The Agenda crew took a vacation at a perhaps inopportune time for Colorado River observers.
For months, we reported, prognosticated, and speculated on the federal government’s plans for the dwindling Colorado River — plans that will help shape the future for the roughly 40 million people and 5.5 million of acres of farmland and myriad plants and animals that rely on a river that has long been overused.
But just as we were getting ready to power down our laptops (as if!) and hit the open road, the federal government was preparing to release its final environmental impact statement, a document required under the National Environmental Policy Act that lays out the mechanics of the government’s plan.
On July 31, the Interior Department released the document. At the time, the expectation among water watchers (myself included) was that the government’s record of decision — the actual final plan for the river, at least until litigation changes its course — would follow in subsequent days. That didn’t end up happening.
In hindsight, it probably shouldn’t surprise us that we’re still waiting for that final decision.
Rewriting the future of the Colorado River (for good or for ill) has proven to be a protracted, painful process, one full of blown deadlines and stalled negotiations.
Even so, the release of the final environmental impact statement (hereafter: FEIS) marks the end of the public NEPA process and the beginning of the end — or maybe the middle of the end — of the overarching effort to develop new Colorado River management plans for the coming decades.
(Arizona Department of Water Resources).
The seven states of the basin, municipal and agricultural water boards, dozens of Native American tribes, the federal government and other stakeholders have spent the better part of three years trying to develop a consensus plan to share the river and reduce use.
In that time, they’ve repeatedly missed deadlines set by the feds, who have taken a mostly back-seat role until recently, and failed to come up with anything that all parties on the river can agree to. As one observer put it in a recent Popular Mechanics article, “it’s been the slowest-moving train wreck in history, yet we’re letting it play out in front of us.”
All the while, conditions on the river have become historically bad, with dismal snowmelt and sparse rain failing to offset human overuse.
We do know that the feds have to put a plan in place by October, when the next “water year” begins. As to exactly when — well, we’ve learned our lesson about predicting governmental timelines.
In the meantime, however, we can talk about what could be in the plan, which we have some sense of thanks to the FEIS. We’ll direct you elsewhere for a full breakdown of the 1,000-plus-page document, but here’s the gist.
The FEIS is really a 10-year framework with a chance to renegotiate every two years. Within the framework, there are guidelines for river operations that call for certain cuts depending on conditions.
The good news from Arizona’s perspective is that the framework could allow for implementation of a proposed two-year shortage sharing agreement between the three Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada. Under that agreement, if finalized, California would step in to share the burden of cuts with Arizona, which is otherwise first in line for reductions.
The bad news is that under especially bad conditions — the kind of conditions we’re fast hurtling toward — the federal government wants to impose as much as 3 million acre-feet in annual cuts to the Lower Basin, with Arizona slated to feel the most pain.
Those cuts would not only wipe out the water in the Central Arizona Project but also reach some agricultural and western Arizona users with comparatively senior water rights.
“While this FEIS still contains unacceptable options that include the federal government forcing Arizona to take the majority of draconian water cutbacks, implementing the Lower Basin agreement would protect Arizona from massive water cuts, distribute reductions more fairly across the Lower Basin States, and provide stability and protection to the water supply that our communities rely upon,” Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said in a statement following the release of the environmental impact statement.
In communications with the federal government, the state Department of Water Resources and other stakeholders have raised a litany of concerns with the EIS framework — particularly that they feel the 1922 Colorado River Compact guarantees the three states an amount of water that they would not receive if the most severe cuts in the framework are made.
By the same token, Lower Basin officials chafe at the fact that the feds aren’t requiring any cuts from the comparatively low-population Upper Basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah, nor are they explicitly promising to draw water from upriver waters to backfill Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
“In fact, the FEIS does not even mention the Colorado River Compact,” ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke said in a letter last week to Assistant Secretary of the Interior Andrea Travnicek. “Arizona expressly reserves its rights to demand that the party States and the federal government adhere to the Colorado River Compact and the Law of the River, in terms of both the party States’ water usage and the federal government’s operation of federal facilities upstream.”
To translate from hydro-legalese: “We reserve the right to mount a high-powered, high-cost lawsuit to protect our water.”
(Navajo Nation Water Rights Commission).
The state isn’t the only party to make objections. Leaders with the Colorado River Indian Tribes say they were left out of the final stages of negotiations and have asked the federal government to delay implementation of the plan.
“The agency’s compressed review schedule denies CRIT a meaningful opportunity for review and comment,” tribal officials said, per the Arizona Republic’s Debra Utacia Krol. “It also ignores promised government-to-government consultation.”
So, to sum up the last couple weeks: The federal government released its final environmental impact statement for management of the river, but not the final management plan itself. The EIS contemplates a wide range of possible outcomes, some of which are only slightly painful for Arizona and some of which are disastrous, depending on hydrology and the possible adoption of the Lower Basin shortage sharing agreement.
Arizona officials are continuing to raise objections, and the possibility of basin-wide litigation — either between the states, against the feds or both — seems as alive as ever.
When you put it that way, I suppose it doesn’t seem all that much really changed since we left for break.
Both of the Colorado River’s largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, reached record low elevations in recent weeks.
That’s another piece of bad news for the people, governments, industries and ecosystems that rely on the river, which is under historic stress due to climate change and a century of overuse.
1,039.76 feet: That’s where Lake Mead — which is formed by the Hoover Dam on the Arizona-Nevada border — landed after dropping below the previous low of 1,040.5 feet, which was set in 2022.
3,519.80 feet: That’s where Lake Powell — Mead’s smaller, upriver counterpart, formed by Glen Canyon Dam — dropped to over the weekend, below the previous record of 3,519.92. (These figures are subject to revision by the feds.)
A difference of a few inches — or less — here and there might feel a little abstract. But the consequences aren’t.
For one, the reservoirs are close to losing the ability to generate hydropower.
Lake Powell, formed by Glen Canyon Dam, pictured in early 2026. (Arren Kimbel-Sannit).
Perhaps more importantly, there are political and social ramifications.
If Lake Powell reaches a certain level — around 3,370 feet — deliveries of Colorado River downriver to the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada will be all but cut off. And other cuts to the Lower Basin’s water supplies could come before that point.
Arizona is particularly poorly positioned, as it could lose more river water than any other state in the river basin under proposed river management plans for the coming years.
Better luck next year: Arizona voters won’t get a chance to put guardrails on the state’s $1 billion school voucher program in November, after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that not enough of the 421,000 signatures that backers collected were valid to clear the 256,000 minimum, per the Republic’s Helen Rummel. The Goldwater Institute filed a legal challenge to the Protect Education Act that focused on invalid and duplicate signatures gathered to get the measure on the ballot. A Maricopa County judge ruled last week that thousands of signatures were gathered incorrectly and the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the decision yesterday. Save Our Schools Arizona, which backed the measure, pointed to the “voucher lobby” using “scorched-earth legal objections,” which shows “just how terrified they are of Arizona voters actually having a say.” Former Gov. Doug Ducey, who championed the voucher program, said “tens of thousands of parents and students across Arizona are breathing a sigh of relief today.”
Dropping f-bombs: As stories pile up about Flock cameras being used for creepy, invasive purposes, city officials in Arizona are rethinking whether the automated license plate readers are a good idea, per Axios. Last week, the Surprise City Council decided to cancel the city’s contract with Flock and asked the company to remove all its cameras and related equipment, Kyra O’Connor reports for 12News. City officials didn’t provide any details, but the decision came after a Surprise police officer was put on administrative leave for potentially violating the city’s policies for using the cameras. Tempe, Chandler, Apache Junction and Pinal County already stopped using Flock cameras.
A new party line: Newly minted lieutenant governor candidate John Giles is introducing himself to the statewide electorate, including explaining how he’s balancing his pro-life views as a former Republican with his support of a constitutional amendment that permits abortion, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. The former mayor of Mesa called the GOP a “lost cause” and is now running alongside Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs as she seeks reelection. Among the other touchy political issues he discussed with reporters was his support for school choice (but he wants guardrails on the voucher program) and which bathrooms transgender people should use (he says privacy concerns are reasonable, but might be overblown).
Sun not shining so bright: The owner of the Phoenix Suns, Mat Ishbia, might be in a little financial trouble, per Brahm Resnik at 12News. The wholesale mortgage company run by the Ishbia family lost $600 million by guessing wrong on interest rates, agreed to a $2 billion bailout from an investment firm and suspended its quarterly dividend. (Worth noting: One of the news reports cited in the 12News story was written by Hunterbrook Media, the newsroom arm of hedge fund Hunterbrook Capital that we highlighted on Monday.)
We don’t need a hedge fund to survive. We have something much better: Agenda readers like you who open their wallets to support our work.
Sticking with their clients: After the Trump administration awarded a no-bid $158 million contract to a sketchy legal services group with ties to QAnon to represent unaccompanied immigrant children, the Florence Project still plans to represent those children as long as they can, even if they don’t get paid. Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, deputy director of the Florence Project, told KJZZ’s Lauren Gilger that a decades-long contract lapsed in late July after the Trump administration demanded confidential information about the children and the Florence Project “could not comply morally or within the bounds of legal ethics.”
“We’re going to see children getting pushed through this mass deportation rocket docket situation that we’ve been seeing for several months now, and we’re going to be seeing children … being deported to countries where they could they could face further harm or where they could even be killed,” Avila-Cimpeanu said.
This year, we’ve teamed up with the Arizona Clean Elections Commission to moderate legislative debates across the state. And after spending a lot of time trying to make these debates engaging, we refuse to let the whole thing vanish into the YouTube void.
So here’s a bite-sized rundown of Monday night’s conversation with the LD13 hopefuls who showed up to the debate stage.
LD13 | Chandler, Sun Lakes, Gilbert
HOUSE | SENATE | |
DEBATERS | Racquel "Rockee" Armstrong (D) Kevin Hartke (R) Jacob Weinberg (D) | Kristie O'Brien (D) |
NO-SHOWS | Janet Weninger (R) | Julie Willoughby (R) |
The field: Two of LD13’s three current lawmakers — Republican Rep. Jeff Weninger and Republican Sen. JD Mesnard — aren’t seeking reelection, while Republican Rep. Julie Willoughby is running for Mesnard’s Senate seat against Democrat Kristie O’Brien. That leaves two open House seats, sought by Republicans Kevin Hartke and Janet Weninger, and Democrats Racquel “Rockee” Armstrong and Jacob Weinberg.
The electorate: Registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats by almost 10 percentage points, but Democratic candidates have been successful in the district where almost 36% of the voters are unaffiliated with either party. The district includes Chandler, Sun Lakes and Gilbert.
Memorable moments
HOUSE: During the rapid-fire round, all three candidates said they trust their votes have been accurately counted, though Hartke offered a bit more explanation.
Q: Do you trust that your vote has always been counted accurately?
Armstrong: Yes, I do.
Hartke: Yes, I believe that there is always some goofiness or miscount, but I believe that Arizona does a good job.
Weinberg: Yes, absolutely.
SENATE: We start every debate with a few get-to-know-you questions before diving into the policy weeds. Asked what frustrates her about her own party, O’Brien offered a catty answer.
Q: What's one thing that frustrates you about your own political party?
O’Brien: We joke that Democrats are like herding cats. Sometimes it really is. So I feel like it's a blessing too. We are a big tent party, so we have a variety of viewpoints and a variety of policy goals, and it's a broad spectrum, so I think trying to build consensus can sometimes be difficult. But it's not a task that I'm not up to.
If the billionaires ever complete their conquest of the news business and kick us to the curb, we know what business we’re getting into: charter schools.
It turns out you can make quite a nice living off public tax dollars. Just look at Kurt Hurzar. He’s the CEO of North Star Charter School, Inc. and he made $520,000 during the 2024-25 school year.
And all he had to do for a cool half-million was oversee one school with 225 students, per Melissa Blasius at ABC15.
That is one sweet gig.
Kurzar is taking some heat from Democratic state Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, who called his salary — which, again, comes from tax dollars — “absolutely inappropriate.”
At least he’s not a superintendent of a public school district. If he were, he’d be getting heat from the other side of the aisle.
You might recall Republican officials hooting and hollering last year when the Goldwater Institute revealed that Jeremy Calles, superintendent at the Tolleson Union High School District, was making nearly $500,000 a year.
Calles’ job might be a little tougher than Kurzar’s, though. To get his half-million, he had to oversee a district with 14,000 students.
That sounds like a lot of work. We’ll stick with the charters.