In late May, as the outside temperature approached 100 degrees, Arizona’s top water policy officials gathered in an air-conditioned Phoenix conference room. Their purpose that day was to decide whether the state should extend a longstanding drought emergency declaration. The standard indicators – minimal precipitation, low reservoirs, the second-hottest 12-month period on record – were not encouraging.

Halfway through the 90-minute meeting, gallows humor lightened the mood.

Ed Gerak, executive director of the Irrigation and Electrical Districts Association of Arizona, which represents power providers that receive federal hydropower from Colorado River dams, had the mic. Gerak shuffled through a matter-of-fact slide deck that explained how hydropower output from those dams, particularly

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