone’s needs and interests,” says McKinney.

Vigil agrees and emphasizes that a tribe’s right to do what it wants with its water, whether using it for farming or economic development on tribal lands or leasing it to other users, is a key tenet of the self-determination principle codified in federal policy since the 1970s. “The heart of it goes to those foundational concepts of an ability to determine your own future,” Vigil says. “And that’s what sovereignty is to me.”

Finding Common Ground

WTI is already helping tribes work toward the kind of solidarity that will make it difficult for any entity to ignore their collective voice. Recently, 17 tribal leaders joined together to send a letter to the DOI about the next stage of negotiations. “When Tribes are included in major discussions and actions concerning the Colorado River, we can contribute—as we already have—to the creative solutions needed in an era of increasing water scarcity,” the letter read. “We believe frequent communication, preferably face-to-face, is appropriate and constructive.”

“The ‘Law of the River’ is always evolving,” says Holway of the Babbitt Center. “I am optimistic that we will better incorporate the perspectives and interests of the broader community in future Colorado River management discussions; in the face of increasing water scarcity, a broader base of engagement will be essential. I am also hopeful we will be seeing a stronger tribal voice within the U.S. Department of the Interior.” (At press time, President-elect Joe Biden had nominated Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico to serve as secretary of the Interior; Haaland would be the first Native American to head the agency and the first Native American Cabinet secretary.)

The guiding principle for WTI, McKinney says, is “to build on the collaborative culture in the basin and to focus on common ground, to build a sense of momentum by working on the 80 percent of the issues where tribal and other water leaders can agree—and then circle back around to address the differences.”

That focus on common ground is helping to create stronger ties not just among tribes, but also between tribes and the established water management community. “One of the great things about the Water & Tribes Initiative is that it’s trying to create this network of people who can all rely on each other,” says Colby Pellegrino. “It’s building a web for people to walk across instead of a tightrope.”

Matt Jenkins is a freelance writer who has contributed to the New York Times, Smithsonian, Men’s Journal, and numerous other publications.

Photograph: A member of the Cocopah Tribe surveys the tribe’s former fishing grounds along the Colorado River. Climate change and severe drought are leading to critical water shortages throughout the Colorado River Basin. Credit: Pete McBride.

References

Dyer, Jan. 2020. “Practicing Infection Prevention in Isolated Populations: How the Navajo Nation Took on COVID-19.” August 17. Infection Control Today 24(8). https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/how-the-navajo-nation-took-on-covid-19.

Fradkin, Philip. 1996. A River No More: The Colorado River and the West. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Jenkins, Matt. 2019. “Beyond Drought: The Search for Solutions as Climate Impacts a Legendary River.”
Land Lines. January. https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/beyond-drought.

McCool, Daniel. 2003. Native Waters: Contemporary Indian Water Settlements and the Second Treaty Era. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.

USBR (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation). 2012. Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior. https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/finalreport/index.html.

———. 2018. Colorado River Basin Ten Tribes Partnership Tribal Water Study Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior. https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/tws/finalreport.html.

WTI (Water & Tribes Initiative). 2020. “Toward a Sense of the Basin.” Missoula, MT: University of Montana Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy. https://naturalresourcespolicy.org/docs/colorado-river-basin/basin-report-2020.pdf.

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