Nevada

California Water Experts Call for Cooperation on Colorado River Impasse

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 16:32:08 GMT

There are just over two weeks left for the seven states that depend on the Colorado River to come to an agreement on how to manage its dwindling water resources. This water is critical to millions of people and agricultural acres across the river’s basin, as well as key sectors of California’s fresh produce industry.

If the states can’t agree on a management plan for the Colorado River by Feb. 14, the federal government may step in with its plans. Experts doubt those plans will solve the issues facing the Colorado River, however, and say it could likely result in decades of lawsuits and uncertainty.

While the states have been at an impasse for over two years now, California water and irrigation experts are hopeful for cooperation ahead of the deadline.

“It’s important that we remember as we move forward that we’re all in this together,” says Frank Venegas, water technician for the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe. “We have to develop partnerships. If we have some partnerships already, [we have] to make them stronger as we move forward into this next era of the negotiations.”

Venegas was one of several panelists who spoke during a Jan. 28 webinar hosted by the California Natural Resources Agency. Panelists spoke on the relevance of the Colorado River water to California, the challenges facing it, what has happened to address those challenges and what needs to happen in the future of its management.

Not Enough Water to Go Around

Seven states and Mexico depend on and share the water of the Colorado River. The states are divided into the Upper Basin (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico) and the Lower Basin (California, Arizona and Nevada).

However, much like the situation between the U.S. and Mexico on the Rio Grande , the Colorado River is overallocated.

Michael Anderson, California state climatologist, explained during the webinar that the average flow through the river from 1910 to 2000 was roughly 15 million acre-feet annually. The 1922 Colorado River Compact operated on this reality, stipulating that the Upper and Lower Basins would each receive 7.5 MAF annually. Of the Lower Basin’s total allocation, California receives the lion’s share at 4.4 MAF. This also makes it the largest single recipient of Colorado River water in the entire basin.

The 1922 compact granted any water over the states’ 15 MAF allocation to Mexico. The 1944 treaty between the U.S. and Mexico changed this, allocating an additional 1.5 MAF annually to Mexico. This brought the river’s total annual allocations to 16.5 MAF.

Since the early 2000s, however, average annual flow rates have been slightly over 12.5 MAF because of extended drought in the Colorado River Basin. Experts expect the stress on the river and its basin will continue due to climate change and continued warming in the West.

Anderson explains that a warmer West means more moisture will be pulled out of the landscape, including the Colorado River. At the same time, climate change means storms are bigger and more intense, as well as more spread out and less predictable. Warmer temperatures also mean that snowpacks, on which the Colorado River depends, are getting smaller and less dependable.

All these factors also compound on one another. For example, the drier things get, the more dust there is on the landscape.

“Dust from the deserts being blown up onto the snowpack makes it melt earlier, meaning you have that longer period of dryness in the basin to stress the landscape even further,” Anderson says. “So a lot of forces [are] working to make things more challenging in the basin, to be sure.”

California Produce Needs Colorado River Water

Challenges to the Colorado River Basin pose a threat to everyone and everything that depends on its water.

While roughly 40 million people across the entire basin depend on water from the Colorado River, the river’s water also makes specific sectors of fresh produce possible, particularly in California. Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, points to the Imperial Irrigation District, which gets all of its water from the Colorado River Basin, as an example.

“Because they have such a long growing season with few days below freezing, the farmers in IID produce about two-thirds of the nation’s winter vegetables,” she says.

JB Hamby, vice chair of the IID board of directors and chair of the state’s Colorado River Board, quantifies the impact in another way, pointing to 600,000 acres “of highly productive farmland in production all-year round, some of the most high-value and productive in the basin.” He specifically names the Imperial Valley, Bard Valley, the land of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe and the Coachella Valley in his example.

Robert Cheng, assistant general manager of the Coachella Valley Water District, says the area — known for its unique produce items like dates, citrus, melons and specialty vegetables — could not survive without Colorado River water.

“We really depend pretty heavily on the Colorado River Basin,” he says, noting that Colorado River water makes up 75% or more of the area’s imported water annually. “And despite holding senior Colorado River water rights, we also very much understand the importance of working these issues out collaboratively.”

Feb. 14: Deadline to a Decision

Collaboration on the Colorado River Basin has been complicated, however.

The 2007 agreement governing how water is managed along the Colorado River during times of shortages expired at the end of 2025. The 2007 rules will remain in effect until the end of the 2026 water year on Sept. 30. In what is often called “the post-2026 negotiations,” the seven basin states have been attempting to come up with a replacement management plan that all parties agree on for the past two years.

Thus far, no agreement has been reached.

On Jan. 16, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released its own version of a water management plan for the Colorado River in the form of a draft environmental impact statement .

“The Department of the Interior is moving forward with this process to ensure environmental compliance is in place so operations can continue without interruption when the current guidelines expire,” Andrea Travnicek, USBR assistant secretary for water and science, said in the group’s announcement from Jan. 9. “The river and the 40 million people who depend on it cannot wait. In the face of an ongoing severe drought, inaction is not an option.”

The draft environmental impact statement examines five different strategies for managing Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the two key reservoirs along the Colorado River. While USBR has not identified a preferred alternative out of the five, it has given the seven states a Feb. 14 deadline to come up with an agreement or it may select one within its jurisdiction to pursue.

According to reporting from the Los Angeles Times , some of those alternatives are alarming for California and could “lead to lengthy litigation,” according to Shivaji Deshmukh, the general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Metropolitan is the country’s largest water district, serving almost 20 million people, and half of those who depend on the Colorado River for water.

Cooperation is Key

Deshmukh, who spoke at the Jan. 28 webinar, outlines the importance of the Colorado River water to his largely urban constituents. However, he also stresses the importance of partnership and collaborative efforts to reduce demand and cooperate with all water users.

“We have not pitted ourselves against flows of water in the environment or for agriculture, but rather figured out ways to partner, whether it is looking at ways to partner with the state on programs to better balance water supply throughout the state of California or very unique and agency-specific partnerships with our agricultural partners, including IID, Coachella Valley and the Quezon Tribe,” he says.

“We know that without a consensus approach to these negotiations, we could be left with some really severe cuts along the river,” he adds.

All other panelists and participants also call for cooperation and collaboration among the seven states.

“We’re really focused with working across states,” says Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency.

“We know that the future is going to be better when the seven states actually decide the path forward versus looking to the federal government or, at worst, getting mired in litigation, which really characterized so much water management over the last century in the basin,” he says.

Produce firms awarded defense supply contracts

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 06:42:52 GMT

Chico Produce Inc., doing business as ProPacific Fresh, Durham, Calif., has been awarded a $135 million contract by Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support to supply fresh fruits and vegetables to northern California and northwestern Nevada military installations, Indian reservations and public schools, according to a news release.

Coast Citrus Distributors, doing business as Coast Tropical , Union City, Calif., also was awarded a $15 million contract to supply fruits and vegetables in the same region, according to the release.

Both firms were awarded five-year contracts with no option periods, with an end date of Aug. 5, 2025.

Produce firms win military, school contracts

Georgia firm wins big military contract

Federal contracts award to Texas, New Jersey firms

Equity firm acquires interest in Worldwide Produce

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 06:18:51 GMT

Private equity firm Sole Source Capital LLC has acquired a majority interest in Worldwide Produce , Los Angeles, a distributor of fresh produce, dairy products and specialty foods to independent and chain restaurants in California and Nevada.

Sole Source Capital plans to use Worldwide Produce as a platform to buy other regional foodservice distributors, leveraging Worldwide’s “exemplary reputation and deep industry relationships to help execute its (mergers and acquisition) strategy,” according to a news release.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Sole Source as we further solidify our market leadership in the Southern California market and expand into additional geographies,” Abbas Ghulam, co-founder of Worldwide Produce, said in the release.

“We are impressed with Worldwide Produce’s strong track record, which includes sustained revenue growth through the great recession, and look forward to leveraging the company as a platform for consolidation in the space,” David Fredston, managing partner of Sole Source Capital, said in the release.

Worldwide Produce, founded in 1989, has distribution facilities in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and stocks about 6,000 stock-keeping units, according to the release. Sole Source Capital, Santa Monica, Calif., was established in 2016.

Foxy Organic Vegetables back in Nevada

Mon, 14 Jun 2021 19:36:32 GMT

It’s that time of year, Foxy Organic Vegetables are in production in Yerington, Nevada.

From late May to mid-October there is no better place to grow organic produce than out of Yerington. The high elevation, mild climate, fertile soil, and abundance of quality water makes for an ideal location for growing the best organic vegetables in the United States.

“This will be our 13th season in Yerington and the demand for our product continues to grow”, says Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing Mark Crossgrove. Over 25 different organic vegetables are grown and shipped out of the Walker River Cooling Facility in Yerington. The quality of product is not only superior to what is in the marketplace but the location in Nevada brings the product closer to the customers, easily saving a day and a half in transportation time with carriers not having to come into California (saving 600 miles). This gives our customers fresher product with less shrink.

A video tour of Foxy Organic’s Yerington operations is available here.

Top retailers in the West by market share

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 07:42:33 GMT

Each year, The Shelby Report showcases valuable retail market share data. In the interactive map below, find each major market around the West Coast. Major cities in each market are highlighted.

Market shares are for chains, independents and/or the wholesalers (voluntary or cooperative) which supply them within each region’s distribution area, extending well beyond typical metros or Core-Based Statistical Areas. Each market is defined by the sphere of distribution, not by a rigid geographic boundary.

All markets are identified by their primary state (with metros or key cities). Percentages are estimates based on annualized sales, industry data, institutional research and store footprints.

Major cities in each market:

Arizona - Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, Yuma
East Washington/Idaho/Montana - Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, Missoula
Montana/Wyoming - Billings, Bozeman, Great Falls, Cody
Northern California/Nevada - San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Fresno, Reno
Oregon/Washington/California - Portland, Salem, Eugene, Medford, Vancouver, Crescent City
Utah/Idaho/Wyoming/Nevada/Oregon - Salt Lake City, St. George, Boise, Twin Falls
Southern California/Nevada - Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Bakersfield, Las Vegas
Washington - Seattle, Tocoma, Olympia, Bellingham, Yakima