Staff Open Meeting - August 25, 2026 - Aug 25, 2026

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Arizona Corporation Commission 2h 43m 8 agenda items transcribed 3 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the current status of the Colorado River and why is it a concern for Arizona?

Chairman Myers 0:00

All right, well, good morning, everybody. This will be our, huh?

Commissioner Marquez-Peterson 0:09

Yeah, I might have to. So

Chairman Myers 0:12

this is our August 25th staff open meeting. So I guess this one, we just get right into it. So Vice Chair Walden, would you move item one?

Vice Chair Walden 0:23

Yes, I move item one for discussion.

Chairman Myers 0:27

And this one we're going to let Commissioner Marquez-Peterson

Commissioner Marquez-Peterson 0:31

spearhead. Yeah, thank you, Chairman. And good morning, everybody. Great to see you all. Thank you for attending this morning. Today we're going to receive an update on the Colorado River, which supports, as we know, more than 40 million residents across the West. We're hearing from Tom Buschowski. Hope I said that right. Hopefully. Hopefully. And he is Arizona's lead Colorado River negotiator and our director of our Department of Water Resources. As well as we're going to be hearing from two of our water utilities that we regulate who've engaged in the discussion. on behalf of Arizona. And I think we're all aware that the region now uses less water than it did 40 years ago, even as its population has more than doubled.

Commissioner Marquez-Peterson 1:09

However, due to the use and lessened water supply in Colorado, we're facing a daunting issue, and the federal government, along with the states that are impacted, are at the negotiating table. There have been many media headlines, including just this past Friday, that short-term reductions announced by the federal government will cost Arizona roughly one-third of its share of river water over the next two years. And beyond that, a range of cutbacks remain possible. We've read that any serious hit to the state's Colorado river supply is likely to drive up the cost of replacement water and lead to more groundwater pumping. And that's why I thought it was important that our commissioners were updated on the negotiation so that we can understand the big picture facing our state, as well as the impact to our regulated water utilities located across the state.

Commissioner Marquez-Peterson 1:54

So thank you to our speakers today for preparing for this informational meeting. Thank you to my fellow commissioners for participating and staff for attending also to learn more. And we'd like to start with our director of the Department of Water Resources, Mr. Bishautsky. And if you'd like to come on up and he has a presentation. Thank you.

Tom Buschofsky 2:19

So good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. I am Tom Buschofsky, the Director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. And in that role, under state law, I am responsible for negotiating agreements with the other Colorado River Basin states and with the federal government, tempered, of course, by situations where the legislature must approve any agreements that I am considering entering into on behalf of the state. So I'm going to talk to you today, first a little bit of background about the Colorado River itself, some of the hydrology, the water that's being produced or not produced, and then the current state of play in the negotiations and what's facing all of us. So first, this is a map of the Colorado River Basin.

Tom Buschofsky 3:12

You can see the outline. There's four states in the upper basin, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. Three states in the lower basin, Arizona, Nevada, and California. And of course, Mexico gets water from the river, pursuant to a 1944 treaty. The upper basin, under a 1922 compact that was memorialized in Congress, gets to use seven and a half million acre feet of water. In the lower basin, We get to use seven and a half million acre feet of water as well. And Mexico under the treaty gets 1.5 million acre feet of water. And of course, Arizona always wanting to be unique. We actually have 50,000 acre feet of upper basin water. So those are the allocations in the lower basin states. Pursuant to the 1928 Boulder Canyon Project Act, the act that authorized the building of Hoover Dam, those allocations were volumetric, so 4.4 million acre feet for California, 2.8 million acre feet for Arizona, and 300,000 acre feet for Nevada.

Tom Buschofsky 4:30

In the upper basin, they split up their water based on percentages. In the lower basin, we have grown into the full use.