San Diego Water Authority Agrees to Sell Portion of Colorado River Rights to Arizona and Nevada

San Diego could sell some of its rights to Colorado River water to Arizona and Nevada under a deal struck Wednesday. The San Diego County Water Authority has a water surplus thanks to a desalination plant the utility opened a decade ago. Water would not physically move inland, but the authority would not draw as much from the river as it is entitled to.

The deal is the first large-scale water trade between states with claims on the Colorado River. Before Wednesday, the complex set of laws and court rulings that govern the river’s water included no legal or practical mechanism for such swaps. 5 million acres of farmland across the West.

Scott Cameron, acting director of the Bureau of Reclamation, said the urgency is real. The Bureau of Reclamation oversees water supplies and infrastructure in the West and is a party to the agreement. Cameron added that the document signed Wednesday represents a potential great leap forward for the water security of the people of the Southwest.

The utility and the desert states still need to iron out details over how much water San Diego County can spare and how much Arizona and Nevada will have to pay for it. That will require lawyers to pore over more than a century of legal precedent and water managers to negotiate even as the already scarce water supply dwindles.

Dan Denham, the San Diego utility’s general manager, said with the momentum they have and the situation on the river, it has to happen now and cannot take more than a year.

Denham added that hydrology is not going to wait for them.