Hydropower on the Colorado River: Examining Institutions, Conflicts, and Consequences of Changing Dam Operations
Publisher
The University of Arizona.Rights
Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.Abstract
The Colorado River, one of the world’s most iconic rivers and a critical water source for over 40 million people, is going dry. A 20-year drought has left major reservoirs at perilously low levels, and the challenges of managing dams for competing water uses have become stark. In this heavily legislated, litigated, and regulated river, dams are operated on a legal priority basis: agricultural, municipal, and environmental water uses receive a higher priority over hydropower, which is an ‘incidental’ or lower priority water use. As water levels decline, dam operations continue to protect higher priority water uses; this impacts hydropower generation, yet the consequences of this impact remain poorly understood or accounted for in the decision-making calculus for drought management in the river basin. This omission is serious: it will produce inadvertent trade-offs and detrimental societal outcomes as the same laws that give hydropower its lower priority also create complex dependencies between higher priority water uses and hydropower generation. To address this omission, this research examines hydropower governance at the two largest and strategically important dams in the Basin: Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam. The research in this dissertation is organized around two questions: How do water, environment, and energy laws and policies influence dam operations and hydropower generation in the Colorado River Basin? And, what are the consequences of changing hydropower operations in the Colorado River Basin? Through historical and comparative institutional analysis, archival research and semi-structured interviews with over four dozen key decision-makers and resource users, this research provides insights on how laws and policies have evolved in response to socio-environmental changes in the Basin and how they produce distinct past, contemporary, and future governance challenges and outcomes for hydropower at Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams. The research finds that a specific configuration of water and environmental laws has created significant constraints for hydropower operations and will more likely produce hydro-environmental conflicts at Glen Canyon Dam compared to Hoover Dam. The differences in generation constraints coupled with varying provisions in dam-specific energy laws and policies have also created more flexibility in responding to changes in hydrology and a rapidly evolving electricity sector at Hoover Dam than Glen Canyon Dam. This research also finds that institutional arrangements dictate how resource users are impacted by and can adapt to changes in hydropower operations in the Colorado River Basin and influence how users can respond to those changes. Power customers, water projects, and environmental programs connected to Glen Canyon Dam are more impacted than Hoover Dam due to changes in power generation and loss in hydropower revenues. This dissertation offers policy insights for decision-makers in the Basin to identify and minimize the ramifications of water management decisions for hydropower and water uses legally tied to this resource, such as by clarifying specific ambiguities in the law. This research also identifies policy recommendations and critical questions that require further attention to plan for a future without hydropower, such as by identifying alternative funding streams in the absence of hydro dollars. This dissertation contributes to scholarship on formal institutional arrangements in the Colorado River Basin by conducting a first in-depth comparative study of the institutional dimensions of hydropower generation. This dissertation also offers lessons and cautionary warnings for hydropower governance as well as institutional design under conditions of socio-economic and environmental change that are relevant for hydropower projects in the United States and beyond.Type
textElectronic Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.Degree Level
doctoralDegree Program
Graduate CollegeGeography