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The Colorado River is shrinking as climate change worsens the Southwestern drought, so the Biden administration has been paying farmers and cities not to use water. It's spending nearly $5 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act to ensure the nation's biggest reservoirs don't go dry. But President-elect Trump's campaign has threatened to cut that funding. And as KUNC's Alex Hager reports, people who share the river's water are worried.
ALEX HAGER, BYLINE: Where the farm fields meet the desert in Southern California's Imperial Valley, farmer John Hawk looks out over a sea of green.
JOHN HAWK: It really is an emerald gem that we have. With the water, we can do miracles.
HAGER: The Imperial Irrigation District uses more water from the Colorado River than any other city or farm district. And with the river getting smaller, they're under pressure to cut back.
HAWK: Do we need to conserve? Absolutely. We need to conserve, but we need to be paid for the conservation.
HAGER: So last year, the federal government took Imperial's farmers up on that suggestion. It's sending more than $500 million to Imperial to use less water over the course of three years and leave it in the nation's largest reservoir, Lake Mead. Gina Dockstader sits on the board of the Imperial Irrigation District.
GINA DOCKSTADER: All these programs cost money. All this investment, all this infrastructure costs money. And without these additional funds, these farmers can't afford to put it in by themselves.
HAGER: The Biden administration set aside $4 billion for the Colorado River through the Inflation Reduction Act. A big reason it's paying farmers and cities to use less water is because Lake Mead and America's second-largest reservoir upstream are so low they're in danger of no longer being able to generate hydroelectricity, or even deliver water.
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HAGER: The Colorado River is managed collectively by seven states and the federal government. Scores of powerful entities like Native American tribes, big irrigators and cities influence them. They all got together last week to argue over the river's future in Las Vegas.
HANNAH HOLM: People are pretty pessimistic.
HAGER: Hannah Holm, with the conservation group American Rivers, says there's worry about President-elect Trump's promises to end the Inflation Reduction Act - the IRA.
HOLM: If that funding doesn't materialize, we just won't be as able to adapt as well to the conditions we already have, let alone the conditions that are coming our way.
HAGER: IRA funds aren't just compensating farmers for taking less water. It's also going to cities for longer-term efficiency projects to future-proof them against the expected drier future. Deven Upadhyay runs the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. It's spending more than $3 billion on a massive water recycling facility to stretch out the supplies they already have.
DEVEN UPADHYAY: In the long run, it's going to be vital for us. In the short run, it looks to be pretty expensive compared to the other resources we have, so the federal dollars really do help.
HAGER: Worries about IRA funding going away come as the states that share the river approach a big deadline. They have until 2026 to agree on how much water each state gets in the future. Negotiations lately have been tense. Upadhyay says that's making the upcoming White House transition more concerning.
UPADHYAY: The difference being the backdrop is the stakes on the river are really high right now. If that wasn't the case, then maybe it wouldn't feel as big.
HAGER: Regardless of how states and the federal government decide to split up the river, Donald Trump's campaign statements make it appear there will be a lot less money to spend on saving water, especially after the Inflation Reduction Act, which one state water leader called, quote, "a once-in-a-generation windfall."
For NPR News, I'm Alex Hager.
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