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The information in this newsletter is being distributed among allied associations that form the California Alliance for Golf (CAG), the organization that speaks with one voice in the Capitol regarding legislative and regulatory issues of statewide scope.
The last issue (January 2026 Volume I) promised a Volume II that would provide a detailed update of the bill CAG is running in 2026 (“Blocking Illegitimate Reservations and Protecting Equitable Access to California’s Publicly Owned Golf Courses Act”), some good news (much of it from Orange County of all places) about public golf courses that had been on our “endangered species” list moving off that list, and the details of the agreement that CAG and the SCGA reached in November, the gist of which is making what has long been de facto practice something more definitively de jure by executing a contract between CAG and SCGA that spells out how SCGA shall “manage” the Alliance for the benefit of the stakeholders that comprise and fund it and in the process provide the stable base necessary to grow it to the size most anticipate will be necessary to continue meeting public policy challenges that promise only to grow in California.
Not to worry; all that is still coming your way, either in the form of a January 2026 Third Volume or an early February edition. Those stories can wait a couple of weeks. What cannot wait are a couple of compelling items about water.
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COLORADO RIVER NEGOTIATIONS – TIME IS RUNNING SHORT
For the first time in a long time California may be 100% free from drought. That headline is likely to cause the golf industry in the three states of the Lower Colorado Basin (Arizona, California, and Nevada) to again become complacent; however, 2026 is the year of decision for those three (3) states and the increasingly combative states of the Upper Basin to either come to agreement on how to reallocate their portions of the Basin's annual water flows in light of significantly reduced yields that all agree are likely to be reduced further as we move through the 21st Century, including a Trump Administration loath to utter anything that might admit of "climate change," or find themselves having to hew to an allocation scheme dictated by the federal government.
The Bureau of Reclamation has issued an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) upon which comments will be accepted through early March. All who have commented upon the document have concluded that Southern California and Arizona in particular are looking down the barrel of significant cuts no matter which of the five (5) "Alternatives" contained in the EIS would be adopted by the federal government should the seven (7) states not find their way to an agreement among themselves that the Bureau of Reclamation finds acceptable. Of course, were the federal government to impose one of these five (5) alternatives, the dockets of the far West's Federal District Courts would be jammed with suits from aggrieved states — a conclusion that wouldn't serve the interests of any save the lawyers retained to prosecute and defend them.
You can certainly read the large number of pages the federal government has just issued by going to the Bureau of Reclamation's website. For those of you who may not have the luxury of the time, nor the appetite required to slog through all of it, here are a few excerpts from the EIS to give you a sense of both its scope and urgency:
“Prudent management of the Colorado River Basin (Basin) is crucial because the Colorado River is the foundation for diverse resources across a large geographic region and faces exceptional challenges from prolonged drought and future uncertainty. States, tribes, and Mexico rely on the Colorado River to support essential municipal, agricultural, environmental, cultural and hydropower needs. These resources are now at significant risk: since the onset of the current drought in 2000, the Basin’s primary reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, have fallen to historically low elevations.”
“Since 2000, the Basin has been experiencing one of the worst multi-decade droughts of the last 1,200 years. In the early part of this period, falling reservoir elevations, together with the lack of objective criteria for managing the reservoirs at lower levels, prompted the adoption of the 2007 Interim Guidelines. Since their adoption, average annual flows have continued to decline, and flows have been significantly below average in nearly half of the years from 2008 to 2025. Despite additional responsive actions to reduce the risk to the Colorado River system’s critical infrastructure and water supplies, including the 2019 Colorado River DCPs, storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead continued to fall: the reservoirs are currently near the historic low elevations seen in 2022 and 2023.”
“Since the adoption of the current guidelines in 2007, unprecedented drought has changed the Basin’s understanding of hydrology. Hydrologic conditions drier than those in the previously observed record have continued to occur, confounding ongoing efforts to manage system risk. This reality poses both near and long-term challenges in managing the Colorado River system to continue to provide predictability and certainty to Basin water users as well as operating flexibility to conserve and enhance water storage in Colorado River system reservoirs.”
Translation: Federal officials are imploring the seven (7) Western states to negotiate a plan by mid-February (October at the very latest), without which some of the alternatives could sharply cut the amount of water available for Southern California.
Or as the Southern California Metropolitan Water District (MWD) General Manager Shivaji Deshmukh put it upon release of the EIS:
“The release of today’s Draft EIS is yet another wake-up call that we need a consensus agreement supported by all water users that rely on the Colorado River. None of the five alternatives analyzed by the Bureau of Reclamation are endorsed by any of the Basin States. The various alternatives highlight the significant risks we could face if we don’t reach an agreement. And implementation of any alternatives would likely lead to lengthy litigation. Several of the alternatives are particularly alarming for Metropolitan, indicating potentially dramatic cuts to our supply. While the people and communities we serve are committed to reducing their use through conservation and investments in new supplies, our Colorado River supply cannot be randomly slashed. Our people, our economy, our state depend on this river – half of the 40 million people who rely on this critical water source live in Southern California. That is why we are so committed to forging a path to sustainability that all states can support. The Draft EIS serves an important role, analyzing a range of possibilities for future operations, but we can do better. We must do better.”
CAG and its allied associations and partners can and must focus attention on this rather large elephant in golf's room while it focuses on other "elephants" (e.g., attacks on its use of land), the important bill re 3rd party tee time brokering that it is running, and whatever else comes our way in Sacramento or anywhere else in the greater public arena. As we and our allied organizations/associations go about their normal orders of business and conduct their ongoing "educational" and "business" seminars and webinars, let's not leave out of them this particular "elephant." Golf may not have the same capacity to affect the outcome of these negotiations cum final settlements as we have demonstrated in so many other legislative and regulatory contexts in the last few years; however, we/they have an obligation to keep those who both labor in the golf industry and the 3.2 million Californians who regularly play the game apprised of how these unfolding negotiations will affect them. "Affect" and enable them to get out in front of what is coming their way by working and reworking strategic and business plans to accommodate them as painlessly as possible.
DELTA CONVEYANCE PROJECT DEALT SETBACK
Governor Newsom’s hope to use the last year of his term to build that giant tunnel under the Sacramento Delta and in his and the estimation of so many others protect the ability of the state’s water conveyance system to deliver water to the millions of Californians dependent thereon – that “hope” was dealt a setback in California’s 3rd District Court of Appeal last week. A “setback” but not a deathblow.
The Court ruled that the Department of Water Resources (DWR) does not have the authority to issue bonds for a new unit of the State Water Project by using the authority granted to issue bonds for the first leg of the State Water Project back in 1959-1960. In 1959 the legislature gave DWR the authority to build that first leg (Feather River Project), and in 1960 California’s voters approved the issuance of bonds to pay for it. But the 3rd Circuit ruled that DWR could not issue bonds for the Delta Conveyance Project per a theory that the Delta Conveyance Project is a mere “modification” of that original water system; DWR would have to pursue another way or another grant of debt issuing authority to proceed.
DWR has opened another case to confirm its bond-issuing authority under the 1959-1960 actions; however, if that case fails and the 3rd Circuit decision stands, both Governor Newsom and DWR will have to find another way to fund the Delta Conveyance Project (single tunnel) – two time consuming prospects likely to remain unfinished by the time Gavin Newsom leaves office.
