SALT LAKE CITY — A resolution introduced in the Utah State Legislature could have an impact on negotiations between states, tribes and Mexico over the future of the Colorado River.
House Joint Resolution 9, sponsored by Rep. Casey Snider, R-Paradise, calls for Utah to use its full allocation of Colorado River water in the upper and lower basins.
"We're just wanting to make sure that it is clear and unequivocal what the state's position is on the Colorado River," Rep. Snider told FOX 13 News in an interview.
The agreements governing the Colorado River expire in 2026 and are currently being renegotiated. The Great Basin Water Network believes the state's position with this resolution when it comes to Colorado River water is "we're going to use it wherever we want."
"These Colorado River Compact negotiations, the forward looking elements of it all, they're problematic enough," said Kyle Roerink, the environmental group's director. "Then you throw some of this grandstanding in there, and it just makes things even more difficult."
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The negotiations between the states on a new Colorado River agreement have already been challenging. The states participated in the Colorado River Water Users Association meeting in Las Vegas back in December, but did not actually sit down together to talk. Instead, they traded jabs from the stage and in news reports.
But since then, things have calmed down and everyone is talking again, said Utah's negotiator Gene Shawcroft.
"There's no doubt that there was some posturing going on in Las Vegas," he told FOX 13 News. "All seven states and the federal government recognize that we're much, much better off if we have a seven-state consensus alternative. We've been meeting every other week since the middle of January. We're making some progress. We're talking about tough issues, frankly, that have never been talked about before."
Shawcroft said he did not have a problem with the resolution and a companion bill on the Colorado River Authority of Utah.
But Roerink said the resolution fails to take into account how much less water there is in the Colorado River.
"We need realistic ways to figure out how we're all going to use less water. And what this provision is really about more than anything else is Utah wants to use more," he said.
Rep. Snider insisted that the resolution doesn't allow Utah to do what it wants.
"I don't think any of us want to take more than is available, certainly, or more than our fair share," he told FOX 13 News. "But as these discussions are moving forward, you know, we're going to see other states hoping to maintain their the commitments that have been promised them... and we're just hopefully reaffirming our position as those discussions move forward."
This article is published through the Colorado River Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative supported by the Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water, and Air at Utah State University. See all of our stories about how Utahns are impacted by the Colorado River at greatsaltlakenews.org/coloradoriver
